Christopher Tolkien at it again....

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

Since I hail from that part of the world... and since my extended family includes 4 or 5 cousins who've actually been to Camp Rivendell, I am finding myself inclined to agree with Davem at this point... at least regarding the Estate. I'm not really sure one can say that Christopher Tolkien is personally responsible... I mean, for one thing, how would he have found out about the camp? I really can't picture him trolling the Internet (and if so, Hookbill should watch out).

I'm inclined to agree with Formendacil here. It's a bit much to go after a little children's camp that's probably a non-profit organisation. However, such a target suggests to me that this is most likely lawyer's trawling. I suspect that the legal beagles have simply been given carte blanche to undertake a defense of Tolkien's copyright. In which case, one wonders if and when they will take to teh interwebs and insist that the Barrow Downs cease and desist. We knew we were wraiths, but pirates too?

It's rather interesting to consider what Tolkien's own attitude in The Letters is to the borrowing of names:

Names, like each word of Tolkien's invented language, would of course be very special to Tolkien, given how much his writing began with his philological explorations. Yet he himself took up "Mirkwood" from old lore and not a few dwarven names from Scandinavian literature.

Tolkien's work is spreading into cultural consciousness and how differentiate that from greedy attempts to cash in on the Tolkien name?