J. R. R. Tolkien’s love of nature and, especially trees, was well-known. He drew inspiration from the green growing things and was undoubtedly saddened by the damage humans could inflict on the natural world. During his life Tolkien witnessed the unflattering change of certain landscapes due to the merciless strides of technological progress, and that could not leave him indifferent.
There are a lot of characters in Tolkien’s works that are connected with nature in one way or the other. Whether they are those that care deeply about nature, or are part of the natural world themselves, Tolkien made sure to give them quite a prominent voice in his tales. One of the best representatives of the sentient nature is the race of the Ents.
Welsh is of this soil, this island, the senior language
of the men of Britain; and Welsh is beautiful.
(English and Welsh)
Languages were an enormous part of J. R. R. Tolkien’s life. He was ever surrounded by them: the Professor worked with languages, learnt them and, above all, he loved them greatly. That latter aspect was vital in Tolkien’s treatment of tongues. He felt their aesthetics keenly: some languages did not appeal to him, while others had a firm grasp on his heart, were in accord with his tastes and were dear to him for various reasons. One of such tongues was Welsh. Read more
Stars have been a vital part of the Elves’ lives since the Firstborn awoke near Cuiviénen under the starlight. It was their doom appointed by Eru Ilúvatar, so being the first thing the newly awoken race saw, the stars cannot have been anything but of paramount importance for the fair people.
In my personal universe winter is closely associated with the development of my fascination with Tolkien. It was in December that I first picked up The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, with the latter sitting on my bookshelf for several years after the purchase, untouched and unopened, biding its time to storm into my life precisely when it meant to. I spent the whole last month of the year with my nose buried in the books, unable to part with the stories. However, no matter how much I loved The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, it was my January dive into The Silmarillion that sealed my respect and love of Tolkien’s books and turned me from just a reader into the student of his works.
Pronunciation of words in real and invented languages can be of various kinds: in some tongues words are pronounced in the same way they are spelt, but in others there are entire systems with reading rules of different degrees of complexity. In some cases the way a word is spelt versus the way it is pronounced can be divided by a yawning gap. Some languages have special marks above or below letters to indicate certain peculiarities in their pronunciation. J. R. R. Tolkien’s invented languages Quenya and Sindarin are no exceptions. Read more
In many ways Elvish immortality in Tolkien’s Legendarium is more like a doom for its bearers, rather than a blessing: being not permanent living per se, it is rather the state of an immensely long life until the end of Arda without any knowledge of what comes afterwards. Thus, alongside moments of joy, Elves carry great burdens of battles lost, dear ones dead and sorrows experienced over the courses of their really long lives, and the burden becomes only heavier with years. As Men are growing stronger and more powerful, Elves are waning and fading gradually. In Tolkien’s own words, they “are concerned rather with the griefs and burdens of deathlessness in time and change, than with death” (Letters, № 131).
On their way to Mordor Frodo and Sam encounter various places with a different degree of weirdness to them. However, few of them stand out in the same manner as the Dead Marshes. Lying between the plain of Dagorlad and the Emyn Muil, they become a grave test for the travellers en route to an even darker place.
Over the course of Middle-earth history its villains have always been inventive in hiding the places of their habitation as much as they possibly could so that nothing and nobody could interfere with their evil deeds. Various camouflage devices have been applied, beginning with going deep underground to veiling tall towers in shadows and deceits. Unsurprisingly, the first bad boy to go subterranean was Melkor: he had set the trend for living below ground level way before the counting of time even started.
