And checked in with this great little report about the ‘Tolkien Weekend’ that went down on the 13th and 14th of May.
Dear X
Hope you find this of interest…
On 13th May there was a Tolkien weekend at Sarehole Mill in Birmingham. This is the mill that Tolkien referred to in his forward to LOTR.
It was in this suburb of Birmingham that JRRT spent part of his childhood, and in this idyllic rural setting gained inspiration for the setting of the Shire in his novels. With the development of the railways and the expansion of Birmingham as an industrial centre much of the rural landscape was lost. It has been suggested that this was a theme reflected in the Scouring of the Shire in LOTR.
Tolkien says in the final paragraph of his foreward “I recently saw in a paper a picture of the last decrepitude of the once thriving corn-mill beside its pool that long ago seemed to me so important.”
Fortunately since Tolkien wrote those words, the mill in question has been restored and is now a working museum. See picture. At the Tolkien weekend, there were members of the Tolkien society, drawings from local schoolchildren, craft exhibitions, booksales and dramatic readings from the Hobbit. Also not far from the mill is a wood that was the inspirartion for the Old Forest. I think I found the right place and took a photo, even though it doesn’t look very foreboding…
Cheers
Andy Cooper
The Sarehole Mill Museum and Tolkien’s ‘Old Forest’
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Yes, I know it’s been a while, but things have finally started to calm down and I’ve managed to get some writing done! Here it is! ‘Farewell to Lorien’! [More]
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At the moment, TheOneRing.net is sponsoring two causes with the income from those little ad banners you see at the top of most of our pages…[full report]
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At the moment, TheOneRing.net is sponsoring two causes with the income from those little ad banners you see at the top of most of our pages. One of them is book-related, the Duffy ‘Books in Homes‘ scheme, and the other is environmental, being a part of the Worldwide Fund for Nature’s campaign to protect endangered marine species.
A few weeks ago the school we sponsor, Runanga, got the free books the children there had picked out. The school principal wrote:
“What a fantastic day…our children received their books. It was fantastic. We had Graeme Thorne, the ex-All Black, as our Role model. We also had the paper here so hopefully we will have some publicity.”
The Duffy programme gets famous people, usually sports stars, to come and be Role Models and tell kids that reading is a cool thing to do. In New Zealand, the All Blacks are like, well, think of whatever the most famous sportsteam is in your country, that’s what the All Blacks are here. They wear the famous black jersey, hence the name.
“Thanks again for the fantastic sponsorship. We are so grateful to you and your friends.
Regards
Joy”
Our second charity, the Worldwide Fund for Nature, is using our donation to help with their Marine Environment Campaign, and they sent this recently:
“…I would just like to let you know that with regard to the marine environment we are continuing our important work with the North Island Hector’s Dolphin, the world’s smallest and rarest marine mammal (there are thought to be only approximately 100 left). We are planning to expand the work to include hands-on recovery programmes which will include community participation and leading edge science. Once the details are finalised I will fill you in on the proposal, we are planning to use the support from TheOneRing.net to assist with this project.”
So, that’s the latest news from our sponsorship programme.
– Tehanu
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Tehanu brings us this report on a recent article in the Dominion newspaper concerning the animal cruelity allegations. [more]
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Tehanu brings us this report:
![\[ Click for larger view \]](http://img-www.theonering.net/images/052500_shadowfax_sm.jpg)
One of the disadvantages of being an LOTR website that actually has a base in NZ is that we can’t post anything from the local papers and magazines without their permission and expect to get away with it. Luckily the Dominion is the only print journal that dislikes seeing its articles reproduced on the Net, so I’ll paraphrase their article of last Tuesday.
What interested me was the information that various allegations of cruelty to animals have been posted on the Net concerning horses on the LOTR set. “Every report is posted on the internet and is judged by the world,” according to the Dominion. I’d love to know more about that; it’s news to me. Is there some “LOTR Film Sucks and is Doomed to Fail (because it’s Evil)” website out there?
The allegations are that a horse was so badly injured that it had to be put down; that the film company dyed horses white with toxic peroxide; that a block and tackle was used to knock horses to their knees. One horse supposedly broke its back in a trick, another was put down after falling from a wharf, and another shot for a hide to cover Liv’s barrel-shaped ‘riding contraption.’
This sort of talk had the Ministry of Agriculture and the International League for the Protection of Horses worried enough that they came and inspected the way the animals were being treated. They had no concerns regarding what they found.
The rumours also worried the film company enough that they invited The Dominion’s reporter Alan Samson out to the Te Horo stables so he could see for himself. (Maybe this is a great idea – I’ll spread rumours of terrible demeaning cruelty to short people on the LOTR set and see if that gets me an interview with the hobbit doubles!)
Samson got to watch animal trainer Dan Reynolds making Shadowfax rear on command. Moments afterwards, according to the report, the horse “nuzzled his boss affectionately.”
The head wrangler, Dave Johnson, said the rumours seemed to be blown up from real but innocuous incidents. There was a lack of available white horses in NZ and the film crew had briefly worked with the idea of lightening a horse’s colour using human hair-dye, not peroxide, but the substance was ineffective. One of the Ringwraith horses had slipped when it was being unloaded onto a wharf, but it was given antibiotics and recovered.
A horse had died of colic, another of a heart attack – both regarded as natural causes of death. Among 70 horses, they had merely the normal kinds of injuries such as strained tendons and puffy joints, according to LOTR vet Ray Lanagan, who testified that the horses were well-treated and subject to less strain than, say, race-horses.
“If horses could talk, they’d say they were pretty happy about what they’ve got here,” said Lanagan.
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