In 2020 I attended Oxonmoot as it was available online for the first time due to covid. I heard some amazing presentations and met some people from my region and together we restarted the 2nd Breakfast Smial of Pennsylvania.
They encouraged me to submit a presentation for the upcoming year. As a fan as opposed to an academic, I wasn’t sure if I was qualified. With their support, I created an abstract and it was accepted.
I’ve now made five presentations in four years and it is time to develop a topic and abstract for the 2025 event.
I like, “A Brief History of Dragons: What We Know of the Dragons of Middle-earth”.
I like this topic because The Children of Hurin is my favorite work, and it features Glaurung, the Father of Dragons.
He is in the First Age. The other dragon we have reasonable information on is Smaug from the Third Age and featured in the Hobbit.
The only other named dragons are Scatha and Angalacon, of which we know very little.
There are also references to dragons, but not by name, and Tolkien provides some classifications and descriptions.
Ive been researching the topic across HoME and the available versions of the Hobbit and Children of Hurin. The Grey Annals also provide dates and briefs that can fill some gaps.
I purchased the Facsimile Gift Edition of The Hobbit, which I’d highly recommend as it has the originally published text, including Riddles in the Dark, and comes with Tolkien’s lecture on Dragons, not to mention a CD with him reading parts of the Hobbit.
What would you submit and why? I’d love to hear and help out if I can.
Resilient Seeker Coaching | Ross Raymond Nunamaker 