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From the Preface

The present volume consists of three parts. Part I is an Addendum to the research begun in Tolkien and Sanskrit. It explores:

• the place of Sanskrit in Tolkien’s life and academic career;
• the legend of the Tree of the Sun and the Moon;
• the apparent origin of Tolkien’s tree doodle Amalion;
• Manwë’s place in Indo-European myth;
• the likely origin of the Ainur in the Hindu Mānasaputra;
• the Indian parallels to the story of Éowyn;
• the semantic relationship between the names Frodo and Buddha;
• the Indo-European relatives of the name Morgoth, “the Diabolos” of Tolkien’s tale;
• the “Indian” communality of the names Melian, Lúthien, Nimloth, Elwing; and
• the parallels between the Silmaril and the Indian jewel Syamantaka.

Part II is a diverse collection of articles that begins with a discussion of the Irishness of Middle-earth, investigating how:

• the linguistic landscape of Middle-earth is painted in Irish lexemes;
• the royal titles of the Dúnedain have an echo in the royal titles of Ireland;
• a mystical Irish island found its way into Middle-earth;
• Irish burial customs have parallels in Tolkien’s Legendarium.

• how the name Gaerys escaped into Middle-earth from a Breton legend;
• Tolkien’s early name for the Sea and its first-world linguistic relatives;
• the olfactory and theological associations of the name Sauron;
• the grammatical gender of spiders;
• the intriguing question of whether spiders bite or sting.

Part III is a lexicon of the names of the months of the Elvish solar year that explores how Tolkien built his month names on the scaffolding of the month names of the French Republican Calendar, and how the French and Elvish month names are related to month names in other old (pre-Latin) calendars.