The Eagle and Child

Tolkien, of course, straight down the line, Catholic reaction to the Spanish Civil War, which is interesting to me because you can see that the experience of having, if you had fought in the Spanish Civil War on the nationalist side, then that automatically sanctifies you in Tolkien's view.

And there's a very interesting account in the 1940s of his coming across the poet Roy Campbell, who had fought in Spain and came to see he and Lewis at the Eagle and Child pub in Oxford.

And having been sent there by Father Darcy, the Catholic divine, who knew that that was where they would be found.

And Tolkien is completely bowled over by Campbell because he's you know he's seen off the Reds in Spain and he very much accrues to Tolkien's idea of the writer as man in action whereas Lewis was immediately suspicious and thought that and thought that Campbell was a fascist and didn't really want to have anything to do with him.

So the background has a corner store or it looks like a corner drugstore, but it's not a corner drugstore.

It says the Eagle and Child on the corner.

Which was, of course, the pub where Lewis and Tolkien and the Inklings would regularly meet and discuss their work, including Narnia and Lord of the Rings.

Right.

An image of a very out there take on Jadis literally blowing up the spot where Lewis and Tolkien would... come up with these ideas and share them

yeah

that's basically what this is what we have here is a modern take of jada's destroying and obliterating the eagle and child so hopefully more damage to it than covet ever did

so we are cross we're crossing our fingers that uh this this image won't turn out once we see the movie this image i'm not i've given up

And one more thing, guys, before we do this, I'm going to try and start the real episode by the 10 minute mark here.

The Eagle and Child Pub, which closed, I think it was 2020.

Yeah.

It's going to be reopening.

And who do we have to thank for this? Okay.

Eagle and Child Pub, Bird and the Baby.

It's where Tolkien and Lewis and the Inklings met.

Just so you all know, in 30s, 40s, 50s, mostly 40s.

Tolkien and Lewis, along with others, formed an informal literary group called the Inklings.

They met twice weekly, Thursday evenings in Lewis's rooms at Magdalen College, and regularly at a pub called the Eagle and Child, which everyone called the Bird and Baby.

They would read their works and progress aloud to each other, critique each other's writings, drink beer, smoke pipes, and talk for hours about literature, philosophy, and religion.

It was the Inklings, where Tolkien first read chapters from The Lord of the Rings aloud, and where Lewis read The Chronicles of Narnia.

He's filming some Star Wars.

And, um, he met Tolkien in Oxford in The Bird and Baby, Eagle and Child, and he'd like to have a cup of tea with you tonight." And I'm thinking, "What? Really? Christopher Lee?"

Yeah.

And so that evening after flying what seemed like for three weeks to get here, um, I was having tea with Christopher Lee in the Duxton Hotel, and it was just bizarre.

And

then the Eagle and Child is another one.

Eagle

and Child is a great one.

This is a website.

Welcome to the Eagle and Child pub in Oxford It's 1933, and while life is normally quite dull around here, there are three blokes lately

who...

Valkyries! We saw Valkyries! I jolly well hope that by the end of term not a mythological creature is ever seen again.

Exactly.

So when I was a student, just up the road, actually, from the Eagle and Child, which is where the Inklings used to meet for their symposium, I like to call them symposia, because actually, as I put in the book, the origin of that word was Greek for a drinking party.

It was where people would come and discuss philosophy, have very serious conversations along with their friends.

you know, a good glass of wine or a tankard of beer.