Tolkien Gleanings #451
* Tolkien Oddments briefly notes the new book A Tale of Trees: The Woods and the World in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Legendarium (2026).
* New in Spanish, the book Historia natural de la Comarca: Origen, cultura y sociedad del pueblo hobbit en la obra de J.R.R. Tolkien (‘A Natural History of the Shire: the origin, culture and society of hobbits in the work of J.R.R. Tolkien’). Published in July 2026 by Legendaria Ediciones.
* Amazon UK has the book Environmentalism in Tolkien’s Middle-earth dated as being released a few days ago. The book also being Cormare Series 58 from Walking Tree. No table-of-contents as yet.
“… brings together ten essays exploring Tolkien as a proto-environmentalist and deep ecologist before the term existed. From the tree-herding Ents of Fangorn to the maternal nature goddesses of The Silmarillion, from the ethical mining of Erebor to the corrupted wasteland of Mordor, the contributors reveal how Tolkien’s legendarium presents a morally charged vision of humanity’s relationship with the natural world.”
* Elfenomeno has a new text interview with Dimitra Fimi.
* The Lewis Carroll Society of North America has now officially uploaded their society journal Knight Letter No. 113 (December 2024) to Archive.org. Note the issue’s article… “Bealuwerig”: Tolkien’s “Jabberwocky”.
* The Notion Club Papers examines the latter stages of Frodo and the Ring…
“I have become increasingly aware of the ways in which Frodo’s – illegitimate – use of the One Ring, and expectations of using the One Ring, prepared the ground for [the ending on …] March 25.”
* On YouTube, Tolkien’s long poem “The Death of Saint Brendan”, read outdoors by Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick, while… “sitting next to the Holy Well of St. Brendan on Valentia Island in County Kerry in Ireland”.
* Also on YouTube, Paolo Nardi considers “Tolkien and the Narrative Framework of The Book of Lost Tales”. In Italian, but YouTube can now auto-dub.
* Thoughts on Tolkien delves into the words “Umbar and Wyrd”.
* The Marginalian digests “J.R.R. Tolkien on Fairy Tales, Language, the Psychology of Fantasy”.
* British Fairies blog considers “King Arthur, Faeries & the ‘Matter of Britain’ — a ’70s view”.
* Queer and Back Again considers “Fascism and Faerie” at length. (Substack, but free).
* A new album on Bandcamp, Tolkien’s Moon…
“Todd Norcross has been composing music for more than 30 years. He has written more than 30 albums, and has several million streams of his songs on Spotify with two platinum singles.”
* And finally, Medievalists.net on “The Turbulent History of the Gothic Bible”.