"You meet a mysterious stranger in a tavern." Origins?

[Koloth]

A lot of 20th century authors probably read many of the dime novels about the American West when they were young. Said dime novels would pre-date TV/Movie westerns by many decades. Same novels were probably sold in Europe and other places during the heyday of the traveling Western Shows of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Obviously much later then the CT or other mentions but the dime novels were likely more widely read. It isn't much of a transition from "2 dust covered drunken cowboys start arguing in the saloon before six shooters are drawn" to "2 dirt covered drunken adventurers start arguing in the tavern before swords are drawn." to start the rather familiar RPG fight in a tavern.

 

[Tonguez]

A lot of 20th century authors probably read many of the dime novels about the American West when they were young. Said dime novels would pre-date TV/Movie westerns by many decades. Same novels were probably sold in Europe and other places during the heyday of the traveling Western Shows of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Obviously much later then the CT or other mentions but the dime novels were likely more widely read. It isn't much of a transition from "2 dust covered drunken cowboys start arguing in the saloon before six shooters are drawn" to "2 dirt covered drunken adventurers start arguing in the tavern before swords are drawn." to start the rather familiar RPG fight in a tavern.

The Three Musketeers begins with DArtagnan having a bar fight at the Inn in Meung, Ivanhoe has an Inn encounter too iirc (while disguised as a mysterious stranger), as does Dick Turpin during his famous ride.

Id guess all of those were popular reading in the early 20th century too and as influential as the Western saloon.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The Three Musketeers begins with DArtagnan having a bar fight at the Inn in Meung, Ivanhoe has an Inn encounter too iirc (while disguised as a mysterious stranger), as does Dick Turpin during his famous ride.

Id guess all of those were popular reading in the early 20th century too and as influential as the Western saloon.

Jim Hawkins is given a treasure map by a mysterious stranger in an inn.

But there is no reason to suppose those diverse authors were familiar with the others*. Writing something commonplace is something they could do on their own.

*I certainly would be very confident in saying Tolkien had never read or seen a Western, hater of TV and cinema as he was.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I certainly would be very confident in saying Tolkien had never read or seen a Western, hater of TV and cinema as he was.

Westerns were novels first, but I'm not sure I can picture the professor putting up his feet to read about the gunfight at the OK Corral. (Which was his loss, to be clear.)

 

[Tonguez]

Jim Hawkins is given a treasure map by a mysterious stranger in an inn.

But there is no reason to suppose those diverse authors were familiar with the others*. Writing something commonplace is something they could do on their own.

*I certainly would be very confident in saying Tolkien had never read or seen a Western, hater of TV and cinema as he was.

Stevenson was certainly aware of Walter Scott, both beings Scots writers. Long John Silver was inspired in part by Scotts novel The Pirate

Westerns were novels first, but I'm not sure I can picture the professor putting up his feet to read about the gunfight at the OK Corral. (Which was his loss, to be clear.)

In "On Fairy tales" Tolkien notes having enjoyed "Red Indian stories" (sic) as a boy and been inspired to learn to use a bow. So...

 

[Deset Gled]

Someone mentioned the Bible, but what about other old religious texts that predate christianity/judaism?

I was looking for some other non-European examples, and found a couple.

There's a reference to the trope in a Buddhist saying "Relatives are no more closely united than travelers who for a while meet at an inn, and then depart again, losing sight of each other." I'm not sure of the origin, as different books/sites attribute this to different authors. It seems to be attributed to Buddhaghosa more than once, which would put it in the vicinity of 500 CE.

Apparently there's also an anecdote that strangers meeting at an inn is a possible etymology for the name of the city Shravasti. If you met a merchant at an inn and asked what they had, they would claim "Sabbaṃ atthi!”, meaning "We have all things!". That lead to the city being called Sāvatthī. Going by the date of the name, this would have to go back to at least 500 BCE. This is only one of multiple legends about the origin of the name, though.

As you can imagine, translations for these examples vary a lot both due to age and the fact that they aren't English in origin. Whether it's an inn, tavern, caravan, roadside gathing, or what have you is very much based on whoever was doing the translating. I'm much to ignorant of such details to assess the accuracy.

 

[cmdr23]

So, what’s the origin of the trope “character eats food”?

It’s perfectly reasonable to engage by pointing out an idea as clearly and demonstrably wrong, despite all the falsehoods that are propagated by modern media.

You'll need to figure out what a trope is and get back to me before we start discussing the effects of mass media on the contemporary conception of historical "truth". It gets a bit complicated.

As I say, I think there's more to this than you are considering, and I think you could learn some things about our shared hobby/interest if you were curious and asked some questions of people you disagree with or don't understand in this thread, but you can absolutely live the rest of your life without considering any of it and you'll be no worse off.

 

[Tonguez]

I was looking for some other non-European examples, and found a couple.

There's a reference to the trope in a Buddhist saying "Relatives are no more closely united than travelers who for a while meet at an inn, and then depart again, losing sight of each other." I'm not sure of the origin, as different books/sites attribute this to different authors. It seems to be attributed to Buddhaghosa more than once, which would put it in the vicinity of 500 CE.

Apparently there's also an anecdote that strangers meeting at an inn is a possible etymology for the name of the city Shravasti. If you met a merchant at an inn and asked what they had, they would claim "Sabbaṃ atthi!”, meaning "We have all things!". That lead to the city being called Sāvatthī. Going by the date of the name, this would have to go back to at least 500 BCE. This is only one of multiple legends about the origin of the name, though.

As you can imagine, translations for these examples vary a lot both due to age and the fact that they aren't English in origin. Whether it's an inn, tavern, caravan, roadside gathing, or what have you is very much based on whoever was doing the translating. I'm much to ignorant of such details to assess the accuracy.

If you want the oldest reference Gilgamesh visits an Ale-House to get information from the woman who owns it.