Little Kingdom

From Tolkien Gateway
Revision as of 15:52, 7 January 2011 by Sage (talk | contribs)

The Little Kingdom is an obscure time and place in the antique history of England, and is the setting of the legendary Farmer Giles of Ham.

According to its translator, its boundaries are not easy to determine from the scanty evidence. However it could have existed "after the days of King Coel maybe, but before Arthur or the Seven Kingdoms of the English"

The events of the legend take place in the valley of the Thames, with an excursion north-west to the walls of Wales. It seems never to have reached far up the Thames into the West, nor beyond Otmoor to the North; its eastern borders are dubious.

Its capital was evidently in its south-east corner, but its confines are vague.

A fragmentary legend indicates that Georgius, son of Giles and his page Suovetaurilius (Suet) had an outpost against the Middle Kingdom was maintained at Farthingho.