The Hall of Fire

In over 40+ years of buying compilations of Tolkien material as they came out (I have everything, beginning with Silmarillion, in US trade hardbacks), this will be the first such book I'm not going to buy. At least Beren and Lúthien and Fall of Gondolin had Christopher's notes and comments, and Natu...

Overnight I thought of a problem with the dragon-curse theory: "Concening 'The Hoard'" says, "all dragon-hoards were cursed, and bred in men the dragon-spirit: in possessors an obsession with mere ownership, in others a fierce desire to take the treasure for their own by violence or t...

if (like me) you're inclined to interpret her as a sovereignty goddess of sorts, whose significance to Doriath lay largely in the conferring of authority upon the now-former King. ... Melian couldn't do much for Doriath after Thingol's death, since otherwise her abandoning the realm to its fate sit...

Voronwë the Faithful wrote: ↑Thu Jul 07, 2022 12:33 am in the middle of a Continuing Legal Education training

Having retired from the practice of law, I don't miss CLE one little bit.

Voronmirdil, I certainly can't argue with your conclusion that Wayne and Christina (well, Christina, really, since apparently she was the one who reviewed the manuscript) misread something in concluding that Thingol was killed outside of Menegroth. That seems pretty clear to me. It almost makes me ...

Hey, Eldy, and thank you. I've been thinking about the possibilities for "either this fence had been robbed of its power by the evil within, or Melian had removed it in grief and horror at the deed that had been done." I'm wondering if those might not be more or less the same thing with th...

In the online post quoted at Tolkien Gateway (linked above), it says: "Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull have commented that: ... 'Thingol, however, is still killed outside Menegroth, with Tolkien giving two possible reasons why the dwarves were able to pass the Girdle of Melian.'" The ...

Those who have replied already might want to note my PS added to my original post.

Heritage Auctions has a Tolkien manuscript entitled "Concerning the Hoard" from 1964, well after the last version of the Tale of Years, in which Tolkien says that the thieves bring the treasure of Nargothrond to Menegroth for Húrin and are killed there. The Dwarf-army gets past Melian's Gi...