More food and drink from The Hobbit

"High Tea in Tolkien’s The Hobbit"
http://historicalfoods.com/?p=1245

"Ellen-Ealu ‘Elder-Ale’"
http://historicalfoods.com/?p=1807

ETA: Book collecting, "a deeply boring trade"
http://www.bangaloremirror.com/article/36/2010042120100421191526985c427d7db/A-deeply-boring-trade.html

"Iceland is safe"

"An eruption very seldom occurs, and even when it does, it occupies but a small tract of time. Travellers cannot therefore be much obstructed by it." Horrebow, The Natural History of Iceland; reported in Auden & MacNeice, Letters from Iceland.