The Revived Tolkien Trivia

[farntfar]

Or also from the map that Pyan has so helpfully supplied, the SOUTH UNDEEP and the NORTH UNDEEP, although I have no idea about their significance other than they would seem to lack depth.

 

[Pyan]

Or also from the map that Pyan has so helpfully supplied, the SOUTH UNDEEP and the NORTH UNDEEP, although I have no idea about their significance other than they would seem to lack depth.

And something I've never noticed - Dol Guldur is exactly due North from the Argonath...

 

[Grimward]

Dol Guldur IS pretty much due north of the Argonath (and well-spotted Sir Pyan), but the "more or less" and "lacking in depth" were the clues this time; the Undeeps were the answer I was looking for (and would have accepted either). A bell to far, then, but since Py provided the map AND the passage that made up the "quote" here, in fairness far you should probably let the Green One ring it at least once...

Yours for the next challenge, far, and good job, all.

 

[Pyan]

Doh! I was thinking of Sarn Gebir = rapids = shallow water, and never thought of the Undeeps...

Or also from the map that Pyan has so helpfully supplied, the SOUTH UNDEEP and the NORTH UNDEEP, although I have no idea about their significance other than they would seem to lack depth.

It's in the Unfinished Tales, far:

...since the great loops of Anduin (where it came down swiftly past Lorien and entered the low flat lands before its descent again into the chasm of the Emyn Muil) had many shallow and wide shoals over which a determined and well equipped enemy could force a crossing by rafts or pontoons, especially in the two westward bends, known as the North and South Undeeps.

Unfinished Tales, The History of Galadriel and Celeborn, Appendix C: The Boundaries of Lórien

Good challenge, Grimmy, and well spotted,far!

Onward!

 

[farntfar]

Thanks Grim
But once again I arrived late and won the bell by just adding a trivial detail to the great work of my peers.
Py, it seems to me that the rapids were still less deep than the undeeps, but never mind.
so I offer your something from your own town.
Grandsire Caters at St Mary, Southampton - YouTube

OK
Try this.
A mother and daughter were both written out of the story because of the same light, but some long ages apart; The one by her great desire for it, the other by her great terror of it.
What was the light, and who were the girls.

 

[Grimward]

Hmmm, I'll take a stab at it.

Mother is Ungoliant, Daughter is Shelob, the Light is the light of the Silmarils (which of course is the mingled light of the two Elder trees of Valinor).

Huger and darker yet grew Ungoliant, but her lust was unsated. 'With one hand thou givest,' she said; ' with the left only. Open thy right hand.' In his right hand Morgoth held close the Silmarils, and though they were locked in a crystal casket, they had begun to burn him, and his hand was clenched in pain; but he would not open it. 'Nay!' he said. 'Thou hast had thy due. For with my power that I put into thee thy work was accomplished. I need thee no more. These things thou shalt not have, nor see. I name them unto myself for ever....

Of the fate of Ungoliant no tale tells. Yet some have said that she ended long ago, when in her uttermost famine she devoured herself at last.

The Silmarillion, Quenta Silmarillion, Of the Flight of the Noldor

As if his indomitable spirit had set its potency in motion, the glass blazed suddenly like a white torch in his hand. It flamed like a star that leaping from the firmament sears the dark air with intolerable light. No such terror out of heaven had ever burned in Shelob's face before. The beams of it entered into her wounded head and scored it with unbearable pain, and the dreadful infection of light spread from eye to eye. She fell back beating the air with her forelegs, her sight blasted by inner lightnings, her mind in agony....

Shelob was gone; and whether she lay long in her lair, nursing her malice and her misery, and in slow years of darkness healed herself from within, rebuilding her clustered eyes, until with hunger like death she spun once more her dreadful snares in the glens of the Mountains of Shadow, this tale does not tell.

The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, Book Four, Chapter X, The Choices of Master Samwise

'And you, Ring Bearer,' she said, turning to Frodo. 'I come to you last who are not last in my thoughts. For you I have prepared this.' She held up a small crystal phial: it glittered as she moved it, and rays of white light sprang from her hand. 'In this phial', she said, 'is caught the light of Earendil's star....'

"Earendil's star", of course, is the Silmaril of the air, burning on his brow.

The Lord of the Rings, Book Two, Chapter VIII, Farewell to Lorien

 

[farntfar]

No flies on you then Grim.
Correct in every particular.

So a woven bell and the next question to Grimward.

 

[Grimward]

*Rings woven bell, but as is his luck, the clapper sticks to the webby sides*

Does that mean a spiderman got his powers?

Thank you, far.

Where is a war mentioned to us, and is it relevant?

 

[Pyan]

WW1, and specifically the Battle of the Somme, in the landscape around Mordor?

The Dead Marshes and the approaches to the Morannon owe something to Northern France after the Battle of the Somme.

Letters, 226, From a letter to Professor L.W. Forster

And generally, he uses his experiences in WW1 as sources for the evil in LotR, and as inspiration for the good:

So I took to 'escapism': or really transforming experience into another form and symbol with Morgoth and Orcs and the Eldalie (representing beauty and grace of life and artefact) and so on; and it has stood me in good stead in many hard years since and I still draw on the conceptions then hammered out.]

Letters, 73, From a letter to Christopher Tolkien

 

[farntfar]

*
Does that mean a spiderman got his powers?

Atta boy Clarence.

 

[Grimward]

Atta boy Clarence.

Indeed.

Sir Greenness,

You offer a historical solution from a source that I was tempted to use, but alas, tis not it this time. I suspect if you think about it from a literary perspective, my challenge will be defenseless...

And yes, I probably should be more forthcoming, but at least some of the participants from the quote in question would not be...quite the opposite, actually.

 

[farntfar]

The Hobbit. Over hill and Under Hill.

Introducing the Goblins after they had caught our heroes in their front porch.

"But they had a special grudge against Thorin's people, because of the war which you have heard mentioned, but which doesn't come in to this tale; and anyway goblins don't care whom they catch as lon as it's done smart and secret, and the prisoners are not able to defend themselves."

So no. Its not very relevant really.

 

[Grimward]

Quite.

Well done, far. An irrelevant war bell to you, and the honors of hoisting the next challenge.

 

[farntfar]

Thank you Grim. That was a search and a half.

Try this.

What have Galdor and Hador, Bregor and Baragund and Beor and Marech (and others) all seemingly got in common with the Pukel-men of Dunharrow? (If not for very long)

By the way. Where does all the bell business originally come from?

 

[Pyan]

By the way. Where does all the bell business originally come from?

It started in the original Trivia thread, far - the one that was closed because of trolling. This here thread is the Revised Tolkien Trivia, which was started with slightly different rules a bit later. And the "bell" business was something that just started - people started awarding something extra to the person that gave the right answer. Wasn't only bells, at first, either - I remember Nesacat being given tinsel, amongst other items.


BTW, do you mean Marach, rather than Marech?...

 

[farntfar]

Thanks for that Py'

And you're quite right; I did mean Marach, not Marech.

(I had a friend in Poland once called Mareck. It must have been that. )
((Anyway, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. ))

 

[Corbier]

Why do you insist on breaking the trivia, far?

 

[farntfar]

I have to say that this one was really challenging. We want more, Far!

Make your mind up Cor!

A quick hint.
Start by looking for what you know about the Pukel men and any references made to them. Don't start from the other end.

 

[cornelius]

I would have guessed their short lifespan but then I remembered Beor The Old

 

[farntfar]

No I'm sorry Cornelius, but it's not that.
Do we have any info on the lifespan of a pukel man? (Or at least of the models from which they were carved.) I don't recall any.