Abby Epplett, Historian

This is my last blog post of 2025! I will discuss two aspects of folklore that appear during “Chapter 2, The Shadow of the Past” related to the seventeen years Frodo spent living alone at Bag End. During this time, he took many trips through the woods of the Shire and was rumored to speak with people from other lands, refugees fleeing danger in the South. Folk cultures around the world have long been fascinated by or afraid of forests. The hobbits’ fears of who might lurk in the woods aligned with fears of Ancient and Medieval people in the Real World. Meanwhile, human migration and displacement due to natural or man-made disasters have existed for thousands of years but have been studied only for the past few decades. During this essay, I will describe both of these concepts and point out similarities between them: our natural unease over the unfamiliar.

In previous case studies, I have combined information from the text of The Lord of the Rings with historical documentation to explore character behavior through a modern medical lens. These descriptions cannot be considered true diagnoses, as I am not a licensed psychiatrist, the characters are fictional, and the terminology that I use did not exist when the books were written. However, I hope that explaining these conditions will provoke empathy for people in the Real World who live with similar circumstances. While I will briefly cover the plausibility of two conditions that I have seen mentioned by other Tolkien enthusiasts on social media, I will spend most of the essay explaining my own interpretation.

While putting the final touches on last week’s post, I realized I had yet to discuss The Lord of the Rings in the context of national epics and then concluded that this was an ideal time to do so. Tolkien himself was interested in national epics, both studying and creating them. During the talk “Lost Tales and Found Myths” at the Christopher Tolkien Centenary Conference , Sonali Chunodkar mentioned Tolkien’s early attempt to create a national epic using the characters of Aelwine and Ing as creators of England, but he seemed to have realized this flavor of nationalism trended towards supporting colonialism and white supremacy, so he quickly dropped the idea.

This week, I am back with more from Appendix A, by far the longest and most dense of the appendixes. For those concerned with timing, my final post about Appendix A is currently scheduled to run on July 7, while my final post about the appendixes as a whole will appear many months from now on November 10, all dates subject to change. This week, I move along to “(iii) Eriador, Arnor, and the Heirs of Isildur”, which focuses mostly on the North Kingdom and the Dúnedain, the Men of the West. As for historical connections, the section is filled with references to topics from across European and world history, including ancient burial customs, colonization, Arctic technology, idioms, royal jewels, and how medieval internships worked. Plus, a few popular characters from the dialogue portion of the books make appearances. The section began with a brief refresher on what land was considered Eriador: everything from the Misty Mountains to the east and the Blue Mountains to the west,...

The Lord of the Rings: Part One, Fellowship of the Ring opens on page 1 not with lush scenery or snappy dialog, although plenty of this will come later, but with an approximately 7,500-word essay on the fictional world of Middle-earth. Fourth grade Abby found this authorial decision to be delightful, but readers unprepared for a short thesis might quietly place the book back on the shelf and step away. For the next few weeks, I will dive into the Prologue from the perspective of a historian, examining where events in the essay mirror those in the real world. Today’s post reflects on the authorial decisions of writing style for the overall Prologue, the origin of the text that Tolkien claims to translate, and the use of anthropology in the first section, “1 Concerning Hobbits”. The longest of the five sections, J.R.R. Tolkien details the physical traits and skills of the race; their evolution, migration, and colonization; and how their beliefs differ from other races in the wor...