Magweth Pengolodh, or, One for My HoME-ies
Originally Posted September 2, 2002
Gentle Readers,
Right. Magweth Pengolodh: The Question of Pengolod, first posted around September 22nd. It's a genfic based on some of the notes that are part of Tolkien's Silmarillion backstory. A lot of Tolkien fanfic is less driven by hard plot than by the desire for the author, and readers, to take a lingering mental ramble through Middle-Earth. And why not? It goes back to the heart of why we all read Tolkien fanfiction, because we love Tolkien and want to explore his universe more.
So, in this fan writing tradition, Magweth Pengolod is a long genfic based on some of the notes that are part of Tolkien's Silmarillion backstory. You may enjoy this if you are interested in Númenor or in the Silmarillion in general, or if a philosophical exploration of differences between elves and mortals is up your alley. There will be 12 parts. Magweth Pengolod has got linguistics, romance, drag queens, schemers, villains, boats galore, and through the tale-within-a-tale device, plenty of Silmarillion glimpses and some HoME characters getting fleshed out. I owe thanks to my beloved beta readers, as ever, and to the Tolkien linguist Claudio for helping to translate the title.
HoME? By this I mean History of Middle-Earth. The History of Middle-Earth books are a 14-volume set of Tolkien's notes, incomplete writings, and draft versions. Once you have memorized Lord of the Rings and made it through The Silmarillion, these are the last stop for hard-core Tolkien fans. Nine of these volumes were distilled into one book, The Silmarillion, by Tolkien's son Christopher editing his father's work after Tolkien's death. What this means is that there's a LOT of stuff that never saw formal print that is published in these volumes, good stuff for fans of every aspect of Tolkien's Middle-Earth, be it elves, orcs, hobbits, dwarves, or humans. The volume Unfinished Tales, which collected several of the more presentable/general-interest fragments, is also included in the HoME text family by fans. Still with me?
Lots of the material in HoME is just as boring as you'd think, but there are also fascinating pieces and well-developed characters that never made it into the Silmarillion. Magweth Pengolodh: The Question of Pengolod, is based on those interesting bits. The two primary protagonists, Pengolod and Aelfwine, are both HoME characters, but if you've only read The Silmarillion, you should be OK with this story. (I've taken the license for my Aelfwine reinterpretation from a letter of Tolkien's, Letter 257, and my spelling of "Pengolod" without the H at the end from the index of HoME-War of the Jewels.) I'm having a great time creating an interpretation of Tolkien's Numenor, toying with some of Tolkien's philosophy, and exploring some of my Middle-Earth imaginings and place-setting that have been in the background of my stories.
Honestly, I expect three, maybe four people to be up for reading this one. A 12-part story based on HoME characters? Spiced up with linguistic obsession and drag queens? If I'd sat down and thought really hard about how to scare off 95% of Tolkien fan readers, that's what I'd come up with. But this is what my writing muses brought me. Magweth Pengolodh is my great big fanfic folly. So if you're in the mood for a Middle-Earth ramble, come along...
Other news from this date: In September and October of 2004, lots of people wanted to slide into that essay Warm Beds are Good. Not only was it printed in Issue #42 of Mallorn, the journal of the Tolkien Society, it's also been translated into German (courtesy of the talented and classy Stephanie Dorer), and it will be translated into Polish and republished in the wonderful Polish fanzine, Aiglos. I'm flummoxed and humbled by all this attention for thirteen little pages. If you speak German, also courtesy of Ms. Dorer, there is now an Ansereg En Deutsch page that collects all the German translations of my fan writing. -waves happily at German readers- At this time, there was also a significant linguistic update to that old chestnut, What Tolkien Officially Said About Elf Sex. It turns out that Tolkien created a little more Quenya vocabulary than I was aware of when I wrote the essay. Well well well! These terms, incidentally, date from the 1920s word-lists, and this was a time period when Tolkien's writing dealt more frequently (less rarely?) with romance and other associated activities. Massive thanks to a sharp-eyed reader for pointing this out. I'm sure she's 1000% more of a talented linguist than I am.