J.R.R. Tolkien produced a considerable body of poetry in which he used the traditional alliterative metre of Old Norse and Old English to write modern English verse. This paper reviews three of his longer narrative poems, published in The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún and The Fall of Arthur, examining Tolkien’s alliterative technique in co…[Read more]

Tolkien modeled the relationship between his invented languages Quenya and Sindarin in part on that between Latin and Welsh.

Book review of The Feanorian Alphabet, Part 1; Quenya Verb Structure, by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Gilson and Arden R. Smith.

Book review of Tolkien’s Lost Chaucer (2019) by John M. Bowers. Available at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol9/iss1/3

Book review of Tolkien and Sanskrit (2016) by Mark T. Hooker.

Book review of A Secret Vice (2016) by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Dimitra Fimi and Andrew Higgins.

A defence of the emendation of eorl to Eorle ‘Heruli’ in Beowulf 6a.

Neidorf (2017), The Transmission of Beowulf, synthesizes a variety of philological approaches to propose a new ‘lexemic theory’ of Anglo-Saxon scribal behaviour. In this response article, I build on Neidorf’s arguments, suggesting ways that his theory may be adapted to account for differences between the two scribes of the Beowulf manus…[Read more]

The variable operation of high vowel deletion in Old English has long been a point of difficulty, both descriptively – a prehistoric form like *hēafudu is attested variably as hēafudu , hēafdu , and hēafod – and theoretically. Recent work, especially by Bermúdez‐Otero (2005b) and Fulk (2010), has indicated that plural forms like hēafudu ar…[Read more]

Fluff means fiction, framing and flavour; it’s the material around a game’s actual rules, that illustrates and indicates but has no substantive impact on how the game is played.

Rules are crunch. They are – particularly if you’re a serious player or a traditional ludologist – the important bit.

“If your game doesn’t blend the two, it says o…[Read more]