Misc. Questions

[Joy]

Maedhros was nicknamed "Russandol," or "copper top" by his mother Nerdanel.

[Joy]

Speaking of red-heads, it seems that the twins Amrod and Amras were red-headed also.

Amras's mother name was Ambarussa - which means "russet-top" Amrod's mother name was Ambarto.

According to The History of Middle Earth, Vol. XII, The Peoples of Middle Earth, the twins may even have been identical. Below is an extended quotation which reveals Tolkien’s explanation for their names, which were originally Ambarto (which was then changed again to Umbarto and back again) and Ambarussa.


"These two names of [the] twins (i-Wenyn) were evidently meant to begin similarly. Ambarussa ‘top-russet’ must have referred to hair: the first and last of Nerdanel’s children had the reddish hair of her kin. Around the name Ambarto [> Umbarto] - which one might expect to begin with an element of the same sense at (Ambarussa) - much legend and discussion gathered. The most authentic seems to be thus:

The two twins were both red-haired. Nerdanel gave them both the name Ambarussa - for they were much alike and remained so while they lived. When Fëanor begged that their names should at least be different Nerdanel looked strange, and after a while said: ‘Then let one be called [Ambarto >] Umbarto, but which, time will decide.’

[HerenIstarion]

Older thread: Redheads of Middle Earth

[Gorthaur the Cruel]

Another Question:

How did the One Ring reach all the way back to the Gladden Fields?

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Come on: this isn't the quiz room. The Gladden Fields were where the massacre of Isildur and his men took place. The Ring simply slipped off his finger as he tried to swim the Anduin, then lay on the riverbed until Déagol found it. There's no mystery there whatsoever.

[Gorthaur the Cruel]

Originally Posted by The Squatter of Amon Rûdh

Come on: this isn't the quiz room. The Gladden Fields were where the massacre of Isildur and his men took place. The Ring simply slipped off his finger as he tried to swim the Anduin, then lay on the riverbed until Déagol found it. There's no mystery there whatsoever.

Why was he venturing in the Gladden Fields?

[Son of Númenor]

From Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age:

The Ruling Ring passed out of the knowledge even of the Wise in that age; yet it was not unmade. For Isildur would not surrender it to Elrond and Círdan who stood by. They counselled him to cast it into the fire of Orodruin nigh at hand, in which it had been forged, so that it should perish, and the power of Sauron be for ever diminished, and he should remain only as a shadow of malice in the wilderness. But Isildur refused this counsel, saying: ‘This I will have as were-gild for my father's death, and my brothers. Was it not I that dealt the Enemy his death-blow?' And the Ring that he held seemed to him exceedingly fair to look on; and he would not suffer it to be destroyed. Taking it therefore he returned at first to Minas Anor, and there planted the White Tree in memory of his brother Anárion. But soon he departed, and after he had given counsel to Meneldil, his brother's son, and had committed to him the realm of the south, he bore away the Ring, to be an heirloom of his house, and marched north from Gondor by the way that Elendil had come; and he forsook the South Kingdom, for he purposed to take up his father's realm in Eriador, far from the shadow of the Black Land.

But Isildur was overwhelmed by a host of Orcs that lay in wait in the Misty Mountains; and they descended upon him at unawares in his camp between the Greenwood and the Great River, nigh to Loeg Ningloron, the Gladden Fields, for he was heedless and set no guard, deeming that all his foes were overthrown. There well nigh all his people were slain, and among them were his three elder sons, Elendur, Aratan, and Ciryon; but his wife and his youngest son, Valandil, he had left in Imladris when he went to the war. Isildur himself escaped by means of the Ring, for when he wore it he was invisible to all eyes; but the Orcs hunted him by scent and slot, until he came to the River and plunged in. There the Ring betrayed him and avenged its maker, for it slipped from his finger as he swam, and it was lost in the water. Then the Orcs saw him as he laboured in the stream, and they shot him with many arrows, and that was his end. Only three of his people came ever back over the mountains after long wandering; and of these one was Ohtar his esquire, to whose keeping he had given the shards of the sword of Elendil.

(emphasis mine)