* This is a sly reference to Tolkien’s own April 1915 poem ‘You and Me and the Cottage of Lost Play’, which indeed depicts the original cottage. Tolkien planned to weave his earlier poetry into his prose ‘Book of Lost Tales’, and the story of Eriol’s arrival in the Lonely Isle also contains references to the song he made about Kortirion (‘Kortirion among the Trees’) and the Sleeper in the Tower of Pearl from ‘The Happy Mariners’.