Tolkien Gleanings #406
* New listings for the May and June 2026 Tolkien Research Seminars at the University of Oxford…
– Lexical Palimpsests: Old English and Old Norse loan words in Tolkien’s Gnomish Lexicon (1917).
– Tolkien the Parodist: Revisiting Songs for the Philologists.
– Tolkien and Sawles Warde.
– Genealogy of Smaug: Draconic influences on Tolkien.
– Charting Faerie: Cartography as the threshold of enchantment.
– The Verbal System of Quenya: Structures, functions, and linguistic models in Tolkien’s linguistic invention.
* Luna Press have picked up the book Las Vacaciones de un Hobbite (2022) for an English translation. In their English edition it will be titled A Hobbit’s Holiday: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Journeys in the Belle Epoque. The book apparently considers the young Tolkien’s various real journeys as formative encounters, made in unfamiliar landscapes such as Switzerland, Scotland, Paris, Brittany, Cornwall etc.
* The Inklings blog notices the 100th Anniversary of the meeting of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. (Substack, but freely available online).
* The Imaginative Conservative has a new article on “Tolkien, Chesterton, & the Sloth of England”. Freely available online.
* Matej Cadil starts blogging his artistic journey through Tolkien. (Substack, but freely available online).
“So here we set out together: chapter by chapter through The Hobbit. In each post I’ll reflect on Tolkien’s text — its story, themes, connections, and what caught my attention — and then turn to my illustration for that chapter to discuss my choices, influences, and small discoveries that shaped it.”
* And finally, in France the La Cuivrerie de Cerdon seems to be a newly restored and reopened large ex-industrial site, now specialising in crafts metalwork training. It’s located about 40 miles east of the city of Lyon in central France. This summer and autumn they have a Tolkien and metalwork exhibition…
“a unique exhibition where copperwork meets the imagination of J.R.R. Tolkien. Through the theme of forging, discover the fascinating links between Middle-earth and our industrial heritage. La Cuivrerie de Cerdon opens the doors to a universe where metal comes to life and speaks of legends.”
