This week, we are excited to offer two previews of upcoming Mereth Aderthad 2025 presentations that take very different approaches to very different topics.

Zhie's presentation "How to Make a Star from a Tree: The Science of Telperion and Laurelin" grew out of a similar presentation for Oxonmoot 2024 on the science of the Silmarils. Zhie is a librarian, not a scientist, and describes a process to Shadow that involved amassing hundreds of sources to bridge the gap between fandom and science in investigating first the scientific roots of the Silmarils and now the Two Trees.

"Nobody should be shoed into this thought of you are only an artist or you are only a fanfic writer or you are only a scholar or whatever. We should all be able to go into different parts of the sandbox and do different things," Zhie said to Shadow, which really underscores the core idea behind Mereth Aderthad: to recognize the extraordinary lengths fans go to in mastering their understanding of the legendarium (including collecting sixty-five different books to tackle a topic!), whether to write a fanfic or craft the perfect artwork or dive into discussions on Tumblr and Discord with fellow fans. Zhie went on to say, "I hope that, you know, it will kind of help to encourage those who maybe thought that they, you know, that they weren't able to because you can. You can do it."

We agree! You can find the recording of Shadow's interview with Zhie here and the transcript of their conversation here.

Also this week is Anérea's interview of Savannah Horrell about her paper "By Guile Committed: Comparing Tolkien’s Thieves to Beowulf." Beowulf—an epic-length narrative poem in alliterative verse that tells of the adventures of the Norse hero Beowulf—was a favorite of Tolkien. He translated the poem and, as Savannah points out, The Hobbit can seen as a retelling of the disastrous theft of dragon gold that brings about Beowulf's demise—but told from the perspective of the thief.

"There are very few guile heroes or underdog heroes in what we have left of the Germanic heroic legend," Savannah told Anérea. "This is obviously a big contrast with the Hobbits, singers, and burglars who dominate many of Tolkien’s narratives—it felt worthwhile to unpack that!"

Savannah notes that Beowulf influences Tolkien's work—and the wider realm of fantasy—in many ways, but the shift in how thieves are regarded, whether Bilbo or Lúthien, speaks to the ways in which Tolkien's work differs from its Germanic predecessors and highlights one appeal of Tolkien's work: that it elevates the stories of the small and humble amid the epic histories of heroes and civilizations.

You can read Anérea's interview with Savannah here.