Category: Misc

Celebrating Calligraphy by Jenni Aldred

Leaving Lórien by Stephen Vrettos

• When the Fellowship leave Lorien the is a ceremony
• Led by the 2 Highest authority people in the Realm
• Purposes
  • A Farewell – G sings a song called “Farewell”
  • A Transition
• Gifts
  • Since G has forsight she gives gifts that help their fate
  • Aragorn
    • Gets a Sheath for his sword
    • A Green Stone.
  • Boromir gets a golden belt
    • Gold is often seen to corrupt
  • Merry and Pippen
    • Gifts of a silver belt
  • Legolas gets a bow
    • Larger than those used in Mirkwood
    • Sign that the two elven kingdoms are closer
  • Sam gets box
    • Not practical for the journey ahead but useful for afterwards in the Shire
  • Gimli
    • Hair from G
    • Becomes close to elves and other Dwarves become closer to Elves
  • Frodo
    • The Phial of Galadriel
    • Echo of Eärendil quest

Love and Power an Poetics of Tom Bombadil by Corey Olsen

• Tolkien does modern poetry and traditional forms
• Tom is heavily influenced by The Kalevala
  • Similar Meter
  • Similar Song Battles
• TomB Original Poem
  • The History of TomB
  • A series of Hostile Encounters. Tom sitting beside river, attacked 4x times
  • First Goldberry
  • Old Man Willow
  • The Badgers
  • The Barrow-wight
  • Each encounter leds to a poetry-style sing off
  • The Turn and the Wedding with Goldberry
• Intro to Bombadilish
  • First 4 lines of Tom
  • Is in Half line, each line has two halfs.
  • Basic Rhythm
    • English as a language naturally uses Iambic Rhythm
    • 2 beat.
    • Look at the 2 syllable words, stress on first sylable
    • Therefore Trokic
    • Spondee – Multiple stress after each other
    • Names always stressed
    • “lived down under hill” very stressed
    • Last 3 half lines very stressed-unstressed
• 2nd 4 lines. Narrative Flow
  • Almost all just straight Trokic describing narrative flow
• Next 4 lines – Attack from Goldberry
  • Last 2 lines broken up
  • Halting and has weakness
• Tom’s response
  • He is giving a command.
  • Command is “Go down! Sleep again” – 3 beat spondee. That wins
• Old Man Willow is Not a Tree
  • Old Man Willow is a man who lives in tree
  • or Rather a Wood-Spirit who lives in a Tree
  • This was still in early drafts of LOTR
• Battles vs Old Man Willow
  • Willow starts strong
  • But Tom piles on stressed command words in reply
• Tom goes a-Courting
  • Doesn’t to a three-beat spondee commanding Goldberry
  • Gentle wooing
• The Wedding
  • 2-beat spondee at start of middle-4 lines talking about her wedding garments which Tom provided and gave to her
• Happily Ever After
  • derry-dol and merry-dol are pet names for Goldberry
• The Fellowship of the Ring
• Initial lines – “Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo” and next 3
  • Is calling to Goldberry, saying almost home
• New lines is even more directed to Goldberry
• Except for the “Old Tom Bombadil water lilies bringing” and next line which is warning off Old Man Willow
• Similar again next few lines, warning asides to Old Man Willow
• The Hobbits run to him
  • “Whoa! Whoa! steady there” command and stopped Hobbits
• Lots of Stressed line words
• When arrives back in his house
  • Goldberry wearing Wedding gear, eating Wedding Feast
  • Constantly celebrating and recreating their courtship and marriage moment

The Hands of the King and the Royal Touch: Cutting Edge Research from The Gondor Journal of Medicine by Scott Kirton

• In a 2nd hand bookstore found some copies of the Gondor Journal of Medicine
• Aragorn’s healing power is what wins over the people. Not others things he does/is
• The Royal Touch from kings, mainly to cure Scrofula
  • Scrofula. TB infection of Lymph nodes of the neck
  • Didn’t work directly, but would spontaneously would go away and Kings advisors picked patients who had good chance to cure
  • Legitimized the King’s Authority. Shows he was favored by God
  • Showed King was generous towards people
• Decline due to skepticism and less claim of divine right of the kings
• Hands of the King vs The Royal Touch
• Analysis from the journal on how best to use the Limit resources of King to heal more people

Midsummer in Middle-Earth by Trudy Shannon

• When is midsummer
• Date various by different Legal, Astronomical and traditions
• Strong Traditions in areas with long dark winters
• Midsummer in the Shire
  • Lithe days built right into the Calendar
  • Fireworks from Gandalf
  • Bilbo leaves Rivendell on Midsummer
  • Free Fair on White Downs. Banquets
    • The Althing in Iceland was similar. Around 1000 people regularly attended
• Midsummer in Numenor
  • 12 months or 30-31 days
  • Special day not attached to any month similar to Hobbit
  • King ascends sacred Mountain followed by crowd or many people. Only the King speaks
• Midsummer Gondolin
  • The Gates of Summer . Refs the city’s 7 gates
  • No voice from midnight to the break of day. Dawn welcomed with voices
  • City is attacked on Midsummer
• Croatia Celebrates the shortest Night and people stay awake all night
• Midsummer forces Orcs, Wizards and Dwarves
  • Dwarves only sometimes celebrate it.
  • No info on Orcs, Wizards
• Often times for Weddings

“Circle of Light” – A Faërie Rock Opera by Anna Grob

• Music performance
• She is doing a Rock Opera about the Fall of Gondolin and played some songs from it.
• Some on Spotify
• and Youtube

Celebrating Middle-Earth on the Table-Top: An exploration of the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game by Tim Wraight

• History of the game
  • First Released in 2001
  • Skirmish orientated
  • Scenarios that called back to the Movies
  • New releases as later moves released
  • Very popular during the films and immediately after
  • Good license from Middle Earth Enterprise so extra supplements that just covered book stuff
  • More Releases as Hobbit movies came out
  • 2018 revived the game and re-released and renamed to Middle Earth Strategy Game
  • Various Releases since then
• How to Play the game
  • Model, stuff in English
  • Heroes or Worriers
  • Heroes have special characteristics, special abilities etc
  • Turn based, roll priority, move phase ( approx 6 inches), shoot, fight phase, end phase
  • Games take between 1 hour and 1 day
• How Tolkien and Imagination is Celebrated in the game
  • Narrative Scenarios reflects special moments from the books/films
  • Can do what-ifs like build your own “fantasy fellowship” instead of cannon 9
• Most people play the Match play variant. 2 players each build an army worth same number of points. Takes about 2 hours
• Lots of special rules for each Hero Character
• People can do backgrounds for their army, special color schemes etc. Models from other vendors or 3d printed
• People like making their own terrain.
• Also they have display boards to display armies
• 80 play tournaments in Aus, 160 player+ tournaments in UK

A Comparison of Duels: Tolkien’s Legendarium and the Middle Ages to Early Modern Period by Karolina Firman

• Does the Legendarium actually have any duels?
• Definition of a Duel
  • A pre-planned and stylized one-on-one armed fight between two participants in defense of your own or a loved ones honour
• Other motivations
  • Legitimizing your own masculinity
  • Fights to prove your innocence
  • Demonstrating fencing skills
• Possible Duels in LOTR
  • Gandalf vs Balrog
  • Eowyn vs the Witch King
  • Samwise fighting Shelob
  • Aragon vs Lurtz (movie only)
  • Boromir vs unnamed Orcs (book)
• The ones that is closest to traditional definition is Eowyn vs Witch King and Sam vs Shelob.
  • Gandalf vs Balrog has less honour component
  • Aragon vs Lurtz
• In speakers opinion none of them really qualify
• Big discussion on what qualifies and what doesn’t

Finrod Felagund and Severus Snape as Saviour Heroes in the Context of Universal Plot Structures by Evelina Timofeeva

• Both Characters are in love with a character that is far away
• Both have vast life experience
• Both perform heroic deeds because of a past performance
• Both are distrusted by those around them
• Both die for an apparently lessor character
• Both a slain by magical creatures
• I was having trouble keeping up