#esotolkienweek

Esoteric Tolkien Week - Books and Maps

Swords of the wandering star

Well, look who it is...

That's right, Esoteric Tolkien Week, your center for all things strange, mystical, inexplicable, and unfathomed in Arda and beyond, is back for round two! We are open to all types and ratings of fanwork, and are eager to welcome returners and new faces alike. A few bits of useful tattle for the moment:

Further information and event guidelines can be found here

Prompts will be released by the end of the month (March 31st, 2026)

Event planned to run July 13th - 19th, 2026

An ao3 collection will open closer to the run date—if you have any work hanging around that you'd like to submit now, or just want to get inspired, you can find the small but mighty 2025 collection here

And that's about it for now! Feel free to jump in the askbox with any burning questions you come up with in the meantime, or any other words that need sharing.

Looking forward to creating with you again in this second lap of ours 💫 Welcome, or welcome back.

— mod @riding-with-the-wild-hunt

Here is my submission for @esotolkienweek!

@esotolkienweek day five | ruins | eregion-that-was

The travellers reached a low ridge crowned with ancient hollytrees whose grey-green trunks seemed to have been built out of the very stone of the hills. Their dark leaves shone and their berries glowed red in the light of the rising sun. Away in the south Frodo could see the dim shapes of lofty mountains that seemed now to stand across the path that the Company was taking. At the left of this high range rose three peaks; the tallest and nearest stood up like a tooth tipped with snow; its great, bare, northern precipice was still largely in the shadow, but where the sunlight slanted upon it, it glowed red. Gandalf stood at Frodo’s side and looked out under his hand. ‘We have done well,’ he said. ‘We have reached the borders of the country that Men call Hollin; many Elves lived here in happier days, when Eregion was its name.’ [...] ‘I think we will rest here, not only today but tonight as well. There is a wholesome air about Hollin. Much evil must befall a country before it wholly forgets the Elves, if once they dwelt there.’ ‘That is true,’ said Legolas. ‘But the Elves of this land were of a race strange to us of the silvan folk, and the trees and the grass do not now remember them. Only I hear the stones lament them: deep they delved us, fair they wrought us, high they builded us; but they are gone. They are gone. They sought the Havens long ago.’

—The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, “The Ring Goes South”

@esotolkienweek day one: lands ༝ the witch-realm of angmar

1 "the kingdom of angmar was founded in the far north of the misty mountains by the lord of the nazgûl, who was then aptly named the 'witch-king of angmar.' rising in TA 1300, angmar was established with the purpose of quelling the dúnedain of the north and the remains of arnor."

2 "the capital of angmar was carn dûm. it was the realm’s greatest fortress and served also as the seat of its king; it stood on the northwestern hand of the mountains of angmar. a mountain fortress of evil, carn dûm was inhabited by dark-willed men, orcs, and other fell creatures in service to the witch king of angmar."

@esotolkienweek

According to a text in The Nature of Middle-earth, Numenoreans could send out a mental call to their horses, a bit like Gandalf does to Shadowfax, although probably not across quite such long distances. Inspired by this, here is a ficlet about Isildur's get-away after he stole the last fruit of the White Tree of Numenor almost from under the noses of Ar-Pharazon and Sauron.

I have sneaked several of the event's prompt words in here.

Isildur stumbled down a narrow side alley in the dark, almost hugging the wall, partly because he did not want to be seen, but also because his legs kept buckling under him. He had got a fair distance away from the Courtyard of the Tree before he realized just how badly the guards had succeeded in wounding him, but now he was enduring the effects, the blood loss and the pain. He hoped he was still walking in the right direction.

Gen, Warning for Mentions of Canon Suicide | Summary:

Mandos will not take me.

Only that thought lingered within Gurthang. It was caught between veils of time and place, and it did not know whither its soul had gone nor whither it would go. It did not know even if it had a soul to speak of. Such a thing was rather important to have when deciding what would happen after death.

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