Tolkien Gleanings #387

* The Spanish Tolkien Society has released their Revista Estel No. 101 (dated 2024, but seemingly only released in 2026). Freely available, in PDF format. Among many other items, note the short Spanish article on “Beer in Middle-earth” (pp. 54-56).

* On YouTube, a recording of Joseph Loconte giving a talk at the Union League in Philadelphia, about his new book The War for Middle-earth: J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Confront the Gathering Storm, 1933-1945.

* Tomorrow in Oxford, Thomas Honegger speaking in Corpus Christi College on “Habitatio est omen — or: like land, like people” in relation Tolkien’s work.

* A Sword & Sorcery historian reviews The Tower and the Ruin (2025), the new book by Michael D.C. Drout.

* On YouTube, a short video tour of a just-closed Pauline Baines exhibition which was staged in Italy. YouTube can auto-dub into English.

* The long-running British Fairies blog considers elvish & faery origins in a short review of Twilight of the Godlings: The Shadowy Beginnings of Britain’s Supernatural Beings (2023). This is found to be…

“an academic examination of the process by which the idea of the modern British faery might have evolved out of elements of belief in Roman nature deities, Anglo-Saxon elves, Norman French fay women and native British mythology; it covers the period from the Roman colonisation through to the late fifteenth century […] it treats the faeries as entirely socially constructed inventions — and ones that may not be of any great antiquity”.

* A new £100 academic book which touches on Sir Gawain and place, Arthur Between England and Wales: The Borderland, the Marches, and the Medieval Matter of Britain (2026). Among other things the book apparently offers… “novel reinterpretations of the historiographic record and the vibrant cultural networks and communities within the borderlands” of England and Wales, and has the concluding chapter “‘I-medled to gidres’: Borderline Arthurian Personalities in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Poetry of Iolo Goch”. (‘I-medled to gidres’ = mingled together).

* And finally, talking of the Welsh language travelling over the borderlands into England, “Welsh on Wagons”. This is a new and freely available…

“photo-essay exploring the history behind Tolkien’s discovery of the Welsh language on coal wagons in Birmingham. It displays typical wagons, and explains the meaning of the Welsh names.”

I can here add a couple more postcards from eBay, though the wagons shown below were carrying stone and silica rather than coal. Plus a newly-coloured evocative view of a typical small mixed-goods train puffing through the English countryside.

Tolkien Gleanings #386

* A new PhD thesis from Dalhousie University, “I do not desire healing”: Grief as Identity in Medieval (ist) Literatures (2026). This has chapters or sub-chapters on: melancholic pronouns in The Lord of the Rings; Eowyn disguising herself as Dernhelm; and grief/death in relation to Luthien and Arwen. Freely available online.

* Some more details about the coming screen series “Forge of Friendship”. Set to be… “five hour-long documentaries” with interviews, music and re-enactments, exploring the friendship of Lewis and Tolkien…

“There is no set release date, but we are moving into post-production.” When asked, the [filmmakers, after showing a one-hour preview cut] said “We are waiting on more funding, but it could potentially be released this year.”

* The Independent Review reviews Tolkien, Philosopher of War (2024).

* Apparently set for publication by De Gruyter in June 2026, according to Amazon UK, Tolkien Spirituality: Constructing Belief and Tradition in Fiction-based Religion. Possibly just a printing of this 2014 open-access Phd thesis, but I guess there’s a chance it could be an updated and expanded version for print? By the same author, “Religious uses of fantasy fiction”, an open-access chapter for the Routledge Handbook of Fiction and Belief (2023).

* Midland History journal has a review of the book C.S. Lewis’s Oxford (2024) ($ paywall). As a Midlander I’ve never thought of Oxford as being in the English Midlands, but it squeezes in here.

* Seemingly popping out of embargo this week at a university repository, “Tolkien and Trees”, a book chapter from 2013.

* Tolkien artist Miriam Ellis is anticipating… “my forthcoming book, A Shire Walking-Party” and a new blog post gives a preview of her thoughts on the appearance of Woodhall.

* “Oxford, Physics, and the Day I Saw Tolkien Summon Henry”…

“In the fall of 1970, I arrived at Oxford University as a first-term undergraduate reading physics at Merton College. […] I would often see J.R.R. Tolkien wandering around the College in his half-cloak, walking stick in hand. He was already elderly, already legendary, yet physically present: a small, unmistakable figure moving through the same quads I crossed on my way to hall.”

“Small” probably indicates distance, rather than that he shrunk to hobbit-size in old age!

* And finally, a UK local newspaper reports Vintage recordings of The Hobbit unearthed on Metro line in Tyne and Wear.

Tolkien Gleanings #385

* A new book from Oxford University Press, Science and Religion in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis: The Quest for the Best Mental Model of the Universe. Due for publication in print on 14th March 2026, and available now as a Kindle ebook, the book is…

“the first comprehensive examination of C.S. Lewis’s views on the relationship between science and religion, authored by an internationally acclaimed writer recognized as an authority on both Lewis and the field of science and religion. […] While some continue to characterize Lewis as an anti-scientific Luddite entrenched in medieval fantasies, this analysis makes it clear that Lewis was well-acquainted with both the cultural perceptions of science and religion during the medieval and Renaissance eras, as well as the major philosophical and cultural debates concerning their relationship during the middle of the twentieth century.”

* On YouTube, Paolo Nardi usefully summarises and discusses Fulvio Ferrari’s recent Italian-language book Gli altri mondi dell’eroe: Beowulf e la letteratura fantasy, which has a chapter that… “explores the profound connection between the Anglo-Saxon poem and the work of Tolkien”. He also links to a review of the book from the Italian Tolkien Studies Association…

“Fulvio Ferrari is a retired professor of Germanic philology at the University of Trento [and his new book has] an entire chapter dedicated to Tolkien, or rather to the influence that the Anglo-Saxon poem in question has had on both the Oxford professor’s work as a scholar and as a storyteller.”

* In the new ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews, “Of Him the Harpers Sadly Sing”: Fragmentary Ballad Diction and Transmission in The Lord of the Rings” ($ paywall).

* Elfenomeno begins a new series of blog articles on adaptation by considering From Middle-earth to the Cinema (I): Beren and Luthien…

“This article explores the possibilities — and the dangers — of adapting the story of Beren and Luthien to film, one of the Great Tales of the First Age.”

* A new essay on “J.R.R. Tolkien’s Vision of Just War”, being an expanded free chapter from the book The Hobbit Party (2014) which explored aspects of Tolkien’s politics.

* John Garth has a new article on “‘Going west’: How war in 1914 resurrected an ancient image for dying”. Freely available online.

“War changes language. In Tolkien and the Great War I put it this way: “English received an enormous jolt of electricity from the new technologies and experiences of the Great War. Old words received new meanings; new words were coined; foreign phrases were bastardized.””

* The latest British Fantasy Society Journal is a special on ‘War in Fantasy’, or perhaps just with a long lead article on the topic. Members only and no contents-list online, it seems, but there is an indicative cover available…

* A call for papers for a conference on ‘Children, Literature, and the Christian Imagination’, 23rd-24th October 2026 at the University of Toronto, Canada. Submission deadline: 31st March 2026.

* The latest Weird Studies podcast considers Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring as a work of weird fiction, re: the Old Forest and evil sentient trees, the cosmic ancientness of Bombadil, ring-wraiths, barrow wights, strange elves, warg attack (Gandalf: “these were no ordinary wolves”), the Watcher in the Water, and the eerie darkness of Moria.

* The Salon Futura (February 2026) online fanzine is a special issue on Welsh Fantasy. Freely available online.

* ‘Technologies of the Fantastic’ is an online conference set for 13th-15th May 2026. The title appears to be somewhat misleading, as the organisers state they intend to focus on… “the technologies of fantasy” in particular, such as… “carefully constructed runes and magical glyphs that operate as locks and keys; in the textile metaphors of spell weaving; in the taxonomy of the naming [of natural elemental forces]”. I’d hazard a guess that one might also consider magical maps, the forging of enchanted weapons, and even magical herb lore? Registration for the conference is required (not yet open) and will be via Eventbrite.

* And finally, Hammond and Scull’s latest Book Notes post draws my attention to The Salisbury Museum and Art Gallery’s heavily illustrated catalogue for their substantial show ‘British Art: Ancient Landscapes’ (2016). Being… “the first significant publication to range over the entire field” of artistic works depicting the very ancient sites of the British Isles such as stone circles, hill-figures, barrows and the like. Paperbacks appear to still be available, if the badly-scanned full preview interests, though Amazon UK suggests there are only five copies remaining.

From Blake’s Milton a Poem in 2 books, detail from plate 4. The subject on the right of the painting is a balanced rock, but at first glance could also very easily be read as a ship having just descended from sailing among the stars. Tolkien read Blake’s prophetic books in February 1919.

Tolkien Gleanings #384

* The Italian Tolkien journal I Quaderni di Arda (‘Arda Notebooks’) now has a book collection of the best articles, in English. Arda Notebooks: the Best of I Quaderni di Arda includes, among others, Thomas Honegger in English on “Re-enchanting a Dis-enchanted World: Tolkien (1892-1973) and Lovecraft (1890-1937)”. The publisher Walking Tree has free abstracts for the book.

* Fans’ Reception of Tolkien: A Mythology for the Contemporary World. Volume I. Cultural Expansion and Psychological Identification (2025). A free ebook from Poland, in English, under Creative Commons (CC BY-SA).

* This week The Catholic Herald has a new article on “Why we still read Tolkien”. (Possible $ paywall, but I had it for free).

* From Bulgaria in English, “Jewels And Jewel Cases: The Depiction Of Tolkien’s The Silmarillion In Blind Guardian’s Nightfall In Middle-earth”. Freely available online.

* Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson is to deliver Pembroke College’s 2026 ‘Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature’. Set for 19th May 2026, at Oxford Town Hall, with tickets to be released on 19th March. A recording of the lecture will also be released on YouTube.

* Coming soon from Princeton University Press, the book Arachnomania: Spiders and the Cultural Work They Do for Us (2026). Appears to be a broad survey of all sorts of spiders, good and bad, to be found in imaginative works. Set for release in mid May 2026.

* Finally, The Piano Makers is an ongoing project on Tolkien’s musical ancestors, from the Welsh Volante Opera…

“We are currently investigating the musicians and performers in the Tolkien family from the early 1800s to the early 1900s, almost all of whom having connections to their family business of making and maintaining pianos. Our plan is to get at least one recording of some of these works together and released in the foreseeable future. At the moment we are collecting the music and collating the information about the various family members.”

The latest project update is January 2026…

“Music for two more songs with words by W.M. Tolkien have been found and added to the listings.”

Tolkien Gleanings #383

* Hammond and Scull have published their Addenda and Corrigenda, February 2026. Among other items, their update of the Chronology clarifies and updates various matters regarding dates and places. Freely available online. Additions include, among many others… “1913–1914. Tolkien purchases the collected Works of Francis Thompson.” This would have been the 1913 edition: Vol. 1: Poems, Vol 2: Poems, Vol. 3: Prose. In the latter, note Thompson’s glowing review of an accessible and vivid translation of The Nibelungenlied.

* In English in the latest edition of the open-access Japanese journal Shiron, the article “Something Queer in Bilbo’s Wanderings: Seeking Other Self and Feminine Power in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings”. Freely available online.

* Two French articles on Tolkien in the latest issue of the journal Communio. The titles in English translation are “Magico-technical thinking and the true essence of a Tolkienian fairy tale” and “Brief insights into marriage according to J.R.R. Tolkien”. (Both $ paywalled).

* Published a couple of weeks ago, the new edition of the open-access Fafnir: Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research. It offers reviews of Germanic Heroes, Courage, and Fate: Northern Narratives of Tolkien’s Legendarium, and of The Songs of the Spheres: Lewis, Tolkien and the Overlapping Realms of their Imagination.

* The Thoughts on Tolkien blog appreciates “Merry the Magnificent” at length.

* A new Inklings Quarterly 10, with a lead article which considers the appeal of northern epic to the very young and very imaginative, and how later in life this can become reconciled with Christianity. Freely available online. Among other items, news of a new short book surveying Edwardian mysticism, Divine Representations: The Rise of the Mystical Novel in Twentieth-Century England (2026).

* The acclaimed scholarly German book Elfen und Feen (2024) has been translated for Yale University Press, and is now available as Elves and Fairies: A Short History of the Otherworld (2025). The author… “Matthias Egeler is professor of Old Norse literature and culture at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, after years at Oxford, Cambridge, and Munich”.

* Online short-courses at Signum University for April 2026 include “Tolkien and Alchemy” and “Tolkien and the Old Testament”. Both are candidate courses, running only if enough students sign up for them.

* New this week, FandomPulse has a straightforward one-page survey aimed at those planning to venture Beyond Middle-earth: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Forgotten Works. A page that one might send to those who still hold to the uninformed view, once held by many, that Tolkien wasted all his time elucidating elves instead of Doing Proper Work.

* Finally, my newly colorised view of Bloemfontein seen from the south. Elevated at 4,500ft above sea-level, and thus relatively cool, it was the capital of the Orange Free State. Then a free independent country, a Dutch/Afrikaans speaking Boer republic which had been formed under its own Parliament and with a formal constitution similar to that of the USA.

Also Tolkien’s birthplace. In the central distance we see the Dutch Reformed Church at the centre of the city. This was not the ‘English Cathedral’ where Tolkien’s mother was baptised in May 1891. The young Tolkien left in 1895, long before Bloemfontein became part of the newly-formed Union of South Africa in 1910.

The picture is from the book South Africa and the Transvaal war (1900), and thus likely shows Bloemfontein circa 1897.

Tolkien Gleanings #382

* The new edition of Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature is a ‘Mythlore At 50: A Celebration (2026)’ special, including a history of this long-running journal of fantasy literature studies and reviews. Freely available online.

* The Tolkniety blog offers Tom Bombadil in unpublished letters, one letter from Tolkien himself in 1964 and another from Christopher Tolkien in 1984.

“… I left Tom Bombadil in and did not ‘tinker’ with him though much tempted to do so in the ‘Council of Elrond’, to bring him into the historical pattern. I have received a number of queries (puzzled or actually querulous) about him. The truth is that, as far as I was concerned, he just walked in, at the necessary point, and behaved as he would.”

* Hammond & Scull have today posted their “Tolkien Notes 23”. Freely available online. Among other items they clarify the dates and uses of Tolkien’s ‘Merton desk’, recently sold at auction.

* New at Word on Fire, the article “‘Dover Beach’ and Tolkien Offer Distinct Looks at Hope”. Freely available online.

* On Substack Father Roderick had a long new article for Valentine’s Day “The Kind of Love We Rarely Talk About”. Focusing on Aragorn and Arwen, but with a fine 1966 picture of Tolkien and Edith that I’ve never seen before. The quality of the picture suggests it was made by a magazine photographer. The new article, freely online, trails Father Roderick’s new booklet Love and Little Folk: Reflections on Love in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

* In the new academic book Herman Charles Bosman and the Depth of Humorous Storytelling (2025), the chapter “A Note on the Charmed World of Fiction and the World of Faery”. This discusses fairy stories in relation to humorous fiction, and the… “chapter draws primarily on Tolkien’s work on fairy stories”.

* In Italian on YouTube, Paulo Nardi asks how Tolkien reconciled Faith and Fairies. Note that YouTube can auto-dub into English.

* Faerie Magazine has a long free extract from their new article “Professor Tolkien and the Fairies”. Actually the article’s footer banner showing it as Faerie Magazine leads to an apparently different magazine called Enchanted Living, that seems as much witchy as faerie. So which title has the full Tolkien article? I’m not sure.

* And finally, those planning a visit to what’s left of Tolkien’s Birmingham this coming summer may like to know that there are new train stations opening very soon in the south of the city. At Moseley, Kings Heath and Stirchley. Visitors will no longer have to grind through grot on the bus. The train from the city centre is set to take around 11 minutes. Services should start in Spring 2026.

Tolkien Gleanings #381

* At the Oxford C.S. Lewis Society tonight, Holly Ordway speaking on “Tolkien and the Development of Tradition: The Lord of the Rings as a Modern Book”. And last week their talk was on “Tolkien and the Midlands: Place, People, and Past in the Making of Middle-earth”. Still to come is a talk on “A Long Defeat: Tolkien’s Vision of History in The Lord of the Rings”. Hopefully there will be recordings online in due course.

* Ned Lunn’s blog reviews Ordway’s Tolkien’s Faith…

“It enlivened a deep, perhaps slightly romantic, longing for a form of academic life where theology is not an optional add on but is unapologetically a governing discipline. It was the people and saints that Tolkien lauded and was inspired by, however, that really touched a nerve. Figures such as John Henry Newman, in particular, whose theology and spirituality have long resonated with me. These were not simply historical influences for Tolkien; they were living interlocutors that shaped his moral imagination and intellectual posture.”

* Public Discourse magazine discovers “J.R.R. Tolkien Against the Leftists” in the new expanded Letters. Freely available online.

* Aphuulishfellow’s blog reviews The Bovadium Fragments and remarks that…

“Tolkien’s story is at heart an independently-written version of The Great God Awto (1940), by Clark Ashton Smith”.

I took a look at the dates and publication history. CAS’s “Awto” first appeared in the U.S. pulp magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories (Feb 1940), and then was anthologised by Derleth’s Arkham House in Tales of Science and Sorcery (1964). The Bovadium Fragments were however written 1957-1960, so Tolkien cannot have seen the tale in the 1964 anthology. It seems rather unlikely he had earlier seen a copy of Thrilling Wonder on publication, due to both the war restricting imports and the incredibly severe winter in Britain (the worst for 50 years) at the time the magazine could have been on the news-stands. On the other hand, it’s not impossible that someone could have sent him a couple of tear-sheets in the post at some point, knowing it was the sort of witty squit that would appeal. But we’ll likely never know now.

* The Germans will have the Fragments, translated as Die Bovadium Fragmente, on 14th February 2026.

* Book collecting blog Elder Days considers the question “Why Collect The Silmarillion?”.

* A couple of concept illustrations and a render of a 3D block-out have surfaced, from Eidos-Montreal’s recently abandoned Middle-earth game. They show the ruined port of Umbar, which at the time of LoTR was infested with the fearsome corsairs.

* And finally, talking of a big clean-up, The Great British Spring Clean is set for 13th to 29th March 2026. The nation’s annual volunteer litter-pick, a ‘must-do’ for Shire-scouring hobbits everywhere.

From Tolkien’s Middle English Vocabulary (1922).

Tolkien Gleanings #380

* The new 2025 issue of the Sehnsucht: The C.S. Lewis Journal, which Google Search and JSTOR suggest was released in January 2026. Freely available online. Book reviews of…

    – C.S. Lewis as Philosopher: Truth, Goodness and Beauty (3rd Edition)
    – The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien
    – C.S. Lewis’s Oxford.

* Details of the Tolkien Society’s Oxonmoot 2026. Set for Oxford, 3rd – 6th September 2026.

* The Notion Club Papers blog suggests that “The ‘Anxiety of Influence’ can be powerful and harmful – Alan Garner and J.R.R. Tolkien”.

* The Christian Scholar’s Review reviews The Theological Imagination: Perception and Interpretation in Life, Art, and Faith (2025)…

“This rich and concise account of the philosophical and theological underpinnings of the imagination will be of great interest to all scholars and laypeople interested in the intersection between art and faith.”

* Bevis expert Lynn Forest-Hill discovers a local historian also working on the history of Sir Bevis in its localities. Related is the December 2025 edition of the open-access journal Queeste, in which Ad Putter reviews in English the Dutch book Die historie van Buevijn van Austoen (2023)…

“Writing as someone who only knew the insular versions of Bevis, I consider myself very fortunate to have had the opportunity to read this Dutch version, which is much more interesting and artful than the Middle English and Anglo-Norman versions. One of the things that makes the Dutch romance so special is its form. Die historie van Buevijn van Austoen is neither a verse romance nor a prose romance but is both: it is a prosimetrum. Verse passages (which are numerous) are used very effectively for moments of heightened emotion and for direct speech, including at one point a story within a story.”

* In English from the Philology Dept. at the University of Seville, the undergraduate final dissertation “The Survival of Romance: A Comparative Study of Sir Bevis of Hampton and the Film Adaptations of C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia” (2025). Freely available online.

* Newly and freely released in open-access, the book Beacons and Military Communication from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period (2026). The new book may interest some readers of Gleanings, since The Lord of the Rings depicts a long chain of fire beacons, plus line-of-sight, various forms of far-seeing (Gandalf and Legolas), high towers, palantiri, visionary views of military activity from high peaks, etc.

* Miriam Ellis envisions Sitting with Sam beneath the Shire Mallorn.

* And finally, talking of sitting with a book… Rochester’s ‘Baggins Book Bazaar’. A local newspaper reports England’s largest rare and secondhand bookshop celebrates 40 years of trading. The current owner… “estimates there are now around 100,000 books across the shop, a labyrinth of shelves with about 10,000 in the front room alone.”

Tolkien Gleanings #379

* The Catholic Truth Society has a new book in its series of short biographies, A Light from the Shadows: The Spiritual Heart of J.R.R. Tolkien (2026). Listed on Amazon UK and probably other Amazon sites, but oddly there’s no description given there. Tracking the book down to the Society’s website, one reads… “This is not a biography of J.R.R. Tolkien”. Ah. The description continues…

Although it contains many biographical details, A Light from the Shadows is primarily a commentary on the distinctly Catholic framework of Tolkien’s writings – shaped by his experiences as a scholar, army officer, husband, and father. Each of these aspects of his life helps to unlock his unique perspective on his own work.

* The German Tolkien Society is planning a conference on ‘Environment, the World Around Us, and the Connatural World in Tolkien’s Works’, and they are calling for papers. The word “connatural” originates in the German anti-capitalism book Revolution for Nature (1990), and is a clunky neologism which appears to simply indicate ‘wild nature’ outside of human influence. The conference is set for 16th-18th October 2026, and the deadline for papers is 31st May 2026. Note also the attendance scholarship on offer to one “early career researcher in the field of Tolkien studies”.

* The open-access Scandia: Journal of Medieval Norse Studies is calling for papers for a forthcoming issue on the uses of Vikings and Norse Myths in Post-Medieval Reception. Deadline: 15th September 2026. Note also their announcement/call for a forthcoming Scandia monograph series.

* In the current 2025 issue of Scandia: Journal of Medieval Norse Studies, the new translation “Entre o legendario de Tolkien e as lendas do Norte: King Sheave (Rei Sheave), de J.R.R. Tolkien, 1936-1937” (‘Between Tolkien’s Legendarium and the Legends of the North: King Sheave, by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1936-1937’).

* Christianity Today suggests that part of a Holly Ordway book could be used in a church sermon, in “Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Received Brutal Criticisms” ($ paywall)…

One early reviewer dismissed it as “an allegorical adventure story for very leisured boys.” This critic sarcastically said that we should all take to the streets proclaiming “Adults of all ages! Unite against the infantalist invasion.” Another critic declared it “juvenile trash.” In 1961, a third critic called it “ill-written” and “childish” and declared, not a little prematurely that it had already “passed into a merciful oblivion.”

Twenty years later, another critic, was hopeful that Tolkien’s “cult status is diminishing.” This critic also argued that Tolkien’s popularity is due to class distinctions. The intelligent “bookish class” doesn’t read Lord of the Rings. Instead, only lower-class people read it — those “to whom a long read does not come altogether easily.”

* A new £85 academic book on the vexed topic of Reading Length in Fantasy Fiction, set for release in mid March 2026.

* On Landscape, the magazine for landscape photographers, this week goes “Walking with Tolkien” in Switzerland. Freely available online.

* New on YouTube, Malcolm Guite (former Chaplain at and now Life Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge) reads from “The Grey Havens”.

* The Spanish Tolkien Society brings news of A Light in the Darkness, a “music based” biographical documentary that quietly premiered in Wales in 2025. Apparently it…

“examines the impact of the Battle of the Somme on the young Tolkien’s life and how this period influenced his personal and creative development. The musical also dedicates a significant part to his friendship with C.S. Lewis and the influence that Tolkien had on his intellectual journey, an element that the musical employs as one of its narrative pivots”.

Nothing more can be found about the under that title or ‘Una Luz en la Oscuridad’. Could be a film, could be stage musical, or a film of a stage musical?

* And finally, a new cover-preview of Stonefoot, which promises to be an upcoming graphic-novel telling of the tale of Durin.

Tolkien Gleanings #378

* Hammond & Scull have released their Lord of the Rings Comparison 5, this being their latest attempt to authoritatively answer the question “Which edition of The Lord of the Rings has the most accurate text?”

* The Hillsdale Collegian magazine has an article which gives details of a new documentary feature on Tolkien. “New documentary follows Lewis and Tolkien’s friendship”. Freely available online.

“A guy in our [film] crew said, ‘Oh, you need trenches? I know a guy who’s got trenches in his backyard,’” Manton said. “We get on the phone, and he says, ‘Yes, I have a full trench system in the backyard. Do you need soldiers?’ A whole troop of reenactment guys came, and we filmed it all the same day.”

* The Tolkien Society’s magazine Amon Hen No. 317 (February 2026) is now available for download.

Among other items, the issue includes…

    – Over several pages a lead essay summarizing the core Christian values of The Lord of the Rings, and then showing how these are distorted or ignored in the movies and also in what the author calls “the digital ecosystem”. The authors regret the move from a 1990s and 2000s Internet culture of open sharing and collaboration, to one in which attention-grabbing antagonism seems to dominate. But their article also notes that often the latter’s practice… “reveals that they do not read — or do not want to read in depth — what the books they claim to love truly contain”.

    – A review of the book Into the Heart of Middle-earth: Exploring Faith and Fellowship in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (forthcoming, 20th February 2026).

    – A look at what can be known about Elanor Gamgee, Sam’s first-born child. Who is also the cover-star.

* John Garth reviews his 2025 with Tolkien. Freely available online.

* From Italy, Paolo Nardi interviews… “Stefano Giorgianni, president of the AIST – Italian Association of Tolkien Studies”. The long discussion focused around… “the meaning and role of war in Tolkien, its fascination, and how it forever changes those involved.” In Italian, on YouTube.

* Also from Italy, in English, “Receiver of a Tolkien letter discovered” The unpublished 1955 letter, to a “Mrs Frost”, was up for auction last year. The receiver is tracked down to Italy.

* Talking of letters, here in the UK we should watch out for the Royal Mail’s Lord of the Rings picture postage-stamps 2026. Due in Post Offices on 20th March 2026. No previews of the artwork / designs, at present. There’s no special Tolkien “100th” event to mark in 1926, unless they’re planning to celebrate Tolkien’s translations (Beowulf and Pearl in 1926, and his other later translations). But no… the flag for the release definitely says “The Lord of the Rings” — so it’s probably the movies anniversary.

* J.P.S. Nagi on The Pen of Middle-earth, Part III, examining Tolkien’s hand-penned script… ” His worlds were born not in prose, but in script and the script itself was born from the mechanics of the pen.” Freely available online.

* New to me, David Bratman’s online “A Handlist of Books by the Inklings” (last updated January 2026). Freely available online.

* Merton College has a page on various memories of Lectures by J.R.R. Tolkien. One of these suggests that part of the reason for his partly-audible lecturing voice was the hall itself. In a smaller room at Merton in 1958… “he spoke clearly, audibly and rivetingly” to a dozen students across nearly a term of lectures. One also has to wonder if the term’s initial lecture in the big hall usefully served to ‘winnow out the chaff’, leaving him with only a dozen or so of the most dedicated students to enjoy for the rest of the term?

* In the open-access Spanish journal Revista de Filologia (December 2025), “Wonder and Its Vocabulary in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”. In English and freely available online.

* At Penn State university in March 2026, “Tolkien’s Middle-earth”, a campus talk in which the editors will discuss their… “collection of essays, Tolkien’s Medievalism in Ruins: The Function of Relics and Ruins in Middle-earth, and the collection’s path to publication.”

* The 11th International Conference on Tolkien’s Invented Languages, 30th July – 2nd August 2026 at Marquette University, USA. Booking now.

* And finally, The Wikimedia Commons has a big folklore and folk-life recording contest for 2026 which asks people to… “photograph or record traditions, rituals, stories, food, dance, music, clothing, crafts, or community heritage” and upload it under Creative Commons for all to peruse and re-use.

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* The Tolkien Society has announced their Annual Guest Speaker for 2026. Giuseppe Pezzini is the author of Tolkien and the Mystery of Literary Creation (2025). He will speak to the Society on 25th April in Manchester, England. The latest Journal of Tolkien Research has a review of his book.

* Hammond & Scull examine Tolkien’s new book The Bovadium Fragments (2025) and its historical context. Freely available online.

* The new history book The Oxford University Socratic Club, 1942–1972: A Life (2026) has a first chapter on C.S. Lewis, the first President of the Club. Publication is due 5th February 2026.

* The American Scholar reviews The Tower and the Ruin: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Creation (2025). Freely available online.

* Antigone journal reflects on “There and Back Again: the Motif of Nostos in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Novels”. The article… “draws parallels between Tolkien’s novels and the Argonautica, a Hellenistic epic poem”. Freely available online.

* New in the 2025 edition of the French open-access Nordic Studies journal Nordiques, the article “Humaniser le monstre: Le berserker scandinave dans la fantasy europeenne post-Tolkien” (‘Humanizing the monster: The Scandinavian berserker in post-Tolkien European fantasy’). Examines a novel, a videogame and a Franco-Belgian BD comic, in relation to Tolkien’s Beorn. Concludes that…

“it is the heritage of Tolkien’s Beorn which is everywhere perceptible here, precisely in this reflection on the possibility of granting the berserker a form of sympathy which could lead the public to appreciate him, even to identify with him.”

* The new book The Horse in History: A Festschrift in Honour of John Clark (2026) has a chapter which may interest some Gleanings readers, “The Colt-Pixy: A British Horse Spirit?”.

* On YouTube Paolo Nardi considers Tolkien and comics, suggesting that the great comics adaptation is not yet begun. Along the way he notes that an… “unauthorized Bulgarian adaptation from the 1980s offered a free and original interpretation of Middle-earth”. Talking of comics, some scholars may care to note this week’s release of the mammoth Comics Research Bibliography 2025 & Addenda combined e-book edition (30th Anniversary Edition) which is free on Archive.org.

* The £245 Routledge Handbook of Progressive Rock, Metal, and the Literary Imagination (2025) has the chapter “Time Travel Through Tolkien”…

“The primary focus of this chapter is Bo Hansson’s 1972 instrumental concept album, Music Inspired by Lord of the Rings, which replaces the trilogy’s complex narratives with simple, folkish atmospheres, swirls of the Swedish, a synthesized equivalent to Celtic mist.”

The original vinyl release of this best-seller is on Archive.org with a jumbled-up track sequence. A 1977 re-release, apparently remixed, had Rodney Matthews wraparound sleeve artwork and the sleeve shows the correct track sequence.

It’s fairly good synth music for its time. It’s not Ralf and Florian or Departure from the Northern Wastelands, but I revisited it and it’s still very listenable.

* And finally, talking of sonic atmospheres, here is the entry for ‘meaning number three’ of ‘Helm’, found in Joseph Wright’s English Dialect Dictionary — a man and work well known to Tolkien. The Helm Wind is the ancient name for a real and unique local ‘blasting and roaring’ wind in Cumbria, England.

The link with the blasts of the horn of Helm Hammerhand seems obvious…

“… then, sudden and terrible, from the [Helm’s Deep] tower above, the sound of the great horn of Helm rang out. All that heard that sound trembled. Many of the Orcs cast themselves on their faces and covered their ears with their claws. Back from the Deep the echoes came, blast upon blast, as if on every cliff and hill a mighty herald stood.” (The Two Towers).

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* The Oxford Tolkien Network’s 2026 seminar talks are underway. On 10th February 2026 there will be a talk on “Tolkien’s ‘Luxuriant Animism’: Unseen Beings and the Animacy of Arda”.

* From the Philippines, “Hobbits, Ents, and Pope Francis’ ‘Laudato Si’: Environmental Echoes and Religious Resonances from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings” (2025) ($ paywall). See also the earlier article “Tolkien, Middle-earth and ‘Laudato Si'”, which is open-access.

* A newly-found open-access journal, in French. Feeries: Etudes sur le conte merveilleux, XVIIe-XIXe siecle. “Feeries is dedicated to tales of the marvelous, mainly in French, from the 17th to the 19th century”. The journal currently runs from 2004-2025, and includes many book reviews. Publication in HTML format means the articles and reviews are easily auto-translated.

* At the University of Malta, “Tolkien’s Elvish Mirror: Language, Myth, and Europe’s Search for Self”, set for 24th-25th April 2026. Intended as… “a focused discussion among scholars and experts on the role of J.R.R. Tolkien’s approach to language in the cohesion of European identity.” Thomas Honegger will give the keynote talk.

* The Wall Street Journal reviews the new book The War for Middle-earth ($ paywall).

* The Tolkneity blog reviews the book Tolkien’s Faith, in Polish.

* Chesterton and Friends blog notes the dogged continuation of an effort to have the church recognise Tolkien as a modern saint.

* Today in the U.S. there was a “Documentary Sneak Peek and Q&A” event for The Forge of Friendship: J.R.R. Tolkien & C.S. Lewis…

“Through almost ten years of production, built on interviews with over forty of the top Lewis and Tolkien experts, with beautifully shot reenactment scenes in the historic locations of Oxford and Europe, The Forge of Friendship promises to capture the world’s attention.”

* And finally, an article on “Tolkien and The Desk That Built Middle-earth“…

“It tells us something uncomfortably unfashionable about how creativity actually happens: slowly, physically, somewhere specific. Brown furniture, long written off as dull, irrelevant and unwanted, turns out to have been quietly winning all along. It doesn’t chase relevance. It doesn’t need reinvention. It waits.”