Exploring Tolkien

The story of Beren and Luthien is the beating heart of Tolkien's entire Middle-earth. It's one of the first two stories he wrote (while serving in World War 1), and was directly inspired by moments he spent with his not-yet-wife, Edith.

Among the tales of sorrow and of ruin that come down to us from the darkness of those days there are yet some in which amid weeping there is joy and under the shadow of death light that endures...

Sauron makes his big entrance into Middle-earth in this chapter, and does some serious damage to the elves and men. But Morgoth still seems to underestimate his foes.

We delve into the first half of Chapter 18, "Of the Ruin of Beleriand and Fall of Fingolfin", taking a long look at this valiant elf's hopeless assault on Morgoth... an elf who ACTUALLY HAS A TEMPEST IN HIM, and not the dust devil in The Rings of Power's Galadriel.

Who is the REAL "strong" woman in Tolkien's Middle-earth? Why do men fear elves? Death really weirds-out the elves... and why we measure our lives in milestones, and elves do not!

This poem, titled "Noel", was written by J.R.R. Tolkien before The Hobbit was published, and only just discovered in 2013 in a 1936 copy of The Annual of Our Lady's School (a school magazine).

Do elves regard men as enemies? Foes? Invaders? How did the elves treat men the first time they met them? Join Jonathan, Michael, and Dan as they look at how the Noldor (surprisingly) treated men VERY differently than the Sindar!

Is Aredhel really a Disney princess!? What about this Dark Elf, Eöl -- even though, as we find out, his name is not the first time Tolkien uses the capital "D" Dark Elf title!

As Turgon builds the city of Gondolin in secret, the bitter seeds of distrust between the Noldor and the Sindar find fertile ground. Join Jonathan, Michael, and Dan in this discussion of Chapter 15!

Location and placement were incredibly important to Tolkien--so important that an entire chapter of The Silmarillion is dedicated to who is where! Let's decipher it together...