Marlinspike Hall
Encyclopedia
Captain Haddock
Captain Archibald Haddock is a fictional character in The Adventures of Tintin, the series of classic Belgian comic books written and illustrated by Hergé...
's country house in Hergé
Hergé
Georges Prosper Remi , better known by the pen name Hergé, was a Belgian comics writer and artist. His best known and most substantial work is the 23 completed comic books in The Adventures of Tintin series, which he wrote and illustrated from 1929 until his death in 1983, although he was also...
's comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
series The Adventures of Tintin
The Adventures of Tintin
The Adventures of Tintin is a series of classic comic books created by Belgian artist , who wrote under the pen name of Hergé...
.
The hall is modeled after the central section of the Château de Cheverny
Château de Cheverny
The Château de Cheverny is located at Cheverny, in the département of Loir-et-Cher in the Loire Valley in France.-History:The lands were purchased by Henri Hurault, comte de Cheverny, a lieutenant-general and military treasurer for Louis XI, whose descendent the marquis de Vibraye is the present...
. The French name is derived from Sart-Moulin, a village near Braine-l'Alleud
Braine-l'Alleud
Braine-l'Alleud is a Walloon municipality located in the Belgian province of Walloon Brabant, about 20 kilometers south of Brussels. The Braine-l'Alleud municipality includes the former municipalities of Braine-l'Alleud proper, Ophain-Bois-Seigneur-Isaac, and Lillois-Witterzée. It also includes...
in Walloon Brabant
Walloon Brabant
Walloon Brabant is a province of Wallonia in Belgium. It borders on the province of Flemish Brabant and the provinces of Liège, Namur and Hainaut . Its capital is Wavre...
, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
; in an allusion to the Haddock family's maritime history, the hall's English name refers to the Marlinspike
Marlinspike
Marlinspike is a tool used in ropework for tasks such as unlaying rope for splicing, untying knots, forming a toggle , or forming a makeshift handle....
, a tool used in seamanship
Seamanship
Seamanship is the art of operating a ship or boat.It involves a knowledge of a variety of topics and development of specialised skills including: navigation and international maritime law; weather, meteorology and forecasting; watchstanding; ship-handling and small boat handling; operation of deck...
to splice ropes
Rope splicing
Rope splicing in ropework is the forming of a semi-permanent joint between two ropes or two parts of the same rope by partly untwisting and then interweaving their strands. Splices can be used to form a stopper at the end of a line, to form a loop or an eye in a rope, or for joining two ropes...
.
Marlinspike Hall first appears in The Secret of the Unicorn
The Secret of the Unicorn
The Secret of the Unicorn is the eleventh title in the comic book series The Adventures of Tintin, written and illustrated by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Designed to be the first volume in a two-part story, the plot of The Secret of the Unicorn was continued in the twelfth Tintin adventure, Red...
as the home of the story's villains, the Bird Brothers. At the end of Red Rackham's Treasure
Red Rackham's Treasure
Red Rackham's Treasure is the twelfth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero. It is a continuation of The Secret of the Unicorn, and is one of very few Tintin...
, the manor (found to have been built by an illustrious ancestor of Haddock's) is purchased by Professor Calculus
Professor Calculus
Professor Cuthbert Calculus is a fictional character in The Adventures of Tintin, the series of classic Belgian comic books written and illustrated by Hergé...
on behalf of the Captain; the fabled treasure itself is found hidden in the manor's old chapel, in the cellars. In the following years, Marlinspike provides a home base for Tintin and Haddock in between their various adventures. In The Castafiore Emerald
The Castafiore Emerald
The Castafiore Emerald is an album in the classic comic-strip series The Adventures of Tintin by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero....
, virtually all of the action takes place in the hall, its grounds, or the surrounding countryside.
Marlinspike Hall is presented as a large and luxurious dwelling adorned with numerous works of art, antique furniture, and a gallery of the Haddock family's treasures. The grounds comprise a park with extensive woodlands, wide lawns, a rose garden, a high surrounding wall, at least two gates, a neighbouring meadow, and at least one adjacent building (used by Professor Calculus as a laboratory in The Calculus Affair
The Calculus Affair
The Calculus Affair is the eighteenth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero....
). The size of the house and park would appear to require a number of domestic and gardening staff but only one - the faithful Nestor
Nestor (Tintin character)
Nestor is a fictional character in The Adventures of Tintin, the series of classic Belgian comic books written and illustrated by Hergé. He is the long-suffering butler of Marlinspike Hall....
, who serves as butler to the Hall - is ever seen, although a gardener is mentioned once in the last pages of The Red Sea Sharks
The Red Sea Sharks
The Red Sea Sharks is the nineteenth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums written and illustrated by Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero...
.
In Land of Black Gold
Land of Black Gold
Land of Black Gold is the fifteenth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero....
Calculus blows up parts of the hall while conducting experiments to try and find an antidote to a chemical that causes fuel to become explosive.
The Belgian corporation organized to manage the rights to Hergé's work (principally Tintin) is called Moulinsart S.A.
S.A. (corporation)
S.A. designates a particular type of corporation in various countries, mostly those employing the civil law. It originated in Spain during the 16th century. Depending on language, the abbreviation stands for various phrases meaning anonymous society, anonymous company, anonymous partnership, or...
after the name of Marlinspike in the original French.
Location
The original English language translators of the Tintin books caused some confusion by giving the address of Marlinspike Hall as "Marlinshire, England" in The Secret of the UnicornThe Secret of the Unicorn
The Secret of the Unicorn is the eleventh title in the comic book series The Adventures of Tintin, written and illustrated by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Designed to be the first volume in a two-part story, the plot of The Secret of the Unicorn was continued in the twelfth Tintin adventure, Red...
. However details such as traffic travelling on the right hand side of the road and the appearance of the Marlinspike police (who wear the black and red uniforms of the Belgian Gendarmerie
Belgian Gendarmerie
The Gendarmerie was the former paramilitary police force of Belgium. The Gendarmerie became a civilian police organisation in 1992, a status retained until January 1, 2001, when it was, together with the other existing police forces in Belgium, abolished and replaced by the Local Police and...
) confirm that Hergé's intention was to locate the Hall in his native Belgium. Moreover, it is explained in The Red Rackham's Treasure that the Manor was built by an ancestor of Captain Haddock's, the Chevalier François de Hadoque, a Ship-of-the-Line Captain in La Royale under King Louis XIV.
Translations
- ArabicArabic languageArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
: Mulan - BengaliBengali languageBengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
: মার্লিনস্পাইক (Marlinspike) - CatalanCatalan languageCatalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
: Molins de dalt - ChineseChinese languageThe Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
: 马林斯派克 - DanishDanish languageDanish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
: Møllenborg Slot (literally: Millburg Castle) - DutchDutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
: Kasteel Molensloot - FinnishFinnish languageFinnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
: Moulinsartin linna - FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
: Château de Moulinsart (original) - GermanGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
: Schloss Mühlenhof - IcelandicIcelandic languageIcelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...
: Myllusetur - ItalianItalian languageItalian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
: Castello di Moulinsart - PersianPersian languagePersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
: کاخ مولنسار (Ka'kh-e-Moulansar) - PolishPolish languagePolish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
: Księżymłyn - PortuguesePortuguese languagePortuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
: Castelo de Moulinsart - RussianRussian languageRussian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
: Замок Муленсар - SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
: Castillo de Moulinsart, Castillo del Molino, Mansión Pasador - SwedishSwedish languageSwedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
: Moulinsarts slott - TurkishTurkish languageTurkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
: Mulensar Şatosu