Abby Epplett, Historian

This week, I take a deep dive into the folklore of man-eating beasts based on a line in “The Shadow of the Past” . Gandalf told Frodo of a rumor he heard from the Woodman: “some new terror abroad, a ghost that drank blood”, allegedly Gollum. To be clear, in the era before CCTV, nobody saw or recorded Gollum eating a baby animal or baby Woodman, and any statistician knows correlation does not equal causation. Neither the Woodmen nor the Wood-elves nor Gandalf would deliberately lie about a dangerous creature in Mirkwood . Something was certainly eating the contents of nests, holes, and cradles, but whether it was Gollum is not provable. The concept of a man-eating or blood-drinking creature is nearly universal folklore, from ghosts and vampires representing the undead remains of a restless human to human-like monsters stalking the borders of a community to hungry wolves terrorizing medieval villages. I take a look at each of these concepts, as the works of Tolkien drew...

Back in late June 2026, I visited the Sutton Center Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places , part of the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor (BHC) in Massachusetts. So many historic buildings, monuments, and stories were packed into this highly walkable area that I am dividing my adventure into three parts. The first part focused on a church, town common, municipal building, and several houses. The second part focused on the little school house, cemetery, town pound, and a house. The third part includes a church, historic houses, a memorial, a blacksmith shop, and a nature area. Aiding in my trip were easy-to-follow walking tours created by BHC over a decade ago and by Sutton Historical Society as part of America250.

Back in late June 2026, I visited the Sutton Center Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places , part of the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor (BHC) in Massachusetts. So many historic buildings, monuments, and stories were packed into this highly walkable area that I am dividing my adventure into three parts. The first part focused on a church, town common, municipal building, and several houses. The second part will focus on the little school house, cemetery, town pound, and a house. Aiding in my trip were easy-to-follow walking tours created by BHC over a decade ago and by Sutton Historical Society as part of America250.

Back in late June 2026, I visited the Sutton Center Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places , part of the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor (BHC) in Massachusetts. So many historic buildings, monuments, and stories were packed into this highly walkable area that I am dividing my adventure into three parts. The first part will focus on a church, town common, municipal building, and several houses. Aiding in my trip were easy-to-follow walking tours created by BHC over a decade ago and by Sutton Historical Society as part of America250.

This week, I look at the rarely discussed relationship between Wood-elves and Woodmen, two peoples of Middle-earth who lived in Mirkwood. While the short-lived mortal Men had vastly different lifestyles than the immortal Elves, the two groups shared the forest peacefully, united against the Dark Powers of Mordor. During this essay, I will review the background of these two fictional groups and compare them to other forest-dwellers in the real world, including a pair of cultures in Cameroon that once shared the forest and prehistoric collaboration between early humans.

Back in June, after my visit to the Danforth Museum and quick history stops throughout Framingham , I visited The Wayside Inn in Sudbury, MA. I saw so much history at this site, now on the National Register of Historic Places as The Wayside Inn Historic District , that I am dividing the experience into two parts. In Part 1 , I told the early history of Wayside Inn, the Old Barn, Longfellow Memorial Gardens, the Ice House, and Josephine’s Pond. In Part 2, I will describe Old Boston Post Road, the Redstone Schoolhouse, Mary-Martha Chapel, The Wayside Inn Grist Mill, and the Gatehouse.

Back in June, after my visit to the Danforth Museum and quick history stops throughout Framingham , I visited The Wayside Inn in Sudbury, MA. I saw so much history at this site, now on the National Register of Historic Places as The Wayside Inn Historic District , that I am dividing the experience into two parts. In Part 1, I tell the early history of Wayside Inn, the Old Barn, Longfellow Memorial Gardens, the Ice House, and Josephine’s Pond. In Part 2, I will describe Old Boston Post Road, the Redstone Schoolhouse, Mary-Martha Chapel, The Wayside Inn Grist Mill, and the Gate House.

After this instrumental, I will take a short break from composing music to research topics in folklore and Real World history related to The Lord of the Rings . Out of the seventeen scenes to appear in this chapter, this instrumental is for the twelfth scene. In this piece, I include a new theme to represent Gandalf interrogating Sméagol/Gollum, a new motif to represent the moon, and the return of multiple recurring themes and instruments.

Back in June, I visited Framingham and Sudbury in Massachusetts for a day away. During that time, I visited the Danforth Museum and took quick history stops in Framingham, including a state park, historic buildings around the original center of town, and a cemetery.

Back in June 2026, I visited the Danforth Museum , part of Framingham State University (FSU) in Framingham, MA. During my visit, I admired the Danforth Annual Juried Exhibition featuring multimedia works by local artists, viewed staff favorites from the permanent collection, and learned more about sculptor Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller , whose life I have researched as the Historian-in-Residence at the National Museum of Mental Health Project (NMMHP) . While walking through the galleries, I enjoyed listening to artist statements on the free Danforth Art Museum Mobile Guide app , a feature I would love to see at other museums.