The One hundred and fifty-fifth Roving Ranger

-:- Strange as news from Bree -:-

Happy Birthday to Bilbo (22 September, TA 2890) and Frodo (22 September, T.A. 2968.)

Also The Hobbit was published Sept 21, 1937 - eighty-eight years ago. Aragorn was crowned king at the age of eighty-eight.

Events & Shows

September Cinballera Salon - Lady of the Ring and Songs of Middle Earth (Opens in a new window) [Sept 22; Villa Montezuma, San Diego, USA | IG (Opens in a new window)]

ALEP 6 is happening this week (Opens in a new window).

The Medieval and Early Modern Research Network has Will Sherwood for their September meeting (Opens in a new window)on Tolkien’s Romantic Medievalism. [Sept 29]

For all events check out the International Tolkien Fellowship (Opens in a new window) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Opens in a new window).

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Scholarship & Fandom

Miriam Ellis has Fangorn's Lore: The Old Lists of the Ents (Opens in a new window).

Stephen C. Winter has “Don’t Go Where I Can’t Follow.” Sam’s Grief For Frodo in Shelob’s Lair (Opens in a new window).

Middle Earth in Madison? UW exhibit honors the legacy of fantasy map maker Karen Fonstad (Opens in a new window) [Daily Cardinal; note the lovely signatures in one ‘Atlas’ of Flieger, Lee and Astin.]

I have written a review on the recently published romantic comedy My Oxford Year (Opens in a new window). [thetolkienist.com; Tolkien mentions]

Musical chapters from the Lord of the Rings, composed by Paul Corfield Godfrey, are out now (Opens in a new window).

doubtfulsea has Going Around in Cycles (Opens in a new window).

Joel Merriner’s book Illustrating The Lord of the Rings in the Soviet Bloc is available at a 30% discount¹ (at the time of writing) with Bloomsbury. (Opens in a new window) Published last week, Joel has made some images of it available (Opens in a new window). [Bluesky]

Stratofanatic has Tolkien's Honorary Membership in the Icelandic Literary Society (Opens in a new window).

[The] Silmarillion; book-collecting minutiae has 1979 First Paperback: Six Price Variants (Opens in a new window).

The Muster at Marquette, the short documentary on the Tolkien Fandom Oral History Collection, is available now (Opens in a new window). [Youtube]

Merchandise & Franchise

Rare Tolkien book signed in Elvish to auction for £15,000 (Opens in a new window) [Oxford Mail; see more at TolkienGuide (Opens in a new window)]

Lord of the Rings producer collapses under shock $4m debt (Opens in a new window) [Herald Sun, Australia; paywall]

One of the companies that produced footwear for the Jackson films is on sale (Opens in a new window) [Otago Daily Times]

NZ’s global brand stuck in rut of dairy, lamb and Lord of the Rings (Opens in a new window) [Newsroom]

Nine 'Squaroes' for Mortal Men - 'Squaroes' proudly presents the new 'The Lord of the Rings' inspired collection (Opens in a new window) [ICv2]

Inter alia

Boromir's Bloggish Bebotherments has returned with part 7: Scouring the net for all things Tolkienian in the age of AI slop… (Opens in a new window) [On sources for this newsletter; Steady]

If you have never heard of the Iron Butt Association (Opens in a new window), never mind - just know there is a Middle-earth quest driving through Canada (Opens in a new window). [CBC, Canada]

A fifth of all of humanity speaks, writes, thinks and prays in the language born on these isles and perfected in the pages of Shakespeare and Dickens, Tolkien and Lewis, Orwell and Kipling—incredible people, unbelievable people like we have rarely seen before and probably won't see again.²

On Silencing Jimmy Kimmel And Stephen Colbert (Opens in a new window) [File770]

Discovering Homo floresiensis: 'I hated the name hobbit' (Opens in a new window) [BBC News]

The Rise of Parasitic AI (Opens in a new window) [LessWrong]

xkcd wins again.

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Have a look at all Roving Rangers published so far. (Opens in a new window)

As this is 2025 I would like to note that this newsletter is 100% human-made, curated by me, Marcel R. Bülles. This also holds true for everything I write with my blog and here at Steady. Also, the minimum time of curating this newsletter ranges from 8-12 hours every week. Please consider supporting me so I can continue offering the Roving Ranger - thank you.

1. h/t TolkienGuide (Opens in a new window). [Bluesky] ↩

2. Trump at State Banquet, UK (Opens in a new window). [Newsweek] ↩