{"id":17403,"date":"2025-04-07T23:04:35","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T22:04:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/potbanks.wordpress.com\/?p=17403"},"modified":"2025-04-07T23:04:35","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T22:04:35","slug":"tolkien-gleanings-296","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/2025\/04\/07\/tolkien-gleanings-296\/","title":{"rendered":"Tolkien Gleanings #296"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tolkien Gleanings<\/a> #296<\/p>\n

* “Middle-earth-on-Earth: How and Why People Use Fantasy Film and Literature to Give Meaning to Real World Places”<\/a> (2025), a Phd thesis for Dalhousie University. Freely available online.<\/p>\n

* “O verde e os acordes cromaticos em O Silmarillion”<\/em><\/a> (2025) (‘Green and chromatic chords in The Silmarillion<\/em>‘). A Phd thesis from Brazil, in Portuguese with long English abstract. Examines Tolkien’s use of colours, especially green and red, and how these act upon his imagined material world and the minds of the inhabitants. Freely available online.<\/p>\n

* Also from Brazil this week, “Um demografo passou semanas resolvendo uma questao muito importante”<\/a>…. <\/p>\n

“A demographer spent weeks solving a very important question: how many people lived in Middle-earth? He wondered if he could use the techniques of historical demography, and started working on it.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He took a basic look at the landscapes of each region, weather and seasons and then found equivalent historical nations in the primary world. And then worked out the maximum ‘carrying capacity’ for a hypothetical pre-industrial population at the time of The Lord of the Rings<\/em>. 34 million, give or take. But that’s the absolute maximum. After further refinements…<\/p>\n

“The populations of humans, elves, dwarves and hobbits in Middle-earth total around 6.7 million. 200,000 would be hobbits, about 284,000 elves, about 121,000 dwarves, and the remainder would be men.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With large numbers of orcs\/goblins, much rarer trolls and ents, and ever rarer assorted werewolves and vampires.<\/p>\n

* On YouTube, a new interview with Tolkien artist Ted Nasmith<\/a>, on the Polish Pod Zielonym Smokiem<\/em> podcast (‘At the Sign of the Green Dragon’).<\/p>\n

* Spanish newspaper El Pais<\/em> appears to have a new ‘Culture’ article on “John Howe, ilustrador de las obras de Tolkien”<\/a> ($ paywall), dated 7th April 2025. Relates to his appearance at a comics convention and launch of the Spanish edition of his A Middle-earth Traveller<\/em> artbook of sketches.<\/p>\n

* Lurking on Vimeo for a decade (but new to me) is the film Durin’s Folk and the Hill of Sorcery<\/a><\/em> (2015, one hour). It’s an unofficial fan-edit of The Hobbit<\/em> movies, focussing only on the backstory of the dwarves, Gandalf’s investigations into the Necromancer in Mirkwood, and then the banishment of the Necromancer. There’s significant movie-fication of Bree, Azog, Mirkwood, Dol Goldur, Thrain, and especially Radagast (who now has a rabbit-drawn super-sled which enables rapid transport through dense woodland). Also general movie-fication of the plot, and Galadriel and Saruman are present and their attack on Dol Guldur is frankly rather cheesy. So, dear readers of the original work(s), ‘be warned’. Legal note: in many nations you will need to own the extended Hobbit movies on DVD before you can legally watch this free fan-work.<\/em><\/p>\n

* Four more 90-minute lectures have been scheduled on YouTube from University of Chicago professor Rachel Fulton Brown, The White Lady<\/a> (Galadriel), The Spellsongs of Tinuviel<\/a>, Morgoth’s Revenge<\/a>, and Gondolin<\/a>, in that order. Originally part of her paywalled series \u2018The Forge of Tolkien\u2019 (2021), but now being gradually posted free on YouTube.<\/p>\n

* Lingwe<\/a><\/em> discovers that when Tolkien was welcomed back to Oxford in 1925, he was described as… “the singular and outstanding disciple of the most illustrious Arthur Napier”. This was Arthur Sampson Napier (1853\u20131916), author of the tree-ish History of the Holy Rood-tree<\/a><\/em> (1894), a book of Old English glosses<\/a><\/em> (1900), and what appears to be the first full description of the Franks Casket<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* And finally, currently on eBay UK with seven copies left to sell, Black & White Ogre Country: The Lost Tales of Hilary Tolkien<\/a><\/em>. At a reasonable \u00a314 inc. postage, from a UK seller in Chipping Norton. Only 88 pages, but the book is a very well-reviewed hardback of high-quality and has evocative memoir material relating to Tolkien’s middle-childhood and more. Buy your copy now before it goes out-of-print, I’d suggest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tolkien Gleanings #296 * “Middle-earth-on-Earth: How and Why People Use Fantasy Film and Literature to Give Meaning to Real World Places” (2025), a Phd thesis for Dalhousie University. Freely available online. * “O verde e os acordes cromaticos em O Silmarillion” (2025) (‘Green and chromatic chords in The Silmarillion‘). A Phd thesis from Brazil, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tolkien-gleanings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17403\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}