The Marquis de Leech

And another Old Phuul chapter sorted. February was a good month in the writing department.

Finished another draft chapter of Old Phuul tonight. Yay for feeling productive...

Tolkien's source material was Fafnir and the Beowulf dragon, slain by Sigurd and Beowulf/Wiglaf respectively. Isolated heroes is where it's at.

Magia and Goeteia: Shippey, Lewis, and Tolkien

My latest sword and sorcery piece has made the second round at Heroic Fantasy Quarterly. Fingers crossed...

A look at Rider Haggard's influence on Tolkien

Maybe Sarantium never had an Alexios I, and things kept disintegrating?

In a nice way to end the year, my reprinted sword-and-sorcery piece, A Breath Through Silver, has qualified for the Mariner Awards - Bewildering Stories' annual "best of" compilation: http://www.bewilderingstories.com/anthologies/AR20.html

Six minutes from an aborted Soviet animated Hobbit: Treasures Under the Mountain: The Animated Soviet Hobbit (1991)

New story out: Hosting Kullervo's Curse 2020: My year of Pagan-themed Horror.

The Tolkien Society distances itself from the proposal, making some excellent points along the way: https://www.tolkiensociety.org/2020/12/statement-on-project-northmoor/

Sadly, looking at the internet right now, about 95% of people seem to be overjoyed at the prospect of a Museum.

But here's the thing... they are not trying to save it. It's a Grade II Listed Property of historical special interest, so it is going nowhere. It basically looks like they want to establish some sort of Christian-orientated retreat, while getting well-meaning people to buy the house for them, under the impression that it will be a Tolkien Museum.

Further investigation suggests that they're really just trying to set up a general culture centre, with well-meaning people thinking they're getting a Tolkien Museum: https://www.tolkienguide.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=3893 The Estate has no part in this.

A very old and very strange Tolkien adaptation I wasn't previously aware of: Sagan om ringen (1971): The Swedish Lord of the Rings

The book publishing industry makes the oil industry look competitive. The Big Five become the Big Four: And Then There Were Four: Book Publishing and Oligopoly

I think of him as a Lighthouse myself - though I do giggle at the Giant Flaming Vagina analogy. Hopefully the Amazon Series serves up a more interesting visual depiction of Sauron.

Oooh yes. The Dawnless Day turns into the Mildly Cloudy Afternoon With a Chance of Showers Later. (And, yes, Denethor is the cardinal sin of the third movie).

As Mandos would say, "not the first." (John Rateliff's History of the Hobbit beats it by over a decade).

I agree with Sauron's post-Ring shadow being a missed opportunity, but it is honestly a minor point. There are much, much bigger issues with the Third Movie. (His point about Gandalf's description of Death can be rationalised away as Gandalf trying to console Pippin. And it is clearly designed to tie-in with the Grey Havens).

Yeah, I've seen some people assessing that this is a collection of obscure Vinyar Tengwar and Parma Eldalamberon material, put together in a more user-friendly format. Even if it is... it'd be great (I myself have read the entire HOME, but have never read VT or PE). Hopefully the length of the volume also implies new stuff too.

I disagree with his answer about Sauron using Tengwar. Put it this way - I use a Latin alphabet, despite not being Roman, and Arabic numerals, despite not being an Arab... Tengwar is a tool, not something limited to Elves only. (More speculatively, Sauron's interactions with Celebrimbor and the Smiths might have meant that using Tengwar was a necessity to successfully bind the other Rings to his own. But that is just speculation).

I've previously posted on the reddit thread. It never made any difference for me.

I've just had a productive day finishing off a 2,300 word piece about a cursed painting.

Oooh. A downloadable transcript of the verses in the incredibly rare Songs for the Philologists: https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:32873/ As a background, this is a 1936 collection of humorous Old English, Old Norse, and Other poetry, by Tolkien and E.V. Gordon. It was printed as a booklet by students at University College... only for a wartime bombing to destroy nearly all the copies. Only fourteen survive, making this the rarest Tolkien book.