New answers tagged the-lord-of-the-rings
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RotK pp. 747
....he broke off and lifted his eyes above the river, and it seemed to him that all he could see was a vast and threatening shadow. Perhaps it was mountains looming on the verge of sight, their jagged edges softened by wellnigh twenty leagues of misty air....
This passage is from Pippin’s perspective as he and Beregond gaze out from the ...
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I'm not sure if the original JRR Tolkien manuscripts these were based on have been published yet, (I presume they have, I just haven't been able to locate them) but in 1981 and 1982 Christopher Tolkien mailed the editor of Quettar (a linguistic journal) some handwritten notes on how to write numbers in tengwar.
These were published in their original form in ...
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Gandalf leaves a message at Weathertop for Aragorn and the hobbits by scrawling a G rune followed by three strokes, to indicate that he was there on the 3rd of the month (or at least, that’s what Aragorn surmises). Therefore, something akin to Roman numerals was definitely used occasionally, at least for small numbers.
'There seems to be a stroke, a dot, ...
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Quettar Special Publication No.1, 'The Writing Systems of Middle-earth', by David Doughan and Julian Bradeld, published in 1987.
The Eldar used both a decimal and a duodecimal system, the Dwarves used a duodecimal system, and the Men of the West in the Third Age used mainly a decimal system. The digits used were as follows1:
In all systems the ...
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Unfortunately I cannot provide an answer from the text or from Tolkien himself, but I can point to real world evidence and parallels to demonstrate that the presense of 'tea' in the Shire is in fact not unusual.
Firstly, I would like to assert that 'tea' in our own world can also refer to 'herbal tea' not made with the traditional tea plant (camellia ...
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It was probably grown in the South Farthing. We already know that tobacco grows there. (And, yes, I understand the arguments that say it shouldn't. Nevertheless, LotR unequivocally says that it does.) In the US, tea is grown commercially in South Carolina which is also a tobacco-producing area, though admittedly in the southern part of tobacco's range -- ...
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There are quite a few references to tea in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, although most of them are to "tea-time" or "tea" as a meal. For example:
There were three official meals: lunch, tea, and dinner (or supper).
The Lord of the Rings Book One, Chapter 1: A Long-expected Party
Page 27 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Single Volume 50th ...
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Valorum and jwatts1980 have given good answers. I would also suggest the following to augment them: pain.
There is no dispute in those who were offered (to some degree) the ring that vast and corrupting power would be in their hand if they accepted the offer. Galadriel and Gandalf are two of the most powerful beings in the story, and their perspective is ...
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There are many fantastic answers on this page but there are a number of other connections that have not been made yet.
Aragorn: The Return of the King
Speaking less about the title and more about the plot point within The Lord of the Rings, the concept of the return of a Great King to his decadent (or at the very least, ill-prepared) people is very ...
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Radagast was certainly a lover of nature and had been a servant of Yavanna—the fashioner of the first trees—in Aman. However, in Middle-Earth, he seems to have been less obviously concerned with the plants of the land than with the creatures; he may have been the closest the beasts and birds and fish of any of the Istari.
He also had a house at Rhosgobel ...
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I know i'm answering my own question, but I was thinking about it, and an idea came to me that would fit nicely - The Mirror of Galadriel. While looking in the mirror, Frodo saw
... the sun went down in a burning red that faded into a grey mist; and into the mist a small ship passed away, twinkling with lights. It vanished, ...
He wouldn't have ...
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There is a footnote in RotK in which Arwen ruled with Aragorn, "in glory and bliss, Queen of Elves and Men." This suggests that there were some Eldar remaining, who were subjects of Gondor and/or Arnor.
These probably left with the passing of Arwen.
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It is possible that Frodo's arrival in Valinor is an accurate recording of factual events in-universe
While, as far as we understand, there are no more immigrants from Valinor (only those heading to Valinor) who could bear tale of Frodo's arrival, there is at least one way for this to be an accurate factual account in Middle Earth.
Aragorn, who at the ...
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In The Fellowship of the Ring, Book I, Chapter 8, "Fog on the Barrow Downs" the night that the hobbits spend in the house of Tom Bombadil before leaving to cross the Barrow Downs is briefly described:
That night they heard no noises. But either in his dreams or out of them, he could not tell which, Frodo heard a sweet singing running in his mind: a song ...
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It’s not eyewitness testimony, it's a literary flourish
The most likely perpetrators of this are either Samwise Gamgee, its original author, or J.R.R. Tolkien its translator into English. However, it is possible that this flourish was added during the transcription from the Red Book to the Thain's book or in the final transcription back to the manuscript ...
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The book does not claim to have recorded this. Before leaving, Frodo gives the book to Sam, inviting him to write the ending -
"I have quite finished, Sam," said Frodo. "The last pages are for
you."
- Book 6, Ch 9, The Grey Havens
I think we can assume that the ending was written not as a witnessed record, but rather the way Sam — who loved Frodo ...
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I’ve read that very few elves remained in Middle-earth and certainly not enough to send an army. As far as the dwarves there may have been an even bigger battle than Minas Tirith at New Dale and Lonely Mountains. It says dwarves marched out and fought for three days in open combat before falling back to their defense which took much longer to besiege. Along ...
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