Fans of Tolkien's legendarium, once they become aware that he was the preeminent scholar of Beowulf (and in some ways still is), often seek evidence of his academic work lurking amid the hills of Eriador. This is a fruitful area of Tolkien scholarship as well.
Less often embarked upon is the opposite: looking at Tolkien's Middle-earth work and how it influenced his academic work. Part of this is because Tolkien fans and scholars have internalized the idea that, although he looms large to us for having penned The Lord of the Rings, writing about Elves and Hobbits was a side hustle for Tolkien—and one he was not always proud of. But in this month's A Sense of History, Simon J. Cook does exactly that, turning the revelations from a close-read of certain passages from The Lord of the Rings and its Appendices to shed light on Tolkien's most famous scholarly work.
"Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" was a 1936 lecture given by Tolkien that marks a watershed moment in Beowulf scholarship. It is widely credited by Anglo-Saxon scholars with changing how Beowulf is read, allowing it to be interpreted as literature and not simply mined as a historical and philological source. The lecture-turned-essay includes a lengthy and beautiful analogy of an old man and a tower. This analogy has been interpreted by numerous very well-known Tolkien scholars.
For the past several months, Simon has discussed the tower analogy, including (much to Tom Shippey's chagrin) how existing scholarship about it reads it wrong. This month, he does what is so rarely done: looking at towers in The Lord of the Rings, especially as they appear in Frodo's dreams, and considering what the meaning of these towers in The Lord of the Rings can show us of the meaning behind an uncannily similar tower in "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics." Tolkien's side hustle, in other words, may have shaped or at least reflected how he thought about the medieval texts he cherished and made his life's work.
You can read Simon's article "In the House of the Fairbairns" here.
SWG News
New Challenge: Allusive
Literature and art constantly refer back to each other using allusions, and this month's prompts are inspired by allusions to literature, myth, art, and history.
Cultus Dispatches: "The Rings of Power" Is a Ripple (So Far)
Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data for 2025 shows that "The Rings of Power" TV series has not had the same impact on the fandom as the film trilogies did ... so far.
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.
Instadrabbling Sessions for July, August, and September
Instadrabbling continues on the first Saturday of each month on our Discord server.
Instadrabbling Is Next Weekend!
February 15 is the International Fanworks Day, and we will be celebrating this year with an instadrabbling session the following weekend, on 17 February 2024 at 13:00/1PM until 17:00/5PM UTC (see this in your timezone) and again on 18 February 2024 at midnight until 2:00AM UTC (see this in your timezone). This instadrabbling session will also be a part of our Meet & Greet challenge and will provide one way to collect prompts for this challenge.
New Fanworks
Explain This by Elrond's Library [Writing]
Melkor demands an account of Mairon’s failures.
Read more ...Message in a Bottle by StarSpray [Writing]
Over the course of his very long life he had found a handful of messages in bottles, but it had been a very long time. So when he found the glass bottle on his little stretch of pebbly beach, he picked it up with the intention of tossing it into his recycling. But it wasn’t, he found, just another beer bottle.
Read more ...Nerdanel/Nienna moodboard by Independence1776 [Artwork]
A Nerdanel/Nienna moodboard.
Read more ...Updated Fanworks
The Stars of Home by Idrils Scribe [Writing]
Elrohir has been found after his long abduction by the Black Númenóreans of Umbar. He comes home to Rivendell, but all is not well: the Elf-child that was taken is now a Man grown. War and darkness have left Elrohir deeply scarred, and even at home there is danger...
An alternate universe for the Under Strange Stars series, in which Elrohir goes with Glorfindel instead of running away from him after the events of Under Strange Stars. This story can be enjoyed without having read the original.
Many thanks to Grundy and Marchwriter for their excellent beta-reading and brainstorming.
Read more ...A Thousand Winds that Blow by StarSpray [Writing]
When uneasy dreams bring him back into Beleriand, Daeron finds a pair of twins who have lost their home, and an enemy who has lost himself. The Shadow's reach is growing ever longer, and if they are to survive, they must do it together.
Read more ...From That Rubble by StarSpray [Writing]
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 have much else to do. I need to build something new there,” he said after a few moments. “To do that, I must first clear away the old and broken things.”
Decades out of Mandos, too many things in Fëanor's life remain broken. He can't do anything except wait for his sons to come to him, but he can do something about the old and crumbling house where they once lived.
Read more ...Eä's Redemption by AaronAzrael [Writing]
This is my new poetical attempt to add my own interpretation to Tolkien's Cosmology as to Eru's Creation and the Valar's minds and behind-the-scene providence reasons and mechanisms.. I often review Eä as part of our own world, just in another dimension, this is why I have always seriously thought on the matter who the Ainur are, who Eru is, how he matches our own religious pantheon, and this has been conducted after serious research of many esoteric teachings of our own planet's heritage.
Read more ...Around the World and Web
Finwean Sibblings Prompt Fest 2026
A prompt-based fandom event aiming to focus on celebrating Finwë's children: Fëanor, Findis, Fingolfin, Lalwen, & Finarfin - ships, gen relationships, or character-centric
Gigolas Week 2026
Gigolas Week is a tumblr event focusing on the relationship between Legolas and Gimli
Innumerable Stars 2026
A character-based Tolkien fandom gift exchange is returning for another year of gifting.
Tolkien Sapphic September
Tolkien Sapphic September is a month long event focusing on Sapphic relationships and characters in Tolkien and adjacent materials.
