LotR -- Book 1 - Chapter 01 - A Long-Expected Party - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

**The Saucepan Man** · 06-24-2004, 09:36 AM

Intersting thoughts davem, and they possibly explain why Tolkien used the phrase in reference to a Dragon-like firework (albeit one made by Gandalf). But the reference is still to my mind incongruous with the fiction of the story having been written by the Hobbits. Even if steam trains did exist in Mordor and Angband, they are surely unlikely to have been sufficiently common features of Hobbit vocabulary to be used in this way.

06-24-2004, 09:36 AM	#22
The Saucepan Man Corpus Cacophonous Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: A green and pleasant land Posts: 8,390	The Mordor Express? Intersting thoughts davem, and they possibly explain why Tolkien used the phrase in reference to a Dragon-like firework (albeit one made by Gandalf). But the reference is still to my mind incongruous with the fiction of the story having been written by the Hobbits. Even if steam trains did exist in Mordor and Angband, they are surely unlikely to have been sufficiently common features of Hobbit vocabulary to be used in this way. __________________ Do you mind? I'm busy doing the fishstick. It's a very delicate state of mind!