Tolkien Birthday Toast
Next: January 3, 2027
Raise a glass to the Professor.
The story
Where it comes from
J.R.R. Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, on 3 January 1892, where his father, an English bank clerk, had gone for better prospects. He grew up to be a great scholar of Old and Middle English and was twice Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxford. Alongside his teaching he wrote The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954–1955). Each year on his birthday, the Tolkien Society invites fans around the world to toast the man they call the Professor.
How it's celebrated
At 9 pm local time, fans stand, raise a glass and say the toast, simply 'The Professor', before taking a sip and sitting down to enjoy the rest of their drink. The drink is your choice and need not be alcoholic. Because everyone toasts at 9 pm where they are, the toast travels around the world through the evening, time zone by time zone.
Did you know
- Tolkien wrote 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit' on a blank page left in a student's exam paper he was marking.
- Before The Hobbit was accepted, the publisher Stanley Unwin gave it to his 10-year-old son Rayner, who wrote an approving report.
- Tolkien invented his own languages for fun from his school days, and his Elvish tongue Qenya was heavily influenced by Finnish.
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