A week has now passed since the final day of Tolkien 2019 in Birmingham. Alan and I are both back home, and it’s taken a few days to get over my jet...
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” It’s incredible how much ten short words can do, isn’t it? These were the first ten words...
Shawn says it’s my turn to write a Prancing Pony Pondering this week, but instead of giving you 20 pages of my ramblings, I’m actually going to take...
As observed by Verlyn Flieger in the first chapter of her book Splintered Light,1 the contrast between opposites is a key feature of Tolkien’s...
When Shawn and I recorded our fifth episode of the podcast on the Ainulindalë, we couldn’t have predicted that we’d still be around over a year later...
It’s been three weeks since Alan and I finished our trilogy of episodes on the story of Túrin Turambar in The Silmarillion, and no one is...
Yes, I referenced both Bob Dylan and Rush in the title of this essay. Fair warning: that may very well be the essay’s high point. After all...
In an early Prancing Pony Ponderings essay, I made brief mention of the following passage in The Hobbit … ‘Hmmm! it smells like elves!’ thought...
I’ve probably admitted to this on the podcast at some point; if not, let this serve as my confession. Way back when I first started reading Tolkien...
If you’ve listened to the podcast enough, you’ve probably heard Alan and I make the bold claim that J. R. R. Tolkien never, ever made an accidental...