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Athelas

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E W Beattie

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Oct 25, 1998, 2:00:00 AM10/25/98
to
I am looking for some information on the origin of the term athelas, the
herb used in the Houses of Healing.
There was a post on this here about three months ago, but since the word
Athelas was not in the header, I can't find it under dejanews.
Does anyone recall what the original topic was?
Any help appreciated.
--
regards


E W Beattie

maggot

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Oct 25, 1998, 2:00:00 AM10/25/98
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If you do a search in Deja News is will come up with any
word you are looking forin the text of the message. Try
doing a power search (that's a button right above the search
box). It's possible that this person mispelled the word, so
try a few variations, or perhaps just the first four
letters.

MBurg

Michael Martinez

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Oct 26, 1998, 3:00:00 AM10/26/98
to
In article <01be005c$ac7b3720$7200bcc3@default>, "E W Beattie" <edward....@rapid.co.uk> wrote:
>I am looking for some information on the origin of the term athelas, the
>herb used in the Houses of Healing.
>There was a post on this here about three months ago, but since the word
>Athelas was not in the header, I can't find it under dejanews.
>Does anyone recall what the original topic was?
>Any help appreciated.

Don't search by subject. Dejanews almost never produces anything useful
from the subject search. I don't know why they insist on retaining it.

The last time Athelas was mentioned in the Tolkien groups was July. On
July 15 in message <6ojl43$p...@newsops.execpc.com> Gary Hendrikson asked if
there was a connection between "athelas" and the Greek word "althea". The
thread was titled "Greek and Adunaic".

If you click on the link below and type in the search criteria as I give
them, you'll find 10 articles (plus yours and the followup Maggot posted):

http://www.dejanews.com/home_ps.shtml

LIMIT SEARCH
Language: any
Subject:
Forum: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien
Author:
Date: Jun 1 98

ORGANIZE RESULTS
Results format: Tabular
Sort by: Confidence
Results per page: 100

Note that I always select 100 in "Results per page" although obviously in
this situation you don't need to.

For "Find" box I put in:

+athelas


--
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\\// RealName: Science Fiction and Fantasy Xenite.Org
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// \\ENITE.org...............................................

William

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Oct 26, 1998, 3:00:00 AM10/26/98
to

maggot wrote:

> E W Beattie wrote:
> >
> > I am looking for some information on the origin of the term athelas, the
> > herb used in the Houses of Healing.
> > There was a post on this here about three months ago, but since the word
> > Athelas was not in the header, I can't find it under dejanews.
> > Does anyone recall what the original topic was?
> > Any help appreciated.

> > --
> > regards
>
> If you do a search in Deja News is will come up with any
> word you are looking forin the text of the message. Try
> doing a power search (that's a button right above the search
> box). It's possible that this person mispelled the word, so
> try a few variations, or perhaps just the first four
> letters.
>

I was the poster, and I'm pretty sure I didn't mispell the word, but I have
no idea what subject line I used.

Athelas first appeared in the Weathertop chapter (although the name was added
in the margin of the much earlier Lay of Leithian, where Huan brings a
healing herb).

Christopher Tolkien and I have had an ongoing discussion about the origins of
this word. It plainly contains -las 'leaf'. It is possible (but entirely
speculative) that what Tolkien had in mind at that time (1938-39) was the Old
English word aethele 'noble, royal.' This would translate 'kingsfoil,' near
enough. At any rate, a very late note (1970 or later) says that Asea (cf.
Aragorn, 'asea aranion') was the name in Quenya, regularly adapted and
compounded with -las in Sindarin. The plant was known to the medical
loremasters of the Noldor. The root is *ATHAYA, 'helpful, kindly,
beneficial.'

--
_________________________________________________
William Cloud Hicklin "And he named him craven,
soli...@gamewood.net and lord of slaves"
_________________________________________________

James Kuyper

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Oct 26, 1998, 3:00:00 AM10/26/98
to
William wrote:
>
> maggot wrote:
>
> > E W Beattie wrote:
> > >
> > > I am looking for some information on the origin of the term athelas, the
> > > herb used in the Houses of Healing.
> > > There was a post on this here about three months ago, but since the word
> > > Athelas was not in the header, I can't find it under dejanews.
> > > Does anyone recall what the original topic was?
> > > Any help appreciated.
> > > --
> > > regards
> >
> > If you do a search in Deja News is will come up with any
> > word you are looking forin the text of the message. Try
> > doing a power search (that's a button right above the search
> > box). It's possible that this person mispelled the word, so
> > try a few variations, or perhaps just the first four
> > letters.
> >
>
> I was the poster, and I'm pretty sure I didn't mispell the word, but I have
> no idea what subject line I used.

Try
<http://www.dejanews.com/dnquery.xp?QRY=athelas&DBS=2&ST=PS&defaultOp=AND&LNG=ALL&format=terse&showsort=score&maxhits=25&subjects=&groups=rec.arts.books.tolkien&authors=solicitr%40gamewood.net&fromdate=&todate=>.
I got 3 hits with that search. Is one of them the one you're looking
for?

William

unread,
Oct 27, 1998, 3:00:00 AM10/27/98
to

William wrote:

>
>
> I was the poster, and I'm pretty sure I didn't mispell the word, but I have
> no idea what subject line I used.

I did however misspell 'misspell.'

E W Beattie

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Oct 29, 1998, 3:00:00 AM10/29/98
to
Many thanks to all those who assisted in this search.

regards

EWB


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