Abby Epplett, Historian

I have almost arrived at the dialogue portion of the books, but before I launch into the story, I will review the epigraph. The infamous poem, which begins with the line “Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky”, technically appears opposite the copyright page for each physical book in a three book set of The Lord of the Rings , after the Introduction by Peter S. Beagle but before the Forward by J.R.R. Tolkien . I don’t know why the book was set this way, as I would have placed the epigraph after the Prologue, but since the edition of the book I use was released the same year my parents were born, I was not around to set the publisher straight.

Back in September 2024, I visited Lincoln, RI during Great Road Day, an annual event which celebrates the history of an old highway. My second stop during the trip was Saylesville Meeting House . The village received its name from the mill-owning Sayles family during the mid-19 th century, while the meeting house has been on the National Register for Historic Places since 1978 .

On the same day I visited Middleborough Historical Museum and Robbins Museum of Archaeology , I took my customary history stops around the town, including the library, town hall, churches, and war memorials. Most of these important community buildings were located in Middleborough Center National Historic District, which has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 2000 . Unique features of this town are its incredibly tall town hall design, a historic bell, and signage commemorating American Revolutionary War hero Deborah Sampson . This is also an informal survey of who is on what side of the Middleborough/Middleboro naming divide.

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.

In my first essay after my winter holiday hiatus, I begin a new chapter to Lord of the Rings: The Animated Musical where I describe the process of research and producing a hypothetical adaptation of the bestselling book series by British linguist J.R.R. Tolkien. At last, I will begin presenting selections of dialogue and music to accommodate the concept art that I began creating in 2024. Composers commonly make demo recordings of their work using themselves or their friends as the performing artists, from “I’m in the Middle of a Muddle” for the 1950 Disney animation Cinderella sung by middle-aged male songwriters Mack David , Al Hoffman , and Jerry Livingston instead of a peppy young woman like the title character, or an early version of “How Far I’ll Go” for the 2016 Disney animation Moana sung by Broadway star Phillipa Soo , a close friend of its songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda , since her voice perfectly matched the protagonist. But before I reveal my own demo reel, I ne...

During my Cape Cod Adventure back in August 2024, I made several quick history stops around Falmouth, MA. Besides my usual rounds of historic buildings, walking trails, and memorials, I discovered a tiny carousel, a unique traffic light, and a beautiful nature preserve. The steady rain that had intermittently plagued my trip even began to clear towards the end of the day.

This week is my third and final installment about Valar, the archangels or major gods of Tolkien’s Legendarium, along with my last blog post before my winter break. In the first post of this mini-series, I covered five of the most powerful Valar, also known as Aratar: Manwë, Varda, Ulmo, Yavanna, and Aulë. In the second post, I reviewed the three final Aratar and their spouses: Mandos, Vairë, Nienna, Oromë, and Vána. This week has no Aratar, but that does not make these Valar any less fun. This quintet represents dreams, health, wrestling, dancing, and chaos. Just as during the last two installments, each of these characteristics appeared in pagan pantheons of the Western world along with religions across the globe and even modern pop culture.

This is my second week talking about Valar, the archangels or major gods of the Legendarium. In this post, I will cover the final three Aratar or most powerful Valar along with their spouses: Mandos, Vairë, Nienna, Oromë, and Vána. This quintet of Valar is less happy than the set from last week. While the previous five represented kings, queens, the sea, nature, and smithing, this new group personified death, fate, grief, hunting, and more nature. Each of these characteristics were found across Western pantheons in the years before the Christianization of Europe, and many occur in religions outside the West. The popularity of these somber deities showed how people from any walk of life must face its grim realities: everyone will eventually die. Mandos As the Vala who kept the Houses of the Dead, Mandos or Namo was Aratar #6. His “family” was larger than most Valar, since he had a younger sister Nienna and a younger brother Lorien. The brothers even had a special na...

I previously created illustrations for some Maiar, who act as a combination of angels and minor gods in the Legendarium. This week and for the next two weeks, I will talk about Valar, similar to archangels and major gods. This is a slight deviation from what I originally mentioned at the end of “Appendix F, II On Translation” but between the essays getting a bit too long of late, the end-of-year holiday season in full swing, and having an actual job plus side business, I thought a more relaxed pace would be a decent course of action. While only a few members of this race were mentioned in The Lord of the Rings , much information on Valar comes from “Valaquenta” in The Silmarillion . Some groups of Valar considered themselves siblings, perhaps because they were made by Ilúvatar at the same time or with a similar appearance. Spouses apparently did not consider themselves siblings, unlike Greco-Roman gods who had no issue with incest. The top eight Valar were called the Arata...

At last, I have arrived at the final appendix! Appendix F is divided into two parts with the first covering the languages spoken by the many peoples of Middle-earth during the Third Age, and the second covering Tolkien’s method of “translation” for those languages. Even to the end, Tolkien maintained his character as a typical early to mid-20 th century translator. Elvish and Mannish languages in Arda evolved along similar paths as real-world Indo-European languages with the development of a common speech, pidgins and creoles from the merger of two or more languages, categorization of languages as high or low based on the social status of the speakers, codeswitching and reappropriation of slurs, and languages falling out of use to become lost.