Ai! laurië lantar lassi súrinen,
yéni únótimë ve rámar aldaron!
Yéni ve lintë yuldar avánier
mi oromardi lissë-miruvóreva
Andúnë pella, Vardo tellumar
nu luini yassen tintilar i eleni
ómaryo airetári-lÃrinen.
Patience, Please
This site is under reconstruction and will look strange for a while. We regret the inconvenience.
Happy birthday, Tolkien!
Huh? Who’s J.R.R. Tolkien? Shouldn’t it be “one hundred and sixth birthday”? And what does that poem me? Does every MuseBlogger but me know all this? He must be someone pretty famous if his birthday has its own thread.
First post?
I’ll have to ask my Elvish-speaking friend to translate for me. May your legacy live long.
Happy B-Day and Palantir Pies for the great J.R.R Tolkien!
Woah–first post?
Ha. I memorized that poem (Ai! Laurie lantar lassi surinen…) when I was in seventh grade. Good times, good times…
. Aww, Happy Birthday Tolkien. Your books bring me large amounts of enjoyable afternoons.
2-
J.R.R. Tolkien? Arguably the greatest author of the twentieth century and hero of all Musers? Writer of, among many other works he considered more important, Lord of the RIngs? And no, he’d be 116, thus “eleventy-sixth”. You are no Muser. Begone, foul beast.
This makes me wish I hadn’t put down the first book halfway through and forgotten to pick it ack up again until the fines were more than my life is worth…
Many happy returns, honorable master Tolkein!
Happy b-day Tolkin!!!
2-He’s the author of The Lord of the Rings. And of course you are a Muser! (Piggy…..that was just mean.) Half of my friends probably don’t know who Tolkin is, either.
Happy eleventy-sixth birthday, Tolkien!
To the Professor!
7- Hey. Not everyone’s read Tolkein. Don’t call Rainbowstar a foul beast.
I haven’t read the main Lord of the Rings trilogy, but I have read the Hobbit. It was a mite too confusing for me.
I do appreciate the infulence Tolkein had on Lewis, and vice versa. Happy Birthday!
2- Butbutbut–
I mean, I understand if you’ve never read Tolkein, or you don’t enjoy Tolkein, but not having ever heard of Tolkein is…is…is… I don’t even know what.
I agree with Alice. Everyone’s heard of Tolkein.
2 – Wh…wh…what? NEVER HEARD of Tolkien? Not even a smidgen? Oh, my.
Well, he wrote the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. *wanders, muttering, ‘Never heard? In – con – cei – va – ble!”*
7 – Don’t be mean.
Anyway, happy birthday!
7- Remember, we’re all musers here.
*ducks*
13-mm.
Meep! Nearly midnight! Birthday wishes! Yesyesyes.
10, 12, etc.- *sigh* No one gets my sarcasm. Jeez.
16- *piepiepie*
19 – ‘Snot something to be sarcastic about.
And what DOES that poem mean? I don’t read Elvish and I wasn’t around for the LOTR issue (I’ve heard it’s very good though, I’ll have to read it someday).
19- Sarcasm is harder to find in typed format. Sorry.
2- Um, haven’t you heard of Lord Of The Rings? That was a book before the movie, you know. Tolkien WROTE it.
7- Remember, we’re all- *is pied* Sorry. And yeah, I get that that’s sarcasm. Couldn’t help it. *volley of pies*
7: But-but my hero is Jim Henson/Walt Disney/Leonardo Da Vinci!
Happy birthday, Mr. Tolkien. Even though I have never and never plan to read your books, it seems most of the people around here worship the ground on which you walk(ed) upon, and so I seem to be in their ranks. My father even made me listen to your biography and a dissertation of your works on tape, so I know the jist of most of your books. (the guy who was doing them insulted Harry Potter for most of tape 12, so I don’t trust him.)
Many happynesses, O Great Tolkien! You have officially reached the ripe old age of eleventy-six!
And you’re a cool dude. 8)
19 – Doesn’t matter, really. Sarcastic or not, it wasn’t the most kindlyest thing to say.
I took a very small poll today at school about Tolkien. I asked two people who Tolkien was and neither of them knew, and then I asked four people who wrote the LOTR trilogy and only one person knew. And when I asked him to spell Tolkien, he spelled it TOLKEN. Probably just a mistake since he was just saying it out loud, but still. Interesting, right?
I appreciate Tolkien’s works for what they are, the first fantasy series and the predecessors to all modern fantasy, but they’re hard to get through. I’ve read The Fellowship of the Ring. That’s all so far.
25- If you think LOTR is hard to get through, try reading the Silmarillion sometime. LOTR and There and Back Again are his only two books in novel format.
Everyone: I sincerely apologize for any offense I may have caused to anyone through my earlier comments. I meant in no way to do so, and I will try to make my bizarre sense of humour more easily understood next time. And Rainbowstar: of course you are a Muser. I meant it all in good fun, and I hope you can forgive me.
Happy Birthday, JRR Tolken!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have been reading the hobbit and so far Gandalf is my favorite character….. Along with the wood elves!!!!
I wonder if Tolkien went on a journey when he was fifty…
I saw a weird cartoon version of the Hobbit and the wood elves were green and wore jingle bell hats and sang off key and the men just wore long shirts with lace up boots ( yuck yuck weird weird yuck yuck weird weird…..)
it does the book no justice
Go Tolkien! I’m 11 years old and have read all the books and seen all the movies, and actually understood them!
31- Assumed correction: You have read the Lord of the Rings. Not all of his books.
Oh, hooray! LOTR!
– Three rings for the Elven-Kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-Lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for mortal men, doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne,
In the land of Mordor where the shadows lie
One ring to rule them all, One ring to find them
One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them-
The Ai! laurie lantar lassi surinen is not complete at the beginning of this thread. It can be found on page 368 of the Fellowship of the Ring, in the chapter Farewell to Lorien.
It is best rendered in English as follows:
Ah! like gold fall the leaves in the wind, long years numberless as the wings of trees! The years have passed like swift draughts of the sweet mead in lofty halls beyond the West, beneath the blue vaults of Varda wherein the stars tremble in the song of her voice, holy and queenly. Who now shall refill the cup for me? For now the Kindler, Varda, the Queen of the Stars, from Mount Everwhite has uplifted her hands like clouds, and all paths are drowned deep in shadow; and out of a grey country darkness lies on the foaming waves between us, and mist covers the jewels of Calacirya for ever. Now lost, lost to those from the East in Valimar! Farewell! Maybe even thou shalt find it. Farewell!
33- I translated the first poem into Spanish once.
I was bored in Spanish class.
34) Elves are way over-rated !
But I’ll forgive Tolkien because he created Hobbits !
35- I completely agree. I like dwarves, personally.
2- *splutters helplessly* are you saying….you…don’t…know…who…Tolkien…is….????????
J. R. R. Tolkien is considered by many the greatest fantasy writer of all time. His most celebrated works, The Hobbit and THE LORD OF THE RINGS are… just read them. They are amazing. Also, some others stories of his:
The Children of Hurin
The Lost Road (and other stories)
The Silmarilion
The Lord Of The Rings is obviously the best of his works, but out of the three mentioned in 37, The Silmarillion is the best. How can you say the Elves are over- rated???? The Elves created Ents! They’re immortal! They have Powers! They reforge the Sword-That-Was-Broken! The Elves create the cloaks that hide Frodo and Sam from the Men Of The South, and the leaf-shaped pins that allow Aragorn to track Pippin and Merry! Wise and immortal beings!!!!!!!! Ai!
38) Have you noticed that all the people of middle earth (except dwarfs) worship the elves ? They have 2 languages, are ALWAYS extremely beautiful and smart. But as far as personalties go… They don’t have that individuality that hobbits have. fellow elves never agree with each other, and they never do anything wrong in one-another’s eyes. After you stop admiring Legolas and get some perspective, he isn’t that great after all. his sharp eyes, e.t.c., are all qualities that other elves, or at least other high elves share with him. As for independence… Legolas spends the whole time running after Aragon, doing what he’s told and showing of to the humans. The only elf who doesn’t do that is Arwen, who runs after Aragon, the “charismatic leader”. I would go as far to suspect that Tolkien only put Legolas in the books because…
a) he needed to represent elves
b) he needed to make sure that Aragon was a great leader, so he let the idolized race bow before him
Question:
What race never fights with one another, never disagrees, has independent opinions or a independent personalities ?
a, a race that died out
b, a race that consists of only one person
c, the elves
d, all of the above
(((the answer is d)))
If you think that is a sign of a higher race, consider this:
When Bilbo & the dwarves showed up, the elves imprisoned them all (except Bilbo, who hid) without asking questions, just because they were there. All the elves are prejudiced against dwarves ! Does that sound like an superior race ? Of course not !
And why did the battle come when the hobbits came to power ? When the elves were in command, they failed miserably. Sure, Isildur grabbed the rings, but Elrond should have use his superior elf intelligence and shoved him of the ledge ! And what did wonderful lady Galadriel the beautiful do when the battle came ? She hid in the woods and let the others do the fighting. She gave Frodo trinkets, but don’t you think that she would have been more useful in person ?
Please read the whole thing !
Go Tolkein! You are so awesome! I love your books!
Happy belated b-day,even though you’re dead…….
39) What? The elves are perfectly fine! In fact, they’re awesome!
Legolas was Aragorn’s FRIEND! You can obviously tell that from the book. Legolas didn’t just go around bowing down to Aragorn all the time! That’s ridiculous!
The elves are just another race in his books. They aren’t really glorified or anything. That’s just their species. And their species just happens to be graceful, beautiful, immortal, etc.
The book never says anything about elves being superior! And yes, elves don’t like dwarves, but dwarves don’t like elves either, so it evens out.
Even suggesting that Elrond shove Isildur over the ledge is stupid. Would you shove a prince, now king since his father is dead, over the ledge? Would you want to start ANOTHER war, right after you just ended one?
And no, Galadriel could not go with Frodo, because of 2 main reasons. Galadriel is a leader. She can’t abandon her people during a WAR to help Frodo. Plus, remember, “to be a ring bearer is to be alone”? Frodo purposefully abandoned the fellowship. It wouldn’t make sense then the add more companions, since he’s purposefully getting rid of his original ones. Also, it wouldn’t be a good idea to be around the lady that just about went crazy when she was offered the ring for herself.
Happy Birthday Tolkein!
36-What do you mean dwafs are the best? Hobbits deffinitely win!
40) Legolas:
Haven’t you noticed that elves pick someone to idolize and then follow them around the whole time ! They’re a people of followers, not leaders, and leaders are more important ! {cat/dog simile, self-snipped}
Elves:
(sarcastically) Of course ! A species that has 20/20 eyesight, magic powers and no flaws ! They’re irreal !
Dwarves:
Just because you don’t like someone doesn’t mean you just throw them in jail right away ! Someone like that must have a flawed justice system.
Isildur:
YES, I would have ! He could have said that the ring did it, then become king over all the people of middle earth or put a puppet on the throne. It’s not a great idea, but better than having the ring “alive”. If you negociate smartly and do a bit of acting, it would work ! Of course, it isn’t honest, but it save millions of lives !
GaladrieL
Sent her people with Celeborn to help Aragon ! She could have abandoned them anyway, because all they were doing was twiddling their beautiful thumbs and enjoying the scenery. And as for the ring bearer alone part… What about Sam ? He heard all about that, but went with Frodo anyway and did his best.
Galadriel was excellent at admiring herself in a pool of water, but she didn’t help much. As soon as they won, however, she was right at the wedding party and all for going on a cruise with Frodo.
It’s not that I don’t like LOTR. I just dislike the elves.
39, 42- *annihilates* HELLO? You’ve just chosen to put down an extremely powerful Elven queen, who also happens to be on MuseBlog… so DON’T MAKE FUN OF ELVES!!!!!!!!!!!
Seriously, though, she wouldn’t have been more useful in person. Do you not remember that she has one of the Three rings of the Elves? And that she kinda went crazy when Frodo offered her the ring? And that she HAD to stay? Don’t you remember that whole part in the movie (I can’t remember how accurate it is) with the “I have passed the test, I have to leave after the war” thing?
Fanuilos heryn aglar!
Rîn athar annún-aearath,
Calad ammen i reniar
Mi ‘aladhremmin ennorath!
A Elbereth Gilthoniel
I chîn a thûl lin mÃriel
Fanuilos le linnathon
Ne ndor haer thar i aearon.
A elin na gaim eglerib
Ned în ben-anor trerennin
Si silivrin ne pherth ‘waewib
Cenim lyth thÃlyn thuiennin.
A Elbereth Gilthoniel
Men echenim sà derthiel
Ne chaered hen nu ‘aladhath
Ngilith or annún-aearath.
43) But she got over it ! And that ring would have been useful in Mordor. Besides… I though you finally changed your name to RoseQuartz. I don’t mind her leaving, I just think that she should have helped a bit more. She could have helped the people in Gondor, for example.
To understand what motivates the Elves, you have to know a few things that aren’t apparent in the movies, or even from a casual reading of the books. For example:
– They’re not really Mary Sues. A long time ago, different tribes of Elves did horrible things to one another and accrued all sorts of curses and dooms, from which they are still suffering.
– The Elves may be immortal, but they can be killed — and when that happens, they have no afterlife to look forward to. Men go to a sort of heaven (more like Valhalla, I think) after they die, but Elves just stop existing. So being killed in battle is a much bigger deal for an Elf than it is for a human being (or, I suppose, a Hobbit).
– The Elves don’t belong in Middle-earth anymore. They’re losing their powers. Rivendell and Lórien are just the tiny remnants of once-huge Elf kingdoms. Elves may look young and beautiful, but they’re old and tired and just want to leave Middle-earth and go back to their original home over the sea. Most of them have already left. Elrond’s wife (the daughter of Galadriel) left a long time ago, after having been kidnapped and tortured by Orcs. Elves have even stopped having children. Arwen (Galadriel’s granddaughter) is the youngest of them, and she’s already 3,000 years old when the Lord of the Rings begins.
– Galadriel longs to leave Middle-earth, too (remember her song: “Too long have I dwelt upon this Hither Shore”), but she can’t. She’s stuck there in banishment for having rebelled against the Valar (gods) long ago. By refusing to take the Ring, she finally gains the right to end her exile and go home.
– The Elf-warriors who help the Riders of Rohan defend Helm’s Deep in the movie weren’t in the book. It’s a nice gesture, but I’m not sure Elrond could have mustered that many troops even if he’d wanted to.
So I don’t think you can blame the Elves for not being more helpful to Men and Hobbits. They’re about to lose their jobs whatever happens. The only question is whether they get to retire to Florida or not.
46- thank you for clearing that up. Sort of. The discussion will probably continue.
Happy eleventy-sixth birthday JRR! I read the hobbit (a long time ago, I’ll have to read it again) and all three LOTR books. I started the appendices at the end of book three but I didn’t finish them. I should probably dig up my father’s copy of the Silmarilian.
45- How could she help Gondor? They were doomed anyway! Yeah, she has magic, but it’s not like wizard magic.
I wonder if J.R.R got his idea about Eowen going out to the battle from Elanor of Aquetain.
Funny story:
I was reading the Fellowship last year during class. My teacher said something along the lines of, “Excuse me, what are you reading?” I held up my book. She looked at it and exclaimed, “Oh, Lord of the Rings!” and then start quoting one of Bilbo’s poems which I had read just minutes before. She finished her quote and then said, “Yes, they’re really good books, but please don’t read it during my class.” The whole class was rolling, especially since they had no clue what she had just recited, having not read the books.
The elves certainly do have unfortunate and tragic backgrounds, but i still feel they are rather too perfect as a species. Also, regarding hobbits vs. dwarves, i really have no strong interspecies preference.
Even some of Tolkien’s friends disliked his Elves. A bunch of them used to meet in a pub to read to one another from their books-in-progress. (They called themselves the Inklings.) When Tolkien read his latest chapters from what was to become The Lord of the Rings, one fellow would groan and say, “Not another Elf!”
46) Thank you GAPAs! That really cleared things up!
Lord of the Rings is !!!!awesome!!!!, but after stepping back and taking a nice look at it I’ve found flaws. For instance, good and evil is a bit too black-and-white. You’re either god or bad, and even that’s usually evident by your physical appearance. The exception, of course, is Gollum/Smeagol (aka He of the Multiple Personalities). The idea of the one true king annoys me-we’re all born equal, no?-and none of the characters make enough jokes. Sam makes jokes, and he’s awesome, and so do Merry and Pippin in about the first book, but Frodo loses his halfway through Fellowship of the Ring and the rest of them took life waaay too seriously.
A short story I read that made me laugh: “Senator Bilbo”, where a descendant of the famous hobbit is portrayed in a Middle-Earth advanced in years. There really was a racist senator in the early 20th century, I think it was, whose last name was Bilbo. That story sparked another annoyance with LOTR: at one point, Senator Bilbo says, “Well, I was raised on the Red Book of Westmarch, chapter and verse, and there it says that orcs are an abomination and a mockery of the higher races.” Makes you wonder.
51) They are still great books though. And I like Gollum. Besides, the orcs are sort of the evil opposites of humans and the Uruk-hai are evil opposites of elves.
Do you know the authors Wolfgang and Heike Hohlbein ? They wrote a trilogy called Märchenmond (the english title is magic moon, which sounds cheesy) that you’d probably like.
The Bartimäus trilogy is also a series that avoids the black/white part. We can talk about it on the books thread if you want.
Gollum is interesting because at times he’s sort of close to human, and at times Sauron takes over, it’s like he has a severe multiple personality disorder, combined with addiction to the ring (look, I know it’s not like that. I’m just saying). Orcs were what happened when Sauron mutilated and tortured and did horrible things to Elves. Morgoth, however, did some preliminary work on that. And Uruk-hai are orcs bred to be super-strong and sunlight-resistant.
51- Frodo’s heading into the stronghold of the most depraved and powerful creature currently on Middle-Earth to carry out a mission that will most likely result in his death, all the while being tempted and corrupted by the horrible power of the ring he’s carrying. Wouldn’t you lose your sense of humor under those circumstances?
54: I dunno, Sam kept some vestiges of humor, didnhe? And as to whether I’d lose my sense of humor: um… I’d probably end up making really bad puns at completely inappropriate moments. So, yah.
I don’t have much of a sense of humor anyway, so… yeah. But in my opinion the Fellowship is better than the other two because there’s more humor.
42: Elves do NOT pick someone to idolize and then just follow them around. And even if they did it certainly wouldn’t be men, even men like Aragorn. Legolas and Aragorn share a sort of mutual friendship- I judge that if Aragorn went and got corrupted by the ring or did something really stupid, Legolas wouldn’t keep following him.
Wouldn’t it be cool to be a hobbit? You could spend all day eating and gardening.
56: I’m not sure if Aragorn is capable of corruption by the ring. Didn’t he have a staring contest with Sauron in the palantir, and win? Which I find kind of creepy, ’cause Sauron’s the Great Eye That Never Blinks.
Eh, I wouldn’t really want to be a hobbit. It’d be nice when I was tired and wanted to rest, but eventually it’d be boring. I’d like to be an Ent. Or even…
Here we come! Now you die!
We’re the fighting Uruk-hai…
“Not all who wander are lost.”
-JRR Tolkien
The quote that has probably affected me the most.
57- True… but the thing is that according to legend, all men are corruptible. And in the palantir, remember, Sauron manages to at least upset Aragorn. I think it’s less of a staring contest and more of a “who can keep cool and drive the other one to terror or distraction” contest, because what Aragorn is trying to do in the first place is to distract Sauron, not to kill him, and I think Sauron doesn’t want to kill Aragorn at first because he wants to scorn him.
57) I’m not sure if I would like to be a hobbit, but I like their mentality. Even when chasing after riches, they still don’t forget the beauty of their own garden. Sam is actually my favorite character; he has big adventures, saves the world and then goes home and tends his garden. But in my opinion, their best quality is bringing things into perspective.
58) But Aragon’s the “one true king”, so if he could be corrupted, there would be no hope at all for the rest of the humans. So that makes him the “Ãœberman” in a way. And he has a good poker-face
Something to think about: LOTR was first published in 1954, in England. That’s a long time ago, if you think about it-more then 50 years. What would have been different if it had been published recently in America by a convinced patriot ?
± Would the elves be vegan or vegetarian ? If you read the article on vegetarianism in the B-day issue of Muse and the short “about” paragraph, you notice how much our ideas about eating and animals have changed. Back then, people had less scruples about eating Daisy (no offense meant to Daisy*chain), Chicken Little or Babe. Now every restaurant has a vegetarian section to the menu and no-one raises their eyebrow if you ask whether there’s meat in the sauce.
± Would Aragon be president ? The fairy tales with the “right person” at the “right time” are still popular, but only in a classical sense, since the right people seldom show up when you want them to, and always when you don’t. Middle Earth consists of kingdoms, which in turn rely on the son of so-and-so being as good as his father. The rest of the people (i.e. no elvish blood, not in the guard and not royal) have very little to say. Would Uruk-hai be running around distributing “Vote Sauron !” flyers ? (just joking about the flyers, but you get the idea)…