librarification

[dragonlady7]

This morning I made a lightning dash to the library to pick up reading materials, just in case the work on the Novel in the US Air Club this week doesn't come along. (There have been times when, in total frustration, I have had to abandon any creative writing; at times like that, it is very frustrating to have Nothing. To. Do.)

I dashed down to the Central library of the B&ECPL, which is somehow still miraculously Not Closed (although they have been undergoing severe delays in acquiring any new materials at all).

I zipped in, not having much time before work this afternoon, and basically stuck my arm out and wiped off the shelf of Tolkien's Extras. I nabbed Lost Tales, Lost Tales 2, Lays of Beleriand, Treason of Isengard, and Peoples of Middle-earth.

What follows are excerpts I thought interesting.


I think I wont' bother with accent marks. Sorry for incorrectness.
Peoples of Middle-earth

[...] it depended on the history of the peoples concerned and their relations to the Numenorean kingdoms. For instance, among the Rohirrim there can have been very few who did not understand the Common Speech, and most must have been able to speak it fairly well. The royal house, and no doubt many other families, spoke (and wrote) it correctly and familiarly. It was in fact King Theoden's native language: he was born in Gondor, and his father Thengel had used the Common Speech in his own home even after his return to Rohan.

p. 296, "Of Dwarves And Men"
This essay goes on to mention that Dwarvish had become a "book-language" taught carefully to Dwarf childen at an early age-- but it was no longer their native tongue.

Interesting. So there, all you Eomer-was-illiterate fanon.

A neat little side-note that is aching for yet another reconsideration of my Unfinished Epic:

The final note in I states that Eomer was the son of Theoden's sister Theodwyn (who does not appear in the narrative) and that 'he wedded Morwen daughter of Hurin of Gondor'. This is Hurin of the Keys, who was in command of Minas Tirith when the host of he West rode to the Black Gate (RK p. 237); I do not think that there is any other reference to the marriage of Eomer with this daughter, who was corrected on the text to Lothiriel daughter of Prince Imrahil.

p. 271, "The Making of Appendix A"

Doesn't Morwen daughter of Hurin need to be written into the story somewhere? Ah well. Someday when I have the time I'll do yet another version.

Eomer marries L in III 3022, or IV 1. (p.244)
says E. born 2993, sister 2996