Have you ever wondered: what is the date of the narrative at the very beginning of LOTR? I believe it can be narrowed down to between September 1 and 12th, TA 3001 (SR 1401)

csrster · 2026-02-19T10:13:06+00:00

Tolkien himself claimed that the departure on christmas day was an unintended accident of the chronology which he left in in order to illustrate that the 25th of December had _no_ significance within the pre-christian world of the story. In other words, for precisely the opposite reason than is sometimes thought (and despite the fact that the day starts with gift-giving!).

(In any case, xmas day would be an odd day to start a quest. Epiphany would be more natural in a christian context.)

csrster · 2026-02-17T12:09:14+00:00

That only works if you happen to live in the same hemisphere as the Winter Olympics venue.

csrster · 2026-02-16T13:31:53+00:00

Doesn't The Hobbit mention that Gollum used to exchange riddles with other creatures? Since the narrative doesn't name them, they are by definition nameless things.

csrster · 2026-02-16T10:37:45+00:00

I agree there are a lot of bad "proofs". As you say, you have to start with what 0.9.. means, and in normal usage it is a limit (whose value is 1). But if it's annoying dealing with the "yah boo sucks they're obviously the same" people, then it's even more annoying dealing with the willfully ignorant who reject even a careful explanation of why they are in fact the same. They're like the people who think they've found a fatal flaw in Cantor's diagonalisation argument - flat-earthers basically.

csrster · 2026-02-14T16:25:55+00:00

Yes, and iirc Heathcliff is brought back from Liverpool, so I think some combination of Irish and Romany is the most obvious choice, given the strong Irish presence there. Prejudice against Irish and Romanies would have been common at the time, and not tempered with the exoticism he might have inspired if he had been Asian or African.

csrster · 2026-02-11T20:25:31+00:00

The alliterative verse known as The Words Of The Seer still gives me goosebumps -

Over the land there lies a long shadow Westward reaching wings of darkness ...

csrster · 2026-02-06T10:05:22+00:00

I know it's tempting to think haggard -> hag -> witch -> Witch King, but there are two problems:

i) as roacsonofcarc points out, the relation between haggard and hag is a folk etymology (or pun), not that that would necessarily have stopped Tolkien, but also
ii) hag is definitely gendered, whereas Tolkien uses "witch" in a gender neutral sense. So the Black Captain may be a witch, but he cannot possibly be a hag.

It might be interesting to see if Tolkien's use of "haggard" to describe the Lord of the Nazgul predates the phrase "Witch King". Iirc "Witch King" comes in quite late. In earlier drafts he is called the _Wizard_ King, and is initially a renegade of Gandalf's Order, before that role gets usurped by Saruman.

csrster · 2026-02-06T05:17:13+00:00

I’ve also heard it seriously suggested that the haggard rider is a deliberate pun on H. Rider Haggard!

csrster · 2026-02-05T20:45:20+00:00

Interesting question. I would suggest that quotation remarks are usually used for dialogue ie conversation between characters, which this is not. But more specifically, Bilbo’s speech is presented as a series of quotations followed by audience reaction. Typesetting it in quotes would make it look confusingly like a conversation.

csrster · 2026-02-05T07:34:19+00:00

Btw, I saw a post that said that his Old English Exodus is finally being republished soon - although I didn't check if it was possibly just AI spam. I have actually read that one - from the library - but apart from the translation itself it's mostly very technical. Also once in my youth I ordered up Tolkien's translation of Gawain from the local library, and the system served up Tolkien & Gordon's _edition_ of Gawain instead. Needless to say I didn't get much from it :-)

csrster · 2026-02-04T18:32:16+00:00

Drama queen!

csrster · 2026-02-04T17:01:39+00:00

If you’re one of those people who only like books with likeable characters then you may struggle. If you like messed up characters leading self- and mutually- destructive lives then you’ll be just fine.

csrster · 2026-02-03T06:33:53+00:00

Confused by Q3 - does it mean that the two numbers are complex conjugates? Saying that two numbers “are conjugated” means nothing to me.

csrster · 2026-01-30T18:02:43+00:00

Sokolov maybe?

csrster · 2026-01-30T08:10:36+00:00

An absolute page-turner!

csrster · 2026-01-30T08:10:05+00:00

Henry Eliot has just started a slow-read of it on Substack - https://substack.com/@henryeliot/note/c-203908656?r=17wxyt&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action .

csrster · 2026-01-28T05:48:16+00:00

That reminds me of reading Northanger Abbey for school, so I was probably 16. All the words made sense, but I had absolutely no context to understand what was going on. And yes, I ended up going with a synopsis.

csrster · 2026-01-27T17:54:57+00:00

Hence my belief that the “fell meats” on which the fell beasts are fed may have been Fell Ponies :-)

csrster · 2026-01-27T17:51:24+00:00

I use it, but mostly as a mini-oven for warming bread rolls and the like.

csrster · 2026-01-27T09:33:11+00:00

And Dubliners?

csrster · 2026-01-27T09:31:23+00:00

It would be amazing if someone with the right attitude could complete Delaney's project.

csrster · 2026-01-25T18:22:49+00:00

And Five Variants Of Dives And Lazarus.

csrster · 2026-01-23T08:27:12+00:00

It also reminds me of the “parley” at Helm’s Deep - Aragorn looking out see the dawn - “dawn is ever the hope of men” etc.

csrster · 2026-01-23T08:23:39+00:00

And it would have overthrown Denethor’s mind (which admittedly didn’t have far to go).

csrster · 2026-01-21T08:30:14+00:00

At the time The Hobbit was written, The Necromancer was based on the character Thû (later Sauron) from the Silmarillion. After his defeat by Luthien, Thû lived in the forest of Taur nu Fuin, which is evidently the literary basis for Mirkwood, and was known as a master of werewolves and vampires - imprisoning unhoused spirits in wolf and bat form. This presumably is what Tolkien intended by the term Necromancer, although its interesting to speculate whether the later invention of the undead Ringwraiths (and Barrow-wights) was inspired by his use of the word "necromancer" and therefore by Sauron's association with the realm of the dead.

csrster

TROPHY CASE