The One hundred and forty-fifth Roving Ranger

-:- Strange as news from Bree -:-

Life and Works

July 12, 1973. Tolkien is awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters by the University of Edinburgh (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).
July 13, 1949. Tolkien writes Letter 121 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), on a possible sequel to Farmer Giles.
July 14, 1916. The 11th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers (including J.R.R. Tolkien) is sent into action at the Somme (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) front.
July 15, 1919. Tolkien is officially released from service, well over a year after the war (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)'s end.
July 16, 1940. Beowulf and the Finnsburg Fragment (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), with contributions from Tolkien, is published.
July 18, 1962. Tolkien (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) writes Letter 238 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), on money, health, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), Sir Gawain (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), details about Pearl (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

• Third Age (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), 301 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)9: A great feast is held in Merethrond (Öffnet in neuem Fenster): Gimli (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) and Éomer (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) come to an agreement over the lady Galadriel (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [July 18]

Events & Shows

Karen Wynn'-Fonstad’s work [Atlas of Middle-earth etc.] will be exhibited for the first time ever (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [July 21 - August 1; plus additional programming in Madison, Wisconsin]

The Grey Havens Philosophy team is having their ‘first mondays’ LotR discussion group on Aug 8 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), [Longmont, Colorado]

The Parody of the Rings is a show on tour in England right now. [London, July 25 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster); Edinburgh, July 30 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)ff, see official website (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)]

Review: Lord of the Rings A Musical Tale, Gold Coast [The Scoop]

The sound & stage tech company for the concerts with the Tolkien Days in Germany gets a blog post with LSI (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Knoxville Children’s Theatre (Tennessee) is putting on The Hobbit in August (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

“The Lost Trees” (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) exhibition at the Garden Museum, London, includes ‘Tolkien’s black pine (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)’ [until July 20]

Birmingham and metal legend Toni Iommi of Black Sabbath likened Sabbath’s original drummer Bill Ward to Gollum (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) in last week’s farewell show ‘Back to the Beginning’ [Blabbermouth.net (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)]

And I don't think he knew who Gollum was. He's always always been the same, Bill. He just doesn't care. He goes on and does what he wants, which is great. That's always been Bill.

For all events check out the International Tolkien Fellowship (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Scholarship & Fandom

Robin Reid has Tolkien at Kalamazoo, International Congress on Medieval Studies (ICMS), May 14-16, 2026 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). Also, Queer Approaches to Tolkien: Essays on the Many Paths to Middle-earth is now available for pre-order (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Substack]

The creative uses of Irish literature in works by J.R.R. Tolkien (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)(PhD thesis) by Kristine Swank is available for download with the University of Glasgow.

Tolkien et la mémoire de l'Antiquité (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) by Isabelle Pantin & Sandra Provini will be available Aug 22, 2025. [Tolkiendil]

The Tolkien Visual Collecting Guide has a number of new entries: Tolkien Theme - Bilbo’s Last Song (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), Weapons (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), Stationary, Music CDs (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), and Non-Music CDs (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Tom Hillman has The Tides Of Time, The Tides Of Fate, And The Power Of Song (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Journal of Tolkien Research]

Stephen C. Winter has “Sleep Then, Master. Lay Your Head in My Lap.” Some Thoughts on Sam’s Love For Frodo (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Vlatka Rolanda, Anje Batina i Dragana Tasića (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) have published a book in Hungary to promote interest in GIS (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) tools by rendering a Middle-earth map.¹

I have added another Not a Tolkien quote: He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

doubtfulsea has Bard (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Blackwell’s showing off its Tolkien chops on Instagram (Öffnet in neuem Fenster):

Did you know that we were the first bookshop to publish Tolkien? Admittedly, it was for a work of his poetry in 1915, entitled Goblin’s Feet, but we’re still pretty chuffed about it.

Emerald has done the Top 50 Musicals Edition (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) for this year, including LotR. [tumblr]

Merchandise & Franchise

Donato Giancola has a progress development on his Argonath (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [Muddy Colors]

Ed Sheeran celebrated “I see fire” reaching one billion streams (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) on Spotify, thanking the NZ team for inviting him at short notice to write the song. [Instagram]

'The Lord of the Rings' Director, 63, Breaks Silence on His Filmmaking Future After 11-Year Directing Hiatus (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Collider]

The ENNIE Awards (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) (RPG) are happening, you can vote (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) for the Free League LotR RPG!

Planning refused for major tourism and leisure park at long-derelict South Kerry hotel (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Radio Kerry; including ‘six hobbit huts’]

The Tolkien Calendar for 2026 has been announced - The Great Tales of Middle-earth, with illustrations by Alan Lee. [July 17]

Inter alia

A public library in Canada, celebratings its 100th anniversary, invited writers, celebrities, politicians from all over the world to join in their celebrations - including Adam Nimoy and Simon Tolkien (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

The Other End Comics (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) have won this week’s Middle-earth Award 😁

The New York Times has done “The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century”, both audience (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) and professional critics (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [possible paywall]

Thinking about starting a newsletter, podcast, Patreon, Substack etc.?

Then do consider using Steady (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) - it is an exceptionally easy to use option for all needs. Built originally for an independent journalists’ collective, Krautreporter (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), it is run by creative minds for creative minds. Think Patreon, just better. It is based in Germany, free of enshittification (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) and nazis.

Do use my invite link (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) and start with three months fee-free.
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According to German law I have to inform you all links to enterprises, artists, products etc. are [unpaid advertisements.] Some purchase links may earn me a small commission from Blackwell's (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), Bookshop.org (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), or Genialokal (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), the (independent) bookshops of my personal trust (one with a Tolkien connection!)

If you are interested in my other Tolkien-related work please have a look:
The Tolkienist Blog (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) : Facebook (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) : Bluesky (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) : Instagram (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) : Threads (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) : Mastodon (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Have a look at all Roving Rangers published so far. (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

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 #310 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). ↩