The Silmarillion Readathon Livestream Event

So just while we wait for the formal beginning of our session, people who I can see you in the background, this is Zoom so if you want to ask a question or we can promote you to actually being on the screen or can use your voice, but the big event of course will be the quiz and the quiz is coming up for you to click through when we get there, but we've got a couple of things we're going to do first and you can see it live streamed on Facebook as well if you're, you know, there's various ways you can see us, but thank you to the people who already come and joined us. I need to last about 45 minutes so, you know, you will be able to get on with the rest of your day and in one of you might be our prize winner, I have to see. That's excellent. I do do one of these and some of the people who come might remember I did a quiz for the Lord of the Rings Reader Fund celebration and the feedback I got was it was fiendishly difficult, but a lot of people asked for copies of it because I think they wanted to go away and test it out on their friends, so this time I've done more multiple choice questions, so everybody has a higher chance of getting to actually answer it, oh Jill, hi, so please put your hello's in the chat, Jill is lovely to have you because I noticed that you were one of the people who put in a lot of feedback to the, the Summarillion Reader Fund as it went along, and that's really, really appreciated. So Karen, I'd like to question, Kirsten is one of our elves who works in the background, who's really helps us out on the social media, right, and we've got Jacob as well, right, so let's make this the official start, having waited for people to join us. So welcome everybody to the celebration of our Summarillion Reader Fund, there's people joining us live on Zoom, who are going to be participating in our quiz with a chance to win a prize, and there'll be people watching on live on Facebook, but you can't join in the quiz on Facebook, you'll just have to enjoy watching us, nick over to the link on the Facebook and get into the Zoom if you want to actually be part of the quiz. And of course those of you watching on catch up, who didn't see us at the time, hello to you too, you are in our thoughts, joining me, and my name is Julia Golding, I am the director of the Oxford Centre for Fantasy and an author, but also a massive fan of Tolkien, but I'm also joined by people who have come through as really good friends to the centre, I always enjoy chatting to them, so we've got Paula Calamaris, Paula just want to say hi and who you are. Hi, I'm Paula Calamaris, I'm an author, I own a small publishing company called Scribes Unlimited, we just put out our first book of our new saga, and hi, we love Tolkien, I just stopped teaching a class, I'm really good, and so. And Jacob, let's say hi, Jacob Renekka, let's say hi, say who you are. Hi, yes, Jacob Renekka, Tolkien enthusiast, scholar, creative writer, etc. Yeah, and also now working for a company that makes games. Yes, very exciting, anyway, but today we are talking about the Silmarillion, so I've got three main things I want to do with you, the first thing is I'm going to be chatting with Jacob and Paula, who both led, I think one or two chapters each, I also led a couple of chapters when someone didn't get back to us, I was kind of quick, quick leader chapter Julia, so I've led, I think three in the end, and then I've got my artwork, which I made for the Silmarillion, which I wanted to show you and share with you, because it was really fun coming up with images, and then we'll do the quiz. Actually, we might get the other way around, we'll do the quiz, and whilst they're collating the results, so her brilliant idea, Golding, I will then show you the pictures whilst they're collating the results. Anyway, so thank you to all the people who are joining us. If you wish to say anything, please put us in the chat and we can involve you that way. Okay, so the first question, I have to Paula and Jacob, and to those of you who led a chapter, is what was the favourite thing you found in the chapter or chapters that you led? Paula, over to you first, because both of you had an early chapter to lead, didn't you? Right, I did the first chapter of the Vala Kalenta, and I'm fascinated by origin stories. I find them compelling. In fact, I'm teaching at a class this winter on mythological origin stories and how they interpret into literature, and I just found that the whole concept, because in the Lord of the Rings you don't really have that much religion, a worldly disgust. I mean, you have a few hymns to Albara, you have a few things, but there's no actual exchange vows in front of the tree and stuff like that, but you don't really have religion, and yet the beginning of the Vala Kalenta where they're talking about how the Vala and the Maya are helping Eru and Eruvatu, as you want to call them, start the world and begin that there are so many other Vala, or Maya, who are anor, who stay with him, and yet this group comes to Middle-earth and they become the demigods, the gods who are over there in Valinor, and our influentialists are getting this on, and the moon are influential into doing everything, and it's the music, and what they are doing and how they're doing it that just fascinates me. Yeah, so I think Jacob, you also had origins, didn't you? Yeah, I did. Yeah, I had Vala Kalenta. But you also led another one a bit later on, I think. I did, yeah, yeah, I did one of men, so one of the shortest titles and shortest chapters, so those are always great as a student, right? You always want to be a artist, right? And the first, the quickest, so you have to do a little bit of research first to know which ones you get, but it's incredibly rich, and I think this was something that really, kind of focusing in on that chapter of men, was something that kind of colored my reading of the Silmarillion this through, which was really, you know, seeing the difference between the perspective of humans and elves, right? So for me, I think this time around, yeah, that chapter, kind of, because this is all the Silmarillion is from the Elvish perspective, right? And so you never really get that Lord of the Rings is from a hobbitish perspective, well-flavored by, you know, humans as well, but really it's supposed to be, you know, primary point of view is hobbits. So it has a story, and I think it's, I think a lot of people, it's easy to connect with Lord of the Rings, because I think we're more hobbitish than we are Elvish, socially, and perhaps intellectually, and emotionally, and spiritually, what not. But it's an Elvish, so this is really kind of like reframed and said, so here's what elves know about humans and how they see humans and the kind of vast difference between those and then kind of providing proper framing for the rest of the Silmarillion, and for what went before. So yeah, that was something that I think this time around really stood out to me that we see a little bit, and I have to bring up rings of power, but like that's, you know, they kind of touched on that theme of where the difference in perspective on time, right, with Elrond and Durin, and Durin, sure. Feeling abandoned, because his friend, he hadn't been there in 20 years, but for an elf, that was kind of a blink of an eye, and you just went out for a few minutes. 20 years, no, exactly, I just said that. So that was something that was like really helpful, I think in kind of the Silmarillion understanding, the perspective that it's supposed to be embodying them. Right, so don't forget everybody that we are going to be having a prize. So for those of you who have picked up on your Silmarillion knowledge, so I hope you're all polishing it away like you are burnishing your own Silmarillion brains. So I could ended up getting by happenstance, because the people who volunteered didn't then reply, I ended up getting Baron and Lucian. Yay, I mean, wow, good catch up to find myself leading. And what I really liked being reminded about is got some wonderful, wonderful imagery in it. So it happened to be, I think it fell on Halloween when we posted that, and there's a really spooky bit, which I hadn't noticed about Baron's journey prior to arriving in the Hidden Realm. And I got really interested in the idea of this spooky, I almost want to read that bit to you, it's quite early on. So I'm just going to have a look, there's this, it says it's like too horrific and all the stories, there's a whole world we don't know about Baron, I got really interested in that. But the other thing that I loved about it was remembering that very folkloric thing of the trick, where yes, I have the Silmarillion in my hand. But by the way, my hand is in the belly of a wolf. Kind of, I fulfilled what you, the task you've set me, but in a really different way from how we all expected. And that wonderful trick, reversing of expectations I enjoyed. And the other chapter ended up with is the very last one, oddly, which is of the rings of power and the third age. And well, that's just like, it's a huge sweep, it's like, you know, if you wanted a quick quick sort of reminder of what you need to know before you read Lord of the Rings, it's the perfect one to read, because it gives all the, all the little details of what the White Council are doing. And it's also, it's a palette cleanser after having watched rings of power to remind you of the talking version of the same material. So people have criticised us from talking about rings of power a lot, but I thought it was really important to talk about it. But now we've gone past the rings of power moment, and you want to reset to Tolkien, go back and read that chapter and you'll find, okay, yes, I now, I'm back, I've cleared away the inventions of Amazon and I'm back at Tolkien. So Karen, would you like to speak, because my trusty team are ready to promote you to speaking voice, if you'd like to tell us about the theme you liked. Yeah, hi, can you hear me? Okay, very, very well. So yeah, it was the, I had the chapter for the flights of the Noodle where everyone was leaving. And there was a really nice theme coming through of just the, the loss of treasure. So it wasn't really just focusing on one thing of actual treasure like you see in the other books. Later, it's small, the treasure of what it means to be at home or what it means to have the environment that you've been in for 20 years, your friends, your family, even possessions that you've got. So I really liked how that was getting ripped apart and the Nordic having to consider leaving with all of that and the impact that that has on them, not just, not just in that situation, but for the future as well because they would have to potentially start over, get new friends, get new family, leave people behind that they, they trust. And that idea of treasure, I think you reminded me of something Karen, which is, you know, how YouTube starts throwing up things you're interested in in your algorithm. One of the things it threw up to me recently is a copy of the 1960s, I think 1968, they're about BBC interview with Tolkien in colour. Yeah. And I started playing it and one of the things that really struck me is he said, I decided I wanted to tell a long tale about someone traveling with a magical object, a magical treasure. Yeah. And that idea that it's that holding it in your hand, that magical, it seems like really key to him because it, because actually whilst the Lord of the Rings is about carrying a magical object, this dangerous magical object, the Silmarillion is about going to get them when they've been stolen. So it's clearly really fundamental to the way Tolkien sees fantasy as this idea of the treasure. Yeah, it's woven into all the books that he writes, there's always an element of that. So yeah. The way that it's divided slightly more, if not just being gold this. And don't you say the real treasure is the Shire? Or, yeah, a nice chair and a warm book, a warm cup of tea with a book, is a treasure enough. Sleeping in a bed. As Brian has said in the chat, if you do want to join in like Karen, it has just has, please do raise your hand and he will bring it to my attention and we can have you all involved. So that's the favourite thing about the chapter we led. So looking at some million as a whole, Paula and Jacob and others, what were your reflections? Because I know you weren't first time readers. If anyone is a first time reader of the Silmarillion and wants to put that into the chat, that'd be really interesting. But we're all old hands at this. This time going back to the Silmarillion, what did you feel and think? So I'll go to Jacob first this time. Yeah, one of my favourite parts of the Ina Lindale is you have your threefold repetition of the song. Well, there's three different verses really and different reactions to those. And then the third one, after we're told that Melchor is trying to do his solo and have everybody else conform to the way that he wants to sing the song. Eluvatar weaves everything in together. And that there's a theme, there's this kind of thread of sorrow that runs kind of prominently through that third theme. And that is really the working out of history as we see it. And so I've always loved that. But then actually that image is part of the human experience, right? Kind of a grand tragedy, but then ultimately being woven together with good. And if with the way it describes Nihanna in the Valiquenta is that she kind of takes weeping and sorrow and kind of transmutes it somehow into wisdom. And then Gandalf is kind of a disciple of hers. And that's kind of what he does among the people of Middle-earth is showing the sorrow and trying to we've wisdom out of that and run it to a positive end. So seeing that theme play out in the Silmarillion, I was kind of more sensitive to that. And you know, it's like Galadriel says, you know, kind of the long defeat, it's this you know that things aren't going to work out the way that the people want them to. But kind of those those kind of many you catastrophes, right? These little kind of like happy turning points that something that was a tragedy. Ultimately, something is taken from that that's positive kind of woven into the larger picture that allows for something incredibly positive to happen and allows other people to really thrive because of that. So that was just kind of an example of one thing that kind of followed that thread throughout the rest of the Silmarillion just because it's not it's not a happy book. You have a little moment to kind of happiness, right? If you're going for like a warm comfort read, like this is not the book to do that with. But it's but if you want something that like really, I think digs into the deepest and most poignant parts of the human experience, namely kind of like loss decline. So how you deal with that and then how that can come out for good in the end, I think it's it's an incredible kind of working out of that over a massive scale of time. Do you know what makes me happy? Jacob, it's hearing you say, I know Linda, say it again. I know, Linda. I'm not almost impossible to say. Anybody else out there? That's the name of the very, if you look at the table of contents, there we go. That's the very first thing in the that I'm trying to, I've got a background on. There you are. That's how you say that word. That was worth coming along. The price of admission, yeah. I know Linda, yeah. Yeah. So Paula, how about you? Did you have any new thoughts about the shape of the Silmarillion as a whole? Just coming off teaching eight weeks of Lord of the Rings in the last week we spent the entire time on the appendices. I tortured my class. I took aspects of the Silmarillion that related that whole last of the third age and I had them read that as well. I did find, and it just reminded me, not that it was new, but it reminded me of how Elrond tells them the elves have their own sorrows and how the perception in Lord of the Rings are these immortal beings who are perfect and they've done nothing wrong and everything. What I always get from the Silmarillion is how fan or how the others are just so consumed by this quest brought to get the stones back to do it, that they destroy their families, they destroy their gunslaying alone, always gives me chills. Yeah. We do it again. It's a really long running curse that one, because it doesn't actually come to an end. Well, arguably it never comes to an end really, but it doesn't come to the end till the chapter with Ayrendil. But we're not going to talk about, because that's one of my quiz questions, so I'm going to stop. Okay. Well, we've got that talk about that. But I'm just saying that was just it just forced it in me and really upset my class. You were tortured and upset class. I tortured them with the appendices and I made some videos questions and they were not happy, but actually they loved every minute of it. I think we've got 15 new diehard fans. So just to let you know, in this case, because I know the Summarillion is harder to grasp. You are allowed to answer these with a copy of the Summarillion next to you, just saying. So if you want to quickly, you know, dash to your bookshelf and get it, I'll give you like a couple of minutes to do that. So just quickly, oh, I haven't said what I thought about the shape. What it reminded me, which I did kind of know, you know, you have this knowledge and then you forget it, is actually the Summarillion is only one part of the Summarillion that as we understand it, that the the story about Numenol or the rings of power and the foundational stories are actually out, sit outside and it's a choice of the editor to name it after the Summarillion section. So I just needed reminding of that and that reminds us too that this isn't in the shape that Tolkien, he did obviously a lot of the writing, but he doesn't get the final say because he's already gone by the time this is published. So all those things influence the way the tale is. Right, so just very quickly. Yeah. I had the opportunity of listening to Guy Gavry, okay, who helped compile the Summarillion and one of the things that he said to me that stuck with me that everyone might like to hear is that he was told by Professor Tolkien that don't tell everybody everything. Oh, that's right. And they're just stayed with me. So Richard, would you like to speak, Brian, could you promote Richard to speaking? Hey, Richard, are you able to speak? Yes. Yeah, I was just comparing when I first got my copy of Summarillion, I found it very dense. Yeah. And I had the image that the Summarillion was the Old Testament and Lord of the Rings was the New Testament because it was told more as a story rather than the history and the bigots and the bigots and the bigots. Absolutely. I think you're completely right that I must admit the first time I read the Summarillion, it was because I was a fan and I felt I had to get through it a bit like if I'm doing read a Bible in a year, I feel I've got to get through numbers and I don't know, Leviticus and stuff just because it's there. I think it gets more enjoyable. I don't know if you feel this Richard, the more you know, the more enjoyable it is and the more you find the good stories, the equivalent of the Jonas and the the Ruth. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you, Richard. That's lovely. So just the final question before we go to the quiz, everybody getting their quiz brains ready. How do you think putting along the Summarillion alongside Tolkien's works and other fantasy works? How do you see it fitting? Is there, for example, is there another fantasy book out there that's like this? We're all looking a bit blank. If anybody knows of one, put it. In terms of sensibility, I was thinking I was chewing a lot on that question. I think in terms of cosmic scope and sensibility and planning and building out world with a long-term plan, I think Brandon Sanderson, not that he's doing the same thing, but kind of in terms of his conceptualization of taking his plans to take a story and weaving in a few different kind of main categories of characters, stories, and even genres, and then having a plan for over, you know, even just with the way of kings that's projected at what like 10, 12 book series it's supposed to also tie into some of these other various series that is doing. So I think just in terms of scope and like care to world and how different story threads are going to be weaving together, I think you see echoes of that and Sanderson's a big Tolkien fan, so it's clearly kind of where he was inspired to do that. So yeah, but yeah, that's the closest I could think of in terms of just kind of cosmic scope of scale for time period and sensibilities with narrative is the closest I could really think of, which is just suggested at McCaffrey's Dragon Riders. I haven't read the entirety of that scope, I do know it was taken on by his son, wasn't it, I think, and continued. So that is a similarity. You get the sort of like Christopher Tolkien taking this on and building the expanding the world and also the sense of the length of time involved. How about you, Paula, how do you, if you've seen anything like this anywhere else, I can agree with the Dragon Riders, I can, David Eddings tried to create a full scope, in 10 books tried to create a full, I think he felt short, but I think that was his intent was to create an entire fantasy world with a quest and a king and all of the elements, but and again, long lived wizards and a sense of thousands of years passing between things. I think he felt short, but they were enjoyable then just weren't. Just weren't, just weren't talking. Just weren't talking. Richard talking suggesting the June series. I do know what I like, this is confession time. I failed in the June series. I read the first one or two, but when the main character turned into a worm, I kind of got, I kind of got, I kind of got, put off. So maybe Richard, you could encourage me to keep going with it. Yeah, anyway, that was my problem there. Okay, ready for quiz now. So quiz team, standby. So quiz users, just a couple of things to be aware of. When you hit next, that moves you on to the next question, but it'd be nicer if you do it at the same pace as me, if you don't mind, but don't hit submit until you're 100% sure, this a bit is like the last box you reach. Don't hit that until you're sure that you've answered all the questions you want to answer. And I will tell you the parameters of what's acceptable each time. The price is, the person gets a coupon to go and spend in our store. We were thinking, should we give them a t-shirt? Should we do this? We do that. But actually, we thought that you might like to buy yourself something and a friend something, for example. So we're going to give you a coupon. And there's some really great stuff in the store. Not just Oxford Central Fantasy theme, but more generally fantasy themed. There's some wonderful, an illustrator I work with over here has done a great dragon, for example. So if you're looking for a new image of a dragon to wear on your t-shirt, there's one out there. Okay. Oh, so Karen's saying, can we have a link to the store? Yes, absolutely. I will ask my team to put that in so you can all go and check it out. It's on our website, it's on our Facebook page as well. But we will put it into the chat. But let's turn to the quiz. So, elves, could we please have the quiz? There we go. So here we go. Question number one, please are the panelists, other leaders, Paula and Jacob, can you now mute yourself? Because you probably know all the answers. So we don't want you to sort of be glirting them out in the background. Anyway, so here we go. Question number one, as you know, Tolkien is very fond of his pairings, his marriages between races. Which of these who come out of the Somarillion are not a human and elf pairing. Now, just to be checked, check, sometimes the elf in question maybe have a bit of human blood in them. So basically, which one is not human and not elf? So, the options are, single and million, barren and Lucian, two war and Idril, an arrogant and arwin. Okay, everybody pick one. So now, click on next and that should take you to the next quiz question. Who is Finrod? Is Finrod one of the sons of Fianno? Is Finrod Fianno's father? Is Finrod Galadriel's brother? Or is Finrod a valar ruling the ocean? One in four chance of getting that right. I can see Paul is saying, I can't speak. She wants to tell us all. She's desperate to tell us. Okay. Question number three, and this is what I almost gave away when I was chatting about a certain chapter. Where do the Silmarils end their journey? The final location of them. Is their final location in Morgoth's crown? Is their final location in air, fire and water? Is their final location in the undying lands, sky and sea? Or is it in barren's hand? The one that ends up in a, yeah, that one. Have a pick. I hope this isn't too tricky because at least you've got some answers therefore you'd pick from. I think it's quite a hard one now when I was making up the quiz. It was quite hard to find fair questions because you know it's quite a naughty book. What's the details? Okay. Next question, did you notice the talking dog such the best character? What is the talking dogs name? Now I'm going to give you a little clue here. It's a short name. So you won't need all 20 characters in that box. He only speaks three times. Isn't there someone thinking in the Bible about? Is it Balan's ass or somebody who speaks? Anyway, it feels as though it's come from the Bible, that idea, but I love the idea of this dog who speaks three times. He chooses his moment. All of you have got dogs. Imagine they speak two three times. That mine would be feed me each time. But this dog says something a bit more interesting. So moving on, don't forget you can quickly flick through your copy of some really, and if you're looking to remind yourself. Who kills said dog? Boo is it? Harker off the wolf. Galau wrong the dragon. Thorondor the eagle or ungoliant the spider. Just a little sidebar here on aren't the animals in Tolkien so good? Just love them. There is a lot to say about all of those, but which one kills this wonderful dog? Okay, going on. Question number six, what is special about the menal tarmer, which is the tallest mountain in Numenor, the island? Is menal tarmer the site of Armenalos the main city? If you watched rings of power, that actually did quite a good job at recreating Armenalos cycle. Or is it number two, the burial place of kings? Or is it number three, the sole place of worship mentioned in Middle-earth? Or is it the location of the palantory, you know, the seeing stones? By the way, rings of power, strange thread. He's also a sister. She's left looking and then she disappears. Anyway, weird. Oh, Karen's just reminded us that the horse of Achilles talks. Oh, so it's classical as well. Excellent. Which of course Tolkien would have known because he was an educated man as we can all agree? Okay, I have to fess up here. I got this wrong when I was making the quiz. So I hope I've got it right now. In which city did Isldoer settle? So you know, there was an Aryan, a Lendil and Isldoer, father and two sons. Did Isldoer settle in Minas, a No? Could be careful, you sound a bit weird when you say that. Or Minas Ithal. Which ones did he go for? You've got 50, 50 choice. So if you're doing really badly and no none of the answers, this is the place to come back and score a point, 50% chance. And then the next question that builds on that is, what did that city become? Did it become Minas Morgul? Or did it become Minas Tirith? Hmm, head scratching. It is there in the Silmarillion. So we're over halfway now. What is the name of Airendel Ship? We will forgive you if you spell it slightly wrong because we'll be able to tell if you're in the right ballpark. And the other thing, if that you have absolutely no idea, you can come up with a witty answer, the kind of boat-y-mat-boat face version of what it should be called. And we'll be able to see that and we can give you a bonus point for, you know, wit. So it's interesting all these stories about the sea, you know, like islands that get swamped by the sea and all this kind of thing. Because of course, one of the strange things about Oxford where I'm talking to you from is that we are famously as far from the sea in England as you can get. It's kind of one of the ironies. There's lots of rivers and they flood, but we're not we're very far from the sound of the sea. Maybe, ah, thought, maybe that's why the Hobbits have never seen the sea. Do you remember, they've all not been to the seaside? And that's because they live in Oxford, basically. There you are. The mystery is solved. Okay, so number 10, this is one of the more difficult ones, so we'll do a quick flip through the Somerillion here. Who are L-Rond and L-Ross's parents? Again, if you spell it a bit, yeah, we won't mind. But see if you can get it right. L-Ross, L-Rond, you all know. Obviously, L-Ross is the person who chose to be human and set up the line in Numenor. And because of his parents, that's why the men of Numenor live a bit longer than everyone else. Well, quite a bit longer, in fact, than other men. So number 11, what do the Valar make to cast light on Valenor? Do they make two lamps? Do they make two trees? Do they make a sound in a moon? Or do they make all of the above? I'm supposed to be included in the Eru kind of, you know, whoever is running the software program behind this, playing the tune. Number 12 is who makes the dwarves? Ah, this is a name that may not be of the tip of your tongue, so we say. So if you know what his job is, you can say he is the one who does this. The Valar of something. I can see Karen is already asking me about number 11. I have to ask you why, when I give the answer, you can come and give your count of you. How about that, Karen? Not that I've given you the answer yet. Okay, so a Lauren, which is Gandalf's name in the West, is described as the wisest of them, Maya, from whom does he learn pity and patience? Is it Niena, Melian, S-Day, or Nori Brandyfoot, that well-known character from the Summarillion? Yeah, Geralt, I agree. Yeah, obviously. That's another conversation, is it about, anyway, we'll go there. We're in the middle of a quiz. Control yourself, Golding. Right, number 14. Who cuts a Silmaril from Morgoff's Iron Crown with Angrist? And this is just such a great bit of prose, that bit. So who cuts the Silmaril from Morgoff's Iron Crown? So don't hit submit until you're absolutely sure of all your answers because you can't get it back. Final question, is who made the three Elven rings all on their own? Sorry, it's quite a good chance that you should be able to get this. So forget rings of power, ignore that, because there were other people in the room who made them all on their own. Don't let that confuse you. Okay, when you are happy that you've made all the answers you're going to make, press submit and it will go off to be tabulated. You've got 30 seconds to do that. And whilst we are waiting for the answers to be verified and checked, so that voting machines are not being controlled by the ghost of Hugo Chavez or any of that stuff, I am going to play you a little slideshow of the art that I did to illustrate each chapter. I want to show you this because I was to do this. I got interested in this AI art. And I don't know if you've come across this yet, but it's really fun. You can just put in some prompts, but I thought you might be intrigued to see what they made of the Silmarillion. Obviously, I could have spent hours and really polished up the images, but I thought they gave a really nice flavor of the Silmarillion. So this slideshow I'm going to show you is taken in order of the chapters. So see if you can tell which chapter we're on. So the poll is about to close in 15 seconds. So if you're still humming and hiring over your answers, please put them in now. Okay, so here we go. I'm going to play you the slideshow. Acab and Paula, some stuff if you can see that. Okay, because if you can see it, it went else. Yeah, good. Some of the images really works. Some of them, AI art does is one weird thing where it suddenly gives people weird heads and wrong noses. But anyway, I love the atmosphere, it creates it. Not this one. That's mouthful, obviously. Here's the Silmarillion. Really like this one. This one worked well. This is the Flight of the Noodle. The creation of the sun and the of men. What that's about walking it. Fairie Yands. You're right for the men or the coming of men. This one. I like the African feel for that. The ones got glow on the jacket a bit. Baron and Lucian. The battle one. The fifth battle. Children, I think. It's all of Doria's. All of London in. Really like this one. Help her out. They're into human all going down the there we go. So I'm just going to go back and turn that off. So there we go. If you can't find images from Silmarillion, you can go. Oh, so the question is. AI created these says to see yes. Well, obviously my brilliance. Because I chose the things to put in the front. But I did I did actually have to try a couple of words because the sun really is so specific that you can't just type in a Silmarillion. I expect it to come out. You had to put in some things to lead it to. But I would say that I don't think illustrators for books need worry yet because they aren't perfect when he means. But the atmosphere was right for an asset online. And I just thought some of them were actually quite successful. And they suggested atmospheres and strange versions of things which I actually found quite inspiring. So there we are. Thank you Jill. Yes. No, Nancy says not easy to use. Yeah, I take my hat off to those people who managed to comb it through so they get the perfect image. Okay, so my elves, how are we doing? Do we have a result as yet? They stepped out for a short 40 years. They'll be right back. We'll see them in a hundred. See them on min's. Yeah, so they're working on elf time. So this is this is worrying. We're all going to be like you said there was a coupon. Okay. So yeah, I was saying it. Oh, okay, we give the answers. Wonderful. So you can mark yourself. But what happens is you can sort of scroll down, see how you did, which of these isn't a human and elf pairing? It's single and million because million is a Maya and not elf or human. So single and million is the right answer there. Who is Finrod? This is a bit um, Trixie. Somebody said Trixie question because of course there's lots of F's floating around. And he's oh, here we go. We've actually got everybody's answers here. 95% of you were correct there. Who is Finrod? Galadriel's brother. Oh, another lot of lots of right answers. Can you all see this? Not just me seeing this, yes. Where do the Silmarils and the journey that most of you picked the right answer? It's in air, fire and water. We've got various people guessing the dog's name. We're all sort of roughly in the right ballpark. It's Juan. Woof. I like woof. Good name. Um, who kills the dog? Wow, look at that. Everybody got that right. Um, Harker of the wolf. The 5% who didn't answer that's me, by the way, because I didn't actually put in any answers as I was going through. Everybody was answering. What is the thing special about Menel Tamer? Well, the absolute, um, our meneloss is kind of next to it, not on it. Um, as is the burial place for the kings. It's actually reserved as a place of worship. And this is one of the downfalls of Numenor is that, um, Saron says, hey, be really good idea to, you know, put another kind of altar on the top. And it's the sort of the part of the downfall of Numenor. Um, which city did Isldo have settled? Well done, everybody. You've got that, Ben. I've got my anus and my itils mixed up and I've said this. Yes, it's Minus Ithel. And yes, you're right, most of you. It becomes Minus Morgel. What is the name of Air Endel ship? Vingelot is correct. Um, who ordered Wingleot Golden Horizon? That'd be a good one. Boat. Well, that's kind of like, yes, I'll call my ship Boat. Excellent. Lots of Vingelots there. Um, well done. Who were his parents, Air Endel and Elwing? Lots of you getting that right? Well done. Um, what do the Valar make to cast light on Valinor? Well, they kind of do all of these because we go through the stage when there's two lamps, the stage when there are two trees and the stage when the sun and moon comes along. So, but Karen thought that was controversial. So, I'm not sure why, but tell us why. And who makes the dwarves? The two trees cast light on Valinor, the lamps and the sun and moon on all of Arda. Yes, but Valinor is included, subset, isn't it? Yes, but it's not specifically Valinor. I know, but I put it in there so that the tree one would be correct. See? So, they do make the light of Valinor does include these things. So, I'm okay. I thought I'd got that wrong, but we take your point, the lamps and the sun and the moon has got a bigger, bigger scope. Okay. Um, where we? Who makes the dwarves? Yes. Um, Ayuli. Extra points for Ayuli, the Smith. I am smitting Valar. That that would be correct too. We'll allow that a sort of Valar who's the Smith is what I was going for there. Okay. So, who does Gandalf learn pity and patience from? Actually, Jacob gave it away and I thought, no, Jacob, don't say this in his, but he didn't know I was going to ask his question. It is actually Neanna. Well done. And who cuts the Someril from Morgoth's Iron Crown? Baron, a lot of you have answered that. And who makes the Elven Rings? Yes. And Lucian, we should mention, give Lucian a mention because she's there, Lulling, Morgoth milk or to sleep with her, you know, with her barred life's brilliance. But I was actually, that's why I was specific about who actually is holding the, the daggery sword thing. Did we do the last question? Let me just go back to that. Yes. And the last person made the three rings was Kela Brimble, which I think a lot, if you go, I reckon we're going to have several winners there. So let's find out if we have an overall winner. Or if we've got several, because then we might have to have a tie break. If we have three people will be fine, but if we have like 15, then there needs to be a tie break. So just wait for my elves to just wait for the team. They're all thinking, oh gosh, they're counting in the background. Ah, Geralt saying that was way more doable than the Lord of the Ring ones. Yes. Thank you. That was the point. Because when I did the Lord of the Ring ones, I thought, well, you're all going to know it really well. So Nancy is saying, at the feet of the mountain, we've built the tombs. Yes, but it's at the feet. The feet. I don't count that as, don't count that as a mountain, Nancy. I'm Chris Master. I decide. You have to do that. She's coming back at me. No, no, my decision is final. Anyway, it's not special to be a burial place of kings. It is special to be the only place of worship. How about that? That's a counter answer. There we go. Ah, we have a three-way tie. And I think because it's a three-way tie, we can give out three prizes. I think that's a nice way of doing it. Yeah, Mary is saying, I'm the boss. Thank you. Nice to feel that I'm in charge of some part of my life. Okay, right. What you really want to know is who has won. So we have three winners who got 15 out of 15. And they are in no particular order. George, Nadolf, Nadolf, Stuart Taylor, and Geralt. So please, could you put your emails into the chat? You can select host and handless to make it private so it's not out there for everybody. And then we can email you your prizes. But well done. I actually feel a bit relieved that we've got some, because last time it was too hard, wasn't it? Maybe it was a bit too easy this time. Who knows? Okay, whilst we're doing that, big news for you all. We love doing these reader thons and we thought, what Christmas treat could there be but to do the Christmas, Father Christmas letters? So in the week before Christmas or just, you know, before we all get into that typhoon that is Christmas entertaining, we're going to do one letter a day, but it's going to be a bit different because I'd love volunteers to take on a year. So you say, hey, I'll do 1935 or even just just volunteer and do a little video of your reaction to that letter. Plus telling us about one Christmas or if you're from a, if you celebrate something else at that time of year, one special family tradition that you'd like to share with us. Like in the Tolkien house, they sent these letters. I mean, Father Christmas sent the letters, obviously, kids. But maybe you've got some other special cake you make or funny little quirky family tradition you have. Anyway, details about how to join this in will be, how to join in with this will be on our usual social media, networks on our website and what have you. So look out for that. We'll start and in the email letters from Yoxford Centre for Fantasy. So not yet because we're not even through Thanksgiving yet, but after that, we're going to be doing Father Christmas letters when we're feeling a bit more Christmassy. Okay, so just Karen's, sorry, sorry, the reason you didn't come up as a winner is because of my, my wrongness as a quiz master. But I do decide, so there we go. So we've, I can see that we've got Gerald, you give, oh yes, so every, so winners have given us that email, so thank you everybody. Okay, that's it. I promise we'd wrap it up in 45 minutes. It's now 55 minutes, so we will stop there. Thank you so much for coming. That was great fun. Thank you in particular to Jacob and Paula for joining me on the chat. And yeah, I really have enjoyed revisiting this summary in this fall, this autumn, so I hope you did too. Don't forget, we, we are here all year doing our online courses and in-person courses. Next one is in July, if you want to come to Yoxford, so stay in touch and view any ideas what you want us to do. Any ideas what you want us to talk about on myth makers are podcasts, just let us know because we love your feedback and it helps us come up with new ideas. So thank you very much and enjoy the rest of your day. Bye there. Bye everyone. Bye-bye. Thanks for listening to MythMakers Podcast, brought to you by the Yoxford Centre for Fantasy. Visit YoxfordCenterForFatasy.org to join in the fun. Find out about our online courses in person stays in Yoxford, plus visit our shop for great gifts. Tell a friend and subscribe wherever you find your favourite podcasts worldwide.