Right. Dumb of me. Big mistake. Sorry, Pippin.
I guess the lembas equivalent would be that hard grey bread stuff the orcs feed them. No magical qualities, as I remember.
No, Spam found him dead, surrounded by four-letter Scrabble arrangements. Seems he got a batch of bad stingwort.
Perhaps the effects of Entdraughts is inheritable.
You never know.
Tris
Elves do lose their bodies and fade away if they remain in Middle-Earth too long. Tolkien says as much in Vol. 12 of HoME, “The Peoples of Middle-Earth”. They can stay so long as they are able, but all must eventualy sail West, or be subject to diminishment. Elves who lose their bodies are also free to refuse the summons to Mandos. They can stay behind in spirit-form. These spirits are called ‘Houseless’, and they are dangerous to contact. They may attempt to possess the bodies of the living.
Actually, there is a brief passage in The Hobbit where it is said that some inhabitants of the Shire speculate there is some elvish blood in the Took line, due to their unusual adventurousness and their tall stature. (The oldest hobbit next to Bilbo was a Took, and the tallest hobbit next to post-entdraught Merry & Pippin was also a Took.) Bilbo himself is half-Took; his mother was Belladonna Took, a grand-daughter (I believe) of the Old Took. (Maybe Gerontius, but I could be wrong.) But you can’t really make too much of this ‘elvish Took blood’ comment- Tolkien wrote The Hobbit before he had completely figured out all of his later canon. And it’s more likely that hobbits just folklore-ically ascribed odd behavior to odd genetic influences, and the oddest people they had knowledge of were the Elves.
Now Men may very well have had something to do with the origin of Hobbits. It’s not mentioned in any of the geneaologies, but these go back only to Marcho and Blanco’s founding of the Shire sometime in the Third Age. We don’t know where hobbits originally came from; Gollum is 500-550 years old at the time of WR due to the Ring’s effects, but in his youth he lived in the upper vales of the Anduin. He was most likely a Stoor. There were Men living in that area at one time- perhaps the Stoors are their descendants? Hobbits basically line-breed; every Hobbit is some other Hobbit’s cousin by blood or marriage, and they breed only within their small groups. This would over time fix their physical characteristics, such as big hairy feet and small stature. So it’s possible hobbits are just a very small sub-species of the larger human species at the time of the WR. From what we know of genetics today, this would probably not preclude the production of fertile offspring from a cross, but it’s well-nigh impossible to apply science to Tolkien. (But it’s fun to try.)
Oddly enough, Hobbits are not even outside the potential genetic variability for Homo Sapiens Sapiens. They aren’t much beyong Pygmies.
For online LOTR (full text), try:
http://republika.pl/tolkienonline/ang.html
or
http://www.republika.pl/strider10/lord.html
The second is easier on the eyes, but has, not been working today.
The site also has The Hobbit:
http://republika.pl/strider0/hobbit.html
and The Silmarillion: http://www.republika.pl/strider0/silmarillion.html, which seem to work. I suspect any online version is likely breaking copyright, but it’s incredibly useful when you want to look something up quickly.
Argh, now that I look at it, the first link that I gave you for LOTR, the one that currently works, only has the prologues and the first three or four chapters up. Perhaps they are trying to make a transistion from one version of the site to another? It’s the same main website.
Sigh…
Oh, and leave out the comma if you try the Silm link…
I think I will go to bed now, brain is dead.
Love these SDMB LOTR threads!
Hey, since everyone’s in one place currently, I’ve got a hobbit question:
When did Sam’s daughter move to the Towers? My appendix is all messed up, and lists them moving twice. 1462 and 1454, I think.
It is a little confusing, but from the tale of years:
1451: Elanor marries Fastred on the Far Downs.
1452: The Westmarch is added by gift, from the Far Downs to the Tower Hills
1455: Fastred is made Warden of Westmarch, Fastred & Elenor make their dwelling at the Undertowers of the Tower Hills.
I read this as saying they married & moved to the Far Downs, the Westmarch is added a year later, and then when Fastred is promoted (for lack of a better term), Elenor & Fastred relocate to the Tower Hills. However, the family tree of Samwise indicates they first moved to Westmarch after it was added to The Shire. It does thus look like they moved twice, once to the Far Downs, and then a second time to the Tower Hills, which I assume were fancier digs.
Hmm. The entry I have (at home) has something along the lines of:
1455: Sam is elected Mayor for the sixth time. Elanor and Fastred make their dwelling…
1462: Sam is elected Mayor for the seventh time. Elanor and Fastred make their dwelling…
The wording is nearly identical, and I think the copy-editor just got confused. Which is weird, because it’s a fairly recent printing (4 years old?).
I suspect there is a typo then. I am working out of the hardcover HM 2nd edition.
It lists Sam elected Mayor the first time in 1427, second in 1434, third in 1441, fourth in 1448, fifth in the 1455 entry I note above, sixth is not listed but would fall in 1462, and seventh and last in 1469.
OTOH 3 years is a pretty short time to go from a new addition to the shire to adding a Warden (who is made equivalent to the Thain, Mayor & Master). So it is possible that both editions are in error, and the correct entry should be placed in 1462 when Sam is elected mayor the sixth, unmentioned time. Do you have an entry for 1469? The complete entry for mine reads:
“1469: Master Samwise becomes Mayor for the seventh and last time, being in 1476, at the end of his office, ninety-six years old.”
& Of course, I would check what your TOY reads for Sam’s first election.
I’m a little unsure about Arwen’s exact status. It’s pretty clear in the Akallabeth that Elros’ children did not inherit the Choice from their father (they resented and envied the immortality of the Elves), and I don’t see why Arwen should get to choose if they didn’t. It’s not even a matter of Elves being “higher” than Men: The gifts given to both were equal in value, and before the End, the Elves shall come to envy the Gift of Men.
Furthermore, when Arwen does die, she dies of grief, which is listed as one of the two ways which Elves can die (and humans, by contrast, can’t really die of grief, either). So it’s possible that she simply passed to the Halls of Mandos like any other grief-stricken or slain Elf, to eventually return to the world (although I get the impression that this takes a while for Elves who die of grief).
Chronos
I really have to disagree regarding the Halls of Mandos. The text in ROTK is quite clear that her parting from Elrond is final, in the same way as that of Luthien. Aragorn, in the inset tale in the appendix, states clearly that he has the power, as did the immediate descendents of Elros, to give the gift back. Which is to say that though mortal, he can chose the time of his passing from the world. I read Arwen’s death the same way, in the sense that she mearly chooses the timing of her passing, but her passing is a final one.
Good point regarding the Akallabeth. Your reading regarding the sons of Elros was not a point I had considered regarding the offspring of Elrond, but your line of reasoning there makes sense. However, I take it as further support for the argument that Arwen’s choice was that of Luthien.
I read the gift in “to give the gift back” as the gift of long life, which he passes to his children if he chooses to die early.
Could be completely wrong - it’s happened a couple of times.
“The Gift” is the short for “Gift of Eru” i.e. life itself. Numenoreans had long lifespans, the house of Elros most of all. Tolkien describes their lifecycle as being normal up to maturity, and then they prett much remain the same “age”, though ‘weathering’ somewhat up to almost the end of their lives. Only the the last few years of their span would their ‘vigor’ age. They were also aware of the onset of this waning. Traditionally, the kings of Numenor gave up their life as they felt the onset of their waning. Later, as the people as a whole became resentfull of their mortality, they clung to the last shred of their life. Not uncoincidently, this corresponds with a decrease in their life-expectancy.
Aragorn, being a throwback to the early Numenoreans in almost all ways, gained back this ability.
Your reading, however, is interesting in the sense that the life span of the Numenoreans decreased as they failed to do this. But the meaning of the phrase is a little different.
Just to wrap off the Peredhil discussion, one must not forget the two sons of Dior, one of whom is named Elboron (the other, I think, being an earlier Elladan), who were captured and lost during one of the invasions of Doriath.
c_carol got em. Elured & Elurin.
deathawk–I think your choice of words is confusing here.
“The gift of men” in Tolkien’s writing ALWAYS refers to death.
Your conufisng the greater lifespand granted to the Numenoreans, their ability to give up their life at will (and thus die in full vigor), and the fate of all men, which is to die and leave the circles of the world, unlike elves.