Tag: Tolkien

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Winter Tale: A Letter from Father Christmas

You are familiar, no doubt, with the awkwardly sweet pieces of fiction that are his Father Christmas Letters. They were handwritten and illustrated between 1920 and 1943, and told the many adventures of Father Christmas in the North Pole, alongside his trusted assistant the Polar Bear. It’s hard to pick one, as lots of them […]

The Wind in the Willows (3): the Wild Woods

This is my absolute favourite piece and it often gets skipped in antologies and renditions because there’s no Toad in it (which is fine with me, as I’m not overly fond of the character): it’s where we venture with Mole into the perilous Wild Woods to meet my favorite character, Badger (though we actually do […]

The Wind in the Willows (2): The Open Road

The second tale in Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows takes up from where we left our two favourite characters: Rat, in his river-house, and Mole who ended up living with him. Illustration by Robert Ingpen Specifically, the story opens with Rat doing one of the things he does best: sitting by the river and […]

The Wind in the Willows: a Professor’s Toast (1)

Today is January, 3rd and it’s also Sunday. I’ve been bringing you stories each Sunday for a while, now, but today is a special day, so I’ve decided to drift a bit from Norse tradition, as I’m sure you’ve had your fill with triplets of princesses, am I right? Maybe we’ll have a series on […]