The Lord of the Rings Omnibus (1-3) (182 page)

1
It is said that Thorin’s shield was cloven and he cast it away and he hewed off with his axe a branch of an oak and held it in his left hand to ward off the strokes of his foes, or to wield as a club. In this way he got his name.

1
Such dealings with their dead seemed grievous to the Dwarves, for it was against their use; but to make such tombs as they were accustomed to build (since they will lay their dead only in stone not in earth) would have taken many years. To fire therefore they turned, rather than leave their kin to beast or bird or carrion-orc. But those who fell in Azanulbizar were honoured in memory, and to this day a Dwarf will say proudly of one of his sires: ‘he was a burned Dwarf, and that is enough.

2
They had very few women-folk. Dís Thrain’s daughter was there. She was the mother of Fíli and Kíli, who were born in the Ered Luin. Thorin had no wife.

3
p.
268
.

1
March 15, 2941.

1
p.
243
.

2
p.
597
,
The Hobbit,
p. 151.

3
p.
971
.

4
p.
317
.

1
p.
670
.

1
It afterwards became clear that Saruman had then begun to desire to possess the One Ring himself, and he hoped that it might reveal itself, seeking its master, if Sauron were let be for a time.

1
Months and days are given according to the Shire Calendar.

1
She became known as ‘ the Fair’ because of her beauty; many said that she looked more like an elf-maid than a hobbit. She had golden hair, which had been very rare in the Shire; but two others of Samwise’s daughters were also golden-haired, and so were many of the children born at this time.

1
p.
7
; p.
1042
, note 2.

1
Fourth Age (Gondor) 120.

1
365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 46 seconds.

1
In the Shire, in which Year 1 corresponded with T.A. 1601. In Bree in which Year 1 corresponded with T.A. 1300 it was the first year of the century.

2
It will be noted if one glances at a Shire Calendar, that the only weekday on which no month began was Friday. It thus became a jesting idiom in the Shire to speak of ‘on Friday the first’ when referring to a day that did not exist, or to a day on which very unlikely events such as the flying of pigs or (in the Shire) the walking of trees might occur. In full the expression was ‘on Friday the first of Summerfilth’.

1
It was a jest in Bree to speak of ‘Winterfilth in the (muddy) Shire’, but according to the Shire-folk Wintring was a Bree alteration of the older name, which had originally referred to the filling or completion of the year before Winter, and descended from times before the full adoption of Kings’ Reckoning when their new year began after harvest.

1
Recording births, marriages, and deaths in the Took families, as well as matters, such as land-sales, and various Shire events.

2
I have therefore in Bilbo’s song (pp.
158-60
) used Saturday and Sunday instead of Thursday and Friday.

1
Though actually
theyestarë
of New Reckoning occurred earlier than in the Calendar of Imladris, in which it corresponded more or less with Shire April 6.

2
Anniversary of its first blowing in the Shire in 3019.

1
Usually called in Sindarin
Menelvagor
(p.
81
), Q.
Menelmacar.

1
As in
galadhremmin ennorath
(p.
238
) ‘tree-woven lands of Middle-earth’.
Remmirath
(p.
81
) contains
rem
‘mesh’, Q.
rembe, + mîr
‘jewel’.

2
A fairly widespread pronunciation of long
é
and
ó
as
ei
and
ou,
more or less as in English
say no,
both in Westron and in the renderings of Quenya names by Westron speakers, is shown by spellings such as
ei, ou
(or their equivalents in contemporary scripts). But such pronunciations were regarded as incorrect or rustic. They were naturally usual in the Shire. Those therefore who pronounce
yéni únótime
‘long-years innumerable’, as is natural in English
(sc.
more or less as
yainy oonoatimy)
will err little more than Bilbo, Meriadoc, or Peregrin. Frodo is said to have shown great ‘skill with foreign sounds’.

1
So also in
Annûn
‘sunset’,
Amrûn
‘sunrise’, under the influence of the related
dun
‘west’, and
rhûn
‘east’.

2
Originally. But
iu
in Quenya was in the Third Age usually pronounced as a rising diphthong as
yu
in English
yule.

1
The only relation in our alphabet that would have appeared intelligible to the Eldar is that between P and B; and their separation from one another, and from F, M, V, would have seemed to them absurd.

2
Many of them appear in the examples on the title-page, and in the inscription on p.
50
, transcribed on p.
254
. They were mainly used to express vowel-sounds, in Quenya usually regarded as modifications of the accompanying consonant; or to express more briefly some of the most frequent consonant combinations.

1
The representation of the sounds here is the same as that employed in transcription and described above, except that here
ch
represents the
ch
in English
church; j
represents the sound of English
j,
and
zh
the sound heard in
azure
and
occasion.

2
The inscription on the West-gate of Moria gives an example of a mode, used for the spelling of Sindarin, in which Grade 6 represented the simple nasals, but Grade 5 represented the double or long nasals much used in Sindarin: 17
=nn,
but
21=n.

1
In Quenya in which
a
was very frequent, its vowel sign was often omitted altogether. Thus for
calma
‘lamp’
clm
could be written. This would naturally read as
calma,
since
cl
was not in Quenya a possible initial combination, and
m
never occurred finally. A possible reading was
calama,
but no such word existed.

1
For breath
h
Quenya originally used a simple raised stem without bow, called
halla
‘tall’. This could be placed before a consonant to indicate that it was unvoiced and breathed; voiceless
r
and
l
were usually so expressed and are transcribed
hr, hl.
Later 33 was used for independent
h,
and the value of
hy
(its older value) was represented by adding the
tehta
for following
y.

1
Those in ( ) are values only found in Elvish use; * marks
cirth
only used by Dwarves.

1
In Lórien at this period Sindarin was spoken, though with an ‘accent’, since most of its folk were of Silvan origin. This ‘accent’ and his own limited acquaintance with Sindarin misled Frodo (as is pointed out in
The Thain’s Book
by a commentator of Gondor). All the Elvish words cited in Book Two chs
6
,
7
,
8
are in fact Sindarin, and so are most of the names of places and persons. But
Lorien, Caras Galadhon, Amroth, Nimrodel
are probably of Silvan origin, adapted to Sindarin.

1
Quenya, for example, are the names
Númenor
(or in full
Númenore),
and
Elendil, Isildur,
and
Anárion,
and all the royal names of
Gondor,
including
Elessar
‘Elfstone’. Most of the names of the other men and women of the Dúnedain, such as
Aragorn, Denethor, Gilraen
are of Sindarin form, being often the names of Elves or Men remembered in the songs and histories of the First Age (as
Beren, Húrin).
Some few are of mixed forms, as
Boromir.

1
The Stoors of the Angle, who returned to Wilderland, had already adopted the Common Speech; but
Déagol
and
Sméagol
are names in the Mannish language of the region near the Gladden.

1
Except where the Hobbits seem to have made some attempts to represent shorter murmurs and calls made by the Ents;
a-lalla-lalla-rumba-kamanda-lindor-burúme
also is not Elvish, and is the only extant (probably very inaccurate) attempt to represent a fragment of actual Entish.

1
In one or two places an attempt has been made to hint at these distinctions by an inconsistent use of
thou
. Since this pronoun is now unusual and archaic it is employed mainly to represent the use of ceremonious language; but a change from
you
to
thou
,
thee
is sometimes meant to show, there being no other means of doing this, a significant change from the deferential, or between men and women normal, forms to the familiar.

1
This linguistic procedure does not imply that the Rohirrim closely resembled the ancient English otherwise, in culture or art, in weapons or modes of warfare, except in a general way due to their circumstances: a simpler and more primitive people living in contact with a higher and more venerable culture, and occupying lands that had once been part of its domain.

1
[These words describing characters of face and hair in fact applied only to the Noldor: see
The Book of Lost Tales, Part One,
p. 44.]