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…
Current Challenge
Bollywood
Prompts this month are films, songs, and tropes from India's dazzling film industry, Bollywood. Read more ...
Random Challenge
Revolution
Create a fanwork using a quotation, artwork, speech, or song concerned with protest and revolution as your inspiration. 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.
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.
Well, this was certainly a surprise! Awww! What a heartwarming story. Much better than a B-movie. I needed a feel-good story tonight. Also got a kick out of reading the only phrase I know in Hebrew: "Barukh atah Adonai, eloheinu melekh ha-olam, etc."
I wrote it on Monday; it's very much me trying to cope. (My first fic for the Matryoshka challenge didn't work well, so I thought I wouldn't post anything for it. And then Saturday happened and I remembered I had this idea…)
A really nice take on Nerdanel! I like Maglor's wondrous smile and that lovely final scene. Also a neat idea about the Kinn-lai leaving for Valinor in 1492.
(Aside: I'm sort of wondering whether they sing "Morenika" in Valinor, because I'm fond of that song.)
Re: neat idea. Well, the Kinn-lai would have been perfectly happy to stay in Spain… but when the choice is leave, convert to Christianity, or die, they left. Actually, thinking about it, their choice was leave or die; the Inquisition would not have seen them as human, but as agents of the devil.
(I don't know; I've never heard of that song before.)
Follow-up comment: I meant that 1492 would explain neatly how you would have a Jewish diaspora in Valinor--not at all meaning to imply that "neat" would apply in any way to the events in 1492 in Spain!
I was first introduced to the song "Morenika" (or "Morenica") in a concert of Sephardic (Ladino) songs from Spain, hence the association (apparently it's also called "La Morena" or, in Hebrew, "Shecharchoret"). I have since heard it from a number of singers.
Here it is as sung by Mor Karbasi on YouTube, with a translation of the text below.
Sorry this is a little late. I've just remembered you posted something on tumblr.
This was lovely! Nerdanel turning up to bring him home. For a moment I thought he was going to turn her down, but it so nice to have him agree, especially after discovering his brother's were reborn. I love happy endings and unfortunately you don't read that often enough concerning Maglor. But this was a nice change from all the angst normally surrounding him.
I'm sorry to say I'm not at all familiar with the Jewish Prayer that you wrote in the story. I am rather embarrassed as I do have a little Jewish blood, but I know nothing other than that simple fact. It is a lovely prayer though.
This is lovely! The idea of a Jewish community in Valinor is fascinating. Nerdanel is wonderful, and I really like Maglor's just kind of "ugh, fine" response to the note--and then his surprise to find out who really left it! And the ending scene is just wonderful--I love happy reunions, and this one is really delightful.
Thank you! It is definitely fascinating-- I wouldn't have the first idea about how to go about writing anything specifically about them, though. I was a very little bit worried about the ending scene, so I'm thrilled people keeping pointing it out.
I have been meaning to read this since you posted it, and kept putting it off. After an unexpected trip to Florida I figured it was finally time.:)
Anyway, I really enjoyed this fic. I really liked you having Maglor aquiesced to modern life-and with friends and a house and all. It’s an idea I don’t see too often- it tends to be either returned to Valinor, or wandering the shores in mourning for all time, which, to be fair, is what the story says. But I see no reason to believe after all that time he wouldn’t need a house of some sort, as “just wandering” is a nice idea in writing, but in practical detail could prove difficult. I’m not sure what I’m saying, my point is I liked your idea.
I also liked Maglor being Jewish. It does make me wonder the circumstances behind his(and Nerdanel’s!) conversion. Did you have any idea in mind as to the when and why of that?
And I loved the inclusion of the Shehechianu. It is possibly my favorite prayer, something about it really speaks to me. It is one I hold close to my heart, so to see it used in such a way in the story was rather fun.
As for any sort of criticism, the story felt perhaps a bit too lighthearted for being about facing eternity and seeing family for the first time in thousands of years and leaving behind people and places you’ve known for so long, forever, even if it does mean returning to a long ago home. (Although perphaps it’s not so permanent and uncrossable if Nerdanel was able to return?) I feel that the emotions involved would be a bit more complicated.
I am not suggesting you change it, as I like the feel of what you wrote, so it’s not a criticism exactly, just a comment. I may also have been projecting some of my own emotions and thoughts, as it touched on things that I’ve been thinking about, and thus it may be more about that than your actually story.
Anyway, this is getting to be a long-winded comment. What happened last Saturday was awful, and there isn’t really anything I can say about it. It just feels sort of helpless. All the same, “the road goes ever on,” and the best we can do is continue living I suppose.
I honestly tend to assume that Maglor settles down for a bit and then moves on. Him perpetually wandering is really something that I see him doing for the Second and Third Ages.
Maglor's conversion happened around 60 CE, before the Second Temple's destruction. Nerdanel's, well, I honestly didn't put that much thought into it.
Well… this was specifically written as self-indulgent fluff. The eternity and family stuff are things I deal with in my other Maglor-returns-to-Aman fics. I was not in the mood for anything heavier.
Living, I think, is the only thing we can do. Anything else is letting the terrorists win.
I really did enjoy how happy your story was,despite what I said,if I didn’t make that clear in my previous comment. It was just fun and enjoyable to read.
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.