Abby Epplett, Historian

I recently read the eBook Witch Hunt: A Traveler’s Guide to the Power and Persecution of the Witch written by Kristen J. Sollée and published in 2020 by Red Wheel / Weiser . The book was based on Sollée’s road trip to places of importance in witchcraft history with each chapter covering a different location with Europe or the USA. Sollée seamlessly blends her lived experience with detailed research, creating a narrative of magical realism, historic documentation, and modern interpretation, from scholarly books to tourist traps. Besides exploring places less familiar to the average reader, Sollée includes references to literature turned pop culture like Shakespeare’s Macbeth and well-known artworks like Michelangelo’s David and The Fall and Expulsion from Garden of Eden in the Sistine Chapel. The balance of novelty and familiarity kept me engaged through the 2.5 hour reading time. Another talent exhibit by Sollée is her ability to explain new vocabulary. From the “Introductio...

Today I am reviewing The Guinness Book of Records 1492: The World Five Hundred Years Ago , a book I purchased at the Book Barn in Niantic, CT back in 2024. Almost exactly a year ago, I reviewed A Pictorial History of Costume by Wolfgang Bruhn and Max Tilke , which I purchased on the trip. The two books are similar in that they provide fun facts about world history broken into easily readable sections with plenty of pictures. Much like the modern Guinness Book of Records , Guinness Publishing produced the book back in 1992 for the anniversary of Christopher Columbus and his crew arriving in the Caribbean. Unlike the modern record book, where records do not rely on the judgement of trained GRW employees but on primary resources from the time period with varying levels of accuracy. Deborah Manley , a co-founder of the Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East (ASTENE) and a prolific author, was editor of the book, while Dr. Geoffrey Scammell, a history profess...

From Eru Ilúvatar singing the universe into being to the vast range of songs found in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings , the fantasy world of Arda is shaped by music. Previous scholars have paid attention to the forms in which these songs appear, while musicians have written tunes for the lyrics. Less attention has been paid to the instruments that might play the songs if the timeline of Middle-earth aligned to that of the Real World, perhaps because I appear to be the only person focused on this concept. In past essays concerning music, I previously featured the Bywater Quintet, a set of five hobbit singers who voice the widely held opinions of the population. In this essay, I am focusing on a set of instruments played in my interpretation of the Shire, especially woodwinds, strings, and drums. In a future essay, I will discuss a slightly different set of instruments played in Buckland, including horns and bones or spoons.

In this week’s essay, my loves of historic house tours and The Lord of the Rings combine for the first time as I present my map of Bag End, also spelled Bag-End by the older generations of Hobbits. Since Tolkien was a philologist, it is fitting to take a brief break to explain the naming scheme around the property, along with the clan name of the family who built it. Tolkien studies expert Tom Shippey noted in The Road to Middle-earth that “bag-end” is a literal translation of “cul-de-sac”, which was further elaborated upon by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull in Reader’s Companion . The current meaning of a road terminating at a house or collection of houses dates from 1819.