In case you wondered ...

... There and Back Again: Five Reasons Tolkien Rocks (Guest Blogger China Mieville).

For those of us who regret the hegemony of the Classicists' Classics, the chewy Anglo-Saxonisms of Mirkwood and its surrounds are a vindication. We always knew these other gods and monsters were cooler.

Gerard Manley Hopkins and Percy Grainger would be pleased.