I get a lot of requests from Tolkien fans to make replicas of the various books and journals that appear in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. This journal is not a replica of anything you will find in the books or see in the movies, but it would make a nice gift for Tolkien enthusiasts. Its theme is the Tree of Gondor.

The White Tree of Gondor stood as a symbol of Gondor in the Court of the Fountain in Minas Tirith. The White Tree also appears as a motif upon Gondor's flag and throughout its heraldry combined with the seven stars of the House of Elendil and the crown of the King.

The leather front cover bears a hand-tooled 'Tree of Gondor' as drawn by J R Tolkien in his LORD of the RINGS manuscript. It is surrounded by the Elvish (Tengwar) inscription of the One Ring:

‘Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,
ash nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul’

- ‘One Ring to rule them all,
One ring to find them;
One ring to bring them all
and in the darkness bind them’

I think of this journal as a book-of-shadows, a book of spells or a 'grimoire' in the Pagan Wicca tradition. The cover is handmade from vintage buffalo hide and is coloured a dark Mahogany Brown colour with a wash of organic dye. Please note that because the photos show the journal against a dark background the colour of the surface in some photos looks lighter than to the eye. It is in fact a quite DARK mahogany brown.

Specifications:

Size: cover size 6x5 inches (15x14cm). Pages are fractionally smaller.

The journal contains 100 pages/200 usable sides 150gms cartridge paper - a high quality drawing paper suitable for sketching and drawing in a variety of media. Also suitable for writing with  a fountain pen, pencil, gel, Biro etc.

I love working with leather, but for ethical reasons I only use vintage leather for my books- ie leather from working animals that have come to the end of their lives.