Tolkien takes pains in a prologue and epilogue to place the events of the story in the Little Kingdom, located in "the valley of the Thames, with an excursion north-west to the walls of Wales." However, the events take place during the dark period preceding the coming of the Anglo-Saxons and thus before the time of King Arthur. The events, then, are supposed to have occurred in the southeastern portion of Britain sometime between A.D. 100 and A.D. 400.

Ever the philologist, Tolkien tells the reader in the prologue that Farmer Giles of Ham is a translation of an ancient manuscript written in Latin and that the tale may throw some light on "the origin of some difficult place-names." In the epilogue, he provides some commentary on the origin of the place names "Thames" and "Wunnle," coincidentally found in the ancient legend of Farmer Giles of Ham. Thus...