Illustrated Blog Posts

When we look at the Shire on Tolkien's maps, the Southfarthing looks little-inhabited and most of what we know about this region is material rather than geographic. I've come to understand it as the source of two famous hobbit luxuries: wine and pipe-weed. The sun these crops prefer bespeaks a warmer clime than that of the other three farthings, leading to thoughts of leisure and enjoyment. I've envisioned a richer, redder soil here than the golden earth around Hobbiton or th

Imagine the charms of being a guest at Brandy Hall under Buck Hill. It's 1440 in the Shire Reckoning, nearly twenty years after Frodo's departure, and Meriadoc Brandybuck has been the Master of Brandy Hall and of Buckland for eight years. He is 58, and he and his wife, Estella Bolger (in the blue headscarf) have invited their cousins to come over from the Tookland for a summer visit. Pippin is 50, and we see him here with his wife Diamond (in the mustard-colored banyan) and t

Our picture of hobbits is so shaped by the Third Age that it can genuinely feel like an adventure to go back thousands of years before the War of the Ring in search of the Little Folk to find them hiding on the margins of some of the Great Tales. As Professor Tolkien explains: It is plain indeed that in spite of later estrangement Hobbits are relatives of ours: far nearer to us than Elves, or even than Dwarves. Of old they spoke the languages of Men, after their own fashion,

Shire gossip (quite incorrect) holds that the Tooks are a bit peculiar because an ancestor of the clan wed a fairy wife, but what can we say about the Brandybucks, who delve their own private entrance under the High Hay into the Old Forest so that they can go into the weird wood, even at night! Merry reveals that his family does this "when the fits takes them." The fit ? We are about as far as we can get here from Bilbo being afraid an adventure may make him late for dinner.

If you've ever wondered what it might be like to see Sam Gamgee, his wife Rose Cotton, and all thirteen of their children, I hope this new paintings makes some dreams come true. The family has gathered in the best bedroom at Bag End and perhaps it's a nightly ritual to have a hot drink together (perhaps some chamomile tea) at close of day. It can take quite a bit of ingenuity to settle children down for the night, even when you have fewer than a baker's dozen! 15-year-old Mer

Often times, a painting can be about more than one thing and I hope you will be interested in getting to see this rarely-glimpsed place in the Shire. This is the stone the hobbits erect on a hillside and build a garden around to commemorate the 19 fallen hobbits of the Battle of Bywater which occurred during 'The Scouring of the Shire' in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Return of the King. The year is 1460, and an 80-year-old Sam Gamgee is seen in the background, tending the grounds in

Did J.R.R. Tolkien leave us the kind of gift we might call an Easter egg today, hiding in plain sight in the branches of Sam Gamgee's family tree in Appendix C of The Lord of the Rings ? Tolkien never chose a name without thought, and so, I find it delightful to ask: why Goldilocks Gamgee? It's a question I've been considering for several years now, and I've come to believe that the best answer may reside in Professor Tolkien's On Fairy-stories lecture which gives a near-e

We get a chapter in The Lord of the Rings about 'The Choices of Master Samwise' and a similar title might be applied to all of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit . Bilbo's deliberations are many and momentous, and here we get a sparkling instance, frozen in time, in which he is about to reveal one of his pivotal decisions. The hobbit is thin and journey-hardened. His hair is long and hangs dripping across his brow and shoulders from his fall into the river. He is clad in mithril and

A gentle rain is one of nature's loveliest gifts. Have you ever been in a garden during a sunshower? Then, you may have felt the plants come more alive and seen them glow in the light as rain comes down and moisture rises up in return from the wet, warm earth. I think that Goldberry's washing day would have felt like this, making its many mysteries something we can experience, at least in part, in the primary world. What is Goldberry's washing day? We can't know, precisely. W

It takes vision to look up from the toilsome single dimension of the Road and see the vertical possibilities of escaping into trees. J.R.R. Tolkien gives us this surprising change of position with Bilbo up into the Misty Mountain pines, up the great oak in Mirkwood, and with the Fellowship when they scale a glimmering ladder and enter a treehouse of the Galadhrim - the talan that rescues the fellowship from imminent danger thanks to the protective cover of a Mallorn. After wh

In his youth, Frodo Baggins thought nothing of walking all the way from Brandy Hall to the Marish to pilfer forbidden fungi from Farmer Maggot's land. The fact that the hobbit liking for mushrooms can surpass Big Folks' greed for other things is a trait I find both fascinating and relatable, and I've loved learning about the secretive, folkloric customs which surround mushroom hunting in many European countries. Here, we see the Gamgees, in the early days of starting their fa

"'They are sailing, sailing, sailing over the Sea, they are going into the West and leaving us,' said Sam..." -The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Chapter 2: The Shadow of the Past Sam Gamgee's poignant observation captures the feeling of longing evoked by J.R.R. Tolkien’s elves. Here, a silver-haired elf mother leads her two children towards the waiting ship. They drift across the sand like the clouds in the sky, a gull accompanying them on this pilgrimage. The identity of t

Have you ever gotten very far away from the thing known as "modern civilization"? If so, you'll be able to imagine the clarity of the...

This simple painting is set in the long span of years between Bilbo's great adventure and his even greater deed. He looks out from the...

People-centric stories can be so moving, but they are only one strand of all that is going on in Middle-earth. For an expanded view of...

Last weekend I had the wonderful experience of presenting at Signum University's Cascade Moot, and a very kind audience member asked if I...

In the opening pages of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring, Bilbo Baggins is given the honorific "gentlehobbit", in part,...

While the Pevensies adventure through a single wardrobe, Bilbo Baggins has many of them, and J.R.R. Tolkien facilitates our escape into...

By my count, there are 34 references to water of one kind or another in the three chapters that make up the hobbits' encounter with Tom...

First, I'd love you just to spend a moment imagining yourself in this mountain spa of Frodo's healing, this living library of elven lore,...