Quadgop, this humble servant requests permission to bear your children.
Since you’re my new Tolkien god, can you try these?
What the heck is in Dorwinion? We know from The Hobbit that the Mirkwood elves, and that ol’ lush Thranduil get their wine from Dorwinion, which is located on the northwest coast of the Inland Sea of Rhun. But who are these people, and what are they doing shipping wine upriver? Since there’s obviously a lot of vineyards there, and it is in the east of ME, could this be where those pesky Entwives got to all those years ago? And wine seems like a distinctly Elvish brew, despite its popularity among the more well-to-do Hobbits. Could there be some mysterious unnamed elven outpost in Dorwinion?
Wives. Where the heck is everybody’s wife? People with kids but no wives include such notables as Fingolfin, Fingon, Elendil, Isildur, the above-mentioned Thranduil, and the redoubtable Gloin. What is going on here? (Disturbing speculation re: Legolas’ mom: we know about the wine. Did daddy drink mommy away?!)
These questions have been plaguing me for years. Any clues? Thanks.
Qadgop You Rock. My thanks for you’re doing the searching for my silly Q.
Especialy funny when I am of Polish extraction. You’ve made my day you geek you!
'Nother point?
Didn’t someone in these books once refer to Strider as “Long Shanks?”
And the “Silver” actually makes sence when one consiters that a silver star was worn by the Rangers (left shoulder?) who joined Aragorn with Arawens standard. I think Aragorn wore one himself did he not? Is it not a Tolkien (sorry I couldn’t resist the pun) of the Northern kingdom?
Oh great Master it’s all coming together! The man puts more fun in books than someone could ferret out in a lifetime. Luckily we got you Qadgop to do it for us.
I have a small question about a minor plot point in The Two Towers. When do Merry and Pippin first learn that Gandalf has survived? In the film, it shows them encountering Gandalf in Fangorn, but that scene never is recounted in the book, and I am told that it did not happen. But Gandalf’s line to Aragorn is the same: “You are tracking the footsteps of two young hobbits… Well they climbed up here the day before yesterday; and they met someone that they did not expect. Does that comfort you?” (Book III, Chap 5) While I guess this line could be talking about Treebeard, it makes a little more sense to me if it’s talking about Gandalf. Also, when they encounter Gandalf at the end of Book III, Chap 8, they show none of the surprise that you’d think they would if that was their first meeting since Moria. Maybe they heard that he had returned from Wormtongue, though. So, what is it?
In the book, Pippin and Merry did not discover that Gandalf had survived until after the Ent’s destruction of Isengard. That was when Gandalf rode up to recruit the Ent’s help for the rescue of the Rohirrim at Helm’s deep. Gandalf greeted Pippin with a joyous “Get up, you Tom-fool of a Took!”
They encounter him when he rode Shadowfax to Isengard. When Merry and Pippen are telling Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli about their adventures, one of them says that he was sleeping near the gate and Gandalf rode up. He was shocked, thought it was a dream or ghost, and managed to stammer out “Gandalf?” Gandalf wasn’t in the mood to chat, he only said something like “Where in all this mess is Treebeard? I want him, now!” Then, after he talked to Treebeard, he sat and chatted with the two hobbits, and told them all that had happened. He also told Treebeard about Wormtongue, who arrived shortly thereafter, and got the first of a series of unpleasant surprises.
As I recall, that was one of his nicknames in Bree. And while we’re on the subject, Eomer named him Wingfoot at their first meeting (after learning how far he (and L&G) had walked in three days, he said that “Strider” was too poor a name).
As for wives, in all of Tolkien’s works, there was only one female dwarf mentioned by name (the mother of Fili and Kili, in one of the geneologies), and I think seven others mentioned not by name (the wives of the forefathers of the dwarves). It’s mentioned that dwarven women are rare, and often mistaken for the men of the race. Which, given that all (or almost all) dwaven men have beards, implies that the ladies do, too (this is actually referenced in passing in the Two Towers film, at which point I almost disrupted the theater laughing).
you know, after all my extensive reading of LoTR et al. i only just realised the irony of Frodo having his finger bitten off in relation to sauron having his finger chopped off by isildur !!! (banging head on table)