On his great Tree of Tales, it is the leaves - the tiny details - in which J.R.R. Tolkien took greatest delight. One of the ways this manifested itself in Middle-earth is in the fully-formed oral traditions from the diverse peoples and cultures contained in it. In The Proverbs of Middle-earth, David Rowe explores over 400 original proverbs that show the wisdom traditions found in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, investigating the degree to which Tolkien's proverbs not only delight and instruct, but also bring revelatory "inner reality" to his created world.