Founded in 2005, the Silmarillion Writers' Guild exists for discussions of and creative fanworks based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion and related texts. We are a positive-focused and open-minded space that welcomes fans from all over the world and with all levels of experience with Tolkien's works. Whether you are picking up Tolkien's books for the first time or have been a fan for decades, we welcome you to join us!
New Challenge: Building Middle-earth Let global architecture be your inspiration in this challenge, where you will work with a prompts that are architectural styles, locations in Arda, or both.
At the End, when Morgoth, cloaked in doom, came forth through the Door out of the Timeless Night and into the world, it was the Sun he sought before aught else. An eclipse, thought Elwing, on the wing with her flock. What else could bring nightfall at noon?
While searching for a series of his lost notes on Gondolin, the scholar Pengolodh is taken by bandits and used cruelly.
Rescued by a friend and taken to the remnants of Melian's Girdle, he begins a slow road to recovery that will lead to the apprehension of the attackers, the judgement of…
Fëanor shrugged, studying the contents of his wine glass. “Something must be done about that house. It will fall down eventually.” “It does not follow that it must be you that tears it down single-handedly. Are you sure you do not want help?” “It’s not as though I…
Back to Nature
Create a fanwork that considers conflicts with nature--both overt and symbolic--and characters' relationships with that which is natural in their world. Read more ...
Data from the 2025 Tolkien Fanfiction Survey shows demographic changes in participant gender, age, and education and new revelations about neurodiversity.
Expanding on my 2018 article "Why People Don't Comment," comment data from the SWG underscores community as an essential component to a robust commenting culture.
By definition, fanworks fandom does not draw a lot of boundaries, but community archives and events have taken a strong stance against AI-generated fanworks due to ethical considerations and member input.
Bilbo, the strange old hobbit with the wandering feet, senses something special in young Frodo the first time he sees the lad; as they become close, they find in each other a cameraderie not well understood by other hobbits. Five poignant moments between Bilbo and Frodo Baggins over the course…
The Silmarillion Writers' Guild is more than just an archive--we are a community! If you enjoy a fanwork or enjoy a creator's work, please consider letting them know in a comment.
Lovely poem! I can imagine this as a part of a Numenorean history.
(Completely spurious question: how did you get the format to work? I can't seem to get even simple line-spacing right, even with HTML, and as for indentation *shudders*. I'm curious as to how you've managed to fix the formatting, and completely in awe of your skils!)
Thank you, Wavesinger! I'm glad you liked it! About the formatting, this is the only archive where I didn't do anything more than copy-paste from Word--no skill involved. Everywhere else I posted I either fiddled with it until I gave up, or just ... gave up without fiddling!
This is fantastic, DW! I can "hear" the Middle-earth equivalent of a skäld reciting these verses, and the entirety of the poem is very immersive, eliciting that frisson when you feel like you've entered another time and place, e.g., in a smoky hall of the Men of Westernesse in the Angle, for example, during their waning years in the Third Age. Hence, very Tolkienian!
Thank you, Pandë! I'm so glad it works--that was exactly my intention! In my framework of "Sam's Book of Tales", he collected it either in Rohan, as a tale brought south, and handed down, or in some little village he passed through during his travels.
It certainly did not appear the way the bards of old are said to have composed, extemporaneously, but little by little, a couple words at a time over several months. So that part was not very Tolkien-like, as he seems to have been much more like those old bards in his abilities! I'm thinking of his "The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorthelm's Son" (for example), the short play in alliterative verse, which he apparently just dashed off!
This came out wonderfully well. I'm not familiar with this poetic format but it looks and sounds great, and that could not have been an easy task to accomplish. I'm a sucker for dragon stories and I could picture this ancient dragon collecting and guarding her treasure over time too vast to comprehend, then having to start all over again. I especially like the last line that she might still be out there somewhere sleeping on her hoard, ready to rise again to protect it.
Thanks so much! You are right, I found this difficult and time-consuming. Although I am fairly pleased with the result (except I wish it were longer!), I think I'll stick with prose, and maybe a little rhyming verse.
I have wanted to add a dragon story for the longest time (I love dragons too, as you know), and this style seemed perfectly apt for one. Also, I didn't want to make her an out-and-out villain, but for her to maaaaybe still be hibernating with her treasure in some remote snowy mountain.
Comments on Dragon's Journeys
The Silmarillion Writers' Guild is more than just an archive--we are a community! If you enjoy a fanwork or enjoy a creator's work, please consider letting them know in a comment.