Latest / Mythmakers / Bonus Podcast: Readathon Live Event!
Transcript
- 0:00Alright, hello, people are starting arriving. Hi Bruce, and Carrie, and me, and Steve, and Susanna,
- 0:13lovely to see you here. We're expecting quite a crew, so I'll just wait for everyone to turn
- 0:18up for wherever they are in the globe. And I'll explain what we're going to do. We're expecting
- 0:24to be here for an hour, so if you've got, you know, you're planning your day, that's what
- 0:29we'll be doing. And I hope you've got your quiz thoughts, your quiz hats on, because it's
- 0:36not easy this quiz. I thought I'd really test you all as you've been reading Lord of the Rings
- 0:40so recently. Who else has come in? Hi, Laurie, and Karen, and Jose, and Inga, Emily. I think it's
- 0:56I can't, maybe greeting people twice, because the list keeps re-jigging it's a net. Wonderful.
- 1:03So whilst we wait for people to arrive, if you want to say hi, do raise your hand. Oh, Karen,
- 1:13you said hi. Do you want to come and actually talk to us? Just talk to me for a bit, because my
- 1:18tech team should be able to find you, and have a little chat and find out where you're from.
- 1:23Okay, Karen, you're talking is permitted. So off you go, tell us where you're from.
- 1:27Well, hey, Julia, thank you guys for being with me on with you. So I'm here in Edinburgh in the UK.
- 1:34Okay, and I was actually one of your Gandalf for the day participant. So I took three
- 1:42the day on April the 1st, which was kind of fun. A few people I told that I was doing this just
- 1:49went, no, that's an April 4th joke, you can't be doing that, that's just too cool. What was your
- 1:55chapter? I did Flotsam and Jackson. Oh, we're going to be talking about that later. So we've
- 2:01taken note of that. Okay, it was Karen's chapter. That means so everything about Flotsam and
- 2:08Jackson offers off my head, which will be just, I'll be terrible on the spot. No, no, no, no, no.
- 2:13But can I hear an accent of something that isn't Edinburgh born and bred? Yes. I'm English,
- 2:19so I was born in Norwich and then grew up in Hertfordshire, so just near London.
- 2:24Yeah, and then moved up to Edinburgh for University and I've stayed here ever since because I have
- 2:28family here. So yeah, I'm not too Scottish. It's a fabulous city, though. I mean, one of
- 2:35really lovely, anybody else listening to this is a fabulous city. So we've got Phoebe as well,
- 2:40who's got her. I think I know Phoebe. Phoebe, are you my Phoebe? Hi Julia, yeah,
- 2:47Phoebe. Phoebe, everybody else who's joining us, Phoebe came on our very first in person
- 2:55walking and writing in the Shire's course, which we did in Merton in April. So Phoebe,
- 3:00where are you at the moment? I'm at home. I'm here at home and I'm so happy to Sunday because it's
- 3:06my one day of work and I'm so happy I got the email. I was like, oh, I get to say hello Julia and
- 3:11everybody. Yeah, so you might get to tell folks that Phoebe has a little bit of the Irish in her,
- 3:17or quite a lot of the Irish in her. So Phoebe, whilst people are coming,
- 3:23what was your highlight of the walking and writing in the Shire's course, of all the places that
- 3:28Tolkien and related places we went? What did you like most? Oh, I'm trying to just pick one. I
- 3:33loved all of it. Oh, wow. I've been getting to meet all of you. I loved every bit of it,
- 3:38honestly. I couldn't pick just one. Oh, that's nice. For me, I think for me, the place that I
- 3:44enjoyed most was Sairhole Mill, because that was my first time being there, which for those of you
- 3:49don't know, it's in the outskirts of Birmingham, which was where Tolkien as a little boy lived,
- 3:56then it was a village. And as Phoebe will tell you, now it's in like suburbia, isn't it,
- 4:01it's surrounded by houses, but this old mill is still there, which is the
- 4:06inspiration for the mill in Hobbiton. Yes, and you can really tell you it has the
- 4:11old wheel and stuff as well. Oh, and so it's lovely to see you, Phoebe, thank you for coming.
- 4:18Not really, Julia, thank you. Carrie's got her hand up. So, Carrie, would you like to say hi and
- 4:25tell us where you're from? You're not from Europe, are you? Yeah, well, York is actually a former
- 4:31married name, so a long, boring story there, but I'm actually in America, I'm in Idaho.
- 4:40Oh, Idaho, okay, so a really remote part of the world from everybody else there,
- 4:50but I do have to say this is such an honour to meet and talk to you. I can't believe I'm doing
- 4:55this. Oh, no, it's a total pleasure. And we've been having a huge amount of fun with this.
- 5:03Over the last few months, we'll be doing a sort of recap on it.
- 5:07We are going to give people a good five minutes to turn up because we're expecting quite
- 5:12sizeable numbers. So, Carrie, while we've got you, I presume in Idaho, you're sort of in the middle
- 5:19of your day there. Exactly. No, so yeah, it's just about 11 o'clock, not quite new yet here.
- 5:27So we would be on, I'm in the Pacific time zone. So when did you firstly read Lord the Rings?
- 5:35I first, it was crazy. I read the Hobbit when I was a kid, and then I didn't touch Lord of
- 5:39Rings until my 20s, and I kick myself every day over this because as soon as I started reading it,
- 5:45I just was thinking to myself, why did I not pick this up before? And it quickly became my very,
- 5:50very, very favorite book. Yeah. And it remains every time I read it, it just cemented more and
- 5:56more into my heart as my favorite book. And are you a fan of the films? Yes. Okay. So are you
- 6:03looking forward to the Amazon series? No. Why is that? What's wrong? I'm just nervous because
- 6:13it's a concern of mine that Tolkien and his works as a whole may not be respected.
- 6:19Yeah, it is hard to see. I've sort of thought about this a lot as you could imagine.
- 6:27And it's working out what's the equivalent of the Hobbit view? Because the way that the reason
- 6:34why I think, you know, the reason why Lord the Rings works is because you really relate to the
- 6:39little guy. Yes. And obviously the film we're really in and the Hobbits were not really mentioned
- 6:51in there. I think they might sneak a few in and maybe they'll have a few sort of doors to give
- 6:56us another little person to. Right. And they may bring it, you know, they may go all the way
- 7:01through the second age and maybe get a little into the third age as the series progresses. I just,
- 7:06yeah, I just have a lot of concerns because I really think Peter Jackson respected Tolkien
- 7:13as a whole. And I like what he did because, yeah, nobody's perfect. So of course it's an imperfect
- 7:20work, but I just really liked what he did with it. Yeah. So other people, if you wish to weigh in on
- 7:27this topic, what's the waiting for others to come, you just raise your hand and I'll see,
- 7:33your shoot to the top of my list, I'll be able to call you forward. So thanks, Carrie,
- 7:39you're starting that particular conversation, go say hi to Steve. Steve, do you want to say where
- 7:44you're from? Steve Ruddock? Yes, Julian, it's a pleasure to be part of this. Excuse me,
- 7:53and to meet you. I'm in Far off, sunny California. I fear the sun is taking the day off today.
- 8:01We've had a day of rain here as well. So the other side of the world. So Steve,
- 8:08your early morning, are you sort of like nine o'clock that kind of time? No, I'm same time zone as
- 8:14as Carrie. It's just past 11 now. Just past 11, right. And so same question to you, Steve, are you
- 8:22someone who read Lord of the Rings as a child or as a teen or did you come to it later in life?
- 8:29I read it first at age 17 and I've read it many times since. Yeah. And I was a pleasure as we'll
- 8:40probably discuss in the readathon that helped me read it with fresh eyes, you know how it's
- 8:47sometimes difficult with your favorite pieces of literature or your favorite songs to really hear
- 8:53unlike you want to when it's over and over again. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I was asking Carrie about
- 9:04the sort of view of films and the TV series coming. What's your, are you Peter Jackson
- 9:09admirer or books only person? Well, I thought Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films were far
- 9:21better than we had any right to expect, given the pretty shabby history of trying to bring
- 9:29Lord of the Rings to the screen. But I really didn't like his Hobbit trilogy. I think it gave
- 9:37into the temptation to turn it into another one of these comic book superhero bloated kinds of
- 9:45things and the trailer of the Amazon series that I've seen reminds me of those Hobbit movies a
- 9:52little bit. So I'm a bit jaded about that, but I'm sure I'll watch it. We have to see when we give it,
- 10:01you know, on I sort of feel sympathy for the creatives behind the script who've got this
- 10:09almost impossible job to do. So I wish them well. I'm really hoping they're going to do it. Good
- 10:13job because it would be great if they do. But I think with the, the Hobbit, I've got the feeling
- 10:19that there's a really good film waiting one film waiting to come out of the really harsh edit
- 10:27of the three films. Just stick with, just stick with Bilbo and forget all the other stuff.
- 10:34And in probably a good film. Yeah, that would be fun to see.
- 10:40I think someone has actually done this on YouTube somewhere. There is somebody who's
- 10:45re-edited it if they're allowed to. Yeah. So also saying hi to us is Emily. So Emily,
- 10:54do you want to tell us where you're from? Hi, I am from Ohio in America.
- 11:01Uh-huh. Well, hello, America. Thank you. It's about two in the afternoon here.
- 11:07Very nice. So Emily, have you been reading North The Rings every year since you first read it?
- 11:12Yes, actually, since I was 14. Fantastic. And do you have anything to say on the issue of
- 11:23the films versus the forthcoming series? That thing that we've been talking about?
- 11:32I'm at the point where I think the films are very good, but I've just read the books so much
- 11:38that I just can't stop. But what about this? And what about this? And so I think this being a story,
- 11:47part of the story that's less familiar, I'll be more able to let that go. And so
- 11:52I have no idea if it will be good or not, but I'm not grading it. Yeah. Well, we'll see. I remember
- 12:00being quite worried. You sound relatively young. So you may not have been, um, like had many
- 12:08expectations. Because when Peter Jackson went out, he was doing this. There were a couple of years
- 12:13when it was, you know, news was coming out at the end of the 90s. And I was really quite worried
- 12:19at that point that it was going to be really bad. Because the animated version did some things
- 12:26quite well, but then it stopped. They never really sort of finished it. And of course, the cartoon
- 12:33thing didn't, I know. So I had lots of worries. And then you then they turned out
- 12:38pretty much better than I expected. So I'm hoping that's going to be the same with the
- 12:43Amazon series. Maddie, you want to say hi? Maddie, say hello to us. Where are you from?
- 12:51Oh, hang on, we just need you. Yes, there we go. Off you go, Maddie, you can say hi.
- 12:56Hi, can you hear me now? I can, yes. Hi, um, this is, this is so great to be a part of. I really
- 13:01enjoyed the the readathon. Thank you. I'm in, I'm in Vancouver. Um, and I read the, my introduction
- 13:10to Tolkien. I read the Hobbit in high school and I completely fell in love with it then and kind
- 13:16of that just escalated to now. My bookshelf is 90% Tolkien. Yeah. And then, yeah, as far as the
- 13:23movies and, and that goes, I find it, I find it kind of interesting hearing other people's opinions.
- 13:30And I hear a lot that they're worried that the TV show or the movies are going to ruin the,
- 13:36the story. And for me, I think Tolkien's story is in the books. I think whatever happens
- 13:41to the movie or TV show, I mean, it'll be a shame if it does kind of, if it's not as good as
- 13:47if everyone wants it to be or as good as it should be, but I think for me, they're always going to
- 13:51be in the books. So I can always go back there, even if the movies or TV shows don't do as well.
- 13:55But I personally, I really enjoyed the word of the movies. Yeah. Yeah. It's the, um, I suppose it's
- 14:02being able to have the two things in like different compartments like the Frodo in the books is
- 14:06entirely different. Yes. Age and social status and everything is entirely different from
- 14:12um, the Elijah Wood version. So you can kind of say, right, that's the film version.
- 14:17That's the book version. Exactly. I, I, I really separate there too, but the lot of the
- 14:22rings movies, at least I, I really enjoyed them. And I also love the books. So brilliant. Okay. So
- 14:28right folks, um, I'm sure more people will carry on arriving. So, but I thought we'd start by
- 14:35telling you what we're going to do in the next, uh, just under an hour now. Um, we're going to
- 14:40recap the highlights of the readathon, just in brief at the beginning and what was going on there
- 14:46and what we did. Uh, then we're going to move on to a quiz. The quiz is in five rounds. And it's
- 14:53based on Lord of the Rings, the books, not the films. So if you give a film answer to a question,
- 15:00it's going to be not accepted. It's strictly the books. Okay. Everybody, we're doing the books.
- 15:07Um, it's also a quiz that's supposed to be for your memory. Uh, so please don't, um, google and
- 15:17don't, um, if you've got an e-version of it, don't search digitally because that will,
- 15:25with some honour system here, we're expecting you to try and remember. It's fine if you flip through
- 15:29a physical copy of the book like this. Oh, there we go. Um, not that it will help you much because
- 15:36we're going to move quite quickly. Um, and we're going to, um, compile those results and the people
- 15:45who win. Um, if, if you're working on your own, that's fine. If you're in a little WhatsApp group
- 15:50or whatever and doing the team, that's fine. Just make sure only one person is putting in the,
- 15:55the answers. Um, we have prizes, which I will show you towards the end. And then we're going to
- 16:04announce some news of next steps for next reader thongs and let you know what's going on there.
- 16:10Okay, so let's think back to the reader thong. This idea came up, it was just after Christmas,
- 16:17and I was thinking, well, what can we do at the Oxford Centre for Fantasy? Uh, I don't know if you
- 16:22know much about us, but we came out of an attempt to buy, um, Tolkien's house in Oxford,
- 16:28which we couldn't get because it was just too much money. But we did, um, through the fun raising,
- 16:33have enough to set up a centre, uh, for appreciating Tolkien and his fellow ink, inklings.
- 16:40And as part of that, we do creative writing, teaching both online and now in person,
- 16:48but we do a lot of, um, events and other things all about the sort of world of Tolkien,
- 16:54uh, celebrating fantasy and contemporary fantasy writers as well.
- 16:59Anyway, so I thought, well, let's give something really chunky for 2022.
- 17:03And it came to my mind that what I'd really love to do is read Lord the Rings with everybody.
- 17:09We couldn't read it out loud. Some people thought quite, you can see how, uh,
- 17:13reader thong means reading aloud, but, um, there are audiobooks and copyright issues around that,
- 17:19you know, Andy Circus might be after us if we did that. Um, so what it was like, there was more
- 17:24a book club and we asked people to be a Gandalf for a day where they took us through
- 17:31their particular chapter. And I was very strict. We did the preface as well as the appendices.
- 17:38We had a really hard core here at the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. Um, and it was delightful.
- 17:44People were following a sort of very loose format, which was to say why they like this chapter,
- 17:51what this particular chapter meant for them. And then we finished up with a favorite quote.
- 17:57And every day I, I'm sure others on, uh, this webinar had the same, um, sort of experience.
- 18:05I really look forward to just checking in and finding out what today's Gandalf had thought of
- 18:10something. It was like, I was reading it, even if I wasn't actually sitting down reading the
- 18:15chapter at the moment. Um, and so I really enjoyed it personally. And I particularly liked,
- 18:22for me, the highlight was, um, the quotes because people were digging out fabulous, fabulous
- 18:29quotes from all over the book, which we're going to put together actually, um, and, uh, present as
- 18:38a video, which will release, uh, we will release that later in, um, month or so.
- 18:44But, you know, that was just wonderful. Some of those things are definitely worth a t-shirt,
- 18:49some of those slogans. Um, just to let you know how, how, what was involved? So we started on
- 18:56the first of March. And if you include the preface and the appendices, that's 64 days.
- 19:02You went straight through, without a break, every day there was a posting. And many of you on this,
- 19:10um, Zoom were our Gandalf. And I thought you might be interested to see which chapters got the most
- 19:17responses. Inevitably, the first chapters and the very last one, the sort of hello and the goodbye,
- 19:24got a lot of, um, people commenting on them. But several chapters in the middle popped up as being,
- 19:31it's a, you know, surprisingly popular. So one was, um, book one chapter nine, which I'm sure you
- 19:38all know is at the sign of the Prancing Pony. And that got quite a lot of chat. People were, uh,
- 19:44imagining themselves down the Prancing Pony. Uh, another one that a lot of people wanted to
- 19:51comment on was book two, chapter eight, which was farewell to Lorian. So if you were the Gandalf's
- 19:58for these chapters, you know, extra pat on the back. Um, and then in two towers, book three,
- 20:08chapter nine, Flotsam and Jetsam got a lot of people commenting on it. That was a Karen who was
- 20:13spoke to us earlier. That was her chapter. So, um, which was, I suppose it's, um, Mary and Pippin,
- 20:21isn't it? A lot of people enjoyed, um, talking about them. So maybe that's why that
- 20:27proved particularly popular. But it went extremely smoothly. And I really enjoyed that whole
- 20:35process of seeing so many people sharing what we all love, which of course is, um, Lord of the Rings.
- 20:41Possibly the world's favorite novel, or it's certainly up there, isn't it?
- 20:46Okay, so let's go onto the quiz. I'll just tell you how it's going to happen once more.
- 20:53Um, it, you will see in a minute on your screen, a, a form, which is like the first round.
- 21:02And I'll be reading out the questions. And you either have to put in a word or a couple of
- 21:08words or do a multiple choice answer. Um, and then at the end, you press send and it goes to
- 21:18the people who are working on this behind the scene. So, um, they're going to be compiling the results.
- 21:26Um, for those of you who have just joined us since I gave the rules, I mentioned to everybody
- 21:32this is an honours system. We're hoping that you won't be googling and searching digitally. We've
- 21:39preferred you to do this from memory of your many readings. If you slightly misspell a name,
- 21:45don't worry. I've given sort of very variations that are permissible. Um, so don't worry if you've,
- 21:52you know, if some elven word passes you by, yeah, your, unless you're roughly in the right area,
- 21:57you'll be fine. Um, and I just see in the, uh, before we start, I can see in the chat,
- 22:07Clara is just, um, saying hi. Ah, she's saying, um, mentioning the Friendship Onion podcast
- 22:16of Billy and Dom. Yeah, I've listened to some of that. I haven't kept up every week,
- 22:20but that's a fun podcast if you, if you'd like to follow our two favourite hobbits. Well,
- 22:25joint favourite, obviously, with Sam and Frodo. Um, okay, right. Are you already?
- 22:32Good. I'm assuming that's, that's, you're ready to go. So, will my quiz team please put up round
- 22:42one? Okay. So the first round, as you can see, is people and animals.
- 22:52So what is the first name of the first elf that Sam meets? We all know he wants to meet the
- 23:06elves, but who is, what's the name of the first named elf that he meets?
- 23:11Question number two, whose daughter is Goldbury? According to the song, that's Tom Womberdeer's
- 23:23song. Goldbury, of course, is Tom Womberdeer's partner.
- 23:30Yeah, so please put your answers in the slots on the, the quiz, rather than the chat,
- 23:43because they won't be counted in the chat. Okay, so question number three, what are
- 23:50Nika breaches? Are they, number one, a berserker walk, a kind of insect, a species of
- 24:02toad, or a species of bird?
- 24:13Question number four is whose son, so there's a typo there, whose son is Virgil?
- 24:21I told you it wasn't about the films, so those of you who are cheering because we've gone
- 24:33outside the films. Okay, question number five, how many black riders are there when Frodo gets
- 24:42stabbed on weather top? Four, five, six, or nine? I mean, that means not in existence, but how many
- 24:56are present at weather top? I suppose I should say that.
- 24:59Okay, who rules Dale during the days of the Lord of the Rings? Dale, your member is by the
- 25:17Lonely Mountain. Is it brand? Is it Bane? Is it Bard? What is it Bob?
- 25:27Question number seven is, what is the name of the wise woman of Gondor in the houses of healing?
- 25:47Again, if you're not quite sure of the spelling, as long as you get it phonetically, you'll be okay.
- 25:57Okay, number eight, what's the name of the eagle who rescues Gandalf from Isengard?
- 26:07Question number nine, do you know your orcs? Where is Gurishnakh from? Is he from, or she, from Mordor,
- 26:27Moria, Isengard, or Mirkwood? Yeah, I don't know if there's any female orcs. I mean, if you've got a
- 26:39view on that, put it in the chat. Maybe someone's got a theory. Number 10, and the last one in this
- 26:52round, which commander rides with Gandalf to the relief of the battle at Helm's Deep? Remember,
- 27:00we're doing the book, which is a very large hint. We're doing the book. Okay, so please tap return
- 27:13at the end and send in your answers and when they've all gone in. Yeah, people are saying that was
- 27:19hard. Yeah, that's the point. That's why I put in lots of multiple choice ones because then you
- 27:23get a chance of, you know, one in four chance or one in three. So just do your best.
- 27:37Okay, so make sure you've scrolled through to do all 10 questions. You have to sort of
- 27:44work up to the bottom. So everyone got the hang of it now because there's some
- 27:56four more rounds to go. So if you think you didn't quite get it right on round one, you've got
- 28:01another four rounds to catch up. Oh, people are saying I'm brutal. You know, I was making this
- 28:10up, thinking all these are too easy. But then my husband who's quite a lot of the rings nut said,
- 28:14oh, no, no, that was really tough. But I do want to winner, you see. So if I made it so everybody,
- 28:20you get all of them. It wouldn't work, would it? Okay, so some people have done the thing where
- 28:32they've submitted too early. Okay, so I can't do much about that now because we're in the middle of
- 28:40the software. So we've got, can we then share the quiz from our friends from our smiles?
- 28:51And yeah, we're going to be posting this quiz and this readathon later. So you're welcome to
- 29:02to do so. In fact, if you message me, I can send you the quiz questions and you can test them.
- 29:08How about that? Take it to your Lord of the Rings fans elsewhere. Just give me the credit.
- 29:13Okay, so 15 seconds to go and then we'll close this round. Don't worry too much if you,
- 29:26Diana's saying, my spell check is trying to correct my name. I know.
- 29:30I know it's terrible, isn't it? Does it all the time? Word does not know. The other thing I've
- 29:37discovered is that Wordal doesn't recognise things like Mordor. If you try and put in a Tolkien word,
- 29:47you have to be, which is what I do when I do Wordal. You have to do something quite generic like the
- 29:52Shire. Right, okay. So, it'll go quicker after this, but we are going to do the answers
- 30:02whilst people and they can mark your own. So see how you did. So hopefully my team will be putting
- 30:10up the answers, but I will start. There we go. So the first question, the name of the first
- 30:18elf was Gildor. So G-I-L-D-O-R. He's got a second name as well, but I thought that was a bit tough.
- 30:31Number two, the daughter, Goldbree, is the daughter of the river or the river woman. If you're
- 30:38being really precise in the song, it's the river woman or river daughter. So if you've said river,
- 30:44she's a kind of niad of sorts. Then you're right. So what are the Nika Breakers? Yeah, there are
- 30:53kind of insect. Most of you said that. It's what Sam, I think it's Sam, calls those midges on
- 30:59midget water marshes. Whose son is Bergl? That's Beragon. I love that bit. It didn't make it into
- 31:09the films, but I'm kicking French it with Bergl and Beragon. It's great. It's lovely bit of the
- 31:14Gondor background. If you said something like Man of Arms in Gondor, you'll get that point.
- 31:21We're being a bit lenient because everyone's told me I'm really tough. How many black riders were
- 31:27there on weather top? There were five, which is said quite overtly. Who rules Dale during the days
- 31:35of Lord of the Rings? The answer is brand. Who's son of Bain, son of Bard? Not Bob. Nobody said Bob,
- 31:43so good. What's the name of the wise woman? It's Yores. She's the one who talks about fetching
- 31:54the King's foil with her sisters. What's the name of the eagle? Well, of course it's Gwai here. I don't
- 32:02know how many eagles you can name, but it's Gwai here. Do you know your orcs?
- 32:08Wishnack is amongst the orcs in that party who get Mary and Pippin in the two towers. He's in
- 32:16the group that's from Mordor, as opposed to Eisengaard. Mordor was the right answer there.
- 32:23Number 10. This is definitely for the book readers. It's Erkenbrand. Erkenbrand gets a whole
- 32:35little pararation of praise for his, but he doesn't appear at all in the film. So Erkenbrand
- 32:44is the commander who arrives with Gandalf. Okay, right. So stand by for round two everybody.
- 32:55Keep a tally of how many you've got there. Round two is places. Here we go. So we're going to start
- 33:08up in the sky. By the way, there's a blood moon tonight if you're somewhere with no cloud cover,
- 33:15but it's be really good in America. It's a special moon tonight. What gives the Hobbit name for
- 33:21the plow or the great bear? Remember not to press send until you've answered all 10 questions.
- 33:30Okay, number two. Who owns a house that stood back from the lane in the middle of a wide
- 33:39circle of lawn surrounded by a belt of low trees inside the outer hedge? Now this, I'll give you a
- 33:46clue because people have told me this is tricky. It's from the beginning of the book.
- 33:52Okay, we're going to leave the shire and go to Bri. Tolkien mentions three villages near Bri,
- 34:06Staddle, Coom, and Archit. What is the name of the village near Bri on the edge of the
- 34:12Chetwood? Which of the three is it? Is it Staddle? Is it Coom or is it Archit? You can work this
- 34:18one out by logic, but one in three chances are getting that right. By the way, Bri says in the
- 34:31appendices it's based on a village near Oxford called Brill, which you can go and visit if you come
- 34:37and see us in Oxford. It's on a hill and it has little villages around it like this.
- 34:43Number four, what is the common tongue name for Amun's soul?
- 34:52What place means, this is number five, what place means black pit in the Elvish tongue?
- 34:59Okay, question number six. Again, this is a character who didn't make it into the films.
- 35:10Where does Prince Imrahil live? I'm really looking for his specific place that he's Lord of.
- 35:17But I might be a bit lenient on that one if you get the right area of Middle-Earth.
- 35:34Number seven, which place does Aragorn say is unnaturally silent with no sound for miles around?
- 35:42So this is one moment where all the fellowship is there. There's a clue.
- 35:47And he says this and Gandalf says something along the lines of
- 35:55pay attention when you bring a ranger with you. So what's the name of the place?
- 36:02Another clue is this place is very important for the second age and the Amun's in series,
- 36:09presumably. Okay, number eight, what is the name of the river in Lorient that has the power to
- 36:17wash away the stain of travel and reariness? It's where Frodo says he thinks he can hear a voice
- 36:23in the waters. Again, if you can just roughly spill it, you'll be okay.
- 36:31Number nine, what is the new name of the lands that are once cultivated by the Entwives?
- 36:41Now if you know your map, it's on the map, but also it's something that Treebeard says.
- 36:50So there were once upon a time lush places but then war passed over them and they're now called
- 36:57as something. And slightly easy question, hopefully everyone gets this,
- 37:07from where does Frodo set sail? It's even the chapter title at the end. So
- 37:14okay, right, we're about to close round two and give you the answers. So I hope that wasn't too grim
- 37:37that you got some of those. And it's about to close about now. All 15 seconds.
- 37:53Wonder where your favourite place is? I think I always used to think it was Lorient would be my
- 38:01favourite place, but actually as I got older I think it's probably more likely to be Riven
- 38:05dogs. I don't fancy living up a tree. I don't think I'd cope with the no ledges on those flits.
- 38:20Okay, there we go. Some people are saying they're making ridiculous guesses. That's fine.
- 38:28Right, let's do the answers. The name, the Hobbit name for the star system, the plow,
- 38:33the Great Bear is the sickle. I suppose it doesn't like a sickle. Who owns a house with that
- 38:43description? Now this is Frodo's house in Crick Hollow. The one who never actually gets to live in
- 38:52properly because obviously he has to leave after having a had a bath. He does one night,
- 38:57has a bath off he goes. Of the three village archit. Now the reason why you could have got that is
- 39:05check wood archit, see? That's how that's that particular village. The common tongue name for
- 39:14almond soil is weather top. Which place means black pit in Elvish tongue? That's Moria.
- 39:22Bad luck if you said Mordo, which is sort of the same route, but they actually do say it means
- 39:29black pit. That's a quote from the book. Where does Prince Imrahil live? He's one of the captains of
- 39:35Gondor. So he lives in Gondor, but extra kudos if you said dol Amroth. So that's where he lives.
- 39:45Which place was unnaturally silent? That's Holin. Holin is the place where the birds fly over.
- 39:55Before they go to Moria, it's where they're trying to find a way across the mountains.
- 40:04And it's where that sort of area is where Caleb Rimbore lives. Who's going to be one of the main
- 40:09characters in the cumbersome series? What's the name of the river in Lorin? That's Nimrodel.
- 40:17And the new name for the lands are the brown lands. They actually appear on the map if you look,
- 40:23it's quite a big name. The brown lands are sort of above the dead marshes, above that bit.
- 40:31And from where does Proto-Stetsl? The Grey Havens.
- 40:40So there you go. See how well you did. Keep your own little tally.
- 40:49Get ready for round three. There'll be 10 questions. So please don't press return,
- 41:00because we can't start it again, because people already halfway through.
- 41:03And Carrie's saying that round was dismal for you.
- 41:07Well, you just have to go read the book again. That's what's going to happen after this, isn't it?
- 41:15I wonder how many of these I could, I mean, setting the questions is different from actually answering them.
- 41:22I wonder, I should have tested, you know, if you could test yourself. I reckon I probably would have
- 41:26got about seven out of those, seven out of ten of those. Okay, round three objects.
- 41:35There's an interesting chat going on about Steve saying he thinks that
- 41:40Rivendale might have been a bit cold and damp due to the waterfalls. True.
- 41:45Yeah, I did worry about breezes. Didn't have many doors or windows, did they?
- 41:49Okay, round three is about objects. Number one, who has a hatchet when they start the journey from
- 41:59the shower? You've got a one in four chance of getting this right. So if you're thinking amongst the hobbits,
- 42:05who has the hatchet? Okay, Mary pays 12 silver pennies for build the pony. But how many pennies
- 42:17is a pony normally in Bri? It sounds like one of those maths questions you might have got at school.
- 42:22He does say to the inkeeper or the inkeeper tells him that he's paying so many more times than the
- 42:31going rate. So you've got to work out if he's paying two times, three times, four times the going
- 42:39rate and so on. One in four chance. Just how mean was Bill Ferney? Okay, there's an artifact
- 42:49mentioned, a brooch set with blue stones, many shaded like flax flowers or the wings of blue butterflies.
- 42:58Where is this found? Give you a clue, it's in fellowship with the ring. Quite early on.
- 43:05And it appears briefly, but where is it?
- 43:14We also, number four, we're still in fellowship.
- 43:19Who has a silver studded flask of leather and offers everyone a drink? Now this is our give you a clue
- 43:26here. It's a character who doesn't appear in the film.
- 43:35But he or she arrives at a very good moment for them with his or her flask.
- 43:44Okay, do you know your spells?
- 43:47Number five, what does Gandalf Kanja with the words now and Eddryeth Armen?
- 44:00Does he Kanja fire? An entrance? Or light? What's the main purpose of that spell?
- 44:11He doesn't do that many spells. If you think about it, but that's one of them.
- 44:23Number six, how many members of the fellowship don't wear boots? Who doesn't wear boots?
- 44:40So number seven, in lorian, Frodo and Mars, the yellow Eleanor, and the pale,
- 44:45another kind of flower. What's the name of the other flower in lorian? Is it
- 44:51mornye, simbumuna, or nifradil?
- 44:55I'm tough, aren't I? Very, very tough. Number eight, number eight, this is where my life has
- 45:10been enriched by asking you all this question, because this is one I would get wrong, okay?
- 45:17Galadriel gives each member of the fellowship a personal gift in addition to their clothes.
- 45:23Arrigan gets a silver brooch with a green stone. What shape is the brooch? Is it an eagle, a star, or a flower?
- 45:41Who made Arrigan's sword and doerl?
- 45:45Was it Kela Brimble, Fiano, Telcha, or Navi?
- 45:58All famous smiths in the world of middle earth. And finally,
- 46:08which of these, in addition to an iron cap, does Gimli take from the armory at Meduzeld?
- 46:16Again, we're doing the book, not the film. Does he take a coat of rings? Does he take shining male?
- 46:25Does he take a shield? Or does he take nothing else, just the cap?
- 46:30Okay, you've got 30 seconds to go on that. I'll thank you Susanna, thank you for liking my spell
- 46:42casting, channeling my inner in McKellen. So we are about to close down number three.
- 46:55As I promise, we are going to go through this quite quickly, not hold you up too much.
- 47:00How did you find that round? Okay, send in your answers.
- 47:10Well, I drink my cup of tea.
- 47:19Okay, let's find out how you did.
- 47:21Karen's saying she still gets stumped. I know this is a thing of why there's always more to see in
- 47:32her, not to say Harry Potter, always more to see in Lord of the Rings. The other thing I did
- 47:39used to do and quizzes on is Harry Potter, my kids. And I've got quite expert on that with them,
- 47:46you know, being able to name all the dark arts teachers and things. I couldn't do that anymore.
- 47:53Okay, right. So who has a hatchet when they start the journey? Believe it or not, it's Frodo.
- 47:58I bet most of you put Sam. It's Frodo. So who knew? Mary pays 12 silver pennies. I think that most
- 48:09of you got this right. It was four. So it was three times. Bill is three times more than his
- 48:16worth, but of course, he's worth more than that, really, because it's Bill. Where is this brooch?
- 48:22Well, the brooch is one of the things found in the Barrow mound. And Tom Bombardill picks it up
- 48:27and talks about it, saying he remembers the lady who wore it and he says he will take it home to
- 48:32Goldbury. So that's when it appears. It just comes into the story and leaves again. So if you
- 48:39said Barrow or mound or the downs, anything like that, give yourself a mark. Who has a silver
- 48:48studded flash? That's Glorfindel, of course, who is the one who comes and rescues them, not
- 48:55in the film, but Glorfindel, a very old elf lord. What does Gandalf conjure? It's fire.
- 49:07It's not the, there's a different spell for light, slightly different, and it's not an entrance.
- 49:12So it's fire. It's when they're up on the mountain trying to get over Coradras and they're all
- 49:19shivering in the snow. And he says he'll summon that flame. That's what he does.
- 49:26Okay, how many members of the fellowship don't wear boots? Well, obviously not the hobbits,
- 49:31but it's also mentioned in that bit on the mountain in the snow that Legolas wears shoes.
- 49:40So forget what the wardrobe mistress on Lord the Rings of Films decided.
- 49:46So there's five people who don't wear boots.
- 49:52In lorian. Yeah, most of you got this right. The right answer is Nifredil. Mournier is just
- 49:59another Elvish word. Symbol Moona is other flowers on the Rohan burial loans. So that's where you
- 50:07have heard that before. Nifredil is the right one. Yeah, no, this is the the collateral brooch one.
- 50:14Now this is if there was only one thing you go away enriched by in this hour, it's this,
- 50:21it's an eagle, folks. I was so shocked when I saw that. I thought I'd never thought of that looking
- 50:28like an eagle. I would have said star too, because they talk about it being like a star on his
- 50:33brow. It's an eagle. So there you go. Who made Aragorn sword? It was Telchar in the depths of time.
- 50:45And number 10, most of you got this right. He already has his own male. He takes a shield.
- 50:52It's a shield with the white horse on it. Not sure it's mentioned again. Tell me if you,
- 50:59you know, maybe one of those things that kind of comes and goes in the story.
- 51:03But that's what's on his shield. Okay.
- 51:09Yeah, I carry saying she had a star shape in her head too.
- 51:18And I think that everybody's going to, I think we might get a clear win
- 51:24around this one, because there'll be somebody in there who's getting all the answers right.
- 51:28Who's keeping very quiet? Get ready for round four. Off we go. Again, 10 questions.
- 51:35And the theme for this one is messages, dreams and visions.
- 51:46Okay, there's lots of dreams mentioned in Lord of the Rings. Have you noticed that?
- 51:50And Mary gets his dream recorded when they're all at Tom Bombardill's house.
- 51:58Does he dream of drowning, of being chased by wolves, of scratching willow twigs,
- 52:04or of Gandalf standing at the top of a tower?
- 52:10I'll tell you that the only one in the house who doesn't dream is Sam.
- 52:15He's told, we're told he's slept like a log.
- 52:19But the others all have dreams. So which one is Mary's dream?
- 52:23Question number two, who sees the hints of the scouring of the shire in Galadriel's mirror?
- 52:31He sees trees being cut down. Who sees that?
- 52:37Okay, so moving on. Number three, Gandalf, one, he's returned from,
- 52:43well, sort of death, I suppose, or at least the Balrog, brings messages from Galadriel to
- 52:50Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas. This is in two towers. Of what does Galadriel tell the elf to beware?
- 53:00She's got various messages for them. And Legolas, she's quite clear that he should be aware of
- 53:06something. What is it?
- 53:13Question number four,
- 53:16worm tongue, Gimli Gandalf, a nickname, late spell. What does it mean? Does it mean ill news,
- 53:24trouble maker, warbringer, or bad counsellor?
- 53:32If you have done any old English, this will be an easy one for you.
- 53:36I'm sure you're all graduates of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, aren't you?
- 53:49Question number five, so I'm going towards the other end of the book now. We're in return of the
- 53:56king. What does Sam see about the effl duath? That's the mountains in Mordor. That remind him that
- 54:05the shadow is only a small and passing thing. From my favourite bits of book and our Gandalf for
- 54:13that day, pictured out as well. Does he see the moon? A light at the top of a tower? The sunset,
- 54:22or a star?
- 54:29Okay, we're still sticking with Sam. When does Sam say that all his wishes have come true?
- 54:34Is it when Frodo wakes up after being rescued? When Rosie Cotton accepts Sam's proposal?
- 54:43When Sam hears the song by the minister of Gondor? Or when Frodo and Sam reunite with Mary and
- 54:49Pippin? He says, all my dreams have come true.
- 54:52A little sidebar here. When I hear that, I've got the BBC play version of this in my head.
- 55:06And the guy who played Sam in that version is Bill Maye, who I find really hard to connect with Sam,
- 55:15you know, Bill Maye of Love Actually Fame. But there you go, that's one of his
- 55:20early voice roles. Number seven, where is the black stone that the dead must go to when someone
- 55:30by Aragorn to redeem their broken oaths? So in the book, when he goes to get the army to help him,
- 55:39the army of the dead, he summons them to a particular stone. So where is it? Is it in the
- 55:45paths of the dead? Is it in Dunne Harrow? Is it in Amondin? Or is it in Erich?
- 55:55The black stone of filling the black?
- 56:02Okay, I'm hoping everyone gets this one. Number eight, who has a prophecy told about him
- 56:06that he cannot be killed by a man? Is it the Lord of the Nazgul, Sauron, Sauraman?
- 56:15Or the Balrog?
- 56:21Number nine, who says they're able to fill the sun even when it is hidden?
- 56:27Is that something that Galadriel says? Or Gollum? Or Ganbury Gan? Or Goalbag?
- 56:33I went with G's there, as you can see.
- 56:42Number ten, how many pelantia or seeing stones were brought to Middle-Earth?
- 56:51Gandalf sings a little ditty that pipping here. Was it three? Was it seven? Was it nine?
- 56:58Favorite talking numbers? Three, seven or nine. Round four is about to end.
- 57:06So please put in your answers now.
- 57:14Okay, right, we're going to go and do the answers now. I will reveal the messages.
- 57:27Last call for round four, press return.
- 57:35Okay, let's move on to giving the answers for those. Don't forget to keep a little tally of how many you're
- 57:40getting right. Okay, so what does he dream? Yes, most of you got that right, he dreams of drowning.
- 57:49Correct. Who sees the scaring of the shire in Galadriel's mirror? It's Sam. In the film, they cut it down
- 57:58to being just Frodo, but it's actually Sam who sees that. Gandalf brings the message.
- 58:05Galadriel tells Legolas to be aware of the sea, because it will fill him with a longing to go to
- 58:11the undying lands. Yeah, most of you got number four right. Lace Bell Beans ill news.
- 58:19What does Sam see? In the sky, it's a star, and again, most of you got that right?
- 58:29When does Sam say all his wishes have come true? Again, most of you got that right. It's when he
- 58:34hears the song sung by the minstrel, which I thought was quite funny. It's not when all the other
- 58:40things happen, but that links back to a bit he's saying about he wants to hear his song when they're
- 58:45on the steps going up to Keir Fungal. Whereas the Blackstone Erich is the right answer, they have to
- 58:53do this breakneck ride to Erich to be there by a certain time. Again, this is where the books
- 59:00better than the films. Yes, everybody said, Lord of the Nazgol, well done. Who says they
- 59:11would fill the song where it's hidden? Ganburi Gan. He is again a lovely little character who
- 59:17doesn't appear in the films. He's one of the wild men who help the Rohan arrive in time to
- 59:23siege at Ministerus. How many plans here are there? Yes, most of you got that right. Seven. So correct.
- 59:31Okay. Right, someone's saying that felt easier. There was more multiple choice, that's why.
- 59:43Okay, the last one is history, because we all know how deep the history is of Middle-earth,
- 59:52and don't forget, there's lots of prizes up for grabs at the end. Great prizes, which we'll
- 59:58tell you about when we're counting the scores. So we're going to start now, and this is history.
- 1:00:07Back in the Shire, when the four hobbits leave, four old fatty boulders left behind,
- 1:00:15and the Blackriders attack, he raises the alarm, and there's a little bit that Tolkien writes about,
- 1:00:21which event calls the home call of Buckland to be last used a hundred years ago. So they've had
- 1:00:29a very peaceful time, but a hundred years ago something happened. Was it a sighting of a troll on
- 1:00:33the moors? An invasion of trees from the Old Forest, wolves crossing the river in winter,
- 1:00:40or a fire at Brandyback Hall. Number two, which hero related to Elrond does Bilbo sing about in
- 1:00:49Rivendell? I thought this was fair to ask, because there's quite a conversation between Bilbo
- 1:00:55and Aragorn about this, preparing this song. So, and he's an important character in the Silmarillion.
- 1:01:04And again, approximate spellings will be fine. Question number three, the book found in the chamber
- 1:01:12of Mozabal, that's the sort of the manuscript that's been hacked around. We hear the oin,
- 1:01:19who's one of the dwarves from the Hobbit. We hear how he died. Was he slain by an orc arrow?
- 1:01:26Was he killed defending the bridge? Or was he taken by the watcher in the water? That's that
- 1:01:32octopacy thingy. It's called the watcher in the water. Who does Gandalf call the oldest living thing
- 1:01:42that still walks upon the sun, upon this middle earth? Now, I think that there may be some
- 1:01:50inconsistency in Tolkien here, but this is the person, the living thing that Gandalf calls this.
- 1:01:57And we can discuss this afterwards.
- 1:02:03Number five, how many times have the red leaves fallen in Merkwood since the Golden Hall was
- 1:02:09built in Meduseld? 300 years, 500 years, 800 years, for a thousand years.
- 1:02:17It's one of Legolas' ways of telling the passing of time.
- 1:02:23Number six, Heragram is an ancient blade, but who wields it? It's one of the named swords in
- 1:02:30Norderings. Whose sword is it? Number seven, whose name means starlight in Elven tongue,
- 1:02:40according to Frodo? It is an elf. I'll let you know that much. So, and an elf in history, not one
- 1:02:48of the current generation. Okay, number eight, which nation built the Tower of Kiris Ungl?
- 1:02:56That's the Tower where Frodo is taking captive. Was it built by Gondor, Mordor, or Umbar?
- 1:03:07Okay, I dipped into the appendices. I'm enjoying this, you can tell,
- 1:03:14putting you through all this torture. Who's daughter? Does Faramir the first of the Shire?
- 1:03:21Okay, that's important. Marry. Faramir, who's going to call their son Faramir, who lives in the Shire?
- 1:03:32And whose daughter does that person marry? So, think about that.
- 1:03:42You can work it out if you know your appendices. And number ten, let's finish with death.
- 1:03:54Whose beds are set against King Alessar, that's Aragorn, at his passing. So, is it Mary and Pippin?
- 1:04:04Gimli and Legolas, or Arwen and Eldarion, that's the son. So, who's alongside him when he's passing?
- 1:04:14Okay, we're about to close this round, so we don't overrun by too much.
- 1:04:21We're going to whisk our way through the answers and find out who we're going to crown champion.
- 1:04:27Okay, so, please, whatever you've done, it doesn't matter if you haven't answered all of them,
- 1:04:35just sending your answers now so that we can give the rest of the quiz question answers.
- 1:04:45Okay, I think we're going to close that down now.
- 1:04:55You're carrying so much stuff. Yeah, but you're learning a lot, aren't you?
- 1:05:02Yeah, this isn't the, you know, the socky old pub quiz for they only ask about the films.
- 1:05:07This is the real hards core stuff here. Okay, right.
- 1:05:14The answer to question one, most of you got this right. Yes, it's wolves crossing the frozen river
- 1:05:20in winter. The hero that Bilbo thinks about is Earendil, the one who's got the Silmaril and
- 1:05:29becomes a star. The book says, the book of Mazar Bull in that chamber says that Poroid Oyn
- 1:05:40was taken by the watcher in the water, Dr. Pussy thing. Who does Gandalf call the oldest living thing?
- 1:05:50Well, it's trebid. Now, you're going to say, but I thought that Tom Bombadil was eldest,
- 1:05:57because that's what Elrond says. Maybe somebody knows how to reconcile these two things,
- 1:06:03but Gandalf actually says, maybe it's the thing as opposed to person. The oldest living thing
- 1:06:09that still walks is trebid. So there you go. How many times have the red leaves fallen?
- 1:06:18Well, most of you got this right. It's 500 years, which for legulasses, you know,
- 1:06:26like a couple of years ago, plus. That new big book called The Nature of Middle-earth that
- 1:06:34came out last year that has a lot about how Tolkien worked out, how Elft time, Talies with
- 1:06:40Human Time if you're interested. It's got tables of how to work it all out. It ends up that
- 1:06:46they're pregnant if they're having a child for about nine years, which seems more than an elephant.
- 1:06:52I wouldn't fancy that if you got morning sickness as a elf mother. Herogrim,
- 1:07:00that is Theodin Sword. If you say King of Rohan, that's fine because presumably it's some kind of,
- 1:07:07you know, top king sword. Whose name means Starlight in Elven Tong?
- 1:07:13That's Gil Gallad. So Gil Gallad was an Elven King, that one. We've got a few people saying that
- 1:07:25Ent should have rights. Absolutely. They're not a thing. Quite right to
- 1:07:32Gandalf. Go back and to PC school. Which nation built the Tower of Curious Angle?
- 1:07:39Most of you got this right. It's Gondor. It's a really interesting part of Lord of the Rings. The
- 1:07:44idea that all these wonderful buildings that have become sort of made horrible by Mordor were
- 1:07:49actually originally from the heyday of Gondor. It's a great bit of the history. It gives it
- 1:07:55also a feeling of very similitude. Number nine, okay. I put these in. These are really self-indulgent.
- 1:08:04I just love these facts. Faramid I is Pippin's son. And he marries Sam's daughter,
- 1:08:15who's called Goldilocks. Which isn't such a good name, I don't think. But anyway, Goldilocks.
- 1:08:20So there's a kind of next generation Hobbit thing going on there. Mary doesn't seem to get married.
- 1:08:26He's the bachelor. And of course Frodo's already gone. So it was Sam.
- 1:08:33Whose beds are beside King Alessa? This is such a super cute answer. And most of you got it right.
- 1:08:40Which is it's Mary and Pippin. And of course they end up being buried alongside him in the
- 1:08:49place where the kings of Gondor are laid. Which I think is really sweet. And I hadn't noticed
- 1:08:55until I was trawling the appendices for interesting questions. Okay, so that was round five.
- 1:09:03Now, we've got a team checking. But if you want to tally up how many you think you've got
- 1:09:11and put it in the chat, if you think you've scored quite highly, it will help them find you.
- 1:09:17So, I'll count down. If you think you've got 50, put your hand in the, put your score up.
- 1:09:28And I'll count down. If you've got in the 40s, put your score in the chat.
- 1:09:38Nobody got in the 40s. I've made it really difficult, haven't I? Yeah, Karen's saying not even close.
- 1:09:45Yeah, I didn't really expect anyone to get 50. If you've got in the 30s, put your answer in the chat.
- 1:09:53Your name in the chat. And they'll know to check your answers first. Karen's saying she
- 1:10:01says she got 30. That sounds like a good score, Karen. Anybody? Oh, Emily, 34.
- 1:10:07Excellent. Anybody else? Someone got minus four. No. Beverly, maybe 40, 31. And Rainbow missed
- 1:10:21the first round, but she got 31. Well, that sounds like you could have been in there, couldn't you?
- 1:10:29Anyway, so whilst we're just having, I've got a team who are checking the answers, we're going to
- 1:10:34do the top three placings. And I want to show you what they're going to be getting because you
- 1:10:42can't actually buy these. So I don't know if my my FF14 Brian is able to show me, put it on the,
- 1:10:51the share of the screen. Yeah. Oh, no, that's the Miss Makers podcast page, Brian. There we go.
- 1:10:58And we're doing, we're building up merchandise with illustrations on it from
- 1:11:09illustrators of books. And this first one I've got in the shop is by a great friend of the
- 1:11:15Centre called Pete Williamson. And he did his wonderful dragon design. So the top team will get
- 1:11:24I dream of dragons and it'll sort of cluster of things around that. You can buy them too. There's
- 1:11:29a version of this that's mother of dragons as well. If you're a game of thrones fan, I thought I'd
- 1:11:37put that up there for Mother's Day, which has just gone. So that's rather lovely. I'm going to
- 1:11:42build this up over time with more illustrators with more designs. So if you've got an illustrator
- 1:11:48that you know and you think it'd be nice to add it to our little gallery, do let me know. Because
- 1:11:53this is a long-term project. There you are, that's all the other stuff. And you can get t-shirts
- 1:11:57like this. Because we are going to be doing other readathons. So there's this design, which is
- 1:12:02the readathon one. Oh yeah, and Brian Shashengar's mugs. Phone cases, you know, usual stuff.
- 1:12:12Anyway, so we have fun on our shops, dreaming up products. If there's anything you want, let us know
- 1:12:17because we'll see if we can source it. Okay, so just while we're looking for the winners,
- 1:12:24just want to ask, I'm just going to ask people who took part in the readathon to tell us how they
- 1:12:33got on. We've spoken to someone already, but Kerry, do you want to come back on and tell us about
- 1:12:40your experience of actually leading the and commenting on the readathon? There she is.
- 1:12:45Off you go. Tell us about what you enjoyed most about taking part in the readathon.
- 1:12:50I really enjoyed everybody's posts and reading those every day. There are so many things I enjoyed
- 1:12:57about the readathon. It's going to be hard to pin down one thing in particular, but I made a couple
- 1:13:04of friends along the way. And I think it was beautiful to see what everybody wrote about their
- 1:13:14favorite chapters. And I started following along with the audiobook during the readathon so that I
- 1:13:21could keep up. And there were parts of the book that, as I heard them read, really brought a new
- 1:13:31perspective like having pity for Gollum when they meet up with Gollum and it's sort of along the
- 1:13:39journey before they get to Eiffelian, but they're really seeing just how sad he is. And hearing
- 1:13:49that read out loud really drove home how pitiful his character is. And another chapter that really
- 1:13:57made me cry, I wasn't expecting to, was hearing everyone escaping the bridge of Kazadoum and
- 1:14:05and coming out of that without Gandalf. And when the audiobook gave out the line of everyone
- 1:14:17being overcome with grief, I joined right along with them. There were several bits in it which I
- 1:14:23choke up at. That one definitely. Yeah. Yeah. And then the other bit that makes me choke up is
- 1:14:33when Frodo says that he saved the shab but not for him, not for me, you know. Oh gosh. The entire
- 1:14:39last chapter is almost just an entire choke up for me with that. I still, to this day, I can't read
- 1:14:46the last words without getting teary. Yeah. First lovely, Kelly. Thank you. I just see how we doing on,
- 1:14:55let me know folks who are working behind the scenes, if you've got a winner, just so I know,
- 1:15:02but let's talk to Karen who got 30 in the quiz. So she's very well in the quiz. Karen,
- 1:15:09same thing for you. What did you like most about the readathon? I think just getting to do a really
- 1:15:15good deep dive with some of the participants. I posted a few questions about the chapter, just
- 1:15:21little points that I'd picked up on, like where we had Strider, where he kind of comes into his
- 1:15:28own and he says that he belongs to both Gondor and the North and it's the first kind of inkling
- 1:15:34where you get to see that he's being what he's meant to be as opposed to just one of one of the
- 1:15:39sides of him. So I was posting lots of little questions like that of what does that mean for you?
- 1:15:44Like what kind of thing are you? Are you just an office worker? Are you also an artist? And are
- 1:15:49you also a reader and all these things? So getting to be a little bit more of a deep dive and see
- 1:15:54how things work was really nice? It led to a lot of people just contacting me just in my DMs about
- 1:16:01it as well. So we ended up having conversations about how I connect through to not even with my
- 1:16:06own chapter, but just how things connect through to the Silmarillion. So there was one chapter we
- 1:16:12were talking about for quite a while, where you have the scene where Gimli is given the three
- 1:16:17hairs from the head of Gimli, and it relates back to the whole fable from the Silmarillion where they're
- 1:16:24trying to get these hairs to do bad deeds. And then... Oh gosh, I didn't know that. That's fascinating.
- 1:16:32It's like a like this old law that obviously Legolas would have grown up hearing these stories about
- 1:16:39how they wanted the hair to make these some rolls and you know have some awesome power that could
- 1:16:44be used to bad. And that he doesn't get them, like he she just doesn't give them to him because
- 1:16:50Galadriel can see into his heart and his soul that he's not intending that to be a good thing. And
- 1:16:55that's when he when Gimli requests one hair and she gives him three, it's that little kind of like
- 1:17:03heartwarming scene where he's told Legolas this and Legolas is like oh I can trust you, we can be
- 1:17:09friends, you know I never really trusted anyone like Gimli before and because Galadriel does now he
- 1:17:17can because he trusts her to the end of time. And some little things like that where you get to have
- 1:17:23a really deep dive into just the the tiny minutiae of like parts of what happens in the book.
- 1:17:30Yeah. Just seeing how it relates across the law was really fascinating for me so I got to have
- 1:17:35a lot more interesting conversation out of it, not just from hosting but in the background too.
- 1:17:40That's exactly what I hope it happens. That's lovely to hear. We've got Will and Steve Ruddock now.
- 1:17:46Will and Steve Ruddock are you related to each other or are you just people sharing the same
- 1:17:51surname? Let's find out. Are you still with us? We are very much related. Will is my son
- 1:17:58and we both participated in the Readathon and had many many great offline conversations about it
- 1:18:06thanks to the Readathon. Fantastic. One thing. That's really nice to hear. Did you have a favorite
- 1:18:14interaction that you that you remember? I've actually got the results by the way everybody so we're
- 1:18:19just here Will and Steve's favorite chapters. I always have loved the scouring of the Shire.
- 1:18:27The next to the last chapter, the heroic quest is complete and now the Hobbits get home and
- 1:18:34they've got to toss out the ruffians and clean up the garbage. I really like that nitty gritty
- 1:18:40dose of reality at the end of the at the end of the mythic story.
- 1:18:45Yeah and also you see the fact that because there is no Gandalf and there's no arrogant that
- 1:18:50how Mary and Pippin and Sam and Frodo all just really stand forward and they're just able to
- 1:18:54cope with it all. They've grown up, they've matured. That's what they were trained for as
- 1:19:01Gandalf tells him before he leaves. I compliment you and your team on this. I thought that generally
- 1:19:11when I have read Lord of the Rings, I have rushed through it in about a week and this pace of
- 1:19:16going a chapter a day was very healthy for me. I think it enabled me to get a lot more out of it
- 1:19:23and all of the comments from the participants on a daily basis favorite quotes and such.
- 1:19:31I really did feel like I was able to read it with fresh eyes for the first time in a long time.
- 1:19:37Yes and so this is the right moment I think to thank everybody who well first of all thank you
- 1:19:41all the Gandalf's who led us for a day and for your very thoughtful comments and what you put
- 1:19:51into that. Also a big thanks to the behind the scenes team particularly Kirsten and her team they're
- 1:19:58based in South Africa and they were the people putting together. Each day had a different
- 1:20:07social media asset or are you calling them but basically a different relevant sort of image behind
- 1:20:13it. So if you scroll back through Instagram or Facebook you will find these are there still.
- 1:20:19They haven't been taken down so if you want to go back and check in any of your favorite chapters
- 1:20:24and see what people said it's still there for you to to find. So thank you to everyone for putting
- 1:20:30all that work into it. Before I announce the winners I just want to say is that we so enjoy doing this
- 1:20:36that we think in the autumn we'll do another readathon but we're trying to decide what to do.
- 1:20:43We're going to be asking everybody on social media for their views but just so you can have a
- 1:20:47think about it between now and then is that we're thinking of the choice between going right in
- 1:20:54and doing like the Silmarillion. That's super hardcore. I'm going to do a quiz on that one because I
- 1:21:00wouldn't get any of the questions right. Or should we have like a Christmas with the Hobbit?
- 1:21:07Or should we go sideways and start on the Chronicles of Narnia and have a shorter readathon
- 1:21:13on the line in the which and the wardrobe. So we're going to be asking that probably in the sort of
- 1:21:19poll format across the various social media platforms to find out what you want to do.
- 1:21:25It'll be similar as what we just done so you can join in look out for that. Okay,
- 1:21:32right let's tell you the scores now the scores have disappeared up the
- 1:21:38where have they gone. There we go. I've just found the scores. Okay, right so in reverse order
- 1:21:48winner of a mug is Carolyn Woodle who scored 34 so well done Carolyn. In second place
- 1:22:02with a very respectable 35 is Emily Cunio well done Emily that is brilliant but quite astonishingly
- 1:22:17we have somebody in the forties our outright winner is Sophie Beverly who scored 42 which is a
- 1:22:27very hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy scores as very pleasing. These scores have been verified
- 1:22:34behind the scenes by my team because they've been able to see what you've put in. So well done
- 1:22:39those three women brilliance you're fantastic. We need your details so we can send you your prize.
- 1:22:47So please can you send a message to I think probably to me or to Brian Boyd
- 1:22:56on the if you do the sort of look down at the direct message option so that we can contact you
- 1:23:02and send you your prize. If you are part of a team Sophie or Emily or Carolyn let's know
- 1:23:11because obviously that changes how we how we send the prize. But anyway I hope you all enjoyed
- 1:23:19that. Let me just check the messages at the end. People are saying they want the quiz. Yeah okay
- 1:23:28if you want the quiz when I close this down I won't see the chat anymore so I'll lose your
- 1:23:34contacts. Could you contact me on the Facebook page or on our website which is
- 1:23:41also centerofamsea.org and I'll be able to email it to you send it as an attachment you know
- 1:23:46that kind of thing because I put a lot of work into this so I might as well spread it out there
- 1:23:51and you can talk to your friends with the quiz and you'll seem really you know as I you know
- 1:23:58your Lord of the Rings. So people are saying what they think they oh look all the Narnia books
- 1:24:04yeah I'm saying 42 congratulations. Yeah is Sophie still with us? Sophie are you there?
- 1:24:22Oh winner are you still with us? Do you want to tell us how brilliant you are?
- 1:24:29She's been very nice. She can't chat out loud that's all right. So Emily can you say
- 1:24:39you were also very well done. How many times have you read Lord of the Rings?
- 1:24:49How many times have you read Lord of the Rings? Emily probably about 15
- 1:24:57okay well you have remembered it extremely well. I felt like I was doing horribly.
- 1:25:04Yeah well I wasn't quite sure how to pitch it. I didn't want to make it too easy because I thought
- 1:25:09then we're all in it. I wanted to sort of make you feel as though you really had earned your
- 1:25:13your score at the end and who else? So Carolyn you also were among our winners. Are you there?
- 1:25:21You're going to she's on mute so maybe she can't talk either I don't know but congratulations to
- 1:25:28her too. Okay everybody um I will release you all back to your Sundays either the end of your days
- 1:25:34or whatever um thank you very much for coming and keep in touch with us for the next
- 1:25:40readathon or event. Oh I should mention before you will go if you want to come and celebrate
- 1:25:46Frodo and Bilbo's birthday with us in Oxford. We do have a in-person course running at
- 1:25:53Mordeling College, the most beautiful college in Oxford. So come and walk and write in the
- 1:25:57shares with us and you can find the link for that on our website. It'd be lovely to see you there
- 1:26:05come and join the others who already signed up for that course. Okay good night everybody.
- 1:26:11Thanks for listening to MythMakers podcast.
- 1:26:19Brought to you by the Oxford Center for Fantasy. Visit OxfordCenterForFatasy.org to join in the
- 1:26:25fun. Find out about our online courses in person stays in Oxford plus visit our shop for great gifts.
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