I just returned from Bree Moot 4/Mythcon XXX and I would like to start off with a word of advice to anyone who plans to attend a future Mythcon, Bree Moot, or a combined Mythcon Bree Moot. That bit of advice is don't plan on doing anything other than going there. Over the past weekend I have been so over booked timewise none of the things which should have gotten my full attention got one quarter of what they deserved. At this Mythcon/Bree Moot, programming started at around 9 am and went into the wee hours of the morning. In my conversations with Douglas Anderson he commented that he got an average of 5 hours of sleep a night. So go early and plan on staying there until the last verse of the Drunken Hobbit is sung.

I should also get some apologies out of the way right now. To all of you who visit the site, I wish I could give a fuller accountings of the goings on. To Jeff and Brenda Woosley, sorry I left your wedding early. To the attendees of Mythcon XXX/Bree Moot 4, I didn't get to know most of you half as well as I would have liked to. To everyone else I had made plans with this past weekend, I will be better next time.

For those who are not familiar with Mythcon or Bree Moot and the groups which organize them, I will give a little bit of background. The Mythopeic Society has sponsored Mythcon for the past 30 years, bringing together scholars and fans of the works of Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and others. The Mythopeic Society also publishes a number of periodicals and helps organize discussion and special interest groups. Beyond Bree is the newsletter of the Tolkien Special Interest Group of American Mensa.

While my time at MythMoot was much shorter than I would have liked, I met some wonderful people and was able to attend a fabulous slide show presentation by Douglas Anderson. A wide variety of papers, panels, discussions, and lectures were available to the attendees, and I regret that I didn't have the time to attend more of them. I did have some wonderful discusions with a variety of different people though, and look forward to seeing and hearing from some of them again in the future.

I hope this tidbit about MythMoot will tide all of you over until more eloquent and complete reports are put up on the web. If any of the attendee's read this and wish to submit a report here please do.