Perilous Journeys

The author Nora Graves leaning her head on a hand, smiling

When you step onto a Road, if you
don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you will be at the end of it.

A round door open to a blue sky, the view outside dominated by a very large full moon framed by clouds and over a flat landscape of orange and green fields disappearing into the horizon.

  • It’s a dangerous business, going out your door—

    It’s a dangerous business, going out your door Thomas Hillman first drew my attention to the sobering differences between Tolkien’s work and Peter Jackson’s LOTR film trilogy. When I read his blog, “Beyond This Be Elves! Sam and Story (2),” an awful revelation confronted me. I was one of those shallow fans who thought omitting Tom Bombadil was Jackson’s biggest mistake. I felt a little less superficial when Hillman admitted he didn’t connect dots until he began re-reading The Fellowship. Then he realized how wrong Jackson’s bubbling rendition of the “Road” song was. In the staging of this scene, the…

  • If it’s men who have visions, what do women do?

    If it’s men who have visions,what do women do? The character of Merlin dominates Mary Stewart’s retelling of the Arthurian legends. He is neither wizard nor magician. His paranormal powers are grounded in experiences real people claim to have in this world, and his supernatural feats are more a matter of vision coupled with engineering genius than magic. He is a clairvoyant Leonardo da Vinci, not Gandalf. This is why, when the Arthur he has seen in his visions materializes in the form of a helpless newborn, Merlin is suddenly perplexed. After a dangerous journey from Cornwall to Brittany, he…