The Eighty-third Roving Ranger

Life and Works

#TolkienReadingDay (Abre numa nova janela) is happening this weekend, the world over.

March 24, 1834. William Morris (Abre numa nova janela) is born.
March 24, 1953. Tolkien informs his publishers he will not be able to meet the agreed upon deadline - March 25th (Letter 136 (Abre numa nova janela)).
March 25. A very important date (Abre numa nova janela) all-round.
March 28, 1972. At Buckingham Palace, J.R.R. Tolkien is appointed a CBE (Abre numa nova janela) by Queen Elizabeth II.
March 30, 1968. The documentary Tolkien in Oxford (Abre numa nova janela) is aired on the BBC (Abre numa nova janela).
April 1, 1977. J.R.R. Tolkien's children found The Tolkien Trust (Abre numa nova janela) charity.
April 6, 1963. Tolkien writes a letter to My dear people (Abre numa nova janela) on a 'disastrous holiday'.
April 7, 2016. A Secret Vice: Tolkien on Invented Languages (Abre numa nova janela) is published.

• [A special on The Ruin.]
  In Anglo-Saxon and Norse Poems (Abre numa nova janela), 1922 by Nora Chadwick.
  Anglo-Saxon Aloud (Abre numa nova janela) by Michael Drout
  Translation and reading (Abre numa nova janela) by Richard Fahey
  Old English (Abre numa nova janela) text
  The Ruin (Abre numa nova janela): The Past Dreaming of the Past
  All of the above essentially taken from The Exeter Book (Abre numa nova janela); guess who spent quite some time with this - see Old English Poetry (Abre numa nova janela)?
  Also please check out this open source fonts based on the Exeter Book (Abre numa nova janela).

• Thanks for the inspiration to 

The Hobbit, Illustrated by the Author, announced for Sept 2023 by UK Tolkien publisher HarperCollins.
- For more information please visit TolkienGuide.com (Abre numa nova janela).

Events & Shows

I have been asked to co-host the Prancing Pony Podcast and #284 - the Tolkien Reading Day 2023 (Abre numa nova janela) episode - is out now. Have a listen

The 18th Tolkien Conference (Abre numa nova janela) with the University of Vermont is happening April 2nd.

Tolkien Sessions at Leeds IMC 2023 (Abre numa nova janela).

The Lord of the Rings Musical (Abre numa nova janela) will return - in the last Roving Ranger I wrongly gave the original number of perfomers for the London version as 68 (Superhype (Abre numa nova janela) notes 65 for the Toronto version; my 68 were a typo); Emerald kindly enough corrected this (Abre numa nova janela), stating that the London run had "just over 50"; also the numbers might have been 56 and 53 respectively, according to the programmes.

The American Improv Theatre (Abre numa nova janela) in Vienna seems to have a lot of fun with Not The Lord of the Rings but also Harry Potter and GoT.

TexMoot (Abre numa nova janela) will be happening on April 15.

The German Inklings Society will have their conference Defying Death: Immortality and Rebirth in the Fantastic (Abre numa nova janela) on April 29th-May 1st.

Scholarship and Fandom

Tolkien at Exeter College (Abre numa nova janela) has a new edition.

An interesting piece on the Inspirations behind Goldberry (Abre numa nova janela).

I need to share this for sheer title grandeur: Beren One-Hand, Bruce the Shark, and Homer (Abre numa nova janela).

This is - surprising to me - quite a decent listing of: Lord of the Rings: The Many Ways Tolkien Songs Have Shown Up in Movies, TV, and More (Abre numa nova janela). [Den of Geek]
- If you feel like finding out about all the musicians and bands that have actually published dozens, if not hundreds of albums on Tolkien's songs (Tolkien Ensemble, Glasshammer, Blind Guardian, Christopher Lee (!), David Arkenstone, just to name a few) - simply check out Tolkien-Music.com (Abre numa nova janela) for this.

An even more substantial review (Abre numa nova janela) of Caroline Larringtons The Norse Myths that Shape the Way We Think. [BBC Culture]

Franchise and Merchandise

Lord of the Rings: Gollum have announced their release date - May 25th. Have a first look report (Abre numa nova janela)of the game by Jeremy Edmonds of Tolkien Guide and my report visiting (Abre numa nova janela) Daedalic Entertainment.

I am working on a longish post, perhaps even a multi-post series on Tolkien and Tourism and let me tell you: even if you name your hotels Hobbit Hotels, if they look like this (Abre numa nova janela), I ain't gonna book there 😅!
- [P.S. I might but just for the hobbit of it!]

5 Unconventional Fantasy Heists (Abre numa nova janela) [Tor.com]
- I have to say that I never really thought of this book as depicting a heist but if you need to come up with a pitch for Tor.com there are worse ideas. And I do like this kind of article just like Five Stories About Precocious Young Wizards (Abre numa nova janela) because it has Earthsea in it.

I am not quite sure what to make of this but in this article (Abre numa nova janela) it is noted that:

A "Hobbit Village" and an information center for tourists will open in  Turquoise Katun in the Altai region, Russia's largest special economic  zone (Abre numa nova janela), this year. [UrduPoint]

Magic: The Gathering (Abre numa nova janela) has now shown cards of the upcoming Universes Beyond Lord of the Rings set. See more information here (Abre numa nova janela) [IGN].
- please note that discussing the skin colour of characters in a trading card game should not make you angry; these images are an artist's interpretation of Tolkien's stories.

[Picture credit Magic: the Gathering/ Wizards of the Coast]

By the way: A Magic: The Gathering collector has bid $100,000 on the unique One Ring card (Abre numa nova janela).

The second leg of the Lord of the Rings Playing Cards is on Kickstarter (Abre numa nova janela).

An excellent write-up on the Toybiz Action Figures (Abre numa nova janela).

Inter alia & Back in the day

With successful authors like Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton being 'rewritten', one of Pratchett's biographers suggests it might simply be wiser (Abre numa nova janela) to read Pterry. Also, Ursula K. Le Guin's case seems to be a little bit different (Abre numa nova janela) - the decision is made by her son.

Sometimes it seems to be helpful to be part of a royal family - particularly, if you wanted to find out (Abre numa nova janela) where Game of Thrones was going, back in the day.

A couple have turned their bus into a Tiny Prancing Pony Home (Abre numa nova janela). [Tiny House Expedition]

We might still be getting a Gormenghast (Abre numa nova janela) series.

The only March Madness we truly need.

According to German law I have to infom you all links to enterprises, artists, products etc. are [unpaid advertisements.] Some purchase links may earn me a small commission from Blackwell's, the bookshop of my personal trust.

If you are interested in my other Tolkien-related work please have a look:
The Tolkienist Blog (Abre numa nova janela) : Facebook (Abre numa nova janela) : Twitter (Abre numa nova janela) : Instagram (Abre numa nova janela) : Tolkien-Discord (Abre numa nova janela) [de/en]

What to look forward to in 2023 if you like Tolkien and all things Tolkienian