I have built this web site as the storybook project for my Mythology
and Folklore class for the Fall 2003 semester. For this storybook project, students do research
to find stories related to a specific topic. Students then use the motifs, themes, and events in these
stories to create new versions of the stories in their own words and style. That is how folklore works:
tradition plus originality. The stories for my storybook project all come from J.R.R. Tolkien's
invented mythology, first published in the Silmarillion.
The main sections of this site are shown in the navigation box in the upper right-hand corner; pages within sections are shown across the top. I recommend reading the About This Project page in the Introduction section first to get an understanding the site's goals. From there, you could read the About The Silmarillion page for historical background about Tolkien and a brief overview of the Silmarillon. I have tried to keep the amount of proper names to a minimum; but I have included a glossary containing all the proper names used in the stories, along with short descriptions, to be sure to prevent ‘proper-name overload’.
The main content of the site is contained in the Stories section;
there you will find retellings of seven stories from the Silmarillion told
inside an original frametale. Each story is illustrated with numerous images I have found online.
The story pages contain thumbnails of these images; clicking a thumbnail will take you to the image
gallery page with the complete image and information such as author, title, and websource. The main
Image Gallery page contains thumbnails of all the images used on this site.
The Resources section of the site contains bibliographic information for the sites I have used in this project, as well as sites you could visit for additional information. For those interested in web design, there is a page in this section that talks about the design of this site. If you would like some more information about me, there's also a page with that information in the Resources section.