Alas, not me

A question posted online in a private group set me thinking about which hand Frodo wears the One Ring on. During The Lord of the Rings  Frod...

In his new book The Literary Role of History in the Fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien , Nick Birns has written a very interesting chapter called ...

“Good Morning!” said Bilbo, and he meant it. The sun was shining, and the grass was very green. But Gandalf looked at him from under long b...

In my last  post I pointed out that the author of 'The Tale of Years' 'sees the moment of final transition from Sméagol-Gollum ...

'I will take the Ring,' he said, 'though I do not know the way.' Elrond raised his eyes and looked at him, and Frodo felt hi...

'I will take the Ring, though I do not know the way.' These are perhaps some of the best known words said by Frodo in all of The Lor...

 What does Wile E. Coyote have to do with the One Ring? Consider the words of Gandalf in The Shadow of the Past : It was not Gollum, Frodo, ...

 Just this morning I was reflecting on the incantatory lines at the heart of the Ring verse: One Ring to rule them all, one ring to find the...

 1) If the Ring is sentient, as some suppose it to be, why doesn't it react at all when Gandalf recites the Ring incantation in the Blac...

Recently  I suggested that 'Saruman' is Tolkien's rendering into Old English of the Ancient Greek σοφιστής. Last night I discove...

As we've seen before , Tolkien is hardly averse to slipping a bit of humor or even (gasp!) irony into his writing. We might not exp...

As they passed her they turned and their eyes watched her slowly floating away from them. For so it seemed to them: Lórien was slippin...

Another excerpt from To Rule the Fate of Many: Truth, Lies, Pity, and the Ring of Power , a much longer work I am writing at present. ...

'Though [Bilbo] had found out that the thing needed looking after; it did not seem always of the same size or weight; it shrank or...

Gandalf's 'good morning' exchange with Bilbo in the first chapter of The Hobbit  is rightly famous as much for its humo...

'I could not take it from [Bilbo] without doing greater harm; and I had no right to do so anyway. '  ( FR  1.ii.48) ...

The Last Sight of Hobbiton Copyright © Ted Nasmith  'I am with you at present,' said Gandalf, 'but soon I shall not be. ...

Then suddenly, as before under the eaves of the Emyn Muil, Sam saw these two rivals with other  vision. A crouching shape, scarcely ...

Carl Emil Doepler From early on, people have wondered if Tom Bombadil is really Eru Ilúvatar in disguise. As early as September 195...

'Comfort yourself!' said Gandalf. 'In no case would Boromir have brought it to you. He is dead, and died well; may he sl...