Author recounts the discovery of the poem, summarises it - it is still not translated into Polish - and discusses its influence on JRRT, and especially on The Lord of the Rings. In the author's opinion, the most important things are not borrowings of some names or settings, or even the direct "quotation" from Beowulf (which is Smaug in The Hobbit), but similarities in the overall tone of both works, expressed in the serious approach towards myth, the world, and oneself as a creator. Also, The Lord of the Rings and Beowulf tell about deeds, so musings of the protagonists are pushed to the background. Olszański points out that the "monsters" in both works are not characters, but only props serving to underline the protagonists' virtues and vices, and that like Beowulf, Frodo and his companions act for their homeland, turning from adventurers into defenders of their land. The article begins and ends with the author's translation of the first and last lines of Beowulf.

20-year old, but still valid text on the fairy-tale as a literary genre, its place in European culture, and JRRT's role in its rehabilitation and taking it out of the nurseries.

The author of which asks what tolkienology is and if there is any point cultivating it, why many readers of J.R.R. Tolkien's work want to treat it as a source of knowledge about the fictitious reality he created. Do we have the right to reconstruct the tower that Tolkien has not completed building?

Essay discusses differences and similarities between Quenya and Finnish. The author starts with a short history of Quenya and its development and then shows its phonetic, lexical, and syntactical borrowings from the Finnish language. The biggest similarities are to be noted in phonetics and lexis, and the most numerous borrowings are words that sound similar or almost similar, however have different meanings. While Elvish examples in The Lord of the Rings display almost no evidence of Finnish inspiration, such evidence is abundant in The Etymologies in The Lost Road and in earlier versions of the legendarium.

On Entering the Same River Twice: Mythology and Theology in the Silmarillion Corpus -Kaj A. Apeland
translation: Tadeusz A. Olszański


It is a translation of the essay published in Between Faith and Fiction. Tolkien and the Power of His World, Proceedings of the Arda Symposium at the Second Northern Tolkien Festival, Oslo, August 1977, 'Arda Special 1', 1998. The author shows differences in the approach to myth in various phases of JRRT's work on his legendarium, indicates the essential change that took place in the thirties of the 20th century, and concentrates on the issue of the Valar. He proposes to call the early phase "mythological", and the later phase "theological". He suggests that the authoritative version of Quenta Silmarillion is the one published in The Lost Road, as the one considered by Tolkien to be ready for publication, and used as the source of the mythology of The Lord of the Rings.

Essay is concerned with a late phase in J.R.R. Tolkien's work and shows similarities of some theological concepts of Arda to the ideas of Thomas Aquinas. The author analyses several issues: hierarchies of beings, sources of evil in Middle-earth, free will of sentient beings, and the relation of Eru to the world. Many doubt if Tolkien knew Thomism at all, but correlations are too numerous to be ignored.

Wounded in both body and spirit by Morgoth, a now-crippled Maedhros struggles to redefine his sense of identity.

Denethor teaches a young Faramir the game of chess.

Faramir writes last letters to his father, as a man of war would be wise to leave nothing undone.

Issue contains also selection of poems by Avari, 'Elanor' (Dominika Kurek) and Nifrodel.
Also trivia and humour, riddles and a description of interesting www pages.

"The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers Extended Version - Peter Jackson movie -review by-" - Michał Leœniewski 'M.L'