A hobbit on the trip: 2700 kilometers from Wiesbaden to Morocco!

A Frankfurt Scandinavi student, Bennett Brück, went on an extraordinary adventure: in Hobbit clothing he hiked 2700 kilometers from Wiesbaden to Morocco. This remarkable journey, from the story "The Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkien was inspired, started in the summer of 2024. Brück decided to do this undertaking as part of a personal healing process after a dark time during the Corona pandemic.

Together with his friend Leo K., Brück started the hike that led through seven countries. The route started on the Rhine near Wiesbaden and finally ended in Morocco. The two covered about 15 to 20 kilometers every day and reached Paris after three weeks. In the French capital, however, Leo decided to stop the trip so Brück continued his hike alone.

dangerous Situation and symbolic act

in Spain Brück got into a dangerous situation when he was traveling in Valencia and Malaga during the century flood. Despite these adverse circumstances, he continued his journey and finally reached Morocco. There he explained a symbolic act: he threw a faithful ring, which he had carried with him during the entire hike, into the sea to free himself from bad thoughts. After four months, Brück traveled back to Frankfurt by direct flight from Morocco.

parallel to Brück's impressive hike, the profound meaning of J.R.R. Tolkien highlighted for modern fantasy culture. The large hobbit encyclopedia, which was published in 2013 by Damien Bader, Vivien Stocker, Coralie Potot and Dominique Vigot in French, impressively illustrates this. The encyclopedia appears in the magic spring publisher in Germany and weighs 1.6 kg. It contains an introduction, chronology and a list of abbreviations.

The introduction deals with Tolkien's life and its literary beginnings, while the following chronology describes important events in Tolkien's life and his writings. The encyclopedia comprises almost 300 pages, divided into seven alphabetically sorted chapters that illuminate various aspects of Tolkien's work and inspiration. These include chapters on characters, peoples, languages, objects, places, important events and Tolkien's sources of inspiration from old texts and legends.