We just ran across this video this morning and thought we’d share! Musician Colin Rudd released ‘Songs of J.R.R. Tolkien’ back in 2001, and included on that release is a pretty impressive rendition of the ‘Lament for Boromir.’ We’re embedding the video below for your viewing pleasure. You can also click on the link to view all of Colin’s Tolkien related videos. [YouTube]
Category: Miscellaneous
Ringer Rachel emailed…
Hi! My friend Melissa, whose family introduced me to all things Tolkien, made a birthday cake for her 14 year old brother Jonathan. He requested that it be the Rohan Longhouse on top of Edoras. Melissa is not formally trained as a cake artist & I think she did an awesome job! Thanks! ~Rachel
Rachel, we agree! We’ve seen some impressive creations in our 10 years online, and this one definitely takes the…err…cake? Jonathan has a great Mom! Click on the image to see a larger version.
If you happened to be trolling around Flickr recently, you may have run across this image of a ship named ‘Loth Lorien’ from photographer Henry Oude Egberink. According to to the description:
With 42 m length LOTH LORIEN belongs more to the smaller ships. As J.R. TOLKIEN she was restored by Jaap van der Rest; the ship now can take up to 34 trainees. LOTH LORIEN is sailing usually in the North and Baltic Sea. She offers trips for single bookers and is available for complete charter and events.
Check out the full image in Henry’s Flickr Gallery. [Click here]
Rutland Herald’s retired editor Kendall Wild has written an interesting opinion piece on the parallels between ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and the ‘Count of Monte Cristo’ by Alexandre Dumas. Here’s an excerpt:
There is an odd similarity between the “Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien and the “Count of Monte Cristo” by the senior Alexandre Dumas. The characters and places have different names, but the overall framework of each is very much alike.The central theme of both novels, of course, is a quest. Frodo’s quest (often capitalized as “Quest”) is to carry the evil ring of Sauron to the volcanic fire of Mount Doom and destroy it, thus destroying Sauron.The quest of Edmond Dantes, in the Dumas novel, is to exact revenge on the people who falsely imprisoned him, stole his girlfriend, and caused his father to starve to death.
You can read the full article at the Rutland Herald website. [Read More]
So you think you’re a geek? Associate physics professor Rhett Allain recently posted an entertaining analysis of the speed and distance of the lighting of the Beacons of Gondor in his dotphysics blog. Even if mathematical equations make you cross-eyed, his tongue-in-cheek logic still makes it an entertaining read:
“The Lord of the Rings trilogy came on TV again recently. My wife and I can’t help but to watch this even though we have it on DVD. Anyway, I was thinking about the part where Gondor sends a signal to Rohan asking them for military aid. Since this was before the invention of email, they had to do it with a signal fire.”
Hint: also read the comments at the end of his blog entry: lots of geeky Tolkien goodness. Thanks to Finding Frodo for bringing this to our attention by posting about it on our message boards.
Did you know Professor Tolkien worked on the staff of the Oxford University Press (makers of the OED – Oxfrod English Dictionary) from 1919 to 1920? He worked in the ‘W’ range, discovering the meaning of words from ‘waggle’ to ‘warlock.’ (See a wonderful article on Tolkien’s involvement with the OED here)
We bring this up because millions of ‘non words’ have been discovered in a secret vault owned by the Oxford University Press. A graphic design student, Luke Ngakane, discovered hundreds of these words in his research and used them in one of his design projects. It makes for an interesting article that we thought we’d share with you! Enjoy! [Read More]