Music in the Void

Enjoy this excellent piece by the late Stratford Caldecott, readers: Ainulindale: Music of Creation in Tolkien By Stratford Caldecott July 17th, 2013 “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.” (Hamlet V.II.) Both C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien saw the creation of the world as taking place in some way through music. Readers …

Reposted: The taste for magic

A thoughtful and inspiring piece, readers. Check it out: Why do we hanker for magic? That is a question that the large-C Catholic fantasy writer must squarely face, and the small-c catholic reader ought at any rate to find interesting. The practice of magic as such, whether effective or not, is explicitly forbidden by scripture …

Sound and Song

Frequent visitors to this site may remember Clamavi De Profundis*, a family band producing a variety of songs. Many of their early works are performances from J.R.R. Tolkien’s* legendarium, particularly his The Lord of the Rings* trilogy. But some of their renditions, including one of the entries below, are from other books in the series. …

Song of the Spheres

The Silmarillion* begins with Eru Illuvatar giving the Ainur, Tolkien’s name for angels, a song to sing. When they sang, their music formed the “circles of the world.” And so, when the characters refer to “the circles of the world,” they are talking about every created thing in their known universe. While the people of …

Worlds in Miniature – Reflections to Inspire

In his book, The Romance of Religion, Fr. Dwight Longenecker recounts an insight he had during one of his bus rides at the beginning of first grade. Apparently he had a Mickey Mouse lunch box which, naturally, had been painted to show Mickey and his friends going to school. On closer inspection, however, Father realized …