A world with talking Eagles, Men who can change into Bears and can talk to most animals. A world with walking treemen and orcs and trolls that turn to stone at the touch of the sun, should and appears to have had magic for humans. There were even a few hints that hobbits may have descendants that are still around and are especially good at disappearing before large folk appear.
One problem with rationalizing Middle Earth is the 3 primary sources are 3 different type of literature.
The Hobbit is a classic folk tale or extra long Fairy Story.
The Lord of the Rings is an Epic with the Fairy Tale portions left behind at Bree.
The Silmarillion is a collection of legends and myths.
Some quick comments from a lurker to all threads Tolkien:
- regarding Quadop’s “question about how to address the hypothetical questions about JRRT’s universe, in view of the fact that he kept editing and updating things, even after publication…” - I take what’s in the published LOTR and Hobbit as canon. The History of Middle Earth series is interesting, and the Letters of JRRT even more so, but I stick with the books as published. Otherwise I’d drive myself buggy.
-and to quote JRFranchi …"the 3 primary sources are 3 different type of literature. " This is what I always try to explain to new readers of LOTR. They are so excited, and want more of the same, but Tolkien only wrote the one in this style, unfortunately.
-regarding Tolkien’s idea of God singing the world into existence: I just read a book called “Why Birds Sing” by a philosopher named David Rothenberg. The way he writes about music and song, and their importance, reminds me so much of Tolkien’s creation myth.
No, I wasn’t a student at Oxford, but I’ve spent a lot of time in the city. I’ve visited it dozens of time over the last 18 years. I was just there in August.
I noticed that the ring changed size to adapt to its owner… Isildur obviously was thicker than Gollum, Bilbo, or Frodo. Do you think that any of the ring bearers ever wore it as a cock ring?
[QUOTE=phungi]
I noticed that the ring changed size to adapt to its owner… Isildur obviously was thicker than Gollum, Bilbo, or Frodo. Do you think that any of the ring bearers ever wore it as a EDITED OUT[\QUOTE]
Very sick and strange question and no, there was actually only 8 who wore the ring I know of, I am quite sure none of them did so.
Sauron
Isildur
Deagol
Smeagol/Gollum
Bilbo
Frodo
Tom Bombadil
Samwise Gamgee
Knocking up? I don’t remember that part of the Faithful Stone.
But on the subject of magic, the Numenoreans could and did practice “high art”. This allowed them to produce items of high quality, or with exceptional abilities, through a sort of scientific or technological approach. Sadly, though, much of the technology behind, say, the tree-impervious stones of Orthanc is lost by the end of the Third Age. Men were also capable of sorcery, but that’s a black and evil art, not similar to the magic of Gandalf or of the Elves. I have no problem accepting, though, that the Barrow-blades were examples of Numenorean high art, and that that art might in some way be able to counteract the sorcery of the Witch-King.
(in the spirit of the OP) On the other hand, this would lend new implications to Isildur’s defeat of Sauron, when he cut off the “finger” bearing the ring, and in the process, divested Sauron of his power. Note that the weapon which removed the “finger” was a broken sword, itself a symbol of emasculation. But this emasculating power corrupted Isuldur, leading to him die himself by being pierced by a shaft, while attempting to traverse a flowing river. The Freudian analysis practically writes itself.
Heh. The “nations divided by a common language” thing strikes again. Lancashire comedian Mike Harding did an entire monologue on Americans not understanding what a “knocker-up” did for a living. 
Especially the part about standing in the street and reaching up to the bedroom window, and being able to do several streets in one morning.
Was there ever mention of Deagol wearing the ring? I don’t recall any, but I could be forgetful.
Nope, I think you got me, from the text it is actually unlikely that Deagol wore the ring. I merged wore & carried together. Sorry. 
So, um, what exactly does a knocker-up do for a living?
Gets people out of bed.
In industrial-era Lancashire mill towns, the workforce lived near the factory, and the knocker-up had a long stick with a padded end with which to bang on people’s bedroom windows to wake them up. Cheaper and more effective than an alarm clock in the days before they were themselves factory-made.
Note: There is no more willing spinner of wild tales of quaint English customs to gullible Americans than I, but the above account is entirely factual.
To Bilbo, Aragorn is the Dunadan, the epitome of surviving-Numenoreanness (hey, I coined a new word! ;)), as Isildur’s heir. It’s one of those little details you’re expected to pick up on in second, or later, readings, that make the Tolkien ficton so rich.
I knew that from “Life in the Middle Ages” but I thought you were using it in some different fashion. I was thinking you meant that they made them as guardians or something along that line.
I applaud your obscure joke.
I salute a true Anglophile! By the way, I came across a film site with some comments by a Wendell Wagner. Seeems like too uncommon a name to be mere coincidence. Was that you?
Oh, absolutely. It’s just that I can’t think of another occasion when the singular form is used.
Now if Bilbo had ever met Faramir (the book Faramir, of course, not PJ’s carbon-copy-of-Boromir) he’d possibly have had occasion to apply the word to someone else. And I like the bit in The Houses of Healing where Faramir regains consciousness and immediately knows who he is talking to and what his proper relationship to him is.
roger thornhill writes:
> By the way, I came across a film site with some comments by a Wendell
> Wagner. Seeems like too uncommon a name to be mere coincidence. Was that
> you?
Yes, I did film reviews for the D.C. Film Society for a while, but then I got too busy with other things to be able to keep it up. I was surprised when I Googled on my name to find that there are other a number of other Wendell Wagners. There were dozens of hits on the name, a dozen or so of which actually mention me. One of them mentions my father, whose name is also Wendell Wagner. There are several other Wendell Wagners in the U.S. and one in Canada. I believe there is one in Brazil also. This is odd, since I thought I had figured out that the first name Wendell is quite rare outside the U.S.