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The Tolkien Road

The Tolkien Road

By: The Tolkien Road
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Embark upon a wondrous journey through the realms of Middle-earth and beyond with the Tolkien Road, a podcast dedicated to the enchanting tales and writings of JRR Tolkien. Come, join John, Greta, and our mighty Fellowship as we delve deep into the magic that lingers within the pages of these timeless legends.

And always remember: DO NOT BE HASTY!!!

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-tolkien-road--5222755/support.Copyright 2015-2026 True Myths Press Art Christianity Literary History & Criticism Spirituality
Episodes
  • 0393: The Lord of the Rings » Prologue » Mathoms

    0393: The Lord of the Rings » Prologue » Mathoms
    Nov 2 2026
    What did we miss in the Foreword and Prologue to The Lord of the Rings?
    In Episode 393 of The Tolkien Road, John goes back through some fascinating “mathoms” from Do Not Be Hasty—from Tolkien’s rejected Silmarillion and savage early reviews to allegory, Sarehole Mill, the origins of “Hobbit” and “Dwarves,” the meaning of Middle-earth, and more.
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    CHAPTERS
    00:00 — Introduction
    00:44 — What Is a Mathoms Episode?
    01:49 — Tolkien and the “Impression of Depth”
    03:29 — Why Publishers Rejected The Silmarillion
    04:52 — Could Silmarillion Stories Become Novels?
    07:23 — The Worst Early LOTR Reviews
    09:23 — “Juvenile Trash”?
    11:00 — Tolkien Was Supposedly Already Forgotten
    13:35 — Tolkien on Allegory
    15:00 — Allegory vs. Applicability
    17:03 — Sarehole Mill and the Real Shire
    18:11 — Tolkien Returns to His Lost Paradise
    22:14 — Prologue Mathoms
    22:19 — Did Tolkien Invent “Hobbit”?
    25:30 — Why Tolkien Wrote “Dwarves”
    28:03 — How Tolkien Imagined Hobbits
    29:21 — Middle-earth Is Our World
    30:58 — What Arnor and Gondor Mean
    32:46 — Marcho and Blanco
    34:09 — What “Angmar” Means
    35:35 — The Shire Is Rural England
    37:11 — Where “Shirriff” Comes From
    38:40 — Tolkien Rewrites Bilbo’s Ring Story
    40:13 — What “Samwise” Means
    41:28 — The Meaning of Elrond
    42:48 — Final Thoughts
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    THE SILMARILLION WAS REJECTED
    In 1937, Tolkien submitted Silmarillion material for publication.
    It was considered too strange and difficult, though Stanley Unwin believed its stories might be mined for books more like The Hobbit.
    That raises an interesting possibility: could individual Silmarillion stories have become full-length novels?
    The Children of Húrin shows what that might look like.
    ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
    THEY CALLED LOTR “JUVENILE TRASH”
    Some early critics dismissed The Lord of the Rings as childish, simplistic, or doomed to be forgotten.
    History had other plans.
    The reviews also reveal the divide between Tolkien and parts of the literary establishment that never quite knew what to make of him.
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    ALLEGORY VS. APPLICABILITY
    Tolkien was not opposed to readers finding deeper meaning in stories.
    He objected to deliberately constructing stories as rigid one-to-one allegories.
    A good story can apply naturally to many experiences because readers bring their own lives to it.
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    HOBBITS, DWARVES, AND MIDDLE-EARTH
    Did Tolkien invent “Hobbit”? Almost certainly in the form we know it.
    Why “Dwarves” instead of “Dwarfs”? Tolkien preferred the form suggested by the word’s older linguistic history.
    And Middle-earth is not another planet.
    It is our world imagined in a distant mythological age.
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    THE SHIRE IS ENGLAND
    Tolkien explicitly said that, if we drop the fiction, the Shire is rural England.
    Sarehole and the countryside of Tolkien’s childhood strongly influenced its creation.
    The Hobbits may live in an ancient mythological world, but culturally they carry Victorian rural England with them.
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    BILBO’S STORY
    Tolkien changed Bilbo’s account of finding the Ring because The Lord of the Rings required a more sinister Ring.
    Inside the story, that revision becomes evidence that the Ring was already affecting Bilbo.
    A real-world rewrite becomes part of Middle-earth’s lore.
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    THE BIG TAKEAWAY
    With Tolkien, even the smallest details have histories.
    Words, names, places, manuscripts, and revisions all lead somewhere deeper.
    That is why these little “mathoms” are so rewarding: they show just how thoroughly Tolkien built his world.
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    SPECIAL THANKS
    • Caitlin of Tea with Tolkien
    • John R.
    • KG
    • A.R. Endale Hope
    • Alan C.
    • Stephanie B.
    • Dustin Q.
    • Robert S.


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    Show More Show Less
    45 mins
  • 0233: The Book of Lost Tales I: The Early Forms of Middle-earth

    0233: The Book of Lost Tales I: The Early Forms of Middle-earth
    Oct 28 2026
    What was Tolkien’s mythology actually like when he first began writing it?
    In Episode 233 of The Tolkien Road, John and Greta continue through The History of Middle-earth with the first four chapters of The Book of Lost Tales 1. They encounter Tolkien’s original frame narrative, early versions of the Music of the Ainur and Valinor, Tinfang Warble, and a Middle-earth that is familiar—but also wonderfully strange.
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    CHAPTERS
    00:00 — Introduction
    01:51 — The Book of Lost Tales, Part 2
    04:15 — Tolkien Quote of the Week
    07:00 — How The Book of Lost Tales Is Organized
    09:21 — The Ten Chapters of Volume 1
    10:08 — Melko, the Noldoli, and Early Names
    12:44 — Our Approach to The History of Middle-earth
    14:33 — The Cottage of Lost Play
    15:00 — Tolkien’s 1917 Exercise Book
    19:11 — What Is the Cottage of Lost Play?
    19:51 — Tolkien’s Original Frame Narrative
    20:26 — Eriol Arrives on Tol Eressëa
    25:26 — How the Frame Narrative Works
    28:16 — Early Cottage of Lost Play Poems
    29:09 — The Music of the Ainur
    31:18 — Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary
    35:24 — Rúmil Begins the Music
    36:14 — How Similar Is It to the Ainulindalë?
    37:00 — The Coming of the Valar
    38:27 — The Strange Early Story of the Two Lamps
    44:31 — The Chaining of Melko
    44:57 — Tinfang Warble
    46:27 — A Major Difference from The Silmarillion
    47:33 — The Frame Narrative Continues
    49:10 — The Tinfang Warble Poem
    49:55 — A Precursor to Tom Bombadil?
    53:26 — Could The Silmarillion Work Better With a Frame?
    54:10 — Listener Correspondence
    1:01:35 — What’s Coming Next
    ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
    THE COTTAGE OF LOST PLAY
    Tolkien originally gave his mythology a frame narrative.
    A mortal traveler named Eriol comes to Tol Eressëa and hears the ancient legends from the inhabitants of the Cottage of Lost Play.
    Rather than presenting the mythology simply as history, Tolkien imagined someone actually hearing these stories within the world.
    ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
    THE EARLIEST SILMARILLION
    The Music of the Ainur already resembles the later Ainulindalë.
    The Coming of the Valar contains material recognizable from the published Silmarillion.
    But names, geography, chronology, and details can be strikingly different.
    Melkor is still Melko. The Noldor are the Noldoli. Familiar ideas are present, but the mythology is still changing.
    ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
    TINFANG WARBLE
    The Chaining of Melko introduces one of the stranger delights of Tolkien’s earliest mythology: Tinfang Warble, a mysterious flute-playing figure associated with twilight and the stars.
    Could he even contain a distant hint of the figure who eventually became Tom Bombadil?
    ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
    THE BIG TAKEAWAY
    The Book of Lost Tales is not simply a rough draft of The Silmarillion.
    It is an earlier vision of Tolkien’s mythology.
    Some ideas are already remarkably familiar. Others would disappear completely.
    And perhaps the most fascinating lost idea is the frame itself: Tolkien originally imagined these legends not simply as history, but as stories being told.
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    SPECIAL THANKS
    • Kaitlyn of Tea with Tolkien
    • Liis U
    • Andrew T
    • John R
    • Ms. Anonymous
    • Shannon S
    • Brian O
    • Emilio P
    • Zeke F
    • James A
    • James L
    • Chris L
    • Chuck F
    • Asya V
    • Ish of the Hammer
    • Teresa C
    • David of Pints with Jack
    • Jonathan D
    • Eric S
    • Joey S
    • Eric B
    • Matt L
    • Johanna T
    • Sam N
    • Mike M
    • Dyrenair
    • Robert H
    • Paul D


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    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 3 mins
  • 0386: The Lord of the Rings » Prologue » Of the Finding of the Ring and a Note on Shire Records

    0386: The Lord of the Rings » Prologue » Of the Finding of the Ring and a Note on Shire Records
    Oct 26 2026
    Why did Bilbo lie about how he found the Ring—and why did Tolkien invent an entire history for the manuscripts behind The Lord of the Rings?
    In Episode 386 of The Tolkien Road, John concludes the Prologue with “The Finding of the Ring” and “Note on the Shire Records.” We explore Bilbo’s false account, Gandalf’s suspicions, the mysterious “luck” behind finding the Ring, and Tolkien’s elaborate history of the Red Book of Westmarch.
    ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
    CHAPTERS
    00:00 — Introduction
    01:10 — The Finding of the Ring
    02:27 — The Accident That Changed Middle-earth
    03:24 — Was Finding the Ring Really Luck?
    04:04 — Does the Ring Have a Will?
    05:26 — Bilbo’s Original Version of the Story
    07:11 — Why Did Bilbo Lie?
    08:02 — Gandalf Doesn’t Believe Bilbo
    08:25 — Bilbo’s Mithril Coat
    09:16 — Note on the Shire Records
    09:53 — Why Hobbits Started Writing History
    11:00 — Tolkien’s Imaginary Textual History
    11:47 — The Great Shire Libraries
    12:32 — Merry, Pippin, and Sam’s Connections
    13:08 — The Red Book of Westmarch
    13:33 — The Thain’s Book
    14:50 — Tolkien the Textual Historian
    16:31 — Bilbo’s Translations from the Elvish
    17:15 — A Frame Narrative for The Silmarillion?
    17:48 — Merry and Pippin’s Historical Works
    18:28 — Númenor and Sauron in the Records
    19:08 — Tolkien’s Universe-Building
    ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
    BILBO LIED ABOUT THE RING
    Bilbo did not originally tell the true story of how he obtained the Ring.
    He claimed Gollum had promised it to him as a present if Bilbo won the riddle game.
    Why change the story?
    The altered version puts Bilbo’s ownership beyond doubt. Instead of merely taking Gollum’s treasure, he can tell himself that he legitimately earned it.
    That becomes an early sign of the Ring working upon him.
    ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
    WAS IT REALLY LUCK?
    Bilbo finding the Ring initially seems like an accident.
    But the Ring may itself be trying to escape Gollum and return to Sauron.
    At the same time, another will appears to be at work.
    The fact that a Hobbit—and specifically Bilbo—finds it becomes enormously important.
    ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
    THE RED BOOK OF WESTMARCH
    The final section of the Prologue gives us Tolkien’s imaginary textual history of Middle-earth.
    After the War of the Ring, Hobbits develop a greater interest in their past and establish important libraries at Undertowers, Great Smials, and Brandy Hall.
    At the center of this history is the Red Book of Westmarch.
    It begins with Bilbo’s diary.
    Frodo adds the account of the War of the Ring.
    Later copies preserve and expand the material.
    ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
    BILBO AND THE SILMARILLION
    Bilbo’s three volumes of Translations from the Elvish concern the Elder Days.
    That strongly suggests an in-universe source for much of the material we know as The Silmarillion.
    It also raises a fascinating possibility:
    Bilbo working in Rivendell could have provided a natural frame narrative for The Silmarillion itself.
    ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
    THE BIG TAKEAWAY
    Tolkien does more than invent history.
    He invents the history of how that history was recorded.
    The Red Book, the Thain’s Book, Bilbo’s translations, and the writings of Merry and Pippin make Middle-earth feel like a lost world whose surviving texts Tolkien merely inherited, edited, and translated.
    ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
    SPECIAL THANKS
    • John R.
    • Caitlin of Tea with Tolkien
    • KG
    • Melkor27
    • Saber Systems
    • Jeremy D.
    • Emilio P.
    • Jonathan D.
    • Richard K.


    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-tolkien-road--5222755/support.
    Show More Show Less
    22 mins
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I LOVE it , this is clearly a True correction for Tolkien Purists to correct the awful Lore Butchering of TROP.

As a Tolkien Purist, LOVE this

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this podcast is great, gives so much depth of the world of tolkien. I would recommend this to any lord of the rings fan.

Amazing Podcast

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