Last weekend in the Hall of Fire, bouncing off Gandalf’s famous “For I also am a steward” rejoinder…
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Last weekend in the Hall of Fire, bouncing off Gandalf’s famous “For I also am a steward” rejoinder to Denethor, we discussed exactly what made a steward in Middle-earth. For those who couldn’t attend, here’s a log.
And remember, tomorrow (July 13 at 6pm EDT (New York time)) we’ll be discussing the next chapter of The Two Towers: The Voice of Saruman. Continue reading “Hall of Fire chat log: the stewards of Middle-earth”
In this extract from his acclaimed book Tolkien and the Great War: the Threshold of Middle-earth, John Garth outlines some of the earliest antecedents of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Legendarium, in around March 1916, shortly before he left for the Somme. Even for someone who’s only read as far as, say, The Silmarillion, there are tantalising threads of familiar and semi-familiar names.
Continue reading “An essay on Tolkien’s earliest mythology of Middle-earth”
The Fifth International Conference on J.R.R. Tolkien’s Invented Languages, Omentielva Lempea, is inviting participation in an Elvish Haiku Contest open to entries in either Quenya or Sindarin. The deadline for entries is July 31, 2013. So if Elvish linguistics are your thing, you have a couple of weeks to come up with a masterpiece worthy of Matsuo Basho! Continue reading “Omentielva Lempea elvish haiku contest”
A couple of weekends back in the Hall of Fire, we discussed the events of the Two Towers chapter Flotsam and Jetsam, and the reunion of five of the Fellowship’s members. For those who couldn’t attend, here’s a log.
And remember, tomorrow (July 13 at 6pm EDT (New York time)) we’ll be discussing the next chapter: The Voice of Saruman. Continue reading “Hall of Fire chat log: Flotsam and Jetsam”
Strider, Aragorn, Longshanks, Telcontar, Elessar, and several other names come to mind for this particular character. But the first impression a non-Tolkien outsider would get from a man who has a dozen aliases is that he was probably a criminal. Maybe they’d think he was constantly moving from place to place, switching names because he was the equivalent of a modern-day “identity thief” who was on the lam! Funny how things in our modern world don’t always reflect clearly on mythology.
Aragorn is the kind of character that demands a closer look. You must remember the speech that Shrek gives to Donkey about ogres being a lot like onions: “We have layers!” I would also like to use the onion metaphor for Strider. But wait — that’s just one layer. Peel away a bit and you’ll find the outcast orphan-lad who was taken in by the Elves; his mother desperate for some protection. Peel away more layers to find within a skillful fighter, a passionate lover, a delicate negotiator with a voice of great wisdom, a healer and master of herb-lore, and yes… in the very center of his heart, underneath it all, is a King.
A couple of weekends ago, we delved into the aftermath of the battle of Helm’s Deep and joined Gandalf, Legolas, Gimli and Aragorn on the short, but interesting, The Road to Isengard.
For those who couldn’t attend, here’s a log. Plus, as a reminder: this weekend (Saturday June 29 at 6pm EDT) the Hall of Fire topic is the next chapter of The Two Towers: Book III Chapter IX – Flotsam and Jetsam. See you then! Continue reading “Hall of Fire chat log: The Road to Isengard”
