URWEN – Ur is the old city, and wen is “novel” backwards.

Good one.

Thanks. That's the one. :)

Reflect, ponder, excogitate, reply
 

Marring of shoe revealed a fearless man.

Well Marrid means to disfigure so i take that as changing shoe into a synonym which then becomes loafer which is a synonym for strider

Strider?

Not Strider, but you're sort of on the right track. A more obscure synonym is needed.

more obscuer would be the synamatic phrase

"marring of shoe"
to
"give the shoes off his feet"(granted not used often but as i recall its used for those with gambling problems)

coincidentley gamling is a fearless commander in the battle of the hornberg

Ah, now you're on the wrong track. :(

or disfifiguring of shoe(which could work in two ways) shoe becomes horse and if you disfure a shoe it could be reffering to the shape of a horseshoe which leads to a horse and a horse that is also a fearless man is of course Brgo

Brego

It's not that complicated. There's a word that means a certain type of large shoe - scramble that and you have a fearless man who aided Aragorn in the WotR.

Halbarad.

How to scramble that into a shoe, I don't know, but it's the best I can think of.

Close enough. ;)

It was Angbor - a n anagram of brogan.

Take it away, Diamond18.

Snaga? " Snag an elven " Snaga was an orc...

That is correct but I'm looking for two answers to the clue.

Is flower a river in this context?

No

It's Snaga and Elanor.

Ask me how to snag an elven flower and I'll teach you how to shovel an orc.

Mith, you can go next.

That was stupid of me ... I was thinking Elanor as an elven flower and despite having seen snanga didn't notice !!!

No good follows an imperfectly broken heart. Replace with a broken spanner?

I'm quite stumped. A little hint, please? *looks sweet and helpless*

Ooh I thought noone was trying... ok well if a flower can be a river in cross words ( ie something that flows) then a spanner might be ....? And it would have been kinder for me to write re. place with a broken spanner

Ah, now I get the river=flower connection (was confused about that before!) but I don't have an answer yet. This is really quite tricky.... Must give it some thought.

Well, on second thought, I'll throw out an off the cuff guess just to get it out of the way:

The Bridge of Khazad Dum? It's a bridge, ie something that spans, and as I recall, it was broken. Not sure how to reconcile it with the first part.

Anyway, I wanted to rule that out before thinking about it any further.

A spanner is a bridge but remember the clue is "re place with broken spanner" Ie it is the place with the broken bridge not the bridge itself. Not Kahazad dum but not so far geographically. Now see if you can get the place name from the first part of the clue :D

Aha!

Imperfectly broken heart = an anagram of heart, but missing one letter = Thar
No good = bad

There was a broken bridge at Tharbad.

Exactly.

I will have to see if I can work butter into a clue sometime :D

Cheers, Mith. :)

Next up:

Maritime HQ found at end of paradise island, replacing capital of pirates' cove.

so i think i have worked out part of it. would the maritime HQ be Lighthouse?

'Fraid not.

It must be the Eämbar

Answers not accepted without explanation ... :p ;)

I hoped I could sneek around that. . .

I am not sure I will get this right.

The maritime HQ is the Eämbar, because it was build by Aldarion who used it as house and command center, it also served as meeting place for the guild of ventures.

Paradise Island must then be Tol Unien where it was normaly moored.

what cannot find out is if capital of pirates cove is supposed to be. It must either be Armenelos or Rómenna. But Armenelos is not at a cove (unless cove has another meaning that I do not know of) and Rómenna is not a capital.

I guess this means I wont get the thread, but I still think I did a pretty good job.

Nah, I'm not that cruel. You got the answer right and made a good effort to explain it, so the thread is yours.

The full explanation:

Paradise island = Tol Eresseä
Pirates' cove = Umbar

The end of the first (eä) replaces the capital of the second to produce the maritime HQ which is, as you have correctly stated, Eämbar.

Take it away, Rune. :)

It is funny, when I first saw the clues, I thought about Umbar and Tol Eresseä was in my consideration at one point. However I abandoned both rather quickly because it did not make any sence.

Ayways I will be back later today with some new clues.

Sorry that I forgot about this thread, I realy am!

Would somebody else care to take over for me as I am going away for a week, from Saturday morning ?

Is Agent = Elrond ?

agent makes me think of Thorongil, A.K.A. Aragorn

nope...it is a person however

Rephrasing the clue

Former Agent Was Almost This Washed out Black Dude, Metal Head was instead

its way too easy now

Some straws clutched
 

It looks as though this could be Head of the White Council, but it relies on some contorted reasoning.

Washed-out black is grey, which implies either Gandalf or Thingol Grey-cloak. If we assume this means Gandalf, metal-head would be Saruman, whom Treebeard describes as having a mind of metal and wheels. The only position nearly occupied by Gandalf but eventually taken by Saruman is head of the White Council. One could say 'White wizard', although Gandalf does eventually become this. The problem seems to be that this isn't a person either, and 'this washed-out black dude' seems to suggest that the answer is Gandalf, or somebody else associated with grey. None of this really addresses 'former agent', which in a conventional cryptic clue would be 'ex spy' or 'ex rep'. All of which is but to say 'search me'.