Title: Rune Activities
Course: J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit

Activities:
(1) using runes or plain English write a 'spell' or 'charm' to stop a water elf. But first you will need to decide what a water elf is and why you might need a charm against it! (There was a real spell against a water elf.)

(2) Write a message in runes to a friend.

(3) Draw a sword, a dagger, a ring, and write a protecting or strengthening charm on it, or find a small stone and write your name in runes on it. You could write a 'protecting' spell on the stone and give it to a friend.

(4) Experiment with writing on different material: small pieces of wood, small stones, scraps of leather (or fake leather), scraps of cloth (silk if you can get it) large leathery leaves (e.g. rhododendron and magnolia, maple). All have been used. Can you use pen, pencils, or a pointed piece of stick most easily? Although runes were important ways of writing messages, inscriptions, and spells, any written language was thought to have some kind of magical power, and the way language was used added to that magic, so rhymes and alliteration (words beginning with the same latter) were also important ways of adding to the power of language.

(5) Look at the map from The Hobbit: some of the shapes on it look like letters of the alphabet. Mountains look like M, the dragon, or great worm, looks like W. the river looks like a long S, and the trees look like F, but broken and twisted.

Examples:
- there are many mines in the Misty Mountains

- The great worm wafts his wide and wizened wings over the withered woods.

- The forest is a fearful place.

- A few friends with furry feet fell into danger.

- In The Hobbit there are many places where you could play this game.

- In The Hobbit: Bilbo hears the song of a thrush, can you find more words beginning with 'S' for song that will help you to say what Bilbo is doing, what he sees, and what time of day it is?

Bilbo has to escape from many different kinds of danger. Choose your favourite, and take the first letter and using mostly words beginning with that letter, explain what happens next. Example: Bilbo is in a barrel which bowls along in the river until it bounces and bumps against the bank. Bilbo has to escape from the sticky snares the spiders have spun among shaggy trees. Bilbo sees Smaug, smug in his stony lair, surrounded by shining treasure. Secretly Bilbo thinks of his sword as he soothes Smaug so the dragon will not strike at him and scorch him, or smother him in smoke.

From: http://www.tolkiensociety.org/ed/study_02.html