Tolkien Gleanings #196.

* Forthcoming, a short introductory book on Tolkien and the Kalevala. From the publisher Routledge, and due in mid-October 2024. The table-of-contents is already available…

* Tomorrow, a new online Thesis Theatre at Signum University. The thesis being defended has examined the story “Smith of Wootton Major”, in terms of expressing Tolkien’s final understanding of… “Faërie as necessary, universal, beneficent and transformative to humanity”.

* Abstracts for three of the papers presented at the April 2024 ‘Tolkien: the relevance of myth’ event in Rome.

* Now open in Oxford, the exhibition ‘C.S. Lewis: Words & Worlds’ at Magdalen College’s Old Library. Runs until 11th September 2024, and a catalogue is planned.

* New in The Iron Room (blog of the archivists at Birmingham’s central public library), a new illustrated article on the city’s Barrow’s Stores. With good b&w interior pictures, albeit from the 1920s after the department store had expanded and re-fitted.

* And finally, a new glimpse of one of the great many filmed-but-not-released scenes from the LoTR movie trilogy. It comes from near the start of The Fellowship of the Ring and lacks the digital backdrop which would have depicted the Shire. Gandalf and Frodo are on the fireworks cart approaching Hobbiton and we hear an additional fragment of their talk. Gandalf very briefly teaches Frodo a bit of what he says is “Sindarin, the language of the Elves”. Online here with audio, for now. So far as a practised eye can tell, it is not an AI generated prank.