Welcome! This is an Ask-based meta blog for looking into the intersections of fanon and canon in The Silmarillion fandom.Â
UPDATE Sept 10 2024: Asks on pause until I get caught up!
What does that mean?
âFanon archaeologyâ means digging into the canon texts to theorise about where fanons come from. It's a bit like a "fanon mythbusters" blog except that nothing is being busted. The aim here is to investigate in a spirit of curiosity and fun that celebrates fandom creativity. It is not to criticise or argue against. It is also a great place to send in a Ask about the various âversionsâ of canon you hear about in this fandom.
Ask Guidelines
To be revised as the blog evolves.
Currently only taking Asks primarily to do with the Years of the Trees and First Age.
Please be respectful in your wording. Avoid language that is judgmental or generalising. For example, instead of saying, âI hate that everyone thinks Sauron tortured Maedhros, can you set the record straight?â just ask the question: âWhere does the idea that Sauron tortured Maedhros come from?âÂ
We don't do meta on the canonical basis of ships (Vingilot excepted). This topic is very subjective and outside the scope of the blog.
Responses will focus on links to canon, not fandom history.
We will try to answer approx. one Ask per week.Â
Replies to anon asks will be tagged #anon.
More info below the cut.
Why bother with this?
The entire corpus of works published by J.R.R Tolkien or his son Christopher is massive, difficult to navigate, and not always accessible. Many fans are curious about the relationship between fanon and canon but perhaps donât have the time, energy, or resources to dig into the texts. Weâre here to do the archaeology: excavate the quotes, dust off the footnotes, and report back on the findings.Â
Who are you?
Currently this blog is run by one person, but to avoid any confusion between my individual takes and the intended objectivity of this blog, I am keeping my fandom identity on the down-low. I am not a scholar or an expert, but I love researching and writing meta. For now the blog is Silmarillion-focused because thatâs my area of interest and knowledge. If and when the blog grows, I hope to expand to include other Tolkien canon and invite fandom community members to contribute responses to Asks.
This is a positive space.
We love fanon, canon, and the creative process that connects them. Positive, constructive, and supportive engagement with our posts is encouraged. Negative, hostile, offensive engagement is not, and we may block users who choose to engage in this way.Â
Please be respectful of the community and remember we are all just here hanging out because we love the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.Â
Wait, so like, does Fingolfin's son Argon exist or not?
The Argon Element
He does! Christopher Tolkien tells us (though regrettably does not show us) that his name first appeared in a genealogical table of the House of Finwë dating to 1959, which Tolkien was still revising in 1968 when he wrote the 'Shibboleth of Fëanor'.* It is in that essay that Argon's story appears, in the "excursus on the names of the descendants of Finwë":
ArakĂĄno was the tallest of the brothers and the most impetuous, but his name was never changed to Sindarin form, for he perished in the first battle of Fingolfin's host with the Orks, the Battle of the Lammoth (but the Sindarin form Argon was often later given as a name by Noldor and Sindar in memory of his valour).
A footnote on this passage reveals more about him. (This is also the only mention in Tolkien's published writings of the Battle of Lammoth.)
When the onset of the Orks caught the host at unawares as they marched southwards and the ranks of the Eldar were giving way, [Argon] sprang forward and hewed a path through the foes, daunted by his stature and the terrible light of his eyes, till he came to the Ork-captain and felled him. Then though he himself was surrounded and slain, the Orks were dismayed, and the Noldor pursued them with slaughter.
But his death at Lammoth was not the only fate Tolkien considered for this short-lived (on multiple levels) character. Christopher Tolkien comments (note 38):
[The third son of Fingolfin, Arakåno (Argon), emerged in the course of the making of the genealogies. A pencilled note on the last of the four tables says that he fell in the fighting at Alqualondë; this was struck out, and my father noted that a preferable story was that he perished in the Ice. It is curious that this third son, of whom there had never before been any mention, entered (as it seems) without a story, and the manner of his death was twice changed before the remarkable appearance here of 'the first battle of Fingolfin's host with the Orks, the Battle of the Lammoth', in which he fell. In the account in the Grey Annals (XI.30) Fingolfin, after the passage of the Helkaraxë, 'marched from the North unopposed through the fastness of the realm of Morgoth, and he passed over Dor-Daedeloth, and his foes hid beneath the earth'; whereas in the present note his host was attacked in Lammoth 'at unawares as they marched southwards'.]
Confusingly, in the same essay ArakĂĄno ('high chieftain') is said to be the mothername given by Indis to Fingolfin. It's not clear if Tolkien intended for Fingolfin and his youngest child to share a name or if he was simply throwing names at the wall to see what would stick.
What are you thoughts on Argon? Did he exist? How do his existence and tragic fate change how you think about the characters closest to him? Any wild Argon headcanons? And most importantly, how do you feel about him being taller than Turgon?
*The 'Shibboleth' is published in The History of Middle-earth Vol. 12: The Peoples of Middle-earth.
For those who have yet to encounter him, âCrablorâ is a portmanteau of âCrabâ and âMaglorâ, i.e., the crab Maglor became after his many ages of wandering the shores in pain and regret. Crablor is fanon. It was born here.
As @faustandfurious wrote in that very post there is no canon about Maglorâs eventual fate. (You can read about the various ways Maglor ended, or didnât, here).
But the idea of Elven crabification in general does have some basis in canon!
In his writings on Elven fading in Morgothâs Ring, Tolkien talks about the fĂ«a (spirit) consuming the hröa (body):
As ages passed the dominance of their fëar ever increased, 'consuming' their bodies (as has been noted). The end of this process is their 'fading', as Men have called it; for the body becomes at last, as it were, a mere memory held by the fëa; and that end has already been achieved in many regions of Middle-earth, so that the Elves are indeed deathless and may not be destroyed or changed.
The History of Middle-earth Vol. 10: Morgothâs Ring, The Later Quenta Silmarillion, âLaws Bâ (p. 219)
This was not, however, Tolkienâs last thought on the matter. In a marginal note on the entry for hröa published in the linguistic journal Parmasan Eldalamberon (Vol. 12), Tolkien revisits the metaphysical implications of Elven fading:
What of a hröa that resists fading? It is not then consumed by the fĂ«a, but compressed by the process of containing it; by which it will in time be overcome, though at great expense to the strength of the fĂ«a, for this at last takes possession of the changed hröa as its âcasementâ.
What?
This note Tolkien clearly did not intend to be seen or interpreted by anyone but himself, and its meaning is rather opaque. What he seems to be describing, however, is a slow process of shrinking and shapeshifting, from body to âcasementâ, in cases where a hröa resists fading.
Casement as in⊠shell? As in⊠exoskeleton? Elves who resist fading become crabs?
Okay, so that probably wasnât what Tolkien meant, but I can find nothing to contradict it. Let us assume, for our amusement, that the hröa - casement transformation is, or can be, into a crab.
The next question is: Might Maglor have resisted fading?
If one imagines his fate in the published Silmarillion as self-punitive (a reading supported by the alternate versions in which he does in fact commit suicide like Maedhros), it would makes sense that he might resist fading as a sort of release from his punishment. Or perhaps the metaphysics of the Oath had some interference in his ability to fade in the usual fashion.
In which case, Maglor may very well have been one of the Elves who became a crab. Or something like it.
A Minor Accident by Tethys_resort is a favorite crablor fic of mine! It's a TEMPORARY crablor fic tho, not a permanent one.
Summary: Crablor. Or as Gildor says, âThere was a minor accident. The important thing to remember is that everyone is fine and these sorts of thing happen.â
Soft-Shelled Soul by theScrap_Witch is another good one! A more permanent Crablor, but with some hope that he might become an elf again someday.
Summary: A red crab. FĂ«anorian red, some distant part of Maedhrosâ brain thought, with a mark on its shell that looked like an eight-pointed star. One claw was much larger than the other, and the crab snapped it underneath Maedhrosâ nose, clearly unhappy to have been scooped out of its hiding hole.
For those who have yet to encounter him, âCrablorâ is a portmanteau of âCrabâ and âMaglorâ, i.e., the crab Maglor became after his many ages of wandering the shores in pain and regret. Crablor is fanon. It was born here.
As @faustandfurious wrote in that very post there is no canon about Maglorâs eventual fate. (You can read about the various ways Maglor ended, or didnât, here).
But the idea of Elven crabification in general does have some basis in canon!
In his writings on Elven fading in Morgothâs Ring, Tolkien talks about the fĂ«a (spirit) consuming the hröa (body):
As ages passed the dominance of their fëar ever increased, 'consuming' their bodies (as has been noted). The end of this process is their 'fading', as Men have called it; for the body becomes at last, as it were, a mere memory held by the fëa; and that end has already been achieved in many regions of Middle-earth, so that the Elves are indeed deathless and may not be destroyed or changed.
The History of Middle-earth Vol. 10: Morgothâs Ring, The Later Quenta Silmarillion, âLaws Bâ (p. 219)
This was not, however, Tolkienâs last thought on the matter. In a marginal note on the entry for hröa published in the linguistic journal Parmasan Eldalamberon (Vol. 12), Tolkien revisits the metaphysical implications of Elven fading:
What of a hröa that resists fading? It is not then consumed by the fĂ«a, but compressed by the process of containing it; by which it will in time be overcome, though at great expense to the strength of the fĂ«a, for this at last takes possession of the changed hröa as its âcasementâ.
What?
This note Tolkien clearly did not intend to be seen or interpreted by anyone but himself, and its meaning is rather opaque. What he seems to be describing, however, is a slow process of shrinking and shapeshifting, from body to âcasementâ, in cases where a hröa resists fading.
Casement as in⊠shell? As in⊠exoskeleton? Elves who resist fading become crabs?
Okay, so that probably wasnât what Tolkien meant, but I can find nothing to contradict it. Let us assume, for our amusement, that the hröa - casement transformation is, or can be, into a crab.
The next question is: Might Maglor have resisted fading?
If one imagines his fate in the published Silmarillion as self-punitive (a reading supported by the alternate versions in which he does in fact commit suicide like Maedhros), it would makes sense that he might resist fading as a sort of release from his punishment. Or perhaps the metaphysics of the Oath had some interference in his ability to fade in the usual fashion.
In which case, Maglor may very well have been one of the Elves who became a crab. Or something like it.
Is Fingolfin close in age to Feanor, or is he closer to Maedhros in age?
Ages of FĂ«anor, Fingolfin, and Maedhros
All we know for sure if that Maedhros is younger than Fingolfin, since he says this when he waives his claim to the kingship of the Noldor:
"If there lay no grievance between us, lord, still the kingship would rightly come to you, the eldest here of the house of Finwë, and not the least wise."
Alas, the Annals of Aman (published in Morgoth's Ring) do not give birth years for any of FĂ«anor's children.
They do give birth years of FĂ«anor (YT 1169) and Fingolfin (YT 1190). Only 21 Valian Years apart![1]
[1] Another essay in Morgoth's Ring (XI in 'Myths Transformed') confirms that Elves did age on the timescale of Valian Years, which at this stage in the conceptual evolution of the legendarium was equal to 100 "regular" years. With Elves maturing around age fifty (again, at this stage), FĂ«anor was still a "minor" when Fingolfin was born.
In LaCE, Elven pregnancies last one year, so the soonest Maedhros could be born is YT 1220, making Fingolfin 30 Valian Years older than Maedhros, and 21 Valian Years younger than FĂ«anor, i.e. closer in age to FĂ«anor.
We also know that FĂ«anor wedded Nerdanel "while still in his early youth" (The Silmarillion). According to Laws and Customs among the Eldar, "children were born within a short space of years after their wedding." Aging scales are complicated in Tolkien's writings (post to come on that, eventually), but, also according to LaCE, Elves married soon after their fiftieth year. If FĂ«anor was notable for marrying "early", then should we understand that he married before fifty? Could be, but let's say he marries at 50 exactly. That would put his marriage at YT 1219.
If you really wanted to canonically make Fingolfin closer in age to Maedhros than to FĂ«anor, you would have to push FĂ«anor's wedding back at least 10 years, to YT 1209, and Maedhros' birth to 1210. We know that FĂ«anor "grew swiftly" and was generally exceptional in everything, so I don't think that's unreasonable.
This scenario would put 20 years between Maedhros and Fingolfin, and 21 years between FĂ«anor and Fingolfin. It requires an exceptionally early marriage, exceptionally swift conception, and only results in a one-year difference -- but it is possible.
So, according to the Annals of Aman (the only source we have on the birth years of FĂ«anor and Fingolfin) and what we are told in the contemporaneous Laws and Customs among the Eldar, it's unlikely, but not impossible, that Fingolfin was closer in age to Maedhros than to FĂ«anor.
Is there any canon evidence that Finrod and Maglor were friends during the Age of The Trees in Valinor?
Thank u for your time 7:3
None!
The only canonical interaction between these two singers is their hunting trip (with Maedhros, too). As told in Of the Coming of Men into the West:
When three hundred years and more were gone since the Noldor came to Beleriand, in the days of the Long Peace, Finrod Felagund lord of Nargothrond journeyed east of Sirion and went hunting with Maglor and Maedhros, sons of FĂ«anor.
Fun fact: in an earlier Silmarillion draft, Finrod went hunting with Celegorm instead of these two (History of Middle-earth, Vol. IV: The Shaping of Middle-earth, Quenta Noldorinwa §9).
So, do we know whoâs really the tallest, Thingol, Turgon or Maedhros? Or someone else?
@aipilosse did a great summary of the evidence on this recently.
tl;dr: It's between Thingol, Turgon, and the pseudo-canonical fourth child of Fingolfin, Argon.
The only other contender, whom some fans include in the running for tallest, comes from the very early Lost Tales: a lord of Gondolin named Penlod is described as "tallest of the Gnomes" (The History of Middle-earth Vol. 2: The Book of Lost Tales II, 'The Fall of Gondolin').
- the elves stopping frequently on their journey to Aman to have sex (and Orome urging them forward by creating storms?)
- elf sex being too intense for most mortals to survive
I think these come from HoME or NoME (or similar sources), but I've never seen the actual quotes. There might be other things related to elf-sex in there as well.
So I guess my question is: What else did Tolkien mention about elf sex, apart from (the already relatively well-known) LaCE?
Elf Sex Lore
There comes a time in every Tolkien fanâs journey when they come upon the Professorâs writings on Elf sex â and, since 2021, there are even more! Elf Sex Lore remains a hot topic as the fandom continues to experience the aftershocks of the spurt of new lore that came with the publication of The Nature of Middle-earth (NoMe) in 2021.
As you say Anon, before NoMe was published, the fandomâs primary resource on Elf sex was the (in)famous essay Laws and Customs Among the Eldar (LaCE), published in 1993 in Morgothâs Ring, the tenth volume of the History of Middle-earth series. LaCE is full of juicy (or not-so-juicy) lore about Elven aging, marriage, gender roles, naming, death, and rebirth.
It is in relation to the first two that we get some details on Elf sex, such as the knowledge that âit was the act of bodily union that achieved marriage, and after which the indissoluble bond was complete.â (Laws B). We also learn that:
ââŠthe Eldar say* that in the begetting, and still more in the bearing of children, greater share and strength of their being, in mind and in body, goes forth than in the making of mortal children. For these reasons it came to pass that the Eldar brought forth few children; and also that their generation was in their youth or earlier life, unless strange and hard fates befell them. But at whatever age they married, their children were born within a short space of years after their wedding. For with regard to generation the power and the will are not among the Eldar distinguishable. Doubtless they would retain for many ages the power of generation, if the will and desire were not satisfied; but with the exercise of the power the desire soon ceases, and the mind turns to other things. The union of love is indeed to them great delight and joy, and the âdays of childrenâ, as they call them, remain in their memory as the most merry in life; but they have many other powers of body and of mind which their nature urges them to fulfil.â
The History of Middle-earth Vol. 10: Morgothâs Ring, âThe Later Quenta Silmarillion (II)â, Laws B
*Note how this paragraph is introduced: âthe Eldar sayâ. Phrases like this signal to us that LaCE is not written from a Elvish point of view. There are indications elsewhere clearly pointing to a human author with a human audience in mind.
Translation: Elves use up a lot of energy in baby-making, including in the sex part (âbegettingâ) but even more in the pregnancy and birthing part (âbearingâ), so they donât have a lot of children and they do so early in life, shortly after marriage. But even if they marry later in life, Elves are still able to have babies because being able to and wanting to reproduce are the same thing for Elves. But once theyâve fulfilled the desire to make babies theyâre good and turn to other things. Still, they look back on the time of baby-making as âthe most merry in lifeâ.
In most (if not all) cases, when Tolkien writes about sex he is writing about reproduction. Did Elves have sex solely for pleasure? Maybe; I cannot find anything that says they didnât. I also can find little conceptual separation of sex and reproduction in Tolkienâs writings. Make of that what you will.
(At this point I want to reiterate a principle central to this blog: itâs about presenting what canon says; it is not about casting judgement on creations that subvert, reinterpret, or ignore canon, none of which makes a work lesser than one which adheres strictly to canon.)
So what did NoMe add to our knowledge about Elf sex? First of all, letâs make sure we all know what NoMe is.
What is The Nature of Middle-earth?
NoMe is a volume of texts by J.R.R. Tolkien collected and edited by Carl Hostetter. It is basically a supplement to the last three volumes of The History of Middle-earth (Morgothâs Ring, The War of the Jewels, and The Peoples of Middle-earth), which cover a period from the late 1950s to his death during which Tolkien was undertaking a rather massive project of worldbuilding, working out the structures underlying his Silmarillion mythology in preparation for revising and publishing what he had written of it before âa sequel to The Hobbitâ (LotR) took him away from it for the better part of two decades.
Christopher Tolkien in Morgothâs Ring called this undertaking âanalytic speculation concerning [the] underlying postulatesâ of his world (Foreword to Morgothâs Ring). Thatâs how we end up with essays like LaCE and the philosophical debate about the fates of Men and Elves in Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth.
The texts in NoMe all date to around the same time and deal with the same sorts of questions about the physics and metaphysics of the world: it contains the essay on ósanwë, for example.
The Context of the NoMe Sex Lore
The first section of NoMe, âTime and Ageingâ, is where we get the new lore on Elf sex. As it happens, the sex lore is rather incidental to extensive ruminations two core questions:
How did Elves experience the passage of time and how did they age?
How did the population of Elves go from 144 at Awaking to a sufficiently high number (around 30 000) when they reached the shores of Beleriand on the Great Journey?
(It is not relevant to get into why 144 and why 30 000 here; suffice to say those are the numbers Tolkien wanted and he expended great imaginative and mathematical energy trying to make them work.)
A note on the textual context: Anyone who has ever engaged in worldbuilding knows how it can go. You think (for example), âOkay, I need to develop a backstory for this characterâs spouse,â and before you know it you are knee-deep in invented genealogies and geographies and Eru-knows-what-else.
Itâs important to bear in mind that this is what Tolkien was doing. The quotes we are about to look at (yes, very soon!) are from a collection of evolving (and unresolved) notes in various states of refinement from barely legible scribbles to carefully penned essays. I will let you decide what that means to you based on your personal definition of canon, but I wanted the textual context to be clear.
Elf Sex Is Intense
In relation to Question 1, Tolkien considers the time-scales of Elven growth, including pregnancy. In the essay under discussion, Tolkien decides that Elven pregnancy should, like human pregnancy, take about 3/4 of a year. Oh no - not that kind of year. A yĂȘn, a âlong yearâ, the unit used by the Elves and to which the matter of their bodies (their hröar) is bound. Elves gestate for 108 Sun years.
I know what youâre asking: If the pregnancy lasts 108 years, then how long does the sex last?
No? No! Youâre probably asking yourself why Tolkien hated Elf-women so much (donât worry, he says thereâs no painâŠ)! But Tolkien was interested in the first question, which he answered thus:
âOn the other hand the act of procreation, being of a will and desire shared and indeed controlled by the fĂ«a, was achieved at the speed of other conscious and wilful acts of delight or of making. It was one of the acts of chief delight, in process and in memory, in an Elvish life, but its intensity alone provided its importance, not its time or length: it could not have been endured for a great length of time, without disastrous âexpense.ââ (NoMe, p. 24)
An earlier version of this passage, which you may also come across in fandom, comes to a similar conclusion:
âBut the act of procreation not being one of growth until the union of the seed and being under full control of the will does not take long - though it is longer and of more intense delight in Elves than in Men: too intense to be long endured.â (NoMe, pg. 27)
Translation: Pregnancy, like other aspects of physical growth, is a process of the hröa over which the fĂ«a has no control; thus it is bound to unfold on âElvish timeâ, i.e. 1 year = 144 years. But the sex leading up to it is an act of the fĂ«a and under its control and therefore occurs at a ânormalâ speed. The Elves love it, too! But not because of how long it lasts, which is a regular amount of time, but because of how intense it is. In fact, it is so intense that if it were any longer they would suffer âdisastrous âexpenseâ.â
What is this âexpenseâ? Basically, itâs referring to the usage of an Elfâs natural âvitalityâ â far greater than that of Men but not infinite. As far as I can tell, this passage means that having intense Elf sex for too long would have spiritual results similar to MĂrielâs bearing of FĂ«anor, or FĂ«anorâs creation of the Silmarils. Too much of their spirit would be expended (used up) in the act, with possibly disastrous consequences.
These are the quotes from which, I think, originate the rumour that Elf sex was too intense for mortals to survive. As you can see, the discussion is about Elf/Elf relations. Elf sex is too intense for Elves to endure for too long. Anything about what this means for Elf/Mortal sexual relations is fan conjecture.
Thatâs the Elf Sex nugget from Tolkienâs considerations of Elven growth rates: Elf sex (between Elves) is intense but of a normal duration.
Initially, Tolkien developed some Elven life cycle schemes that had them taking a leisurely approach to reproduction, with each generation taking many hundreds, even thousands, of Sun years to materialise.
This scheme did not work for getting him from 144 to ~30k in the timeframe he wanted. So, he made some adjustments to the scheme with respect to the timing of Elven maturity and consequent desire to begin reproducing â and then set about getting those Elves procreating!
One of the solutions he entertained was giving the Elves opportunities to reproduce on the Great Journey. He laid all of this out in a timeline (NoME, p. 49-53) detailing where and for how long the host of Elves would pause because of the âdesire to beget childrenâ (p. 49).
Reading this timeline, it can become increasingly comical each time this desire to reproduce (i.e., have sex) halts the host. It can start to read like, âThe Elves took forever to cross Middle-earth because they couldnât stop banging!â And, in a way, that is what happened. But bear in mind the context is an attempt at solving the problem of increasing the Elven population to a number Tolkien considered satisfactory for his worldbuilding endeavours. An Elven enthusiasm for sex is there, but itâs not the whole picture.
There are several points on the timeline when Oromë hangs out with the Elves or checks in on them, and he does become increasingly concerned with their begetting-related delays. For example:
âAbout 2000 pairs (of available Telerin 8th gen. of 4,950) beget children in the spring 1130/80. The Chiefs and OromĂ« are disturbed.â (NoMe, p. 51)
(âThe Chiefsâ are IngwĂ«, FinwĂ«, and ElwĂ«.)
And:
âEither by chance, machinations of Sauron, and/or because OromĂ« withdraws protection (hoping to make the Eldar less content with their new Home (Atyamar), winters are hard and the weather worsens.â (NoMe, p. 51)
The second quote is the origin of that rumour about OromĂ« creating storms to urge the Elves on because they were having too much sex. Is it canon? Not quite: OromĂ« didnât create the storm, for one, and the emphasis is on sex for the pleasure of children more than the pleasure of sex on its own (though, as we know from the previous discussion, sexual pleasure was certainly had!). But the rumour you've heard is not without basis in Tolkienâs notes.
âThe Quendi in their first few generations before the March (or reaching Valinor) must â as is quite reasonable â be made far more eager for love and the begetting and bearing of children. *They must have larger families, at shorter intervals between births.â (p. 107)
To explain this attitude of reproductive eagerness in the first few generations of Elves, Tolkien coins the term âphiloprogenitiveâ â they love to procreate! Procreating â not artistic and intellectual pursuits or exploration or leadership as with later generations â is their number one priority in life. So much so that âthey mated almost at once with their predestined matesâ (p. 54).
Not only that, but they have so many babies! In one version of the scheme, 12 children per couple in the first generation (p. 108). (This soon changes to 6 per couple. Philoprogenitive they may be, but no one gets to outdo FĂ«anor).
Of course, what weâve been looking at are drafts and notes. While all written around the same time (late 1950s to early 1960s), none of the texts here examined were ever finalised and many of them donât even agree with each other. Tolkien was experimenting; he was worldbuilding. And with the publication of these notes in NoMe, we in turn get some intriguing ingredients for worldbuilding of our own.
Mythgard Academyâs seminars on The Nature of Middle-earth. You donât actually have to have read or own NoMe to follow these discussions. Great for getting a handle on the material, and ideal for listening as you work your way through reading.
