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The Tolkien RoadA journey through Middle-earth! Author: The Tolkien Road
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. Language: en Genres: Arts, Books, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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0234: The Book of Lost Tales I » A Completely Different Silmarillion
Wednesday, 4 November, 2026
How different was Tolkien’s earliest Silmarillion—and which of its most important ideas had not even taken shape yet?In Episode 234 of The Tolkien Road, John and Greta complete their survey of The Book of Lost Tales 1 with its final six chapters. Along the way: the awakening of the Elves, the Darkening of Valinor, the Flight of the Noldor, the Sun and Moon, the Hiding of Valinor, and the coming of Men.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CHAPTERS00:00 — Introduction01:36 — The Book of Lost Tales 1, Part 305:02 — Tolkien Quote of the Week06:11 — Tolkien Transforming War Into Myth07:37 — Revisiting the Book of Lost Tales09:07 — Christopher Tolkien’s Monumental Task10:15 — The Coming of the Elves and the Making of Kor11:49 — The Frame Narrative Continues12:27 — Why Frame Narratives Work16:38 — How the Early Story Differs17:26 — Melko Is Released Much Earlier18:00 — Tolkien’s Early Poem “Kor”21:23 — The Theft of Melko and the Darkening of Valinor22:06 — Melko Corrupts the Noldoli25:01 — The Silmarils Were Barely Important26:39 — Why This Isn’t Yet “The Silmarillion”27:23 — The Book of Lost Tales as a Rough Draft29:58 — The Flight of the Noldoli34:02 — There Is No Oath of Fëanor34:30 — The Teleri Were the Solosimpi34:56 — The Tale of the Sun and Moon36:02 — Tolkien Knew It Needed Revision40:52 — The Man in the Moon41:57 — The Hiding of Valinor44:25 — Tolkien Condemns the Valar’s Choice45:08 — Gilfanon’s Tale47:43 — Where Volume 1 Leaves Us48:53 — One Volume Down, Eleven to Go49:22 — Listener Correspondence57:35 — What’s Coming Next━━━━━━━━━━━━━━THE SILMARILS WEREN’T CENTRAL YETMelko’s corruption of the Noldoli looks surprisingly familiar.He spreads lies about the Valar and tells the Elves they are being denied their rightful freedom.But the Silmarils themselves are still relatively unimportant.Like the One Ring in The Hobbit, something that begins in the background will eventually move to the center of an entire mythology.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━NO OATH OF FËANORThe Flight of the Noldoli contains another enormous difference.There is no Oath of Fëanor.Considering how completely the Oath drives the tragedy of the published Silmarillion, its absence shows just how unfinished Tolkien’s conception still was.Even the Teleri have another name: the Solosimpi.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━TOLKIEN’S ROUGH DRAFTThe Book of Lost Tales is essentially Tolkien discovering his mythology through writing.Ideas move into focus.Others disappear.Names change.Chronology changes.Entire narrative structures are abandoned.The finished mythology did not spring into existence fully formed.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━THE HIDING OF VALINORIn this early version, Tolkien treats the Valar’s decision to hide Valinor much more critically.Their failure to confront Melko is presented as a serious mistake.That explicit condemnation largely disappears from Tolkien’s later version of the mythology.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━THE BIG TAKEAWAYThe Book of Lost Tales 1 shows Tolkien discovering The Silmarillion.The Silmarils were not always central.The Oath of Fëanor was not always there.The Cottage of Lost Play frame eventually disappeared.Yet the foundations of Middle-earth are already unmistakable.This is Tolkien’s mythology while it was still becoming itself.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━SPECIAL THANKS• Kaitlyn of Tea with Tolkien• Liis U• Andrew T• John R• Ms. AnonymousBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-tolkien-road--5222755/support.
