Articles related to "Mirkwood"



Beorning questions...
Where the Beornings may have come from, and what they may have been like as a people...
beorn beornings gandalf bilbo thorin

Speaking of Legolas...
An examination of the character of Legolas, and the possible clues Tolkien may have left concerning Legolas' age.
legolas gimli aragorn gandalf thranduil

The Middle-earth Mysteries
A brief discussion of some of the unanswerable questions about Middle-earth's peoples, creatures, and history.
ents spiders dunedain woses druedain

The Sauron Strategies: One War to Win Them All, Except...
The second of two essays examining the strategies Sauron employed during the Second and Third Ages. Striving to be like Morgoth, Sauron took on the world. Perhaps he bit off more than he could chew.
sauron gondor arnor lords of the eldar council of elrond

He Shall Be Like a Tree Planted By the Rivers of Water
The trees of Middle-earth reveal Tolkien's deep love for nature's graceful giants. But though the Ents championed the cause of trees in a world of two legged hewers, they seemed to reveal little about themselves. We must magnify Tolkien's words with our imaginations if we are to behold the all the trees in the silent, wild wood.
ents entwives entish aragorn galadriel

Something Wicked This Way Comes
How could Sauron have returned to life and established himself on Dol Guldur without someone noticing? Even if his resurrection occurred in secret, Greenwood the Great could not have become Mirkwood overnight. So, what happened?
greenwood the great mirkwood dol guldur amon lanc the disaster of the gladden fields

How did Tolkien actually portray the Rohirrim?
A discussion of how Tolkien portrayed the Rohirrim, comparing and contrasting them with the peoples of the Icelandic sagas and ancient Germanic tribes.
j.r.r. tolkien middle-earth rohan iceland sagas

Resurrecting Dale, City of A Thousand Untold Stories
An examination of the events and peoples connected with the city of Dale, and some of the possibilities Tolkien would have considered had he devoted more time to its history and kings.
dale erebor tolkien the hobbit the lord of the rings

The Wild, Wild, Wood-elf West
A discussion of the complex history of the Wood-elves, exploring their roots and various cultural sources.
wood-elves silvan elves eldar noldor minyar

Create Easter ATCS
Do you need to add some small artistic token to some Easter cards? Are you looking for a project to work on with your kids? Read on!
easter atc art project easy art project for kids simple craft project for kids easter themed art project quick craft project for kids

Count, Count, Weigh, Divide
It took a miracle to overthrow Sauron, and Iluvatar's intervention in the War of the Ring may have come on the heels of successive pre-emptive moments which served as warnings to Sauron that his time in Middle-earth was about to come to an end.
iluvatar mene mene tekel upharsin medes persians sauron

Charting the Shire lines
Why is it that the Hobbits didn't overrun Eriador, and how, exactly, did they end up where they did end up? Their names and the Tale of Years provide a few clues that can provide a greater, if grimmer, picture of Hobbit society and history.
hobbits history shire eriador harfoots

There Are Games Afoot!
How have role-playing games tried to depict Tolkien's world in the past? With the prospect of a new role-playing game based on The Lord of the Rings facing us, are there perhaps better methods of depicting Tolkien's vision while retaining playability?
iron crown enterprises middle-earth role-playing game new line cinema peter jackson the lord of the rings

Where Have All the Dragons Gone?
J.R.R. Tolkien's first story concerned a "green great dragon", which he was told was not the correct way to speak of dragons. Years later, the author found the means to speak of dragons in a most compelling fashion. But how great were his dragons, and why did they like gold so much?
j.r.r. tolkien dragon the hobbit the lord of the rings fram

The Hobbit / Lord of the Rings Character Guide
When a work with the scope of "The Hobbit" is made into a movie, it is easy to lose track of the cast of characters. Here's a short guide to print and take to the movie.
hobbit hobbit movie hobbit character guide hobbit movie character guide hobbit film

Frodo Lives! The Graffiti of Middle-Earth
There must have been graffiti in Middle-Earth. Since graffiti occurs in almost every ancient civilization, I do not see any reason why it did not occur in the realms of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth. Uh-oh. . .the Dark Lord himself has passed me some modest examples. . .
frodo tolkien lord of the rings silmarillion graffiti

Frodo's Temptation; Aragorn's Resistance
The Kings of Numenore succumbed to Sauron's influence. The Nazgul had all been men who had been corrupted by him. Boromir went mad with desire for the One Ring. What enabled Aragorn to resist the temptation to seize the Ring?
aragorn elrond elros rivendell gandalf

East of Anduin: Fangorn's Search for Fenethril - Part I
What happened to the Entwives in "The Lord of the Rings?" Tolkien only tells us that they vanished east of the Anduin River when Sauron blasted that land toward the close of the Second Age of Middle Earth. Let us listen now to Treebeard's tale of lost love and journey in search of his beloved wife, Fenethril.
tolkien lord of the rings treebeard fangor fenethril

Frodo's Temptation and The Wound That Wouldn't Heal
The first part of a reflection and reverie regarding the nature of the One Ring and its unrelenting temptation of Frodo as the Ring-Bearer.
frodo tolkien bilbo ring of power gandalf

Exploring Tolkien's Fourth Age
How Middle-earth might have appeared in the Fourth Age, had J.R.R. Tolkien finished writing The New Shadow.
new shadow j.r.r. tolkien middle-earth borlas barrow-wights

Hobbit Tales, or Never There And Back Again...
A discussion of some of the other stories Tolkien could have told about Hobbits had he explained their history in greater detail.
hobbits tolkien shire buckland gondor

Look What They've Done to the Official Web Site, Ma
A brief review of the new Lord of the Rings movie official Web site.
lord of the rings movie gordon paddison peter jackson philippa boyens tolkien and middle-earth

Love, Middle-earth Style
An examination of some of the love stories (some tragic, some idyllic) bound up in Tolkien's long history of Middle-earth.
edain numenor love marriage hobbits

Much ado about Arwen: Elven Princess
A profile of Arwen as portrayed by J.R.R. Tolkien, and how the original character may have inspired Peter Jackson to extrapolate abilities she did not display in the book.
arwen j.r.r. tolkien peter jackson middle-earth aragorn

Riding in Carts With Hobbits
Tolkien's Hobbits bear some striking resemblances to the pre-Romanic Celts who spread across ancient Europe.
celts julius caesar tolkien hobbits thain

The Magic of the Minstrels
Middle-earth had few professional entertainers, and that may be because the greatest entertainers of all had been the Elves, whose magic was still in some ways remembered.
minstrels entertainment treebeard arnor gondor

Just Whose Middle-earth Is It, Anyway?
J.R.R. Tolkien brought us to Middle-earth, but we have never left it since then....
middle-earth action figures cinderella j.r.r. tolkien peter jackson movies

Mountains on the Left, Ruins on the Right
Tolkien Enterprises recently moved to protect its trademarks in the gaming marketplace. Can they really prevent the gaming community from exercising its imagination, or are they just delaying the inevitable?
tolkien enterprises iron crown enterprises middle-earth gaming role-playing games

The Good, the Bad, and the Outlawed
All the great tragedies of Tolkien's First Age cycle are founded upon the outlaw motif. The loss of community and the moral isolation force his characters to undertake purifying journeys. But the journeys are so arduous that most who tread the outlaw path fail to redeem themselves, or must do so by paying the ultimate price.
outlaws redemptive journey tolkien's outlaws noldor beren

The Merchants of Middle-earth
A discussion of money and economics in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth through the ages.
money middle-earth j.r.r. tolkien economy trade

Celeborn Unplugged
Taking another look at Celeborn, we find he is not quite so cut-and-dried as his detractors would have us believe. But is what Tolkien told us about Celeborn nearly as important as what he implied?
celeborn galadriel fangorn forest treebeard lothlorien

Guess Who's Coming to the Disaster
Tolkien is often criticised for not including more romance in The Lord of the Rings. But the romance is scattered throughout his long pseudo-history, and the fate of Middle-earth was more than once decided by a love story.
j.r.r. tolkien middle-earth the lord of the rings the hobbit the silmarillion

Ranger For Hire: Have Horse, Will Travel
A discussion of possible locations where Aragorn's people may have lived in Eriador.
aragorn eriador tolkien rangers dunedain

The Quests of Middle-earth
A look at Tolkien's use of quests in his stories, long and short, and of how role-playing games and more recent fantasy stories have departed from Tolkien's ideas.
quest gilgamesh j.r.r. tolkien the lord of the rings fellowship

The Wars of the Glorfindels
Glorfindel has been the subject of much curiosity and discussion through the years despite how little J.R.R. Tolkien actually told us about this character. And yet it wasn't always that way....
glorfindel gondolin turgon noldor vanyar

Tip-toe Through the Toponymy
Tolkien may have left clues about his thoughts on Hobbit history and roots in the Shire place-names and family names. Rohan's linguistic ties to other lands such as Dale and the Shire may also be hidden in simple names like Upbourn and Westfold.
shire toponymy english toponymy shire place-names rohan place-names rohirric

Of Thegns and Kings and Rangers and Things
The fall of the kingdom of Arnor brought about an end to the kingship of the Heirs of Isildur. But an examination of the Rangers and the role they played in Eriador reveals some interesting possibilities about how the Heirs of Isildur may have preserved both their royal authority and their ties to Eriador's people through a unique blend of feudalism and inheritance law.
dunedain of the north dunedain of arnor heir of elendil heir of isildur rangers

Shhh! It's a Secret Ring!
Who knew about the Rings of Power at the end of the Third Age? It requires some historical detective work to figure out who knew about them in the first place, who learned about them later, and who would have been around to forget about them.
rings of power the one ring numenor eregion noldor

The Other Way 'Round
J.R.R. Tolkien learned about philology and mythology through the study of Greek literature. What does Middle-earth owe to his lifelong interest in the Classics? How did he bring classical and medieval literature and poetry together to create a modern literary tradition which he so uniquely defines?
beowulf the fall of troy the iliad the epic cycle homer


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