The One hundred and thirty-third Roving Ranger

Life and Works

April 18, 1917. Tolkien and Christopher Wiseman (Si apre in una nuova finestra), the Great Twin Brethren, meet in Harrogate, and discuss the fate of the Barrovians (Si apre in una nuova finestra) and the future of the Society.
April 20, 1973. Tolkien writes a letter to John Higgins (Si apre in una nuova finestra), declining the request to be part of a literary jury.
April 23, 1925. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Si apre in una nuova finestra) is first published.
April 25, 1954. J.R.R. Tolkien (Si apre in una nuova finestra) writes Letter 144 (Si apre in una nuova finestra) to Naomi Mitchison on The Lord of the Rings (Si apre in una nuova finestra) and languages (Si apre in una nuova finestra),

• Third Age, 2841. Thráin (Si apre in una nuova finestra) sets out for the Lonely Mountain (Si apre in una nuova finestra), Balin and Dwalin with him. [April 21]

Events & Shows

I have published my report of the first ever Omentië Nolwë conference in Zurich, Switzerland.

Tolkien's Medieval Worldbuilding (Si apre in una nuova finestra) is a talk given as part of the Medieval Fair Free Lectures Series in Oklahoma (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [April 18]

Meet the amazing Shawn Marchese at the Greater Austin Book Festival (Si apre in una nuova finestra) and get a signed copy of Why We Love Middle-earth [April 26]

The Arden Theatre Company has a trailer for their Hobbit (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Youtube]

If you feel like combining the City Nature Challenge with a visit to Sarehole Mill, April 25th is a good day to visit (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Birmingham Museums]

The New York Tolkien Conference has added Tom Hillman as guest speaker (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

A new LotR LCG event is coming to France: La Communauté des Cartes (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Instagram; May 31; h/t Lure of Middle-earth (Si apre in una nuova finestra)]

For all events check out the International Tolkien Fellowship (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Scholarship & Fandom

Mythlore’s Volume 43, Number 2 (Si apre in una nuova finestra)(Spring/Summer 2025, #146) has much to offer; Tom Emanuel’s An Aspirational Cultus? Tolkien Fandom at the Borders of Belief (Si apre in una nuova finestra) is just one of the many interesting pieces.

The Journal of Tolkien Research has added Sounds of Battle and Battle of Sounds: Belliphonic in Tolkien (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Ardacraft has How we're building trees for Middle-earth (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Youtube]

Stephen C. Winter has “I Looked For no Such Friendship as You Have Shown. To Have Found it Turns Evil to Great Good.” The Redeeming Friendship of Frodo and Faramir. (Si apre in una nuova finestra)

Henry Gee has proven his comedic qualities once again (Si apre in una nuova finestra), making light fun of a certain recent “de-extinction” with paragraphs like this:

Ents
In ‘Project Treebeard’, scientists at Humungous Biosciences have been trying to create ents by splicing actin and myosin genes into banyan trees. The results have been encouraging, if disconcerting. The trees really do seem to move around, but only when nobody is looking.

The Exeter College magazine EXON has a piece on Tolkien’s poetry (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [PDF¹]

The Oxford Tolkien Network on Youtube has added five videos to its channel (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

The British Fantasy Society Journal has a call for submissions for their winter special issue: War in Fantasy (Si apre in una nuova finestra), with Tolkien being named as potential topic.

doutbfulsea has Lingua Orca (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Adam Roberts has On Tolkien's ‘Lay of Leithian’ (1925-31) (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Substack]

The Tolkien Scciety has announced the shortlist for The Tolkien Society Awards (Si apre in una nuova finestra) 2025; members can now vote until April 25 (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Merchandise & Franchise

An adorable new Hobbit board game is coming from tabletop legend Reiner Knizia (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Wargamer]

Weta Workshop is already stirring the proverbial Hobbit cooking pot with Oven Mitten Sets, Tea Towels, and Ingredients of the Shire (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Tales of the Shire merchandise]

Lord of the Rings Online has announced compensation for all the server transfer woes (Si apre in una nuova finestra)[Massively OP]

At the time of writing the Lord of the Rings Fountain Pen & Ink Collection (Si apre in una nuova finestra) Kickstarter was financed at 9287% of the originally asked for sum.

The Burgschneider Middle-earth Adventures - The Brandywine Festival (Si apre in una nuova finestra) Kickstarter was financed at 398% of the originally asked for sum (the starting sum was much higher to begin with than the Ferris Wheel Press one.)

Not a huge fan of the Shmun but they have Lord of the Rings to get HUGE attraction in new UK theme park – 30 years after first film hit screens (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Sun]

The script for LotR: Hunt for Gollum, written by Philippa Boyens (?), might be turned in this May (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Deadline]

Inter alia

File770 has: Op-Ed: “No More Worldcons in the United States?” (Si apre in una nuova finestra); another view is: Worldcon In An Age Of American Truculence (Si apre in una nuova finestra). In answer Mike Glyer wrote: Op-Ed: Solidarity Not Divisiveness. (Si apre in una nuova finestra)

Jean Marsh (Upstairs, Downstairs; Willow; Dr. Who) has passed away. [Wertzone (Si apre in una nuova finestra) | Guardian (Si apre in una nuova finestra) | Big Finish (Si apre in una nuova finestra) ]

Quite a few Pratchett fans² will rejoice: Announcing the Discworld Graphic Novel Universe (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [TP Estate]

An important question that should be compared with other countries: Do Charity Bookshops Drive Out Other Second-Hand Bookshops? (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Wormwoodiana; this is on the UK³; do also read the follow-up (Si apre in una nuova finestra)]

The big idea: will sci-fi end up destroying the world? (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Guardian]

Jeff LaSala has Faith & Heresy. (Si apre in una nuova finestra)

Finally, an Affordable Reprint of Medusa by E.H. Visiak (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Wormwoodiana]

We need more heroes like this, that is, we need more Jason Statham!

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If you are interested in my other Tolkien-related work please have a look:
The Tolkienist Blog (Si apre in una nuova finestra) : Facebook (Si apre in una nuova finestra) : Bluesky (Si apre in una nuova finestra) : Instagram (Si apre in una nuova finestra) : Threads (Si apre in una nuova finestra) : Mastodon (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Have a look at all Roving Rangers published so far. (Si apre in una nuova finestra)

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 average time of curating this newsletter ranges from 12-16 hours for the bi-weekly edition and 6-8 hours for the weekly one.

1. h/t Tolkien Gleanings #297 (Si apre in una nuova finestra) ↩

2. I am definitely looking forward to this as I am Moist von Lipwig ↩

3. h/t Tolkien Gleanings #297 (Si apre in una nuova finestra) ↩