The Revived Tolkien Trivia

[Boaz]

I must pick up a copy of The Hobbit. I just browsed every Shire and Bree chapter in TLotr, plus all of Ioreth's lines and I'm sure gamers and greybeards is not there. Gammer resembles gaffer, to me... which means the Shire. But, greybeards is used by Beregond... and I don't remember Hobbits using it, they use Gaffer. Gammer then, makes me think of the north... Beorn, Laketown, or maybe Dwarves. I'll see if the used bookstore on the way home has There and Back Again

 

[Hugh]

I also found Beregond's use of the word "greybeard" yesterday, but nary a sighting of a gammer. I haven't looked at the Shire or Bree as yet. I'll continue to focus on Minas Tirith for the time being in case I've scanned through too quickly.

 

[Boaz]

Okay... I picked up a copy of The Hobbit today. I've scanned the pages concerning Beorn, Bard, Laketown, the Master, Thorin's explanation of the quest, and even the spiders. I did not see gammers and greybeards. I'm moving on to the tale of Turin.

 

[Boaz]

The Hobbit, Chapter Ten: A Warm Welcome

Just before the party enters Laketown...

Other folk were far away; and some of the younger people in the town openly doubted the existence of any dragon in the mountain, and they laughed at the greybeards and gammers who said that they had seen him flying in the sky in their young days.

Gammer is so much like gaffer, that I searched through the Shire chapters, but Hobbits, as a general rule, don't have beards and the text should have read gaffers and gammers. So, I kept thinking it was Gondor, Bree, or Laketown...

 

[Pyan]

Well done, Boaz. I did think that you must have "scanned the pages concerning Beorn, Bard, Laketown...." a little too fast.

Your turn.

 

[Boaz]

You pulled the phrase from before the dialogue starts... that's tricksy.

Okay... here is a video of Homer Simpson singing a song.

If you take the theme of Homer's parody and combine it with the title of the original song popularized by Frank Sinatra, then you might hear a phrase uttered in Middle-earth.

Oh, and you can use the internet to search for Sinatra's song if you like.

 

[farntfar]

Oh that's far too easy, but a very nice clue.

From The grey havens.
Indeed a generation later one might hear an old gaffer in an inn, after a good pint of well-earned ale, put down his mug with a sigh: 'Ah. That was a proper fourteen twenty, that was!'

Also one of my favourite Sinatra songs. It was a very good year. (Mostly I can take him or leave him.)

 

[Boaz]

Correct!

 

[Hugh]

Well done indeed Boaz!

I was convinced that it was in the LOTR: Gammers and Greybeards seemed so familiar.

Yesterday evening I fruitlessly tracked the various conversations between Gimli and Legolas.

Still, I enjoy being reminded of the writing, even if I'm more scanning than reading.

 

[HareBrain]

Well done Boaz.

I was way off track, convinced it was something to do with Rohan. I could even "remember" someone saying "You'll find him [somewhere], with the gammers and greybeards", maybe in the refuge caves at Helm's Deep.

 

[Hugh]

I could even "remember" someone saying "You'll find him [somewhere], with the gammers and greybeards", maybe in the refuge caves at Helm's Deep.

I must have read the same edition: the refuge caves were one of the first places I checked, and I was genuinely surprised when neither gammer nor greybeard could be found there.

 

[HareBrain]

They clearly should have been. Maybe we should approach the Tolkien Estate with suggested amendments to the text.

 

[Hugh]

They clearly should have been. Maybe we should approach the Tolkien Estate with suggested amendments to the text.

Perhaps I should start collecting material for the @HareBrain / @Hugh edition that will include all the stuff that Tolkien meant to put in but which somehow got mislaid during late night Inkling benders.

 

[Hugh]

Oh that's far too easy, but a very nice clue.

From The grey havens.
Indeed a generation later one might hear an old gaffer in an inn, after a good pint of well-earned ale, put down his mug with a sigh: 'Ah. That was a proper fourteen twenty, that was!'

Also one of my favourite Sinatra songs. It was a very good year. (Mostly I can take him or leave him.)

Ahh! I missed that this was another question and answer!

Well done @farntfar! I doubt that I'd have got near that one.

 

[farntfar]

Thank you Hugh, and thank you Boaz.

Where might you find the master of those that watch from afar?

 

[Boaz]

I'm stuck at my father's house... blizzard in Denver. Farny is trying to be tricksy in his phrasing... maybe I'll get home tonight and get my book.

 

[HareBrain]

Do you need a quote, Farny? (If I might also address you with such familiarity?)

 

[farntfar]

A quote would be nice, but if you can explain it sufficiently that will do.

And feel free to call me Farny if you like.
Some call me Far, some farntfar.
I am Farn to one fat man in Bree. (Sorry @Droflet . It just fitted the quotation. I'm sure you're a hunk really. )

 

[HareBrain]

OK, my answer is, "No one really knows for sure".

By "those that watch from afar", @farntfar surely means the palantiri. And Gandalf says:

"The chief and master of these was under the Dome of Stars in Osgiliath before its ruin." (LOTR, The Palantir).

I don't believe it is ever mentioned again. Just after the quote above, Gandalf guesses that Sauron's stone in Barad Dur is the one from Minas Ithil, and I don't believe he is ever contradicted about this. Denethor's is the Minas Anor stone, and Saruman's is the Orthanc stone.

So we can only assume that the Osgiliath palantir remains in the ruins, or fell into the Anduin, or something.

 

[farntfar]

Good work, HB. And you're nearly there, but there is a sort of boss of bosses, that I'm looking for.

Tolkien even says it's still there.