Hole In The Ground Podcast

In this episode, the ladies are back to break down Ian McKellen's delightful blog about his time filming LOTR and recent casting news out of the Cube (Amazon.) Then, for the meat of the episode, the salted pork if you will, we speak with yet another bona fide very smart person, Sarah's good bud Rachel, whose dissertation included an interesting discussion of madness in LOTR. We also make the case for Pippin in this episode, and Hobbit wisdom more generally. Then to close out, our Shadowfact deals with the Rings of Power and the Unseen - spooky. Thanks for listening!

In this episode, Sarah and Caity have a very special guest on - Caity's sister Anna! Anna is a professional opera singer and bona fide music nerd, so we had her on to discuss Howard Shore's gorgeous score to Peter Jackson's LOTR Trilogy. We also discuss recent news, as usual, and our Shadowfact this week answers the question "Why do I have to read so many songs when I read The Lord of the Rings??" Sorry for any Khuzdul singing attempted in this episode If you want to follow along, a link to a Spotify playlist can be found below. If you use a different platform for music, or none at all, the songs we chose are: 1. Khazad-dum 2. Gilraen's Memorial 3. The Passing of the Elves 4. Mount Doom Links: 1. Why does JRR Tolkien Put So Many Songs Into his Books?: https://middle-earth.xenite.org/why-does-j-r-r-tolkien-put-so-many-songs-into-his-books/ 2. Spotify Playlist with all songs: https://open.spotify.com/user/125795843/playlist/7o1Dy86RLNXkcUwOTVlK8t?si=wsKlqW8wR_-KmmEGlIpDPw

Happy Holidays, everyone! Caity and Sarah are back with a festive lil episode; a gift in the darkest time of the year. In November, we got to see each other in the flesh in the lovely city of Boston, MA, where we plotted the new season of the pod and shopped for old books (of course). We're so looking forward to being back regularly, but until then, we've got a bit of Christmas cheer for you. This episode features a round-up of some Amazon casting news (dubious at best), why we ourselves can't be cast (a disappointment for all), a seasonal Shadowfact on the calendars of Middle-earth and Yule in the Shire, and a reading of one of Tolkien's Father Christmas Letters. So grab a mug of hot chocolate and a cozy blanket and spend a bit of the Christmas holiday with us!

Guess what y'all we got another guest. Its my nephews, Blake and Bryce! We watched Fellowship together and...well, actually mostly Blake - Bryce wasn't that into it so he watched Minecraft videos in the other room. BUT I after the film I asked Blake what he thought of the whole thing - I was interested in what a tween nowadays would think of the PJ films, and I've always wanted to watch the films with them. We also round up the Amazon show news (this was recorded before the most recent map came out so forgive us), and have a really good time with this week's Shadowfact. In homage to our long distance podcasting, Sarah led us through all the methods of long distance communication present in late 3rd age Gondor! ep. image credit to u/UncleGriswold on reddit

The ladies are back with a more relaxed week - free of the fate of the souls of elves and men, we discuss the things that really matter, like why nobody in Laketown wears pants? Thats right, we watched the 1977 Hobbit film, directed by Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr., which neither of us had seen! Give it a gander to play along, the episode includes some play by play commentary, but is primarily our discussion before and after we watched. We really really enjoyed this lovely film :) then we broke down some Arkenstone conspiracy theories in this week’s Shadowfact

In this episode we debrief the news, then jump right into our interview with friend of the pod James, a PhD student in the Dept for the Study of Religion, future priest in the Anglican Church of Canada aka Episcopal Church of the USA, and huge Tolkien fan. We are discussing the Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth, which is a discussion between elven king Finrod Felagund and Andreth, wise woman of the house of Beor, about the nature of the souls of elves and men. Then our Shadowfact of the week will be a surprise to nobody who follows us on Twitter: Huan! We hope you enjoy! read along with the Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth: https://thainsbook.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/athrabeth.pdf

The ladies are back from Christmas break discussing breaking news as usual, then move on to this week's homework: "The Laws and Customs Among The Eldar," and its relationship to medieval legal codes. Its a text about what happens to elves after they die, how to dissolve an indissoluble elven union meant to last into eternity, the fact that JRRT got randy in the springtime, and how Feanor is actually a normcore mullet guy. This week's Shadowfact is...Vinyamar! Beware of old armor, swans, and Ulmo god of all waters, may his wisdom and mercy guide us forever

Sarah and Caity are back to discuss breaking news, like Viggo's recommended reading, how Tolkien will officially be Hot in 2019, etc. Then we run through our personal JRRT book collections, just in time to remind you which editions to bother your relatives about buying you for Christmas. Last, the Shadowfact of the Week: The Ring of Barahir

Sarah and Caity introduce themselves and talk about how they got to know Tolkien in the inaugural episode of Hole in the Ground! Read more about Luke Shelton's work here: https://luke-shelton.com/tolkien-experience-project/ See the work of artist Zipavika here: http://zipavika.tumblr.com/