'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.'

It was an idle scribble on the blank page of a school examination paper. Sitting by the window of his study on a summer day in the early 1930s, a thin-faced Oxford professor let his mind wander from correcting papers and into a world that would become Middle-earth.

"The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" are among the most widely read and loved books of the 20th century. It's estimated that more than 100 million people have read the epic tales, which have been translated into 40 languages.

J.R.R. Tolkien wrote his mythology of Middle-earth in Oxford, England, where he lived for most of his adult life. Mr. Tolkien was not Oxford's first mythmaker in residence; Geoffrey of Monmouth compiled the Arthurian legends there during the 12th century.

While Geoffrey's Oxford is largely buried under later chapels, colleges, and residences, Tolkien's Oxford is still much as it was when "The Hobbit" was created.

There is no better base for a tour of Tolkien's Oxford than the Eagle and Child pub, a few blocks north of the town center.

On the pub's wooden signboard, an eagle soars off, clutching a swaddled baby. (Tolkien's heroes are rescued by giant eagles at several crucial moments in his stories.)

The Eagle and Child dates from 1650, and in the 1940s became the favorite watering hole of a group of writers who dubbed themselves "The Inklings." The group included Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and their friends.

It is no fun to go on a Tolkien tour without talking about Tolkien, so I arranged to meet two local enthusiasts: Ian Collier, publicity officer for the Oxford Tolkien Society, and Russ Shannon, president of the Taruithorn Society, a Tolkien group for Oxford students. (Although I'd expected the president of the Taruithorn Society to have a patrician British accent and a degree in "Really Old English," Shannon is a doctoral student in engineering from New Jersey.)

"Taruithorn was Tolkien's elvish name for Oxford," explains Mr. Collier, who works for a publishing company. "It means 'place of the high eagles.' You do wonder how much influence the pub had on it."

We were sitting in the same dark-paneled room where Tolkien read chapters of "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" aloud to his fellow Inklings.

The room is the best in the pub. But it is also so small that if the Fellowship of the Ring were to gather here, Aragorn and Gandalf would be forced to stand in the hallway.

The Eagle and Child is a regular meeting place for Tolkien and Taruithorn members. "The Tolkien Society was set up as a serious literary society," says Collier. "Of course, like Tolkien, we prefer to have serious literary discussions [in a pub]."

The shoulder-to-shoulder coziness of the Inklings' lair has had unexpected benefits for young Oxford students. "You wouldn't believe how many couples have gotten together through the Tolkien Society and Taruithorn," says Shannon. "It's almost a dating club."

Tolkien came to Oxford as a young student in 1911. His rooms in mock-gothic Exeter College looked down Turl Street toward All Saints' Church. Judging by sketches Tolkien made when he lived there, the scene is much the same today as it was in his undergraduate days.

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