HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: waynebro@juliet.caltech.edu (Broughton, Wayne Jeremy)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien
Subject: Re: Questions AFfter First Silmarillion Reading
Date: 27 Jan 93 09:11:00 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology
NNTP-Posting-Host: juliet.caltech.edu
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <1993Jan26.190042.8438@netcom.com>, solovay@netcom.com (Andrew Solovay) writes...
>In article <C1GyJI.KpI@unix.amherst.edu> jdliss@unix.amherst.edu (Jeff Liss) writes:
>>
>>Does /Quenta Silmarillion/ correspond to the First Age, the /Akallabeth/
>>and the downfall of the Numenor the Second and then Isildur onward the
>>Third?
> 
>Pretty much. The First Age (aka "The Elder Years") ended when the Host
>of Valinor overthrew Morgoth and forced him into the Outer Darkness.
>I'm not sure when the First Age formally "began": it might have been
>when the Valar arrived in Ea, but it might not have been until the
>Elves were Awakened.  (Funny how often you Capitalize inappropriate
>Words when you're talking about the History of Middle-Earth.)

I was under the impression that the First Age began with the creation
of the Two Trees and the Count of Time (I see what You mean about
Capitalization! :-) ).  The term "First Age" implies some sort of
time-keeping, and apparently this wasn't done until the regular 
waxing and waning of the Trees began.  I don't think we are given 
any indication of how much time passed between the creation of Ea
and the creation of the Trees, but it could easily have been an
enormous amount, far longer than the whole subsequent history of
Arda (maybe even 4.5 billion "years"??).

Corrections welcome.
**********************************************************************

Wayne J. Broughton                 Take the road less travelled by.  
waynebro@juliet.caltech.edu    

Caltech has no idea what my opinions are;  
they think I'm working right now...
Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien
From: S2A0000 <S2A0@UNB.CA>
Subject: Re: Sorcerers (Was Power of Races)
Organization: The University of New Brunswick
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 20:03:48 GMT

           A small note on the subject of magic use in Middle-Earth.
Isildur was able to put a curse on the men of Dunharrow when they
refused to fight against Mordor. As a result of this curse the
oath-breakers died out as a people and their ghosts were forced to
haunt the "Paths of the Dead" for a whole age of Middle-Earth until
they had kept their oath by answering to the heir of Isildur.

          That seems like powerful magic to me!!!


                                THORFINN.


Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien
From: das0@quads.uchicago.edu (donald andrew smith)
Subject: Re: POPULATION OF GONDOR
Reply-To: das0@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 13:58:03 GMT

In article <1joeabINNj13@iskut.ucs.ubc.ca> peters@physics.ubc.ca (Dan Peters) writes:
>>Besides, no doubt the ships were not small.  Remember, we are talking
>>Numenor at it's height of power.
>
>Even so, it's hard to believe there would be more than about 1000 passengers on
>each (probably much less), and the Kingdoms in Exile seem to have _at least_
>a few hundred thousand people, considering all the "cities" mentioned. So
>whether they are big ships or small seems to be pretty irrelevant....
>
>Drin
>--
I always assumed that the Numenoreans merely took charge of the
indiginous (sp.?) populations.  It was clear that they had had
many settlements on the mainland, as a previous poster pointed
out, and I think the book makes a pretty clear distinction that 
the Dunedain were "the Kings of Men" and not mere mortals.  See Bilbo's
reference to Aragorn being "the Dunadan" or thet Denethor had some
faint traces of Numenorian blood.  The surviving Numenorians were
never numerous (wow, alliteration! :-) ), as i recall, wasn't Aragorn's
entire troop of rangers just a handful?  As a previous poster
mentioned, the Numenorians *were* an *incredibly* small minority,
but that didn't stop the Jews returning from the Babalonian exile 
from reasserting contol over palestine.  OK, not the best analogy, I
know, but the point is here that in Tolkien's world, they had the
power of nobility, or godly favor, whatever, that gave them the 
right to be kings, regardless of their military strength.
Those rangers were *the last* of the Numenoreans, except for the Black 
Numenoreans, about whom we know very little.

I don't see a problem here.

Don Smith

Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien
From: d90-two@kuroi.nada.kth.se (Thomas Wolmer)
Subject: Re: Hobbits (was Re: Bombadil), and Maiar/N
Organization: Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 18:35:07 GMT

In article <1k3c3dINN6f1@galaxy.uci.agh.edu.pl> szymon@galaxy.uci.agh.edu.pl (Szymon Sokol) writes:
>Broughton, Wayne Jeremy (waynebro@juliet.caltech.edu) wrote:
>: Was it really known that a *Balrog* per se was Durin's Bane?  I don't 
>: know if Gimli actually "recognized" the Balrog as a Balrog;  rather he
>: just realized that this terror in front of him was the embodiment of 
>: the nightmarish descriptions he had heard of Durin's Bane.  And Legolas
>: sure sounded kind of surprised at what he saw when he shouted "Ai-ee,
>: a Balrog!" or some such.  Do you know of a textual reference that suggests
>: that Durin's Bane had been known to be a Balrog?  Remember that a 
>: reference written from the post-Third Age point of view might have included
>: the info that it was a Balrog in hindsight.
>
>Well, Durin was killed by a Balrog, as well as his son Nain the First (?), 
>and the Dwarves left Moria a year later. It is written in the chronicles
>of the ME (one of the appendices to the LOTR). Therefore I suggested that 
>Gimli's words "Durin's Bane!" meant that he recognized Balrog.

Well, he recognized it, but as Durin's Bane, not necesserly as a Balrog.
See below...

>Of course, it is not completely clear that it was known to the heroes of LOTR,
>but I have thought that if the dwarves spent one more year in Moria *after*
>Durin's death, they had to fight against orcs and they probably learned that 
>there is someone more powerful than mere orcs.

Orcs? Where did the orcs come from? There was only the Balrog, but with the
standard stupid "The King in the first line" tactic that was enough to have
two kings killed. Remember, Moria was *big*. The Balrog probably chased
dwarves from chamber to chamber for a long time before they finally found
that they coulnd't destroy it and left the place.

 In addition: if Gimli did not
>know that Durin had been killed by the Balrog, why did he decided to call
>the Balrog "Durin's Bane" ? If he knew nothing about circumstances of Durin's
>death, he could attribute it to orcs as well, couldn't he?

He probably knew that Durin had been killed by a winged creature of fire and
darkness who wielded a sword and a whip. That does *not* mean that he knew
it was a Balrog. We don't know if there was any dwarf who had seen a Balrog
during the battle at the end of the First Age and had survived to tell anyone
about it.

-- 
 _.^._  |\_|\_|\ V2.0 /|_/|_/|"There's no tomorrow,           |
[_<X>_] Thomas Wolmer        | just sadness and sorrow        |
  !_!   d90-two@nada.kth.se  | Hold on to the Ancient Dreams" |
  IOI   Angantyr on IRC      |  - Candlemass "Ancient Dreams" |
Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien
From: cffitzge@IASTATE.EDU (Charles F Fitzgerald)
Subject: Re: Two simple questions
Reply-To: cffitzge@IASTATE.EDU (Charles F Fitzgerald)
Organization: Iowa State University
Distribution: alt
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 06:11:55 GMT

Tero asks a few questions:
>When Merry and Eowyn killed the Lord of Nazgul, Tolkien said that only
>weapons with special spells on them were able to harm Nazguls.
>Merry's sword was made in Arnor when dunedain fought against Witch King
>and so it had spells against him, but how about Eowyn's sword? Where
>did it originate from? How was it able to harm a Nazgul? Is this said
>anywhere?

I know of nowhere that the lineage of Eowyn's sword is given.  It is 
possibly found in some of the more recently released works by C. Tol-
kien, but it says nothing about the sword in the Lord of the Rings.

I also do not remember any statement in LOTR that "only weapons with
special skills on them were able to harm Nazguls."  I know it is
stated that Merry's blade hurts the Nazgul lord "tearing at the
unseen flesh" more than a normal blade would, but I do not remember
anything that says _only_ magic weapons could harm the Nazgul.  It
does state that he (the Witchking) can not be killed by a man, but
this does not mean that he is totally impervious to weapons.

The only character who might be said to be impervious to normal
weapons, based upon the text of LOTR, would be Gandalf on the basis
of the statement he makes to Gimli upon their reunion in Fangorn.
(This statement is something to the effect of "Do not worry Gimli;
none of you have a weapon that could harm me now anyway.")

It would be my opinion that Eowyn's blade was of no particular origin
or enchantment.

>And... Theodred was the second and Eomer was the third Marshal of
>Mark, but who was the first? (just curiousity)

My guess would be Theoden King.

--
Charles F. Fitzgerald | '...it's a tale, told by an idiot,
Iowa State University | full of sound and fury,
cffitzge@iastate.edu  | signifying nothing.'
                      | _MacBeth_, by W. Shakespeare.
From: damiens@cco.caltech.edu (Damien Sullivan)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien
Subject: Re: Hobbits in the Undying Lands
Date: 28 Jan 1993 04:53:30 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
NNTP-Posting-Host: punisher.caltech.edu

In article <C1JLCt.4tL@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> Michael.P.Colburn@dartmouth.edu (Michael P. Colburn) writes:
>the Hobbit and LotR all took place.  By then the Undying Lands were
>merely a legend or myth...certainly anyone who believed in it's
>existence considered it to heaven.  My $0.02....
	What about those who had been to Valinor?  Such as Galadriel and other 
Noldor?

		-- Phoenix -- Damien R. Sullivan  [X-) Kiljoy]
6x9=42 | AIXELSYD | 1374245896=4 | Libertarian Dictatorship
Honk if you're American and have heard of Steeleye Span... 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien
From: ttiittan@snakemail.hut.fi (Tero Tiittanen)
Subject: Two simple questions
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Distribution: alt
Date: 28 Jan 93 00:41:49 GMT


Hi

Two questions about Lotr:

When Merry and Eowyn killed the Lord of Nazgul, Tolkien said that only
weapons with special spells on them were able to harm Nazguls.
Merry's sword was made in Arnor when dunedain fought against Witch King
and so it had spells against him, but how about Eowyn's sword? Where
did it originate from? How was it able to harm a Nazgul? Is this said
anywhere?

And... Theodred was the second and Eomer was the third Marshal of
Mark, but who was the first? (just curiousity)


Tero.
Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien
From: samw@bucket.rain.com (Sam Warden)
Subject: Re: shape of Ea before end of second era ?
Organization: Rick's Home-Grown Un*x
Date: 21 Jan 93 19:58:12 GMT

lwall@netlabs.com (Larry Wall) writes:

>: As a physicist by training that's the one thing in all this
>: that I find at all `disturbing'.... [earth originally `flat']

>Why is it most physicists like the idea of multiple futures diverging
>so much more than the idea of multiple pasts converging?     :-)
 
I haven't the vaguest.  :-)  I wasn't aware that I was implying
that.  It's just that we rather like them all to be, well, 
physically consistent.  :-)  
 
Don't get me wrong, I _have_ thought of Tolkien's account in terms
of dimensional transformations in which the world originally
would _appear_ flat from inside.  This would be consistent with
the idea that the removal of Valinor was by other than ordinary
physical means within 3-dimensional space, which I think is
strongly implied in several places relating to its existence
afterward.  But I don't like to rely on this sort of `angel-
on-a-pin' reasoning from what are after all nonphysical
premises.  :-)  I don't think Tolkien was trying to be
consistent with physical science as much as with existing
myth, including the Biblical one.  


-- 
 
samw@bucket.rain.com (Sam Warden) -- and not a mere Device.
 
Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien
From: currin@unpsun1.cc.unp.ac.za (Michael Currin)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien
Subject: Leather bound Tolkien book - any
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 07:08:33 GMT
Organization: Univeristy of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, RSA
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: pc066.cc.unp.ac.za
Summary: Wanted any leather bound Tolkien book
Keywords: leather,tolkien

Hi All,

A friend asked me to post a request for him so here goes :-

  Does anyone know where I could get hold of a leather bound Tolkien book -  
  it could be any of his books - it is for a gift.  Please send the companys
  name and address not just telephone numbers.

Many thanks,
--
Michael Currin
  - currin@unpsun1.cc.unp.ac.za
Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien
From: samw@bucket.rain.com (Sam Warden)
Subject: Re: Subcreation (was Re: Hobbits)
Organization: Rick's Home-Grown Un*x
Date: 25 Jan 93 04:47:51 GMT

jchokey@leland.Stanford.EDU (James Alexander Chokey) writes:

>I don't think it's fair to call 
>_The Hobbit_ a mere "roughed-out block."   I think it can quite easily stand
>on its own as an independent work of literature and is not in any way an
>"incomplete" work of art.
 
Absolutely!  I didn't mean to imply that; my analogy got carried
away I think.  I tend to see the whole Middle-earth mythos as a
single work (as Tolkien's lifework) quite apart from _any_ one of
his published works, and that's what I was thinking of,
not of his literary oeuvre as such.  And yes, it remains `unfinished'
as I suspect it would however long he had survived to work on it.
Such things don't really have an end.

>are differences and "anomalies" between T's various works, primarily because
>they were, in fact, created as seperate works, even if they were later brought
>together into one big meta-narrative. IMHO, it's quite amazing that there are 
>as few "anomalies" and "discontinuities" in the epic of Middle-earth that 
>there are, considering the circumstances under which the various stories that 
>became part of it were created.

Yes, it is.  Though I don't have the sense of anomaly that some
people seem to; in particular I think Jolly Tom fits very well
indeed.  Maybe that's why literary-historical, `unmythical'
explanations make me uneasy.  And I didn't mean to belittle the
literary history, even though I was mistaken about it.  One
reason has occurred to me: I've probably never read the 
unrevised Hobbit!  I've only read the Houghton-Mifflin and
Ballantine editions, which I think were revised post-LOTR.
 
-- 
 
samw@bucket.rain.com (Sam Warden) -- and not a mere Device.
 
Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien
From: christea@dhhalden.no (CHRISTER ANDR JAKOBSEN)
Subject: Re: References to Tolkien by Led Zeppelin
Organization: Ostfold College
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 10:58:27 GMT

>
>There is, however, a song (can't remember the name, but I think it's on the same
>album) which contains the lyrics:
>      
>       'In the darkest depths of Mordor I met a girl so fair.  Then Gollum,
>        the evil one, crept up and swept away with her.'
>      
>-- EZ

Indeed it is from Ramble On, but to me it sounds more like

		"In the darkest depths of Mordor, I met a girl so fair.
		 -but Gollum, and the evil one, crept up and swept away 
		 with her."
From: highlndr@csa.bu.edu (Sean Pfeiffer)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien
Subject: Re: POPULATION OF GONDOR
Date: 21 Jan 93 19:27:25 GMT
Organization: Boston University Computer Science Department
In-reply-to: S2A0@UNB.CA's message of 21 Jan 93 16:41:50 GMT

If I remember correctly, there were already Numenorian colonies located
at Pelargir and Isengard (although Orthanc wasn't built yet) that were
built long before around the middle of the Second Age (when the numenorians
landed to help drive Sauron from Eriador)

Sean
From: szymon@galaxy.uci.agh.edu.pl (Szymon Sokol)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien
Subject: Re: Hobbits (was Re: Bombadil), and Maiar/N
Date: 26 Jan 1993 13:50:53 +0100
Organization: University of Mining & Metallurgy
NNTP-Posting-Host: galaxy.uci.agh.edu.pl
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]

Broughton, Wayne Jeremy (waynebro@juliet.caltech.edu) wrote:
: Was it really known that a *Balrog* per se was Durin's Bane?  I don't 
: know if Gimli actually "recognized" the Balrog as a Balrog;  rather he
: just realized that this terror in front of him was the embodiment of 
: the nightmarish descriptions he had heard of Durin's Bane.  And Legolas
: sure sounded kind of surprised at what he saw when he shouted "Ai-ee,
: a Balrog!" or some such.  Do you know of a textual reference that suggests
: that Durin's Bane had been known to be a Balrog?  Remember that a 
: reference written from the post-Third Age point of view might have included
: the info that it was a Balrog in hindsight.

Well, Durin was killed by a Balrog, as well as his son Nain the First (?), 
and the Dwarves left Moria a year later. It is written in the chronicles
of the ME (one of the appendices to the LOTR). Therefore I suggested that 
Gimli's words "Durin's Bane!" meant that he recognized Balrog.  
Of course, it is not completely clear that it was known to the heroes of LOTR,
but I have thought that if the dwarves spent one more year in Moria *after*
Durin's death, they had to fight against orcs and they probably learned that 
there is someone more powerful than mere orcs. In addition: if Gimli did not
know that Durin had been killed by the Balrog, why did he decided to call
the Balrog "Durin's Bane" ? If he knew nothing about circumstances of Durin's
death, he could attribute it to orcs as well, couldn't he?
he
-- 
U     U  M     M  M     M  Szymon Sokol -- Network Manager
U     U  MM   MM  MM   MM  University of Mining and Metallurgy, Computer Center
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Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien
From: jdliss@unix.amherst.edu (Jeff Liss)
Subject: Questions AFfter First Silmarillion Reading
Organization: Amherst College
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL7]
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 16:16:29 GMT

I have a few questions after finishing the Silmarillion for the first
time that perhaps some of you would be kind enough to field.

The events in the book really don't get much more than a cursory
treatment, inspiring though it is.  Do all those other books (The
Books of Lost Tales, The Last Days of Beleriand) elaborate on these
selfsame stories?

Does /Quenta Silmarillion/ correspond to the First Age, the /Akallabeth/
and the downfall of the Numenor the Second and then Isildur onward the
Third?

I may think of some more, but that's all for now.

Jeff
Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien
From: cos@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Ofer Inbar)
Subject: Re: Language Origins
Organization: Brandeis University
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 20:24:31 GMT

craig@b11.b11.ingr.com (Craig Presson) writes:
>OTOH, the few words of the speech of the Rohirrim in LOTR that are not
>translated into the Westron are perfectly good Anglo-Saxon (OTTOMH:
>"_Westhu Theoden hal_!" (Hale be thou, Theoden ~ Hail, Theoden)).  The
>proper names of course are not attested AS names, but have a distinct
>AS flavor.

I recall reading Tolkien's explanation somewhere that the Anglo-Saxon
was *not* the actual language of Rohan, but rather a translation of
it.  In the same way, Westron is not actually English, but is
translated into English in the books so that we can understand them.
Tolkien decided that since the relationship between Westron and the
language of Rohan in their world was equivalent to the relationship
between English and Anglo-Saxon in ours (one having developed partly
from the other), since he translated Westron to English, he would
translate Rohan to Anglo-Saxon for us readers.

  --  Cos (Ofer Inbar)  --  cos@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu
  --  WBRS (BRiS)  --  WBRS@binah.cc.brandeis.edu  WBRS@brandeis.bitnet
 Brandeis University Computer Science Department         (617) 736-2700
 415 South Street, Waltham MA, 02254-9110        System Admin: 736-2717
Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien
From: er@iscp.bellcore.com (Elie Rosenfeld)
Subject: Re: Hobbits in the Undying Lands
Organization: Bellcore
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 17:08:11 GMT

In article <C1FxKC.DMt@unix.amherst.edu>, djweisbe@unix.amherst.edu (David Weisberger) writes:
|> chesky@stanmusial.austin.ibm.com wrote:
|> I don't think Gandalf or even Saruman knew exactly what the One Ring
|> would do to its bearer.  Isildur and Gollum died of unnatural causes,
|> so the texts are not much help.  But I suspect that, since the Ring
|> was cast into Mt. Doom, Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam would all remain mortal.
|> The ring lent power to its bearer and influenced the wills of its
|> former bearers, but I don't believe its power outlasted its existence.

Which leads to an interesting hypothetical question.  What would have happened
to Gollum if he hadn't fallen into the fire at the same instant the ring did;
i.e., had he lived after the ring's destruction?  Would he have instantly died
of old age, all the years suddenly catching up with him?  Would all of the
ring-influenced evil fallen away, possible even causing him to repent?
-- 
Elie Rosenfeld      | "I am what I am, Leila -- and if there are self-made
Bellcore            |  purgatories, then we all must live in them.
Piscataway, N.J.    |  Mine is no worse than someone else's."
(908) 699-8800      |                     - Spock, "This Side of Paradise"
From: aiden@NCoast.ORG (Steven Otlowski)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien
Subject: Re: Beren and Luthien
Date: 28 Jan 93 07:13:56 GMT
Organization: North Coast Public Access *NIX, Cleveland, OH

>I have a couple of questions which I would like some answers to if anyone knows them.  First, is there anything else written about the story of Beren's life, or his love with Luthien other than what is written in the Quenta Simarillion?  I have been looking since I first read Sim(about 7 or 8 years ago)  I can not get this story out of my head, and I would appreciate the help. 

Yes, Read the section on Beren and Luthien in the Third Book of 
Lost Tales "The Lays of Beleriand".  It is beautiful.

>The second is purely speculation, and I am curious about the feelings of others on this -- is Sting, the 'sword' carried by Bilbo and later Frodo, actually Angcrist (Sp?), the dagger which Beren took from Celegorm and later cut the Simaril from the Iron Crown with?  I have been unable to find any information either for or against this theory (it is possible that I have missed something in something that Christopher Tolkien has published).

No. The knife Angrist snapped when Beren tried to cut a second Silmaril
from the Iron Crown.  It was a fragment of the knife that hit Morgoth
on the cheek and awoke him from the spell of sleep Luthien wove about him.
It was thought that Sting, Orchrist, and Glamdring were made in Gondolin.
Since Gondolin was a hidden city that had not yet fallen at that time
it is unlikely that a knife from there would come into Celegorm's hands.

Angrist was forged by Telchar of Nogrod.  
Another source notes that Narsil was also forged by Telchar.
Narsil was brought to Middle Earth by Elendil from Numenor.
It is likely that it was a gift from one of the Eldar of the 
Blessed Realm.
One might then guess that Celegorm brought the knife with him
from Valinor.

Steve Otlowski -

>Stand and be true
>Wolf
>
>.
>
>
Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien