Tolkien Gleanings #375

* “The Pen of Middle-earth, Part II: The Instruments of Creation – Tolkien’s Pens, Nibs, and Inkwells”. Which reminds me of the lovely Birmingham Pen Museum in Tolkien’s home city. I wonder if this museum has a small Tolkien-related display (I don’t recall seeing one there, on a visit some years ago), and if not perhaps they should have one?

* New in the current rolling issue of the Journal of Tolkien Research, a review of Tolkien’s Glee: A Reading of the Songs in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Freely available online.

* Readers will recall that, on his Kingship, Aragorn told the hobbits… “my realm lies also in the North, and I shall come there one day”. Artist Miriam Ellis this week depicts some glimpses of the Days of the King on the Shores of Lake Evendim, after the events of The Lord of the Rings.

* An initial work-in-progress, now online as the Tolkien Books Database.

* A new accessible biography, The Brothers Grimm: A Biography (2025), from Yale University Press.

* Karen Wynn Fonstad’s acclaimed Middle-earth atlas is now in Polish as Atlas Srodziemia, and in Spanish as Atlas de la Tierra Media. Amazon UK has it that these translations were both published in November 2025.

* The Finnish national epic and ‘young Tolkien fave’ the Kalevala is now a big-screen movie. Titled as Kalevala – Kullervon tarina the feature-length movie is in cinemas in Finland. The Nordic Film & TV Fund has an English interview with Director Antti J. Jokinen and lead actor Elias Salonen, accompanied by stills.

* And finally, nominations open for Tolkien Society Awards 2026. First-round deadline: Sunday 1st February 2026. Also inviting nominations is The Mythopoeic Society’s Mythopoeic Awards 2026, with a 15th February 2026 deadline.