A story we posted a while back has recently resurfaced, and as we’re all thinking about dragons right now, it seemed worthy of a repeat visit! Forbes published a ‘rich list’ of fictional characters, and our favourite dragon, Smaug, comes out on top. Not surprising really; I’m not sure how they arrived at their figures, but $62 billion seems like a fair sum for the wealth of Erebor. Forbes suggest, however, that much of Smaug’s vast hoard comes from his work in movies and the excellent deal he negotiated to appear in The Hobbit movies! Check out the whole fictional rich list here; thanks to Ringer Eledium for the heads up!
Category: Hobbit Book
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here is a buzz in Tolkiendom right now about a gold ring dating from Roman times, which may have given Tolkien a seed of an idea for his own ‘One Ring’. The ancient ring, found in 1785 in a field which was a Roman archaeological site in Silchester, Hampshire, UK, was associated with a ‘curse tablet’, cursing the man whom the original owner accused of stealing the gold trinket. Archeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler, investigating the wording of the curse, consulted with Tolkien about the ring in 1929; and that conversation may have been part of Tolkien’s inspiration to create his own magic ring.
The Roman artifact is now being shown in a new display at National Trust property The Vyne, also in Hampshire. The display includes a first edition of The Hobbit, and was arranged with the help of the Tolkien Trust. You can read more about this fascinating item, including an excellent explanation of the associated curse, in this article from the Guardian newspaper, here. Further articles can be found here and here.
Thanks to all who wrote in to tell us about this one ring!
Middle-earth March Madness round 2 ends at 10pmET tonight, so get your votes in. [Vote] [Round 2 Bracket]
Here is how Round 2 is shaping up right now…
The Shire Division
(8) Huan is being handed his walking papers by (1) Galadriel, while the most powerful of the Ainur (4) Morgoth has a solid lead over the eldest ent (5) Treebeard. (6) Luthien seems poised to take down (3) Bilbo Baggins. But the closest story in this round appears to be the match between the Mirkwood Elvenking (7) Thranduil with a slim lead over the head of the White Council (2) Saruman.
The Erebor Division
The current Cinderella seed (16) Pippin is soundly beating ‘Hot Dwarf’ (9) Fili, can the Heir of Durin put in a late push? Last year’s champ (12) Samwise Gamgee is facing an uphill battle with (4) Beren. The owner of the Last Homely Home, (6) Elrond, is currently leading against (14) Eowyn, unless she can get some support from other Warrior Women. Can she make to the Sweet 16, possibly against Aragorn!? Speaking of (7) Aragorn, he is soundly trouncing the windlord (2) Gwaihir.
The Mordor Division
(9) Gil-galad, the high kind of Noldor, seems destined to lose to the number one seed (1) Smaug. The Dark Lord (4) Sauron is handily beating his dwarven opponent (5) Dain Ironfoot. (11) Fingolfin has a slim lead over (3) Thorin Oakenshield, where is his ARmy? (2) Beorn seems ready to send (7) Shelob packing. If things keep going this way, we could have Smaug and Sauron in the Sweet 16.
The Angmar Division
Not quite a fair battle, but (1) The One Ring seems ready to abandon (8) Frodo Baggins. The Eldar King (12) Manwe, has a very solid lead over a descendant of Girion in (4) Bard the Bowman. Some call him ‘creepy’ and ‘sneaky’ (3) Gollum, but he’s got a lead over the imposing dwarf (6) Dwalin. And last but not least, (10) Merry seems rather outranked and outclassed by (2) Gandalf the Grey.
Voting continues until tonight at 10pm ET. [Vote Now!]
The countdown, how exciting!
- Live Stream starts now… with Jed Brophy at the Post Production house
- Peter is reading the newspaper
- spoiler alert, it’s great weather on Monday
- Cricket scores shared for the English fans
- Motion capture stage visited, with Azog and another Orc, more fighting with the orcs, including orc archery
- Dam Busters, someone should remake it so Jed can be in it.
- James Bond walk of fame is rather cool
- Pre-vis department, Pre-visualisation (animated sequences)
- I see Smaug poster
- Rather comic version of Smaug on a computer screen (psych)
- the T-Rex with wings look a bit like Pete’s Dragon
- Rivendell library is rather cool looking, even if never used
- Jed loves Goldfinger
- And then we enter the Editing room with Jabez Olssen
- One Million years B.C was the poster over PJ’s bed as a kid
- Now to see editing happening
- Bard is taking the Dwarves and their barrels across the river, in a boat.
- Bilbo – I should never come along, we have a saying in the Shire “never venture east”.
- He seems rather miserable
- “I should never have left Bagend. We have a saying in the Shire, we learn it from birth, Never Venture East.”
- Peter and Jed agree that Aidan is one of the Hot Dwarves (Lisa)
- Jed looks very waterlogged
- We get the final cut – and it’s Bard saying “So Master Hobbit, why did you venture East?”
- Yeah Luke, sends a little message to say hello to the fans. The One Ringer, that’s us!
- Jed teases that Bard is out of the film but Peter says that Bard is one of the cool things about the next film
- Here come the video questions.
- Chris asks about problems with a middle film?
- PJ answers – middle films are complicated, but with multiple story lines different character arcs and plot lines take over.
- Thranduil on his throne, awesome.
- elf troop, with Legolas and Tauriel, fighting orcs
- Laketown and the Master looking smarmy, and his manservant looks a bit like Grima.
- Stephen Fry says he’s taking over from Orlando as the most desirable man in the films
- Stephen sends a video, and mentions that England is decimating NZ in Cricket
- Chinese girls ask questions about Legolas and Orlando and why he was cast and whether or not he’s similar to his Elf
- Orlando sends a video to ask PJ a question – he wants to know what image he is most excited to see onscreen.
- PJ says fans are most excited to see Smaug and Bilbo together and so is he.
- Stephen’s video has been running in the background because he’s so wordy, but he says he has no idea if he’s in the last film
- Marina in Canada – asks about new characters
- PJ answers – Thranduil, Bard (part of the family now), They’ve made Bard like Robin Hood, is he good or bad. And of course, Tauriel is new, a new creation. Yay for her costume, finally getting to really see it.
- Tauriel wears a leather
- Brazilian kids asking questions, call it LOTR and pronounce it as a word
- The kids ask about PJ’s favorite weapons, theirs is Gimli’s and Gloin’s axe.
- PJ loves Theoden’s sword, with the horse motifs.
- And back to London and Stephen Fry’s video still running 😉
- PJ was punishing Stephen about his comments about the NZ Cricket team
- Twitter question about how difficult it is to stay on track or schedule
- They mention the Flood in Nelson as one thing that messed up shooting
- Surprise question with from Stephen Colbert – asks about the Sindar Elves and the Avari elves? PJ says yes about the Elves
- So PJ rags on Stephen Colbert about two different sizes of mugs on his show, and how the quality of the printing on the mugs is poor quality
- Twitter question – does he edit barefoot? Yes, he can be barefoot.
- Lee Pace, woohoo, looking rather fab, as usual. Lee is looking forward to seeing the animosity of Dwarves and Elves in his own halls.
- Twitter question – would Jed like to inflict any dwarf torture on PJ?
- Jed says maybe, but has to say no because he wants to continue to work with him.
- Great story about the Dwarves on the spit, and how Mark Hadlow got sick and asked to take a break and no one heard him. Poor thing
- Billy Boyd sends a video question – In FOTR, they went as far as the Misty Mountains, but he knows in The Hobbit they go further East. Billy wants to know about any new Wildlands.
- PJ answers about Mirkwood, and shows artwork the darkness and foreboding nature of Mirkwood. Misty and mirky and hard to walk through, to be sure.
- Evangeline sends a question – What will Thranduil’s realm be like?
- PJ mentions that Green Screens is why she does not know what the realm looks like. The artwork shows a bridge over a raging river to a structure like Rivendell, but inside the forest. The realm looks like Rivendell and Lorien mixed together, but underground.
- Dom Monaghan asks a question, he is holding the camera himself.
- What is the best PJ rumor you’ve heard that is not true?
- What are you happiest about in transferring book to film?
- PJ answers about the craziest rumor – people asked him if he was going to move his family to a ship off the coast to avoid paying Taxes. He gets too seasick to do that.
- Twitter question – will the Necromancer play a bigger part, and PJ says yes and nothing else.
- Here comes a look at the movie, but the Trailer is not ready yet.
- PJ says that Gandalf goes to see the tombs of the Witch-king
- Gandalf in a cavern, showing a dark doorway that appears to be blown open from within. He then goes inside, and sees a bird flies out of broken stonework, and then sees Radagast. The Nine tombs were broken open from the inside.
- The vlogs will be starting up again, even though this is very much like one.
- Sequence of action from throughout the film concluding with ‘We are the Dwarves of Erebor, we have come to reclaim our homeland’
- Ran for about 55 minutes
Remember, if you missed the Peter Jackson hosted first look at “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” or just want to watch it over again, a modified version will be archived on the Trilogy’s official website www.thehobbit.com/sneak. To access the footage, use your UltraViolet code on your copy “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” Blu-ray Combo Pack, Blu-ray 3D Combo Pack or 2-Disc Special Edition DVD.
Also, be sure to stay tuned to TheOneRing.net for a detailed analysis. Coming soon!
The review copy of Hobbitus Ille by Mark Walker is a beautifully presented hardcover edition with art and interior maps in the style of early English copies and is provided by Harper Collins.
Walker has taken up a very brave challenge in providing us with the first Latin translation of Tolkien’s The Hobbit. His intent was to provide as direct a translation of Tolkien’s own words as possible and the end result is a complete and unabridged volume where even the poetry is in Latin. This direct translation is not the hallmark of the best translations, nor is it the Classical Latin of Caesar and Cicero. Continue reading “Reviewed: Hobbitus Ille”
The first official Tolkien Reading Day was held on March 25, 2003. A New York journalist was wondering if there was such a thing as Tolkien Reading Day and asked the Tolkien Society about this in 2002. It was decided that there should be a Tolkien Reading day, and then the only debate was ‘when’ should it be held? Please go to the Tolkien Society’s official page for Tolkien Reading Day to find out just how and why March 25th was chosen.
You will also see some very helpful tips on what types of activities can be done to celebrate Tolkien Reading Day, from discussions about common themes or settings, to fun games to engage children with. Tolkien Reading Day can be held at a home, a school, a library or a bookstore or you can even take it outside, maybe at a picnic and add a meal to the event. And while the Middle-earth stories tend to be the more popular at a Tolkien Reading Day event, his other works, such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Letters from Father Christmas or Roverandam can be just as enchanting.
The theme for this year is Landscapes, a subject that Tolkien was particularly adept at envisioning and describing in wonderful detail. Middle-earth must have had very successful travel agents, how many times have you wondered what it would be like to visit some of the realms described?
Tolkien Forever, the Tolkien Smial in Southern California, will be hosting an event this Saturday, March 23. True, it is not the correct day, but a Saturday works better for drawing more people to the event in the ever busy Megalopolis that is So Cal. For those in the Los Angeles area, stop by their Facebook event page for details.
If you have a Tolkien Reading Day event happening in your area, please let us know the details so we can post it and let others know where they can go in an area near them. You can drop a line to Spymaster@TheOneRing.net.