Gondolin in Winter (Illustrations of Middle-earth; gouache painting)

My wife has found the painting that I was missing from my collection! This is Gondolin in winter, seen through Tuor's eyes against the rising sun at the last of the seven gates that lead to Tumladen.

The gouache painting is again in my "historizing" style of those years: Assuming that the cultural superiority of the Elves in Middle-earth is similar to that of  the Moors in medieval Europe, the architecture of Gondolin is - like that of my "Tuor in Vinyamar" painting - obviously inspired by the Alhambra in the Spanish city of Granada. The tilled fields are currently covered by snow, from which only barren trees rise along frozen ponds and water courses.

Only when the painting was hanging at the wall I noticed that the big tree looks from afar like a dark, knurly hand groping for the Elvish city.

Dynasties of Middle-earth

Kings, lords and other noblemen
from the First to the Third Age

The first book published by Codex Regius this year is again an analysis of certain aspects of Middle-earth in J.R.R. Tolkien's novels. Due to the complexities of presentation, this volume is not available as an e-book but only on paper.

Which Ruling Steward of Gondor had two wives? Was Beren the One-handed an only child? How comes that Aragorn from 'The Lord of the Rings' has actually married his aunt? And were there any kings of Dale before Bard I?

"Dynasties of Middle-earth" expands on the tables, once published on Lalaith's Middle-earth Science Pages, that comprise the genealogies of the noble Mannish houses from the First to the Fourth Age of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. They are not found like that in the Appendices of 'The Lord of the Rings' or 'The Silmarillion' but spread over various sources which sometimes conflict with each other.

Available from Amazon and subsidiaries.

More essays on Middle-earth, not available in print, may be found on Lalaith's Middle-earth Science Pages.