If tried to sweet talk your way into a sold-out screening of The Hobbit over the weekend, then you might not be surprised to hear that there are a ton of hardcore J.R.R. Tolkien fans out there. What we imagine might surprise you is how many of those fans, secretly tucked away under all of those layers of winter clothing, have inked permanent tributes to the beloved author on their skin. We’ve scoured the Internet for some of the the most impressive Tolkien-inspired tattoos we could find — not counting the scores of designs that are people’s names or favorite sayings written in Elvish — and picked out 20 of our favorite tributes to Middle Earth for you to peruse after the jump. What do you think Gandalf the White would make of all this?
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Map of Middle Earth. Photo via
Excerpt from a poem in the Fellowship of the Ring. Photo via.
Same poem, translated into Quenya and written in the Tengwar alphabet. Photo via
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Tolkien’s original cover art for The Lord of The Rings. Photo via
Smaug. Photo via
More Smaug. Photo via
Quote from The Hobbit. Photo via
The White Tree of Gondor. Photo via
The White Tree of Gondor — but in white ink! Photo via
The Doors of Durin. Photo via
Quote from The Hobbit. Photo via
Quote from The Fellowship of the Ring. Photo via
Quote from The Lord of the Rings. Photo via
The Eye of Sauron. Photo via
Nazgûl. Photo via