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Registration for attending Mereth Aderthad is open for both in-person and virtual attendees and will remain open through the day of the event.
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!
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Register for Mereth Aderthad!
Mereth Aderthad Registration Is Open!
Registration for attending Mereth Aderthad is open for both in-person and virtual attendees and will remain open through the day of the event.
New Challenge: Birthday Bash
In honor of our twentieth birthday, we look back at twenty years of SWG history with a new poetry, image, and word prompt each day.
So You Want to Present at a Tolkien Conference? Putting Together the Presentation
Part of our ongoing series to support fans who want to present at Mereth Aderthad and other Tolkien conferences, this session will share strategies for putting together a paper and presentation.
Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Shadow by Himring
Himring interviewed Shadow about their upcoming presentation for Mereth Aderthad, "The Aromantic in Tolkien," and their inspiration for pursuing this topic that is rarely covered in Tolkien scholarship.
[Writing] Clear Pebbles of the Rain by StarSpray
But at the very end of the letter she spoke of one more prisoner that Elladan and Elrohir had discovered in one of the deepest dungeons of Dol Guldur, locked away behind a door unopened in so long that the hinges had rusted.
Maglor has been rescued from Dol Guldur, and now faces…
[Artwork] 2025 Birthday Bash Prompt Fills by silmalope
Sketches inspired by the 2025 Birthday Bash challenge prompts!
[Writing] A Grief Ever-Worsening by Flora-lass
Maeglin writes to Idril.
[Writing] Return to the Sea by daughterofshadows
Cúrandil knows the stories, knows how their people first awoke in the water. How they came to walk the land and how the sea has called them back ever since.
It is their turn to follow the call now.
[Writing] Torchsong by Dawn Felagund, Elleth
Maglor performs the Noldolantë and the room reacts.
Birthday Bash
Daily word, image, and poetry prompts are loosely structured around events and milestones leading up to our 20th birthday. Read more ...
Interview with Shadow by Himring by daughterofshadows, Himring
Aromanticism is a topic not often covered in Tolkien scholarship, but many Tolkien characters can be read as aromantic. In this interview, Himring talks with Shadow about their upcoming Mereth Aderthad presentation "The Aromantic in Tolkien."
Interview with Stella Getreuer-Kostrouch by Quente by Stella Getreuer-Kostrouch, Quente
Stella Getreuer-Kostrouch has always felt deeply connected to the character of Elu Thingol. In this interview, Quente asks about this connection and how Stella sees Thingol as unjustly treated by many in the fandom.
Interview with Acha Rezak (Quente) by Shadow by Acha Rezak (Quente), daughterofshadows
Shadow spoke to Acha Rezak about her upcoming presentation for Mereth Aderthad, which reads Tolkien less as a Catholic Christian work and more as a world inclusive of many religions, especially in its focus on nature and landscapes
Part of our Themed Collection series for our newsletter, this collection features fiction, artwork, and essays that transcend the idea of Orcs as the enemy, instead considering their humanity.
Alliterative Verse for Arda by Rhunedhel
Part of our Themed Collection series for our newsletter, this collection features alliterative poems about Middle-earth.
[Writing] Paradox of the Fourth Age by Alassante
One wrong decision can make a world of difference. When one of the Fellowship makes the mistake, the consequences are so severe that only the Valar can repair it. But will they?
Glorfindel daughter's life is in Elrohir's hands and only she remembers th eir love for each other. The fate of…
[Writing] By Mirrormere by bunn
A new Age dawns, and Moria is retaken at last.
[Writing] Beneath the Bitter Rain by bunn
The Gardens of the Entwives are fallen, but two Entwives remain.
Tolkien Ekphrasis Week 2025
This is a Tolkien-fandom-wide event dedicated to the art of ekphrasis in Tolkien's worlds. Its goal is to illuminate the artistic surroundings of the places, people, and stories we love, in as many media as possible.
Feanorian Week 2025
Feanorian Week is a Tumblr event offering optional prompts for fanworks about the sons of Feanor and their parents.
C&C Week 2025
C&C Week is a Tumblr event for fanworks about Celegorm and Curufin. This year, the event will run from March 16-23, 2025, with prompts featured every other day.
Teitho March/April Challenge: Mothers
The Teitho Contest theme for the months of March and April is mothers.
March Challenge at tolkienshortfanworks
The challenge for March has been posted to the tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth. New participants welcome.
I love that you incorporated the dancing bears. :D
Weirdly, I had the impression that Elros was getting younger as he walked through the forest and talked to Maglor, although there isn't really anything in the text on which I can fix it (except maybe the leaning on Maglor's shoulder, but that happens very late). Although the unavoidable ending made me sad, it feels reassuring that Elros died knowing that it's been a good year (if there are bad years in Númenor at all) and that everything was in good order.
Thank you! I love those bears and how they link up with the bear lore in The Hobbit! But my head has trouble seeing them literally on the same island with Aldarion and Erendis and the others. I can see them as a Beorian folk tale, though, for instance!
I hadn't consciously thought of Elros getting younger, when I wrote, but it fits very well with what I meant to suggest about how he was feeling!
I think of the beginning years in Numenor as being quite tough for the new settlers, but by the time this is set I envision them having no disastrously bad harvests, although not all of them equally good, and enough planning in place to deal with any less good years without much strain (quite unlike the later distribution issues in Azruhar's time!).
I absolutely love the dancing bears of Númenor (out of place though they feel at first) because Númenor was on my mind when I was travelling around Hokkaidô, a long time ago, and the bear is majorly important in the Ainu culture of Hokkaidô. It makes no actual sense, and it certainly doesn't fit with the southern Mediterranean vibes of the rest of Númenor, but it makes me happy. XD
For all we know from canon, there may have been no distribution issues in the days of Tar-Ancalimon and Tar-Telemmaite either. Perhaps those days were just golden and happy and I'm just an evil author! ;) I agree that the beginning years must have been a challenge! In that context, the observation that all of the trees are younger than Elros was very poignant. They not only had to settle a country where nobody had settled before, it was a country that literally hadn't existed before, and that must have been tough. And that isn't even getting into how different peoples had to grow together as one people, and how plenty of them were probably bringing generational trauma and defensive residue from Middle-earth under Morgoth's rule! Elros surely had his work cut out, but he seems to have managed to leave his descendants a well-functioning kingdom at the end of his long life.
Oh, this is so beautiful, tears spontaneously came to my eyes when I reached the ending.
I love that he let go in the comforting presence of both dads (comforting despite all the reasons for the (justifiably) loud words he'd like to say!) And also comforted that the trees they'd planted, along with the other agriculture, had become so well established by now that the island wouldn't need as much tending at the start of his grandson's reign as it did at the beginning of his. (This made me picture Númenor as a kind of inverted Easter Island, relatively barren and harsh initially and gradually forested. And with mystery bears instead of mystery statues, I guess!)
Comparing his age to the great girth of common trees really does give an impression of how old 500 years really is!
I'd love for Maglor to be there on the Island with his fostor son, and then it suddenly made me so sad that Elros is leaving most of his ancestral family here in Arda, inside Mandos and out — although they're mostly people we've come to know and love and of course he didn't.
I do like the implication that Tinfang plays, and in a way calls, to people when it's their time to depart, and that Maglor somehow made a deal with him to play in his stead for Elros. (And bringing in the Warble at the end was a touch that made me smile.)
Very belated thank you for this wonderful comment!
Really loved this!
It felt like a nice ending for Elros and the bears were an interesting feature.
Also fits the time of year really well, since all the acorns and chestnuts and beechnuts are currently falling from the trees and try to hit you when you least expect it.
Belatedly: thank you very much!
Hope you did not get hit by any falling chestnuts in the meantime!
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Comments on The Emperor's Goodbye
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