#tolkien encyclopedia

[fictionfordays]

Flowers

Main Masterlist | Tolkien Masterlist

Maedhros enjoys flowers. So much so that he takes it upon himself to study them, pressing flowers on a page in a special journal with notes written about it.

While he doesn't study herbs the way someone like Tyelkormo would, he does study the edible and medicinal uses of flowers, making it a point to include flowers in some of the pastries he makes. Topping salads with sugared dianthus, tea cakes made with a creamy chamomile tea, mixing lavender with blueberries in a dish similar to a soufflé pancake, even rose and apple scones.

He loves to look at them. He doesn't mind picking enough to make a seasonal crown, or getting his hands dirty in his own personal little garden. He doesn't mind the thorns on the rose bush that seem to always catch his hair, untangling it from the loose braid he put it in earlier. Or the way raspberry thorns snag on his clothes. They can be mended, after all.

If you prick your finger, he'll dote on you: kissing your little scrape with a small smile. He'll affectionately tell you to be kinder to the roses next time so you won't get pricked again~

Join the Taglist! || Ko-fi || Artistree || ArtStation

Tags: @a-contemplation-upon-flowers @asianbutnotjapanese @eunoiaastralwings @manjirwo @stopisa @wandererindreams

I do not own these characters. All rights to the original creators. All content—created rights are reserved to Wallabypirate©2024.

[brethilach]

Tolkien Gateway suddenly changed its entire layout and it gave me whiplash. It's totally fine and I think it actually looks better this way but I still thought I was on the wrong website for a second

[gaytedlasso]

Had a LotR marathon yesterday with my cousins + friends and safe to say my love for those movies has been rekindled tenfold

[theskeletoninthegarden]

I have the worst love-hate relationship with my Pop dolls.

[camille-lachenille]

Is 10 pm a good time to entirely reorganise the Fantasy shelf of my room’s library? Probably not.

Did it stop me from entirely reorganise the Fantasy shelf of my room’s library? Absolutely not.

Now, all my books by and about Tolkien finally have their dedicated spot on the shelf and I still have a bit of room to squeeze my future purchases in, it’s perfect! And my LOTR figurines also have the space to show all their kitch, plastic-y glory.

[labyrinths-library]

Book 49 of 2024

An Encyclopedia of Tolkien: The History + Mythology that Inspired Tolkien's World by David Day

★★★★

Find the author here. Read the Tolkien Gateway page about David Day here.

Pages: 531

Genre: "Nonfiction"

Review:

Okay so. I'm going to preface this and all subsequent David Day entries accordingly:

I recently got into Tolkien and it can be daunting. I saw Day's collection of novels and read them all first before I started Lord of the Rings for the first time so I'd have some incite into the greater lore of it all and because there are so many characters that I wanted to better keep track of them all. I found Day's work to be gorgeously illustrated and fairly interesting, but as I've been taught in my various Tolkien writing event discord servers, always take him with a decent grain of salt.

It was super helpful and had a bunch of information about what could have inspired Tolkien. I'm not entirely sure how accurate it all was. I love how the entries are interconnected like an actual encyclopedia. It has gorgeous art. It's a decent starting point/reference book, like using wikipedia to find your starting point.

[erismourn]

with respect to mr tolkien. what the fuck kind of world map is this

[rapha-reads]

"So with regard to fairy stories, I feel that it is more interesting, and also in its way more difficult, to consider what they are, what they have become for us, and what values the long alchemic processes of time have produced in them. In Dasent's words I would say: “We must be satisfied with the soup that is set before us, and not desire to see the bones of the ox out of which it has been boiled.” Though, oddly enough, Dasent by “the soup” meant a mishmash of bogus pre-history founded on the early surmises of Comparative Philology; and by “desire to see the bones” he meant a demand to see the workings and the proofs that led to these theories. By “the soup” I mean the story as it is served up by its author or teller, and by “the bones” its sources or material—even when (by rare luck) those can be with certainty discovered. But I do not, of course, forbid criticism of the soup as soup." Tolkien, "On Fairy Stories"

Gods, I adore Tolkien's writing.

[taibhsearachd]

So, going by the idea of "every truly great story has a random Texan" (see: Dracula, His Dark Materials), I asked my Tolkien encyclopedia wife what race/culture in The Lord of the Rings is the Texan equivalent. They got real mad when I suggested the Rohirrim (because horse culture, I didn't actually think that was the answer but I wanted to provoke my wife), and... I'm gonna step aside so my wife can rant about who in LotR is the actual Random Texan.

[checkoutmybookshelf]

Ok, so normally I just...ignore creators who can't be bothered to include women, LTGBTQIA, and BIPOC authors in Fantasy Book Lists, but today I'm tired and grouchy and this goddamn video pissed me off because it's a vast majority of white dudes and their fantastical man pain. SO. I would like to just toss out some NOT white male fantasy authors because frankly I am *so tired* of white dudes retreading Tolkien and Robert Jordan forever. So let's celebrate some amazing fantasy authors who tend not to make these lists.

I'll give the author (and a book to start with).

- Mercedes Lackey (Arrows of the Queen)

- Tamora Pierce (Sandry's Book)

- Fonda Lee (Jade City)

- India Holton (The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels)

- NE Davenport (The Blood Trials)

- Naomi Novik (His Majesty's Dragon)

- Moniquill Blackgoose (To Shape A Dragon's Breath)

- CE Murphy (Urban Shaman)

- Sue Lynn Tan (Daughter of the Moon Goddess)

- Chloe Gong (These Violent Delights)

- Judy I. Lin (A Magic Steeped in Poison)

- Tasha Suri (The Jasmine Throne)

- Xiran Jay Zhao (Iron Widow)

- Jordan Ifueko (Raybearer)

- Chelsea Abdullah (The Stardust Thief)

- Tracy Deonn (Legendborn)

- Gabi Burton (Sing Me to Sleep)

- Brittany N. Williams (That Self-Same Metal)

- Juliet Marillier (Dreamer's Pool)

- Stephanie Burgis (Scales and Sensibility)

- Allison Saft (A Fragile Enchantment)

- Chloe Neill (The Bright and Breaking Sea)

- Olivia Atwater (Half a Soul)

- Heather Fawcett (Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faerie)

- MA Carrick (The Mask of Mirrors)

- Kristin Cashore (Graceling)

- Marie Brennan (A Natural History of Dragons)

- Maya Ibrahim (The Spice Road)

- HM Long (Dark Water Daughter)

- Aparna Verma (The Phoenix King)

And these are just the ones I can see on my bookshelves by turning my head without moving from my chair. There are DOZENS of others who I apologize for missing and who are absolutely worth reading. If I missed one of your favorites, add it to the list with a reblog, and let's stop defaulting to filling fantasy author lists with white dudes.

[linestyleartwork]

`Yavanna´ -Pencil and watercolor paint 2023 -

My interpretation of Tolkien's Valar 'Yavanna'. 🧝‍🌿T To my great joy, the painting became the official image for the 'Yavanna' entry in the German Tolkien encyclopedia 'Ardapedia'.

(Music in video by frametraxx.de)

[some-pers0n]

WoF fans when the book for third graders that was said several times to be a fun little sidebook with a heavier emphasis on humour turns out to be a fun little sidebook with a heavier emphasis on humour (they are angry that it wasn't a 500 page encyclopedia with such dense worldbuilding that would make Tolkien cry)

[azrael-the-lucifan]

There’s two people on tiktok who’s video about rings of power keep coming up on my feed. One is positive while still criticizing the aspects she doesn’t agree with. This girl is an encyclopedia of Tolkien. She’s having fun, she’s vibing. She finds parts of the lore that explain things in the show people complain about.

Then the other person is bashing the show left, right, and centre. They also seem to know a great deal about Tolkien but from what I can tell they very much seem like someone who has unconsciously let some of their headcanons take over or just create bias. They also said the guy who plays Sauron isn’t handsome enough?? Like, mate, are we watching the same show? He is quite handsome. He’s not my type, but he is still very handsome. Like, yeah, I can see how people would become enamoured with him. Just cuz he’s not your ideal beauty standard doesn’t mean he’s not good looking enough to play Sauron.

[bitterseaproduction]

An Indispensable Silver Lining | The Hobbit Ref Dump

So, I can’t (see: don’t want to) go on with An Indispensable Silver-Lining until I can sit down and rewatch some Desolation of Smaug to pin down some character locations, and I really wanna decide if I’m going full movie-verse or embracing a specific fanedit or book+movie mix and what timeline I want to hold myself to for Thorin—

Can you believe I started this fic thinking ‘I’m not going to get bogged down by canon or details this time. I just wanna write for the fun’? 😂 That went well.

Point is, just because I want to gather some canon facts? It hasn’t stopped me from writing up 1500 words of a chapter 2+ plan, or over 6 THOUSAND WORDS of long-term storyboarding in less than THREE DAYS covering Smaug and the men/dwarves/elves factions and the orcs and some of the bagginshield progression and the ‘act 1’ climax and like three ways ‘act 2’ could break bad, and— well, you can tell it’s a true passion project when I keep stepping away, think of another thing, and scramble back to my phone to jot down a few hundred more words in whatever moments I can steal. And, more pertinent to this post, I can’t stop devouring a ton of resources and inspiration.

So, with that in mind, I thought I’d just share something of those sources! For fun, for later reference for myself as I write, for practical use if you’d like it yourself, or maybe you just want something else to read and these are great fics/lore bits to choose!

Updated May 15th, 2024. Additions marked with a *

The Hobbit Trilogy Fan Edit Sources

A Comprehensive Guide to Fan Edits of the Hobbit Trilogy An older list, but viable for what it covers

Help on choosing Hobbit fan edit? Which is the best? A second reddit list, a bit more modern.

FanEdit.org: Lord of the Rings franchise A comprehensive list of options for The Hobbit + other LotR works

* Specific Fan Edits

I still need to watch all of the edits I've found properly from beginning to end, but after skimming through a number of options, looking for specific wants and do-not-wants in each and reading/watching a few things on how each version was created, I think I have narrowed my interest down to these three fan edits:

Chris Hartwell's Hobbit Trilogy A very comprehensive cut that keeps pretty much all of the movie beats intact, just trims down the trilogy's more clunky spots to create a more polished film experience. (i.e. a reduced Radagast, Alfrid, older Bilbo, some of the action scenes, etc.) Generally prioritizes Bilbo as the MC and his dynamic with Thorin as the through-line of the story and includes some of the extended scenes that highlight both, which I really appreciate.

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again An edit that more fully cuts some of the less loved factors of the movies like the Tauriel romance, but not nearly as cut-heavy as a lot of the more well-known fan edits.

The Compromise Cut Very similar to 'or There and Back Again' but more ambitious in rearranging footage to create new beats to cover cuts vs 'or There and Back Again' being more of a clean 'straight from the source' cut.

~

For my purposes, Hartwell's will probably be my go-to for full lore and plot inclusion & the most 'bang for my buck' while being a cleaner watch than the OG, while There and Back Again or The Compromise Cut are what I would share with friends who despise some of the film-only content, but are willing to give the trilogy another try.

I know there are a number of other great edits of there, M4 and MapleFilms being especially loved, ~but~ I set a rule for myself that any edit that cut the carrock hug was instantly out, so these were the three I landed on.

Resource Websites

The Encyclopedia of Arda Tolkien Gateway LotR Online

Specific Details

TEoA: A Viewer’s Companion (AUJ) TEoA: A Viewer’s Companion (DoS) TEoA: A Viewer’s Companion (TBoFA) TEoA: Longbeards + The Other Clans

TG: Quest Motivations Generally good overview of the point of the quest and what happened.

TG: Smaug Role / Gandalf motivation "Following the sack of Erebor, Gandalf felt that Sauron would take advantage of Middle-earth's weakened state and attack Rivendell and Lothlórien or try regain Angmar; he also feared that Sauron "might use" Smaug "with terrible effect". [...The White Council] attacked Dol Guldur in TA 2941, while Sauron and Smaug could not "help one another". [...] his adversaries were able to drive him from the fortress with relative ease. [...] Sauron abandoned Dol Guldur willingly, and returned secretly to Mordor, where he would openly declare himself in TA 2951, and began preparations for his final war to dominate Middle-earth."

TG: The Arkenstone Arkenstone info from book and adaptations

* Khuzdul Words for Fanfiction Writers A resource for Khuzdul words for - as the name says - fanfic writers!

Durin's Line Tapestry from DoS Shows the family connections with original book birth dates for all. Even though it was presumably made pre-sacking in 2770, and 3 of the company depicted were born after Erebor fell. That... is curious.

The Line of Dwarves A more thorough (and intriguing) look at the dwarf lines and relevant dates, all book-based.

Comprehensive Genealogy Chart of all the Hobbits from J.R.R. Tolkien's Legendarium My gosh is this expansive... and hard to load up on a screen, but if you don't want to miss something, check this!

HOBBIT FAMILY TREE: How are Bilbo, Frodo, Pippin, Merry, and Sam related? The less brain-breaking hobbit tree that focuses on the main 5 from the books.

Lord of the Rings Hobbit Family Tree More of a middle-ground on the 2 above options.

* Prominent Hobbit Families and Individuals A lovely breakdown of the hobbit families as a group, what they are like and who are the crucial members of those families.

Bag-End PJ Hobbit Map Crucial for Bilbo background & any Shire scenes if they come!

* Untangling Middle-Earth's many routes to evil A map of where all of the characters traveled in The Hobbit and The Lord of the RIngs! I found this handy when I was trying to track Gandalf in particular.

A chronology of The Hobbit A day-by-day breakdown of the journey in The Hobbit, great for what-ifs and assessing likely travel times!

Suggested Alternative Timeline For The Hobbit by @avelera A very nice older post on a potential timeline alternative for The Hobbit films. As said above, the films do use the original dates in places, but as this post says, they don't always make sense about it. This is a nice option to consider instead.

Major Inspiration Fics

Backs To The Wall by @conkers-thecosy My current top TH/LotR read, a great active WIP, definitely a direct inspiration to me with the failure to get into Erebor leading things off course! And I'll likely have a parallel Laketown focus for a bit, though nothing as detailed and lived-in as Conkers' fic. And, aside from great writing and general motivation to write TH/Bagginshield, I love the portrayals of the characters (BILBO, Thorin, Gandalf, Dwalin, Nori, Bard and the Bardlings--) and pairings. Definitely tempting me towards Dwalin/Nori here!

And I'm Your Lionheart by Lee_Whimsy There always seems to be a fic in every fandom of mine that draws me in very early, becomes an instant fave, and then hangs there unfinished but perpetually on my mind. The 'one that got away' fic. This is it, and I shall forever love it, and you can just bet it will bleed into my takes somewhere, especially with Gandalf and Legolas and Bard and Fíli, if I recall correctly. I should totally reread this, or at least sections of it. Reading to the 'end' is... painful.

The Most Precious of Treasures by @sapphireshelle91 Another long untouched WIP, but a VERY different one, as it is a) post-TBoFA, and b) features a female Bilbo and parentshield with dwobbit!Frodo. I include this one because a) I love a number of the characterizations, b) if 'And I'm Your Lionheart' gives me the infrastructure and maintenance inspiration for Erebor, THIS fic delivers on the politics and intrigue, and c) I am a HUGE sucker for parentshield, be it biological or adoptive, so naturally I'm contemplating it for my own fic. Still iffy on which way I'll take it, but I've fallen down some intriguing rabbit holes in regards to Shire culture and Bilbo's background while considering the biological option, and I'd be loathe to abandon those ideas now. But either way, this fic deserves a definite nod for motivating me to come up with ideas.

Home Behind and Home Ahead by Etharei Love the characterizations in this one, and anything that gives me a tap into Bilbo's character is appreciated. And I don't know if I'll draw much on it for this fic in particular, but I love all forms of parentshield and this is a lovely dynamic between the three characters, so I'd happily draw from it in the abstract.

* Planting a Hobbit by @northerntrash I adore the vibe of this! A sweet 'Bilbo in Erebor' AU focused on the dwarves (Thorin especially) being so silly and endearing in their efforts to make Bilbo happy, and featuring some nice world and dynamic building in the process.

* Bad Blood by @conkers-thecosy Yo~ give me a nice what-if any day, and having it feature a protective!Bilbo + ardent!Thorin + gremlin!elvenking in the process, with a side of dwarven culture and royal politics? For it.

* [explicit!] Safe and Distant by Lindzzz I ADORE a Bilbo like this. A Bilbo who isn't oblivious about his feelings or denying them, but whose self-image/image of Thorin makes him unable to Comprehend anything not one-sided could come of those feelings. Who celebrates Thorin's good regard with joy and accepts it as 'enough' and 'more than he could ask for'. Who would probably just combust at the idea Thorin might want more, might want something beyond what their adventure can provide, just as Bilbo does... or just as Bilbo would, if he would allow himself to even accept that as a possibility. A Bilbo who finds the idea of Thorin wanting him back terrifying, because to hope for that and be wrong? It would shatter him. ...Yeah, I am very, very for this Bilbo. (And that doesn't even touch on the Thorin or the last chapter, omg-)

* [explicit] Canoodling by @avelera This fic is sweet. This fic is funny. This fic touches on differences between the Tolkien cultures and misunderstandings and the unique ways that could affect intimacy with a couple, and you know that bagginshield is a gold mine opportunity for all of that. I love any explicit work that plays with experience levels and expectations and lets the couple mess up and then swing it back around to lovely afterwards, because that's realistic and relatable and thus, when done right, all the more attractive a read! And this one does it well, a good foundation read.

[curiouselleth]

I moved all my Tolkien books, legos, and assorted Things!!!!

Better pictures and full list of everything under the cut!

(stupidly long list of all my Tolkien stuff:) Books:

2 copies of the hobbit, one is the 75 anniversary edition

2 copies of lord of the rings, one with the movie covers and one of it all in one book,

2 copies of the Silmarillion, one is the Illustrated Silmarillion and one of the most beautiful books I own

The 25th (I think) anniversary edition of the Unfinished tales of Numenor and middle earth, another one of the most beautiful books I own (it has artwork in it!!!)

Beren and Luthien, the Fall of Gondolin, the Children of Hurin

1-8 and 11-12 of the histories of middle earth

A 1st edition secondhand Tolkien Reader

2 copies of the Complete Tolkien companion

A Gateway to Sindarin, (this one was kinda hard to get ahold of at the time because everyone was sold out at the same time, when I got it from a small bookstore it was actually still wrapped in plastic from the manufacturer)

The Hobbit an unexpected journey and the hobbit the battle of five armies west art and design books

the art of the hobbit by Tolkien

Pictures by tolkien

Recipes from the world of tolkien

a middle earth traveler by John Howe

a dictionary of Tolkien and an encyclopedia of Tolkien both by David Day

Middle Eartth: A lord of the rings quiz book

readings on JRR Tolkien

JRR Tolkien (biography)

master of middle earth - the fiction of JRR Tolkien

Understanding lord of the rings

Funko pops:

Aragorn

Pippin

Frodo

Legolas

Galadriel

Gandalf the White

the Witch King

Gimli

Gandalf

Legos and Miscellaneous:

The Lego Rivendell set

the Mirkwood Dungeon set

The extended editions of the hobbit and Lord of the rings, both with behind the scenes

To the top left the Thranduil crown I made, and a castle I painted kinda inspired by Tol Sirion

Not pictured but part of my Tolkien collection:

replica of Thranduil’s sword from the hobbit movies

a print of the two trees of Valinor and a print of the east shore of Valinor at sunset (both from red bubble)

a map of middle earth and beleriand

the Tolkien calendar

a foam replica of Sting

a portrait of Finrod

a crocheted version of Bofurs hat

A circlet that looks like Elronds from the hobbit

[book--brackets]

Round 2 Winners

Poll 1: The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

Poll 2: Nevermoor by Jessica Townsend

Poll 3: American Girl by Various Authors

Poll 4: A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Poll 5: The Immortals Quartet by Tamora Pierce

Poll 6: Encyclopedia Brown by Daniel J. Sobol

Poll 7: Ever After High by Shannon Hale

Poll 8: Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

The third round will be posted tomorrow, 3/15!