Fans and Scholars?

As I was revising my last blog entry on The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrùn, my comments on Tolkien ‘ret-conning’ the old sagas made me remember a discussion we had a few years back in the Tolkien Newsgroups, Tolkien Scholars / Writers (2006-07-12)¹

The discussion started with a question on whom were the ‘top 10 of Tolkien scholars’, but the perspective that I remembered in this context was better captured in the question, ‘Would a scholar for example ask whether elves have pointed ears or balrogs wings?’ The central question here is whether this kind of ‘story-internal’ questions are really scholarly? Is it so that there are some topics, some questions, that belong wholly or predominantly in a fan culture and are frowned upon in scholarly circles, and others that belong wholly or predominantly in a scholarly culture that are frowned upon in fan discussions (or somehow out of reach for fans)?

We didn't reach a conclusion back then, but I have occasionally been wondering about this question since then.

It would be easy to point at many of the on-line discussion fora where fans² discuss Tolkien's works and say that these discussions are predominantly taking the story-internal view (and the perspective they take is very often that of creating the kind of consistent whole: a particular vision of Tolkien's sub-creation that can then be standardised and even canonised), and when you read some of the scholarly work such as e.g. the contents of Tolkien Studies which prides itself with the subtitle, An Annual Scholarly Review, the perspective is predominantly story-external (there are many approaches to this type of view of which the biographical and the source-critical are but two).

I think, however, that the picture is more complex than a superficial scan of the titles and abstracts of these papers, books and discussions would suggest.

First of all it seems to me obvious (and entirely non-controversial) that the portrayal of a dichotomy is too simplistic: at every turn we see the two approaches mixed so that fans may cite biographical or source-critical points in order to argue their own story-internal view, and scholars will argue a story-internal point in order to support their analysis³. Not only that, but while there is certainly a trend to have the main emphasis in different parts of this scale, you can also find fan-discussions where the main emphasis is on what would, in the simple view, be seen as scholarly topics, and scholarly work where the main emphasis is story-internal.⁴

The other point I'd like to make in this connection is neither new nor not original to me. However, I think it deserves to be highlighted now and again.

A while back (OK, actually it's been more than seven years), Michael Drout posted on his blog on ‘Becoming a “Tolkien Scholar”’ in which his main point is that the scholarly study of Tolkien is still very open and to a large extent dominated by independent scholars, so that it is possible to contribute even without academic tenure or formal education.

Drout goes on to note that

I know for a fact that there are a lot of people out there who know a lot more about the internal elements of Middle-earth than I do. These people are enormous resources for Tolkien scholarship, and they should be encouraged and listened to, not mocked or derided. I think that my additional training in literary study, ancient languages and linguistics gives me the opportunity to add value and context to the analysis and discovery by people who work only within the materials of Middle-earth, but I don't ever pretend that I know more about Middle-earth than they do.

This goes right to the heart of what I aiming at here: the interdependence of the two perspectives that I have outlined above.

This interdependence seems to me to be stronger for fiction that is set in a sub-created world because of the nature of the sub-creative process. We know that in Middle-earth, Tolkien's personal views are fully integrated into the fabric of the sub-creation — most careful readers will be able to point out where his Roman Catholic faith is immanent in the nature of causation in Middle-earth. I know that for Tolkien there is a very strong connection between his personal interests, ideas, beliefs etc. and the way that things work in his sub-created universe, and though I cannot say to what extent it applies to other authors in general, I suspect that there is a tendency for this connection to be stronger the more of the world the author sub-creates her- or himself.

Whatever the details, I will claim that this connection is particularly strong in Tolkien's case, and that this linked to the fortuitous situation that Drout describes in the passage quoted above. The story-internal perspective deals with how things work inside Middle-earth, but solving such questions tells us something about what Tolkien thought. On the other hand, knowing what Tolkien thought can often solve the question of how something is supposed to work.

Sometimes a question may come out of hand — the infamous balrog wings is a good example — but even there a kernel of relevant scholarship may possibly be found. I once saw the argument that the reason that angels in Christian imagery are portrayed with wings is because they were thought of as insubstantial. The reasoning, as I recall it, was that insubstantial associated with air, air with flight, and flight was symbolised with wings.⁵. If this is true, then it could be relevant to know if balrogs had wings, because it might possibly tell us something about Tolkien's view on evil (the balrogs, too, were insubstantial spirits in their origin, but presumably became bound to their shapes in a state that approached incarnation: see ‘Ósanwe-kenta’ for details).

Other, perhaps more plausible, examples can be found:

• What is the detailed nature of the agency of the Master Ring? Sentience? Sapience? Free will?
• Was the Master Ring influencing Isildur to make him reject Círdan and Elrond's advice? And if so, how was it influencing him?
• What is the nature of the invisibility conveyed by the Rings of Power (except by the Three)?

These questions are some that have been debated in fan fora (as far as I know without reaching consensus), and where the answer might tell us something about Tolkien's thoughts that would be relevant for Tolkien scholarship — but also where scholarly findings might contribute to resolving the questions.

So, my dear fellow Tolkien fans, geeks and enthusiasts, let us not be ashamed of quarrelling over the shape of Elvish ears or Tom Bombadil's place in the taxonomy of Middle-earth. Let us rather work to keep these discussions at a level where we can attract also Tolkien scholars to our discussions to our mutual benefit. Why should it not be considered a legitimate subject of Tolkien scholarship to discuss in detail whether the Master Ring could think and whether it had free will? (Now, there's a paper I'd like to see in Tolkien Studies!)


1^ Also available from Google Groups: Tolkien Scholars / Writers  Back

2^ I actually don't like the word fan all that much and I try to avoid using it of myself, mostly for the association with fanaticism. I prefer to describe myself as a Tolkien enthusiast or geek — possibly obsessed, but not, I think, fanatic. It is, however, a widely used word so that references to an on-line fan community or on-line fandom will be instantly recognised, and therefore use the word here to include also my own activities and the fora where I am active.  Back

3^ To give just a single example, Verlyn Flieger's discussion of the workings of Elvish free will in Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World would qualify as using a story-internal question to argue a point in a scholarly work.  Back

4^ An excellent example of this is Vladimir Brljak's paper, ‘The Books of Lost Tales: Tolkien as Metafictionist’ in Tolkien Studies 7 in which the main points is to argue a specific metafictional, but entirely story-internal, tradition of transmission for the books.  Back

5^ I do not know whether this explanation is correct, or a mistake (possibly a previously held, but now abandoned, explanation) — I offer it here only to exemplify my idea. I also realise that I am stretching credibility by choosing the balrog wings example, but that is interesting as an example precisely because it doesn't get much more absurd than the Balrog Wings Flame Wars.  Back

Tolkien Transactions XIII

May 2011

Good thing that I do not believe in unlucky numbers . . . ;)

This is, of course, actually the fourteenth or fifteenth issue of my extract of the most interesting Tolkien-related occurrences on the internet over the past period — it just happens to be the thirteenth bearing this particular name ;-)

May has come, and May has gone, and now I've collected what I think was the most interesting stuff for a Tolkien enthusiast to read in May. You should of course take as read all the usual disclaimers about newness, completeness and relevance (or any other implication of responsibility) :-)

= = = = News = = = =

JDR, Friday, 6 May 2011, ‘Run-up to Kalamazoo’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/05/run-up-to-kalamazoo.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/44wycbe
And
JF, Monday, 9 May 2011, ‘More Tolkien at Kalamazoo’
http://lingwe.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-tolkien-at-kalamazoo.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3ph3rx3
And an update
JDR, Tuesday, 10 May 2011, ‘Tolkien at Kalamazoo 2011 (revised schedule)’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/05/tolkien-at-kalamazoo-2011-revised.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3htd8v9
John Rateliff and Jason Fisher supplement each other in pointing out all the Tolkien-related presentations, round-tables, panels, discussions and other events at this year's Kalamazoo Medieval Congress. Attending the congress is likely to remain forever just a dream (and I suspect that I would be like a fish out of the water if I ever did manage to go), but the list of events is certainly always intriguing.

Ben Yakas, gothamist, Sunday, 8 May 2011, ‘Is This The Greatest NY Times Correction Of All Time?’
http://gothamist.com/2011/05/08/is_this_the_greatest_ny_times_corre.php
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3ttzq98
Linked to by David Bratman on his Calimac blog under the title, ‘They'll know better than to %&!* with Tolkien fans next time.’, this is the story of the NY Times running afoul of some basic Tolkieniana and having to correct.

Co.Design, Tuesday, 10 May 2011, ‘Infographic Of The Day: The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, Plotted’
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663803/infographic-of-the-day-the-lord-of-the-rings-trilogy-plotted
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3cyomj9
A nice plot, and though it is based on the Peter Jackson films, I think that, at this level of portrayal, they follow the plot of the books close enough for us to ignore the differences if we will (yes, it would be nice to have the minutes run-time translated to dates in the Shire Reckoning of the book, and to remove Aragorn's small private detour in the middle of Two Towers, but I have no problem living with these).

Mythopoeic Society, Tuesday, 17 May 2011, ‘Mythopoeic Awards: 2011 Finalists Announced’
http://www.mythsoc.org/news/awards-finalists-2011/
Of particular interest in this special context is that four of the five finalists for the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies are on Tolkien, while the last is on C.S. Lewis Narnia books. I also see that I lack two of the four Tolkien-related finalists, so I had better free up some room in my Tolkien budget ;)
JF, Tuesday, 17 May 2011, ‘2011 Mythopoeic Award Finalists’
http://lingwe.blogspot.com/2011/05/2011-mythopoeic-award-finalists.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3v3r4vb
Jason Fisher follows up on the announcement of the finalists here.

Associated Press, Wednesday, 18 May 2011, ‘Hobbits beware! To test emergency broadcast system, Hungary says severe floods in Middle-earth’
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/hobbits-beware-to-test-emergency-broadcast-system-hungary-says-severe-floods-in-middle-earth/2011/05/18/AFLgPP6G_story.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/67mfcua
Belonging in the light section of this month's news is the story that the Hungarian authorities have been using Middle-earth locations when testing their emergency broadcast system.

Josh Vogt, Monday, 23 May 2011, ‘Families celebrate Middle Earth Weekend in Birmingham, UK’
http://www.examiner.com/tolkien-in-national/families-celebrate-middle-earth-weekend-birmingham-uk
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6doeyaa
A brief report from the Middle-earth Weekend in Birmingham.

JDR, Tuesday, 24 May 2011, ‘Doug's New Tolkien Blog’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/05/dougs-new-tolkien-blog.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6zmwzvf
Doug Anderson's new blog http://tolkienandfantasy.blogspot.com.

PC, Thursday, 26 May 2011, ‘The Hobbit Facsimile First Edition to celebrate its 75th Anniversary’
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/997-The_Hobbit_Facsimile_Edition.php
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5rvf52p
It appears that HarperCollins is serious about publishing a facsimile of the first edition of The Hobbit on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the book.

DAA, Monday, 30 May 2011, ‘News and Notes’
http://tolkienandfantasy.blogspot.com/2011/05/news-and-notes.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6hec7tp
Doug Anderson comments a bit on some of the comments about Tolkien Studies vol. 8 (including the length of one of the reviews), and adds a few news, at least one of which has a clear Tolkien interest.

JF, Tuesday, 31 May 2011, ‘My book is moving forward’
http://lingwe.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-book-is-moving-forward.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6ylww3f
Some news on the progress of Jason's forthcoming collection (as editor and contributor), Tolkien and the Study of His Sources: Critical Essays. The book deals with source criticism in a Tolkien context, and I am looking forward to having some of my preconceptions challenged. In general I see little or no use for source criticism that does nothing more than note a plausible source — but when source criticism goes on to explore what it might mean for our understanding of Tolkien's text, then my mood tends to change (in some ways one of my favourite books of Tolkien criticism, Verlyn Flieger's Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World, can be seen as an extended exploration of the source critical point that Tolkien was inspired by Owen Barfield's ideas, particularly those expressed in Poetic Diction).

= = = = Essays and Scholarship = = = =

BC, Sunday, 1 May 2011, ‘An Experiment with Time by J.W Dunne and the Inklings’
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/05/experiment-with-time-by-jw-dunne-and.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/42yyd4l
Bruce Charlton raises the interesting idea that Lewis, Tolkien and other of the Inklings were so fascinated by Dunne's basic idea (regarding foresight in dreams, not regarding the nature of Time) that they tried it out themselves and found similar effects that satisfied them that it worked. I am fascinated with this idea, though I also remain rather sceptical (too much of the physicist, I suppose): I would like to see some better evidence that could suggest that the Inklings, both as a group and / or as individuals, had experimented with Dunne's ideas — I cannot think of any evidence with respect to Tolkien in particular that would, in my opinion, necessarily suggest more than fascination with the idea (i.e. evidence that cannot be fully and satisfyingly explained by the claim that Tolkien was fascinated with the idea at a literary level).
Charlton follows up on the idea with a later blog post here:
BC, Wednesday, 25 May 2011, ‘C.S Lewis as dreamer’
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/05/cs-lewis-as-dreamer.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6kctszt
Not being a Lewis expert, I find it hard to comment either way. The timing of the episode mentioned could be important: would this be before or after Charlton thinks Lewis experimented with Dunne's ideas — if after, I think the omission of that in this context would be important.

BC, Friday, 6 May 2011, ‘Anti-dwarf prejudice - justified?’
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/05/anti-dwarf-prejudice-justified.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/44tyx44
I was rather surprised to find Bruce Charlton arguing that general prejudice against Dwarves should be justified: this really does go against my reading of The Lord of the Rings, but that is precisely one of the things that I enjoy about Charlton's blog — whether I agree or not, his posts usually do force me to think at least twice, and I generally learn something from that.

BC, Sunday, 15 May 2011, ‘Dom Jonathan Markison OSB = Gervase Mathew OSB’
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/05/dom-jonathan-markison-osb-gervase.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3evm5hz
Just a brief note from Charlton that he agrees with the identification of the character Dom Jonathan Markison in The Notion Club Papers with Gervase Mathew. The evidence is, I think, compelling, but I can't help ask if this can tell us more about the fictional character and his role in the Notion Club, or if it can possibly tell us more about the role of Mathews in the real club, the Inklings.

BC, Monday, 16 May 2011, ‘John Wain versus C.S. Lewis and the nature of The Inklings’
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/05/john-wain-versus-cs-lewis-wrt-inklings.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3t79n9u
Very interesting piece on the cultural agenda of the Inklings and whether they, as a group, were conscious of this agenda.

JF, Friday, 20 May 2011, ‘A new collective plural?’
http://lingwe.blogspot.com/2011/05/new-collective-plural.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3grwe7b
A discussion of Tolkien's use of the word valour in the sentence ‘leading a great valour of the folk of Lebennin and Lamedon and the fiefs of the South’ from the arrival of Aragorn with the Dúnedain and the people from the lower Anduin to the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. Remember to read also the comments, which provide new angles and possibilities.

JF, Monday, 23 May 2011, ‘An apocryphal anecdote?’
http://lingwe.blogspot.com/2011/05/apocryphal-anecdote.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3ej4cag
The minutiae of Tolkien's life are also of interest to Tolkien scholars, so the question of whether Tolkien actually did take the time to show around an American visitor, and once student, to Merton during a very busy period in 1953 is relevant — did he even treat these American visitors, Stanley Vestal and friend, to Danish lager in his own room? The last bit is even more interesting — unless the quality of Danish lager has degenerated considerably in the past six decades, it would say nothing good about Tolkien's taste in beers if he kept Danish lager in his room . . . ;-)

JF, Thursday, 26 May 2011, ‘The ends of worms — and their beginnings’
http://lingwe.blogspot.com/2011/05/ends-of-worms-and-their-beginnings.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/67fvyoq
A curious observation on the ends and beginnings of worms in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Good catch, I say, though I am otherwise completely with N.E. Brigand in asking ‘what does it mean?’ I think that I am, personally, more inclined than many others to accept coincidence as at least a partial explanation (Tolkien being Tolkien would, as the rest of us are, be inclined to reproduce certain thought-patterns without conscious thought or connection), but I would still prefer a good explanation that could convince me that it was deliberate.

LS, Saturday, 28 May 2011, ‘And now for something completely different....’
http://theruminate.blogspot.com/2011/05/and-now-for-something-completely.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6h7roaj
The title might make one expect something reminiscent of Monty Python, but if such is your expectations, you will be disappointed. Instead we are treated to a piece of Beowulf scholarship: the paper that Larry read at this year's Kalamazoo. I do realize that there are more serious aspects of the discussion (I strongly suspect that the correct glossing of a single word in Beowulf would by itself be considered a worthy subject for a paper at Kalamazoo), but ultimately the paper discusses ‘where Grendel's hand is displayed after Beowulf's victory.’ A good and worthy story-internal question that differs from a discussion of Balrog Wings mostly by the age of the English upon which the reading hinges ;-) Oh, and do go and read the paper, it's actually quite interesting and of course it is written by a stapol of AFT & RABT; though I won't pretend to get every single hint and detail, I certainly have no problem following the discussion.

BC, Monday, 30 May 2011, ‘Tolkien speaks from the past to us now?’
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/05/tolkien-speaks-from-past-to-us-now.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6gbcc5g
I am not sure that I can quite unravel all the multi-dimensional time-threads, both fictional, perceived, dreamed and real, that are involved here — or maybe I am trying too hard to think about it. There is something both attractive and repelling about the idea of Tolkien encoding a ‘message’ to the reader in this way. I remain intrigued, attracted even, but unconvinced.

= = = = Reviews and Announcements = = = =

Bethany Waugh, Mythprint, Tuesday, 10 May 2011, ‘The Music of The Lord of the Rings Films’
http://www.mythsoc.org/reviews/music-lotr-films/
This review originally appeared in Mythprint vol. 48 no. 2 (whole no. 343) in February 2011.

Edward J. Kloczko, Monday, 16 May 2011, ‘Parma Eldalamberon 18’
http://www.mythsoc.org/reviews/parma-eldalamberon-18/
This review originally appeared in Mythprint vol. 48 no. 2 (whole no. 343) in February 2011.

DAA, Tuesday, 17 May 2011, ‘Tolkien Studies volume 8 at the Printer’
http://tolkienandfantasy.blogspot.com/2011/05/tolkien-studies-volume-8-at-printer.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3uj58uf
Along with the news implied in the headline, Doug Anderson also lists the contents of the eigth volume of Tolkien Studies. The essay section is dominated by names that I do not immediately recognize, which doesn't necessarily mean anything except that I am incredibly dense at times ;) On the other hand I am tempted to take it as a sign that the editors of Tolkien Studies are deliberately trying to promote a new generation of Tolkien scholars — a practice that I would agree strongly with.
This year it seems that the main body (if not all) of the previously unpublished source material is in John Garth's contribution, ‘Robert Quilter Gilson, T.C.B.S.: A Brief Life in Letters’ which focuses on a person in Tolkien's early life (a period that was also in focus in Verlyn Flieger's edition of Tolkien's retelling of the story of Kullervo and his Kalevala essays from volume 7). The ‘Notes and Documents’ section also includes a contribution by Janet Brennan Croft titled ‘The Hen that Laid the Eggs: Tolkien and the Officers Training Corps’ which I look forward to get a closer look at.
JF, Wednesday, 18 may 2011, ‘Tolkien Studies 8’
http://lingwe.blogspot.com/2011/05/tolkien-studies-8.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/43vj786
Jason Fisher follow up on Doug Anderson's announcement on his own blog.

TF, Thursday, 19 May 2011, ‘Thoughts on Reading about Ents’
http://parmarkenta.blogspot.com/2011/05/thoughts-on-reading-about-ents.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6dnpyzo
My review of an article in the recent Mythprint.

JDR, Monday, 23 May 2011, ‘MY LATEST PUBLICATION: Clyde Kilby Memoir’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-latest-publication-clyde-kilby.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6f46ue3
John Rateliff announces the publication, edited by himself, of Clyde Kilby's speech at the 1983 Marquette Tolkien Conference (where Kilby was the guest of honour) in the latest volume of VII — the Wade Center's journal on their special-focus authors (Lewis, Tolkien, Williams, Sayers, Barfield, Chesterton, & MacDonald).

JF, Wednesday, 25 May 2011, ‘The first peek into Tolkien Studies 8’
http://lingwe.blogspot.com/2011/05/first-peak-into-tolkien-studies-8.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3rnz3y3
Having had time only to peek into the contents of the latest volume of Tolkien Studies we can hardly call Jason's report a review yet (though I hope that one is forthcoming). I am not sure that I am entirely happy with the idea that others can get the book in hand (or on screen) a month or two before I do, but it's nonetheless interesting to see what is being written. In this case the focus, both of the blog entry itself and of the comments, is mainly on the variations in the lengths of the reviews.

Edward J. Kloczko, Thursday, 26 May 2011, ‘Parma Eldalamberon 19’
http://www.mythsoc.org/reviews/parma-eldalamberon-19/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3h8wyhw
This review originally appeared in Mythprint vol. 48 no. 2 (whole no. 343) in February 2011.

= = = = Other Stuff = = = =

Philip Normal, NY Times, Sunday, 15 January 1967, ‘The Prevalence of Hobbits’
http://www.nytimes.com/1967/01/15/books/tolkien-interview.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/69tz6km
This interview was pointed out here:
Trotter, Sunday, 22 May 2011, ‘Tolkien Interview’
http://www.tolkienguide.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=1528&forum=7
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5wvwra5
Where this is thought to be the ‘full text of an interview that Tolkien gave to Philip Norman for The Sunday Times on the 9th August 1966’.

BC, Sunday, 22 May 2011, ‘The Inklings were historians’
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/05/inklings-were-historians.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5skh8hf
This post is presented more in the nature of stating an opinion than as a careful analysis (such analysis may of course nonetheless underlie it). The concluding paragraph states that the Inklings ‘were engaged in trying to reconnect the modern mind with an historical mode of thought, a mythic mode of thought’. My own knowledge of the Inklings as a group is certainly insufficient to comment on that perspective, but though I essentially agree that this also applies with respect to Tolkien in particular, I can't help but think that this, while it certainly hits the target, still is not in the bull's eye. My problems is that at the moment this is a mere ‘feeling’ I've got — I have nothing to show in the way of suggesting what is missing and even less when it comes to actual evidence.

JF, Tuesday, 24 May 2011, ‘Lingwë is four years old today!’
http://lingwe.blogspot.com/2011/05/lingwe-is-four-years-old-today.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/65d9wev
Congratulations to Jason Fisher!

= = = = Rewarding Discussions = = = =

Frodo's Illness (rec.arts.books.tolkien & alt.fan.tolkien)


http://preview.tinyurl.com/5w6yw7r
Having started in April, this discussion was re-invigorated in May by getting side-tracked into a discussion of when Frodo actually put on the One Ring for the first time.

= = = = Web Sites = = = =

I will try to present a couple of sites every month — if I've found a new site (of any kind) that I have found interesting, then I will add that, and then I'll throw in some oldies to keep things rolling ;-)

Douglas A. Anderson (DAA) — ‘Tolkien and Fantasy’
http://tolkienandfantasy.blogspot.com
The top new ‘site’ is of course Douglas A. Anderson's new blog that focuses on Tolkien in particular and the fantasy genre in general.

O. Sharp, ‘The Tolkien Sarcasm Page’
http://flyingmoose.org/tolksarc/tolksarc.htm
Probably well known to all regulars of the Tolkien Usenet Newsgroups, this page nonetheless still deserves to be promoted. This is the home of many wierd things that have originated on AFT and RABT, including the E-text and a number of ‘crackpot theories’. Enjoy!

= = = = Sources = = = =

John D. Rateliff (JDR) — ‘Sacnoth's Scriptorium’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com

Jason Fisher (JF) — ‘Lingwë — Musings of a Fish’
http://lingwe.blogspot.com

Michael Drout (MD) — ‘Wormtalk and Slugspeak’
http://wormtalk.blogspot.com/

Wayne G. Hammond & Christina Scull (H&S) — ‘Too Many Books and Never Enough’
http://wayneandchristina.wordpress.com/

Pieter Collier (PC) — ‘The Tolkien Library’
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/

Douglas A. Anderson (DAA) et Al. — ‘Wormwoodiana’
http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com

Douglas A. Anderson (DAA) — ‘Tolkien and Fantasy’
http://tolkienandfantasy.blogspot.com

Corey Olsen (CO), ‘The Tolkien Professor’
http://www.tolkienprofessor.com

David Bratman (DB), ‘Calimac’
http://calimac.livejournal.com/

Larry Swain (LS), ‘The Ruminate’
http://theruminate.blogspot.com

‘Wellinghall’, ‘Musings of an Aging Fan’
http://wellinghall.livejournal.com

Various, ‘The Northeast Tolkien Society’ (NETS), ‘Heren Istarion’
http://herenistarionnets.blogspot.com

Bruce Charlton (BC), ‘Tolkien's The Notion Club Papers’
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/

Andrew Higgins (AH), ‘Wotan's Musings’
http://wotanselvishmusings.blogspot.com

Various, The Mythopoeic Society
http://www.mythsoc.org

Troels Forchhammer (TF), ‘Parmar-kenta’
http://parmarkenta.blogspot.com

Mythprint — ‘The Monthly Bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society’
http://www.mythsoc.org

Amon Hen — the Bulletin of the Tolkien Society
http://www.tolkiensociety.org/

- and others

--
Troels Forchhammer

Smile
    a while
        ere day
            is done
and all
    your gall
        will soon
            be gone.
- Piet Hein, ‘Advice at Nightfall’

The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún

When The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún first came out, I was in two minds whether to buy it or not — after all I have the Eddas and the Sagas in Danish as well as other books on Norse Mythology that recounts the same saga both in prose and poetic forms (one of them with comments), so I thought I was fairly well covered. In the end I decided that, being on a limited Tolkien budget, my money was better spent elsewhere.

Then I was so incredibly lucky that I won a copy of the Houghton Mifflin paperback edition from the Tolkien Collector's Guide, for which I am immensely grateful.

Though the book arrived fairly quickly, I did not have time to start reading it until well into this year, and so I finished it on the train when I was going to camp¹ the day before Palm Sunday. (I don't know why I haven't published this earlier — but for a few corrections, it's been done for a while.)

First let me say that I certainly did enjoy the book very much, and the well-informed commentary by Christopher Tolkien taught me much, that had previously been unknown to me about both the fornyrðislag and the complex tradition of this whole cycle of legends.  I recently saw the Danish edition in a bookshop and leafed through it — but I was horrified to see that the Danish verses did not even follow the strict rules of the fornyrðislag even when the English original did (the one redeeming feature was that they had printed the English and the Danish versions of the lays side by side) — knowing myself, I hurried to replace the book on the shelf before I got upset by such … I don't know what is worst, but it must be either sheer stupidity or gross incompetence.

I do not feel competent enough to comment on the wisdom of J.R.R. Tolkien's choices when composing these poems; Christopher Tolkien's comments offer a valuable insight into these choices along with educated guesses about his father's reasoning, but I was confirmed in my opinion that J.R. R. Tolkien was a true master of the old alliterative verse-forms, and I was confirmed in my own pleasure in that type of poetic form.


If it has seemed a little difficult to fully appreciate what Tom Shippey is speaking of when he describes Tolkien's sub-creative work as the creation of asterisk-legends ², I think it will be easier now that we have an example where the relation between the preserved material and the asterisk-legend is much closer. For that is essentially what this book is all about: it is the two asterisk-lays that tell the whole story of the Völsungs and the Niflungs such as Tolkien thought they might have been. But this is not all that he does — in his long review-come-commentary in Tolkien Studies vol. 7, Prof. Shippey comments on the task that Tolkien set himself, saying that

finding a clear and satisfying line through all these contradictions and narrative inadequacies cannot have been easy. Yet his training as a comparative philologist assured him that, in narrative as in linguistics or mythology, there must have been a sensible explanation in the beginning, and this must furthermore be recoverable.

In this we see hints both of the philologist's desire to recover or recreate the lost forms, the lost work, but there is also something else: a desire to organise, to create a coherent whole of the disparate and diverging (and re-merging) forms that is so intimately familiar to any Tolkien enthusiast who has tried to dig into the treasure trove of Unfinished Tales and in particular the History of Middle-earth material.

It is of course both interesting and amusing to see Tolkien himself engage in this almost ‘fannish’ activity of ‘ret-conning’ the Völsunga and Niflunga sagas, though one should of course not forget that there was also a far more serious side to his interest, which Christopher Tolkien does something to uncover in the excellent notes and commentary that follows Tolkien senior's lays. Tolkien never lost sight of the underlying reality of varying forms and thought of the whole Völsunga-Niflung cycle as it stands as the result of the merging of two or more, originally unrelated, historical and mythical traditions. Tolkien, I believe, was never in doubt as to which approach was the more serious attempt to understand the story of the Völsungs, the Niflungs and the Burgundians.

^1 For the scouts among you, I did my wood-badge training this Easter — in Denmark this involves a one-week camp training followed by a half-year project and a final weekend. Back

^2This refers to the philological practice of prefixing an asterisk to hypothesized earlier word-forms such as Primitive Germanic *manniz (men), a word that has never been recorded, but which is inferred through the rules of philology. Back

Thoughts on reading about Ents

I have been running late with just about everything this month (for an explanation, see the latest edition of my  Tolkien Transactions), including reading the April issue of Mythprint (vol. 48 no. 4, whole no. 345) — the bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society.

The first article is about Ents, “Tolkien's Ents: Sylvan and Pagan Influences” by Professor Fernando Cid Lucas and translated by the editor, Jason Fisher.

The first thing that caught my attention (that is, it took my attention away from reading the text) was the description of the topic of the article as ‘the Ents (or tree-men).’ It was the use of ‘tree-men’ that caught my eye: why ‘tree-men’ rather than ‘man-trees’ or some other phrase? Of course I can't know what Professor Lucas wrote in the original (presumably Spanish) text, but I was strongly reminded of Gamling's words in The Lord of the Rings when he speaks of ‘these half-orcs and goblin-men that the foul craft of Saruman has bred’ (LotR, book III,7 ‘Helm's Deep’), and in particular of Tolkien's description in text X of ‘Myths Transformed’ in Morgoth's Ring when he speaks of Saruman committing his vilest deed in ‘the interbreeding of Orcs and Men, producing both Men-orcs large and cunning, and Orc-men treacherous and vile.’

What is the difference between Men-orcs and Orc-men?

The ‘large and cunning’ as opposed to ‘treacherous and vile’ makes me think that the Men-orcs were probably the Uruks of Isengard, while the Orc-men probably were of the same kind as the Southener the four hobbits and Aragorn saw in Bree. But is my reasoning correct, and can this be presumed to follow common usage — I can't say.

In Danish, I would say that the last part of the compound word is the most important, that this is the base that is modified by the prefixing of other words (we don't use hyphens or spaces in our compounds, which occasionally creates some very special compound words such as ‘sporvognsskinneskidtskraber’ — tram rail dirt scraper). If the same is the case in English (Tolkien's usage in Morgoth's Ring would at least suggest that the last part signified which of the parent creatures the half-breeds most closely resembled physically), then the legend of the Ent and the Eagles (The Silmarillion, part III chapter 2 ‘Of Aulë and Yavanna’ or The War of the Jewels part 3 chapter VI  ‘Of the Ents and the Eagles’) would suggest that it was better to say ‘Man-trees’ of the Ents.


Having now spent this much space splitting hairs on a single term, let me say a few things about the main thrust of the article.

The article posits the so called Green Man tradition as well as the possibly related Jack-in-the-green tradition as influencing Tolkien's concept of the Ents. This in itself is hardly controversial (even if the article doesn't mention that the term ‘Green Man’ was coined by Lady Raglan and published in the journal Folklore in 1939, not long after Tolkien had started writing The Lord of the Rings and before he got to the giant Treebeard), and it does leave me slightly disappointed as there was nothing new for me to learn about the Green Man, Jack-in-the-green, Tolkien or Ents. I am probably slightly better versed in matters of English folklore than the average Dane, but the readership of Mythprint are the members of the Mythopoeic Society, whom I would assume to be familiar with both the Green Man and Jack-in-the-green at the level at which they are dealt with in this article (this may not have been the case for an original Spanish-reading audience).

I am not as such averse to source-criticism, but I do believe that it must contribute more than just a source. A source is, to me, uninteresting if it doesn't tell me something new about the thing, the author, or perhaps even the source itself. In this case I think that there are several routes that could be pursued if the article had been a little longer — could, for instance, the symbolisms of fertility and growth that are present in both the Green Man and Jack-in-the-green help us understand the Ents? We do see the growth aspect realized in Merry and Pippin when they drink the Ent-draughts, so could we use the fertility / spring-rebirth aspects of these figures to learn something about the Ents and their role in Tolkien's stories and in Middle-earth?  Or could we use our knowledge of the Ents to say something about what Tolkien may have believed about the Green Man?

And how is this related to the etymology of Ent? The word is cognate with Norse jotunn which were the opponents of the Aesir in the Norse mythology, and at least some of the jotunn were clearly personifications of natural forces (e.g. Surtr who is the jötunn of fire and heat). Is there a synergy to be found here that might tell us more about the role of Ents in Middle-earth?

So, all in all this was, in my view, a very promising article that was unfortunately cut too short, stopping without fulfilling the promise. I hope that Professor Lucas will take up the topic again with an eye to how the sources may inform our understanding of the Ents or some other angle that will teach us something new.

Tolkien Transactions XII

Tolkien Transactions XII
April 2011

This issue of my summary of Tolkien related ‘goings-on’ on the 'net is long overdue. The delay is, I hope, fully explained by the fact that I came back from my Easter holidays (spent off-line in camp) to the announcement that Nokia is closing down all R&D activities in Copenhagen during 2012, which includes my own job. Popping up to the surface again after this announcement, and catching up with everything else, has unfortunately taken me until now.

For this reason, I have also chosen to limit myself rather more than usual, and to occasionally pass on a link merely with a headline and no further description of the contents. The items, however, still have to fulfill the three strict criteria: 1: it has some relevance to Tolkien, 2: I have seen it, and 3: I've decided that it's interesting enough to pass it on here.

As always, disclaimers apply about newness, completeness and relevance (or any other implication of responsibility) :-)

= = = = News = = = =

Tyler Kepner, N.Y. Times, Saturday, 30 April 2011, ‘R.A. Dickey's Well-Named Arsenal’
http://bats.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/30/r-a-dickeys-well-named-arsenal/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/44r9hm7
Along with this piece:
Ben Yakas, Monday, 8 May 2011, ‘Is This The Greatest NY Times Correction Of All Time?’
http://gothamist.com/2011/05/08/is_this_the_greatest_ny_times_corre.php
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3ttzq98
Just a bit of a laugh, really ;-)

Josh Vogt, Monday, 18 April 2011, ‘Open enrollment for online courses on J.R.R. Tolkien and Middle Earth’
http://www.examiner.com/tolkien-in-national/open-enrollment-for-online-course-on-j-r-r-tolkien-and-middle-earth
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5wp9n35
Not really sure that I want to advertise this — mostly because I'll be terribly envious of anyone who do participate in Dimtra Fimi's on-line courses from the University of Wales :-)

John di Bartolo, Tuesday, 19 April 2011, ‘MyMiddle-earth.com: More than a remnant of the faithful!’
http://www.examiner.com/lord-of-the-rings-online-in-national/mymiddle-earth-com-more-than-a-remnant-of-the-faithful
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5syme2u

= = = = Essays and Scholarship = = = =

BC, Saturday, 9 April 2011, ‘Tolkien's Notion Club Papers completed... (a speculative treatment)’
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/04/tolikiens-notion-club-papers-completed.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/65nnnz4
Bruce Charlton here gives his best guess at how a hypothetical finished version of the Notion Club Papers might have looked like. Interesting idea with some clever commentary regardless of whether one agrees or not.

JF, Thursday, 14 April 2011, ‘Umlaut and Tolkien’
http://lingwe.blogspot.com/2011/04/umlaut-and-tolkien.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6bjqswc
If you think that the Germanic i-mutation is a challenge, then Jason's essay, complete with examples from Tolkien's work, is a great help.

BC, Thursday, 14 April 2011, ‘Tolkien as a Lucid Dreamer of Faery’
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/04/tolkien-as-lucid-dreamer-of-faery.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6kkkslj
A bit speculative, I'd say, but still possible . . . 1

JF, Wednesday, 20 April 2011, ‘Early responses to “Goblin Feet”’
http://lingwe.blogspot.com/2011/04/early-responses-to-goblin-feet.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3cfuvbw
Very interesting!

BC, Thursday, 28 April 2011, ‘Can *elves* repent?’
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/04/can-elves-repent.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/66mvszn

JF, Friday, 29 April 2011, ‘Ye, Yea, Yay, Yeah’
http://lingwe.blogspot.com/2011/04/ye-yea-yay-yeah.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/68lxhd5
Jason lays down the law regarding ye, yea, yay and yeah — and nay, ye need not fear that I am kidding you (even more oddly it appears that ye / you swapped sense, gramatically, in the change from Middle English to (Early-ish) Modern English — my use is, I believe, Middle English).

= = = = Announcements and Reviews = = = =

H&S, Sunday, 10 April 2011, ‘The Art of _The Hobbit_’
http://wayneandchristina.wordpress.com/2011/04/10/the-art-of-the-hobbit/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3m46pmx
Perhaps the most important bit of news this April — Wayne and Christina will be publishing a book titled The Art of "The Hobbit". From the comments it is evident that I am not the only one looking very much forward to this book. See also
H&S, Friday, 15 April 2011, ‘The Hobbit 75th Anniversary’
http://wayneandchristina.wordpress.com/2011/04/15/the-hobbit-75th-anniversary/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6xolefm

Josh Vogt, Tuesday, 19 April 2011, ‘The Tolkien Professor announces upcoming Exploring the Hobbit book’
http://www.examiner.com/tolkien-in-national/the-tolkien-professor-announces-upcoming-exploring-the-hobbit-book
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6aawrpo
Another promising-looking book coming out in association with the 75th anniversary of The Hobbit.

PC, Tuesday, 26 April 2011, ‘The History of the Hobbit: Revised and Updated One Volume Edition’
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/994-The_History_of_The_Hobbit_One_Volume.php
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6javsdr

PC, Wednesday, 27 April 2011, ‘Tolkien publications for 2011 by Harper Collins - Q&A with David Braw’
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/995-Interview_David_Brawn_Tolkien_2011.php
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6dlzu3b

= = = = Other Stuff = = = =

JF, Tuesday, 5 AprilL 2011, ‘Another last-minute conference schedule’
http://lingwe.blogspot.com/2011/04/another-last-minute-conference-schedule.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3c5f64p
Anyone knowing the annual Tolkien conference at the University of Vermont? Anyone who knows of a report of this year's conference?

Sean Kirst, Thursday, 7 April 2011, ‘Tolkien Reading Day 2011: Green trees, great books, old friends’
http://www.syracuse.com/kirst/index.ssf/2011/04/tolkien_reading_day_2011_green.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6gyjqp9
A report from a Tolkien Reading Day event.

JDR, Tuesday, 12 April 2011, ‘A Day at Marquette’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/04/day-at-marquette.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5tbza9k
One day I'd like to be able to spend a day — or maybe a few — doing Tolkien research at the Marquette . . .

JF, Wednesday, 13 April 2011, ‘A Description of C.S. Lewis's Lost Aeneid’
http://lingwe.blogspot.com/2011/04/description-of-cs-lewiss-lost-aeneid.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6f4hmgm

AK, Friday, 15 April 2011, ‘EXCLUSIVE: Q&A Interview with Dr. Dimitra Fimi’
http://www.middleearthnews.net/2011/04/dr.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5wa6zzd
A moderately interesting interview with links to some very interesting articles by Fimi, a couple of which are available for free.

LS, Saturday, 16 April 2011, ‘A Small Tolkienish/Old English thang’
http://theruminate.blogspot.com/2011/04/small-tolkienishold-english-thang.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5wrer3q

DB, Thursday, 28 April 2011, ‘it's the bashers again’
http://calimac.livejournal.com/520977.html
David Bratman responds to the claim of ‘racial essentializing’ of The Lord of the Rings. All I can say is ‘Well said!’ Or, in Danish, ‘Godt brølt, løve!’ (Well roared, lion!)

BC, Saturday, 30 April 2011, ‘NCPs and The Dark Tower by C.S. Lewis’
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/04/ncps-and-dark-tower-by-cs-lewis.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3qrrvlv
A comment on the possible connections between Tolkien's The Notion Club Papers and Lewis' posthumously published The Dark Tower.

= = = = Web Sites = = = =

Middle-earth Network
http://middleearthnetwork.com/

My Middle-earth
http://mymiddle-earth.com/

Middle-earth News
http://www.middleearthnews.net/

= = = = Sources = = = =

John D. Rateliff (JDR) — ‘Sacnoth's Scriptorium’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com

Jason Fisher (JF) — ‘Lingwë — Musings of a Fish’
http://lingwe.blogspot.com

Michael Drout (MD) — ‘Wormtalk and Slugspeak’
http://wormtalk.blogspot.com/

Wayne G. Hammond & Christina Scull (H&S) — ‘Too Many Books and Never Enough’
http://wayneandchristina.wordpress.com/

Pieter Collier (PC) — ‘The Tolkien Library’
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/

Douglas A. Anderson (DAA) et Al. — ‘Wormwoodiana’
http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com

Corey Olsen (CO), ‘The Tolkien Professor’
http://www.tolkienprofessor.com

David Bratman (DB), ‘Calimac’
http://calimac.livejournal.com/

Larry Swain (LS), ‘The Ruminate’
http://theruminate.blogspot.com

‘Wellinghall’, ‘Musings of an Aging Fan’
http://wellinghall.livejournal.com

Various, ‘The Northeast Tolkien Society’ (NETS), ‘Heren Istarion’
http://herenistarionnets.blogspot.com

Bruce Charlton (BC), ‘Tolkien's The Notion Club Papers’
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/

Andrew Higgins (AH), ‘Wotan's Musings’
http://wotanselvishmusings.blogspot.com

Sam Bosma (SB), ‘Sam Blogsma’
http://sambosma.blogspot.com/

John Howe (JH), ‘John Howe’
http://www.john-howe.com/news/

Various, The Mythopoeic Society
http://www.mythsoc.org

Troels Forchhammer (TF), ‘Parmar-kenta’
http://parmarkenta.blogspot.com

Arwen Kester (AK), ‘Middle-earth News’
http://www.middleearthnews.net/

Mythprint — ‘The Monthly Bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society’
http://www.mythsoc.org

Amon Hen — the Bulletin of the Tolkien Society
http://www.tolkiensociety.org/

— and others

Tolkien Transactions XI

March 2011

http://parmarkenta.blogspot.com/p/tolkien-transactions.html

Time for a new issue of my attempt to extract the best (in my highly subjective estimate) of Tolkien related ‘goings-on’ on the 'net. Anything appearing in the Tolkien Transactions is under strict quality assurance to ascertain that it complies with the three strict selection criteria, which are:
1: I have seen it
2: It has some kind of Tolkien connection (at least in my mind)
3: I have deemed that it is interesting enough to share

Regardless of how much time I (mis)spend reading blogs and other stuff, I will never be able to find everything (that's criterion number 1), so please chime in with interesting stuff that you have found elsewhere that you find ought to comply with criteria 2 and 3. Nor do I imagine that all of this is new to you, so the usual disclaimers apply about newness, completeness and relevance (or any other implication of responsibility) :-)

= = = = News = = = =

Rob Sharp (The Independent), Friday, 4 March 2011, ‘Rescued from the bonfire, the lost work of C S Lewis’
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/rescued-from-the-bonfire-the-lost-work-of-c-s-lewis-2231809.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/4b9z3kj
It may be telling of my general interest in the other Inklings that I had no idea (I resisted the pun here) that there was a supposedly lost translation of the Aeneid by C.S. Lewis — that is, not until finding that it has been found :) The story of how this work nearly ended in cinders is at once tragic and thought-provoking: after such a story I am inclined to be even more grateful to Christopher Tolkien's great work to preserve his father's literary legacy.

JF, Friday, 4 March 2011, ‘Lewis's Lost Aeneid’
http://lingwe.blogspot.com/2011/03/lewiss-lost-aeneid.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6hhmfbs
Jason Fisher takes up the thread with Lewis' Aeneid translation, providing additional details and ending by expressing his hope that ‘it opens the door a little wider to let Tolkien’s unpublished Beowulf translations come through in the near future as well.’ All I can say to that is an enthusiastic ‘Amen!’

Morgan et Al., Sunday, 6 March 2011, ‘'Introduction to Elder Edda' by Tolkien?’
http://www.tolkienguide.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=1479&forum=9
http://preview.tinyurl.com/68pkrm8
A small lesson on wariness when finding seemingly Tolkien-related items on-line. This one is fortunately rather primitively done, but others are not. The Tolkien Collector's Guide is a good place to ask about for advice if you find something that sounds dodgy — or too good to be true.

PhysOrg, Friday, 11 March 2011, ‘The Eye of Sauron’
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-eye-sauron.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6dpcm8m
Cosmic powers!
Here is an image of the Eye of Sauron that manages what Jackson's did not (to me): to appear as an ominous presence, incorporeal, a mental projection, a symbol of power.

JDR, Thursday, 24 March 2011, ‘THE HISTORY OF THE HOBBIT, second edition’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/03/history-of-hobbit-second-edition.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3eln8k9
There will be a second edition of Rateliff's The History of the Hobbit. In that connection, Rateliff issues a call for errata:
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/03/call-for-errata.html

JDR, Friday, 25 March 2011, ‘The New Arrival: Arne Zetterstein’ (sic)
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/03/new-arrival-arne-zetterstein.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3z8nu88
I can't decide if it is only because I am envious that I don't have the books, but sometimes I do wish that bloggers would refrain from merely posting that now they have received (or ordered, even) a new book and wait until they have actually read it. A solid review would be far more useful. I do think that I'll need to get hold of this — in Danish, of course ;)

Andrea Shea (wbur), Friday, 25 March 2011, ‘Middle-Earth Conference Revived After 40 Years’ (sic)
http://www.wbur.org/2011/03/25/middle-earth
There have been some reports on this, the third ‘Conference on Middle-earth’ which follows a mere forty years after the second, and arranged by the same person, Howard Finder, now 72 years old and diagnosed with prostrate cancer.
There is more on this conference on its web-site, http://www.3rdcome.org/ and a more in-depth article that preceded the conference here:
Geoff Edgers (Boston Globe), Thursday, 24 March 2011, ‘At Westford conference, a fellowship of Tolkien fans’
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/03/24/at_westford_conference_a_fellowship_of_tolkien_fans/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/4yyslml

JF, Thursday, 31 March 2011, ‘Conference schedule for CSLIS 14’
http://lingwe.blogspot.com/2011/03/conference-schedule-for-cslis-14.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/4x6nb7f
Even if you are a Tolkien enthusiast with little sympathy for the work of his friend, C.S. Lewis, there is likely to be something of value for you at the conference of the C.S. Lewis and Inklings Society (CSLIS), which was held this weekend. In an ideal world I'd have the time and the money to go to every conference I'd like, and this would be one of them. Now I'll just wait for reports to filter through.

Janet Brennan Croft, Thursday, 31 March 2011, ‘Mythlore 113/114 Table of Contents’
http://www.mythsoc.org/mythlore/113-114/
This issue of Mythlore also promises to be a great read for Tolkien enthusiasts. Essays include investigations of The Battle of Maldon, Pearl and Purgatorio as inspirations for Tolkien, an essay on Tolkien and Wagner (a subject where Wagner-lovers are prone to exaggerate the similarities wildly, and Wagner-haters are prone to emphatically reject even obvious similarities), and one on Túrin and Aragorn's different approaches to fate from Janet Brennan Croft's own hand. On the MythSoc list she has also announced that this issue was sent to the printer on the last day of March.

= = = = Essays and Scholarship = = = =

David Levary, Jean-Pierre Eckmann, Elisha Moses, and Tsvi Tlusty, Friday, 11 March 2011, ‘Self reference in word definitions’
http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.2325
This paper deals with an analysis of a dictionary using network graphs with directed links. The authors investigate only nouns, and link from a word to those words that occur in its definition. This creates a graph that has some interesting characteristics. In particular they found that there was a ‘core’ of 6310 that appear somewhere down the definition chain for nearly all the words in the dictionary. Within this core, they found that it could be decomposed into a number of strongly related components in which there are circular definitions of five or fewer steps. These components were further investigated.

The manner in which we were able to reach the core suggests the somewhat counterintuitive idea that all words are conceptually interconnected. (‘The Decomposition’ p. 3)

Their finding that the graph can be decomposed into a number of strongly connected components that are semantically strongly related, and which are (on average) introduced in English about the same time suggests to me that these semantic components are close to what Barfield was thinking of — one component, one original, un-splintered, semantic concept. That this appears to be the same for words introduced in Old English and the scientific words introduced in the last couple of centuries suggests either than Barfield was wrong in his idea about some primordial language in which these conceptual clusters were contained in one word, or that this primordial language lies so far back in the history of language that the thousand years or so covered in this study is insufficient to show any temporal variation. Finally, from the conclusion:

While the central concept of the loop cannot be directly communicated, we propose that the juxtaposition of the partially defifined elements within the loop allows the receiver to infer the common link among the words, thereby completing the definition of all words in the loop. Such a system is consistent with our finding that words within a loop tend to enter the lexicon at the same time and, if correct, suggests that definitional loops are not simply a mathematical artifact of dictionaries, but rather a key mechanism underlying language evolution. (‘Conclusions’ p. 5-6)

Simone Pompei, Vittorio Loreto, Francesca Tria, Monday, 21 March 2011, ‘On the accuracy of language trees’
http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.4012
It is well-known that Tolkien was a philologist, and that philology is basically a scientific approach to historical lingustics, particularly to the evolution of langauages and the relations between them. This article takes the ‘science’ part a step (or more) further than I think Tolkien would have imagined, using 'state-of-the-art
distance-based methods for phylogeny reconstruction using worldwide linguistic databases' the authors strive to contribute to the field of historical lingustics, the aim of which they state is ‘inferring the most likely language phylogenetic tree starting from information concerning the evolutionary relatedness of languages.’ Combining staticstics and lingustics — how could it be better? ;-)

Daniela Schiller and David Carmel (Scientific American), Tuesday, 22 March 2011, ‘How Free Is Your Will?’
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-free-is-your-will
http://preview.tinyurl.com/4kwkcrp
Over the past few years, the topic of free will and fate has been very popular in Tolkien circles, being the focus of the Tolkien Society Seminar in 2008, papers by Verlyn Flieger and Carl Hostetter in Tolkien Studies vol. VI (2009) and by Thomas Fornet-Posse in vol. VII (2010), of essays in various issues of Mythlore and of countless discussions on the internet. Thus I thought it would be interesting to include an article on some contemporary neurosurgical research that bears on this issue.

Tony DiTerlizzi (Los Angeles Times), Friday, 25 March 2011, ‘'The Hobbit' illustrated by Maurice Sendak? The 1960s masterpiece that could have been’
http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/03/25/the-hobbit-illustrated-by-maurice-sendak-the-1960s-masterpiece-that-could-have-been/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/48lp6uu
Based on the idea that unearthing pieces of the publishing (or in this case, almost-publishing) history of Tolkien's works is also an interesting contribution to Tolkien scholarship. This piece retells one side of the story of an abandoned attempt to get illustrator Maurice Sendak to illustrate an edition of The Hobbit. Here we get Sendak's version filtered through an interviewer in 2004 who has retold it to DiTerlizzi. Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull tell the story slightly differently e.g. in the LotR-Fanatics Plaza:
http://www.lotrplaza.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=240865
See also
JDR, Monday, 28 March 2011, ‘Sendak's HOBBIT’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/03/sendaks-hobbit.html
In which Rateliff summarizes and comments upon the above.

AH, Sunday, 27 March 2011, ‘Turambar and the Foaloke - Etymological Archaeology’
http://wotanselvishmusings.blogspot.com/2011/03/turambar-and-foaloke-etymological.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3klemku
Andy Higgins dives into the possible origins of three names found in a non-erased pencil version underlying a page of Tolkien's early ‘Turambar and the Foalokë’ story. As with Jason Fisher's zestful play with the word-webs surrounding the spiders of Mirkwood, my fascination of words tends to lower my defences — it doesn't matter if Andy is ‘right’ in the sense of actually inferring connections that existed between words in Tolkien's mind (whether conscious or not) — the playing with the words is for me rewarding in and of itself.

‘Trotter’, Wednesday, 30 March 2011, ‘Invented Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien - MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY PDF file’
http://www.tolkienguide.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=1488&forum=7
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3t684qm
Perhaps this is rather ‘olds’, but since I hadn't seen this before, it was news to me ;) Trotter gives a link to a pdf-version of a booklet that is associated with the exhibition ‘The Invented Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien: Drawings and Original Manuscripts from the Marquette University Collection’ which was held at the Haggerty Museum of Art in the end of 2004 and start of 2005. The booklet reproduces a number of Tolkien items from the collections of the Marquette, and also includes Zettersten's essay, ‘The AB Language Lives’.

‘Trotter’, Wednesday, 30 March 2011, ‘Tom Shippey Lecture 23rd March 2011 Cardiff’
http://www.tolkienguide.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=1489&forum=12
http://preview.tinyurl.com/4yobqvy
Links to the first two parts of a recording of the lecture Tom Shippey gave on 23rd March in Cardiff with the title ‘Writing into the Gap: Tolkien's The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun’. I fully share Trotter's hope that UWIC will eventually get the whole lecture on-line. For updates you might follow the YouTube channel associated with Dmitra Fimi's courses at UWIC: http://www.youtube.com/user/TolkienFantasyUWIC

= = = = Reviews = = = =

Perhaps this section would be more appropriately called ‘Book Announcements’, but some of all these books that we see announced must at some point be reviewed as well ;-)

DB, Thursday, 3 March 2011, ‘walleyed criticism’
http://calimac.livejournal.com/508355.html
This is not an example of damning with faint praise — Bratman calls it a ‘calimac Demolition Special’, and goes on to point out inconsistencies in the book. The name of the book or the author is not revealed, but clearly others do know — one comment claims this ‘possibly the worst — and certainly the worst written — piece of Inklings criticism’ the commenter has ever seen. The greates value of reviews, in my opinion, is that they help us prioritize the books we'd like to get, or, in this case, not get.

Emily A. Moniz, Mythlore 111/112, Thursday, 3 February 2011, ‘Middle-earth Minstrel’
http://www.mythsoc.org/reviews/middle-earth-minstrel-moniz/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/4r8qj2m
The Mythlore review of Bradford Lee Eden's (ed.) book, Middle-earth Minstrel has now appeared on-line. Moniz is quite positive, and I look forward to finding the time to take this book down from my shelf.

PC, Tuesday, 8 March 2011, ‘A Tolkien Tapestry: Pictures to accompany The Lord of the Rings’
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/991-A_Tolkien_Tapestry.php
http://preview.tinyurl.com/49u7uj9
Pieter Collier of the Tolkien Library site has made a book on Cor Blok's illustrations of Tolkien's work. I am myself not very visually minded, preferring the printed word to an illustration, and as such I am, as Tolkien described himself, a ‘man of limited sympathies (but well aware of it)’ and the work of Cor Blok lies ‘almost completely outside them’ as Charles Williams' work did of Tolkien's. However, I suspect that if Pieter's book accompanies Blok's pictures with some attempt to analyse and criticize them as narrative figurative art, then this might help bring them inside my sympathies.

JDR, Thursday, 10 March 2011, ‘Hillard's MIRKWOOD (spoilers)’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/03/hillards-mirkwood-spoilers.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/68zezxc
John Rateliff has managed to get through Hillard's book, and doesn't recommend it. Rateliff also offers another theory for why the Estate may have issued a cease-and-desist order against this book (see also the section on news in the February issue of the Transactions for more on the legal issue) — and no, it is not just because it is a very bad book, which it apparently is.

TF, Saturday, 12 March 2011, ‘Mythlore issue 111/112’
http://parmarkenta.blogspot.com/2011/03/mythlore-issue-111112.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6736xmx
A review of the seven Tolkien-related essays in the autumn 2010 issue of Mythlore. Most of the essays are excellent and all of them contain something worth reading, though the density of the ‘worth reading’ stuff does vary somewhat :-)

JDR, Wednesday, 9 March 2011, ‘THE HOBBIT (Children's Play)’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/03/hobbit-childrens-play.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/44qksd3
A review of a children's play based on The Hobbit. Rateliff doesn't say if it is the case for himself, but I like to think that I'd be inclined to hold a children's play to a less exacting standard than a Hollywood production. Rateliff certainly seems to have enjoyed himself.

Brian Warmoth, Thursday, 24 March 2011, ‘Sam Bosma's ‘Hobbit’ Illustrations Are Nothing Short of Awesome [Art]’
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/03/24/sam-bosma-hobbit-art/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/4cg7vqs
Praise for Sam Bosma's Hobbit illustrations. I might not go quite as far in my praise of Sam Bosma's illustrations in general, but I do think they are very good, and my appreciation of his Hobbit illustrations is of course coloured by my knowledge of this work, and my familiarity with the author's own illustrations of his story. However, even though I think that some of the illustrations don't work for the story, I still find that there is generally something interesting in the illustration as a commont to Tolkien's story (more than as an illustration of it). A good example of this is his goblins.

= = = = Other Stuff = = = =

Leo Grin, Big Hollywood, Saturday, 5 March 2011, ‘Eucatastrophe: The Ennobling Fantasy of J.R.R. Tolkien Part 3’
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/lgrin/2011/03/05/catastrophe-vs-eucatastrophe-the-ennobling-fantasy-of-j-r-r-tolkien-part-3/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/4tbnj8m
In this third installment Leo Grin works his way to to Tolkien's concept of Eucatastrophe, ending up concluding that ‘Eucatastrophe is revealed truth on a biblical scale’. As earlier the treatment is perceptive and essentially correct, and the conservatism of the web-site is not intrusive. Leo Grin's series is still a good choice for an introduction to Tolkien criticism.
Leo Grin, Saturday, 12 March 2011, ‘Bored with the Good: The Ennobling Fantasy of J.R.R. Tolkien Part 4’
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/lgrin/2011/03/12/bored-with-the-good-the-ennobling-fantasy-of-j-r-r-tolkien-part-4/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6ye9ng7
Leo Grin continues his series aimed at an American Christians and political conservatives. This time the political agenda shines through far more clearly than in the previous installments, which detracts considerably from the quality. Skip this if you're likely to get upset over fools trying to twist Tolkien's work to support their own political agenda --something I generally find utterly foolish regardless of what that political agenda might be. There might be an interesting discussion in what Tolkien's actual political views were — and perhaps even to what extent his views on the ideal society can at all be called political.

BC, Sunday, 6 March 2011, ‘Do orcs deserve mercy?’
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/03/do-orcs-deserve-mercy.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5vveus9
Well, do they? Prior to The Lord of the Rings (and, in my opinion, far into the writing of LotR) Orcs were actually demonic: spawned in subterranean slime and with hearts of stone. At some point while writing LotR, Tolkien appears to have had a change of mind (one of many) and decided that Orcs were corrupted Children of Ilúvatar. This would later be the cause of much speculation as evidenced in the texts in ‘Myths Transformed’ (part five of Morgoth's Ring). But what if they were still demons? Would that solve the ethical problems without logical inconsistencies?

DB, Monday, 21 March 2011, ‘a classification of Tolkien scholars’
http://calimac.livejournal.com/512415.html
Heh! Heh! ;-)

= = = = Rewarding Discussions = = = =

JDR, Wednesday, 23 March 2011, ‘Harold Bloom disses Tolkien — again’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/03/harold-bloom-disses-tolkien-again.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3pc2rq3
The interesting point here is not so much that Harold Bloom dislikes Tolkien: that is neither new or controversial, and he is of course perfectly entitled to his prejudices (and I am certain that he is completely indifferent to my disagreement with one or more of them). The interesting part is the ensuing discussion in the comments. This ranges from discussing the concept of ‘canon’ (as in Bloom's book The Western Canon) and longevity as an important aspect in that, to a discussion on the weight of new and old in academic curricula. Quite interesting even for a physicist.

= = = = In Print = = = =

Amon Hen no. 228, March 2011

‘Along the Road’
A progress report from the Return of the Ring: the great Tolkien Society conference next year in Loughborough. Among other news they announce three special guests that are confirmed, Ted Nasmith, Jef Murray and Corey Olsen. Much as I delight in the artwork of Nasmith and Murray, and enjoy Olsen's podcasts (I am looking very much forward to meeting him), I hope that we'll have the pleasure of even more of the recognized Tolkien scholars.

David Doerr, ‘Regarding the Importance of the Date March 25th in J.R.R. Tolkien's Literature’
A fine little overview of the date of the Annunciation, its use in Tolkien's work and its various real-world references. We know that Tolkien chose this date deliberately and carefully, and so one might suspect a bit of typological intention on Tolkien's part.

Mark Bednarowski, ‘Plight of the Dwarves’
An overview history of the history of Durin's folk in the Third Age until Thorin's company set out one morning in the 2941st year of the Third Age. It's a good little overview that Bednarowski has put together, and I have only a couple of very minor quibs: it is very nearly certain that the Seven were not originally ‘made for the Dwarves’ regardless of whether Durin was given the first of them directly by the Mirdain as believed by the Dwarves themselves (and by me); it is possible that the Ring had some influence on Thrór's decision to wander out alone with only Nár as his companion, but in that case it must have been an indirect influence since the Dwarves were not dominated by their Rings; and finally I could have wished that Bednarowski had commented on the remarkable oversight on Gandalf's part when he relates how ‘[n]early a century will pass before Gandalf will realize the full significance of what he obtained from a pitiful old Dwarf locked in the pits of Dol Guldur’ when he has already explained how Gandalf had been searching for Thrain in Moria just five years prior to finding him in Dol Guldur.

Michel Bouchard, ‘Studying Tolkien . . . in Quebec!’
A very nice story from a student who defied custom and braved mockery to do his Master ‘s thesis on Tolkien — studying 'the lives of Frodo, Sam and Gollum using Silvio Fanti's work on micropsychoanalysis to help [him] understand the power of the One Ring over the mind if its bearers.’ If Bouchard's thesis can be written in a style similar to this piece, there is no doubt that he could successfully publish it (beyond the one copy that is now sitting in the university library).

Ruth Lacon, ‘The 2011 Tolkien Calendar’
Kudos and accolades for this excellent review, which balances nicely between respect for the artist and his vision and criticism when he doesn't achieve it. As Lacon puts it, ‘once an artist gets one full Tolkien calendar, we often see more of their work, so learning how to judge Cor Block's art now may well be useful in future.’ Given that she must have been writing this prior to Pieter Collier's announcement of his book on Cor Blok's art, I find that statement remarkably foresighted. She does go on to introduce the reader to just that — accepting Blok's stylistic choice from the outset, she criticises each month's picture on its own merits. I particularly love the first two sentences of the comments for July: ‘It might seem very odd to criticise Cor Blok on grounds of artistic timidity, but this one I feel driven to. If you're going to deny Renaissance realistic perspective, don't shilly-shally — go the whole way.’ Anyone having problems extending their sympathies to encompass Cor Blok's work (which includes myself) should read Ruth Lacon's review, not to have their prejudices confirmed, but to have them challenged in an intelligent manner.

Mythprint vol. 48 no. 3, March 2011, Whole no. 344

Berni Phillips Bratman, ‘Pardon Me, Is That an E-Reader You Have?’
Berni Bratman has been trying an e-reader herself and has been gathering responses from other ‘mythies’ who also use various e-readers, all of which experiences she has gathered into this article on e-readers. Personally I am still holding out — not because I don't want to use an e-reader, but because I want the e-books I buy to be available on my phone and my PC as well as on a dedicated reader. I suspect that when the market mature we will see a consolidation of one or two formats (I'm old enough to remember the old Betamax vs. Video-disc vs. VHS competition for the early video market), and at that point I think it will be easier to have support for the same format on all devices.

Larry Swain, ‘Elizabeth Solopova. _Languages, Myths and Histo-ry: An Introduction to the Linguistic and Literary Background of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Fiction_’
Larry reviews this book written particularly for ‘the under-graduate literature course in Tolkien’, commenting on strengths (particularly the treatment of Gothic and Finnish influences on Tolkien's work) and weaknesses (particularly the lacking treatment of Tolkien's work in Middle English and of Greek and Latin influences), and ends by recommending this book ‘even for the experienced Tolkien fan and scholar.’

Travis Buchanan, ‘Gospel Echoes in Fantastic Fiction’
In this two-part essay (the first part was printed in the previous issue of Mythlore, whole no. 343), Travis Buchanan investigates Tolkien's description of the components of Fairy-stories, fantasy, recovery, escape and consolation. Having started (in part 1) by asking into the reasons for the popularity of fantasy fiction, Buchanan concludes (in part 2) that this ‘engrossing and enduring appeal’ can, in part, be understood through the lens of Tolkien's discussion, as an echo of the Gospels: ‘through the fantastic, subcreative worlds of a Tolkien or a Lewis, even a J.K. Rowling or a Stephenie Meyer, primary truth may not only be tasted, but the voice of Ultimate Truth Himself overheard, even if only in echo.’ Personally I would have preferred to see an attempt to relate this ‘engrossing and enduring appeal’ of the fairy-story to Tolkien's discussion without having to resort either to being only valid for Christians (are the fairy-stories of other, non-christian, cultures fundamentally different in kind or popularity?) or to a mystical influence (non-Christians perceiving a Truth that is revealed only in the Christian Gospels). But more on this later, I think.

= = = = Web Sites = = = =

I will try to present a couple of sites every month — if I've found a new site (of any kind, but with a Tolkien connection) that I have found interesting, then I will add that, and then I'll throw in some oldies to keep things rolling ;-)

The FAQ of the Rings
http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm
First one more of the sites related to the Tolkien newsgroups: Stan Brown's FAQ of the Rings, which I have used nearly as much as I have Steuard's more general FAQ. For questions regarding the Rings of Power, I know of no better on-line resource. Overall the AFT / RABT FAQs should be commended also for providing thorough references to Tolkien's work — something which all too many, even of the most popular encyclopedic sites, sadly fails to do.

The Lord of the Rings Fanatics Plaza
http://www.lotrplaza.com/
The LotR Plaza offers many interesting discussions for Tolkien lovers. Having but recently discovered this forum, I can attest to the kindness of the welcome. As so many other web-boards, this one doesn't really offer threading beyond what has been, by old-time usenet regulars, been called the ‘toilet-roll’ model. On the other hand, the options for formatting the text (using tables, font changes, font colours, indenting, italicization etc.) are much greater than on usenet, which allows for some other possibilities. In the end, I think that formatting is at most half the story — the most important thing is the posters, and at the LotR Plaza you will find many very knowledgeable posters contributing in a warm and welcoming atmosphere.

Slam Blogsma
http://sambosma.blogspot.com/
Sam Bosma's blog. Inspired by the review referred to above, I sought out some more of Sam Bosma's work and stumbled across his blog where he has posted about his work on The Hobbit. Whether or no you actually like his final illustrations, his dicussions of their genesis are, I think, interesting in and of themselves.

= = = = Sources = = = =

John D. Rateliff (JDR) — ‘Sacnoth's Scriptorium’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com

Jason Fisher (JF) — ‘Lingwë — Musings of a Fish’
http://lingwe.blogspot.com

Michael Drout (MD) — ‘Wormtalk and Slugspeak’
http://wormtalk.blogspot.com/

Wayne G. Hammond & Christina Scull (H&S) — ‘Too Many Books and Never Enough’
http://wayneandchristina.wordpress.com/

Pieter Collier (PC) — ‘The Tolkien Library’
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/

Douglas A. Anderson (DAA) et Al. — ‘Wormwoodiana’
http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com

Corey Olsen (CO), ‘The Tolkien Professor’
http://www.tolkienprofessor.com

David Bratman (DB), ‘Calimac’
http://calimac.livejournal.com/

Larry Swain (LS), ‘The Ruminate’
http://theruminate.blogspot.com

‘Wellinghall’, ‘Musings of an Aging Fan’
http://wellinghall.livejournal.com

Various, ‘The Northeast Tolkien Society’ (NETS), ‘Heren Istarion’
http://herenistarionnets.blogspot.com

Bruce Charlton (BC), ‘Tolkien's The Notion Club Papers’
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/

Andrew Higgins (AH), ‘Wotan's Musings’
http://wotanselvishmusings.blogspot.com

Various, The Mythopoeic Society
http://www.mythsoc.org

Troels Forchhammer (TF), ‘Parmar-kenta’
http://parmarkenta.blogspot.com

Mythprint — ‘The Monthly Bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society’
http://www.mythsoc.org

Amon Hen — the Bulletin of the Tolkien Society
http://www.tolkiensociety.org/

- and others


You can find the earlier editions at the Tolkien Transactions page at Parmar-kenta:
http://parmarkenta.blogspot.com/p/tolkien-transactions.html

--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or ‘Tolkien’ in subject.

And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left
the path of wisdom.
- Gandalf, /The Fellowship of the Ring/ (J.R.R. Tolkien)