Bibliomancy...Tolkien style

[Mithalwen]

Yes and the less depressing 5% was the index and appendix . *still waiting for book to fall open despite flicking the pages.... you may wish to make a cup of tea .... or a large and elaborate banquet..*

[wilwarin538]

It's true, I tried the Sil, the Hobbit, and both of the other LotR, but they refused to fall open. TTT did after about a minute.

[Mithalwen]

Because I had to blow on the pages to make the book fall open and then it fell unsurprisingly almost exactly to the middle. And my wandering hands picked:

"Then a winter, as it were the hoar age of mortal Men, fell upon Thingol. But Luthien came to the Halls of Mandos, where are the appointed places of the Eldalie, beyond the mansions of the West upon the confines of the World. There those that wait sit in the shadow of their thought. But her beauty was more than their beauty, and her sorrow deeper than their sorrows; and she knelt before Mandos and sang to him"

Yep...I'm doomed......

OR

I am going to grieve my Aged Parent who is severely Cymru-phobic and participate in an Eisteddfod... ( my grandmother on the other side was Welsh..)

OR despite my woeful ignorance of genre I should get over my panic and persevere with ME Idol.....

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Aragorn had brought torches from Dunharrow, and now he went ahead bearing one aloft; and Elladan with another went at the rear, and Gimli, stumbling behind, strove to overtake him. He could see nothing but the dim flame of the torches; but if the company halted, there seemed an endless whisper of voices all about him, a murmur of words in no tongue that he had ever heard before.


Well, it appears that I am going to be left behind in terror and shadow.

Thanks for cheering me up, Fordim.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Alas, not even my 33-year old paperbacks will fall open - apparently they made the spines better back in those days! I tried it with several different ones, and the only one that fell open at all was FotR, which opened to the very first page - not even the title nor anything else by Tolkien, but the quotes of several reviews.

The one my fingers found was Auden's:

For any one who likes the genre to which it belongs, the Heroic Quest, I cannot imagine a more wonderful Christmas present.... No fiction I have read in the last five years has given me more joy than The Fellowship of the Ring.

Interpreting that is worse than trying to make sense of Malbeth's prophecies! Either I should be looking for Christmas presents already - maybe figuring out if someone should get a copy of LotR - or I should start writing another chapter of that Heroic Quest, The Revenge of the Entish Bow, before the holiday season begins.

Then again, maybe I have my own Heroic Quest lying ahead of me! Lots of joy before Christmas...

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

The Paperback Problem is not one I had anticipated. Here is a solution.

1. Hold the book upright loosely by the spine, so that the pages fan out slightly
2. hold a card or piece of paper in your free hand and bring it down into a random point amongst the fanned open pages
3. proceed as above

[Estelyn Telcontar]

You mean an alternate future is possible for me? But I've already booked the flight for my Heroic Quest...

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

It was an amusing moment just now when I decided to mess with forces beyond my control. Pulling from my floor (a location conveniently next to my over-cluttered desk) my battered and possibly ill-gotten paperback RotK, I sat upon my bed with it. I tried to balance it upon its spine. It failed. A good six times.

Eventually I sort of threw it in the air and jabbed a finger into the pages while I caught it. With my eyes closed, I found a paragraph.

Leod was the name of Eorl's father. He was a tamer of wild horses; for there were many at that time in the land. He captured a white foal, and it grew quickly to a horse strong, and fair, and proud. No man could tame it. When Leod dared to mount it, it bored him away, and at last threw him, and Leod's head struck a rock, and so he died. He was then only two and forty years old, and his son a youth of sixteen.

And so based upon this, I suspect that I will either leave a kid behind when I die a painful death due to my own daring... or I am a wild horse that no man may tame.

Ooh, I like the latter. Yes. 'Tis my light skin that gives it away. Young and pale, fair, proud, strong... Yes, yes, I like this. Untamed. So very true. Fatal. Oh lovely.

[Diamond18]

I got out my big, fancy Red Book edition of the trilogy and placed it on the floor. For a few moments it refused to fall open, then the back fell, revealing a page of the index. I dutifully closed my eyes and placed my hand down, to find this:

Angbor, III 151, 153, 157 (see Lord of Lamden)

Turning to these pages I find:

Only Angbor, Lord of Lamedon, had the heart to abide us; and Aragorn bade him gather folk and come behind, if they dared, when the Grey Host had past.

'That night we rested while others labored. For there were many captives set free, and many slaves released who had been folk of Gondor taken in raids; and soon also there was a great gathering of men out of Lebennin and the Ethir, and Angbor of Lamedon came up with all the horsemen that he could muster.

'We have not only to reckon with those who fought on this field,' said Aragorn. 'New strength is on the way from the southern fiefs, now that the coats have been rid. Four thousands I sent marching from Pelagir through Lossarnach two days ago; and Angbor the Fearless rides before them.'

The Hobbit refused to fall open. It just flopped over onto the cover.

The Silmarillion did the same thing.

Poems and Stories fell open to the back flap, with the bio of J.R.R. Tolkien.

J.R.R. Tolkien was born on January 3rd, 1892. Apart from his long and distinguished academic career, he is best known for his extraordinary works of fiction The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. His books are translated into over 25 languages and have sold many millions of copies worldwide. He was awarded a CBE, and an honorary Doctorate of Letters from Oxford University in 1972. He died in 1973 at the age of 81.

So, obviously, I am fearless and will have great publishing success, then die at the age of 81.

I may try that alternate method, Fordim, since I couldn't get the Hobbit or Sil to spill anything.

[Macalaure]

The ones that fell open were the Silm:

The orcs and the wolves went freely through all the North, and came ever further southward into Beleriand, even as far as Nan-tathren, the Land of Willows, and the borders of Ossiriand, and none were safe in field or wild.

Seemingly an advice to not go out and stay at home.


and, after a while, the Fellowship:

'That is true,' said Legolas. 'But the Elves of this land were of a race strange to us of the silvan folk, and the trees and the grass do not now remember them. Only I hear the stones lament them: deep they delved us, fair they wrought us, high they builded us; but they are gone. They are gone. They sought the Havens long ago.'

What could this mean?