BTW here’s a good online collection of JRRT maps: http://www.lotrlibrary.com/placesofarda/listofmaps.asp
joins in the wailing and gnashing
That kind of sloppiness is inexcusable even from an amateur enthusiast, let alone a professional scholar!
No, Delly has it right. Tuor was wandering in the west of Dor-lomin looking for the Gate. He spied two elves exiting from an arch through which a stream flowed. He had previously dismissed it. They showed him the tunnel and set him on his way. He met no one again until he found his guide, Voronwe.
[QUOTE=He spied two elves exiting from an arch through which a stream flowed[/QUOTE]
so that ‘arch’ was just another random hidden place?? Sorry I’m a bit confused :S
No the arch was the Gate of the Noldor. The elves set Tuor on his way through the Gate. After following the carved out passage he exits the tunnel. The next morning he looks back at the tunnel and sees a rainbow in the cleft through which he passed.
Cave systems and rivers that flow through them (and create them in the first place) are fairly common in limestone areas. This page describes the main areas where they are found in the UK: http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Union/UBSS/areas/areas.htm
This page describes the discovery of what is alleged to be the longest underground river in the world: ThingsAsian |
if that is teh case, does he not spend another couple of days wandering around before he gets to the sea, gets teh armour, and encounters Voronwe???
The year was waning when he finally got to Nevrast. Ulmo must’ve wasted 3-4 flocks worth of birds just getting Tuor on the move. 
Anybody want to speculate on why he didn’t borrow his buddy Manwë’s eagles, and just airdrop Tuor into Gondolin like was done with his dad? Granted the suit of armor might have been a bit heavy, but two eagles, carrying Tuor on a line between them, or perhaps gripping him by one armored limb each…
Of course, it’s not a question of where they grip him. It’s a simple question of weight ratios.
Does anyone know if the Eagles of Manwë migrate?
“I don’t know…aaarrrggh.”
Do you know the air-speed velocity of a fully-laden Manwe eagle?
East/West I think. 
Qadgop the Mercotan writes:
> For example, right now I’m reading tolkien in the land of heroes by Anne Petty,
> and find myself frothing at the mouth over the factual inaccuracies in her book.
> She’s supposed to be a tenured JRRT scholar, for Eru’s sake!
No, she’s not. She’s an English Ph.D. who now works as a technical writer. I believe that she didn’t even do her thesis on Tolkien. She certainly isn’t generally recognized in academia as a Tolkien scholar. I just got back from Mythcon, the annual conference of Inklings scholars. Inklings scholarship is unlikely to win you much respect in academia. I’ve been asking around for several years about which Inklings scholar has the most prestigious position. The only cases of Inklings scholars (and in these cases they’re Tolkien scholars) in fairly good departments or otherwise with good positions that anyone has been able to come up with are Verlyn Flieger at the University of Maryland, Jane Chance at Rice University, and Tom Shippey who had a chair created for him at St. Louis University. Everyone else teaches at little-known places or does something else entirely, like work as a computer programmer or as a librarian.
Well, that’s a relief. Heck, I was getting delusions of scholarship myself after realizing how many holes in her work I was recognizing.