Ea Tolkien Society June Meeting Notes

Dear Members of the smial (and Jeremiah)

Here are the notes from our last meeting.


*Eä Tolkien Society of the Inland NW June 13, 2015*

Attending in person: RB, CK, BH, HR
Attending online: Marty Kirschen from California Wagnerian Society (MK),
Jeremiah Burns from UK (JB)


   1. BH read May Notes.
   2. HR gave our Elvish vocabulary lesson of the month: "kambe" means
   hollow of the hand, or palm; "ma" (sounds like may) is hand.
   3. Marty jokingly proposed that with the words we are learning about the
   body, we could translate the kids' song "head and shoulders, knees, and
   toes" into Elvish.
   4. Discussion on the Research Topic for TolkienMoot XI: Giants
   5. MK showed us some references to giants in Wagner's sources for Der
   Ring das Nibelungen, such as the sagas; Wagner frames the giants and the
   dwarves as opposed to one another. In the Ring cycle, a giant turns himself
   into a dragon.
   6. HR found a quote from Tolkien's Letters #295 in which Tolkien
   discusses the Volsung sagas with WH Auden.
   7. MK pointed out it would be very useful if there were an exhaustive
   concordance of Tolkien's Middle-Earth works, but it has not happened so far
   (although Kindle versions of single works are searchable by word,
   apparently).
   8. Discussion of the Father Christmas Letters by Tolkien in which we
   refers to giants and dwarves and World War II.
   9. BH talked about his upcoming trip to England. He will try to meet
   online with the rest of the smial at our next meeting, and give a report on
   the 2015 Tolkien Seminar at Leeds.
   10. HR took care of administrivia, such as our Facebook page being
   deleted, and the servers being overhauled in June. some website content may
   occasionally not be available.
   11. The rest of our time was spent very enjoyably as MK gave an informal
    presentation on Wagner's Ring Cycle via his graphical charts. He
   recommended Spencer & Millington's *Wagner's Ring of Nibelungen
   <http://www.amazon.com/Wagners-Ring-Nibelung-Stewart-Spencer/dp/0500281947/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1434660625&sr=8-1&keywords=wagners+ring+of+nibelung&pebp=1434660632197&perid=0KC4S4D586EYVGXFRNMM>*
   .
   12. Afterwards we all agreed that we have a lot of opportunities to
   compare Tolkien & Wagner as they delved into Northern myths for their
   respective literary creations. Marty will continue his Wagner "tutorial"
   over the next few months when he can join us.
   13. Next meeting of the Eä Tolkien Society of the Inland NW is planned
   for 9 am Sunday, July 19 (note this is the 3rd weekend) to coincide with
   the last day of TolkienMoot XI. Brian will be joining via Google Hangout
   but it will be 5 pm GMT for him.

Submitted respectfully by the Secretary
June 18, 2015