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#1 | ||
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 6,003
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Great thread title, Inziladun! And very interesting conjectures here from everyone.
To be honest, I have a bit of a different idea about Aragorn's comments. I've never thought of them as anything but a reference to the Black Riders. I could be wrong, but it strikes me that they are the closest foes Aragorn has most recently faced and might possibly be upper-most in his mind. After all, at the Prancing Pony he said to Frodo: Quote:
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#2 |
Wight
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 204
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One argument against this last interpretation is that in fact the Rangers were unable to keep the Black Riders from overrunning Bree. The Witch King swept the Rangers away at Tharbad, and then a few days later (after invading the Shire), swept through Bree...
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#3 | |||
A Voice That Gainsayeth
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: In that far land beyond the Sea
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Anyway, I certainly don't think that Aragorn would be speaking about Black Riders on the Council, because if he says: Quote:
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#4 | ||||
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
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I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. |
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#5 |
Sage & Onions
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Britain
Posts: 894
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Mewlips??
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Rumil of Coedhirion |
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#6 |
Cryptic Aura
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I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. |
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#7 | |
Wight
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 204
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Otherwise, one interpretation is that the foes that would freeze one's heart, or overrun the town, are two separate groups. Perhaps the Wights will freeze one's heart, but being immobile, are not really a threat to Bree. One day's ride here makes sense for the Barrow Downs. And those who would overrun Bree are the ruffians coming up from the south... But I still wonder about those dark figures in the woods that Butterbur mentions...
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`These are indeed strange days,' he muttered. `Dreams and legends spring to life out of the grass.' |
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#8 | |
Mighty Quill
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Walking off to look for America
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As was stated before, there are many different creatures in ME, it could have been anyone of them. Aren't there some inhabitants of the Ice Bay of Forochel, or however it's called? They might be coming down to Bree. Also, I seem to recall there being spirits living all over Eriador. Weren't there many spirits sorts living there because of the Witch King?
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#9 | |||
A Voice That Gainsayeth
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: In that far land beyond the Sea
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Well, from what is said about them I got the impression that they live closer to the Sea ![]() Quote:
As for the spirits, I also don't think there were that plenty of them. The concentration of them nearest to Bree were the Barrow-Downs, we don't know about anything else, though I could imagine some others roaming Angmar or Rhudaur, but that still does not point to the thing Aragorn mentioned. We don't know anything about another "permanent settlement of wraiths" close to Bree.
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"Should the story say 'he ate bread,' the dramatic producer can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own." -On Fairy-Stories |
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#10 | |
Wight of the Old Forest
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Unattended on the railway station, in the litter at the dancehall
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Dark figures in the woods
This just reminded me of something:
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Point being, if Ents and/or Huorns were roaming around in northern Eriador, who knows what else? It doesn't have to be Barrow-wights or Trolls or anything else we know about - maybe rather something like the Mewlips (good point, Rumil!), if we take them as a placeholder for any kind of creature that doesn't come into the narrative or the larger Legendarium, but may have been there nevertheless. Think of it, we only meet such apparent solitaires as Shelob or the Watcher in the Water because the path of Frodo's quest happened to cross their habitats, but there may have been many more both like and unlike them. So in short, I agree with what Tuor said above, that this is probably rather a case of 'unexplained vistas' extending beyond the frame of the canvas, or maybe rather a vague glimpse of things peeping over the frame of the canvas from outside.
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Und aus dem Erebos kamen viele seelen herauf der abgeschiedenen toten.- Homer, Odyssey, Canto XI |
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#11 | |
Flame Imperishable
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Right here
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#12 |
Shade of Carn Dűm
Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 435
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Maybe not the Men of Forochel but some of the beasts of Forochel, if the wandered in might cause chills (especially under wicked influence). If Forochel is (in some ways) based on our own far north it might have similar fauna. I would imagine that something along the lines of a polar bear (under a dark influence to direct it) if it wandered into a place like Bree could cause massive consternation and destruction (especially when you consider that ME animals while more diminutive thatn thier First age cousins are sill usally describes as bein much bigger than the one's we are used to so a ME polar bear might likey be along the lines of a cave bear or even a quoquogaq (an enormous polar bear like creature of Inuit legend)) Forochel might also have big nasty Aurochses (if there were wild Kine in Rhun there might have been wild oxen elswhere and possibly even its own, shaggy Oliphaunts. Any of there under a malicios taint would strike fear into ANY villager
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#13 | |||||
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 6,003
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I remain intrigued by Inziladun's question. It is very interesting to consider Aragorn's words at the Council of Elrond in terms of the history of plotting LotR. Consider for a moment some of these situations found in HoME (and possibly UT, although that I haven't that at hand at the moment).
In some of the earlier drafts of LotR, when Aragorn was still the hobbit Trotter, a town was mentioned on the Greenway which would have been within a day's march of Bree (give or take I think), called Andrath (earlier name, Amrath). It was supposed to run between the Barrow Downs and the south Downs. It is listed on Fontad's map of Middle earth (for which information I thank Estelyn, as my Fonstad also is not at hand) ; it was not named on the 1943 map, but Christopher Tolkien's note describes it. Quote:
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As CT makes clear, this section of LotR (concerning Ham Bolger) went through several narrative outlines and the Council of Elrond went through five versions, the fourth of which ends with Aragorn's speech, then incompletely developed. While Ham Bolger and Andrath are excised from the fifth version, it is intriguing to imagine that Andrath still existed in Tolkien's mind and formed a backdrop to the revision of Aragorn's speech. Quote:
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