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 (Abre numa nova janela).
July 13, 1949. Tolkien writes Letter 121 (Abre numa nova janela), 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 (Abre numa nova janela) front.
July 15, 1919. Tolkien is officially released from service, well over a year after the war (Abre numa nova janela)'s end.
July 16, 1940. Beowulf and the Finnsburg Fragment (Abre numa nova janela), with contributions from Tolkien, is published.
July 18, 1962. Tolkien (Abre numa nova janela) writes Letter 238 (Abre numa nova janela), on money, health, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (Abre numa nova janela), Sir Gawain (Abre numa nova janela), details about Pearl (Abre numa nova janela).

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

Events & Shows

Karen Wynn'-Fonstad’s work [Atlas of Middle-earth etc.] will be exhibited for the first time ever (Abre numa nova janela) [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 (Abre numa nova janela), [Longmont, Colorado]

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

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 (Abre numa nova janela).

Knoxville Children’s Theatre (Tennessee) is putting on The Hobbit in August (Abre numa nova janela).

“The Lost Trees” (Abre numa nova janela) exhibition at the Garden Museum, London, includes ‘Tolkien’s black pine (Abre numa nova janela)’ [until July 20]

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

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 (Abre numa nova janela) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Abre numa nova janela).

Scholarship & Fandom

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

The creative uses of Irish literature in works by J.R.R. Tolkien (Abre numa nova janela)(PhD thesis) by Kristine Swank is available for download with the University of Glasgow.

Tolkien et la mémoire de l'Antiquité (Abre numa nova janela) 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 (Abre numa nova janela), Weapons (Abre numa nova janela), Stationary, Music CDs (Abre numa nova janela), and Non-Music CDs (Abre numa nova janela).

Tom Hillman has The Tides Of Time, The Tides Of Fate, And The Power Of Song (Abre numa nova janela) [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 (Abre numa nova janela).

Vlatka Rolanda, Anje Batina i Dragana Tasića (Abre numa nova janela) have published a book in Hungary to promote interest in GIS (Abre numa nova janela) 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 (Abre numa nova janela).

doubtfulsea has Bard (Abre numa nova janela).

Blackwell’s showing off its Tolkien chops on Instagram (Abre numa nova janela):

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 (Abre numa nova janela) for this year, including LotR. [tumblr]

Merchandise & Franchise

Donato Giancola has a progress development on his Argonath (Abre numa nova janela). [Muddy Colors]

Ed Sheeran celebrated “I see fire” reaching one billion streams (Abre numa nova janela) 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 (Abre numa nova janela) [Collider]

The ENNIE Awards (Abre numa nova janela) (RPG) are happening, you can vote (Abre numa nova janela) for the Free League LotR RPG!

Planning refused for major tourism and leisure park at long-derelict South Kerry hotel (Abre numa nova janela) [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 (Abre numa nova janela).

The Other End Comics (Abre numa nova janela) have won this week’s Middle-earth Award 😁

The New York Times has done “The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century”, both audience (Abre numa nova janela) and professional critics (Abre numa nova janela). [possible paywall]

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

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

Do use my invite link (Abre numa nova janela) 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 (Abre numa nova janela), Bookshop.org (Abre numa nova janela), or Genialokal (Abre numa nova janela), 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 (Abre numa nova janela) : Facebook (Abre numa nova janela) : Bluesky (Abre numa nova janela) : Instagram (Abre numa nova janela) : Threads (Abre numa nova janela) : Mastodon (Abre numa nova janela).

Have a look at all Roving Rangers published so far. (Abre numa nova janela)

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 (Abre numa nova janela). ↩