J.R.R. Tolkien might not agree with me but I sometimes envision the rebellious Noldor traipsing down the road to Alqualonde in much the same state as Steve Martin appears in that famous promotional poster for his movie, "The Jerk". He's unshaven, bedraggled, his pants are dragging around his feet, and he's carrying a chair, [...]
Q: Was Finduilas Gil-galad's Sister in the Silmarillion?
ANSWER: In the published version of The Silmarillion Finduilas was the daughter of Orodreth and Gil-galad was the son of Fingon. In 2003 I wrote an essay called The Final Eldarin Genealogy (which was based on a news group article I had written in 1996) in which [...]
ANSWER: According to the "Tale of Years" in The Lord of the Rings, Rhudaur existed as a separate and independent kingdom from Third Age year 861 until sometime in the 14th century. Rhudaur was the first land where Hobbits settled when they crossed the Misty Mountains into Eriador [...]
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Issue 19 of Other Hands magazine was published in October 1997. Editor Chris Seeman accepted contributions from Dirk Brandherm, Bridget Buxton, Brian Carlton, Fredrik Ekman, Jeff Erwin, and Deena McKinney. Linguistic material was provided by David Salo and Arden Smith. Charles Watteyne assisted with editing duties. Quentin Westcott handled layout and [...]
ANSWER: This question brought someone to Middle-earth at Xenite around the same time it was asked in a Tolkien fan site on December 22. I cannot give any better answer than that asker received at LoTR Plaza, which is to say there are no texts that mention [...]
ANSWER: This question is ambiguous, for some people may be asking about the Gothmog in Peter Jackson's movie, "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" while other people have asked about the character who is (apparently) only referred to once in the book.
New [...]
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Every now and then someone will ask how many Elves there actually were at some point in time. There is no correct answer because J.R.R. Tolkien didn't provide us with census figures. All we can do is guess and play number games.
It is possible to come up with some reasonable estimates, although such [...]
ANSWER: Many readers have struggled to rationalize the survival of the Dunedain of the North with the relatively small number that Tolkien ever reveals in their largest group: Halbarad's small company of thirty Rangers who ride to Aragorn in Rohan. Halbarad's remark that his thirty men [...]
ANSWER: In The Lord of the Rings, the entry for Shire year 1436 in Appendix B, "The Tale of Years", says:King Elessar rides north. and dwells for a while by Lake Evendim. He comes to the Brandywine Bridge, and there greets his friends. He gives the Star [...]
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On March 6, 2011 -- the 10th anniversary of SF-Fandom -- Hawke Robinson and Michael Martinez regrouped via the power of Skype to record episode 31 of Middle-earth Talk Radio.
Early discussion in the episode addressed the infamous Google Panda algorithm and the 10th anniversary of SF-Fandom. Wikipedia unfortunately displaced MERP.com for the 1st position [...]
ANSWER: At the end of the Third Age it would appear there were at least three ways into the Shire: the first entrance was the Brandywine Bridge, which the Shire-folk used as well as the Dwarves traveling on the East-West road; the second entrance was on the [...]
Q: Why Does Peter Jackson Ignore So Much of Tolkien's Middle-earth History?
ANSWER: Many loyal Tolkien readers have noticed that the books and background information accompanying the Peter Jackson "Lord of the Rings" movies exclude the vast majority of details that Tolkien provided in his histories for Middle-earth. For example, in the movies and the [...]
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Only a few years ago I caused quite a stir among the Tolkien fan fiction community without lifting a finger. One of my loyal readers nominated several of my essays for the MEFA non-fiction category. The first I heard of this was when I was asked to respond to some questions or challenges [...]
ANSWER: There is no satisfactory answer to questions about where Celeborn fits into the various Elven genealogies. Christopher Tolkien devoted an entire chapter to the convoluted history of Galadriel and Celeborn in Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth. The shifting genealogical placement of Celeborn represents one of the [...]
ANSWER: There have been many reader discussions through the years concerning the types of armor J.R.R. Tolkien used in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. For the most part the only armor references are to chain mail, chain shirts, helmets, a panoply or two, and one [...]
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Here is a recap of the articles we published during the week of January 2 - 8, 2012 here on Middle-earth at Xenite.Org.
"Moving Sale: Magic Rings and Other Trinkets, Half Off" was published in our Tolkien and Middle-earth essays category on January 2. Was Finduilas Gil-galad's Sister in The Silmarillion? was published to our Tolkien Questions [...]
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I always thought the movie "Dragonslayer" was a bit goofy and slow in some places but there is one memorable scene that pretty much sells the movie, I think, to anyone who sees it. That's where the dragon's head rises up to dwarf the young magician who really has no clue about what he's [...]
Q: What Is the Correct Conversion Rate for Years of the Sun to Years of the Trees?
ANSWER: J.R.R. Tolkien seems to have attempted to define the length of Years of the Trees in terms of Years of the Sun by at least three different factors: 100 years of the Sun to 1 year of the [...]
Q: What Was In Bilbo's 3 Translations From the Elvish Books?
ANSWER: In The Lord of the Rings Bilbo Baggins gives Frodo Baggins three books titled Translations from the Elvish just before Frodo leaves Rivendell to return to the Shire. According to the "Prologue", these three volumes were included with Findegil's second-generation copy of the [...]
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Contributions to Other Hands Issue 20 were provided by Fredrik Ekman, Jeff Erwin, Jasna Martinovic, Olivier Morelle, and Jason Vester. Charles Watteyne and Chris Seeman handled editing. Linguistic material was provided by David Salo. Quentin Westcott handled Pagemaking. Artwork was provided by Bidget Buxton and Quentin Westcott. Alan Dep provided [...]
ANSWER: Although J.R.R. Tolkien included references to the things Orcs eat in a few passages he seems to have implied that Orcs ate a varied diet. It is also very probable that Orc-chieftains ate better than the Orcs were served in slave capacities. The constant bickering and jockeying for [...]
ANSWER: The depth and detail that J.R.R. Tolkien provides in The Lord of the Rings is really unlike anything most people have read in fictional works written prior to the 1980s. There are so many descriptions of trees, plants, hills, mountains, weather, and land features that the whole world feels like [...]
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Why gold? I've had that question put to me a few times now. Where on Earth did I get the idea that dragons might draw power from gold, or, more specifically, that there was something special about gold when it came to magic?
Well, I neglected to mention one crucial paragraph when I was [...]
ANSWER: The Uruk-hai are the elite Orc warriors who serve as the core of Saruman's army in The Lord of the Rings. In the Peter Jackson movies it appears that Saruman is doing Sauron's bidding by transforming normal Orcs into Uruk-hai in order to "build ... an [...]
ANSWER: Based on texts published by J.R.R. Tolkien and his son Christopher, there were three main groups of men living in Mirkwood in the late Third Age. The history of men and Mirkwood goes all the way back to the First Age, however, for it is apparent from [...]
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