Ronald and Sprague

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by jallanite

[/INDENT]As to a possible relation between Old English orcnēas and Latin Orcus, that goes back at least as far as Frederick Klaeber’s Beowulf and The fight at Finnsburg, originally published in 1922. See under orc-nēas at http://archive.org/stream/beowulfand...e/358/mode/1up . The information appeared in many subsequent Old English dictionaries. Tolkien would almost certainly have known it by 1967.

Evidently my sources were inadequate. Do you think, though, that de Camp draws too long a blow by implying that Professor Tolkien intended an overt association with Classical depictions of the Underworld and associated concepts?

The Sauron-sauros idea I continue to find strange. Despite being entirely familiar with the word via 'dinosaur' 'tyrannosaurus' and the like I never supposed that 'Sauron' was meant to be a play on the Greek word. Strange.

I suppose I shouldn't begrudge Wilson his opinion, but having dealt with him before (in my Honours thesis, for instance) I can't help but feel like a) he entirely missed the point of The Lord of the Rings (treating it purely as bed-time reading for his daughter can't have helped), and b) he had already decided he disliked the book before he even started reading it.