Relevant anew in light of recent information.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWuhmtKsgfI&t=65s

YouTube

The Healing of Eowyn - An Excerpt From The Return of The King.

This excerpt is from the first part of book VI, chapter V "The Steward and The King" in The Return of the King. It is one of the most outstanding examples of Tolkien's deep - indeed profound - understanding of the human condition. Well may it be said that…

Martin is sometimes erroneously called the modern Tolkien, or something in the vein of that heresy. This is not so. Martin is the modern Shakespeare, or at least he is much closer to him than to Tolkien. This is a good indicator of the error of the fantasy genre in fiction.

"Beowulf is not, then, the hero of an heroic lay, precisely. He has no enmeshed loyalties, nor hapless love. He is a man, and that for him and many is sufficient tragedy." - J.R.R Tolkien, Beowulf: The Monsters and The Critics

A Half-baked Theory Regarding the Primeval Spider Ungoliant:

I have recently been very interested in Ungoliant and the 'metaphysical' implications of her existence. To better illustrate what I personally think she is, and what that actually implies, I wish to quote this part of the Ainulindalë:

"But as the theme progressed, it came into the heart of Melkor to interweave matters of his own imagining that were not in accord with the theme of Ilúvatar; for he sought therein to increase the power and glory of the part assigned to himself. To Melkor among the Ainur had been given the greatest gifts of power and knowledge, and he had a share in all the gifts of his brethren. He had gone often alone into the void places seeking the Imperishable Flame; for desire grew hot within him to bring into Being things of his own, and it seemed to him that Ilúvatar took no thought for the Void, and he was impatient of its emptiness. Yet he found not the Fire, for it is with Ilúvatar."

Following this, I quote this description of Ungoliant from the Silmarillion:

"*There, beneath the sheer walls of the mountains and the cold dark sea, the shadows were deepest and thickest in the world; and there in Avathar, secret and unknown, Ungoliant had made her abode. The Eldar knew not whence she came; but some have said that in ages long before she descended from the darkness that lies about Arda, when Melkor first looked down in envy upon the Kingdom of Manwë, and that in the beginning she was one of those that he corrupted to his service. But she had disowned her Master, desiring to be mistress of her own lust, taking all things to herself to feed her emptiness; and she fled to the south, escaping the assaults of the Valar and the hunters of Oromë, for their vigilance had ever been to the north, and the south was long unheeded. Thence she had crept towards the light of the Blessed Realm; for she hungered for light and hated it.

In a ravine she lived, and took shape as a spider of monstrous form, weaving her black webs in a cleft of the mountains. There she sucked up all light that she could find, and spun it forth again in dark nets of strangling gloom, until no light more could come to her abode; and she was famished.*"

The theory which I postulate, against the suggestions of Eldar scholarship, is therefore this: that Ungoliant is not one of the fallen Powers lead astray by Melkors greatest lie (his discordant tune during the Music of the Ainur), such as Sauron or the Balrogs, but rather an unknown or half-known consequence of Melkor's search and desire for the Flame Imperishable since before the Music of the Ainur. In other words, Ungoliant is a fundamentally poisonous thread woven into the very fabric of Eä (the universe). She is something of the Legendarium's counterpart to Níðhǫggr. Furthermore, I also believe that she is far from the only one of her kind, not counting her own offspring the Giant Spiders. I think, in line with the theory presented in this video, that she has some kinship with the "Nameless Things" under Moria.

This all grants Ungoliant a very strange ontological status, but that is for another time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HSsr7PoEIw

YouTube

J.R.R. Tolkien - On Fairy-Stories (unabridged) | Catholic Culture Audiobooks

"God is the Lord, of angels, and of men—and of elves." In this 1939 essay, J.R.R. Tolkien expounds upon his personal theory of fantasy. Considered by many to be his most influential scholarly work, the essay is remarkable both as an analysis of a literary…

Found a young Mallorn.

I recently learned that a sizable portion of Tolkiens work is soon (about two decades) to enter into the public domain. Now is a good time to start studying Tolkien if you ever read any of his work and thought about writing something set in his sub-creation. I, for one, certainly intend to prepare for the advent of a possible Tolkien renaissance in the 40s, if for no other reason than to ensure the many orcs and goblins out there do not simply get to despoil Tolkiens treasure chamber in peace.