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.
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…
This is my new poetical attempt to add my own interpretation to Tolkien's Cosmology as to Eru's Creation and the Valar's minds and behind-the-scene providence reasons and mechanisms.. I often review Eä as part of our own world, just in another dimension, this is why I have always seriously…
My newly drawn map of Aman, as complete as I could make it.
Current Challenge
Bollywood
Prompts this month are films, songs, and tropes from India's dazzling film industry, Bollywood. Read more ...
Random Challenge
Turgon's Rock Opera
On the anniversary of the publication of "The Silmarillion," we’re reflecting on the importance of music in Arda with prompts that come from rock songs. Read more ...
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.
Elrond Week 2024
Elrond Week is a fandom event dedicated to Elrond Peredhel that will run from July 10th to July 16th on Tumblr.
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.
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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.
I absolutely adore this, Moreth. It's a joy to read. You have some wonderful lines. You just have to indulge me and let me repeat some of them: "We learned to fear the wind, which cut like a knife and was just as lethal. We knew now what a knife could do." A lot of learning in a short time. "I remember the long vistas of broken snow, gleaming silver in the star-shine, then flaring to a sudden green-blue sheen from the light I carried." "I stood enchanted and staring until my companion shook my shoulder. To stand still was to die." And finally: "League after league of bright, white space that cares nothing for the small doings of the Noldor [fabulous insight!]. It is dangerous indeed, but it is also beautiful."
I'll second your other reviewers by saying that it's a great, chilling vignette. The imagery is splendid, and the ice -- it's just as beautiful as it is deadly.
Okay, I'm making good on my bribe. ;) As I told you already, this is a beautiful piece. I'll confess that I'm a sucker for the kind of imagery that makes me gasp and say, "Yes, I see that!" and this piece is full of such imagery.
muttering and cracking and creaking perilous thunder as it tumbled into the sea But our lamps paled compared to the sky
Those are some of my favorite lines. :)
But I like also that it is not a scenic piece but also reflects, subtly, the recent history of the Noldor. I already mentioned (and see Oshun did as well) the line about knives, which is simply wonderful. Also, the mention of the white space that "cares nothing for the small doings of the Noldor" (emphasis mine), which is a really cool idea in light of how most people portray those doings, as larger than life with the power to change the world; it is a reminder of the constancy* of nature, its steadfastness, and its indifference.
* Though, in real life, we're doing our darndest to erode the constancy of the ice in the Arctic. *sigh*
Bribery clearly works :D Thanks for the encouragement!
I'm glad the indifference of the place came across. Even the Noldor are only making history - not geology ;P And as a reflection on that, I will echo your *sigh* about the damage to the ice in real life...
Have you read Peter Hoeg's Smilla's Sense of Snow? It's -besides other virtues- one of the best descriptions of the ice, the cold, the dangers and beauties of the Arctic. As I was reading your vignette, I was strongly reminded of it. Your piece is on a par in the beauty of the imagery and in conveying the absolute indifference of nature when confronted with the petty worries of men (ok, elves). Really outstanding.
This is as starkly beautiful as the glaciers themselves, Moreth. I could go on about how well-executed this is with regard to the technicalities, your word choices, the rhythm (oh, the rhythm), but the imagery through the eyes of the unknown Noldorin narrator is simply breathtaking: the "perilous thunder" of the ice, the northern lights, the killing cold, the vastness of it all and finally this...
"League after league of bright, white space that cares nothing for the small doings of the Noldor."
A truth here. In the end, Nature will render even the greatest of peoples insignificant.
Thank you for sharing such terrible beauty. Well done!
I enjoyed reading this. Personally, it's like stepping into a scenic (though not so-pleasant) postcard. I particularly liked this line: "It is dangerous indeed, but it is also beautiful." Like I mentioned in Dawn's piece, the elves' crossing of the Helcaraxe radically altered my view of the First-Born's seeming "invincibility" to the elements and I must say I like the Silmarillion's version better than the LOTR scene with Legolas. Thanks for sharing.
I loved Dawn's 'gritty reality' version! And unusually - normally I'm on the 'grim realism' take - wanted to talk about the beauty of the cold. Mine is the postcard, Dawn's is the event ;P I'm glad it worked for you!
This made me cold. It is freezing outside here and snowing. Seriously, I really like the description of the ice and how you make it feel as if it is almost a living thing. An enemy that can make you forget how dangerous it is because of its beauty. I can see the elves finding beauty in it and the addition of the Auora Borealis was a nice touch.
You too? We have freezing fog as I write this... that is not a good thing (although it looks very pretty!).
I'm pleased it came across as beautiful and dangerous. If you haven't already, check Dawn's piece out for the brutal reality of being cold... because that makes me turn the heating up!
Beautiful! It does, sort of, remind me of Norway at winter. Which I miss sorely, but shall see soon, toward the end of December.
Ironically enough, my travel and lust for knowledge has led me to another place of extreme winters - North Dakota - but I doubt it will be as beautiful as my native Norway during winter, covered in snow - because the mountains and the forests is what truly adds the finishing touch to the beauty that is Norway at winter.
Thank you so much for your review! I haven't (yet) seen Norway in winter - but it is very high on my list of places to go :) So at the moment I can only envy your winter landscape and imagine it... if I have captured any aspect of it, it is because of other people describing it to me in enthusiatic detail. (Thanks, Jack!) I wish you a great winter holiday season :D
Apparently I must have been in such an awe that I was at loss for words to review this piece. I could have sworn that I read it in 2008, but why I never let you know how much I loved it (see the Mefa review)... and I now suddenly realise that I forgot to touch upon the absolute beauty of the Auora Borealis, it comes across so well in this piece!
I truly hope that soon you will find more time to write Moreth, I miss your works!
I really like how this conveys the danger of the Noldor's passing over the Grinding Ice. Your descriptions are fantastic and really mae the reader feel how bitterly cold it is. But this story also reminds me too of the beauty of winter storms and that dangerous situations can also be beautiful too. Really enjoyed this.
I read this a while ago and totally failed to comment, I'm so sorry! Anyway, I just wanted to say that this is gorgeous and I'm so happy I stumbled across it.
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.