The Wisconsin cartographer who mapped Tolkien's fantasy world

Atlas of Middle-earth is a truly monumental feat.

I think the article writer misses how much of it is really about The Silmarillion, rather than about Lord of the Rings. Tolkien put a lot of work into First Age geography, an entire (interminable, excruciating) chapter of The Silmarillion. Very little of it would be familiar to viewers of the films, and a lot of it opaque even to readers just of LotR.

> an entire (interminable, excruciating) chapter of The Silmarillion

I’ve read The Silmarillion easily more than 20 times and I swear Of Beleriand and its Realms gets longer every time I read it.

I just wish it had been relegated to an appendix. A lot of people drop Silmarillion there, but you can just skip it and get on to much better material.

It could be replaced on first read with a decent map. Or even a mediocre map. Or nothing; you just don't need it.

> I just wish it had been relegated to an appendix.

It was; it wasn't even published.

Most of the Silmarillion can be read out of order, if you want. That should have been made more clear to the "casual" reader (as if casual readers pick it up!).

I have The Silmarillion on Audible and use the chapter Of Beleriand and its Realms when I'm having trouble going to sleep.

My favorite parts of the Silmarillion were the ones where I learned the back story of the world: the Valaquenta, the Ainulindalë, and Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age. I don't have my copy here, but if I recall correctly that last section starts with Of old there was Sauron the Maia.... That's the stuff I wanted to know.

I was also impressed by Tolkien's creation myth. I'm not really familiar with the various religions or mythologies, whether invented by a single author or developed over time by pre-scientific societies, but his is the only one I know of where the creation was based on music.

Not to imply OP doesnt know this, but hoping someone gets to be one of the lucky 10k today.

Tolkien himself didnt “write” the Silmarillion the way people might assume. He spent decades writing and iterating on mythology, world building, creating languages. He had multiple versions of many stories and ideas, many drafts in various states, but he never pulled it all together into a single book or officially canon narrative.

After his death his son Christopher took on that monumental task, with great care and understanding of his father’s work. Combing through who knows how many mountains of notes, unfinished stories, and contradictions to create what we know as the Silmarillion. Tolkien himself often said of things in the LOTR canon “I don’t know” or something loke “I havent translated/uncovered that yet”. He looked at it all as if he was a literary archaeologist, translating passed down texts. So with that came lots of uncertainty and hearsay. The fact that his son tackled that, maintained that mystique, and created the Silmarillion is really exciting and lucky in my opinion. Good kid, I guess!

It's a really great analogy for how God can allow his creations free will without it messing up His Work. Melkor uses his free will to try and make his own "music" discordant from Eru's but Eru just incorporates it into His music and makes the whole song better.

You might be familiar with another musical creation story written by Tolkien's friend C.S. Lewis. In The Magician's Nephew, Aslan sings the land of Narnia into existence.

> as if casual readers pick it up!

I was a casual reader, but then I picked it up.

So you're saying that Eru and Miles Davis are one?

I'm sure you know this, but to clarify for those that don't, it goes way deeper than the volume published as The Silmarillion. In The History of Middle Earth, Christopher pulled together all / most of the drafts and published those, along with notes and commentary that relate them to each other and try to put them into their linear and creative context. It got up to I think fourteen volumes, and there's probably no more-complete record of a great artist's life-long creative process. It is, as you say, a truly monumental work.

It's the most satisfying creation myth I've ever come across. Makes more sense to me than any other "real" culture's idea of how the world / cosmos began. I'd like to live in a world where it is true. (Yes, I know: Tolkien, Catholicism; sure, fine. I specifically think Ainulindalë is better than the Bible, and I don't care if anyone, including Tolkien, would think me a heretic for saying so.)

If only version control had been invented earlier.

Some of the in–progress versions of the stories are quite hilarious. In the earliest drafts of the story of Beren and Luthien, Beren sets off to cut a Silmaril from the Iron Crown of Morgoth and is more or less immediately captured by one of Morgoth’s lieutenants, Tevildo. Who is a talking cat. With a whole castle full of talking cats that mostly laze about on the terraces but occasionally waylay passersby and make them serve as scullery maids. Christopher Tolkien calls him “the appalling Tevildo”.

By many changes small and great Tolkien went from Tevildo, Prince of Cats to Sauron, Lord of the Rings. If you ever write a book, keep that in mind when you hesitate to cut or rewrite what seems like your best ideas.

But this is also, what makes tolkiens lore so deep. The iceberg tips of the past, tipping out of the ground as the ruins of angmar, the sunken lands in the west, numenor - run down kings of fallen empires walking the wild as striders. The great-great-servants barely holding once great kingdoms together, fallen citys that are the background of battles.

But Lewis story is a flat- carbon copy, with just characters appearance replaced /enhanced with fantasy elements. Its basically a fanfiction bible painted over.

I picked it up with intent, aged 12.

The Bible, like any “real” mythology is full of inconsistencies and contradictions and unanswered questions. In contrast, a literary “mythology” created by a single author can be logically and tonaly consistent.

I think Tolkien appeals to people because it has the feel of mythology, legend and ancient history, but still is a literary creation which satifies modern need for logic and modern morality.

I once applied for a house-share with some people who'd named one of their cats "Tevildo". I knew immediately what to talk to them about! (Unfortunately Tevildo was, indeed, appalling.)

It's a mistake to look at the creation narratives in the Bible and talk about inconsistencies and contradictions. There's an implicit assumption when you go down that route that we're discussing a single text. We don't do the same thing with, say, the ancient Egyptians, who had at least four distinct creation traditions. We only do this with the Biblical creation narratives because the redactors of Genesis started out with one creation narrative and then followed with another. (And let's not forget about the other creation traditions found in Psalm 104 and Job 38-42, which are quite different from those in Genesis!) But notably, the redactors didn't rationalize those distinct traditions into a single, consistent narrative. That's a later reading. If we try to venture into the minds of the redactors, they probably saw value in preserving these distinct traditions.

I'd never thought of that, but yes now that you mention it, I think that's exactly what I'm saying