Damn! I forgot old Tom!
There is at least one other type of talking bird in there, puglvr.
Your answer of six people touching the Ring of Power is the one I was going for, with one possible addition…when Frodo wakes up in Rivendell, the Ring has been placed on a new chain around his neck. Unless Gandalf or Sam did it, we would have to add some unknown person (probably and Elf) to the list.
Northern Piper, I knew someone would forget either Tom or Gollum! A nitpicker could argue that Gollum may not have actually touched the Ring, I suppose.
No, he touched it.
Warning! Spoiler follows!
(Don’t know if a warning’s necessary, but can’t be too careful, since it’s the climax of the whole damn thing!)
There was also a thrush, who spoke to Thorin through the translation of a raven, Roäc son of Crac.
When exactly did Gandalf touch the ring? I know he picked it up in an envelope and with tongs, both at bag end, but I don’t think that counts as touching it. Am I forgetting something?
Joe_Cool, in the chapter entitled “The Shadow of the Past,” when Gandalf is explaining the history of the Ring to Frodo, he asks Frodo to hand it to him. He tosses it on the fire. After a while, he takes it out of the fire with tongs, and immediately picks it up. He uses the tongs to avoid being burnt by the fire, but he handles the Ring.
The episode with the envelope is when Bilbo is leaving and giving up the Ring. He offers the envelope to Gandalf, but Gandalf tells him to put it on the mantle for Frodo.
In light of Gandalf’s willingness to touch the Ring later on, I’ve always assumed that the reason he doesn’t touch the envelope is to reassue Bilbo that he is not secretly trying to get the Ring away from Bilbo. Bilbo is the only one who ever voluntarily gives up the Ring, and he’s balanced on a knife-edge at this point. Gandalf doesn’t want to do anything that would give Bilbo the least excuse to take back the Ring.
Laughing Lagomorph, with respect to talking birds, I just remembered - the thrush talks directly to Bard, telling him about Smaug’s weak spot.
Who or What was Tom Bombadil?
heh, just kidding. 
Dainhir of Morthond´s two sons fell in the Battle of the Pellenor Fields. How did they die, and what were their names?
Only it doesn’t say “its wings spread from wall to wall”. It says something like “its shadow spread behind it like wings” (emphasis mine), which is a very odd thing to say if the Balrog actually had wings. To clauim from the description in LOTR that the Balrog had wings is like claiming someone had a turnip for a nose because his description read “he had a nose like a turnip”.
This is all thoroughly pointless, I’ll grant, but for some reason it rubs me the wrong way. Balrogs look way cooler with wings (say what you will, I still like the Brothers Hildebrandt painting), but as far as I can see, there’s no justification for thinking the Balrog of Moria had wings.
Qadgop, in Lost Tales Salimar is associated with song, but I think the Vala you’re thinking of is Omar, who is mentioned as speaking the languages of all birds.
I still haven’t found the references to which two Vala were sympathetic to Melkor - guess I’ll have to keep looking!
Now for my contributions to this thread:
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What is tilkal , and what was it used for?
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In the earliest drafts of the Quenta Silmarillion, who founded the city of Nargothrond?
It says both, and (at least in the copy I have) within about a page of each other. The two pertinent quotes:
“The Balrog reached the bridge. Gandalf stood in the middle of the span, leaning on the staff in his left hand, but in his other hand Glamdring gleamed, cold and white. His enemy halted again, facing him, and the shadow about it reached out like two vast wings.” (p. 344 in the 1987 Houghton Mifflin hardcover edition; emphasis added)
Taken in isolation, it would indicate no wings. But then there’s also this quote:
“The Balrog made no answer. The fire in it seemed to die, but the darkness grew. It stepped forward slowly onto the bridge, and suddenly it drew itself up to a great height, and its wings were spread from wall to wall…” (p. 345; again, emphasis added)
And that’s an odd thing to say if it didn’t have wings. What to make of the two quotes is an exercise for the reader, although I have to admit my mental Balrog has always had wings.
Queen Beruthiel had nine black cats which she sent to spy on men, and one white cat to spy on the black cats.
Tevildo Prince of Cats was Morgoth’s chief subordinate in The Book of Lost Tales – he eventually transmogrified into Sauron.
I suspect our mysterious Vala of song is Lorien, but have no proof.
My questions:
PC-1 What is a watchstone? Who established them and why were they useful to them?
PC-2 Where might you find a Variag and what would you do with one if you had one?
Just for the record, the question of Balrog wings belongs in that category of never-to-be-resolved issues occupied by predestination and free will and whether Obi-Wan Kenobi could deflect a photon torpedo.
Omar-Amillo is right!
As for Tilkal, it was the metal devised by Aule for chaining Melko. I’ll have to get back to you about the original founder of Nargothrond. I don’t have HOMES in front of me now.
Anyone else want to venture an answer to the two Vala most sympathetic to Melko?
BTW, I think it was Salmar, not Salimar. He was Ulmo’s ‘companion’, aka Noldorin, Lirillo, and Golthadriel.
Congrats, artemis! You now have risen, in my estimation, to the level of post-doctoral JRRT geekhood!
QtM
What geeks we Tolkein fans be.
The winged balrog question was rhetorical, the answer has been debated ‘until the King comes again’ on alt.tolkein.fan I always imagined the Balrog of Moria to have wings, however.
PC-1 “Watchstones?” do you mean the Watchers that guarded the entrance from Cirith Gorgor to Mordor. Sam and Frodo had to use the Phial of Galadriel to pass.
PC-2 Variags were native to Khand, the land southeast of Mordor. On March 15, 3019 one would have found these deluded allies of Sauron at the Battle of Pelennor Fields, but not for long. They were reserves thrown into battle by Gothmog, Lt. of Morgul, and destroyed by Aragorn, Eomer, et al.
5TC-6 Who was the maternal grandfather of Boromir and Faramir?
Adrahil of Dol Amroth?
Northern Piper, the thrush speaking to Bard was the third type of bird talking to a person. If I remember correctly it isn’t clear if Bard can only understand the thrush because he is descended from the Kings of Dale, but understand him he does. Good catch on Gollum holding the Ring, not the finger (all together now, “EWWWWWWWW!”). I had missed/forgotten that.
I’ll try to come up with more questions.
To be more specific on tilkal, it’s an alloy of copper, silver, gold, iron, tin, and lead, the name being an acronym of those metals. It’s green in its natural state, although it can turn red (see below). Its most notable properties are that, in all of Creation, it can be produced or shaped only by Aule, and it can’t be broken or destroyed by anything in Creation, Aule included. Although such a substance would undoubtedly have many possible uses, the only tilkal in existence is the great chain Angainu, which Aule forged to bind Morgoth. The manacles and other portions of the chain in contact with Morgoth’s flesh turned red from exposure to his hatred.
That was all from memory; how’d I do?
Katisha, you forgot the trolls, and Beorn is a man (albeit a rather extraordinary one). To your credit, though, you didn’t mention Gollum, and you did remember the giants.
Quoth Northern Piper:
Not quite. Sam not only voluntarily relinquishes the Ring to Frodo in the tower of Cirith Ungol, he does so under no duress whatsoever, and without hesitation. While it’s true that he had it for a far shorter time than Bilbo, he was also within the very realm of Mordor, and the power of the ring was grown strong, so I’ll give him credit.
Quite true, Chronos - I’d forgottent that.
IIRC, wasn’t Niena (sp?) one of the Valar “sympathetic” to Melkor. Didn’t she “aid his prayer” when he was asking Manwe to cut him loose from the halls of Mandos? I guess that would make Manwe, the second “sympathetic” Valar.
Since you’re all here, I also have an actual non-trivia question.
When Wormtongue chucks the Palantir at Gandalf and Pippin picks it up, Gandalf doesn’t know what it is. Later, After P looks in the stone, Gandalf realizes what it is and says something like, “Sauruman kept this a big secret. Few but the wise remember such things ever existed. Who knows what happened to the other ones? We thought they were all destroyed!”
Later, after Denethor whips his out (his palantir, I mean), Gandalf remarks. “Yeah, Yeah, big deal, I’ve known about his Palantir forever.”
So which is it?
It would appear that the 3 Elven-rings and 7 Palantiri were not subjects of everyday conversation in Middle Earth, especially by the Istari.
Gandalf (and Tolkein) certainly weren’t going to tell Pippin (and the readers) that the Tirith-Stone was still operational.
Gandalf didn’t realize or even hazard a guess that Denethor, in his despair, had looked at the Tirith-Stone.
Weren’t the Balrogs Maiar?
I quote:
“[Melkor] was not alone. For of the Maiar many were drawn to his splendour in the days of his greatness…Dreadful among these spirits were the Valaraukar, the scourges of fire that in Middle-earth were called the Balrogs, demons of terror.” (The Silmarillion, Harper-Collins paperback, p. 23)
This would lead me to believe that they could change their form to suit the circumstances, as the rest of the Ainur could. Hence, they may have had wings at some times and not at others, or some might have had them and others not.
“[T]heir shape comes of the knowledge of the visible World, rather than of the World itself [sounds like Death from DiscWorld, heh–remember his bathroom??] ; and they need it not, save only as we use raiment…But the shapes wherein the Great Ones array themselves are not at all times like to the shapes of the kings and queens of the Children of Iluvatar; for at times they may clothe themselves in their own thought, made visible in forms of majesty and dread.” (The Silm p. 11)
Morgoth however eventually lost the capability to change shape, so we might guess that his servants might have lost it as well, though they were not as evil as he and had not “spent their spirits” completely in hatred as he did (the reason he lost his powers to appear beautiful). I believe Sauron was stuck with appearing as a Dark Lord after a while, too–and he was a Maia who followed Morgoth, like the Balrogs.
I think Balrogs have wings, though! 
And Jackson’s Balrog was absolutely awesome, except for the horns, which it could have lost IMHO.
N_E #1: Where did the Ents come from? i.e. how did they come into existence?
Probably a no-brainer for the PhT’s (Doctors of Tolkien Science) here, but I don’t know all that much Tolkien trivia…)
It’s explained in a slightly obscure way in chapter 2 of the Silmarillion. Yavanna realizes that as Middle Earth is populated, th forests will be vulnerable to being cut down and destroyed. She’s concerned particularly about the actions of Melkor, but also by the actions of the Dwarves which Aulë has created. So she goes to Manwë, who thinks for a long time about the Third Theme of the Singing, and realises that included in it are two sets of sentient beings that he hadn’t noticed at first: the Eagles and “the Shepards of the Trees.” Then Yavanna goes back in triumph to Aulë, who manages to have the last word: