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When you grow up, as I did, in a beautiful Shire, during what just happens to be its golden age, you think of it as eternal. Always was there, always will be. The quaintness of the delvings creates the illusion of permanence. The Shire into which I was born certainly seemed perennial to me. The East Road was our Arnavanda, Frogmorton and Whitfurrows were our Altanal and Tarayana, and as for the Pastoral Fairway sweep of our Green-Hill Country, well, that was something not even Osgiliath could boast. I actually grew up believing Pastoral Fairway to be the "Shire style," a local invention, its name derived, in all probability, from the contemplative of the verb "to eat." Gesena. Lo and behold the fairway. (When I began to be familiar with images of Minas Tirith, I at first felt a sort of anger. The Dunedain had so much; did they have to possess our "style" as well?