Tolkien Gleanings #55.

* A new Tolkien Lore podcast examines a little-considered but important matter, “The Main Character of The Lord of the Rings Is… Middle-earth”. In 23 minutes (start at 4:20 if you’re short of time) the listener enjoys a cogent and well-delivered survey. I can add a little historical context. Tolkien would have been aware of English folk-anthropomorphism (i.e. the ‘body-scape’) of hills, such as that hinted at in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Where memorably, on the icy track toward Wetton, “Each hill had a hat” of cold mist. My recent book on Gawain and Staffordshire newly discovered a folk-use from the very same district… “[in] the phraseology of the place, the ‘mountain had its cap on.'” — this being published prior to the first publication of Sir Gawain.

* A listing for an evening billed as a conference on Tolkien and the Sciences, to be held at Terra Botanica in the university city of Angers in north-west France, with free tickets…

On 12th May 2013, Terra Botanica welcomes renowned paleontologist Jean-Sebastien Steyer, co-editor of the book Tolkien et les Sciences (‘Tolkien and the Sciences’, 2019).

The listing alerts me to this relatively recent 400-page book in French. It offers edited contributions from 38 experts in various fields of science, plus economics and psychoanalysis.

* Consulting Philologist has a new and long blog-post which forms an “Introduction to Indo-European Linguistics and Culture Textbooks for the Perplexed”…

“What I have tried to do here is point out the best textbooks to start with for absolute beginners, as well as some other useful textbooks, manuals, and reference works”.

* And finally, I’ve only just spotted that Evan Palmer has released his Tolkien’s Ainulindale (2017) hand-made comic in 54 pages, and he freely posts the scans online. Rather pleasing, and I’d suggest even quite suitable for children in middle-childhood. He posts a link to his interview about the work, to be found on the Talking Tolkien Podcast.