{"id":19669,"date":"2026-07-21T20:29:41","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T19:29:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/?p=19669"},"modified":"2026-07-22T11:07:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T10:07:48","slug":"tolkien-gleanings-443","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/2026\/07\/21\/tolkien-gleanings-443\/","title":{"rendered":"Tolkien Gleanings #443"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tolkien Gleanings<\/a> #443<\/p>\n

* On now and running until November 2026, “Here Be Dragons: Anglo-Saxon Influence on Fantasy”<\/a> is a substantial exhibition at Jarrow Hall (‘Anglo-Saxon Farm and Village and Bede Museum’) in Northumbria, England. On 1st August, as part of a Festival at the Hall, they will have… “a guided tour to discuss the influences of the Anglo-Saxons on author J.R.R. Tolkien and his work.” They have a reconstructed village\/farm, and on the same day as the Tolkien talk the… “living history group Regia Anglorum will be bringing the Anglo-Saxon period to life” on the site. Sounds good, if you’re up that way.<\/p>\n

* From Brazil in open-access, the student dissertation “Paisagem sonora e a musicalidade narrativa em O Hobbit<\/em>, de J.R.R. Tolkien”<\/a> (June 2026)…<\/p>\n

“The analysis reveals a rich and integrated soundscape where nature sounds, voices, songs, musical instruments, bells, and silence perform symbolic and structural functions in the construction of Middle-earth [as found in The Hobbit].”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

* The first issue of the new British Journal of Religious Education<\/em> has “In search of Aquinas in Middle-earth: pedagogical potentials for Thomistic virtue ethics through The Lord of the Rings”<\/em><\/a> ($ paywall). The article suggests using The Lord of the Rings<\/em> can help students to understand “Aquinas’ moral anthropology”. <\/p>\n

* Newly added to the latest rolling Journal of Tolkien Studies<\/em>, the short article “Some notes on a Tolkien\u2019s manuscript linked to “Leaf by Niggle””<\/a>. This tries to determine the dating of the earliest version of the tale. Freely available online.<\/p>\n

* The New Oxford Review<\/em> has a long article on “Tolkien\u2019s Insights into the Masculine Soul: The Call of Chivalry”<\/a>. Freely available online.<\/p>\n

* Wormwoodiana<\/em> on an older wave of English ‘whimsical fantasy’<\/a> for adults, and the post names 11 books…<\/p>\n

“[The novel] Flower Phantoms belongs to a curious and largely neglected British literary mode that flourished in the interwar and early WWII years. In Past Lives of Old Books, R.B. Russell calls this loose tradition \u201cwhimsical fantasy,\u201d offering a handful of exemplars…”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

* Saint Tolkien<\/em> interviews artist Matej Cadil<\/a>. Cadil’s latest Substack post and artwork is “The Dance in the Hemlock Glade That Shaped Tolkien\u2019s Legendarium”<\/a> (Substack, but free).<\/p>\n

* New to me, Joshua Tabti’s finely-drawn and appealing Tolkien style maps<\/a> for England, Wales, Cornwall, Oxfordshire, Northumberland, the British Isles etc.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

* And finally, talking of hemlock glades and routes across a leafy shire… the new one-hour YouTube video “Can I walk across England’s most Tolkien-esque county using only footpaths?”<\/a>. A south Staffordshire man tries to link up footpaths so that he only<\/em> uses footpaths to go forty or so miles across Shropshire. No roads, no going through villages or towns. ‘Medieval’ style travelling without a map, and walking across country while picking up water from churchyard taps. He had tried to map such a route in south or mid Staffordshire, but couldn’t do it. So he popped over to neighbouring Shropshire.<\/p>\n

Listen in audio-only, if you get sea-sick from a wobbly camera, though. Alternatively, you can make a converted video of it that is more of a slideshow. Use the desktop PC freeware FastFlix<\/a> which is a modern 2026 GUI for the venerable ffmpeg. It will download the required ffmpeg (160Mb) when first launched. Then download your video from YouTube, load it into FastFlix, choose a good quality setting, and in the Custom ffmpeg options use…<\/p>\n

-vf \"select=not(mod(n\\,375))\"<\/code><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The command inserts every 375th frame x 375 times in the resulting video, converting the video to a slideshow of static frames. At the frame-rate for a downloaded YouTube video, this command gives you static frames at a nice pace. Audio is unchanged, and still in sync. Works very nicely, and no sea-sickness. Five minutes to convert a one-hour 480px video, in this case. Obviously if you can get a better 720px video download with audio from YouTube, then it will take a bit longer. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tolkien Gleanings #443 * On now and running until November 2026, “Here Be Dragons: Anglo-Saxon Influence on Fantasy” is a substantial exhibition at Jarrow Hall (‘Anglo-Saxon Farm and Village and Bede Museum’) in Northumbria, England. On 1st August, as part of a Festival at the Hall, they will have… “a guided tour to discuss the […]<\/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-19669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tolkien-gleanings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19669","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=19669"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19687,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19669\/revisions\/19687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}