Happy Tolkien Reading Day!

This post contains spoilers for both the book and film versions of The Lord of the Rings. March 25th is Tolkien Reading Day, because that’s the day J. R. R. Tolkien gave for the climactic event of his epic fantasy novel, The Lord of the Rings, when the One Ring went into the fire and the

The Breaking of the Fellowship

This post contains spoilers for both the book and film versions of The Lord of the Rings. I’ve been continuing my re-read of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, which as I mentioned early on I used to do every year, but if I’m honest haven’t really done since before the release

A Brace of Tolkien Posts for his 130th Birthday (#TolkienBirthdayToast) — A Pilgrim in Narnia

As J.R.R. Tolkien was born about 68,374,080 hours ago, the Tolkien Society is once again raising a toast to the Professor on his birthday, 3 January 2022 (see here). After Bilbo left the Shire on his eleventy-first birthday in The Lord of the Rings, Frodo toasted his uncle’s birthday each year, which he shared. Tolkien […]

Christmas With J.R.R. Tolkien: The Father Christmas Letters — A Pilgrim in Narnia

My little 2015 piece on J.R.R. Tolkien’s funny and endearing Father Christmas Letters has had quite a spin around the internet this week. I cannot think of a better Christmas note for you, dear readers of A Pilgrim in Narnia, than to touch this up a bit and send it back out. I have come […]

Driven by the oath. — Middle-earth Reflections

When it comes to stories by J. R. R. Tolkien, you can always rely on him in providing his readers with the most many-dimensional characters. There are rather few who are either absolutely good or absolutely evil: most individuals in the tales of Arda are rather complex and have their own — not always easy […]

A Journey in the Dark

This post contains spoilers for both the film and book versions of The Lord of the Rings. Some of you may recall that back in September I declared my intent to begin re-reading J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings that month for the first time in many years (since the Peter Jackson

Middle-earth Ambience

I know, I know, not only is Tolkien Week over, so is Second Tolkien Week. But the fact is that I was delayed, kept from blogging all the things I had originally intended to, by the unwelcome intrusion of Real Life™. So now here I am, still blogging all the Tolkien things. Huzzah! Speaking of

The Grim, the Dark, and the Light of Middle-earth — Traveling in Books

Once upon a time, in a 2014 interview with Rolling Stone, George R.R. Martin made a few comments about The Lord of the Rings and the flaws he saw therein. While he stated that he is a fan of Tolkien and of The Lord of the Rings, Martin declared that Tolkien had a “medieval philosophy” […]

Accidental Riddles in the Invisible Dark (Throwback Thursday, and The Hobbit Read-Along, and Hobbit Day) — A Pilgrim in Narnia

At A Pilgrim in Narnia, we have an occasional feature called “Throwback Thursday.” By raiding either my own blog-hoard or someone else’s, I find a blog post from the past and throw it back out into the digital world. This might be an idea or book that is now relevant again, or a concept I’d […]

[Review] Tales From The Perilous Realm by J. R. R. Tolkien, illustrated by Alan Lee — Impressions In Ink

Publisher and Publication Date: Mariner, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2021. Genre: Fantasy fiction. Poetry. Middle-earth. Pages: 432. Format: Paperback. Source: Self-purchase. Audience: Tolkien and Middle-earth readers. Rating: Excellent. Link @ Amazon For further reading:Tolkien Estate Tolkien’s legendarium-Wikipedia The book is organized in this order:Introduction by Tom Shippey. Roverandom was first published in 1998. Farmer Giles of […]