15 days to the publication of "The Proverbs of Middle-earth"

“The leaf-mould of Tolkien’s mind was extraordinarily rich.  Like Niggle’s Tree, which started simply only to outgrow even its creator’s capacity to complete it, Arda’s vast tapestry had a long germination process and took on a life of its own…”

From the 'Introduction"

David Rowe
Oloris Publishing

16 days (revised) to the publication of "The Proverbs of Middle-earth"

‘Do not despise the lore that has come down from distant years; for oft it may chance that old wives keep in memory word of things that once were needful for the wise to know.’   (JRRT – The Lord of the Rings, p. 365)

David Rowe

Oloris Publishing

Day 17 (revised) to the publication of "The Proverbs of Middle-earth"

“What we quickly discover is that Tolkien did not merely create hundreds of erudite, apposite, and funny sayings – however great an artistic achievement that is – he also invented entire wisdom traditions in which these sayings belong.”

From the 'Introduction'

David Rowe
Oloris Publishing

Day 18 (revised) to the publication of "The Proverbs of Middle-earth"

“… what is undeniable is that Middle-earth has hundreds of proverbs. Scattered throughout the Tolkien corpus we hear proverbial-sounding sayings in the mouths of every culture and people.”

From the 'Introduction'

David Rowe
Oloris Publishing

Day 19 (revised) - 19 days to the publication of "The Proverbs of Middle-earth"

“Reference to oral tradition is therefore akin to quoting a favourite poet or orator, except that it is not an individual whose wisdom is being cited, but an entire culture. ‘As my old Gaffer used to say…’ is not Sam Gamgee crediting his father as the inventor of an insight, but recognising the person from whom one aspect of Hobbit-sense was most often, or most memorably, received.”

From the 'Introduction'

David Rowe

Oloris Publishing

Day 20 (revised) - 20 days to the publication of "The Proverbs of Middle-earth"

“Proverbs are vessels of transmission, the ships in which wisdom sails. They come into being because of the tremendous value of hard-won wisdom, and the consequent need to pass it on. In the words of Sophocles, wisdom ‘outweighs any wealth’, and in order to share that wealth – to avoid the need for every individual in every generation to relearn the same lessons from scratch – a method or means to preserve and communicate is required.”

From the 'Introduction'

David Rowe

Oloris Publishing

Day 21 (revised) - 21 days to the publication of "The Proverbs of Middle-earth"

"While the proverbs identified in this volume are limited to those from books published in Tolkien’s lifetime – The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings – this does not reflect the full range of Arda’s proverbial depth. The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and The Children Of Húrin each contain a further treasure trove of proverbial material, demonstrating that Tolkien’s commitment to convincing inner reality was not a late addition..."

From the 'Introduction'

David Rowe

To be released by Oloris Publishing on the 30th November.  

Advance orders now being taken.

Day 22 (revised) - 22 days to the publication of "The Proverbs of Middle-earth"

Tolkien’s original hope, to provide a mythology for his beloved but generally legend-free England, was far more than a quest for exciting stories. He believed that the creative process of myth-making is nothing short of a sacred task; that humans have a special responsibility to reflect their Creator by becoming sub-creators.

From the 'Introduction'

David Rowe

To be released by Oloris Publishing on the 30th November.  

Advance orders now being taken.

"The Proverbs of Middle-earth" is delayed by a fortnight.

Unfortunately Oloris have delayed publication of "The Proverbs of Middle-earth' by a fortnight... here are the details:

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12 days to the publication of "The Proverbs of Middle-earth"

"Its subject is not only the proverbs of the numerous species and civilizations in Tolkien’s Middle-earth (as its title advertises), but also of the cultures these proverbs express. The short and simple proverbs are the humble little gates into the big, wide, and complex cities of these various cultures."

From the Foreword by Dr. Peter Kreeft (Professor of philosophy at Boston College and The King's College)

To be published by Oloris Publishing on the 18th November

13 days to the publication of "The Proverbs of Middle-earth"

All such oral societies, ancient and contemporary, have a corporate repository of folk wisdom; a body of inherited material passed from person to person and therefore from generation to generation.  Proverbs and poems, songs and stories, riddles and rhymes of lore – these are the constituent parts of oral tradition, weapons in the perennial war against ignorance and foolishness.  They teach, they scold, they warn, and they encourage.  And they all appear in Middle-earth.

From the Introduction

David Rowe

To be published by Oloris Publishing on the 18th November

14 days to the publication of "The Proverbs of Middle-earth"

A man of many names, talents and predecessors, Aragorn is royalty wrapped in a rough-and-ready wardrobe.  In Rivendell, where he is most truly known, the Dúnadan is recognised as the living emblem of the blood of High Númenor run true, but in terms of wisdom tradition, he represents a greater heritage than that of his ethnic forebears alone.  For while Aragorn does indeed become ‘the most hardy of living Men, skilled in their crafts and lore,’ it is also clear that he is more than a lord of the Edain, ‘for he was elven-wise’.

From Chapter 11 - 'Aragorn'

David Rowe

To be published by Oloris Publishing on the 18th November

15 days to the publication of "The Proverbs of Middle-earth"

When Celeborn tells the Fellowship that Maybe the paths that you each shall tread are already laid before your feet, though you do not see them he is both expressing the Elvish unwillingness to be surprised by the unpredictability of life, whilst also prophetically describing the future of the Quest. Likewise, Galadriel’s warning against far-sightedness, Seeing is both good and perilous, is tragically proved true by Saruman’s corruption and Denethor’s descent into despair and madness; both caused by unwise use of the palantíri, the seeing-stones.

From Chapter 7 - 'The Elves'

David Rowe
To be published by Oloris Publishing on the 18^th November

16 days to the publication of "The Proverbs of Middle-earth"

Because, in Middle-earth, all evil originates in goodness, there are no wholly good or bad people, only shades of corruption. ‘I do not deal in Absolute Evil...’ Tolkien wrote.  ‘I do not think that at any rate any ‘rational being’ is wholly evil’.  The line between good and evil ‘is not just external, between the white chess pieces and the black, but within every single piece on the board’.  The corrupting process of power is therefore potentially at work in every person, and the Ring magnifies and accelerates it – proving too great a test for Boromir, who aches for ‘power of Command’ and is overcome by visions of great alliances and glorious victories under his banner. Even Hobbits, who are generally protected from the libido dominandi by their native lack of strength and ambition, can be twisted: Sam sees Gorgoroth turned into a garden; and Sméagol drools over his puny fantasies of Gollum the Great eating fish ‘every day, three times a day, fresh from the sea.’ 

From the 'Afterword'

David Rowe

To be published by Oloris Publishing on the 18th November.

17 days to the publication of "The Proverbs of Middle-earth"

The longing that trees might have the ability to defend themselves had weighed heavily on Tolkien since his schooldays. His childhood disappointment, on reaching the climax of Macbeth, that ‘Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane Hill’ was only a play on words, disappointed him deeply. ‘I longed to devise a setting by which the trees might really march to war,’ he said. And that is what he did.

Chapter 9 - 'The Ents'

David Rowe
To be published by Oloris Publishing on the 18th November

18 days to the publication of "The Proverbs of Middle-earth"

Standalone sentences, especially those with poetic features like Boromir’s rhyming couplet The wolf that one hears is worse than the orc that one fears (and Aragorn’s reply-in-kind, Where the warg howls, there also the orc prowls), sometimes declare themselves as proverbs, while others have what Michael Stanton describes as ‘a definite air of sayings that are being repeated, not originated’.   Beyond that point, however, the waters become murky and discerning what is or isn’t a proverb starts to become a matter of taste and opinion. 

From the Introduction

David Rowe
To be published by Oloris Publishing on the 18th November