Tolkien Gleanings #392
* The chapter “Tolkien’s Influence and the World of The Wheel of Time”, from the book The Wheel of Time and Philosophy (2025) is currently officially freely available, in full. Maybe only a limited-time freebie, such as big academic publishers occasionally offer, so grab it quick if it interests you.
* The first peer-reviewed article has been added to the new issue of the Journal of Tolkien Research, “Visualising Rhythm in The Lord of the Rings”. Computer analysis mapped alternations… “between negative and positive sentiment” in key sentences, and a graph of these then made visible the “prolonged troughs, sharp reversals, and extended recoveries” of sentiment in LoTR.
* In the new Spanish book on the digital humanities, Nuevas fronteras. El derecho y las Humanidades ante la revolucion tecnologica digital (2026), the chapter “La maquina: Tolkien y la tradicion perdida” (‘The Machine: Tolkien and the Lost Tradition’). In Spanish with English abstract…
“… for Tolkien the machine symbolizes the human urge to dominate the world and break away from tradition, a theme reflected in characters like Saruman and in the industrial devastation of Mordor, while the elves represent harmony with creation and the preservation of ancient memory. Tolkien viewed modernity as a loss of traditional roots and his legendarium seeks to restore them through myth and language.”
* I recently noted Matej Cadil’s new story-posters series for The Hobbit, free on DeviantArt. Now I see that his new Substack post “Walking Further Into Middle‑earth: A New Adventure” explains the series and how he plans to develop it. Another recent post fills in the background. His Substack subscribers will also receive posts on the “behind‑the‑scenes art process” involved in making future posters.
* And finally, Kentucky’s Brandywine Festival is travelling to central Staffordshire, England, in 2026…
“The expansion follows the success of the first annual Brandywine Festival in October 2025. Held in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, the 5-day, 4-night Live Action Roleplaying (LARP) event drew fans from across the country. Now, the festival will be within an hour’s drive of Birmingham, J.R.R. Tolkien’s childhood home”.
I see that the sleeping tents appear to have much the same design as used by Tolkien at Staffordshire camps (Whittington Heath, and Newcastle-under-Lyme) during the First World War. A nice touch.
The festival’s location is to be Weston Park at Weston-under-Lizard (on the old Roman road). Though, that’s not great for access by rail travel — summer music-festival goers to the site have to change at Wolverhampton station (ugh) for a hot shuttle-bus/coach (double-ugh). If I were getting hobbity for the Brandywine weekend, I might instead consider The Monarch’s Way long-distance footpath, which follows the route taken by King Charles II during his escape from the Puritans during the Civil Wars. The stretch of path adjacent to Weston Park, between Tong and Bishops Wood, was restored and made passable again in 2024. The path would allow one to walk off-road for around 30 miles, from Tolkien’s Lickey Hills (there is still a train station at Barnt Green, at the south end of the Lickeys) to within apple-lobbing distance of Weston Park.
