© 2021 Festival Art and Books. All rights reserved.

From the Editor

Alex Lewis. 

Well, here we are, less than a fortnight away from the Big Event! The countdown is rapidly approaching its climax, and all the hard work of the organisers will be put to the test, as it were, when the gates open Friday week. As I have been watching all the parts of it coming together, it does look as though it will really be an event that will cater for a wide range of fan and scholar alike.

One piece of sad news, which with an online journal we bring you as fast as we can - the performance by Rick Wakeman won’t now happen at the Festival of the Shire 2010. The good news is that it will take place in 2011!  The problem for the organisers was that the opportunity for Rick to perform came about very recently - as can be seen from the stop press of last month. It became clear that it would not be in anyone’s interest to put on something that would have been rushed, and by mutual agreement, Rick and the organisers decided that it would be far wiser to postpone the plan and hold it instead in 2011.

As promised I include in this issue the interview with Philip Smith MBE the designer bookbinder as well as one from Sue Wookey who will have her art on display at the Festival and also an interview with one of our speakers, Melissa Arul, who combines her love of Tolkien with a very topical and realistic subject which I am pleased to give room for. Often we who love fantasy are accused of trying to escape from reality - well, this is a case of us confronting some of the things many of the anti-fantasists might shy away from themselves.

We have a very welcome return after a month’s absence to the Tolkien Professor and his piece on appendix A to LotR. I have to congratulate our Tolkien Professor for his indefatigable efforts on our behalf to help those with limited knowledge of Tolkien’s world to find a deeper understanding.

We have the final part of Jodi Storer’s paper on Tom Bombadil, plus a first for the journal - a paper on Beren and Lúthien in French. We are an international journal, and although our default language is English, we will happily include submissions in other languages too. In this case, I am providing my own translation of the paper into English for readers who are unable to read the original French. For those who can, I apologise in advance for any errors made in the translating. Sometimes it is a fine line as to how to interpret phrases, and their context can matter a great deal. Anyway, I hope it is of as much interest to other readers as it is to me; I declare a prior interest in the subject inasmuch as our last book of Tolkien studies, The Epic Realm of Tolkien, Part One, reviewed in the journal last month by Jonathan Fawkes, was on the very same subject; Beren and Luthien. For those who have the book, it might be of interest to compare and contrast and see how different approaches to a certain area of Tolkien scholarship yield interesting insights.

We have another first for the online journal - a crossword puzzle! Blame your editor for this idea and for the puzzle itself - if you find it too easy, do let me know, and if you find it too difficult, just wait for a month and I will publish the solution in our September issue. If there are any clues in particular that you find tough and want a point by point explanation of, do write in and I will do my best to accommodate what I can. Most importantly I hope you enjoy solving it.

Moving on to post-Festival. There is life after this 2010 event of course - the planning for 2011 is under way. As I have said, we know that Rick Wakeman is going to perform at next year’s Festival, so that is a start. In September I hope to bring reports on the Festival in the Shire, photos and various accounts - so if readers are going to be at the event, please bring your digital cameras and if you can send in pictures and even better write about what you felt it was like, we can build up an impression for those who can’t attend this year. It all adds to the community feel that we hope we can engender in this online journal.

Alex Lewis