Preview: Introducing Rings & Rituals

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Lorehounds. I'm David.

[00:00:15] I'm John and we're here with our favorite Tolkien scholar, Marilyn R. Pucila, to discuss

[00:00:20] an exciting new project she's starting.

[00:00:23] Marilyn, thanks so very much for being here. We're excited to find out what you've been The ritual of the Harfoots, their autumn festival. I kind of felt that people were misunderstanding the Harfoots from the beginning because they were talking about how they were so cruel and leaving people behind and social Darwinism and all that stuff. That had generated a lot of discourse. Now you're going to be doing this podcast with another co-host. Yes. I asked a friend and colleague, Dr. Sara Brown of Signum University, if she'd be willing to do this with me. And she said, yes. Yay. Lovely. So there will be two of us. And listeners may know her because she's on the Prancing Pony podcast, Rings Wrap Up.

[00:03:02] Rings of Power. Yeah. Right. Which was the Prancing Pony's Rings of ritual. Right. And I know a fellow, more hands East study who I'm going to invite and see if he's willing to spend some time with us on that. Great. So yeah, why don't you pitch the show a little bit? Why don't you tell us a little bit more about actually how the show is going to work? How many episodes and you're going to do

[00:04:22] one for each of the Rings of Power series are going to do

[00:04:25] some stuff in front of them behind that?

[00:05:23] That is a ritual statement of we are no longer following you. Okay.

[00:05:25] So how would you describe that? It's very higher-adic. It's very formal. It involves

[00:05:34] body position. It involves releasing of the tools that you're using. You have brought your

[00:05:41] swords to support her. You're no longer doing that. Then I consume my social media. And so what do you accomplish by that? What's the intention behind? Yeah, that's a good question. Ignoring your phone, drinking your coffee, all the steps that you just mentioned. And then what does that tell us about David? Right. That he's a pretentious pinky. Or's go find a bear. Yeah, right. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So it conveys meaning. It gives a structure to life. It also helps transition from being awake to being asleep. That can be a very scary transition. A state change, right? Yeah. Change of state. Especially for little kids. Yeah, that's a big deal.

[00:08:20] And intentional, done with intentionality.

[00:08:24] And I'm thinking we're recording this course, they're approaching the time of recognizing that they're at the peak of the sun, the greatest

[00:09:42] strength, and now they have to move into a time the growing darkness. And you told your stories and you sang your songs and you remembered those who were no longer with you and you affirmed they were still a part of your community. We will

[00:11:02] wait for you. So it makes connections even And those rituals are those things maybe that we hold on to that we sort of pull ourselves through time, right? The rituals tell us who we are. Boy, there's a quote in Hockfather that we're about to record right after this that really speaks to this. I know Marilyn has it in her notes. I kind of want her to pull it in here.

[00:12:22] But that's the beauty of the Lorehounds

[00:12:24] sort of integrated, right?

[00:12:25] We're swirling around in all of these different things. Mercy, duty, that sort of thing. They're not the same thing at all. You think so? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy.

[00:13:40] And yet, death waved a hand,

[00:13:43] and yet you act as if there started to try to watch the show the other night, but the free thing that I was trying to watch it on was too many ads and I don't know. Oh, that's so annoying.

[00:15:01] It is.

[00:15:02] Anyway.

[00:15:02] It's already chopped up enough as it is, the TV version,

[00:15:05] without chopping it up further.

[00:15:07] So back to Rings and Rituals. to talk about how we're defining ritual and the sorts of question we'll be asking. And then we'll apply it to rituals that appear in the legendarium, which a lot of people would say, well, Tolkien doesn't have rituals. It's like, well, actually, yes. All three of the masterworks do contain various rituals. I mean, just think of the hobbits birthday parties. Full of ritual.

[00:16:25] Can we be human without ritual?

[00:16:27] I don't think we can.

[00:16:28] Interesting. runners showing us about how they conceive of all these different cultures. And ritual is a great signifier of culture. Right. Very good. Super exciting. delightful. That would be good. Marilyn, I don't think that I've ever had a conversation with you where I was like, we should have gone longer, because we... I mean, I'd love to talk longer,

[00:19:01] but I just mean like, I've never had a conversation

[00:19:03] where I'm like, we need to fill out some space here.

[00:19:05] You know what I mean?

[00:19:06] You and I could always, and I think we all could with you,