Sense of History and Sense of Place ENCOUNTERS WITH RUINS are found in the earliest expressions of English literature, so it is not surprising that J.R.R. Tolkien would also include such scenes in his own fiction. For example, the dragon's lair in Beowulf is a chambered tomb (Keillor and Piggott 360-61), the Old English elegiac poem The Ruin describes a Roman town (Mitchell 131), and in Tolkien's own translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the green chapel is a barrow mound (79). In Tolkien's usage, encounters with ruins-or, to choose a more inclusive term, archaeological places-contribute to the successful evocation of a sense of history in Middle-earth. This achievement of time-depth is one quality lending his secondary world its realism.
