4. Tolkien was actually born in South Africa
This will no doubt come as a shock. The man with a lifelong love of all things medieval, whose set his fantasy fiction in what is clearly the chilly climate of northern Europe, spent the first few years of his life in the heat of Bloemfontein, South Africa. This fact is so little-known that even modern residents of the town are shocked when intrepid Tolkien fans ask them where the family lived. He left shortly after his fourth birthday, but the disastrous move his family made led to the straightened circumstances discussed above that determined the course of his life.
The main incident of note in Tolkien’s Bloemfontein childhood was the attack of the baboon spider (above), but another adventure saw him briefly kidnapped. A young servant at the Tolkien residence thought him such a beautiful child that he took him back to his kraal (a large farm) to show him off to his family. The servant returned Tolkien to his relieved family the next morning. Looking for Tolkien in Bloemfontein is only for the superfans, however, as Tolkien’s house was mostly destroyed by floods in the 1920s, and only a small plaque remains… in the wrong location.
