Introducing Tolkien Trewsday
There is a wonderful Twitter campaign called #FolkloreThursday where members of the Folklore community would tweet stories, insights, art and more on a weekly theme, organised and curated by two amazing people with guest hosts. They ran an associated website. It created insightful engagement between people, brought many together in celebration of Folklore and it was just delightful to see how creative and knowledgeable people were.
There is also great engagement going on amongst Tolkien fans too around various aspects of his works, his life and adaptions based on his Middle-earth. Tolkien Tuesday has been a thing in the past, but never really a themed event like the Folklore one.
So with that in mind, I’m hoping we can, as a community, kickstart a thing:
#TolkienTrewsday / #TolkienTuesday
A themed sharing of our Tolkien love via art, relevant blogs, thoughts, quotes, fiction, cosplay, poetry and whatever else you can think of.
We can decide on future themes via a Twitter vote and I am very open to suggestions. We can have guest curators/hosts, in fact that would be the ideal that it moves on from me and becomes the community’s property, but I’ll make sure I am available to step in to create a theme and add content, outside of my work time of course.
One rule: we respect each other and we also respect the right for people to talk about adaptions in a positive manner. This is affirmative community action, not a space for negativity, toxicity or hate. That’s all I ask when we do this. Thanks.
If you are curious how Folklore Thursday ran their one (so very well organised), you can see here and here.
Why Trewsday?
In the Shire Calendar the fourth day of the week, the equivalent of our Tuesday, is called Trewsday (archaic: “Trewesdei"). It comes from Orgaladh, the Númenórean day dedicated to Nimloth. Reference: Tolkien Gateway.
What next?
On Tuesday I’ll tweet the start off the event and then people use the hashtags of #TolkienTrewsday, #TolkienTuesday and #Tolkien to join in and tweet something about the theme. Your own content is up to you: art, quotes, cosplay, fanfic, blog posts, academic work, thoughts, etc.
The first event will be on Tuesday 28 February 2023 and about “Visions of War”. See below for ideas.
How to contribute?
We are keeping it very simple. All you need to do to join is tweet something about the current week’s theme and use the following hashtags in your tweet: #TolkienTrewsday #TolkienTuesday #Tolkien
📢📌 Updated section: the section below will be updated as the weeks roll on to include all the latest information.
Weekly Themes
📜 Week 1: Visions of War – Tuesday 28 February 2023 (Twitter recap)
From Tolkien’s personal experience
of World War One to the battlefields of Middle-earth, the first theme goes back
to the start and where the spark of many stories began.
Ideas: Tolkien & WW1, depictions of war in Middle-earth, character quotes
about war and its affects, academic work on representations of war in the works
of Tolkien and the Inklings, etc.
📜 Week 2: Trees - Tuesday 7 March 2023
Following a poll for the next theme, for week 2 Tolkien Trewsday invites you to join us for a day focused on the theme of "Trees" (suggested by Yvonne Marjot). From Treebeard to the Old Forest to Tolkien's well-known love for trees, they have an important place in Middle-earth.
Ideas: Tolkien's love of trees and ones important to him in life, the trees of Valinor/Númenor/Gondor, trees as characters (good and evil), tenders of trees, Entwives, trees as part of a larger whole - Fangorn Forest, the Old Forest, Mirkwood, denizens of forests.
📜 Week 3: "Song" - Tuesday 14 March 2023 (chosen by a poll on Twitter)
Ideas: Songs as magic, walking songs of Middle-earth, song in Tolkien's life, musicians/singers/poets, songs by others based on Tolkien’s works
📜 Week 4: "Food, drink and feasts" - Tuesday 21 March 2023 (chosen by a poll on Twitter)
Ideas: Favoured food of the various
races of Middle-earth, eating and drinking habits of
the Shire folk, “Looks like meat is back on the
menu” and other sayings about food and drink, food in song and poetry, taters.
📜 Week 5: 🔥🌬"Water" ⛰🌊 - Tuesday 28 March 2023 (chosen by a poll on Twitter)
Ideas: Rivers/lakes/oceans, Water creatures, Magical properties of water in Middle-earth, Water in poem/verse/song
📜 Week 6: "Celebrations and Festivals" - Tuesday 4 April 2023 🥚 (chosen by a poll on Twitter)
From Dragontide (The One Ring roleplaying game 1e by Cubicle Games) to Bilbo’s leaving Party in “The Lord of the Rings”, festivals and celebrations are part of life in Middle-earth which bring people together.
Ideas: Celebrations/festivals in adaptions, LOTRO seasonal festivals, The Party Tree, Celebrations after battles
📜 Week 7: Easter Holidays (free-for-all on theme, though suggestion to use "Rest") - Tuesday 11 April 2023
We took a week off a curated focused theme during the Easter Holidays to have a free-for-all though I did suggest a theme of "Rest" for those needing a nudge.
📜 Week 8: "Tolkien's other works / Tolkien's influences" - Tuesday 18 April 2023 (chosen by a poll on Twitter)
"Tolkien's other works" (ie, outside of Middle-earth, but could be his other fiction or academic work)or"Tolkien's influences" (suggestions: literature, places, etc).
Tweet announcement here.
📜 Week 15: "Mountains/Hills" - Tuesday 6 June 2023 (chosen by a poll on Twitter)
Announcement tweeted on Twitter here. The theme was originally a suggestion by @Alayanabeth. The poll was dubbed "High places, tall towers, good folk" with these choices:
- Mountains/Hills
- Fortresses/Strongholds
- Ordinary folk
"Stories from the Past" can include - Myth, legend, folklore etc - from the Legendarium or other Tolkien's works and also the stories that influenced him. I am casting the net wide on this one so we can do a more focused one at a later day.
📜 Week 17: "Faërie" - Tuesday 20 June 2023
📕 Suggested reading: "Tolkien on Fairy-Stories" by Verlyn Flieger and Douglas A. Anderson (2014). Amazon UK.
“Letter 89 To Christopher Tolkien (7–8 November 1944) For it I coined the word ‘eucatastrophe’: the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears (which I argued it is the highest function of fairy-stories to produce).” -- Carpenter, Humphrey and Tolkien, Christopher, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (Letter 89, 7-8 November 1944)
Design: MGCoco (click for full size).📆 Week 65: "Tea & Honey" - 21 May 2024 - 20 May is World Bee Day, 21 May is International Tea Day. 22 May 2014 was the publication of “Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary”. In Old English, Bee + wolf = bear.
📆 Week 66: "Cultivation" - 28 May 2024 - 30 May is International Day of Potato. A theme on farming/gardening and cooking.
📌 More Tolkien Trewsday themes soon!
May themes being confirmed!
Current "The Story so far..." schedule sheet #5 (click for full-size):
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