As excitement for the release of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug builds, there are all kinds of goodies coming out to go along with the movie, including some fabulous movie tie in books, as well as some new editions of The Hobbit itself.  Our good friends at Harper Collins, publishers for all things Tolkien in Europe, have given us some amazing sets of NINE (well, actually 12, as one is a box set of four!) books to give away to four lucky readers!  The winners will receive:

Annual 2014

 

 

The 2014 Hobbit Annual

 

 

Movie Storybook

 

 

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Movie Storybook

 

 

Official Movie Guide

 

 

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Official Movie Guide

 

 

Ultimate Sticker Book

 

 

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Ultimate Sticker Book

 

 

Visual Companion

 

 

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Visual Companion

 

 

box set

 

 

A box set of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings paperback editions with movie tie in covers

 

 

Pocket Hobbit

 

 

Pocket Hobbit – a mini, hardback edition of the book!

 

 

The Hobbit

 

 

A new paperback edition of The Hobbit with Desolation of Smaug movie tie in cover

 

 

Chronicles Art and Design

 

 

 

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Chronicles – Art and Design from WETA

 

All of these books could be yours!  And because we love our readers everywhere, this competition is open worldwide.  All you have to do to win, wherever you are in the world, is answer one simple question and complete the form below.  The competition runs until the opening of the movie, on December 13th; after which we’ll pick four winners at random, from all the correct entries.
Continue reading “Harper Collins competition – win a complete set of new Hobbit publications”

TORn Amateur SymposiumWelcome to our collection of TORn’s hottest topics for the past week.  If you’ve fallen behind on what’s happening on the Message Boards, here’s a great way to catch the highlights.  Or if you’re new to TORn and want to enjoy some great conversations, just follow the links to some of our most popular discussions.  Watch this space as every weekend we will spotlight the most popular buzz on TORn’s Message Boards.  Everyone is welcome, so come on in and join the fun!

Continue reading “TORn Message Boards Weekly Roundup – November 10, 2013”

happy hobbit dairy and swine Join Fili and Eowyn on the outskirts of Rohan to learn more about what it takes to raise your own swine and dairy livestock.

Find out a delicious way to make cheese while getting a glimpse into how Tolkien has aided and influenced one U.S. soldier’s life. And of course, be prepared for many Hobbity farm shenanigans by both people and animals! Continue reading “Happy Hobbit: Swine and Dairy Goats – Episode 29”

beowulf.large The opening line ‘Listen!’ is not a proclamation and should not have an exclamation mark, according to new research by an academic at the University of Manchester.


It is perhaps the most important word in one of the greatest and most famous sentences in the history of the English language.

Yet for more than two centuries “hwæt” has been misrepresented as an attention-grabbing latter-day “yo!” designed to capture the interest of its intended Anglo-Saxon audience urging them to sit down and listen up to the exploits of the heroic monster-slayer Beowulf.

According to an academic at the University of Manchester, however, the accepted definition of the opening line of the epic poem – including the most recent translation by the late Seamus Heaney – has been subtly wide of the mark. Continue reading “Listen! Beowulf opening line misinterpreted for 200 years?”

If you have a Tolkien/Middle-earth inspired poem you’d like to share, then send it to poetry@theonering.net. One poem per person may be submitted each month. Please make sure to proofread your work before sending it in. TheOneRing.net is not responsible for poems posting with spelling or grammatical errors.

Part one of this spotlight on Evangeline Lilly and her character Tauriel was published yesterday. Click here to read it.


(Evangeline Lilly as Tauriel.)
(Evangeline Lilly as Tauriel.)
In the first part of this story, Evangeline Lilly discussed her childhood love for “The Hobbit,” and her decision-making process that led her to move her family to New Zealand and work with director Peter Jackson as a character not found in J.R.R. Tolkien’s 75-year-old classic. She plays an elf in the forest kingdom of Thranduil where his son Legolas also lives.

How does an actor differentiate her character in a set of films stuffed full with grand, immortal elves?

“Somebody asked me, ‘Did you study a lot of the other elves? The performances of the elves from Rings to do this role?’ I said distinctly ‘no.’ I intentionally didn’t re-watch the movies because I was afraid of trying to copy someone’s performance and I wanted it to be original.”

bg_jFUFB“All the other elves you’ve ever seen in these movies are at least twice my age, at least twice Tauriel’s age, so they are very wise and they’re very well established in their power and their understanding of the world. I’ve intentionally tried to demonstrate that she’s not there yet. She’s young, she’s only 600 years old and in elven terms, that is so young. She’s just a baby.”

Lilly is even playing some layers of the role in a way she wants those diehard fans to understand.

“I like the idea of playing with a young elf, how would they behave? How would they be different from the aged elves? And I hope that it doesn’t come across as wrong, you know what I mean? I hope it doesn’t come across to people who really know the world as she’s not quite got it down. Because that’s my goal, to not quite have it.

“She wants to be as wise, she wants to be as much of a presence as all of her elders but she’s not. She’s a kid and there’s a part of her that is always a little too excited about things or maybe a little too engaged in the world, the way kids can get. And I think that was something I wanted to tell the really diehard fans.

“I want them to know that she is young so that when they look at the performance and they look at the character they understand the context.” Continue reading “Evangeline Lilly explains the challenges of playing Tauriel in Peter Jackson’s ‘The Hobbit’”

Evangeline Lilly as Tauriel.
(Evangeline Lilly as Tauriel.)

Desolation of Smaug poster artworkWELLINGTON, New Zealand — Those outside of the movie making business often don’t understand what The Producer does on a film. The quickest answer is: They get the movie made. They get things done.

In the case of Zane Weiner on “The Hobbit,” it meant getting in touch with someone nobody was meant to get in touch with.

Evangeline Lilly.

Living in Hawaii, she was a month removed from the birth of her child, email turned off, not taking calls about work and still confined to bed rest.

“So I was still in bed with the baby,” she told TheOneRing.net in full Tauriel outfit and gear during a lunch break on a full day of filming on “The Hobbit.”

This lunch tent, while perhaps not glamorous, is an essential part of Stone Street Studios and making Peter Jackson movies, designed to feed and shelter quite an enormous crowd. Breakfast was served there for anybody wanting to start the day off right. Coffee and tea were available on any sound stage but also in the tent — a first stop for many on a shoot. Continue reading “Evangeline Lilly gets personal with TORn about Tauriel and ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’”