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My apologies if this has been covered. I am still catching up on Episode 111, but... re: Frodo's conversation with Gloin in Episode 110... "'But their tolls are high," he added with a shake of his head. Is it possible that Gloin is referring not to payment required by the Beornings, but the...

Apologies for not getting to this before session 82, but I have another idea regarding the cry heard when the party cross the road: perhaps the road, despite a long period of limited use, retains a spirit that the wraiths can sense. We are told that the wraiths are more sensitive to the...

Am I getting too nit-picky to wonder why, if the clothes that Bilbo and Frodo wear disappear when they put on the ring, the wraith's cloaks do not also disappear? Gandalf says that they wear the cloaks "to give form to their nothingness", but shouldn't said cloaks, if worn as a garment, also...

This post looks both ahead and behind, and was spurred by the discussion in the last session where Corey suggested that The Fall of Gil-galad translated entirely in rigid iambs would get stale pretty quick. For obvious reasons, I have thought a lot about what some of these songs and poems sound...

I am working on composing and recording a setting of the Hymn to Elbereth that the hobbits hear sung while in Rivendell, some weeks (months, years...) ahead of where we are now. I am not an expert in Sindarin by any means, but I think I have a basic grasp of the pronunciation. Is there anyone...

Is anyone taking bets on whether we reach the poem in class next week? Just in case, I will post my setting of it, and perhaps it will be in folks' ears during discussion... https://soundcloud.com/prsteve27/gil-galad-was-an-elven-king

Circling back to things that have come up around Strider/Aragorn - perhaps just something to keep an eye out for in the continued gathering of data to draw conclusions: Strider must make choice how to address the hobbits and step into the role of leader in a group that has been a group with...

https://soundcloud.com/prsteve27/all-that-is-gold-does-not-glitter I realize this is not sung in the text, but the inspiration struck me for this setting last week, and I quite like how it turns out. If anyone is up for collaborating with me on additional lyrics to flesh this out into a...

https://soundcloud.com/prsteve27/gil-galad-was-an-elven-king I figure I'm on a roll, even though we are not on pace to reach this song before summer. Feel free to share. I will re-post when we arrive to this point in the story as well.

Are the elves aware what sort of being Gandalf is? As Corey mentioned in class, Gandalf has several friends among the elves, but few in other places. Is this because he has earned elven friendship over time by working to combat Sauron, or is there something about a Maia that the elves can see...

In considering Frodo's actions around the singing of the song, and Strider's questioning of him following that, I am wondering about the sense we get about hobbit gentry. From the beginning, Sam seems to be the only one who has much common sense. The aristocrats (Merry, Pippin, and Frodo) all...

It's not quite the pub song that Corey described before we got to the "Merry Old Inn", but Inspiration struck yesterday at a moment when I had time to write and quickly record a bluegrass setting of "Troll Sat Alone", the song Sam sings when they camp by Bilbo's trolls. Unless I'm mistaken...

Per Corey's request, Frodo's song set to music:

Happy New Year to all! As it seems that we may actually reach Bree soon, I thought it high time for another song setting (this time, in advance of actually reaching said song in class). We have already discussed hobbit-metre, and I hope that my sense of this as a song to sing at the pub in...

Hello again, Corey! Your discussion of Tom's song inspired me to go listen to Rob Inglis's recording, as well as the Tolkien Ensemble setting of the song. I agree - neither of them captures the sense of the trochaic meter, and the result sounds awkward. Therefore, I wrote my own tune, keeping...

Certainly there are lots of options for what OMW's plan might be, but I think everything Corey postulated in class was rather human in outlook: that OMW might be trying to eat the hobbits, or imprison them for trespassing, or otherwise do away with them. All these seem to me centered on a...

I am curious if there could be a subtle reference to tea in the English custom going on in the bath song. To me, the sound of hot water pouring into a cup is always a little different than the sound of cold water. In discussing the bath song, I agree it seems to be moving from descriptions of...

First, if you're not familiar with it, I highly recommend the "Harry Potter and the Sacred Text" podcast, which is excellent and brings a similarly (but with different approach) rigorous reading to those books as you have brought to Tolkien. My question comes out of my listening to both your...