The One hundred and thirty-third Roving Ranger

Life and Works

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

• Third Age, 2841. Thráin (Abre numa nova janela) sets out for the Lonely Mountain (Abre numa nova janela), 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 (Abre numa nova janela) is a talk given as part of the Medieval Fair Free Lectures Series in Oklahoma (Abre numa nova janela) [April 18]

Meet the amazing Shawn Marchese at the Greater Austin Book Festival (Abre numa nova janela) and get a signed copy of Why We Love Middle-earth [April 26]

The Arden Theatre Company has a trailer for their Hobbit (Abre numa nova janela) [Youtube]

If you feel like combining the City Nature Challenge with a visit to Sarehole Mill, April 25th is a good day to visit (Abre numa nova janela) [Birmingham Museums]

The New York Tolkien Conference has added Tom Hillman as guest speaker (Abre numa nova janela).

A new LotR LCG event is coming to France: La Communauté des Cartes (Abre numa nova janela) [Instagram; May 31; h/t Lure of Middle-earth (Abre numa nova janela)]

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

Mythlore’s Volume 43, Number 2 (Abre numa nova janela)(Spring/Summer 2025, #146) has much to offer; Tom Emanuel’s An Aspirational Cultus? Tolkien Fandom at the Borders of Belief (Abre numa nova janela) 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 (Abre numa nova janela).

Ardacraft has How we're building trees for Middle-earth (Abre numa nova janela) [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. (Abre numa nova janela)

Henry Gee has proven his comedic qualities once again (Abre numa nova janela), 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 (Abre numa nova janela) [PDF¹]

The Oxford Tolkien Network on Youtube has added five videos to its channel (Abre numa nova janela).

The British Fantasy Society Journal has a call for submissions for their winter special issue: War in Fantasy (Abre numa nova janela), with Tolkien being named as potential topic.

doutbfulsea has Lingua Orca (Abre numa nova janela).

Adam Roberts has On Tolkien's ‘Lay of Leithian’ (1925-31) (Abre numa nova janela) [Substack]

The Tolkien Scciety has announced the shortlist for The Tolkien Society Awards (Abre numa nova janela) 2025; members can now vote until April 25 (Abre numa nova janela).

Merchandise & Franchise

An adorable new Hobbit board game is coming from tabletop legend Reiner Knizia (Abre numa nova janela) [Wargamer]

Weta Workshop is already stirring the proverbial Hobbit cooking pot with Oven Mitten Sets, Tea Towels, and Ingredients of the Shire (Abre numa nova janela) [Tales of the Shire merchandise]

Lord of the Rings Online has announced compensation for all the server transfer woes (Abre numa nova janela)[Massively OP]

At the time of writing the Lord of the Rings Fountain Pen & Ink Collection (Abre numa nova janela) Kickstarter was financed at 9287% of the originally asked for sum.

The Burgschneider Middle-earth Adventures - The Brandywine Festival (Abre numa nova janela) 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 (Abre numa nova janela) [Sun]

The script for LotR: Hunt for Gollum, written by Philippa Boyens (?), might be turned in this May (Abre numa nova janela) [Deadline]

Inter alia

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

Jean Marsh (Upstairs, Downstairs; Willow; Dr. Who) has passed away. [Wertzone (Abre numa nova janela) | Guardian (Abre numa nova janela) | Big Finish (Abre numa nova janela) ]

Quite a few Pratchett fans² will rejoice: Announcing the Discworld Graphic Novel Universe (Abre numa nova janela) [TP Estate]

An important question that should be compared with other countries: Do Charity Bookshops Drive Out Other Second-Hand Bookshops? (Abre numa nova janela) [Wormwoodiana; this is on the UK³; do also read the follow-up (Abre numa nova janela)]

The big idea: will sci-fi end up destroying the world? (Abre numa nova janela) [Guardian]

Jeff LaSala has Faith & Heresy. (Abre numa nova janela)

Finally, an Affordable Reprint of Medusa by E.H. Visiak (Abre numa nova janela) [Wormwoodiana]

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

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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 #297 (Abre numa nova janela) ↩

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

3. h/t Tolkien Gleanings #297 (Abre numa nova janela) ↩