Founded in 2005, the Silmarillion Writers' Guild exists for discussions of and creative fanworks based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion and related texts. We are a positive-focused and open-minded space that welcomes fans from all over the world and with all levels of experience with Tolkien's works. Whether you are picking up Tolkien's books for the first time or have been a fan for decades, we welcome you to join us!
New Challenge: Bollywood This month's challenge offers songs, films, and tropes from Bollywood, the world's largest film industry based out of India, as prompts for fanworks.
Cultus Dispatches: Fandom Chocolate … or Authors Love Comments Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data provides insight into how comments benefit authors and which authors are most impacted by a lack of comments, with a digression on authors' perspectives one-click feedback like kudos.
A Sense of History: Passing Ships As Tolkien's characters in various texts gaze out to the sea, what do they see? What is brought by the ships coming out of the West?
Beta-Reader List Now Available The beta-reader list and profiles have been moved into our new system and are available again.
Largely focused on Númenor, its fall, and the aftermath, as seen from the perspective of two Mannish scientists, bit players in some ways, but who nonetheless cast their shadows across the history of Middle Earth.
A story of three friends in Númenor, one of whom attracts the attention of the High Priest. What does friendship mean in the shadow of the Black Temple?
Nimruzimir, a natural philosopher recently out of his apprenticeship, hardly considers himself very important to anyone, least of all his colleagues. When his strange, prophetic fits bring him to the attention of the High Priest, however, he may find that his existence is less superfluous than…
Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data shows that authors view comments as driving their motivation to create fanfiction. However, perception of comments by authors is part of a larger shift in fandom around how and how often fans interact with each other.
The arrival and departure of ships across the Great Sea carries mythic significance for the peoples of Middle-earth. The image of ships crossing out of and back into a mysterious West appears as well in Beowulf and is alluded to in Tolkien's tower analogy in his lecture "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," where the tower allows those who climb it to observe the passage of the ships.
Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data shows that while most authors self-identify as taking their craft seriously, a growing subset of authors may be pushing that norm.
He and Diamond were visiting, though Pippin had been disappearing every afternoon, and taking Frodo and Elanor and most other lads and lasses in the neighborhood with him—though why they couldn’t use Pippin’s own pony, Sam couldn’t imagine.
So gathered they were to Bree, what lieutenants who could be spared, from their scattered watches west and east, for their chieftain had returned from his long sojourn in lands godless and mountains strange.
Aragorn returns from the South to tells his tales. Halbarad listens.
July challenge at tolkienshortfanworks posted
The tolkienshortfanworks challenge for July has been posted to the Dreamwidth community. The thematic challenge is: original character or unnamed canon character; the formal challenge: fixed length of multiple of 50 words. New participants welcome.
Teitho June/July Challenge: Mentor
The June/July prompt for the Teitho challenge is "mentor" and invites fanworks about this relationship in Tolkien's works.
Scribbles & Drabbles 2024
A chill Tolkien event, where artists make art, and authors write little stories in response. Begins in June and ends in November.
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Comments
The Silmarillion Writers' Guild is more than just an archive--we are a community! If you enjoy a fanwork or enjoy a creator's work, please consider letting them know in a comment.
Interesting! As I don't know Old English, I generally skip right over the Old English version section. (I don't doubt there was an element of fun for Tolkien in these versions.) Maybe I should give it another look.
I thought it might be helpful for readers who don't have that volume of HoME or who don't know Old English to have a glimpse.
The Old English versions seem to be quite faithful, but Tolkien needs to make small adjustments in order to be able to translate.
Looking more closely also makes you notice how many French and Latinate loan words he is using in the modern English version. I'm sure he was aware of that, but some people seem to believe that his vocabulary is more Anglo-Saxon than it could possibly be.
I did once upon a time in another Age and another world (far in my mist-shrouded past!) study Old English (I actually got graduate credit for it!). But I hardly remember any. This is fun to look at! I definitely am a sad sack and a slothful person that I never really looked at these texts carefully! Thanks so much for sharing this with us.
Thank you very much, Oshun! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
I think for the work you normally do, with the bios, these texts don't yield very much, compared to what went before and comes after in the Legendarium.
But it is quite important, I think, to our understanding of Tolkien more generally, to realize that annals weren't just draft outlines to him, but a literary form in themselves (as Christopher Tolkien points out in his notes).
Got a notification this was updated and I am glad to have been alerted to its existence! This was a very interesting and informative analysis and comparison, thank you for sharing.
My brain usually glazes over in texts such as those you refer to, so this is both useful and interesting for me. And also, I'm surprised by how many of the Old English words I can make out, due to their similarities to some Afrikaans words.
(And also, what a great challenge! Thanks for updating and popping it into the recents feed so I noticed those other prompt fills.)
That makes sense, as the earlier forms of Dutch and English were more closely related than the languages are now. They have developed apart in the course of their history.
I just corrected a typo! I had not expected anyone to notice, but I'm glad it turned out to be useful in other ways!
Comments
The Silmarillion Writers' Guild is more than just an archive--we are a community! If you enjoy a fanwork or enjoy a creator's work, please consider letting them know in a comment.