COTW LOTR Appendix AI.ii & AI.iii
Belba Grubb From Stock
Eriador, Arnor, and the Heirs of Isildur
In this section, the hobbit voice is strong throughout as we learn the
history of the wide lands of which the present-day Shire is only a
small part.
In true hobbit fashion, most of the borders of the geographic region
of Eriador as well as those of the kingdom of Arnor at its greatest
are very clearly spelled out, but with gaps in areas, such as the cold
northern reaches of Eriador (although we do learn much about the
Snowmen of Forochel) and the lands of Enedwaith and Dunland, that hold
little interest for the Travelers and their audiences and readers in
the Shire. The High Kings of Arnor, though they ruled for over eight
and a half centuries, are allotted one sentence before the narrator
gets to the really interesting stuff, the history of those parts of
the kingdom(s) that include places familiar to hobbits, such as the
Brandywine and Lune rivers, the Great Road that passes through the
Shire and also once served as a boundary between kingdoms, Bree,
Weathertop, the Old Forest (but not Tom Bombadil), and the Barrow
Downs, and the hobbits' own involvement in the great events of this
region: as we learn how the North Kingdom was divided among three sons
after the death of their father (with the borders of each kingdom
precisely delineated by the narrator, of course) and the inner strife
and external threat from Angmar that quickly resulted in the downfall
of Rhudaur, we also hear how the Stoors who lived in the Angle in
Rhudaur took advantage of a lull in the great wars to flee west and
south, with some (the ancestors of Smeagol/Gollum, one assumes) ending
up in a settlement near the Gladden; when the plague put an end to the
final remnants of the people of Cardolan, we are also told that the
hobbits suffered greatly from it; and during the latter days of the
Chieftains, when Orcs began to raid the area, we not only hear how the
Dunedain and sons of Elrond fought them, but are also told of the band
that invaded the Shire and were driven off by Bandobras Took (who
invented the game of Golf in the process, as we learned in "The
Hobbit").
The hobbit narrator tells us in some detail the story of the last days
of King Arvedui after the Witch-king of Angmar finally conquered
Arthedain, for it is a very great adventure (one worthy of the
mythical Jack London) that took place not too far from the
Northfarthing, though in an unfriendly climate in which hobbits could
not live, and it also explains the origin of some historic artifacts
hobbits would have seen and, in one unfortunate case, used: the Ring
of Barahir (worn by Queen Arwen during those days) and the palantiri,
respectively. But right after that we get a paragraph telling us that
the hobbits survived the wars (mostly by hiding, although they did
send some archers who never returned); that hobbits were present in
the great battle when Angmar was finally defeated; and most
importantly that the Shire was established and had a Thain (from whom
the Oldbucks claim descent) to take the place of the king they would
not again have until the days of Aragorn II.
The founding of the Shire is very nearly the end of the appendix. We
do hear of the days of the Chieftains, though little is remembered of
them, and also of how Elrond's wife was captured by Orcs and although
rescued by her sons soon left Middle-earth for the West. But the
narrator closes the appendix with a tribute to his friend and hero,
Aragorn -- "Our King, we call him" - and the close ties between him
and hobbits, in particular, Thain Peregrin, Master Samwise the Mayor
and Sam's daughter Elanor the Fair who is one of Queen Arwen's maids.
-----------------------------------
DISCUSSION SUGGESTIONS:
1. Does this section balance the section in "The Lord of the
Rings" where Strider tells the hobbits stories around the campfire at
Weathertop to keep their minds from fear? Is it intentional that now
a hobbit is relating the tales out of which Strider himself has come?
2. If I've calculated it right, there seems to be an odd
irregularity in the lengths of some reigns in the Heirs of Isildur; in
each section one or two had exceptionally long reigns, for example,
Elendar for 125 years, Araphor for 180 years, Aravir for 142 years.
Why did JRRT set that up? (There seems to be a discrepancy, too, with
the narrator saying that Aragorn II lived longer than any of his line
since King Arvegil, but Arvegil only ruled 73 years - perhaps I
haven't calculated it right.)
3. From the internal point of view, who would the narrator have
been and who would have inserted the later comments about the identity
of the Witch-king and his purpose in coming north, as well as about
who might have been buried in the barrow where the Ring-bearer and his
companions were imprisoned?
4. I'm not very familiar with the details in "The Silmarillion,"
but it is possible to know which family of Men in those days raised
the mounds of Tyrn Gorthad?
5. Is it ever illuminated anywhere why there were no heirs of
Isildur in Cardolan and Rhudaur by the time of Argeleb?
6. Does this section throw any light on the local history Tom
Bombadil gives the hobbits during their stay with him and on the way
to the Road (or vice versa)?
7. The Stoors were in the Angle during some of these years. The
Harfoots would likely have been in the Weathertop area or in Bree
already. Where would the Fallohides have been?
8. Speaking of Bree, was it in existence during these years in
some form, perhaps as a "border town," and how did it survive all the
wars?
9. The Witch-king apparently controlled the northern weather.
Why did he not use the Lossoth against the Dunedain? For that matter,
why did Elves not go into the cold climates and make friends of the
Lossoth either out of general curiosity or for strategic purposes?
10. The most striking thing about this section when I re-read it,
apart from the sound of the hobbit voice, was all the information
about the wars and very, very little about the actual defeat of
Angmar. This would be expected from a hobbit narrator, of course, but
I just wanted to mention it as a carry-over point for the next
section.
11. Also of note in looking toward future discussions is the use
of the two calendars here ["He became Thain in 379 of our reckoning
(1979)"] and a mention of the family descent of the Oldbucks.
12. I liked Aragorn's making a law that none of the Big People
could pass the borders of the Shire. It fits in with the outlook
Strider would have of the land he and his men had watched all those
years, and it also echoes JRRT's likely wish to protect the land he
knew and loved.
13. Your thoughts, comments, and….
_____
Keep behind me. There's no sense in getting killed by a plant.
-- Tom Goodwin
_____
Mark Edelstein
>
> 6. Does this section throw any light on the local history Tom
> Bombadil gives the hobbits during their stay with him and on the way
> to the Road (or vice versa)?
>
I think it did. Especially when combined with the Silmarillion, Tom's
age (and his mystery) goes from "odd man in woods" to something deeper.
Did the history of Arnor and its division stem from Tom's history, or
was Tom's history a late insertion? I never really noticed anything
when reading over PoME, and I haven't read the parts of HoME that cover
LOTR directly.
Christopher Kreuzer
I suspect the bits in Tom Bombadil's house where the hobbits hear about
the history of the Barrow-downs is from a backstory that Tolkien had
already written or sketched out. On the other hand, I wouldn't put it
past him to go back and add in bits like that later. But I get the
feeling (not having read the right bits of HoME either) that the bits
about Arnor and before Arnor, as we hear them in Tom Bombadil's House,
are not the germ of the Arnor history, but rather an insertion of an
already existing story. Though it could all have been expanded later,
like everything could have been. I guess someone will have to examine
the textual history for clues.
Christopher
--
---
Reply clue: Saruman welcomes you to Spamgard
Prai Jei
message <dh0d71h2s3oaobb73...@4ax.com>:
> Appendix AI.ii & AI.iii
> Eriador, Arnor, and the Heirs of Isildur
>
> 3. From the internal point of view, who would the narrator have
> been and who would have inserted the later comments about the identity
> of the Witch-king and his purpose in coming north, as well as about
> who might have been buried in the barrow where the Ring-bearer and his
> companions were imprisoned?
The impression I get is of a marginal jotting in the ancient chronicle.
> 5. Is it ever illuminated anywhere why there were no heirs of
> Isildur in Cardolan and Rhudaur by the time of Argeleb?
I think we are to assume that all legitimate claimants perished in the war
of 1409. (Presumably the two kingdoms were allied, at least temporarily,
against the common enemy.) Perhaps Araphor was the closest relative of the
failed lines of the other kingdoms so he had the only reasonable claim.
> 8. Speaking of Bree, was it in existence during these years in
> some form, perhaps as a "border town," and how did it survive all the
> wars?
There seems to be no mention of Bree in the Appendices prior to the note (in
Appendix B) of its founding in 1300. Perhaps it was known in former times
by a different name. I see it as a "ghost town", of name long forgotten,
rediscovered by the migrating hobbits who decided to settle there.
> 9. The Witch-king apparently controlled the northern weather.
> Why did he not use the Lossoth against the Dunedain? For that matter,
> why did Elves not go into the cold climates and make friends of the
> Lossoth either out of general curiosity or for strategic purposes?
Perhaps Elves, more so than Men, find a cold climate inhospitable.
> _____
> Keep behind me. There's no sense in getting killed by a plant.
> -- Tom Goodwin
> _____
--
Pave puvasha li oviol! Gom vija lomash'udum sha taluba nu em sodil.
Interchange the alphabetic letter groups to reply
Christopher Kreuzer
> Appendix AI.ii & AI.iii
> Eriador, Arnor, and the Heirs of Isildur
>
> In this section, the hobbit voice is strong throughout as we learn the
> history of the wide lands of which the present-day Shire is only a
> small part.
I hadn't realised that Arnor was as distinct from Eriador as the
descriptions here make clear. And also that Enedwaith and Dunland were
not part of Eriador. Also, the northern borders of Arnor are not very
clear, are they?
<snip>
> -----------------------------------
> DISCUSSION SUGGESTIONS:
>
> 1. Does this section balance the section in "The Lord of the
> Rings" where Strider tells the hobbits stories around the campfire at
> Weathertop to keep their minds from fear? Is it intentional that now
> a hobbit is relating the tales out of which Strider himself has come?
Moving another question to here:
> 3. From the internal point of view, who would the narrator have
> been and who would have inserted the later comments about the identity
> of the Witch-king and his purpose in coming north, as well as about
> who might have been buried in the barrow where the Ring-bearer and his
> companions were imprisoned?
Well, in question 1 you say "a hobbit", and the hobbit voice is very
strong, as you say, but I am confused as to which bits are hobbits. The
bits such as "our King we call him" and "our reckoning" are obvious, but
other bits have those quote marks (single inverted commas) which suggest
that they could be from sources such as:
- "In Minas Tirith it received much annotation"
- "works dealing with Eriador" (Brandy Hall)
- "manuscripts written by scribes of Gondor" (Great Smials)
- "legends relating to Elendil and his heirs" (Great Smials)
All quotes from the Prologue (Note on Shire Records).
And the use of quote marks is quite confusing in this section. I've got
quite involved here and have (hopefully neatly) dissected this section
for a more complete textual analysis. If we assume that the text outside
quote marks is the main author, and everything else is inserts from
various sources:
"Actual extracts from longer annals and tales are placed within
quotation marks. Insertions of later date are enclosed in brackets."
(from the prelude section to the Appendices)
...and going from "Eriador was of old..." to "...the dignity of the
kings of old was renewed", we have several sections (split into MAIN
TEXT - MT, and EXTERNAL QUOTES - EQ, and EDITORIAL INSERTS in square
brackets - EI). I've given the beginning and ending words of each
section, and named them as well. Also, remember that the editorial
convention is to start each paragraph within a quotation with a quote
mark, but to only use the closing quote mark on the final paragraph.
I've ignored footnotes for the moment.
1) Eriador and Arnor
"Eriador was of old ... If any now remain they are few." [EQ-1]
2) The North-kingdom and the Dunedian
"After Elendil and Isildur ... in the keeping of Arthedain." [MT-1]
3) Evil comes to Arnor
"It was in the beginning of the reign of Malvegil ... fell creatures."
[EQ-2]
4) Witch-king editorial comment [EI-1]
5) The North-kingdom and the Dunedain (contd)
"In the days of Argeleb ... entered into the deserted mounds and dwelt
there." [MT-2]
6) Barrowdowns history
"It is said that the mound of Tyn .... kings were buried." [EQ-3]
7) Ring-bearer editorial comment [EI-2]
8) Arvedui story
"In 1974 the power of ... was leaerned from the Snowmen." [EQ-4]
9) The North-kingdom and the Dunedain (contd)
"The Shire-folk survived ... the sceptre of Annuminas." [MT-3]
10) Dunedain/Celebrian/Bandobras Took stories
"When the kingdom ended ... Bandobras Took." [EQ-5]
11) The North-kingdom and the Dunedain (contd)
"There were fifteen Chieftains ... of both Gondor and Arnor" [MT-4]
12) King Elessar and the Shire
"Our King we call him ... maids of Queen Evenstar." [EQ-6]
13) The North-kingdom and the Dunedain (contd)
"It was the pride and wonder ... the dignity of the kings of old was
renewed." [MT-5]
So, if I've got that right, and I (or the publishers) haven't missed an
inverted comma quote-mark somewhere(!), then there seems to be a main
text (labelled MT-1 to MT-5 above - which I've called 'The North-kingdom
and the Dunedain' for want of a better title) that is interleaved with
no less than six quotes from external sources (EQ-1 to EQ-6) that expand
or illustrate parts of the main text. There are also two editorial
inserts (EI-1 and EI-2) that provide another layer of historicity.
But these six external quotes are (as named above):
EQ-1) Eriador and Arnor
EQ-2) Evil comes to Arnor
EQ-3) Barrowdowns history
EQ-4) Arvedui story
EQ-5) Dunedain/Celebrian/Bandobras Took stories
EQ-6) King Elessar and the Shire
So returning to your original question about the "hobbit" voice, we can
now start to consider which of these parts come from which sources and
which "voice" is speaking them, and also when the different parts were
written. The clues are what is mentioned, plus clues as to when the
person is writing, and clues as to how they refer both to others and to
themselves, and clues as to what they know, and maybe also clues in the
style of speech.
It seems safe to assume that the EQ-1 prelude about Eriador and Arnor is
a "hobbit" voice, given the "before we came to the Shire" bit. And ditto
for EQ-6 with the "Our King we call him" bit.
The main text, if it is all continuous as I have assumed, is also
written by a hobbit (probably synthesising other sources), as it
includes the line: "...became Thain in 379 of our reckoning."
The sources for the other sections is not so clear. EQ-4, the tale about
Arvedui, feels like a primary source written soon after the events.
maybe by one of the Dunedain who ransomed the Ring of Barahir, learning
of events from the Snowmen. As one of the footnote includes references
to Felagund and Beren, the scribe must have known of the First Age
legends concerning the Ring of Barahir, so maybe we see the hand of a
Rivendell scribe here?
EQ-2 (about the timing of the arising of Angmar) seems to be an aside,
explaining Angmar from a more neutral perspective, while EQ-3 (about the
history of the Barrowdowns) refers to the Dunedain from the perspective
of a non-Dunedain source. Given the ancientry of the history mentioned,
I would guess this is an Elvish source, though the scribe may be a
hobbit.
Finally, EQ-5, which is a strange mixture of several stories, passing
from the long lives of the Chieftains, to the wolves and orcs menacing
Eriador, to the story of Celebrian's abduction, rescue and departure, to
the Bandobras Took story. Near the beginning is the comment: "Little now
is remembered of them since Elrond departed", so I am going to stick my
neck out here and say that this could be sourced from notes that
Meriadoc took on one of his journeys to Rivendell:
"It is probable that Meriadoc obtained assistance and information from
Rivendell, which he visited more than once. There, though Elrond had
departed, his sons long remained, together with some of the High-elven
folk." (Prologue to LotR - Note on the Shire Records)
Finally, we have the two editorial inserts, which you asked about in
question 3. First we have EI-1 about the Witch-king, and then EI-2 about
the Ring-bearer and the Barrowdowns. I would say that EI-1 could be a
scribe of Gondor (maybe Findegil himself) as it identifies him as the
chief of the Ringwraiths (a matter of concern to the historians of
Gondor) and also talks about Gondor being strong. As for EI-2, as it
mentions the Ringbearer it has to date from after the War of the Ring,
and I would suggest could be a scribe in Rivendell who knows of the
history of Arnor, or maybe one of the Dunedain of the North - maybe even
Aragorn himself. A really wild speculation is that someone went and
asked Bombadil himself which grave it was! [Though the obvious
speculation is that someone picked up on Merry's comments after the
barrow incident - quoted below somewhere - and deduced the history from
that.]
Hmm. I wanted to have a look at the viewpoint of the footnotes. But I
guess I should leave that until another night. :-)
> 2. If I've calculated it right, there seems to be an odd
> irregularity in the lengths of some reigns in the Heirs of Isildur; in
> each section one or two had exceptionally long reigns, for example,
> Elendar for 125 years, Araphor for 180 years, Aravir for 142 years.
> Why did JRRT set that up? (There seems to be a discrepancy, too, with
> the narrator saying that Aragorn II lived longer than any of his line
> since King Arvegil, but Arvegil only ruled 73 years - perhaps I
> haven't calculated it right.)
Arvegil did rule only 73 years. You have to remember that this is not a
guide to how long they lived. It looks like Arvegil was very old when he
became king, given that Aragorn II lived for 210 years, probably at
least 140 years old.
Conversely, the kings with long reigns would probably have been very
young when they ascended to the throne. Valandil reigned for 247 years,
but of course he was only a child in Rivendell when his father Isildur
was killed. The Tale of Years tells us Valandil ascended to the throne
in year 10 of the Second Age, so the correct figure is that he reigned
for about 239 years.
Some of the short reigns have obvious explanations. Valandur only
reigned for 50 years. But the nice little cross symbol tells us he met a
sticky end. And a short reign ending in a premature death would
naturally lead to a long reign for the young prince ascending to the
throne (eg. Elendur [not Elendar - very easy to mis-type these names,
especially all the different and rather similar sounding Ar-kings!]
reigned for 125 years after Valandur, and Aranarth reigned for 131 years
after Arvedui Last-king).
That explains Elendur and Aranarth. I can't explain Aravir reigning for
142 years, because he didn't. :-) It is actually about 72 years, fairly
short for one of the Dunedain, though we are in the time of the
Chieftains here. Returning to the Kings, Araphor reigning for 180 years
does stand out. But looking at his father and grandfather, we see that
both Argeleb I and Arveleg I die young in battle at the time of the
later dissension and Angmar battles (though erronerously, Arveleg I is
not labelled as dying in battle). Thus Araphor must have ascended to the
throne young and hence ruled for a long time.
> 4. I'm not very familiar with the details in "The Silmarillion,"
> but it is possible to know which family of Men in those days raised
> the mounds of Tyrn Gorthad?
"It is said that the mounds of Tyrn Gorthad, as the Barrowdowns were
called of old, are very ancient, and that many were built in the days of
the old world of the First Age by the forefathers of the Edain, before
they crossed the Blue Mountains into Beleriand, of which Lindon is all
that now remains."
I take this to be a vague reference to the forefathers of the Edain,
with no specific house in mind. If could be any of them really, unless
there is further evidence. There is not much about the pre-Beleriandic
exploits of the Edain in /The Silmarillion/. Probably not more than a
sentence or two.
> 5. Is it ever illuminated anywhere why there were no heirs of
> Isildur in Cardolan and Rhudaur by the time of Argeleb?
I supect the influence of Angmar, plus the general waning of the
Dunedain. It seems probable that for reasons of geographical proximity,
Rhudaur was worst affected by the influence of Angmar, hence maybe the
line "there the Dunedain were few", and the subsequent take-over by
Angmar. Leading to the wars in which the Arthedain royalty (Argeleb and
his son) were slain.
Not sure about Cardolan, but Arthedain was furthest west and nearest
Lindon and the Elves, so that is a logical choice to have as the primary
kingdom to survive (being closer to help from the Elves of Lindon).
I also noticed something about that Prince of Cardolan said to be buried
in the mound that Frodo and the hobbits were in:
"Some say that the mound in which the Ring-bearer was imprisoned had
been the grave of the last prince of Cardolan, who fell in the war of
1409." (Appendix A)
And earlier in this account:
"A remnant of the faithful among the Dunedain of Cardolan also held out
in Tyrn Gorthad (the Barrowdowns), or took refuge in the Forest behind."
(Appendix A)
[This is during the battles of 1409, so this must be when this last
prince of Cardolan fell in battle and was buried. Going forward 1610
years, we find Merry saying this after Tom Bombadil frees them from the
Barrow]:
"'The men of Carn Dūm came on us at night, and we were worsted. Ah! the
spear in my heart!' He clutched at his breast. 'No! No!' he said,
opening his eyes. 'What am I saying? I have been dreaming. Where did you
get to, Frodo?'" (Fog on the Barrow-downs)
[It seems fairly safe to assume that Merry is 'channelling' the spirit
of the last prince of Cardolan. Carn Dūm is on the map at the top of the
Misty Mountains, left of the word 'Angmar' and above the 'here was of
old the witch realm of Angmar' bit.]
> 6. Does this section throw any light on the local history Tom
> Bombadil gives the hobbits during their stay with him and on the way
> to the Road (or vice versa)?
Very much so. I mentioned the bit about the Prince of Carn Dūm above.
There is also the bits where the hobbits, in a dreamlike state, hear Tom
Bombadil talk about this history:
"Sheep were bleating in flocks. Green walls and white walls rose. There
were fortresses on the heights. Kings of little kingdoms fought
together, and the young Sun shone like fire on the red metal of their
new and greedy swords. There was victory and defeat; and towers fell,
fortresses were burned, and flames went up into the sky. Gold was piled
on the biers of dead kings and queens; and mounds covered them, and the
stone doors were shut; and the grass grew over all. Sheep walked for a
while biting the grass, but soon the hills were empty again. A shadow
came out of dark places far away, and the bones were stirred in the
mounds."
I much prefer this actually, to the dry historical tone of the
Appendices. But you need both to appreciate what is happening. I would
guess that Tom is talking about the wars between Arthedain, Rhudaur and
Cardolan, plus the later wars with Angmar, and the wighting of the
barrows. "Towers fell" could refer to the destruction of Amon Sul.
"Fortresses on the heights" could refer to the fortification of the
Weather Hills by Arthedain against the threat of Rhudaur and Angmar, but
the timing seems wrong. Possibly Tom is actually talking about the First
Age history of Tyn Gorthad. I've never been clear on this, but that is
the problem with poetical history like that.
There is also the nice bit where Tom rescues a brooch from the treasure
in the burial mound, saying that Goldberry will wear it now, and they
shall remember she who once wore it. Plus the vision he inspires in the
hobbits of:
"...a great expanse of years behind them, like a vast shadowy plain over
which there strode shapes of Men, tall and grim with bright swords..."
This is a great description of the Dunedain.
> 7. The Stoors were in the Angle during some of these years. The
> Harfoots would likely have been in the Weathertop area or in Bree
> already. Where would the Fallohides have been?
The Prologue says that the Fallohides were a "northerly branch", and
"crossed the mountains north of Rivendell and came down the River
Hoarwell".
> 8. Speaking of Bree, was it in existence during these years in
> some form, perhaps as a "border town," and how did it survive all the
> wars?
Again, the Prologue says:
"Most of their earlier settlements had long disappeared and been
forgotten in Bilbo's time; but one of the first to become important
still endured, though reduced in size; this was at Bree and in the
Chetwood that lay round about..."
This would be after the wars you mention.
Not sure if we know the history of Bree before then, or indeed whether
it even existed then. The earliest reference seems to be Appendix B,
which says that many Periannath settle in Bree circa 1300 Third Age.
In the main text, we see that Bree was indeed there earlier than that:
"...when the Kings returned again over the Great Sea they had found the
Bree-men still there, and they were still there now, when the memory of
the old Kings had faded into the grass." (At the Sign of the Prancing
Pony)
This confirms that Bree survived the wars of 1409. Doesn't say how.
> 9. The Witch-king apparently controlled the northern weather.
> Why did he not use the Lossoth against the Dunedain? For that matter,
> why did Elves not go into the cold climates and make friends of the
> Lossoth either out of general curiosity or for strategic purposes?
I don't get the impression that the Lossoth were very numerous. Think
small tribes of Inuit or something, in cold, inhospitable and desolate
lands.
> 10. The most striking thing about this section when I re-read it,
> apart from the sound of the hobbit voice, was all the information
> about the wars and very, very little about the actual defeat of
> Angmar. This would be expected from a hobbit narrator, of course, but
> I just wanted to mention it as a carry-over point for the next
> section.
As this section also says:
"...and others went also to the battle in which Angmar was overthrown
(of which more is said in the annals of the South)."
:-)
> 11. Also of note in looking toward future discussions is the use
> of the two calendars here ["He became Thain in 379 of our reckoning
> (1979)"] and a mention of the family descent of the Oldbucks.
I absolutely _hate_ Tolkien's use of different calendars. It makes
calculating dates and stuff much more difficult!! :-)
> 12. I liked Aragorn's making a law that none of the Big People
> could pass the borders of the Shire. It fits in with the outlook
> Strider would have of the land he and his men had watched all those
> years, and it also echoes JRRT's likely wish to protect the land he
> knew and loved.
It is rather nice, isn't it.
> 13. Your thoughts, comments, and..
Maybe more later. Footnotes of course. Noting in passing that one of the
footnotes insists on going off at a tangent and talking about the crown
of Gondor. :-)
Khazar-Khum
> Isildur in Cardolan and Rhudaur by the time of Argeleb?
No, but it is reasonable to assume that the last of them died at Amon-Sul.
> 9. The Witch-king apparently controlled the northern weather.
> Why did he not use the Lossoth against the Dunedain? For that matter,
> why did Elves not go into the cold climates and make friends of the
> Lossoth either out of general curiosity or for strategic purposes?
The Elves don't seem to have been fond of cold weather. Secondly, the
Lossoth are probably much like Inuit, living in small clans. As such they
would be of limited use militarily. The Witch-King certainly knew them, and
they probably traded with Angmar.
I do wonder what the Witch-King was doing up there in the winter--hunting?
Trading? He obviously went there with some regularity. Why?
>
> 10. The most striking thing about this section when I re-read it,
> apart from the sound of the hobbit voice, was all the information
> about the wars and very, very little about the actual defeat of
> Angmar. This would be expected from a hobbit narrator, of course, but
> I just wanted to mention it as a carry-over point for the next
> section.
Why would it be "expected" of a Hobbit narrator? If Hobbits were fighting on
the side of Gondor, then I would expect that this would be a point of pride.
One possibility, and one that Hobbits might wish to gloss over, would be if
Hobbits fought on *both* sides. We know of some Hobbit migrations, but
there may have been others that never emigrated.
Khazar
Belba Grubb From Stock
wrote:
>> 10. The most striking thing about this section when I re-read it,
>> apart from the sound of the hobbit voice, was all the information
>> about the wars and very, very little about the actual defeat of
>> Angmar. This would be expected from a hobbit narrator, of course, but
>> I just wanted to mention it as a carry-over point for the next
>> section.
>
>Why would it be "expected" of a Hobbit narrator? If Hobbits were fighting on
>the side of Gondor, then I would expect that this would be a point of pride.
They would have been fighting for the Dunedain, of course, but I
expected it of the hobbits because they hadn't involved themselves in
the great matters of the day and so wouldn't be really invested in the
details of the final outcome. They wouldn't really care if they knew
exactly what happened to Angmar; they just wanted to hear that there
would be no more troubles.
I can imagine the hobbits suffering and then hiding when it all moved
in their direction, hoping all the time that something good would
happen; and then being awed by the mighty host of Elves and Men that
marched across their land (shaking loose a company or two of Tooks and
other doughty hobbitry along the way, perhaps at Gandalf's
instigation) to do battle with Angmar in what was to them the far
East. As it turned out, the hobbit companies made no triumphant
return or any return at all, but the good news filtered back that the
Witch-king was gone; a more war-like people might then have made songs
and legends of their lost men, but the much more mundane and sensible
hobbits just came out of hiding, took their losses as best they could,
gave thanks that it hadn't been worst, and tidied up, settling quickly
back down into their usual business as there were crops to be sown,
gardens to be tended and harnesses to be mended; and soon they had let
the whole matter slip into a vague fog (it could be that these days of
war and adventure in the Shire, their details well obscured and
transmogrified into fantasy by the passing of years and many tales
told in inns over tankards of ale, were those that Bilbo was referring
to when he said Gandalf was "responsible for so many quiet lads and
lasses going off into the Blue for mad adventures...[a]nything from
climbing trees to visiting elves -- or sailing in ships, sailing to
other shores!" This latter statement might be an indication that at
least individual hobbit warriors did survive the wars and some few may
have made friends with the Dunedain and traveled with Earnur's fleet
back to Gondor, although this had been entirely forgotten both in the
north and in the south by the latter days of the Third Age).
>One possibility, and one that Hobbits might wish to gloss over, would be if
>Hobbits fought on *both* sides. We know of some Hobbit migrations, but
>there may have been others that never emigrated.
That's interesting. Horrifying but interesting. It's of note that
Smeagol/Gollum came from a line of hobbits who had been exposed to
Angmar in Rhudaur. Hmmm......
Barb
_____
BRAVE men are all vertebrates: they have their softness on
the surface and their toughness in the middle.
-- G.K. Chesterton, "Tremendous Trifles
_____
Mark Edelstein
Assuming the PoME dates are accurate, there is an authorial list of the
lifespans of the Kings of Gondor, Arnor, Stewards, and Chieftains. I
can fish them out if anyone is really curious. The dates might not be
accurate though (and then I can fish out the footnotes). :)
aelfwina
"Belba Grubb From Stock" <ba...@dbtech.net> wrote in message
news:ffch71ducnp0vi13u...@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 04 May 2005 07:41:09 GMT, "Khazar-Khum" <dlmb...@gte.net>
> wrote:
>
>>> 10. The most striking thing about this section when I re-read it,
>>> apart from the sound of the hobbit voice, was all the information
>>> about the wars and very, very little about the actual defeat of
>>> Angmar. This would be expected from a hobbit narrator, of course, but
>>> I just wanted to mention it as a carry-over point for the next
>>> section.
>>
>>Why would it be "expected" of a Hobbit narrator? If Hobbits were fighting
>>on
>>the side of Gondor, then I would expect that this would be a point of
>>pride.
>
> They would have been fighting for the Dunedain, of course, but I
> expected it of the hobbits because they hadn't involved themselves in
> the great matters of the day and so wouldn't be really invested in the
> details of the final outcome. They wouldn't really care if they knew
> exactly what happened to Angmar; they just wanted to hear that there
> would be no more troubles.
But this strong hobbit voice is there because of Meriadoc Brandybuck to a
large extent, a hobbit who was a Knight of Rohan, who had personally *known*
the heir of Isildur and the returned king, and a hobbit who had personally
participated in the War of the Ring and the restoration of the monarchy and
the renewal of the Northern Kingdom. In addition, due perhaps to his
experiences in the Barrow-downs and with the WK on the Pelennor, he probably
also had a strong interest in those earlier wars, from which his blade had
come. I am certain that much of the work on the hobbit version of this
history was done either by the Master of Buckland or his heirs, and his
viewpoint would naturally filter through them.
So he (and those who carried on his work afterward) would not necessarily
have the same attitudes as the typical hobbit of the Shire.
Oh my! that particular thought is fraught with possibilities. Do you mind if
I pass it along on my LJ? That's a fascinating idea!
>
>>One possibility, and one that Hobbits might wish to gloss over, would be
>>if
>>Hobbits fought on *both* sides. We know of some Hobbit migrations, but
>>there may have been others that never emigrated.
>
> That's interesting. Horrifying but interesting. It's of note that
> Smeagol/Gollum came from a line of hobbits who had been exposed to
> Angmar in Rhudaur. Hmmm......
Ooh... that's not merely horrifying, that's chilling! Brr...
Barbara
Yuk Tang
Makes one wonder if the same reaction would have happened if the
Bigfolk had returned to settle affairs in the north, instead of the
OTL where the hobbits made their reckoning themselves. Perhaps this
was why Gandalf was so insistent that the hobbits returned to the
Shire on their own, forcing their people to take a greater interest
in the world, and thus give them a greater scope in the long term.
I'd never actually thought of Gandalf as being one of the movers of
the wars of Arnor, associating him mainly with the affairs of the
later Third Age. But I doubt if he conscripted the hobbit archers,
since he says that the Shirefolk first took his interest during the
Long Winter.
--
Cheers, ymt.
Christopher Kreuzer
> Belba Grubb From Stock (or somebody else of the same name) wrote
<snip>
>> 5. Is it ever illuminated anywhere why there were no heirs of
>> Isildur in Cardolan and Rhudaur by the time of Argeleb?
>
> I think we are to assume that all legitimate claimants perished in
> the war of 1409.
That doesn't fit what is said. The quote is:
"In the days of Argeleb son of Malvegil, since no descendants of Isildur
remained in the other kingdoms, the kings of Arthedain again claimed the
lordship of all Arnor."
This is borne out by the name Argeleb, as the claimant and his
descendents are takng names with the prefix 'Ar-' that signifies
lordship over Arnor. This is stated in the footnote to the listing of
the Northern Line in Appendix A I ii:
"After Malvegil, the Kings at Fornost again claimed lordship over the
whole Arnor, and took names with the prefix ar (a) in token of this."
So the claim began with Argeleb, and we see (from that listing of the
Northern Line) that Argeleb died in 1356. So the obvious conclusion is
that the lines had perished in Cardolan and Rhudaur before 1409, in fact
probably by the time Argeleb came to the throne in 1349 with the death
of his father Malvegil. The talk about the "last prince of Cardolan"
would presumably be about a prince who was not of the line of Isildur.
There is a quote I am trying to locate (but have failed to find so it
may be just a phantom memory), which I think talked about how the
Dunedain of Cardolan and Rhudaur waned quicker than those in Arthedain.
I couldn't find it in the Appendices or the Third Age bit in /The
Silmarillion/, and Strider only gives scattered hints about these
histories in the main story (all quotes from 'A Knife in the Dark'):
"There is no barrow on Weathertop, nor on any of these hills. The Men of
the West did not live here; though in their latter days they defended
the hills for a while against the evil that came out of Angmar. This
path was made to serve the forts along the walls. But long before, in
the first days of the North Kingdom, they built a great watch-tower on
Weathertop, Amon Sul they called it. It was burned and broken, and
nothing remains of it now but a tumbled ring, like a rough crown on the
old hill's head. Yet once it was tall and fair. It is told that Elendil
stood there watching for the coming of Gil-galad out of the West, in the
days of the Last Alliance."
This provokes amazement from the hobbits, as they begin to realise that
there is a lot more to Strider than meets the eye. Then Sam sings of
Gil-galad, and they learn there is a lot more to Sam (and Bilbo) than
meets the eye!
And later, in the chapter 'Flight to the Ford' we see more ancient works
of the Dunedain of Arnor:
"As they went forward the hills about them steadily rose. Here and there
upon heights and ridges they caught glimpses of ancient walls of stone,
and the ruins of towers: they had an ominous look."
At this point, they between the Last Bridge and the Ford of Bruinen, in
the angle between the Bruinen (Loudwater) and the Mitheithel (Hoarwell),
to be more precise, they are in the Trollshaws north of the road. This
is part of what used to be Rhudaur, the realm that fell first to Angmar.
Aragorn lets slip another little fragment:
"Men once dwelt here, ages ago; but none remain now. They became an evil
people, as legends tell, for they fell under the shadow of Angmar. But
all were destroyed in the war that brought the North Kingdom to its end.
But that is now so long ago that the hills have forgotten them, though a
shadow still lies on the land."
I guess these are the unexplained vistas of history that Tolkien was
saying were appreciated by those who would properly neglect the
Appendices to preserve the literary effect of such mysteries. I find
them _more_ amazing once I know even a little bit about the back-story.
Christopher Kreuzer
>> 5. Is it ever illuminated anywhere why there were no heirs of
>> Isildur in Cardolan and Rhudaur by the time of Argeleb?
>
> No, but it is reasonable to assume that the last of them died at
> Amon-Sul.
No. Amon Sul was destroyed in 1409 (see Appendix B, Tale of Years). It
was Argeleb I of Arthedain who first re-made the claim to rule all of
Arnor, as is signified by the 'Ar-' prefix of his name. We are told that
this claim was resisted by Rhudaur (already under the influence of
Angmar), and Argeleb was slain in 1356 in battle with Rhudaur.
Presuming that Argeleb's claim was correct, the line of Isildur seems to
have died out in Cardolan and Rhudaur by the time Argeleb became king of
Arthedain in 1349 and made the claim to be the rightful ruler of all of
Arnor. This is at least 60 years before the destruction of Amon Sul.
Stan Brown
>In article <VH9ee.25204$G8.2...@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>, Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
>> The quote is:
>>
>> "In the days of Argeleb son of Malvegil, since no descendants of Isildur
>> remained in the other kingdoms, the kings of Arthedain again claimed the
>> lordship of all Arnor."
>
I believe only the male line was considered. IIRC, the Numenorean
kingdoms in Middle-earth returned to the original Numenorean rule
of male-only primogeniture.
The Kings of Rohan did allow inheritance through a female, but they
were uneasy about it because the two times it ocurred they counted
as starting new dynasties.
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site)
Tolkien letters FAQ:
http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html
FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm
Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm
more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/faqget.htm
JimboCat
Khazar-Khum wrote:
>
> The Elves don't seem to have been fond of cold weather.
That's very true on evidence from the Silm, but I've wondered about it
wrt LotR.
The (very spare) accounts of the Grinding Ice, the recruitment of Men
to man the outposts in the north during the siege of Angband, and other
events all point to elves being much less cold-hardy than Men.
But when the Fellowship attempts Caradhras, there is no mention of
Legolas having trouble with the cold: the Hobbits are far worse off. In
fact, Legolas seems extremely cheerful and comfortable in the snow. Not
only does he fail to complain of the cold, he actually makes jokes
about bringing the Sun back to the mountains. And of course he does
that neat trick of running _over_ the snow while all the others in the
Company have to slog through ("...lesser men with shovels...").
Is this not a contradiction, or at least an inconsistency? I'd think
that elves' ability to travel over, rather than through, the snow would
overwhelm any disadvantage they might get from being more sensitive to
the cold. Or are elves just too proud (or fashion-conscious) to wear
parkas?
Jim Deutch (JimboCat)
--
A Swedish visitor in Norway stands before a barricade
in a city street, asking an armed man how the revolution
is going in Norway. The response is "So far we are
fighting over how to spell it".
AC
Belba Grubb From Stock <ba...@dbtech.net> wrote:
<snip>
> 4. I'm not very familiar with the details in "The Silmarillion,"
> but it is possible to know which family of Men in those days raised
> the mounds of Tyrn Gorthad?
For some reason I seem to remember the folk of Beor, but that could be
completely out to lunch.
<snip>
> 8. Speaking of Bree, was it in existence during these years in
> some form, perhaps as a "border town," and how did it survive all the
> wars?
The Men of Bree seem to have a very long history in the region. I would
suspect they had been there since the Fathers of Men had come out of the
East.
>
> 9. The Witch-king apparently controlled the northern weather.
> Why did he not use the Lossoth against the Dunedain? For that matter,
> why did Elves not go into the cold climates and make friends of the
> Lossoth either out of general curiosity or for strategic purposes?
I don't gather that there were any large number of Lossoth.
<snip>
Matthew T Curtis
<ba...@dbtech.net> wrote:
>Appendix AI.ii & AI.iii
>Eriador, Arnor, and the Heirs of Isildur
>
>In this section, the hobbit voice is strong throughout as we learn the
>history of the wide lands of which the present-day Shire is only a
>small part.
>
>In true hobbit fashion, most of the borders of the geographic region
>of Eriador as well as those of the kingdom of Arnor at its greatest
>are very clearly spelled out, but with gaps in areas, such as the cold
>northern reaches of Eriador (although we do learn much about the
>Snowmen of Forochel) and the lands of Enedwaith and Dunland, that hold
>little interest for the Travelers and their audiences and readers in
>the Shire. The High Kings of Arnor, though they ruled for over eight
>and a half centuries, are allotted one sentence before the narrator
>gets to the really interesting stuff, the history of those parts of
>the kingdom(s) that include places familiar to hobbits, such as the
>Brandywine and Lune rivers, the Great Road that passes through the
>Shire and also once served as a boundary between kingdoms, Bree,
>Weathertop, the Old Forest (but not Tom Bombadil), and the Barrow
>Downs, and the hobbits' own involvement in the great events of this
>region: as we learn how the North Kingdom was divided among three sons
>after the death of their father
It's surprising how little we are told of this event, given what a
crisis it must have been for the North-Kingdom, on a scale equivalent
to the Kin-strife in Gondor. The closest historical equivalent would
be the division of Charlemagne's empire between his grandchildren in
AD 840; in that case, the dynasty failed in all three
successor-states.
>(with the borders of each kingdom
>precisely delineated by the narrator, of course)
The Great Road was the boundary between Cardolan and Arthedain, but
would they have shared responsibility for its upkeep? Or would one
have had total control over it? A recipe for neighbourly dissension
there, methinks.
>and the inner strife
>and external threat from Angmar that quickly resulted in the downfall
>of Rhudaur, we also hear how the Stoors who lived in the Angle in
>Rhudaur took advantage of a lull in the great wars to flee west and
>south, with some (the ancestors of Smeagol/Gollum, one assumes) ending
>up in a settlement near the Gladden; when the plague put an end to the
>final remnants of the people of Cardolan, we are also told that the
>hobbits suffered greatly from it; and during the latter days of the
>Chieftains, when Orcs began to raid the area, we not only hear how the
>Dunedain and sons of Elrond fought them, but are also told of the band
>that invaded the Shire and were driven off by Bandobras Took (who
>invented the game of Golf in the process, as we learned in "The
>Hobbit").
>
>The hobbit narrator tells us in some detail the story of the last days
>of King Arvedui after the Witch-king of Angmar finally conquered
>Arthedain, for it is a very great adventure (one worthy of the
>mythical Jack London)
Tolkien is a master of these little side-stories, I find, that would
in most other hands be a whole novel, or even a trilogy, in
themselves.
Some kings' reigns began when they were quite old, others' when they
were still young.
>
>3. From the internal point of view, who would the narrator have
>been and who would have inserted the later comments about the identity
>of the Witch-king and his purpose in coming north, as well as about
>who might have been buried in the barrow where the Ring-bearer and his
>companions were imprisoned?
>
>4. I'm not very familiar with the details in "The Silmarillion,"
>but it is possible to know which family of Men in those days raised
>the mounds of Tyrn Gorthad?
>
>5. Is it ever illuminated anywhere why there were no heirs of
>Isildur in Cardolan and Rhudaur by the time of Argeleb?
It is mentioned in the Gondor section that 'the high men of the South
married late and their children were few', and that this was a sign of
decay. Conceivably (although we are not so told) this was the same
process, and the 'decay' of Cardolan and Rhudaur was the cause not
only of the failure of Isildur's line, but eventually of both nations.
>
>6. Does this section throw any light on the local history Tom
>Bombadil gives the hobbits during their stay with him and on the way
>to the Road (or vice versa)?
>
>7. The Stoors were in the Angle during some of these years. The
>Harfoots would likely have been in the Weathertop area or in Bree
>already. Where would the Fallohides have been?
Probably in the north.
>
>8. Speaking of Bree, was it in existence during these years in
>some form, perhaps as a "border town," and how did it survive all the
>wars?
>
>9. The Witch-king apparently controlled the northern weather.
>Why did he not use the Lossoth against the Dunedain?
Perhaps he thought them of little account, in much the same way as
Sauron ignored the hobbits.
>For that matter,
>why did Elves not go into the cold climates and make friends of the
>Lossoth either out of general curiosity or for strategic purposes?
From the example of Legolas in the crossing of the Misty Mountains,
the Elves do not like the cold.
>
>10. The most striking thing about this section when I re-read it,
>apart from the sound of the hobbit voice, was all the information
>about the wars and very, very little about the actual defeat of
>Angmar. This would be expected from a hobbit narrator, of course, but
>I just wanted to mention it as a carry-over point for the next
>section.
Angmar's defeat came at the hands of the Gondoreans and the main
source of information would have been their chroniclers, so the editor
considered their section the proper home of the story.
>
>11. Also of note in looking toward future discussions is the use
>of the two calendars here ["He became Thain in 379 of our reckoning
>(1979)"] and a mention of the family descent of the Oldbucks.
>
>12. I liked Aragorn's making a law that none of the Big People
>could pass the borders of the Shire. It fits in with the outlook
>Strider would have of the land he and his men had watched all those
>years, and it also echoes JRRT's likely wish to protect the land he
>knew and loved.
>
>13. Your thoughts, comments, and….
>
--
Matthew T Curtis mtcurtis[at]dsl.pipex.com
HIV+ for 24 glorious years!
Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security
blanket, a thumb to suck, a skirt to hold - Isaac Asimov
Matthew T Curtis
<pvsto...@zyx-abc.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>Belba Grubb From Stock (or somebody else of the same name) wrote thusly in
>message <dh0d71h2s3oaobb73...@4ax.com>:
>
<snip>
>
>> 5. Is it ever illuminated anywhere why there were no heirs of
>> Isildur in Cardolan and Rhudaur by the time of Argeleb?
>I think we are to assume that all legitimate claimants perished in the war
>of 1409. (Presumably the two kingdoms were allied, at least temporarily,
>against the common enemy.) Perhaps Araphor was the closest relative of the
>failed lines of the other kingdoms so he had the only reasonable claim.
>
Would there have been intermarriage between the three Arnorean lines?
If so, would the failure of Argeleb's claim to Cardolan and Rhudaur
have counted as a precedent for the Gondoreans when Arvedui made his
claim in 1945?
<snip>
--
Matthew T Curtis mtcurtis[at]dsl.pipex.com
HIV+ for 24 glorious years!
Before I came here I was confused about this subject. Having
listened to your lecture, I am still confused. But on a
higher level. - Enrico Fermi
Matthew T Curtis
<spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>Belba Grubb From Stock <ba...@dbtech.net> wrote:
<snip>
>> 11. Also of note in looking toward future discussions is the use
>> of the two calendars here ["He became Thain in 379 of our reckoning
>> (1979)"] and a mention of the family descent of the Oldbucks.
>
>I absolutely _hate_ Tolkien's use of different calendars. It makes
>calculating dates and stuff much more difficult!! :-)
He hasn't made it hard, though - just subtract a nice round 1600 from
the King's Reckoning date to get the Shire date. Try converting
between AD and AH (Moslem) dates sometime.
<snip>
>
>Christopher
--
Matthew T Curtis mtcurtis[at]dsl.pipex.com
HIV+ for 24 Glorious Years!
The most scandalous charges were suppressed; the vicar of Christ was
only accused of piracy, murder, rape, sodomy, and incest.
- Edward Gibbon
Stan Brown
>
>Khazar-Khum wrote:
>>
>> The Elves don't seem to have been fond of cold weather.
>
>That's very true on evidence from the Silm, but I've wondered about it
>wrt LotR.
>
>The (very spare) accounts of the Grinding Ice, the recruitment of Men
>to man the outposts in the north during the siege of Angband, and other
>events all point to elves being much less cold-hardy than Men.
>
>But when the Fellowship attempts Caradhras, there is no mention of
>Legolas having trouble with the cold: the Hobbits are far worse off.
>
I don't think it is. My read of the Grinding Ice episode is that
it's only the fact that they were new-come from the Blessed Realm
that let any of the Elves make it across. If they had not been, or
if they had been Men, their losses would have been far greater.
Tolkien wasn't 100% consistent in this. Especially the earlier
writings (like the Annals of Valinor in HoME V) imply that men were
taller and stronger. But by the time of the Canon, in the 1950s,
Elves were taller than Men and able to endure greater hardships. I
think both the Grinding Ice (as I read it) and Legolas were
consistent with that.
Christopher Kreuzer
> "Emma Pease" wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien:
>> In article <VH9ee.25204$G8.2...@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>,
>> Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
>>> The quote is:
>>>
>>> "In the days of Argeleb son of Malvegil, since no descendants of
>>> Isildur remained in the other kingdoms, the kings of Arthedain
>>> again claimed the lordship of all Arnor."
>>
>> Was this all descendants or just descendants in the male line?
>
> I believe only the male line was considered. IIRC, the Numenorean
> kingdoms in Middle-earth returned to the original Numenorean rule
> of male-only primogeniture.
Are you thinking of the words of Arvedui when he laid claim to the
throne of Gondor?
"Moreover, in Numenor of old the sceptre descended to the eldest child
of the king, whether man or woman. It is true that the law has not been
observed in the lands of exile ever troubled by war; but such was the
law of our people, to which we now refer, seeing that the sons of
Ondoher died childless."
Also recall that part of Arvedui's claim was that he was:
"the husband of Firiel, only surviving child of Ondoher"
That is trying to include female primogeniture. Though it does seem that
the rule was no longer observed because only men should be warriors, or
something...
> The Kings of Rohan did allow inheritance through a female, but they
> were uneasy about it because the two times it ocurred they counted
> as starting new dynasties.
That seems a very practical way of doing it, though it may also be to do
with the Germanic "sister-son" thing.
AC
>> Isildur in Cardolan and Rhudaur by the time of Argeleb?
>
> No, but it is reasonable to assume that the last of them died at Amon-Sul.
>
>
>> 9. The Witch-king apparently controlled the northern weather.
>> Why did he not use the Lossoth against the Dunedain? For that matter,
>> why did Elves not go into the cold climates and make friends of the
>> Lossoth either out of general curiosity or for strategic purposes?
>
> The Elves don't seem to have been fond of cold weather.
Odd, it didn't seem to bother Legolas at all.
>Secondly, the
> Lossoth are probably much like Inuit, living in small clans. As such they
> would be of limited use militarily. The Witch-King certainly knew them, and
> they probably traded with Angmar.
> I do wonder what the Witch-King was doing up there in the winter--hunting?
> Trading? He obviously went there with some regularity. Why?
One must remember that the colds of the North were largely the product of
Morgoth, so maybe there's some distant affinity there.
<snip>
Christopher Kreuzer
> Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>> "Emma Pease" wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien:
>>> In article <VH9ee.25204$G8.2...@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>,
>>> Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
>>>> The quote is:
>>>>
>>>> "In the days of Argeleb son of Malvegil, since no descendants of
>>>> Isildur remained in the other kingdoms, the kings of Arthedain
>>>> again claimed the lordship of all Arnor."
>>>
>>> Was this all descendants or just descendants in the male line?
>>
>> I believe only the male line was considered. IIRC, the Numenorean
>> kingdoms in Middle-earth returned to the original Numenorean rule
>> of male-only primogeniture.
Missed the obvious quote, from Pelendur, Steward of Gondor:
"In Gondor this heritage is reckoned through the sons only; and we have
not heard that the law is otherwise in Arnor."
Christopher Kreuzer
Matthew T Curtis <little...@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
> Prai Jei <pvsto...@zyx-abc.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>> Belba Grubb From Stock (or somebody else of the same name) wrote
>>
> <snip>
>>
>>> 5. Is it ever illuminated anywhere why there were no heirs of
>>> Isildur in Cardolan and Rhudaur by the time of Argeleb?
>
>> I think we are to assume that all legitimate claimants perished in
>> the war of 1409. (Presumably the two kingdoms were allied, at least
>> temporarily, against the common enemy.) Perhaps Araphor was the
>> closest relative of the failed lines of the other kingdoms so he had
>> the only reasonable claim.
>>
> Would there have been intermarriage between the three Arnorean lines?
> If so, would the failure of Argeleb's claim to Cardolan and Rhudaur
> have counted as a precedent for the Gondoreans when Arvedui made his
> claim in 1945?
I get the impression that the sole basis of Argeleb's claim to Rhudaur
and Cardolan was that he was the only remaining father-son descendent of
Isildur. [1] That would be claim enough, even without claims of
intermarriage. And in any case, the rejection of Arvedui's claim was
first to say that the descent is through the sons, so "we couldn't care
less that you are the husband of the late king's daughter" (to
paraphrase it slightly), and then, when Arvedui went into a more
extensive legal argument, just silence: "To this Gondor made no answer."
The only hint of precedent is that Pelendur says:
"In Gondor this heritage is reckoned through the sons only; and we have
not heard that the law is otherwise in Arnor."
Which is what I paraphrased above. Unfortunately, we are not told why
Cardolan and Rhudaur rejected Argeleb's claim to rule all of Arnor. All
we do know is that Rhudaur were already under the influence of Angmar
(so would have been unlikely to agree) and that the whole argument
vanished when the kingdoms of Rhudaur and Cardolan ended (Rhudaur due to
Angmar and the resulting wars, Cardolan due to the wars with Angmar and
then a plague).
[1] The father-son descent is confirmed by the quote at the end of this
section of the Appendices, thus answering Emma Pease's question
elsewhere in this thread:
"It was the pride and wonder of the Northern Line that, though their
power departed and their people dwindled, through all the many
generations the succession was unbroken from father to son."
This is repeated in /The Silmarillion/ bit about the Third Age:
"Yet the shards of the sword were cherished during many lives of Men by
the heirs of Isildur; and their line, from father to son, remained
unbroken."
And this father-son succession rule is explicitly stated for the
stewards of Gondor after the time of Pelendur:
"...after the days of Pelendur the Stewardship became hereditary as a
kingship, from father to son or nearest kin."
Though note the qualifier about "nearest kin". I'll stop here, as the
footnote is now nearly as long as the original post.
Christopher Kreuzer
> <ba...@dbtech.net> wrote:
>
>> we learn how the North Kingdom was divided among three sons
>> after the death of their father
>
> It's surprising how little we are told of this event, given what a
> crisis it must have been for the North-Kingdom, on a scale equivalent
> to the Kin-strife in Gondor.
I agree. I've always wondered what provoked this, and whether it was an
orderly calm split, or a calamitous civil war. I get the impression that
the original split was peaceful because of the references to 'dividing'
rather then (say) 'seizing', though that might only be because we are
told almost nothing about it, just:
"dissensions among his sons"
Though later:
"There was often strife between the kingdoms"
Maybe we can postulate a peaceful split (merely 'dissension') and then a
worsening of diplomatic relationships ('strife') over the centuries,
with border skirmishes and territory swapping sides, and then the killer
blow, Angmar (aka the Witch-King) getting involved and taking advantage
of these quarrels and inflaming them.
> The closest historical equivalent would
> be the division of Charlemagne's empire between his grandchildren in
> AD 840; in that case, the dynasty failed in all three
> successor-states.
Interesting. Are there any other historical cases?
Christopher Kreuzer
> Matthew T Curtis <little...@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, 02 May 2005 14:46:38 -0500, Belba Grubb From Stock
>> <ba...@dbtech.net> wrote:
>>
>>> we learn how the North Kingdom was divided among three sons
>>> after the death of their father
<snip>
>> The closest historical equivalent would
>> be the division of Charlemagne's empire between his grandchildren in
>> AD 840; in that case, the dynasty failed in all three
>> successor-states.
>
> Interesting. Are there any other historical cases?
Doh! Just remembered how the empire of Alexander the Great was divided
among his sons. There were three of them, I think... DOH!! Make that
four of them, and they were generals, not sons.
Emma Pease
Three generals I think. He also had an infant son but the son never
had any power before he died.
Splitting land was fairly common. Henry II of England did it though
only one son survived to leave descendants in the second generation.
One of Henry's problems was he did the division before he died and
his sons promptly took the land and revolted against their father.
William I of England also had his land split between his two elder
sons though the younger son later captured and imprisoned the elder
and the youngest eventually got the whole lot.
--
\----
|\* | Emma Pease Net Spinster
|_\/ Die Luft der Freiheit weht
Prai Jei
message <_muee.25940$G8.1...@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>:
> "In Gondor this heritage is reckoned through the sons only; and we have
> not heard that the law is otherwise in Arnor."
>
> [1] The father-son descent is confirmed by the quote at the end of this
> section of the Appendices, thus answering Emma Pease's question
> elsewhere in this thread:
>
> "It was the pride and wonder of the Northern Line that, though their
> power departed and their people dwindled, through all the many
> generations the succession was unbroken from father to son."
>
> This is repeated in /The Silmarillion/ bit about the Third Age:
>
> "Yet the shards of the sword were cherished during many lives of Men by
> the heirs of Isildur; and their line, from father to son, remained
> unbroken."
What ever happened to the Tar-Ancalimë Law? Sunk with Númenor?
--
The problem it was designed to solve, wasn't a problem.
Christopher Kreuzer
> Christopher Kreuzer (or somebody else of the same name) wrote thusly
> in message <_muee.25940$G8.1...@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>:
>
>> "In Gondor this heritage is reckoned through the sons only; and we
>> have not heard that the law is otherwise in Arnor."
>>
>> [1] The father-son descent is confirmed by the quote at the end of
>> this section of the Appendices, thus answering Emma Pease's question
>> elsewhere in this thread:
>>
>> "It was the pride and wonder of the Northern Line that, though their
>> power departed and their people dwindled, through all the many
>> generations the succession was unbroken from father to son."
>>
>> This is repeated in /The Silmarillion/ bit about the Third Age:
>>
>> "Yet the shards of the sword were cherished during many lives of Men
>> by the heirs of Isildur; and their line, from father to son, remained
>> unbroken."
>
> What ever happened to the Tar-Ancalimë Law? Sunk with Númenor?
Apparently. Arvedui obviously had the same thought, as he responded to
the first quote above with these words:
"Moreover, in Numenor of old the sceptre descended to the eldest child
of the king, whether man or woman. It is true that the law has not been
observed in the lands of exile ever troubled by war; but such was the
law of our people, to which we now refer, seeing that the sons of
Ondoher died childless."
So it looks like things were different because of the troubles and wars.
It also looks like the issue had not arisen before, or at least not
often, if I am not over-reading the phrase "to which we now refer".
Either that, or Arvedui (in desperation and to bolster his claim)
dragged out old laws that no-one else had ever bothered with before.
Suenote
the burial grounds of Men from time immemorial. The first graves were
cut there, it is said, before the ancestors of the Edain set out across
the Blue Mountains into Beleriand, nearly seven thousand years before
the War of the Ring.
The tradition of the Barrow-downs was carried on by the descendants of
these early Men, and there is evidence that the burial chambers were
used for at least the princes of Cardolan, in whose realm they came to
lie many millennia after their first use.
At the height of the kingdom of Angmar, its lord the Witch-king sent
out evil spirits to dwell among the barrows of Tyrn Gorthad, and it
became a haunted place, shunned alike by the Men and Hobbits who lived
nearby.
This information I found in the Enclyclopedia of Arda
Nothing about which family of Men built it...
Suenote :) sue...@charter.net
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Suenote
http://www.freewebs.com/muchambala/index.htm
And don't leave without signing my guestbook, PLEASE? :)
Suenote
JimboCat
For some reason, the whole running over the snow thing has always
bothered me. I've never had any problem with Elven magic in general:
Galadriel's Mirror and star-glass, the near-invisibility cloaks, the
magic rope (yes, I do think it came when Sam called) -- all these ring
true for me. But running over the top of the new-fallen snow??? If
elves can do that, why can't they walk on water? It always sounded a
false note for me. The tightrope walking across the river, even the
magically acute eyesight: these I can easily accept. But this one thing
jars my WSOD just as much as if Legolas actually _had_ fetched the Sun
from the southlands to melt the snow on Caradhras, as he joked.
There's a blurry line for me between "Elves had much greater skill and
control over their physical bodies than Men" and "Elves had a command
over physical reality through their awareness of the Unseen world that
seemed like magic to mere humans". But somehow the snow-walking has
never fit in for me on either side of the line.
Jim Deutch (JimboCat)
--
I used to be an agnostic, but now I'm not so sure.
Matthew T Curtis
<spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>Matthew T Curtis <little...@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, 02 May 2005 14:46:38 -0500, Belba Grubb From Stock
>> <ba...@dbtech.net> wrote:
>>
>>> we learn how the North Kingdom was divided among three sons
>>> after the death of their father
>>
>> It's surprising how little we are told of this event, given what a
>> crisis it must have been for the North-Kingdom, on a scale equivalent
>> to the Kin-strife in Gondor.
>
>I agree. I've always wondered what provoked this, and whether it was an
>orderly calm split, or a calamitous civil war. I get the impression that
>the original split was peaceful because of the references to 'dividing'
>rather then (say) 'seizing', though that might only be because we are
>told almost nothing about it, just:
>
>"dissensions among his sons"
>
>Though later:
>
>"There was often strife between the kingdoms"
>
>Maybe we can postulate a peaceful split (merely 'dissension')
It did not happen at any other time in the history of the Two
Kingdoms. Dividing a kingdom would be a step only taken in extreme
circumstances, all other options having failed. Unless we assume
Earendur was the only king to have more than one son, this was more
than the usual family squabble.
Intra-familial rrivalries almost always end badly in Tolkien:
Feanor/Fingolfin-Finarfin, Denethor/Boromir.
> and then a
>worsening of diplomatic relationships ('strife') over the centuries,
>with border skirmishes and territory swapping sides, and then the killer
>blow, Angmar (aka the Witch-King) getting involved and taking advantage
>of these quarrels and inflaming them.
>
>> The closest historical equivalent would
>> be the division of Charlemagne's empire between his grandchildren in
>> AD 840; in that case, the dynasty failed in all three
>> successor-states.
>
>Interesting. Are there any other historical cases?
>
It was very common system of inheritance in the post-Roman Germanic
realms. Clovis the Merovingian, who established the Frankish kingdom,
divided his lands between his sons, creating a patchwork of states
that proceeded to divide and reunify for centuries until the Mayor of
the Palace (read: Steward), Pepin the Short, deposed the last
Merovingian and made himself King (more on this when I do the Stewards
in a few days).
The Rurik dynasty of Russia had several principalities, the most
important being the Great Prince of Vladimir; the idea was that
succession was on a 'dead man's shoes' principle, whenthe Great Prince
died the next-most-senior prince would leave his principality and go
to Vladimir, to be replaced by the next one down, and so on. It didn't
work very well.
Two Roman Emperors, Constantine and Theodosius, divided their realms
among their families. In the former case, his grandson Galerius
reunited the Empire after much war; in the latter, the division stood.
>Christopher
--
Matthew T Curtis mtcurtis[at]dsl.pipex.com
HIV+ for 24 glorious years!
What Mrs Whitlow had sewn together out of her dress was a lot more
substantial than a bikini. It was more a *newzealand* - two quite
large
respectable halves separated by a narrow channel.
- Terry Pratchett
R. Dan Henry
<ba...@dbtech.net> wrote:
>Appendix AI.ii & AI.iii
>Eriador, Arnor, and the Heirs of Isildur
>
>In this section, the hobbit voice is strong throughout as we learn the
>history of the wide lands of which the present-day Shire is only a
>small part.
Present-day? Maybe when it was written, but not when it was
translated. The hobbit voice is very clear, though. I imagine a
history written by Elrond, for example, would read rather differently.
>that hobbits were present in the great battle when Angmar was finally defeated;
"Why is that Glorfindel guy winking at us?"
>The founding of the Shire is very nearly the end of the appendix. We
>do hear of the days of the Chieftains, though little is remembered of
>them
Well, the oral historians who remembered it mostly went West and the
Dunadain weren't exactly in position to keep a lot of written records,
which rather thins out the history.
>Aragorn -- "Our King, we call him" - and the close ties between him
>and hobbits, in particular, Thain Peregrin, Master Samwise the Mayor
>and Sam's daughter Elanor the Fair who is one of Queen Arwen's maids.
Isn't it sweet?
Did Elanor wear ultra-high platform shoes or carry a stepladder to
attend on the Queen?
>2. If I've calculated it right, there seems to be an odd
>irregularity in the lengths of some reigns in the Heirs of Isildur; in
>each section one or two had exceptionally long reigns, for example,
>Elendar for 125 years, Araphor for 180 years, Aravir for 142 years.
>Why did JRRT set that up? (There seems to be a discrepancy, too, with
>the narrator saying that Aragorn II lived longer than any of his line
>since King Arvegil, but Arvegil only ruled 73 years - perhaps I
>haven't calculated it right.)
And how long did Arvegil's father hang on before passing on the
throne? Years of rule aren't years of life. And some reigns are going
to be exceptionally long or short. It wouldn't be very realistic to
have them all of approximately the same length.
>3. From the internal point of view, who would the narrator have
>been and who would have inserted the later comments about the identity
>of the Witch-king and his purpose in coming north, as well as about
>who might have been buried in the barrow where the Ring-bearer and his
>companions were imprisoned?
Obviously, this is hobbit writing. Possibly our learned friend
Merriadoc the Magnificent, but in any case, likely added to
considerably by conversations/letters with others outside the Shire.
It is clear, however, from the wording that this is essentially a
hobbit history, not an addition done in Minas Tirith. I expect there
was a fair amount of historical "research" at Rivendell and that at
least Merry would have remembered history and speculation related
there. Pippin, too, I think would by the return trip have become
interested in the history of his King's line.
>4. I'm not very familiar with the details in "The Silmarillion,"
>but it is possible to know which family of Men in those days raised
>the mounds of Tyrn Gorthad?
The Silmarillion, dealing with events in Beleriand and Valinor, barely
touches on the world east of the Blue Mountains and is not concerned
with Men, save as they come into the history of the Elves, so I don't
think so. Maybe some obscure note in HOME says more?
>5. Is it ever illuminated anywhere why there were no heirs of
>Isildur in Cardolan and Rhudaur by the time of Argeleb?
The Witch-King would have especially worked to kill off the Royal
line. That might have something to do with it.
>7. The Stoors were in the Angle during some of these years. The
>Harfoots would likely have been in the Weathertop area or in Bree
>already. Where would the Fallohides have been?
In (fallo)hiding?
>8. Speaking of Bree, was it in existence during these years in
>some form, perhaps as a "border town," and how did it survive all the
>wars?
Bree's location on the major crossroads meant that it would be
reinhabited eventually even if essentially wiped out by war. Even in
the low population, limited trade era of the late Third Age, there was
going back and forth enough to cause a population center to develop.
In more active times, it would have been a prime location.
>9. The Witch-king apparently controlled the northern weather.
Well, the Snow-Men think so, at least, but they may have been
listening to Angmarian propaganda.
>Why did he not use the Lossoth against the Dunedain?
They didn't like him; they think he's the bastard who makes it so
cold.
>For that matter,
>why did Elves not go into the cold climates and make friends of the
>Lossoth either out of general curiosity or for strategic purposes?
Didn't know and didn't care? I mean, the land couldn't have supported
enough Men to make a very imposing army.
>10. The most striking thing about this section when I re-read it,
>apart from the sound of the hobbit voice, was all the information
>about the wars and very, very little about the actual defeat of
>Angmar.
No epic poem about the battle, you mean? Maybe Merry, the
Rohan-influenced, isn't the likeliest author after all...
>11. Also of note in looking toward future discussions is the use
>of the two calendars here ["He became Thain in 379 of our reckoning
>(1979)"] and a mention of the family descent of the Oldbucks.
Nice tease to get us to keep reading to the calendar appendix, you
mean? And maybe the genealogies as well. Cunning rascal that JRRT!
>12. I liked Aragorn's making a law that none of the Big People
>could pass the borders of the Shire.
So they couldn't come see the Mallorn of Bag End! How sad!
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
aelfwina
"R. Dan Henry" <danh...@inreach.com> wrote in message
news:j9go71peo2toshj8r...@4ax.com...(snip)
>>that hobbits were present in the great battle when Angmar was finally
>>defeated;
>
> "Why is that Glorfindel guy winking at us?"
*grin* It would be funny if Glorfindel actually *did* realize when he met
the hobbits the form his prophecy would take. Maybe it wasn't *only*
Gandalf who persuaded Elrond that Merry and Pippin needed to go on the
Quest, LOL!
>
>>The founding of the Shire is very nearly the end of the appendix. We
>>do hear of the days of the Chieftains, though little is remembered of
>>them
>
> Well, the oral historians who remembered it mostly went West and the
> Dunadain weren't exactly in position to keep a lot of written records,
> which rather thins out the history.
>
>>Aragorn -- "Our King, we call him" - and the close ties between him
>>and hobbits, in particular, Thain Peregrin, Master Samwise the Mayor
>>and Sam's daughter Elanor the Fair who is one of Queen Arwen's maids.
>
> Isn't it sweet?
>
> Did Elanor wear ultra-high platform shoes or carry a stepladder to
> attend on the Queen?
I've wondered about that myself. And she was very young by hobbit standards
when she first went to do that. But I would guess it was mostly honorary,
and involved looking pretty at the Queen's side, rather than actually
helping her dress and so forth.
>
(snip)
>>3. From the internal point of view, who would the narrator have
>>been and who would have inserted the later comments about the identity
>>of the Witch-king and his purpose in coming north, as well as about
>>who might have been buried in the barrow where the Ring-bearer and his
>>companions were imprisoned?
>
> Obviously, this is hobbit writing. Possibly our learned friend
> Merriadoc the Magnificent, but in any case, likely added to
> considerably by conversations/letters with others outside the Shire.
> It is clear, however, from the wording that this is essentially a
> hobbit history, not an addition done in Minas Tirith. I expect there
> was a fair amount of historical "research" at Rivendell and that at
> least Merry would have remembered history and speculation related
> there. Pippin, too, I think would by the return trip have become
> interested in the history of his King's line.
I would guess that there had been letters and so forth between the hobbits
and their friends in the South. And Merry did spend some time in Rivendell
after Elrond left, while Celeborn was there, IIRC. Not to mention visits
with their good friend Strider when he came to establish his northern court.
And I think you are right about Pippin as well. I'm sure he would have been
full of questions.
>
(snip)
>>5. Is it ever illuminated anywhere why there were no heirs of
>>Isildur in Cardolan and Rhudaur by the time of Argeleb?
>
> The Witch-King would have especially worked to kill off the Royal
> line. That might have something to do with it.
That makes sense. It might explain a good deal.
>
>>7. The Stoors were in the Angle during some of these years. The
>>Harfoots would likely have been in the Weathertop area or in Bree
>>already. Where would the Fallohides have been?
>
> In (fallo)hiding?
Somewhere, I am not sure where, I have come across the idea that they were
east of the Great River near Mirkwood, and migrated. But I really don't
have a clue where that idea came from...?
(more snip)
>>10. The most striking thing about this section when I re-read it,
>>apart from the sound of the hobbit voice, was all the information
>>about the wars and very, very little about the actual defeat of
>>Angmar.
>
> No epic poem about the battle, you mean? Maybe Merry, the
> Rohan-influenced, isn't the likeliest author after all...
Oh I still think so. But perhaps he wasn't really a poet. I could see the
poor fellow making a frustrated try at it though.
>
>>11. Also of note in looking toward future discussions is the use
>>of the two calendars here ["He became Thain in 379 of our reckoning
>>(1979)"] and a mention of the family descent of the Oldbucks.
>
> Nice tease to get us to keep reading to the calendar appendix, you
> mean? And maybe the genealogies as well. Cunning rascal that JRRT!
I wish that somewhere JRRT had written out the story of why Gorhendad
changed the family name and migrated to Buckland.
>
>>12. I liked Aragorn's making a law that none of the Big People
>>could pass the borders of the Shire.
I don't. I mean, how fair is it that he can't even go visit his friends
himself? I think the Ban is not one of JRRT's best ideas. Hmmph!
>
> So they couldn't come see the Mallorn of Bag End! How sad!
That *is* so sad!
Barbara
>
> R. Dan Henry
> danh...@inreach.com
Yuk Tang
news:vwuee.25950$G8....@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk:
>> On Mon, 02 May 2005 14:46:38 -0500, Belba Grubb From Stock
>> <ba...@dbtech.net> wrote:
>>
>>> we learn how the North Kingdom was divided among three sons
>>> after the death of their father
>>
>> It's surprising how little we are told of this event, given what
>> a crisis it must have been for the North-Kingdom, on a scale
>> equivalent to the Kin-strife in Gondor.
>
> I agree. I've always wondered what provoked this, and whether it
> was an orderly calm split, or a calamitous civil war. I get the
> impression that the original split was peaceful because of the
> references to 'dividing' rather then (say) 'seizing', though that
> might only be because we are told almost nothing about it, just:
>
> "dissensions among his sons"
>
> Though later:
>
> "There was often strife between the kingdoms"
>
> Maybe we can postulate a peaceful split (merely 'dissension') and
> then a worsening of diplomatic relationships ('strife') over the
> centuries, with border skirmishes and territory swapping sides,
> and then the killer blow, Angmar (aka the Witch-King) getting
> involved and taking advantage of these quarrels and inflaming
> them.
Perhaps the split was initially informal, with Arthedain being the
overlord and Rhudaur and Cardolan being subletted in feudal style,
followed by true division as the other two declared themselves
kingdoms in their own right. The Three Kingdoms in China worked out
in pretty much the same way, with Cao Cao trying to hold the empire
together as the power behind the nominal sovereign, but eventually
splitting off a section with himself as King. The Diadochi were
another example of division in this manner.
>> The closest historical equivalent would
>> be the division of Charlemagne's empire between his grandchildren
>> in AD 840; in that case, the dynasty failed in all three
>> successor-states.
>
> Interesting. Are there any other historical cases?
William the Conqueror's children? Rufus got England, Robert got
Normandy, and Henry got a castle and 1000 GBP.
--
Cheers, ymt.
Yuk Tang
news:slrnd7kui...@munin.Stanford.EDU:
> Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
>>
>> Doh! Just remembered how the empire of Alexander the Great was
>> divided among his sons. There were three of them, I think...
>> DOH!! Make that four of them, and they were generals, not sons.
>
> Three generals I think. He also had an infant son but the son
> never had any power before he died.
The Successors eventually settled into three kingdoms headed by the
descendants of generals Antigonus, Seleucus and Ptolemy, but other
generals/individuals were also significant powers. Notably Olympias
(Alexander's mother), Antipater (Alexander's regent), Perdiccas (the
last one to try to hold the whole thing together). Try 'Funeral
Games' by Mary Renault for a novelisation of the Successor Wars.
> Splitting land was fairly common. Henry II of England did it
> though only one son survived to leave descendants in the second
> generation. One of Henry's problems was he did the division before
> he died and his sons promptly took the land and revolted against
> their father.
Richard, John et al were gits. Richard has been (literally)
lionised, but he was as bad as his reviled brother John.
> William I of England also had his land split between
> his two elder sons though the younger son later captured and
> imprisoned the elder and the youngest eventually got the whole
> lot.
I rather enjoyed 'Knight's Fee' (Rosemary Sutcliffe), set in the
period of the disputes between William Rufus, Robert of Normandy and
Henry.
--
Cheers, ymt.
Yuk Tang
news:vwuee.25950$G8....@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk:
>
> was an orderly calm split, or a calamitous civil war. I get the
> impression that the original split was peaceful because of the
> references to 'dividing' rather then (say) 'seizing', though that
> might only be because we are told almost nothing about it, just:
>
> "dissensions among his sons"
>
> Though later:
>
> "There was often strife between the kingdoms"
>
> Maybe we can postulate a peaceful split (merely 'dissension') and
> then a worsening of diplomatic relationships ('strife') over the
> centuries, with border skirmishes and territory swapping sides,
> and then the killer blow, Angmar (aka the Witch-King) getting
> involved and taking advantage of these quarrels and inflaming
> them.
Just remembered another historical example. The disintegration of
the Mongol empire into various khanates after the accession of
Khubilai is pretty entertaining to read about (try wiki). The
previous Great Khans had been compromise choices, but Khubilai was
the first to be loathed by Genghis's other heirs. Although by that
point all the candidates were going to be divisive, with K triumphing
due to stronger support.
--
Cheers, ymt.
Prai Jei
<vmmk71d1731asui8c...@4ax.com>:
> On Wed, 04 May 2005 02:17:03 GMT, "Christopher Kreuzer"
> <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>Belba Grubb From Stock <ba...@dbtech.net> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>>> 11. Also of note in looking toward future discussions is the use
>>> of the two calendars here ["He became Thain in 379 of our reckoning
>>> (1979)"] and a mention of the family descent of the Oldbucks.
>>
>>I absolutely _hate_ Tolkien's use of different calendars. It makes
>>calculating dates and stuff much more difficult!! :-)
>
> He hasn't made it hard, though - just subtract a nice round 1600 from
> the King's Reckoning date to get the Shire date. Try converting
> between AD and AH (Moslem) dates sometime.
There's a difference there - between two calendars that keep solar years the
offset will remain constant, e.g. the Jewish year number is always 3760
greater than the Gregorian (thus it is currently 5765 in the Jewish
calendar) until Jewish New Year occurs in September or October. However the
Muslim calendar keeps "lunar years", deliberately desynchronised from the
seasons (so that all pagan seasonal observances may be forgotten) so the
year number is (very slowly) catching up.
Exercise for the reader: find the crossover point between Gregorian and
Muslim years.
--
A couple of questions. How do I stop the wires short-circuiting, and what's
this nylon washer for?
R. Dan Henry
wrote:
>But when the Fellowship attempts Caradhras, there is no mention of
>Legolas having trouble with the cold: the Hobbits are far worse off. In
>fact, Legolas seems extremely cheerful and comfortable in the snow. Not
>only does he fail to complain of the cold, he actually makes jokes
>about bringing the Sun back to the mountains. And of course he does
>that neat trick of running _over_ the snow while all the others in the
>Company have to slog through ("...lesser men with shovels...").
Well, running on top of the snow would have kept him dry and
(relatively) warm, so he wouldn't have needed any greater cold
resistance to feel more comfortable. The really biting cold of the
northern lands, possibly under supernatural influence, would have
brought a real chill through the air, not needing to have one slog
through snowdrifts to make one very cold.
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
Belba Grubb From Stock
wrote:
<snip>
>Assuming the PoME dates are accurate, there is an authorial list of the
>lifespans of the Kings of Gondor, Arnor, Stewards, and Chieftains. I
>can fish them out if anyone is really curious. The dates might not be
>accurate though (and then I can fish out the footnotes). :)
Please do - I'm curious!
Barb
Belba Grubb From Stock
wrote:
<snip excellent commentary>
>. But somehow the snow-walking has
>never fit in for me on either side of the line.
Now that you mention it, that hasn't rung true for me, either, though
it never really grabbed my attention before. In "On Fairy-stories"
JRRT had much to say against the popular tendency to make elves "tiny"
but here it's almost as though he has forgotten the 'truth' of Elves
he was drawing so well and strayed briefly into the stereotypical
path.
...the story-maker proves a successful "sub-creator." He makes a
Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he
relates is "true": it accords with the laws of that world. You
therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside. The
moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather
art, has failed. You are then out in the Primary World again,
looking at the little abortive Secondary World from outside.
--from OFS
As you and Stan point out, Legolas' running over the snow doesn't
really accord with the laws of Elves in Arda very well. Fortunately,
though, the rest of the spell he labored on so carefully worked and we
never were completely ejected into the Primary World again.
Barb
Belba Grubb From Stock
<spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
<snip excellent comments and elucidation>
>...Noting in passing that one of the
>footnotes insists on going off at a tangent and talking about the crown
>of Gondor. :-)
Aye, but only to show that Bilbo knew what he was talking about when
he composed Strider's riddle.
Barb
Belba Grubb From Stock
><snip>
>
>>> 5. Is it ever illuminated anywhere why there were no heirs of
>>> Isildur in Cardolan and Rhudaur by the time of Argeleb?
>>
>> I think we are to assume that all legitimate claimants perished in
>> the war of 1409.
It's a little confusing, working between the Tale of Years and "The
North-kingdom and the Dunedain," but I think it probably happened
earlier as Argeleb I had made the claim already and had been slain in
1356. Most probably they were killed during the strife over
Weathertop and the Weather Hills and the land toward Bree. Sad ends
for heirs of Isildur.
On Wed, 04 May 2005 19:50:13 GMT, "Christopher Kreuzer"
<spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
<snip>
>"In the days of Argeleb son of Malvegil, since no descendants of Isildur
>remained in the other kingdoms, the kings of Arthedain again claimed the
>lordship of all Arnor."
>
>This is borne out by the name Argeleb, as the claimant and his
>descendents are takng names with the prefix 'Ar-' that signifies
>lordship over Arnor. This is stated in the footnote to the listing of
>the Northern Line in Appendix A I ii:
>
>"After Malvegil, the Kings at Fornost again claimed lordship over the
>whole Arnor, and took names with the prefix ar (a) in token of this."
>
>So the claim began with Argeleb, and we see (from that listing of the
>Northern Line) that Argeleb died in 1356. So the obvious conclusion is
>that the lines had perished in Cardolan and Rhudaur before 1409, in fact
>probably by the time Argeleb came to the throne in 1349 with the death
>of his father Malvegil. The talk about the "last prince of Cardolan"
>would presumably be about a prince who was not of the line of Isildur.
It would seem that the wars had killed off not only the heirs of
Isildur in Cardolan and Rhudaur, but also many of the Dunedain in
Rhudaur, where "an evil lord of the Hillmen [who were the Hillmen, a
northern branch of the Dunlendings perhaps?], who was in secret league
with Angmar" had seized power. More Dunedain remained in Cardolan and
despite the failure of Isildur's line there, they seem to have
supported Arthedain's claim. It could be, therefore, that this
individual was someone for whom the royals had designated a special
honor title because of close friendship and/or his service and
faithfulness.
>
>There is a quote I am trying to locate (but have failed to find so it
>may be just a phantom memory), which I think talked about how the
>Dunedain of Cardolan and Rhudaur waned quicker than those in Arthedain.
Would it be?
In Arthedain the line of Isildur was maintained and endured, but
the line soon perished in Cardolan and Rhudaur [due to strife
between the two kingdoms].
If not that, then perhaps a 'phantom memory' may have been rooted in
this (G).
<snip>
>I guess these are the unexplained vistas of history that Tolkien was
>saying were appreciated by those who would properly neglect the
>Appendices to preserve the literary effect of such mysteries. I find
>them _more_ amazing once I know even a little bit about the back-story.
Yes. It is a treasure trove. And it *is* a shame he never filled out
some of the stories of the North-kingdom.
But JRRT's statement is a little rich, considering that it was, among
other things, questions from readers that brought the appendices to
publication. One of the lovable contradictions of the man, I guess.
Barb
R. Dan Henry
<ba...@dbtech.net> wrote:
>On Wed, 04 May 2005 07:41:09 GMT, "Khazar-Khum" <dlmb...@gte.net>
>wrote:
>
>>> 10. The most striking thing about this section when I re-read it,
>>> apart from the sound of the hobbit voice, was all the information
>>> about the wars and very, very little about the actual defeat of
>>> Angmar. This would be expected from a hobbit narrator, of course, but
>>> I just wanted to mention it as a carry-over point for the next
>>> section.
>>
>>Why would it be "expected" of a Hobbit narrator? If Hobbits were fighting on
>>the side of Gondor, then I would expect that this would be a point of pride.
>
>They would have been fighting for the Dunedain, of course, but I
>expected it of the hobbits because they hadn't involved themselves in
>the great matters of the day and so wouldn't be really invested in the
>details of the final outcome. They wouldn't really care if they knew
>exactly what happened to Angmar; they just wanted to hear that there
>would be no more troubles.
>
>I can imagine the hobbits suffering and then hiding when it all moved
>in their direction, hoping all the time that something good would
>happen; and then being awed by the mighty host of Elves and Men that
>marched across their land (shaking loose a company or two of Tooks and
>other doughty hobbitry along the way, perhaps at Gandalf's
>instigation) to do battle with Angmar in what was to them the far
>East. As it turned out, the hobbit companies made no triumphant
>return or any return at all,
It may comfort you to realize that you are making this up. Indeed,
given that the chronicle *does* mention that the archers sent to the
aid of the King did not return, it would seem strange if the same were
true of the archers who went to the fall of Angmar, given that the
same is not said of them.
--
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
Belba Grubb From Stock
wrote:
<snip>
>> Did Elanor wear ultra-high platform shoes or carry a stepladder to
>> attend on the Queen?
>
>I've wondered about that myself. And she was very young by hobbit standards
>when she first went to do that. But I would guess it was mostly honorary,
>and involved looking pretty at the Queen's side, rather than actually
>helping her dress and so forth.
Oh I don't know. Her dad, the son of Ham Gamgee, wouldn't have been
able to tolerate that sort of treatment for his favorite daughter and
probably would have had no hesitation in talking to the King about
Elanor's not providing "good service."
But Arwen, being familiar with hobbits through her acquaintance with
Bilbo in Rivendell and meeting the four members of the Fellowship, as
well as indirectly through her husband's tales, probably wouldn't have
made Beregond's mistake:
I will not hide from you, Master Peregrin...that to us you look
almost as one of our children, a lad of nine summers or so; and
yet you have endured perils and seen marvels that few of our
greybeards could boast of. I thought it was the whim of our Lord
to take him a noble page, after the manner of kings of old, they
say. But I see that it is not so, and you must pardon my
foolishness.
I have no doubt that Elanor, eventual mother of the Fairbairn dynasty,
could and did hold her own in the more subtle yet equally perilous and
marvelous woman's Middle-earth. Physically, the job wasn't beyond
her. Merry and Pippin both served at the table for their lords, after
all, right along with servants who were Big People; Elanor would have
easily done this and other things for the Queen.
>
>>
>(snip)
>
>>>3. From the internal point of view, who would the narrator have
>>>been and who would have inserted the later comments about the identity
>>>of the Witch-king and his purpose in coming north, as well as about
>>>who might have been buried in the barrow where the Ring-bearer and his
>>>companions were imprisoned?
>>
>> Obviously, this is hobbit writing. Possibly our learned friend
>> Merriadoc the Magnificent, but in any case, likely added to
>> considerably by conversations/letters with others outside the Shire.
>> It is clear, however, from the wording that this is essentially a
>> hobbit history, not an addition done in Minas Tirith. I expect there
>> was a fair amount of historical "research" at Rivendell and that at
>> least Merry would have remembered history and speculation related
>> there. Pippin, too, I think would by the return trip have become
>> interested in the history of his King's line.
>
>I would guess that there had been letters and so forth between the hobbits
>and their friends in the South. And Merry did spend some time in Rivendell
>after Elrond left, while Celeborn was there, IIRC. Not to mention visits
>with their good friend Strider when he came to establish his northern court.
>And I think you are right about Pippin as well. I'm sure he would have been
>full of questions.
That makes sense. Could Frodo have added some of the later comments
too? Or Elanor?
>>>7. The Stoors were in the Angle during some of these years. The
>>>Harfoots would likely have been in the Weathertop area or in Bree
>>>already. Where would the Fallohides have been?
>>
>> In (fallo)hiding?
Aaarrgh!!! ;^)
>
>Somewhere, I am not sure where, I have come across the idea that they were
>east of the Great River near Mirkwood, and migrated. But I really don't
>have a clue where that idea came from...?
I have wondered why they, coming down the Hoarwell, didn't settle in
the Angle, too.
>(more snip)
>
>>>10. The most striking thing about this section when I re-read it,
>>>apart from the sound of the hobbit voice, was all the information
>>>about the wars and very, very little about the actual defeat of
>>>Angmar.
>>
>> No epic poem about the battle, you mean? Maybe Merry, the
>> Rohan-influenced, isn't the likeliest author after all...
>
>Oh I still think so. But perhaps he wasn't really a poet. I could see the
>poor fellow making a frustrated try at it though.
But at his time most of the details would have been lost; it would
have been the job of those most familiar with the times and people,
and it looks like they never did it, though they did keep alive the
general memory of the fact. (Externally speaking, this story also
prepares us well for the uprising of the Shire in "Scouring.")
>>>11. Also of note in looking toward future discussions is the use
>>>of the two calendars here ["He became Thain in 379 of our reckoning
>>>(1979)"] and a mention of the family descent of the Oldbucks.
>>
>> Nice tease to get us to keep reading to the calendar appendix, you
>> mean? And maybe the genealogies as well. Cunning rascal that JRRT!
>
>I wish that somewhere JRRT had written out the story of why Gorhendad
>changed the family name and migrated to Buckland.
Had never thought of that before -- now you have me wondering.
>
>>
>>>12. I liked Aragorn's making a law that none of the Big People
>>>could pass the borders of the Shire.
>
>I don't. I mean, how fair is it that he can't even go visit his friends
>himself? I think the Ban is not one of JRRT's best ideas. Hmmph!
>
>>
>> So they couldn't come see the Mallorn of Bag End! How sad!
>
>That *is* so sad!
Would Big People care enough about trees to know what they were
missing? It's hard to imagine them getting excited and then later
upset by the Party Tree's adventures, for instance.
Barb
Stan Brown
>Perhaps the split was initially informal, with Arthedain being the
>overlord and Rhudaur and Cardolan being subletted in feudal style,
>followed by true division as the other two declared themselves
>kingdoms in their own right.
Well, perhaps. But I always pictured something like the German
principalities, where the two or three lines because each sovereign
but with house laws that they would be reunited if all teh lines
failed but one.
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site)
Tolkien letters FAQ:
http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html
FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm
Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm
more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/faqget.htm
Yuk Tang
news:be7s71p9j1rf7p9v9...@4ax.com:
I thought they were still officially Oldbucks, with Brandybuck only
used as the familiar name. And that they moved to the borders because
the Tooks were in the ascendancy and Gorhendad wanted to carve out
another territory.
--
Cheers, ymt.
R. Dan Henry
<ba...@dbtech.net> wrote:
>Would Big People care enough about trees to know what they were
>missing? It's hard to imagine them getting excited and then later
>upset by the Party Tree's adventures, for instance.
Quite right you are. After all, we know that Tolkien's readers, Big
Folk all, are never moved by the destruction of the Party Tree or
general deforestation of the Shire.
Matthew T Curtis
<pvsto...@zyx-abc.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>Matthew T Curtis (or somebody else of the same name) wrote thusly in message
><vmmk71d1731asui8c...@4ax.com>:
>
>> He hasn't made it hard, though - just subtract a nice round 1600 from
>> the King's Reckoning date to get the Shire date. Try converting
>> between AD and AH (Moslem) dates sometime.
>
>There's a difference there - between two calendars that keep solar years the
>offset will remain constant, e.g. the Jewish year number is always 3760
>greater than the Gregorian (thus it is currently 5765 in the Jewish
>calendar) until Jewish New Year occurs in September or October. However the
>Muslim calendar keeps "lunar years", deliberately desynchronised from the
>seasons (so that all pagan seasonal observances may be forgotten) so the
>year number is (very slowly) catching up.
My point precisely. Much harder than King's to Shire Reckoning.
>
>Exercise for the reader: find the crossover point between Gregorian and
>Muslim years.
About 20750 AD?
(I admit it, I used wikipedia and a calculator.)
--
Matthew T Curtis mtcurtis[at]dsl.pipex.com
HIV+ for 24 glorious years!
There's no greys, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised
you don't know that.
- Terry Pratchett
Matthew T Curtis
>Emma Pease <em...@kanpai.stanford.edu> wrote in
>news:slrnd7kui...@munin.Stanford.EDU:
>> Splitting land was fairly common. Henry II of England did it
>> though only one son survived to leave descendants in the second
>> generation. One of Henry's problems was he did the division before
>> he died and his sons promptly took the land and revolted against
>> their father.
>
>Richard, John et al were gits. Richard has been (literally)
>lionised, but he was as bad as his reviled brother John.
>
The film _The Lion in Winter_, with Peter O'Toole and Katharine
Hepburn, gives an excellent insight into that dysfunctional family.
--
Matthew T Curtis mtcurtis[at]dsl.pipex.com
HIV+ for 24 glorious years!
I never really understood [hostility towards escapism] until my friend
Professor Tolkien asked me the very simple question "What class of men
would you expect to be the most preoccupied with, and most hostile to,
the idea of escape?" and gave the obvious answer: jailers.
- C.S. Lewis
AC
>> though only one son survived to leave descendants in the second
>> generation. One of Henry's problems was he did the division before
>> he died and his sons promptly took the land and revolted against
>> their father.
>
> Richard, John et al were gits. Richard has been (literally)
> lionised, but he was as bad as his reviled brother John.
Actually, I don't think John was nearly as bad as Richard. He's hardly the
only English king to be an insufferable a**hole, and whenever someone brings
up the Magna Charta it must be remembered that the barons weren't screwing
John over to aid the people, but rather to aid themselves. Richard, on the
other hand, was likely a border-line psychotic who had absolutely no
interest in governing his possessions at all.
AC
>
>>Emma Pease <em...@kanpai.stanford.edu> wrote in
>>news:slrnd7kui...@munin.Stanford.EDU:
>
>>> Splitting land was fairly common. Henry II of England did it
>>> though only one son survived to leave descendants in the second
>>> generation. One of Henry's problems was he did the division before
>>> he died and his sons promptly took the land and revolted against
>>> their father.
>>
>>Richard, John et al were gits. Richard has been (literally)
>>lionised, but he was as bad as his reviled brother John.
>>
> The film _The Lion in Winter_, with Peter O'Toole and Katharine
> Hepburn, gives an excellent insight into that dysfunctional family.
A great film that also didn't shy away from Richard's homosexuality.
Prai Jei
>>Exercise for the reader: find the crossover point between Gregorian and
>>Muslim years.
>
> About 20750 AD?
>
> (I admit it, I used wikipedia and a calculator.)
According to the "official" Calendar FAQ, regularly reposted to various ng's
(I would recommend sci.astro) the crossover point can be pinned down a bit
nore precisely. You weren't too far out:
> The 1st day of the 5th month of AD 20874 in the Gregorian
> calendar will also be (approximately) the 1st day of the
> 5th month of AH 20874 of the Islamic calendar.
Prai Jei
message <vwuee.25950$G8....@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>:
>> The closest historical equivalent would
>> be the division of Charlemagne's empire between his grandchildren in
>> AD 840; in that case, the dynasty failed in all three
>> successor-states.
>
> Interesting. Are there any other historical cases?
I think the primary example would be the division of Israel after the reign
of Solomon. Solomon's son Rehoboam had not inherited his father's political
wisdom so he did not have the skill required to keep many fractious tribes
together as a political unity. Jeroboam the general, recently returned from
a "safe posting" in Egypt, led ten tribes into rebellion, only Judah
(Solomon's own tribe) and Benjamin remaining faithful to the house of
David.
Relations between the two kingdoms were bitter - "And there was war between
Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days." While in Judah the line of
succession from David was maintained, the history of Israel reads like that
of a modern-day banana republic. Several instances occur where a king who
had enjoyed a long reign, is succeeded by his son who fails to stand up to
rival claimants - within a short time the son is deposed (usually fatally)
and somebody else takes over. Thus Pekahiah after Menahem (2 Kings 15),
thus Baby Doc after Papa Doc.
More recently (and with many parallels to Israel) is the division of
Yugoslavia after Tito. Like Solomon, Tito had the political skill necessary
to hold different peoples together as a single nation. After his death
there was nobody there with sufficient skill, and the country disintegrated
into civil war.
Christopher Kreuzer
> Emma Pease <em...@kanpai.stanford.edu> wrote in
> news:slrnd7kui...@munin.Stanford.EDU:
>> In article <1Euee.25955$G8.2...@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>,
>> Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
>>>
>>> Doh! Just remembered how the empire of Alexander the Great was
>>> divided among his sons. There were three of them, I think...
>>> DOH!! Make that four of them, and they were generals, not sons.
>>
>> Three generals I think. He also had an infant son but the son
>> never had any power before he died.
>
> The Successors eventually settled into three kingdoms headed by the
> descendants of generals Antigonus, Seleucus and Ptolemy, but other
> generals/individuals were also significant powers. Notably Olympias
> (Alexander's mother), Antipater (Alexander's regent), Perdiccas (the
> last one to try to hold the whole thing together).
Oh. I got the "four generals" thing from here:
http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/persianempir1/a/persiaintro_4.htm
"His empire was divided among four of his generals."
Maybe this confusion is because of the oft-quoted prophecy in the Book
of Daniel that said "four kingdoms shall arise from his nation" or in
alternative sources "his kingdom shall be broken and divided toward the
four winds of heaven".
This was an interesting site of myths about Alexander:
http://www.pothos.org/alexander.asp?ParaID=56
But yes, reading around the subject, I see now it is not as simple as
"divided between x number of generals". Many years of wars and
intrigues.
Christopher
--
---
Reply clue: Saruman welcomes you to Spamgard
Prai Jei
message <ffch71ducnp0vi13u...@4ax.com>:
>>One possibility, and one that Hobbits might wish to gloss over, would be
>>if
>>Hobbits fought on *both* sides. We know of some Hobbit migrations, but
>>there may have been others that never emigrated.
>
> That's interesting. Horrifying but interesting. It's of note that
> Smeagol/Gollum came from a line of hobbits who had been exposed to
> Angmar in Rhudaur. Hmmm......
Against this hypothesis is Sauron's known ignorance of the entire species, a
crucial factor in the outcome of the War of the Ring.
Had he wished to recruit hobbits onto his side, he would have undoubtedly
forged a set of Great Rings for them (the missing Five?) And then surely at
least one of the Fellowship would have noted their presence among the enemy
dead.
No, I cannot accept that any hobbits fought for the Enemy.
Christopher Kreuzer
<snip>
> Actually, I don't think John was nearly as bad as Richard. He's
> hardly the only English king to be an insufferable a**hole, and
> whenever someone brings up the Magna Charta it must be remembered
> that the barons weren't screwing John over to aid the people, but
> rather to aid themselves. Richard, on the other hand, was likely a
> border-line psychotic who had absolutely no interest in governing his
> possessions at all.
My rose-tinted glasses have shattered! I always thought of Richard the
Lionheart as a nice bloke. An English version of Saladin. Apparantly
not. Maybe I need to watch the Ridley Scott film 'Kingdom of Heaven'
with Orlando Bloom of Legolas fame? Or maybe not.
Yuk Tang
>
> <snip>
>
>> Actually, I don't think John was nearly as bad as Richard. He's
>> hardly the only English king to be an insufferable a**hole, and
>> whenever someone brings up the Magna Charta it must be remembered
>> that the barons weren't screwing John over to aid the people, but
>> rather to aid themselves. Richard, on the other hand, was likely
>> a border-line psychotic who had absolutely no interest in
>> governing his possessions at all.
>
> My rose-tinted glasses have shattered! I always thought of Richard
> the Lionheart as a nice bloke. An English version of Saladin.
Hardly an English King, as he was only ever in England to raise funds
for yet another adventure in the Holy Lands. At least John lived in
the country he was exploiting.
--
Cheers, ymt.
AC
And it isn't as if the barons that finally forced John to sign the Magna
Charta were any damn better than John. He may have been a miserable
bastard, but he wasn't the only one, and he was considerably better than
Richard. Richard got off easy because he was off killing Muslims and
Frenchmen, and couldn't be accused of poor governance because he was never
in England long off to do anything. Quite frankly, I think John has been
somewhat maligned, while his psychopathic brother has got this wonderous
reputation.
Mark Edelstein
>From "The Heirs of Elendil" in PoME:
(Selected Kings, Stewards and Chieftains)
Elendil: 322 (died young)
Valandil: 260 (oldest king of Arnor)
Earendur: 221 (last King of Arnor)
Araphor: 198 (1st heir of Isildur less than 200)
Aranarth 168
Argonui 155 (most chieftains got to high 150s)
Gondor:
Meneldil 280
slow decline to Hyarmendakil: 250 (dropping from 280 gradually)
K(C)alimehtar 200
Earnil II 160
Hador 150 (the last recorded man of Gondor to reach such an age)
Belechtor II 120
Turin 99 (1st under 100)
Turgon and Echtelion II 98
Faramir 120
Aragorn 190
I don't have a copy of UT on hand, but one can chart the equivilant
decline of the line of Elros in UT.
Stan Brown
>On 7 May 2005 17:28:37 +0200, Yuk Tang <jim.l...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>Richard, John et al were gits. Richard has been (literally)
>>lionised, but he was as bad as his reviled brother John.
>>
>The film _The Lion in Winter_, with Peter O'Toole and Katharine
>Hepburn, gives an excellent insight into that dysfunctional family.
"Of course he has a knife; we all have knives. It's 1183, and we're
barbarians!"
Stan Brown
>Against this hypothesis is Sauron's known ignorance of the entire species, a
>crucial factor in the outcome of the War of the Ring.
>
>Had he wished to recruit hobbits onto his side, he would have undoubtedly
>forged a set of Great Rings for them (the missing Five?)
No, he'd just have promised them some magic fertilizer to grow
bigger vegetables with les work. :-)
Michael Ikeda
news:Xns9650A47B181FD...@81.174.12.30:
The name was officially changed to Brandybuck (see, for example, the
Brandybuck family tree in Appendix C), apparently when Gorhenhad
moved to Buckland. It isn't entirely clear, but it seems that the
Tooks gaining the Thainship was a result of the move, rather than
being a cause.
--
Michael Ikeda mmi...@erols.com
"Telling a statistician not to use sampling is like telling an
astronomer they can't say there is a moon and stars"
Lynne Billard, past president American Statistical Association
Derek Broughton
> And it isn't as if the barons that finally forced John to sign the Magna
> Charta were any damn better than John. He may have been a miserable
> bastard, but he wasn't the only one, and he was considerably better than
> Richard. Richard got off easy because he was off killing Muslims and
> Frenchmen, and couldn't be accused of poor governance because he was never
> in England long off to do anything. Quite frankly, I think John has been
> somewhat maligned, while his psychopathic brother has got this wonderous
> reputation.
iirc, "1066 and All That", the only English-history book anybody really
needs, was fairly positive about John (something to the effect that he was
a weak king, and therefore a good king, as opposed to the strong kings who
were universally bad kings).
--
derek
Pete Gray
says...
>
> iirc, "1066 and All That", the only English-history book anybody really
> needs, was fairly positive about John (something to the effect that he was
> a weak king, and therefore a good king, as opposed to the strong kings who
> were universally bad kings).
>
chief cause of Democracy in England and thus a /Good Thing/ for everyone
(except the Common People).'
Richard was 'a Wild King': 'Whenever he returned to England he always
set out immediately for the Mediterranean and was therefore known as
Richard Gare de Lyon'.
--
Pete Gray
Say No to ID Cards <http://www.no2id.net>
<http://www.redbadge.co.uk/no2idcards/>
AC
Pete Gray <ne...@redbadge.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <asa4l2-...@othello.pointerstop.ca>, ne...@pointerstop.ca
> says...
>>
>> iirc, "1066 and All That", the only English-history book anybody really
>> needs, was fairly positive about John (something to the effect that he was
>> a weak king, and therefore a good king, as opposed to the strong kings who
>> were universally bad kings).
>>
> Actually no, John was 'an Awful King'. The 'Magna Charter' OTOH was 'the
> chief cause of Democracy in England and thus a /Good Thing/ for everyone
> (except the Common People).'
John really wasn't as bad as popular legend has made him out to be. He was
certainly better than his brother.
>
> Richard was 'a Wild King': 'Whenever he returned to England he always
> set out immediately for the Mediterranean and was therefore known as
> Richard Gare de Lyon'.
It goes to show you what good PR can do. Richard never really governed
England at all.
Christopher Kreuzer
> Pete Gray <ne...@redbadge.co.uk> wrote:
<snip>
>> Actually no, John was 'an Awful King'. The 'Magna Charter' OTOH was
>> 'the chief cause of Democracy in England and thus a /Good Thing/ for
>> everyone (except the Common People).'
>
> John really wasn't as bad as popular legend has made him out to be.
> He was certainly better than his brother.
>>
>> Richard was 'a Wild King': 'Whenever he returned to England he always
>> set out immediately for the Mediterranean and was therefore known as
>> Richard Gare de Lyon'.
>
> It goes to show you what good PR can do. Richard never really
> governed England at all.
I've just remembered what gave me the impression that Richard the
Lionheart was a nice bloke. It was some Robin Hood legend where 'nasty'
John was about to execute our hero (Robin Hood) and 'saviour' Richard
turns up (on one of his infrequent visits back 'home') to save Robin
Hood.
I think this was even the Disney film of Robin Hood!
Hey, whose needs history books when you have Disney! :-)
aelfwina
"Belba Grubb From Stock" <ba...@dbtech.net> wrote in message
news:be7s71p9j1rf7p9v9...@4ax.com...
I was thinking, really of her relative youth at the time. She was, I
believe 15, which going by the two-thirds ratio set up by JRRT, would have
made her only about 10 in our terms of maturity. Still, even a 10 year old
in medieval times did those sorts of tasks--but she would have been very
tiny.
I am sure that you are right, though and that Arwen would have found tasks
suitable for her.
Barbara
Christopher Kreuzer
<snip>
>> From "The Heirs of Elendil" in PoME:
Thanks for this! I've added the year when they died to see if the
decline has a correlation with time, or whether there are sharp
discontinuities due to some "bad action" on the part of the Heirs. But I
couldn't be bothered to do a graph (if you can do such things in ASCII)
to show this properly...
> (Selected Kings, Stewards and Chieftains)
>
> Elendil: 322 (died young)
Are Isildur and Anarion not in the list?
> Valandil: 260 (oldest king of Arnor)
Died T.A. 249.
> Earendur: 221 (last King of Arnor)
Died T.A. 777 (over 500 years later).
> Araphor: 198 (1st heir of Isildur less than 200)
Died T.A. 1589 (over 800 years further on).
> Aranarth 168
Died T.A. 2106 (about 420 years further on).
> Argonui 155 (most chieftains got to high 150s)
Died T.A. 2912 (over 800 years fly by)
> Gondor:
>
> Meneldil 280
Died T.A. 158
> slow decline to Hyarmendakil: 250 (dropping from 280 gradually)
Died T.A. 1149 (just under a 1000 years later)
> K(C)alimehtar 200
Died T.A. 1936 (about 800 years further on - but still a sharp decline,
possibly due to the fact that the line of Gondor ended a few generations
previously with the death of the royal family in the plague, and the
line side-stepped to a nephew)
> Earnil II 160
Died T.A. 2043 (only just over 100 years later - a sharp decline, but
remember that the main line died out here - Earnil was a descendant of
Telumehtar Umbardacil through a different line)
We then enter the line of the stewards, IIRC still of the line of
Isildur, but not of the line of the royal house, which had ended with
Earnur, though it is interesting to see that the ages don't seem to be
that different.
> Hador 150 (the last recorded man of Gondor to reach such an age)
Died T.A. 2395 (just over 350 years later)
> Belechtor II 120
Died T.A. 2872 (just under 500 years later)
> Turin 99 (1st under 100)
I'm assuming you mean Turin II, died T.A. 2914 (a mere 42 years later -
the decline seems to be accelerating)
> Turgon and Echtelion II 98
The two immediately after Turin II, so similar ages.
I wonder how old Denethor II was when he died?
<checking Appendix B>
Denethor II (T.A. 2930-3019): only 89. I guess it is a moot point how
much longer he would have lived for, but I guess a fair amount.
> Faramir 120
Like his father, seemed to be a throwback to the days of old.
> Aragorn 190
Really? Appendix B says Aragorn II was born in T.A. 2931. The Third Age
ended in T.A. 3021, and Aragorn II died in F.A. 120, which makes him 210
when he died, by my reckoning.
Either way, he is also a throwback, exceeding the life-spans of the
chieftains of the Dunedain and the Stewards of Gondor. Also symbolic
within Tolkien's world as well.
> I don't have a copy of UT on hand, but one can chart the equivilant
> decline of the line of Elros in UT.
That might _possibly_ be interesting! :-)
Pete Gray
mightym...@hotmail.com says...
> > Actually no, John was 'an Awful King'. The 'Magna Charter' OTOH was 'the
> > chief cause of Democracy in England and thus a /Good Thing/ for everyone
> > (except the Common People).'
>
> John really wasn't as bad as popular legend has made him out to be. He was
> certainly better than his brother.
Isn't being a better king than Richard I rather like being the wettest
place in the Sahara?
> >
> > Richard was 'a Wild King': 'Whenever he returned to England he always
> > set out immediately for the Mediterranean and was therefore known as
> > Richard Gare de Lyon'.
>
> It goes to show you what good PR can do. Richard never really governed
> England at all.
He was an early forerunner of Thoreau? ("That Government is best which
governs least" etc)
aelfwina
"Christopher Kreuzer" <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:aNQfe.28792
(snip)
> I've just remembered what gave me the impression that Richard the
> Lionheart was a nice bloke. It was some Robin Hood legend where 'nasty'
> John was about to execute our hero (Robin Hood) and 'saviour' Richard
> turns up (on one of his infrequent visits back 'home') to save Robin
> Hood.
>
> I think this was even the Disney film of Robin Hood!
>
> Hey, whose needs history books when you have Disney! :-)
There was a good reason for it being in all those versions: that's how the
ballads went. And the ballads were what all the various story versions were
based on.
As to how accurate the ballads were, who knows. But I think there must have
been something to them in the first place.
I love the Disney Robin Hood (the animated one with the fox, not the live
action) and the Errol Flynn, and the Ivanhoe version.
But my all time *favorite* version is Howard Pyle's. I nearly wore it out
in fifth grade, until the librarian said I couldn't check it out again until
I had checked some other books out first. I still adore it. But it has to
be the *unabridged* version with the Pyle illustrations.
Barbara
Morgil
> I think this was even the Disney film of Robin Hood!
>
> Hey, whose needs history books when you have Disney! :-)
What I liked the best in Disney's Robin Hood was how they turned
Robin from wealth redistributing Socialist to an anti-taxation
Republican :-D
Morgil
Belba Grubb From Stock
<danh...@inreach.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 04 May 2005 06:59:51 -0500, Belba Grubb From Stock
><ba...@dbtech.net> wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 04 May 2005 07:41:09 GMT, "Khazar-Khum" <dlmb...@gte.net>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>> 10. The most striking thing about this section when I re-read it,
>>>> apart from the sound of the hobbit voice, was all the information
>>>> about the wars and very, very little about the actual defeat of
>>>> Angmar. This would be expected from a hobbit narrator, of course, but
>>>> I just wanted to mention it as a carry-over point for the next
>>>> section.
>>>
>>>Why would it be "expected" of a Hobbit narrator? If Hobbits were fighting on
>>>the side of Gondor, then I would expect that this would be a point of pride.
>>
>>They would have been fighting for the Dunedain, of course, but I
>>expected it of the hobbits because they hadn't involved themselves in
>>the great matters of the day and so wouldn't be really invested in the
>>details of the final outcome. They wouldn't really care if they knew
>>exactly what happened to Angmar; they just wanted to hear that there
>>would be no more troubles.
>>
>>I can imagine the hobbits suffering and then hiding when it all moved
>>in their direction, hoping all the time that something good would
>>happen; and then being awed by the mighty host of Elves and Men that
>>marched across their land (shaking loose a company or two of Tooks and
>>other doughty hobbitry along the way, perhaps at Gandalf's
>>instigation) to do battle with Angmar in what was to them the far
>>East. As it turned out, the hobbit companies made no triumphant
>>return or any return at all,
>
>It may comfort you to realize that you are making this up.
Nonsense; I'm just wandering through the Secondary World.
;^)
Barb
Belba Grubb From Stock
wrote:
<snip>
>I was thinking, really of her relative youth at the time. She was, I
>believe 15, which going by the two-thirds ratio set up by JRRT, would have
>made her only about 10 in our terms of maturity. Still, even a 10 year old
>in medieval times did those sorts of tasks--but she would have been very
>tiny.
>I am sure that you are right, though and that Arwen would have found tasks
>suitable for her.
You know, I hadn't realized just how young Elanor would have been at
the start. You're right. At first likely it would have been more of
a "stand and look cute" position, though the Gamgee in her would have
gotten to work in whatever way she could ASAP (I wonder how old
Hamfast Gamgee was when he was working with old Holman "a matter of
sixy years ago" on the day Bilbo returned from his adventure).
Anyway, in picturing how Elanor might have looked at court I recalled
some of the images I'd seen online of last year's royal wedding in
Spain; I imagine Elanor looking something like one of these girls,
though even as an adult smaller.
http://www.elmundo.es/especiales/2004/04/espana/bodareal/22m_albumes/novia5.html
These are older girls, the ones who were working directly behind the
princess as she moved around on her wedding day; I can't find the
image now, but there were some that were very young and small -- those
are the ones I'm thinking of. They were dressed the same way.
The maids are helping Leticia "reel in" the tremendously long train of
her wedding gown as she gets into the car with her husband, Prince
Philip. (Note, Iberrophones, I've anglicized the names, as the
Spanish media spoke of "Carlos de Inglaterra" attending on that happy
day.)
Barb
Emma Pease
>
> "Belba Grubb From Stock" <ba...@dbtech.net> wrote in message
> news:be7s71p9j1rf7p9v9...@4ax.com...
>> On Sun, 8 May 2005 06:47:48 -0500, "aelfwina" <aelf...@cableone.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>>> Did Elanor wear ultra-high platform shoes or carry a stepladder to
>>>> attend on the Queen?
>>>
>>>I've wondered about that myself. And she was very young by hobbit
>>>standards
>>>when she first went to do that. But I would guess it was mostly honorary,
>>>and involved looking pretty at the Queen's side, rather than actually
>>>helping her dress and so forth.
>>
>> Oh I don't know. Her dad, the son of Ham Gamgee, wouldn't have been
>> able to tolerate that sort of treatment for his favorite daughter and
>> probably would have had no hesitation in talking to the King about
>> Elanor's not providing "good service."
I suspect that most of the Dunedain would have been highly respectful
of the daughter of Samwise to whom even the king knelt to on the field
of Cormallen.
>> I have no doubt that Elanor, eventual mother of the Fairbairn dynasty,
>> could and did hold her own in the more subtle yet equally perilous and
>> marvelous woman's Middle-earth. Physically, the job wasn't beyond
>> her. Merry and Pippin both served at the table for their lords, after
>> all, right along with servants who were Big People; Elanor would have
>> easily done this and other things for the Queen.
>
> I was thinking, really of her relative youth at the time. She was, I
> believe 15, which going by the two-thirds ratio set up by JRRT, would have
> made her only about 10 in our terms of maturity. Still, even a 10 year old
> in medieval times did those sorts of tasks--but she would have been very
> tiny.
> I am sure that you are right, though and that Arwen would have found tasks
> suitable for her.
I've always thought of Hobbits as having extended teenage years.
Note that Merry would have been quite young when Bilbo left (born
2982, the Farewell Party was in 3001 so Merry was aged 19) and had
learned about the ring a few years earlier. Pippin was even younger
(born 2990 so was 11) yet both had been frequent visitors to Uncle
Bilbo.
--
\----
|\* | Emma Pease Net Spinster
|_\/ Die Luft der Freiheit weht
Mark Edelstein
>
> > (Selected Kings, Stewards and Chieftains)
> >
> > Elendil: 322 (died young)
>
> Are Isildur and Anarion not in the list?
Isildur and Anarion died young (one would assume they would live around
as long as Elendil, being born Numenorians)-they are not worthwhile to
chart the declining vigour of the Dunedain. I believe they are on the
list though.
Anarion died at 221, Isildur 232, so one assumes being born in Numenor
matters.
>
>
> > I don't have a copy of UT on hand, but one can chart the equivilant
> > decline of the line of Elros in UT.
>
> That might _possibly_ be interesting! :-)
>
> Christopher
>
I'm pretty sure there is a correlation (sadly my UT is in my house at
school). I'm pretty sure, for example, that Tar-Palantir lived longer
then many of the early kings. One can also note what dates kings
withdrew in favour off their sons and such, which is neat info.
Also the first Prince of Dol Amroth d.2129 lived to 125.
Look at the ages:
125 2004-2129
143 2060-2203
134 2120-2254
127 2172-2299
123 2225-2348
134 2324-2458
122 2418-2540
119 2463-2582
118 2505-2623
114 2546-2660
106 2627-2733
75 (slain by Corsairs) 2671-2746
90 (slain in Battle) 2709-2799
113 2746-28659
114 2785-2899
105 2827-2932
111 2866-2977
93 2917-3010
99 2955-3054
100 2987-F.A 57
98 3017-F.A 95
7 Princes are named. If you can name them you've read way too much
Tolkien :)
aelfwina
"Emma Pease" <em...@kanpai.stanford.edu> wrote in message
news:slrnd805b...@munin.Stanford.EDU...
(snip)
> I've always thought of Hobbits as having extended teenage years.
> Note that Merry would have been quite young when Bilbo left (born
> 2982, the Farewell Party was in 3001 so Merry was aged 19) and had
> learned about the ring a few years earlier. Pippin was even younger
> (born 2990 so was 11) yet both had been frequent visitors to Uncle
> Bilbo.
Well, the beginning figure we have is that toddlerhood (approximately two
years old for "our" race) began at age three for hobbits, and then the other
figure is that coming-of-age (twenty-one for "us") was thirty-three for
hobbits. So it appears that the two-thirds extends at least all the way
across the growing up years.
A friend of mine figured out the ratio at, IIRC, 64.6--slightly below 66.
I think the relative immaturity would have probably been physical and
emotional, with a somewhat greater maturity intellectually, due to the fact
that even though an 11-y-o hobbit lad would be like a 7-y-o boy, he would
still have 11 years worth of memory and vocabulary.
I have always imagined that Merry probably visited Frodo annually from the
time his cousin moved away, when he was only 7. I figure Pippin probably
began to do the same as soon as he was old enough as well.
I also imagine that Merry, the only child of an important family, was a bit
more mature emotionally than the average hobbit lad of his age, while
Pippin, the youngest son with three older sisters might have been somewhat
less mature for his age.
Still, at 28 when they left, he was the equivalent of 18, which in most of
the modern world would mean he *had* come of age. So younger than many think
him, but not necessarily all *that* young.
Barbara
Derek Broughton
> In article <asa4l2-...@othello.pointerstop.ca>, ne...@pointerstop.ca
> says...
>>
>> iirc, "1066 and All That", the only English-history book anybody really
>> needs, was fairly positive about John (something to the effect that he
>> was a weak king, and therefore a good king, as opposed to the strong
>> kings who were universally bad kings).
>>
> Actually no, John was 'an Awful King'. The 'Magna Charter' OTOH was 'the
> chief cause of Democracy in England and thus a /Good Thing/ for everyone
> (except the Common People).'
>
> Richard was 'a Wild King': 'Whenever he returned to England he always
> set out immediately for the Mediterranean and was therefore known as
> Richard Gare de Lyon'.
Oh well. That fits with the Earthsea thread where I admit I can never
remember books (it took about 7 readings of LOTR to get the hang of it).
The important thing is that I came away from "1066 and All That" with a
more positive opinion of John than tradition grants :-) (after all, who
cares about Common People?).
--
derek
Pete Gray
says...
> Oh well. That fits with the Earthsea thread where I admit I can never
> remember books (it took about 7 readings of LOTR to get the hang of it).
> The important thing is that I came away from "1066 and All That" with a
> more positive opinion of John than tradition grants :-) (after all, who
> cares about Common People?).
>
Mere chance that I had just got the book out to look up the quote about
the Boston Tea Party ;-)
--
Pete Gray
5. 'Uneasy lies the head that wears a Throne'
(a) Suggest remedies, or
(b) Imitate the action of a Tiger
Christopher Kreuzer
>>> (Selected Kings, Stewards and Chieftains)
>>>
>>> Elendil: 322 (died young)
>>
>> Are Isildur and Anarion not in the list?
>
> Isildur and Anarion died young (one would assume they would live
> around as long as Elendil, being born Numenorians)-they are not
> worthwhile to chart the declining vigour of the Dunedain. I believe
> they are on the list though.
>
> Anarion died at 221, Isildur 232, so one assumes being born in
> Numenor matters.
You say Elendil died young. This roused my curiosity, so I dug out UT
and tried to look up how old Amandil (Elendil's father) was at the time
of the Downfall (or just before, when he sailed away), and also what age
Elendil might have expected to live to (by looking at the life-spans of
his contemporaries).
Tar-Palantir (the king before Ar-Pharazon, and the one that repented)
lived for 220 years. Also, Ar-Pharazon was 200 when he sailed with war
against the Valar, and I seem to remember a phrase about how he felt
death approaching:
"But the years passed, and the King felt the shadow of death approach,
as his days lengthened [...] Then Ar-Pharazon, being besotted, and
walking under the shadow of death, for his span was drawing towards its
end, hearkened to Sauron..." (Akallabeth)
So about 200 years looks like the standard for the Kings of Numenor at
the time of Amandil and Elendil. So it is interesting to see that the
life-spans of the Lords of Andunie (Elendil and his sons Isildur and
Anarion) are longer. Either that, or they were old men when they fought
Sauron. Seems unlikely.
But still, Elendil's age looks very old to me. Elros was said to be
unwearied in his 500th year, when he laid down his life and departed. It
would seem likely that the same applies to Elendil and the Faithful, but
_that_ old?
And I couldn't find anything about the age of Amandil anywhere.
Anyone know how old Amandil was?
>>> I don't have a copy of UT on hand, but one can chart the equivilant
>>> decline of the line of Elros in UT.
>>
>> That might _possibly_ be interesting! :-)
>
> I'm pretty sure there is a correlation (sadly my UT is in my house at
> school). I'm pretty sure, for example, that Tar-Palantir lived longer
> then many of the early kings. One can also note what dates kings
> withdrew in favour of their sons and such, which is neat info.
It was quite intersting, here are the life-spans of the 22 Kings and 3
Queens (labelled * - the women were said to be longer lived than the
men) of Numenor, from "The Line of Elros" in /Unfinished Tales/, going
from 58 years before the Second Age, to the Downfall in Second Age 3319.
The ages may be over-calculated by a year, as the exact birth/death
dates are not given. I haven't double-checked the arithmetic either.
Elros Tar-Minyatur: 500 years (unwearied until he died)
Vardamir Nolimon: 410 years
Tar-Amandil: 411 years
Tar-Elendil: 401 years (initial decline stabilised at ~400 years)
Tar-Meneldur: 399 years
Tar-Aldarion: 398 years
* Tar-Ancalime: 412 years (women lived longer than men)
Tar-Anarion: 401 years
Tar-Surion: 400 years
* Tar-Telperien: 411 years (women lived longer than men)
Tar-Minastir: 399 years
Tar-Ciryatan: 399 years
Tar-Atanamir: 421 years (clung to life and died in dotage)
Tar-Ancalimon: 400 years (a steady decline from here on)
Tar-Telemmaite: 390 years
* Tar-Vanimelde: 360 years
Tar-Alcarin: 331 years
Tar-Calamacil: 309 years
Tar-Ardamin: 281 years
Ar-Adunakhor: 253 years (his title held to be blasphemous)
Ar-Zimrathon: 235 years
Ar-Sakalthor: 226 years (decline seems to be slowing)
Ar-Gimilzor: 217 years (*)
Tar-Palantir: 220 years (said to have repented ways of his fathers) (^)
Ar-Pharazon: 201 years (died in the Downfall) (&)
(*) Ar-Gimilzor's younger son was Gimilkhad, who died "two years before
his 200th year, which was accounted an early death for one of Elros'
line even in its waning" (Akallabeth)
(^) Tar-Miriel (ruled with Ar-Pharazon as Ar-Zimraphel) was the daughter
of Tar-Palantir, and died in the Downfall: 202 years.
(&) Is said to have felt "the shadow of death approach".
Looking at the list, the decline seems to date from the time of
Tar-Atanamir who clung to life and died in his dotage. The Akallabeth
(in 'The Silmarillion') confirms this:
"Atanamir lived to a great age, clinging to his life beyond the end of
all joy; and he was the first of the Numenoreans to do this, refusing to
depart until he was witless and unmanned, and denying to his son the
kingship at the height of his days."
And also:
"In those days the Shadow grew deeper upon Numenor; and the lives of the
Kings of the House of Elros waned because of their rebellion..."
Never heard of these named Princes of Dol Amroth. Sounds interesting!
I'll have to dig out my copy of, well, whichever volume of HoME this is
in (I know it is somewhere upthread, but can't be bothered to look it up
now).
Is the first Prince named? Mayhaps this was the one that dallied with an
elf-maiden? :-)
Graham Lockwood
(in article <e69ge.29432$G8....@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>):
{snip}
> Never heard of these named Princes of Dol Amroth. Sounds interesting!
> I'll have to dig out my copy of, well, whichever volume of HoME this is
> in (I know it is somewhere upthread, but can't be bothered to look it up
> now).
>
> Is the first Prince named? Mayhaps this was the one that dallied with an
> elf-maiden? :-)
It was, and it's in UT somewhere.
---
Graham
Graham Lockwood
(in article <11818vl...@corp.supernews.com>):
{snip}
> Well, the beginning figure we have is that toddlerhood (approximately two
> years old for "our" race) began at age three for hobbits, and then the other
> figure is that coming-of-age (twenty-one for "us") was thirty-three for
> hobbits. So it appears that the two-thirds extends at least all the way
> across the growing up years.
> A friend of mine figured out the ratio at, IIRC, 64.6--slightly below 66.
> Still, at 28 when they left, he was the equivalent of 18, which in most of
> the modern world would mean he *had* come of age. So younger than many think
> him, but not necessarily all *that* young.
Actually, I've always thought of the "coming of age" as being more equivalent
to 18 than 21. After all, once you're 18, you're legally able to do just
about anything any other adult can.
---
Graham
Graham Lockwood
(in article <VH9ee.25204$G8.2...@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>):
{snip}
> "Men once dwelt here, ages ago; but none remain now. They became an evil
> people, as legends tell, for they fell under the shadow of Angmar. But
> all were destroyed in the war that brought the North Kingdom to its end.
> But that is now so long ago that the hills have forgotten them, though a
> shadow still lies on the land."
>
> I guess these are the unexplained vistas of history that Tolkien was
> saying were appreciated by those who would properly neglect the
> Appendices to preserve the literary effect of such mysteries. I find
> them _more_ amazing once I know even a little bit about the back-story.
I got the idea that Tolkien through in some old ruins and a cursory backstory
for them along the path Bilbo and the dwarves took in TH and then felt like
he needed to come up with a REAL history for them (as he did with many things
from TH).
---
Graham
Graham Lockwood
(in article <y5xee.26107$G8....@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>):
{snip}
> Apparently. Arvedui obviously had the same thought, as he responded to
> the first quote above with these words:
>
> "Moreover, in Numenor of old the sceptre descended to the eldest child
> of the king, whether man or woman. It is true that the law has not been
> observed in the lands of exile ever troubled by war; but such was the
> law of our people, to which we now refer, seeing that the sons of
> Ondoher died childless."
>
> So it looks like things were different because of the troubles and wars.
> It also looks like the issue had not arisen before, or at least not
> often, if I am not over-reading the phrase "to which we now refer".
> Either that, or Arvedui (in desperation and to bolster his claim)
> dragged out old laws that no-one else had ever bothered with before.
Also, the old rules of female succession to the Numenorean Throne never
applied to the ancestors of the Kings of Arnor and Gondor. The line of the
Lords of Andunie broke off from the line of the Kings of Numenor with the
birth of Silmarien but there were never any Ladies of Andunie nor any ruling
Queens of Arnor or Gondor.
---
Graham
Christopher Kreuzer
Aha! Thanks. Galador, son of Imrazor the Numenorean and Mithrellas the
Elven-lady, one of the companions of Nimrodel, lover of Amroth, one-time
King of Lorien. So Galador didn't so the dallying, but he was the
product of the dallying. And he had a sister, Gilmith, also a product of
the dallying.
Graham Lockwood
(in article <Bu9ge.29447$G8....@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>):
Who dallied with a hobbit and spawned the Tooks?
---
Graham
Graham Lockwood
(in article <ffch71ducnp0vi13u...@4ax.com>):
{snip}
This latter statement might be an indication that at
> least individual hobbit warriors did survive the wars and some few may
> have made friends with the Dunedain and traveled with Earnur's fleet
> back to Gondor, although this had been entirely forgotten both in the
> north and in the south by the latter days of the Third Age).
It also might help explain why the Gondorians had even mere legends of
halflings and even had an Sindarin word for them.
>> One possibility, and one that Hobbits might wish to gloss over, would be if
>> Hobbits fought on *both* sides. We know of some Hobbit migrations, but
>> there may have been others that never emigrated.
>
> That's interesting. Horrifying but interesting. It's of note that
> Smeagol/Gollum came from a line of hobbits who had been exposed to
> Angmar in Rhudaur. Hmmm......
It is said that in the time of the Last Alliance, members of every species
but the Elves were divided...
---
Graham
Graham Lockwood
(in article <3e85m4F...@individual.net>):
> "Prai Jei" wrote in rec.arts.books.tolkien:
>> Against this hypothesis is Sauron's known ignorance of the entire species, a
>> crucial factor in the outcome of the War of the Ring.
>>
>> Had he wished to recruit hobbits onto his side, he would have undoubtedly
>> forged a set of Great Rings for them (the missing Five?)
>
> No, he'd just have promised them some magic fertilizer to grow
> bigger vegetables with les work. :-)
Miracle-Grow?
Speaking of which, one of my favorite parts of the movies was the GIGANTIC
pumpkins, cows, etc. in the Shire. Which were, of course, simply ordinary
sized pumpkins and cows but with halflings. ;)
---
Graham
Graham Lockwood
(in article <Xns964FABF717653...@81.174.12.30>):
> "Christopher Kreuzer" <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in
> news:vwuee.25950$G8....@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk:
>>
>> I agree. I've always wondered what provoked this, and whether it
>> was an orderly calm split, or a calamitous civil war. I get the
>> impression that the original split was peaceful because of the
>> references to 'dividing' rather then (say) 'seizing', though that
>> might only be because we are told almost nothing about it, just:
>>
>> "dissensions among his sons"
>>
>> Though later:
>>
>> "There was often strife between the kingdoms"
>>
>> Maybe we can postulate a peaceful split (merely 'dissension') and
>> then a worsening of diplomatic relationships ('strife') over the
>> centuries, with border skirmishes and territory swapping sides,
>> and then the killer blow, Angmar (aka the Witch-King) getting
>> involved and taking advantage of these quarrels and inflaming
>> them.
>
> Just remembered another historical example. The disintegration of
> the Mongol empire into various khanates after the accession of
> Khubilai is pretty entertaining to read about (try wiki). The
> previous Great Khans had been compromise choices, but Khubilai was
> the first to be loathed by Genghis's other heirs. Although by that
> point all the candidates were going to be divisive, with K triumphing
> due to stronger support.
Or the War of the Roses, except that that war did not have the end result of
splitting the kingdom. I think most civil wars in monarchies have familiar
squabbles as a major cause.
---
Graham
Yuk Tang
news:0001HW.BEA68E16...@news.x-privat.org:
Would this be because Arnor and Gondor were constantly involved in
war, while Numenor had enjoyed a prolonged period of peace prior to
the accession of Ancalime?
--
Cheers, ymt.
Graham Lockwood
>> Also, the old rules of female succession to the Numenorean Throne
>> never applied to the ancestors of the Kings of Arnor and Gondor.
>> The line of the Lords of Andunie broke off from the line of the
>> Kings of Numenor with the birth of Silmarien but there were never
>> any Ladies of Andunie nor any ruling Queens of Arnor or Gondor.
>
> Would this be because Arnor and Gondor were constantly involved in
> war, while Numenor had enjoyed a prolonged period of peace prior to
> the accession of Ancalime?
Possibly, but even with all that peace, the rules were only really changed
out of spite because the king didn't want to have to deal with the queen for
long enough to produce a male heir.
---
Graham
Belba Grubb From Stock
<g-...@yeehawgropes.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 4 May 2005 06:59:51 -0500, Belba Grubb From Stock wrote
>(in article <ffch71ducnp0vi13u...@4ax.com>):
>{snip}
>This latter statement might be an indication that at
>> least individual hobbit warriors did survive the wars and some few may
>> have made friends with the Dunedain and traveled with Earnur's fleet
>> back to Gondor, although this had been entirely forgotten both in the
>> north and in the south by the latter days of the Third Age).
>
>It also might help explain why the Gondorians had even mere legends of
>halflings and even had an Sindarin word for them.
That's interesting -- I thought it was just the Rohirrim who
remembered them.
>
>>> One possibility, and one that Hobbits might wish to gloss over, would be if
>>> Hobbits fought on *both* sides. We know of some Hobbit migrations, but
>>> there may have been others that never emigrated.
>>
>> That's interesting. Horrifying but interesting. It's of note that
>> Smeagol/Gollum came from a line of hobbits who had been exposed to
>> Angmar in Rhudaur. Hmmm......
>
>It is said that in the time of the Last Alliance, members of every species
>but the Elves were divided...
Aye, and the losers may still have been around at the time of the War
of the Ring. I think during the "Sign of the Prancing Pony"
discussion we decided this applied to hobbits, didn't we?
There were probably many more Outsiders scattered about in the
West of the World in those days than the people of the Shire
imagined. Some, doubtless, were no better than tramps, ready to
dig a hole in any bank and stay only as long as it suited them.
The argument, though, that Sauron would have been familiar with
hobbits if any had fought for Angmar is certainly persuasive. It can
be countered, though: nobody among Elves or Men remembered that
hobbits had sent soldiers off the wars to aid them, so why should
hobbits have stirred any more notice on the other side?
Barb
Emma Pease
Except when the LOTR was written 21 was the legal age for most things
in most areas such as voting (and I think marrying without parental
consent). In the US the voting age wasn't lowered till the late 60s.
Admittedly considering that Pippin was underage it is a bit dubious
ethically that Frodo and Merry took him along without getting his
parent's permission. One assumes Fredegar eventually told the Thain
where his underage son ran off to.
Emma
ps. You've got to feel sorry for the hobbit moms who had to deal with
nappies for that extra bit of time if infancy was extended.
R. Dan Henry
<g-...@yeehawgropes.com> wrote:
>Actually, I've always thought of the "coming of age" as being more equivalent
>to 18 than 21. After all, once you're 18, you're legally able to do just
>about anything any other adult can.
Only to avoid criticism for fielding "child soldiers" -- well, okay,
then, we'll make them all adults. The Shire never had this issue and
had no reason to lower the age of majority.
--
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
John Whistler
>
> Actually, I've always thought of the "coming of age" as being more equivalent
> to 18 than 21. After all, once you're 18, you're legally able to do just
> about anything any other adult can.
>
>
>
> ---
> Graham
But that's only the case relatively recently. In Tolkien's day, 21 was
considered to be the age at which you became a full adult. For example,
the legal voting age in England was 21 until 1971.
John.
aelfwina
I don't imagine Pippin had any intention of being left behind. I'm sure he
used the same argument on Merry that Merry used on Frodo: let me come, or
I'll follow on my own.
>
> Emma
>
> ps. You've got to feel sorry for the hobbit moms who had to deal with
> nappies for that extra bit of time if infancy was extended.
*grin* I once wrote a story about Frodo helping to potty-train Merry.
Barbara
Christopher Kreuzer
> "Emma Pease" <em...@kanpai.stanford.edu> wrote:
<snip>
>> ps. You've got to feel sorry for the hobbit moms who had to deal with
>> nappies for that extra bit of time if infancy was extended.
>
> *grin* I once wrote a story about Frodo helping to potty-train Merry.
Ugh! Enough already!! :-)
Matthew T Curtis
<spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>Prai Jei <pvsto...@zyx-abc.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>> Christopher Kreuzer (or somebody else of the same name) wrote thusly
>> in message <_muee.25940$G8.1...@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>:
>>
>>> "In Gondor this heritage is reckoned through the sons only; and we
>>> have not heard that the law is otherwise in Arnor."
>>>
>>> [1] The father-son descent is confirmed by the quote at the end of
>>> this section of the Appendices, thus answering Emma Pease's question
>>> elsewhere in this thread:
>>>
>>> "It was the pride and wonder of the Northern Line that, though their
>>> power departed and their people dwindled, through all the many
>>> generations the succession was unbroken from father to son."
>>>
>>> This is repeated in /The Silmarillion/ bit about the Third Age:
>>>
>>> "Yet the shards of the sword were cherished during many lives of Men
>>> by the heirs of Isildur; and their line, from father to son, remained
>>> unbroken."
>>
>> What ever happened to the Tar-Ancalimë Law? Sunk with Númenor?
>
>Apparently. Arvedui obviously had the same thought, as he responded to
>the first quote above with these words:
>
>"Moreover, in Numenor of old the sceptre descended to the eldest child
>of the king, whether man or woman. It is true that the law has not been
>observed in the lands of exile ever troubled by war; but such was the
>law of our people, to which we now refer, seeing that the sons of
>Ondoher died childless."
>
>So it looks like things were different because of the troubles and wars.
>It also looks like the issue had not arisen before, or at least not
>often, if I am not over-reading the phrase "to which we now refer".
>Either that, or Arvedui (in desperation and to bolster his claim)
>dragged out old laws that no-one else had ever bothered with before.
>
>Christopher
I have always believed that Arvedui had a pretty good case here. After
all, Arnor and Gondor both considered themselves the 'Numenorean
realms-in-exile', i.e. a continuation of Numenorean culture in another
place, so Numenorean laws presumably stood unless changed. No mention
is made of a new law - just that 'the heritage is _reckoned_ through
the sons only - and the Gondoreans 'made no answer to Arvedui's suit.
This all smacks to me of the Gondoreans making up an on-the-spot
justification of their position - much as the 14th century French
dredged up an ancient tribal inheritance law to prevent the succession
of England's Edward III to the crown ahead of the local candidate.
--
Matthew T Curtis mtcurtis[at]dsl.pipex.com
HIV+ for 24 glorious years!
The usual rejoinder to someone who says "They laughed at Columbus,
they laughed at Galileo" is to say "But they also laughed at Bozo the
Clown".
-Carl Sagan.
Jette Goldie
"Graham Lockwood" <g-...@yeehawgropes.com> wrote in message
news:0001HW.BEA68D46...@news.x-privat.org...
*Now* that age is 18, but it used to be 21. IIRC at the time that
Tolkien was writing a young man didn't "come of age" until 21 -
that included right to vote, inherit property, manage his financial
affairs and marry without his parents' permission.
--
Jette
"Work for Peace and remain Fiercely Loving" - Jim Byrnes
je...@blueyonder.co.uk
http://www.jette.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
Jette Goldie
"John Whistler" <jbwhi...@eircom.net> wrote in message
news:110520050333030917%jbwhi...@eircom.net...
Correct, and though a young man might have been working
and earning a wage from as young as 15, he wasn't considered
"of age" by banks - an 18 year old would NOT have been given
a mortgage, for example, without an "adult" guarantor. For
women the situation was even worse - most women, even if
over 21, wouldn't be given a mortgage at all in their own right.