“It [discovering Finnish] was like discovering a wine-cellar filled with bottles of amazing wine of a kind and flavour never tasted before. It quite intoxicated me.”

J.R.R. Tolkien was an English philologist and writer of the early-to-mid 20th century. He crafted the sprawling fantasy world of Middle-earth, immortalized in *The Hobbit* and *The Lord of the Rings*. His work blends deep linguistic scholarship with rich mythic storytelling.