There is a great deal of original research on the Web that has been inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien's fiction in some way. However, around the year 2002 a very perceivable change in the nature of Tolkien Web sites occurred. We could call this the "Peter Jackson Effect" or the Jackson Transformation.

Although my own Web-published research had been popular from 1996 onwards, being used by thousands of students, teachers, librarians, and advanced researchers around the world (many of whom emailed me to ask for permission to cite my work in their papers or print my essays), I have found that most of my influence on other Tolkien Web writers appears to have occurred during the Jackson Transformation Years (2002 - 2005).

There was no lack of original thought or copy with respect to the literary Tolkien during those years, but LoTRmania swept the Internet and most new Web sites (as well as many older ones) became more focused on following the movies or commenting on them.

The movies so overshadowed Tolkien literary thought on the Web that much of what has been published since 2004 onward has been largely propaganda, some aimed at counteracting the influence of my own essays, some aimed more at advocating particular points of view with respect to linguistics, Christian thought, neo-Nazism and white supremism, and other areas of Tolkien thought and literature in which I had little if anything to offer.

Many of the Web sites that people made during the 1990s and early 2000s are still online. Most have been abandoned or lost. Perhaps only access was lost and some former writers wrung their hands in frustration for a while, unable to update their beloved works, before moving on with their lives.

You can generally identify many of the dead pages by the old Link Exchange banners they display (that service has long since been bought and shut down by Microsoft), non-functioning hit counters that point to non-existing domains, and "Last updated" notices that clearly predate the 21st century.

It's a shame that people lost their passion for saying something about Tolkien's literature. Even more so because they have vacated the playing field to propagandists and pundits like me. Sharing what you enjoy about Tolkien without concern for whether someone disagrees with you helps make the Tolkien Web so much more interesting, at least to someone like me.

Many of you read what I write. But I read what many of you write, and I enjoy browsing other Tolkienists' points of view. I don't think everything that can be said has been said. Not by any measure. And now is an opportunity to pass up the propagandists who live in an imaginary past Tolkien himself never envision.

I think the Web is ready for a new generation of pundits. But if you don't believe me, take a look at some of the voices of yesteryear. There were so many I had to limit myself to just one domain: Geocities. A few of the sites are still being updated. Some of the sites are probably embroiled in politics I cannot begin to explain. That's just the way Tolkien criticism and research goes.

NOTE: There will be some popup ads. I cannot help that. Also, you may still be able to revisit some of the dead links these pages point to through the Internet Archive.

• Men Eldalambion is an English-language gateway to a remarkable archive of translations and original compositions in Quenya by Petri Tikka. The main site is not in English.
• Theology and the World of Tolkien is part of a much larger Developing Theology Web resource.
• Tolkien Storytelling is a fan site that focuses on cultural essays about the races of Middle-earth, music, languages, and a couple of other topics.
• Ronald Kyrmse's Gondolin is a DeutschPortuguese-English Web resource that is largely concerned with Tengwar and geography, from what I can tell. His melding of the maps of Eriador and Beleriand is quite good.
• Gazing Upon Everlasting Day: The Catholic Vision of J.R.R. Tolkien has a fairly self-explanatory title. In addition to Tolkien material the author also offers content about Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, G.K Chesterton, and others.
• The Futurian Socity of Sydney includes two Tolkien essays on its Web site. The international scope of their full content is impressive.
• BurnTalon's Tolkien Page is a modest fan dedication to Tolkien that is part of a larger fan site. The author moved the site elsewhere at one time but the new link on the home page is dead.
• Steve Hayes writes about Christianity, Paganism and Literature on a site that mixes content about the Inklings with content about paganism and witches.
• Tolkien Script Publishing looks like it is still being updated. Apparently the author has spent some money on upgrading the Geocities hosting. They publish electronic documents about Tolkien's invented scripts.
• Leonie's Hobbit Hole is another old fan site that appears to have been abandoned around 2001. It's a cute site that offers some basic information about Gandalf, Hobbits, and other topics while promising more that never came.
• Coron's Sources of Fantasy Fonts index may or may not lead to dead sites, but the variation on Tolkien fonts is impressive.
• The Tolkien Archives supposedly moved to its own domain but this original version appears to be all that's left.
• The Led Zeppelin and J.R.R. Tolkien Home Page is very thorough and offers some trivia I had never heard before. The Led Zeppelin/Tolkien connection is well documented, but this page was one of the first to share information on the Web.
• Mellon Internet Society is a Tolkien fan page with fonts, pictures, links, and a (possibly discontinued) newsletter. The picures may take a long time to load, or the links may all be dead now. I did not wait.
• Tyalie Tyelellieva is Tolkien Linguist Lisa Starr's page. She is still updating the site. See the Tolkien Webliography here on Tolkien Studies on the Web for more linguistic resources.
• Alberto Monteiro's Tolkien Site is old-fashioned but offers a lot of interesting thought and commentary. I am not sure if you can get to all the pages through the navigation. I see many more when I search through Google than are immediately apparent to me on this site. Alberto had apparently just updated the page right before I visited.

There is much, much more out there waiting to be found, to be found once again, or to be recognized for its continuing contribution to Tolkien studies on the Web. I'll try to do more posts like this in the coming months.

One of the more fascinating aspects of Tolkien's imaginary geography is the immense underground complex of caverns and dwarf-carven halls and chambers he devised for Khazad-dum. Until recently, I never really gave the possible inspirations for Tolkien's dwarf-cities much thought.

Dwarf-cities go all the way back to Tolkien's first mythology, The Book of Lost Tales. Other underground cities held Tolkien's fascination, too. As a British soldier assigned to the front lines in the First World War, he would have lived in underground cities -- bunkers and shelters dug into the ground and connected by trenches.

Those accomodations were, by all accounts, anything but warm and cozy. Succumbing to Trench Fever, Tolkien was returned to England and while in the hospital he began writing the stories that would eventually comprise his incomplete "mythology for England".

By this time in his life, Tolkien may also have learned something about the underground cities of Cappadocia. The earliest such fortresses were built by the Hittites, whose language was the earliest recorded Indo-European language. Tolkien often referred to and drew upon Proto-Indo-European, the reconstructed language that linguists believe was spoken by our Caucausus-based ancestors.

Cappadocia, located in what is now eastern Turkey, was the birth place of St. George, a 3rd century saint who joined the Roman Army and was assigned to serve in Brittannia (England). George reportedly slew a dragon (in Libya, of all places) by striking it under the wing, where its flesh was unprotected by scales.

One of the interesting things about Cappadocia, in my opinion, is that the name is derived from a Persian word meaning "land of beautiful horses". I think that name would have some appeal to Tolkien. He may have been familiar with the name and its history from the writings of Xenophon, Herodotus, and Strabo. But Tolkien would also have encountered it in Medieval literature as the Crusaders brought the legend of St. George and the Dragon back to western Europe.

I think it unlikely that Tolkien could have known much about Cappadocia's underground cities (if he knew about them at all) while writing The Lord of the Rings, but they were supposedly mentioned in at least one ancient source. In 1963 archaeologists began excavating the cities and at least one of them was capable of holding up to 20,000 people. It extended 8 levels underground and the corridors or stairways were designed to be defended against invaders in a similar fashion to some of Tolkien's descriptions of Moria.

Another possible source of inspiration could be Haware, an ancient Egyptian city where Strabo described a massive labyrinth, part above ground part underground, with several thousand chambers. Tolkien was strongly influenced by ancient Egypt when he developed his Atlantis mythology ("Numenor") and carried it forward into the emerging Middle-earth mythology.

Tolkien Trivia: Did you know that in 1929 J.R.R. Tolkien assisted archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler in a dig at Lydney Park Estate? They Wheeler excavated an ancient Roman temple and Tolkien provided some etymological information.

The process of reinventing Tolkien goes on continuously. It's been going on in one form or anothe since The Lord of the Rings was first published, perhaps even since The Hobbit was first published.

But reinvention is no longer the purview of the critics, either the cynical foes of the Tolkien literary legacy or its staunch defenders who good-heartedly reclassify Tolkien's motivations and inspirations according to their own visions.

In today's world, everyone reinvents Tolkien, although some are more active than others. Fan fiction writers, for example, inject their own visions into Middle-earth, carving out parallel universes in a quantum fashion faster than hard-core fans can cry "Foul!".

And there are hard-core, self-appointed pontificators who have taken it upon themselves to sew up all the texts in concise little histories that prove that there was indeed only one mythology, that all passages can be used interchangeably to argue any point, and that Tolkien really meant what his afterday spokesmen feel is most important.

The trouble with revisionism is that it invariably displays its colors before it's complete. It can salt the waters of many wells and deprive people of the sweet taste of pure Tolkien literature, but the books themselves remain untouched. The initial impressions of readers remain untouched, even if the revisionists win a few battles here and there with magical tressures that combine the various mythologies in ways they should never be joined.

It's unfortunate that Christopher Tolkien himself annoinnted the process by writing and publishing a Silmarillion that took on the force of canonical text. By the time Christopher tried to explain what he had done it was too late. Even after the publication of the 12 volumes of The History of Middle-earth, most readers still accept the published Silmarillion as an authoritative source of information on Middle-earth.

Christopher's revisionism was not intended to mislead or stoke up the fires of a particular point of view. He was striving to open the doors to his father's imagination a little wider, and provide a glimpse of things that might have been, had oh so many other things happened or not happened.

J.R.R. Tolkien himself was the worst possible revisionist, dropping mythology after mythology, only to turn back to them to borrow ideas, names, themes, and even occasional characters. But these were his worlds to revise. He was the craftsman, sifting through his pile of previously partially completed works to see what could be reused, incorporated into a new work.

The Tolkien critical world, both professional and amateur, is today awaiting the publication of two books that may settle some questions. But more likely they'll add fuel to fires that simply won't go out. The History of The Hobbit and The Children of Hurin are not themselves canonical works, though they will be heard to speak with the voice of authority.

Revisionism continues today at all levels, and Tolkien purism itself is bound to be questioned regarding whether it provides any value. True purism, free of any agenda, at least provides a baseline for the study of Tolkien's various mythologies. It knows better than to treat all the stories and versions as if they are part of a single, concise whole work.

The reinvention of the Tolkien canon cannot wholly obscure the original works themselves, but unfortunately it can position itself so as to be mistaken for authority by people less schooled in the arts of reinvention.