.@krisswank: Tom Bombadil has much in common with Fintan Mac Bóchra of the Irish tradition. In an early prose fragment Tom B is “one of the oldest inhabitants of the kingdom” after the Britain had suffered many invasions. #s749#IMC2018@IMC_Leeds
.@krisswank: Tolkien made a note about Fintan in his drafts of The Lost Road. Many parallels between Tom B and the legend of Fintan, esp. being the oldest man in the world. #s749#imc2018@IMC_Leeds
.@krisswank: Both Fintan and Tom B have experienced deluge: Tom remember the world “before the seas were bent”. Both have otherworldly associations. #s749#IMC2018@IMC_Leeds
.@krisswank: Fintan is called upon to give evidence about the history of the land - he tells the story of a yew tree from seed to great tree. Tom remembers “the first acorn” and the history of the trees in the Old Forest. #s749#IMC2018@IMC_Leeds
.@krisswank: Tom as a guide and teacher for the hobbits, the guardian of historical knowledge - just like Fintan #s749#IMC2018@IMC_Leeds
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THREAD: For @FolkloreThurs’s #worldreligions theme, and since it was the feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God yesterday, here are some unusual icons of the Virgin Mary in the Eastern Orthodox tradition: 1st the scene of the Dormition by El Greco in Syros #FolkloreThursday
2nd: the three-handed Madonna (Παναγία Τριχερούσα) belonged, according to tradition, to John of Damascus in the 8th century and is believed to be wonderworking. It’s now in the monastery of Hilander in Mount Athos @FolkloreThurs#FolkloreThursday#worldreligions#medievaltwitter
Eden will take us through ideas and concepts of the Edwardian cultural milieu that he hopes will inspire further research on #Tolkien’s cultural context. #s849#IMC2018@IMC_Leeds#Tolkien
Eden: there are subtle shifts between Victorian and Edwardian cultures which we need to take into account when examining #Tolkien’s context. #s849#IMC2018@IMC_Leeds#Tolkien
Claudio Testi on “Frodo Surrealist: André Breton and J. R. R. Tolkien on Dreams” #s849#IMC2018@IMC_Leeds
Testi argues that there are surrealist moments in The #LordoftheRings via dreams. Breton’s manifesto attempted to merge reality and dreams via surrealism. He also talked about dreaming while awake. #s849#IMC2018@IMC_Leeds
Testi: 1936: International Surrealist Exhibition in London with an abstract and concrete show in Oxford. Tolkien was then working on The Lost Road and soon after The #LordoftheRings. #s849#IMC2018@IMC_Leeds
Richards: can we really accept that the early Middle-earth is the same as the later one? Themes may be the same, but the socio-cultural context is different. Focus on one version of Middle-earth in this paper: the earliest #LordoftheRings drafts. #s849#IMC2018@IMC_Leeds
Richards: earlier stages of #LordoftheRings - use of agrarianism by #Tolkien to test its boundaries, especially in the Shire. The hobbits are creatures of an agrarian society, well-ordered and well-farmed. #s849#imc2018@IMC_Leeds
Vaninskaya will focus on the recurrent motif in #Tolkien of the desire to voyage to Elvenhome via the concept of Sehnsucht (Longing) #s849#IMC2018@IMC_Leeds
Vaninskaya: William Peter’s “imitation” of Schiller interprets the “other” land of desire in a non-Christian context - compare with Tolkien’s Undying Lands. #s848#IMC2018@IMC_Leeds
.@LelieFairy: what do hobbits know about the world outside the Shire? In The Hobbit Bilbo knows very little, and so does the reader. In The #LordoftheRings Tolkien world have had two sort of readers: those who knew The Hobbit and those who didn’t. #IMC2018#s749@IMC_Leeds
.@LelieFairy: in their origin history, on their way to the Shire, hobbits meet Elves and Dúnedain, and learn letters and crafts from them. They promptly forget whatever language they spoke before. #s749#IMC2018#Tolkien@IMC_Leeds