Middle-earth Journeys

I’ve finally managed to get around to writing up a bit more (huge apologies for leaving it so long !) and am going to wheel us back to Friday night because when we got back to our bungalow, after all that Steak and Ale pie and listening to Brocc, our little home had turned into Mirkwood.

Now I hate spiders, even teeny weeny ones that couldn’t say boo to an ant, but there seemed to be spiders everywhere. Two spiders spotted on Thursday night hanging out with each other in a nice webby corner by the ceiling, had now turned into three (one of which had been pretending unconvincingly to be a dead fly, but you can’t fool me with my super spidey-senses). Even worse, there was an enormous one hanging over the front doorway. I couldn’t relax and drink my tea without keeping my eyes glued on them, in case they decided to emigrate from the webby corner and head for my bedroom. Eventually one of the three decided he’d go for a long walk along the wall, over Marbretherese and Jonick’s heads. I was OK with that, even if he dropped onto their sofa, as long as he didn’t go too near the door and then out through it, along the hallway and towards my room. The spider kept heading for the door. Jonick, bless him, took pity on the fact that I couldn’t take my eyes off it and tried to capture it in a glass just as it started crawling over the door jamb. If only Sam had had one of those, eh?

Of course, he lost it and now we had a panic stricken spider which could be running around anywhere. Jonick made some efforts to find it and I closed my bedroom door. As we all know, spiders can’t go underneath closed doors without getting cursed forever by the Great God Arachnaphobia. But – no spider. Eventually we sat down to watch some late evening TV while I twitched on my sofa. Then – hoorah!!!! – we found the spider. It had been on Jonick’s head all along. Lucky it was him. If it had been me I wouldn’t have stopped running until I reached Aberystwyth . Anyway, J managed to eject it, only now the spider over the front door had gone walkabout….

After a not so great night’s sleep (skating bed, mini-Shelob…) we decided to start the morning by visiting the nearby ruined Strata Florida Abbey, before heading to the Pavillion for more talks. Strata Florida is Cistercian and the name means ‘Valley of Flowers’. The Abbey was very peaceful, surrounded by the most beautiful countryside. On the down side the entire area was full of sheep droppings. Never have so many sheep dropped so much. It’s a mystery how they all get in because you need a ticket.

In the churchyard next to the Abbey was an ancient Yew Tree – dated to at least 1,200 years old, where there is a small shrine to Dafydd ap Gwilym, the famous Welsh Bard. You are lucky to get the link because for some reason I wrote him down in my notebook as Gryffith ap Williams, the famous Welsh Bard, and have spent the last 10 minutes googling someone who doesn’t exist. I blame the spiders.

Anyway… back to the Festival! We turned up at the Pavilion in time to hear artist Stephen Walsh talk about his Tolkien work. He does the most exquisite watercolours (pure watercolour, he doesn’t splash it all about with gouache like do) and I found his talk very interesting because he explained his technique and how he gets from an initial idea, through several drawings, to the final painting. He talked about the process of illustrating for books and how early ideas, and even finished pieces, can be rejected not once, but many times, until the publisher is satisfied. It must be hard to let go of your own initial vision as it gets changed by someone else’s different ideas - even though the design book may require those changes. He did a lot of work on a painting of Tuor for an Unfinished Tales Calendar, but the whole calendar fell through because of restrictions from the Tolkien family about representing (as I remember it) Beren and Luthien because of a request Tolkien had made.

After Stephen, we stayed seated for a talk by Ruth Lacon about her painting. Alas, I didn’t take any notes this time as I got too carried away listening, but I know Marbretherese did. Ruth talked a lot about how she originally got into art and how she discovered the mediaeval style that she fell in love with and which makes her paintings so distinctive. She also talked about how different subjects lend themselves to more detailed gouche work or the freer, less precise medium of acrylic. She had paintings in both mediums at the exhibition. In the Q&A afterwards I asked her if there was any Tolkien subject she put off because she knew it would be horrendous to tackle and she said it would be the Ents. I’m totally with her on that one! I managed to take a year to get from my Treebeard sketch to a painting and I’m still not 100% sure I shouldn’t have left it longer!

After Ruth, it was time for Lunch and – yes – MORE Bara Brith (it means ‘speckled bread’), which I’ve discovered is also a traditional bread in Argentina where it is known as ‘Torte negra’ (black cake), having been brought out there by Welsh settlers. Perhaps Viggo would like to add it to his list of things to surprise journalists with, along with the mate, the San Lorenzo flag and toy crows.

After lunch we headed over to the Conference Room for Verlyn Flieger’s talk on Linguistics and Lore in Wales and Middle-earth, one of the talks in keeping with the Welsh theme of the Conference. She had divided the talk into two parts – Folk Lore and Language.

She started by looking at the shared cultural and linguistic background of Cornwall, Wales and Brittany, which share many myths and legends, including that of Arthur. Flieger wanted to focus on legends of Wales and Brittany and in particular that of the ‘Fay’ or ‘Fairy’ as a sometimes beautiful, sometimes hideous woman who lives in the depths of the wood and entices men to their doom. Characters such as Morgan le Fey, the Lady of the Lake and other similar characters found in the Mabiginion. Women in these tales are seen as dangerous, leading men astray, and Flieger wanted to trace the connections between them and Tolkien’s dangerous lady of the wood, Galadriel.

Flieger pointed out that the first appearance in Tolkien of this dangerous Lady is in an early unpublished poem ‘The Corrigan’. The Corrigan demands love in repayment for a magic potion that makes the hero’s wife pregnant, and which Tolkien based on an old Breton ballad – even using words of Breton origin. She traced many connections between the Lady in this poem (who makes her last appearance as a beautiful woman) and the later Galadriel, including her golden hair, a magic phial and a crystal well. With Galadriel, another Fay of the Wood, Tolkien emphasises the golden hair and has a character (Gimli) fall in love with her and ask for a strand of it. Tolkien gives her a reputation by hearsay that is both frightening and mysterious. Both Boromir and Eomer are suspicious of the Lady in the Wood. Even Faramir wonders if she is involved in Boromir’s death. Faerie is a perilous realm (‘few go out who once go in’ – Boromir). Galadriel, when the Fellowship meet her, is both gentle and frightening, searching their minds. She is even more frightening before she refuses the Ring. But she is only potentially dark and dreadful, the Corrigan is what Galadriel could be, but never is.

Flieger then moved on to talk about languages and the fact that most Elvish in LotR is Sindarin, the language of the Grey Elves which Tolkien meant to phonetically resemble Welsh. As well as liking the sound of Welsh he thought it suited the ‘celtic’ nature of the elves and their stories. Flieger said that for Tolkien to get from language to legend he needed a world for them to inhabit. Tolkien said that ‘Language is mythology and mythology is language’. There are many similarities between Welsh and Sindarin – they have the same means of forming plurals (by vowel change), the same softening of initial consonants (i.e. ‘p’ and ‘d’) which is known as ‘lenition’ where the sounds of certain letters are determined by what the surrounding letters are. The subtleties of the Welsh linguistic connection were brought out by the example of Gandalf and the rest of the Fellowhip before the door of Moria. The inscription is in Sindarin and Gandalf assumes that ‘Mellon’ (friend) is the subject (i.e. the speaker, in this case Gandalf), but it isn’t, it’s an instruction to say ‘friend’. Evenutally Gandalf realises that Merry, of all people, is on the right track. Fleiger described the linguistic business with the door as ‘pretty esoteric’ – an in-joke that only he and welsh linguists would have fully got. The elves who wrote it expected friends, not enemies and gave a welcome, not a password. So Gandalf comes to an understanding of not only what they said, but, through it, a reminder of who they were. It was ‘a happier age’.

The talk was really fascinating – Flieger is a wonderful and relaxed speaker and fun to listen to and we had a really interesting Q&A afterwards, although I didn’t take any notes. There was a wonderful (and very funny) response to a question about Galadriel’s mirror but I only remember the response, not the question. Maybe Marbretherese wrote it down.

And talking about writing things down, we went to Giudo Mastroianni’s talk on ‘Genesis Retold: JRR Tolkien’s Silmarillion and CS Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew’ afterwards but I was so talked out at that point I only got as far as writing down the title in my notebook. Which is a bit of a shame as I hoped to have something useful to add to our Silmarillion discussion. Oops. Time for more Bara Brith (third breakfast…)! This only took us (including tea) to about 4pm and apart from hearing the second part of Rodney Matthews art talk I can’t remember what on Middle-earth we did. I know we talked to Welsh Sculptor Jon Evans at some point, who was outside chiselling away at a slab of slate. He does wonderful Green Men and other Celticcy stuff (is that even a word?) and is the only person I’ve met apart from me who starts off with a bit of symbol and then just sees where it goes – a bit like freewheeling your car without driving and hoping it takes you somewhere interesting without chucking you in a ditch. Jon’s faith is even more impressive because any wrong turn is literally set in stone. After that is a blur but I expect we mooched around trying to check out if anyone was buying my stuff (I’ve perfected a kind of nonchalant hovering where I try look as though I might be interesting to talk too without actually throwing myself at anyone who so much as looks at my browser and hugging them).

Then I think we passed on the last talk of the day that we’d been interested in and headed back to change, and then out to the Black Lion for more Hobbit food (fourth breakfast). This time we’d booked and got to eat in the Olde Worlde Snugge Olde Beamed Bar, where the Hobbit proprietor could keep and eye on us. I found it very hard to concentrate on my Giant Breaded Scampi and Chips (Fries) with Tartare Sauce, because of the long haired guy leaning on the bar who’s trousers, and all that goes with it, where so low slung I could almost see the Mines of Moria. I tried focussing on the word ‘scampi’ and leaning so far sideways that Jonick’s head came between us.

Exhausted by too much food we went back to our spidery bungalow where I didn’t take my eyes of the spiders in the corner all night. Though – as I’ve discovered – there are much worse things to look at than spiders .

Io, I cannot stop chuckling over the "skating" bed. That would have driven me crazy, not to mention seasick. Thanks so much for the latest installment of your adventure. Can't wait to hear more!

By the way, I'll be having my own little adventure this weekend. Mr. L, Miriel, the younger Miss L, my newly "adopted" teenage son Master N, and I are going to Wolf Trap on Saturday to enjoy a showing of ROTK with live performance of the soundtrack by the Wolf Trap orchestra, multiple choruses, and soloists. We plan to get there early to enjoy a picnic supper and a lecture on the music and themes of ROTK prior to the show. If all goes as planned, we will probably also meet up with Mallorn, PA Lady, and Starfolk from V-W just like we did at last year's showing of TTT.

As in previous years, I shall plan to scan the Program Notes and send them on to Riv to be posted here for all to enjoy.

Fantastic - I'm so envious! I missed both FotR and TTT over here (one clashed with something and the other was gone before I even realised it was happening ). It will be great to have the notes and hear all about your experiences. I think RotK is my favourite part of the score, where all those themes resolve themselves with new depths. I'm .

Eek! I had a little spidery adventure of my own last night and so reading your adventures before I went to bed really give me the creeps! And the thought of one nesting on Jonick's head made me brush out my hair with vigor! And as for the Mines of Moria . . .

It's fun that talks by Tolkien artists have now become a kind of genre. So many people inspired by these great works. And it's good the VF's thought is adding more depth to Galadriel--refuting the idea that Tolkien's women are unidimensional.

So what was being reenacted in your picture?

We never did get our heads around the re-enactments, Merry. There was a programme of sorts but I think it rather depended on who was out on the field at the time. The kids loved it (and the adults who like to dress up and wave large swords about!!).
The whole Festival experience was so intense that it was quite nice to take a look around the locality. Pontrhydfendigaid means "bridge over the blessed ford", and at Parc Teifi we were lucky enough to be staying right by the bridge. And in its day, Strata Florida was a large spiritual centre; the ruins were fabulous and I took loads of photos. When we entered through the great arch and walked down the nave I had the wierdest feeling of great reverence, as though the building itself was still there. Just by the yew tree which Iolanthe mentioned was a little church, which had a wonderful stained glass window of the Last Supper. I was so mesmerized by this that Iolanthe and Jonick had to remind me we had a Festival to go to!
Both Stephen Walsh's and Ruth Lacon's talks were extremely interesting; Stephen is a Yorkshireman, extremely down to earth and made light of the incredible amount of work he puts in to every painting, achieving realism through very specific copying (of armour, for instance). His work is best summed up as very detailed line drawings with the form described in paint. I was glad that Ruth was able to do her talk; she'd suffered a fall just before the weekend and hurt her back so she sat down throughout. She explained some of her background - her first degree was in Science, and she came to art later on via her love of mediaeval manuscripts.
We grabbed a very hasty lunch so as to be in time for Verlyn Flieger (Treebeard would not have approved!). Iolanthe has given you the gist so I'll just add a couple of things she said which stood out for me:

- the wood in which the Corrigan archetype dwells is the threshold of another world; the hero is enchanted and sometimes enters the wood deliberately (in pursuit of the Corrigan) or by accident (eg when hunting).

- in LOTR Tolkien builds up an atmosphere of distrust around Galadriel which is only dispelled when we meet her. The term "Elvish" has negative connotations to some folk in Middle-Earth (similar to the difference between "childish" and "child-like"). The more positive term is "elven".

I didn't make many notes of Guido Mastroianni's talk, unfortunately: but I do recall he quoted St Augustine, that "only good exists and evil is the loss of good", suggesting that Tolkien felt the same way. He also discussed CS Lewis's "The Magician's Nephew", which I hadn't realised was Lewis's own Genesis story (I'm not very up on my Lewis ).

After that we went to another talk by Rodney Matthews; he told us an amazing story of how he was nearly blown up by an IRA bomb, and how his rock band lifestyle became more and more unfulfilling, so that he eventually turned to God, and a lot of symbolism in his paintings refers to his Christian beliefs.
After Rodney it was a mad dash back to the library for Colin Manlove's talk on "The Lord of the Rings as Literature". Colin once described Tolkien's literary style as "awful" - but later he changed his mind and has been big enough to apologise. Now he prefers the word "incarnational" - Tolkien pulls us into his world with his descriptive powers. Simple, fundamental things are made special by their setting. Colin discussed three examples of Tolkien's literary style, all from LOTR - a straightforward descripton of Aragorn keeping watch, during which the reader gradually becomes uneasy along with him: the emotive passage where the reader is caught up with the éored as they go into battle (culminating in the ultimate irony of the horse-lord Theoden being killed by his horse); and Aragorn's first sight of Eowyn, written in words which are almost exclusively Anglo-Saxon in origin.

He pointed out that the members of the Fellowship reflect their origins - Gimli a "walking Moria", for example - and how the changing landscape as Frodo and Sam draw close to Mordor reflects Frodo's spiritual journey as everything become stripped away. Colin suggested that one aim of LOTR is to"destroy the megolamania of the self", in that those alone for any reason (Theoden, Denethor) are less effective than those working together to defeat the common enemy. How almost all that is magical about Middle-Earth has to leave it. That in Tolkien's world separation from Nature is part of The Fall. In contrast he discussed a fourth passage from Lewis's Perelandra which is pure analogy and I have to admit left me cold. All in all a fabulous lecture and we only decided to go along at the last minute!

After which we went straight down to the Black Lion and then flaked out back in our chalet. It had been a really interesting day but I for one was worn out with so much listening!

How could I forget Colin Manilove - my notebook is full of notes but somehow I'd stuck the word 'Sunday' beside it . I think the layout of the schedule is to blame as it's stuck on it's own at the top of the page instead of sitting with the Saturday talks!

I really enjoyed his talk and the fact he was big enough to sit there and admit that he'd been wrong. He was also a very compelling speaker.

Some additional bits from my notes -

- in Fantasy things are completely new or changed into something they are not, but in Tolkien common, familiar things are made more wonderful and become wilder and 'bigger'. In other words he's bringing enchantment back into our world, not taking us out of it. A change in perception makes the world appear truly fantastic.

- In the Aragorn example (at at Amon Hen) Tolkien doesn't impose his mind between us and the material. He doesn't offer his thoughts, interpreting the passage for us. He doesn't offer similarities or comparisons that take us out of the story. A very subtle effect that leaves us free to 'be' Aragorn at that moment.

- the language used to describe Eowyn (when Aragorn meets her) means that subconsciously she appears to us as a sword - slender, pale and stern as steel.

- Tolkien sees people not as characters, but as realisations of their people and environment. Frodo and Sam are carriers of the Shire wherever they go, Gimil (as Marbretherese has said) is a walking Moria and Legolas is a piece of the woods.

- The Nine Walkers are full of Middle-earth but the Nazgul are Nine empty beings.

Saruman and Sauron, unlike the Fellowship, are cut off - separate and alone and filled with self, not their people (Maiar).

A lot to think about there!!!

Iolanthe wrote:

"Flieger pointed out that the first appearance in Tolkien of this dangerous Lady is in an early unpublished poem ‘The Corrigan’. The Corrigan demands love in repayment for a magic potion that makes the hero’s wife pregnant, and which Tolkien based on an old Breton ballad – even using words of Breton origin."

Actually, the poem is called 'The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun', and it was published in 'The Welsh Review' in 1945. It hasn't been reprinted, as far as I know. My friend Jessica Yates was the first to trace its Breton ancestry, in her paper 'The Source of The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun' in the Tolkien Society's booklet 'Leaves from the Tree: JRR Tolkien's Shorter Fiction', being the proceedings of the TS Seminar at Beverley, Yorks in 1989. Shippey gave a paper then, on 'Tolkien and the Homecoming of Beorhtnoth'.

Some time ago I was footling about on another forum, about Tolkien's paper 'Some Contributions to Middle English Lexicography' (1925). Here Tolkien was musing over some obscure words, including 'medi', as in the M.E. phrase, "medi mid wicchen" .Some observers had thought this to be a mis-spelling for 'medle', meaning 'to meddle with witches', in that case this would be the first instance of the word 'meddle'. But Tolkien dismisses this idea in a couple of sentences. The word _is_ 'medi', and in this context means 'to bribe, or purchase the services of, witches'. Which is just what Aotrou does, to his grief. The phrase is also (happily) a 'future echo' of Gildor's famous phrase about not meddling in the affairs of wizards!

Colin Manlove; yers.. Wasn't a fan of Tolkien's (apparently). It's interesting to see he's turned over a new leaf. His 1st. set of LotR (complete with a letter from JRR) was up for sale just recently.

Thanks Geordie - that probably is the poem she was referring to. I'm going by hastily taken notes and I interpreted 'The Corrigan' as the title when I was re-reading them because it looks like I capitalised the 'T'. But it's my handwriting and I guess I didn't manage to get the title down. By unpublished, she was referring to the fact that it's not in any collections or books, so we couldn't read it.

Our thanks to Lindariel who sends along (as promised) these scans of the ROTK Wolftrap program.

© Wolftrap

Thanks Riv! As I mentioned in my write-up in our LOTR thread, it was a fabulous evening, and I encourage everyone to take the opportunity to see one of these performances if you are lucky enough to have one come to your neck of the woods!

I am very pleased to report that the younger Miss L was so enthralled with her experience of seeing ROTK at Wolf Trap that she insisted upon seeing all three movies on DVD the following day and then asked if we could read the books aloud together, just like we had read The Hobbit together last year. We started up three days ago, and at this point, Frodo is just learning the horrifying story of how Smeagol came to possess the Ring by murdering his friend Deagol.

At this rate (15-20 pages per night), it will take us a little over two months to read the entire story. The elder Miss L (Meliel) and I did this together years ago when she was 6 years old, and it was certainly a beautiful bonding experience. I also discovered a wonderful appreciation for some of those long descriptive passages of the countryside, which I had heretofore tended to "skip over" when reading silently to myself.

I had tried to interest the younger Miss L in proceeding ahead with LOTR after we finished reading The Hobbit last year, but she was more than a bit overwhelmed by the size of the story and opted out. Now, she's thoroughly hooked and greatly enjoying The Professor's wonderful tale. She seems to have a great appreciation for sussing out the similarities and differences between the original story and PJ's films. We're having a fabulous time!

Iolanthe, Jonick and I have just been at the 2010 Oxonmoot, and we realised that before we can write any reports on that, we really need to finish telling you about the Shire Festival, otherwise we shall get hopelessly muddled! So I'm going to post my impressions of the Sunday events now, along with a bit about our journey home on the Monday, and Iolanthe can add hers later.
In fact, Jonick and I played hookey from the Festival first thing on Sunday morning, as we drove into Aberystwyth for Mass. Thanks to my keen navigation skills we took 25 minutes to get there and 45 to get back, with barely five minutes to spare before the start of Corey Olsen's talk on Hope and Despair in the Lord of the Rings There'd been a certain amount of Hope and Despair in the car on the way back, but thank goodness we were in time because the talk was an excellent one, like so many that weekend.

Corey started with the theological/metaphysical definition of hope as a spiritual stability and a confident reliance in God, which strengthens the will, symbolised by the anchor (to the Christian soul). This compares to the modern usage of hope as an expression of wish. Ironically Tolkien uses the word "hope" throughout LOTR in its modern sense, but underlying the tale is one of the most complex interpretations of theological hope. For example, Frodo has "no hope" on the way to Mordor but his will remains fixed on his task. Sam calculates their odds of survival at zero - he has lost all hope - but finds the strength to carry on and undergoes a spiritual transformation. They do not give in to despair (theological hope's opposite). The deeper meaning of the word hope comes to Sam as he sings the song in Cirith Ungol - the sense that no matter what is happening there is beauty somehwhere untouchable, and the shadow will pass. At this point Sam puts himself aside and finds the fortitude to continue the quest. Corey gave other examples; Gandalf giving Theoden hope when he breaks Wormtongue's hold over him; Aragonr's deepening sense of the wider meaning of hope as he grows older. There was much discussion at the end of the talk and somebody pointed out that Turin embodies the opposite of this by giving in to despair.
After this we grabbed some lunch and went to hear John Garth speak about The First World War and LOTR. He described faerie as a kind of escape from the horrors of war, but the escape of a fugitive rather than a deserter. An escape from enemy captitivy where the enemy is the forces of indusrialisation and materialism. The First World War shattered the idea of heroes; they were not spoken of in the 1920s. Frodo is Edwardian in temperament rather than rural and discovers unlooked-for endurance and courage; the key is cameraderie - as found in the trenches - in Frodo's and Sam's story Tolkien maps the breakdown of the restraint between officer and batman. Frodo's fear of surveillance, especially in the Dead Marshes, is lifted directly from Tolkien's war experiences. He has a pervasive need to hide because concealment is the key to survival. His main struggle is against fear and despair, not soldiers. Fog frequently disorientates the hobbits in the same way that modern battle does. Garth compared Frodo's inability to help his companions on the Barrow Downs to the actions of a victim of a gas attack. Tolkien once described trench warfare as 'animal horror' and Gollum's fascination with the dead marshes recalls soldiers' fascination with the dead bodies around them as a reminder of their own fate. Frodo expects to die saving the world, but he doesn't, and suffers a delayed breakdown on Mount Doom, losing a finger, similar to soldiers coming back injured from the trenches. The final images of Frodo on the ship going into the West echoes Tolkien's boat journey home from the Somme.

Next we dashed over to hear Verlyn Flieger on Politically Incorrect Tolkien. This was an informal discussion which she began by defining PI as the exclusion/marginalisation of somebody via their occupation/nationality/gender/race/sexual orientation. She stated that Tolkien was sensitive - not chauvinist or imperialist or jingoistic. However, his characters are often PI - the hobbits look sideways at other hobbits, the elves and dwarves are deeply suspicious of each other, the orcs of Saruman distrust the orcs of Sauron. This is because Middle Earth reflects real-life hostility, suspicion and prejudice. She went on to develop these themes and gave some other examples, such as Thingol of Doriath who believes himself to be good but is prejudiced against the Noldor. The Orcs repreesent the enemy en masse - it's "OK "to hate them - they say all the things we suppress and their role in the story is to be the "others" - we become like them by being prejudiced against them.

The final talk we attended was John Garth reading from the letters of Rob Gilson, which the family have recently made available to him. These follow Rob from his pre-war hopes and dreams through his experiences training for the Front and his eventual posting there. Written to his family, friends and fiancée they were touching, funny and gave a real insight into the mindset of a bright and hopeful young man into the growing horror which was engulfing his generation. I think everyone in the room had a lump in their throat as the final letter ro Rob's family, announcing his death in the first push of the Battle of the Somme, was read out. Gilson could express himself beautifully, and there is talk of a book; Jonick, who has a particular interest in WW1, cannot recall a book of Great War memoirs in the form of letters, and thinks it would be of real interest. Fingers crossed!

After this there was the panel discussion; which I can't remember a great deal about except that we all thought of really good things to ask once it had finished; and after that we grabbed something to eat before assembling in the main hall for the party, which gave us the chance to thank the army of young volunteers who had worked so hard throughout the Festival.

Now it was over, and Monday saw us packing up the car in the best weather yet (how typical) for the long drive back through Wales and Shire Country. We planned a route which took us through Moreton-in-Marsh, thus enabling us to call in and see the Edge of the Wild Tolkien artists' exhibition which had been postponed from its usual date in March. It would have been such a shame to miss it!! The road took us through the Vale of Evesham, and as the car climbed the hills beyond I looked back and gasped. The countryside - the arrangement of the fields an hedges, the colours, everything - exactly matched the countryside depcited in Tolkien's own illustration of Hobbition. Why was I surprised? When we arrived at the Redesdale Hall in Moreton, Ted Nasmith was playing guitar so we listened to him as we took a look at the exhibits before heading off for our traditional cream tea. It had been a fabulous few days!

Thanks so much marbretherese! As usual, I'm positively GREEN with envy! I'd love to go on one of these lovely jaunts with your intrepid group!

These are great topics for talks, marbretherese. Thanks for the reports! You'd think people would be running out of Tolkien things to talk about!

The insight into theological hope, rather than just wishful thinking, is insightful. Gandalf kept warning people that there was no earthly reason for hope--only a fool's hope--but it ended up working out, of course. The PC topic is an interesting one, too. And Garth would be the perfect editor for a volume of Gilson's letters.

Gee, (begin sarcastic font) it must be terrible for you to have to rush your reports, since you're going to so many of these wonderful conferences and beatifications and all. We feel your pain. (/font)

Merry wrote: Gee, (begin sarcastic font) it must be terrible for you to have to rush your reports, since you're going to so many of these wonderful conferences and beatifications and all. We feel your pain. (/font)

It's just that I'm worried I'll forget something vital, Merry, I have trouble deciphering my notes as it is . Luckily it seems likely that the whole of the Festival in the Shire proceedings will be published!