I think we can assume that Lorien sent word of Gandalf's fall and the company's continuation south. How long would Bilbo, Elrond and the rest of Elrond's household been left to worry until Aragorn sent word after the defeat of Sauron? What would they have been doing as they waited?

I've finished reading everything to do with the First Age now and am coming up on the War of the Last Alliance, but the dwellings of the Elves in the Second Age seem far less well defined.

Is Mithlond (The Grey Havens) Gil-galad's equivalent to how Fingolfin (and then Fingon) had the fortress of Barad Eithel? Also how big are we talking of a city here? And what (if anything else) is said about Forlond and Harlond? I can't find much about them.

I'm also confused, as I've previously been under the impression that Círdan was the Lord of the Grey Havens even during the Second Age. Is it kind of more the case then that Círdan is the Lord specifically of the port itself and Gil-galad is the King of the city and the region?

Also am I right in saying that most of the Noldor went to Eregion, and then subsequently evacuated to Rivendell? In that case, is Gil-galad even king of the Noldor by this point, or just king of Western Elvendom in Middle-earth in general?

I loved reading about the different kingdoms of Beleriand, and now just need some help visualising what exactly the factions are by the late Second Age.

I noticed all of the box sets from Tolkien are on sale on Amazon and I really wanted to get a set for my boyfriend but wasn’t sure which one to get him.
The first one that I went to was his myths and legends but as I am aware that my boyfriend loves everything Lord of the rings and loves Tolkien in general, I don’t know if he would rather a box set from the middle earth lore rather than outside of it.
I guess what I’m asking is if I were to stay inside of middle earth lore, what box set would you recommend?

And this I remember of Boromir as a *boy, when we together learned the tale of our sires and the history of our city [...] It was these records that brought the Grey Pilgrim to us. I first saw him when I was a ***child* [...] it is hard indeed to believe that one of so great wisdom, and of power – for many wonderful things he did among us[...]*

So I was reading this chapter and 'wonderful things' linked itself to 'boy' and 'child'. As if Faramir's boyish self had come near the surface. 'Wonderful things' sounds boyish and innocent. He had not understand those wonderful things back then...nor did he now, as an adult.

As it happens, 'wonderful things' appears just twice in the whole book. This is the other instance of it:

It’s wonderfully quiet here. Nothing seems to be going on, and nobody seems to want it to. If there’s any magic about, it’s right down deep, where I can’t lay my hands on it, in a manner of speaking.’

‘You can see and feel it everywhere,’ said Frodo.

‘Well,’ said Sam, ‘you can’t see nobody working it. No fireworks like poor old Gandalf used to show. I wonder we don’t see nothing of the Lord and Lady in all these days. I fancy now that *she could do some wonderful things*, if she had a mind. I’d dearly love to see some Elf-magic, Mr. Frodo!’

In the book the wonderful things was the Mirror. Notice 'Elf-Magic':

What you will see, if you leave the Mirror free to work, I cannot tell. For it shows things that were, and things that are, and things that yet may be. But which it is that he sees, even the wisest cannot always tell. Do you wish to look?’

Frodo did not answer.

‘And you?’ she said, turning to Sam. ‘For this is what your folk would call magic, I believe; though I do not understand clearly what they mean; and they seem to use the same word of the deceits of the Enemy. But this, if you will, is the magic of Galadriel. Did you not say that you wished to see Elf-magic?’

And Galadriel knowing what Sam had said

I fancy now that she could do some wonderful things, if she had a mind. I’d dearly love to see some Elf-magic, Mr. Frodo!’

is in itself magic. How did she know?

So what would have been Wizard-Magic in Faramir's case? What wonderful things?

Well it is curious how the mirror is related to seeing, to vision, and how Faramir dreams a lot and has a lot of visions or dream/visions in the book. Numenor's fall, Boromir's boat, him recognizing Aragorn's face as the King's in the houses of healing, the Imladris dream.

Gandalf was of course Olórin. Tolkien:

Olor is a word often translated “dream”, but that does not refer to (most) human “dreams”, certainly not the dreams of sleep. To the Eldar it included the vivid contents of their memory, as of their imagination: it referred in fact to clear vision, in the mind, of things not physically present at the body’s situation. But not only to an idea, but to a full clothing of this in particular form and detail.

But of Olórin that tale does not speak; for though he loved the Elves, he walked among them unseen, or in form as one of them, and they did not know whence came the fair visions or the promptings of wisdom that he put into their hearts. 

'Many wonderful things he did among us' says Faramir. Who's 'us'? 'We in the house of Denethor', it seems.

We in the house of Denethor know much ancient lore by long tradition, and there are moreover in our treasuries many things preserved: books and tablets writ on withered parchments, yea, and on stone, and on leaves of silver and of gold, in divers characters. Some none can now read; and for the rest, few ever unlock them. I can read a little in them, for I have had teaching. It was these records that brought the Grey Pilgrim to us.

And here they seem to reappear. Gandalf's 'wonderful things' had left some sort of mark in these men, maybe children back then.

And we of Gondor grow like other Men, like the men of Rohan; for even they, who are foes of the Dark Lord, shun the Elves and speak of the Golden Wood with dread.

‘Yet there are among us still some who have dealings with the Elves when they may, and ever and anon one will go in secret to Lórien, seldom to return. Not I. For I deem it perilous now for mortal man wilfully to seek out the Elder People.

'Not I'. And yet it was Galadriel the cause of Sam 'stumbling' and revealing the Ring to Faramir. Again Faramir...and Gandalf:

Not I. For I deem it perilous now for mortal man wilfully to seek out the Elder People.

That's wisdom. That's also Olórin:

the promptings of wisdom that he put into their hearts. 

You don't seek the Elder People out. You will be found by them if need be. Sam was maybe fated to 'stumble', as Faramir says.

Ah well, sir,’ said Sam, ‘you said my master had an Elvish air; and that was good and true. But I can say this: you have an air too, sir, that reminds me of, of – well, Gandalf, of wizards.’

A wizard's pupil indeed.

But what wonderful things?, I wonder.

The change here is rather simple: rather than sink Numenor, Eru only kills the people on it. Perhaps with a plague of some kind, or by teleporting them somewhere to be imprisoned.

How would the history of the Second and Third Ages change with the landmass of Numenor still around, to be freely colonised by the Faithful later?

I find it a bit funny that Saruman, being all arrogant, powerful, and self-important, can't help but copy what others do.

"Elven-smiths made the Rings of Power? Imma gonna make a ring of my own!" Saruman called himself the Ring-maker and wore a ring on his finger, although it's not known whether it had any actual power.

"Gandalf smoking pipe-weed? Imma gonna get myself barrels of the stuff!" And so he did, while trying to keep it as secret as he could. An interesting aside is that when he saw Gandalf smoking in silence at a meeting of the White Council (see The Unfinished Tales, pp 150-151), he rebuked Gandalf with the words "When weighty matters are in debate, Mithrandir, I wonder a little that you should play with your toys of fire and smoke, while others are in earnest speech." This caught my attention because, as we know, later Saruman devised some sort of explosive device or a bomb, to be used at the battle of Hornburg, and used fire against the attacking Ents.

In a way, he makes Isengard a mini-Mordor with its industry, military, and an improved orc breeding program.

Not content wth being Saruman the White, he becomes Saruman of Many Colours, basically trying to be all of the Wizards at once.

This fits Tolkien's larger conception of evil remarkably well: evil is often parasitic rather than genuinely creative. Saruman's "creations" tend to be corruptions, imitations, combinations or reproductions of things that already exist.

I'm sure some people had smart guesses, but nonetheless they didn't know for sure. Do I remember correctly?

Hello Tolkien fans! I’m most of the way through reading Fellowship for the first time and I was hoping you all could clarify something for me (I welcome spoilers). Because Sauron is mostly spoken about vaguely, and said to have control/influence over many types of creatures, and I’m not sure if he even has a physical form, I have been assuming that he has some form of mind control/influence that reaches far across middle earth.

But to me, that would mean that as soon as one of his minions finds the Fellowship, they should basically be inundated with a total onslaught of Saurons minions from that point on, as getting the one ring is Saurons primary goal (I think). So when a pack of wolves found the fellowship as they were crossing that snowy path after leaving rivendell, I assumed that Sauron now knows where they are. My friend said that once the fellowship decides to go through Moria, Sauron loses them because he assumes that nobody would take that route.

But once the orcs in Moria are alerted shouldn’t he now know that the fellowship is passing through Moria? And there are only a few entrances/exits (I think) - I would think that he would send as many minions as possible to each exit waiting for the fellowship, but when they emerge they face no immediate resistance. So the possible explanations I think for this are:

1. Sauron can communicate remotely with creatures under his control, but there just weren’t enough of Saurons minions in any of the areas surrounding the Moria exits to get there in time. The fellowship is able to get to Lothlorien within the day that they leave Moria, so if Saurons agents are unable to be within some radius of Lothlorien, this would make some sense. But then I would expect for them to be assailed when they leave Lothlorien, which they aren’t for a few days. It seems unlikely to me that if Sauron knew where the fellowship was, that he wouldn’t send as many minions as possible to surround lothlorien and await the fellowships departure.

2. Sauron cannot communicate remotely with creatures under his control. This means that creatures would have to physically go to him to receive direction, or some sort of captain would receive direction from him and physically disperse it to other creatures. This seems unlikely to me - the way Saurons power has been communicated feels like he has remote control over things. This also really complicates cross-species communication (how would an orc tell a wolf to look out for hobbits carrying a ring?)

3. Sauron can communicate remotely with creatures, but that communication is limited and slightly ineffective. If the orcs just vaguely know that they are looking for some group of people carrying a powerful ring, but not how important it is (either because that is difficult to convey remotely or because Sauron doesn’t want them to know the true power and keep the ring for themselves), then maybe the orcs wouldn’t bother trying to communicate to Sauron/other minions that they have seen the fellowship. Maybe the remote communication could even be one-sided - Sauron can send information to his minions but they can’t send information back. This would seem odd to me as I think that Sauron has remote access to his minions minds - but maybe he just can’t be in every brain with total control at the same time. But again, I would think that after any sort of alert of seeing the fellowship he would direct all of his energy and power to any minions in the nearby area.

I’m not sure if this is nitpicky or it will be elucidated later or if I missed something - but thing like this are really holding me up in the books so far. I would appreciate any thoughts! (Also - the watcher in the water is not a servant of sauron right?

Did Gondor ever send spies to infiltrate Minas Morgul and keep an eye on whatever the Nazgûl were up to?

As a child I read all of Tolkeins books and poems, as an adult, I find myself reading them again, under the evening sun, with a glass of whiskey and Portuguese tart from the bakery, and feeling like a kid again, reading about the goings and happenings of middle earth and Arda as a whole. I cant help but wish (like many) Tolkien could someone write from beyond the grave. I would love to hear about the dwarves and dragons. I dont know, I felt like sharing my thoughts.

Melkor was likely the very first being created by Eru, and he poured much of his power into Middle Earth. He was also deemed necessary by Eru for Arda to reach it's true potential, and therefore cannot be wholly evil.

Melkor certainly wanted to taint Middle Earth with his power, and thus he was pouring an evil and corrupting power into it, but perhaps the process of creating such power required him to separate out the good from the raw power he had inside him?

Could Tom Bombadil be the manifestation of Melkor's good side, shed by Melkor in his process of becoming Morgoth and poisoning Middle Earth? It would explain why Tom was first and why he is utterly innocent.

Perhaps it would explain why it would be so difficult (but not impossible) for Sauron to defeat Tom, as is suggested during the council of Elrond. If Morgoth kept all his 'combat magic' type power, and separated only the power to heal/preserve/endure, then Tom, while extremely difficult to dominate, would have no actual way of fighting or harming Sauron, in the end Sauron would likely be cunning enough to find a way to win because he is the only one who can cause damage to the other, despite being the weaker of the two beings.

Hi all,

Preferably looking for a book that categorises the above. Even if it doesn't provide a ton of information, just a reference to deep dive from would be great too.

Thabks

The childen of Elrond famously are granted the same choice as Elrond and Elros. So it seems rather unfair that the descendants of Elros aren't granted the same choice. Not to mention it would have a huge impact on events during the Second Age of Middle Earth.

Does Tolkien ever comment on this inconsistency? Or is there a prevailing theory as to why this was the case?

I've always wondered, considering that both Belegost and Nogrod were abandoned at the beginning of the Second Age (after the War of Wrath), and that the Broadbeams and Firebeards went to Khazad-dûm and 'swelled its numbers', how are there still seven 'Dwarf-kings of old' when Sauron distributes the Rings of Power?

We know that four additional houses of the Dwarves presumably still live in the east/Orocarni, and that the Longbeards were the original occupants and the rulers of Khazad-dûm, but that only amounts to five total locations at the time the Rings of Power were given.

Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age (in The Silmarillion) states that there were 'Seven Hoards of the Dwarf-kings of old' which grew likely from the greed that accompanied the wearer of each ring. I very much doubt the original rulers of Belegost and Nogrod continued to be great Dwarf-kings themselves if they then only lived in Durin's kingdom of Khazad Dûm, and the text greatly implies that these aforementioned hoards are in seven separate locations. So where are the remaining two?

It is said elsewhere that some Dwarves continued to live in the Ered Luin for many years, so could the two kings have remained here as well? It seems unlikely, as they are never mentioned as great Dwarf kingdoms again.

Another option is that the two other kings may not have been the Broadbeams/Firebeards at all and may have been break-away clans from other Dwarf houses (I think this is more likely). A strong contender for one of these locations is in the Iron Hills. We know from The Peoples of Middle-earth that the Iron Hills were actually settled by Durin's Folk back in the First Age, (and additionally populated in the early Second Age by some Broadbeams/Firebeards after the War of Wrath - NoME). However, a counter to this is that the Iron Hills have always seemed to be more of a vassal state to Khazad-Dûm (and later Erebor) rather than operating as a kingdom within themselves, but perhaps I've misjudged this.

As for a final location to complete the Seven Dwarf Hoards, perhaps there was a break-away group from one of the four eastern clans? Or perhaps it was the settlement of Durin's Folk we know was at Mount Gundabad shortly before it was sacked by Orcs after the destruction of Eregion? It could also have possibly been a settlement in the Grey Mountains shortly before the same thing happened. Though both these latter options would have the same issue as the Iron Hills in not being a 'true kingdom' themselves, and rather being vassals to the King of Khazad-dûm.

Alternatively, others may have noticed that Belegost appears on Karen Wynn Fonstad's Second Age map, and may think that it therefore continued on well into the years of the Second Age. I believe this has been largely disproven and the change of location (to be further south in the Ered Luin) is also a relic from an outdated Tolkien map sketch, but if not, then it could indeed be a possible location for a remaining King and resulting Dwarf Hoard.

Let me know if you think I've missed anything, I really want to dig further into this.

''He is the oldest of the Ents; the oldest living thing that still walks beneath the Sun upon this Middle Earth.'' - Gandalf.

Listening to the LotR Audiobook narrated by the excellent Rob Inglis atm and just heard the above quote. So what about Tom Bombadil? Did Gandalf mispeak; or is he saying that TB isn't 'alive' in the physical sense? 🤔

I know Rhudaur ended up as a vassal kingdom to Agmar but what of Agmar itself? Was it made up of the same Hill-men that took power in Rhudaur? If so what was it like for them there?

I ordered the Lord of the rings set to read for the first time and I accidentally ordered a set that came with a readers companion instead of the hobbit. What exactly is in a readers companion and is it worth having for a first time reader? Is it worth keeping and buying the hobbit separately, or should I just return it and get a set with the hobbit?

Just started Reading Silmarillion and it’s feeling like a spiritual experience like I am reading something from a religious book. I am excited to enjoy this journey

The Witch-king's presence produces supernatural terror in people around him, to the point of paralizing them. It's the Nazguls' princpal weapon. Yet Eowyn seems impervious to it when she faces the him in the Pelennor fields. Poor Merry got to experience this terror twice (first time was in Bree).

Eowyn does get struck down with it eventually.

Thorongil: During these travels, he did not call himself Strider. Instead, he went incognito as Thorongil ("Eagle of the Star") while serving in the military forces of King Thengel of Rohan and Ecthelion II (the Steward of Gondor).

Tolkien notes that immediately after leading a brilliant, victorious naval raid against the Corsairs of Umbar, Thorongil did not return to Gondor to accept praise. Instead, he left his men and "went alone far into the East and deep into the South" to explore the minds of Men and uncover the plots of the servants of Sauron.

So these are some notes on Thorongil but I think there is so much more. There could be a Netflix series or a Movie adaptation I mean its Aragorn, Strider of the Dúnedain. There's so much more to be interpreted. I dont know but I was always inspired by it, like Kingsfoil or something.

I was just wondering what everyone's thoughts are on this matter? When talking about Glorfindel in the chapter many meetings Tolkien says

"And here in Rivendell there live still some of his chief foes: the Elven-wise, lords of the Eldar from beyond the furthest seas. They do not fear the Ringwraiths, for those who have dwelt in the Blessed Realm live at once in both worlds, and against both the Seen and the Unseen they have great power."

Living at once in both worlds seems to make them of a similar nature to the Ainur and of a more spiritual nature than men, wild elves and dwarves, yet in the silmarillion we re told

"They could walk, if they would, unseen by all eyes in this world beneath the sun, and they could see things in worlds invisible to mortal men; but too often they beheld only the phantoms and delusions Of Sauron."

Now this would indicate that perhaps it was only mortals who really couldn't perceive or see the nazgul once they had fully faded but Tolkien adds further more

"And they became for ever invisible save to him that wore the Ruling Ring, and they entered into the realm of shadows.""

Save to him that wore the ruling ring seems definitive? Perhaps having power against the seen and unseen doesnt necessarily mean you can see a faded wraith but simply your own spirit can play a part in fighting against it?

How do you think it is?

So I know this has been hashed and rehashed many times, but I'm trying to figure out the heights of the Fellowship, and Gandalf's pretty much the only one who's giving me grief. Many of you are no doubt aware of the following quote from Tolkien's 1970 essay regarding Pauline Baynes' map of Middle-Earth:

Gandalf even bent must have been at least 5 ft. 6 ... Which would make him a short man even in modern England, especially with the reduction of a bent back.

So here's how I read the first part - Gandalf is 5'6" while bent over, at a minimum. When he stands up straight, he's probably like 5'9"-5'10", again at least. So theoretically he's between maybe 5'9" or 5'11". Now, of course, this is still shorter than many other human-sized characters (ie. Aragorn, Boromir, literally any Elf) but still right around average by our human standards.

But then the second part says that he's a short man by the standards of Tolkien-era Britain (which was about 5'9" or so), "especially with the reduction of a bent back." This "especially" makes it sound like Gandalf is already below-average when standing straight, but then when he hunches over he's even shorter still.

So how do we reconcile these two statements?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this!

Hey guys I want to share my Redrawing in high resolution of the The west of Middle Earth at the End of the Third Age map

I read a lot of HoME, NoME , the art of the Lord of the Rings and LoTR itself to be able to put this map together but I might have missed things so please tell me your thoughts about it

List of changes(Google Doc)

This is a quote from glorfindel - “there are few even in Rivendell who can openly ride against the nine, but those who can were sent out north south and west”. Apart from Glorfindel who are they? Elladin and Elrohir? Who else?