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
Holiday Party
No matter if you're in the Northern or Southern hemisphere, it's a time of year to think about holidays. Whether you're bundling up in blankets or slipping a swimsuit into your suitcase, we invite you to an SWG holiday party! 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.
That is what I felt! I've read so many times of Elves having family waiting for them right upon landing (and written such scenes occasionally), so I liked the idea of giving that to Shadowfax, too. (Or like Gimli meeting Mahal, I suppose!)
Technically, it's not confirmed that the Mearas descend from Nahar, admittedly!
It's so lovely to read these horses as full characters in their own right, and the people's vicarious joy in their meeting. Gives me a feel of the sacred cows of the Hindus. And I like the first person view, with the mystery of just who the narrator is.
People make jokes about Tolkien giving the name of more horses than women, but I think that's not just about Tolkien's treatment of women, but also about his attitude to horses, Shadowfax especially. So I feel there is some canonical precedent!
Oh, what an absolute joy! Like Grundy, I love that Shadowfax has family there to greet him too, and there is such a sense of joy about their meeting - like it should all be wreathed in that white-gold light that frames the characters in the Havens at the end of the film. Gorgeous.
Thank you very much! That is so very kind of you and I am glad I was able to convey that sense of joy!
As for the narrator, how about this:
The narrator is a Silvan. She is one of the Nandor that first settled in Lasgalen and, with her people, she once roamed the northern vale of the Anduin with feathers in her hair. She saw Orome come riding over the mountains on Nahar to hunt the monsters of Melkor’s making. Maybe it was a cousin of hers who made a painting of the Hunt in a cave in the foothills of the Hithaeglir. She herself befriended the first of the Mearas and spoke with them. The Men of Rhovanion, in the Second Age, called her Marhlubo, because she loved horses and they loved her.
At the time of the Last Alliance, she came south with Oropher to fight, but she was terribly wounded in the war. Her life was saved by Elrond, but it had been a hard struggle, her healing, and it was for that reason that she did not return northward with Thranduil, but eventually followed Elrond to Imladris and became the chief of his horse herders. She spent many evenings in the Hall of Fire, listening to the tales about Valinor and Beleriand that the Noldor and Sindar told and telling her own stories in exchange. When Elrond departed Rivendell, she decided to go with him, together with other Elves of Elrond’s household.
Oh! You're full of surprises! I hadn't pictured the narrator being an OC, but I absolutely love this! All the little details that tie in, her implied fondness for Shadowfax and shared joy at being reacquainted with Nahar, her connection to Elrond, reason for sailing. And this: "...because she loved horses and they loved her." And her cousin's cave painting brings Lascaux to mind.
I'm truly in awe, not only of how much you say with so little, but how beautifully you do it.
This story is written in a way that is beautiful and poetic. I love the atmosphere, and also that it is told as an eyewitness' report, which makes it sound so authentic.
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.