1. Tuor (from Tour)

1. A French circle spins for him.
2. Burrowing mammals' concerts and insects' pity combine for them.
3. Festival articles for her.
4. A claw and a nun's cap were sedentary, before they spun around for him.
5. Shop changes tune, unwilling, for him.
6. Confused Field Marshal at start of Merseyside peninsula transforms for him.
7. Wander unmethodically for him.
8. A unit of measure, a vowel shift ... shuffle and see her.

None of the answers is Tuor.

Try 6 and 7 first.

Well, 7 does contain MER, so I think it's EOMER.

But if neither circle nor spins is in French, then which word is?!

Good idea, but the Field Marshal is an element, not the final answer.

Merseyside includes the Wirral Penninsula, which is probably what the clue references.

The two named field marshals who spring to mind are Haig and Rommel, though also more generally Napoleon had a thing about them. Or it could simply be FM.

hS

Wirral and Haig are the correct elements.

Gwaihir

1. A French circle spins for him.
2. Burrowing mammals' concerts and insects' pity combine for them.
3. Festival articles for her.
4. A claw and a nun's cap were sedentary, before they spun around for him.
5. Shop changes tune, unwilling, for him.
GWAIHIR: Confused Field Marshal at start of Merseyside peninsula transforms for him.
7. Wander unmethodically for him.
8. A unit of measure, a vowel shift ... shuffle and see her.

Does this password have a theme?

Yes.

So what's the deal with 1? Which word are we supposed to translate there?

Unless it’s saying “circle spins” in French which could mean revolve or orbit which could mean Orbite or graviter or even “centre sur.”

This is the second time I’ve seen a password with the key letters in the middle of words... was there an agreement somewhere along the line that was ok? Sure there’s a theme but the letters are supposed to be clues once the password is revealed. Also my joke “Belgium” guess was based on seven asterisks with a G in the center spot Belgium was the only location that fit. If we’re breaking format can we at least space the asterisks properly? IE Gwaihir is ***I*** not **I**.

Yes, there was such an agreement. Made by the starter of the thread himself, on the first post.

I have written dozen of passwords which used the first letter.

I have also written diagonals, all 3rd/4th letter, even one in a chevron shape.

Themes have been expected for quite a while, and I could not make this one work with first letters. I tried.

And no, I could not 'space the asterisks properly' without rehashing a theme I had done before and making something that wasn't new or fresh in any way.

Why on earth don't you try putting the first word of the sentence into French? Crossword books do this all the time. It isn't rocket science.

Then you might think of something similar to orbit.

But then what should we do with the rest of the clue?

I've just told you. In the edit.

So UN/UNE + OVAL

Not oval ... closer to orbit.

The 'wander unmethodically' clue is easier ....

But we won't be able to guess the password until we solve all the clues, including clue 1, at some point. :p

1. Orbit is VERY close.
2. Look outside the Middle-earth books.

Knowing you, it's probably Perry-the-Winkle.

Despite his roundness, it isn't.

Gudrun? It has the french UN.

I assume the first clue might Star with a U or N and end with the other. Therefore “circling” the rest of the answer

No, it's literally a word meaning circle.

UN is correct for the other element.

I searched google for things similar to orbit and found only oval.

Well, 'orb' means sphere, and certainly falls close, and UN + ORB feels like it should give a useful answer. But I can't actually find one.

Oh - is #7 rove + random = ROVERANDOM?

hS

1. A French circle spins for him.
2. Burrowing mammals' concerts and insects' pity combine for them.
3. Festival articles for her.
4. A claw and a nun's cap were sedentary, before they spun around for him.
5. Shop changes tune, unwilling, for him.
GWAIHIR: Confused Field Marshal at start of Merseyside peninsula transforms for him.
ROVERANDOM: Wander unmethodically for him.
8. A unit of measure, a vowel shift ... shuffle and see her.

Look at the two answers so far - especially the second one - and try, try to do something with UN + ORB!

Ah! BRUNO is one of the bears from Mr. Bliss (as well as being a Bracegirdle - I get the feeling Tolkien didn't much like the name.)

3... a festival is a GALA, and if you add both English articles, you get Farmer Giles' ill-fated cow GALATHEA.

2. The first half of the clue seems to point at the BADGER-FOLK, but I don't know where the insects come into it.

The password could be BEASTIES if you were feeling cutesy. :)

hS

BRUNO: A French circle spins for him.
???E???: Burrowing mammals' concerts and insects' pity combine for them.
GALATHEA: Festival articles for her.
???S???: A claw and a nun's cap were sedentary, before they spun around for him.
???T???: Shop changes tune, unwilling, for him.
GWAIHIR: Confused Field Marshal at start of Merseyside peninsula transforms for him.
ROVERANDOM: Wander unmethodically for him.
???S???: A unit of measure, a vowel shift ... shuffle and see her.

Which book are the badger-folk in, hS?

The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, the poem and the book of the same name, sometimes collected as part of Tales from the Perilous Realm. They share the Bombadilverse with a handful of other strange species, but I can't pin 'insects' pity' to any of them. I guess the closest would be to use BOMBADIL'S, or the ills of the bombad...ier beetle, but that's a significant stretch.

Their father(/husband) is Badger-Brock, who oddly enough could also be a concert (ROCK), but isn't a bug. :)

hS

The second clue is a very cheeky one.

It was a way of covering an animal of which there are no named examples I know of, but there is someone connected with them.

...

And you know what? There IS a named example of this animal ... I've just thought of it ... but it's too late now, and anyway the cheeky clue/answer is pretty cool. :D

By the way, did you like my CORMACOLINDO ("Goodness me, my lettuce-draining implement") in my last password? It was inspired by your clues. :)

Well it's making my brain hurt right now, so I'll let it rest for a while before I start yelling 'of course! ANTSMERCY!'. ;)

I did see that at the time, and had an appropriate groan over it. ^_^ Well, when one is mortally afraid of anagrams, one winds up brutalising the English language quite harshly.

hS

Antsmercy?
 

Wrong insects.

Try a more old-fashioned/biblical word for mercy/pity.

'Grace' springs to mind, but I can't get it to lead anywhere.

There are butterflies in reasonable proximity to the badger-folk, and there is a named butterfly (if you count Wilwarin the constellation), but... is 'butter' a word for pity? :confused:

For 'T', I'm thinking 'store' as the word for shop, probably changing the E for a different note, but what 'unwillingly' means I couldn't guess.

hS

Just think of a synonym for unwilling(ly).

And a shop.

...

The word for pity, nowadays, appears more often with a negative suffix, as an adjective meaning the opposite of merciful.

Ruth?

Yes.

Okay. We know that E is a descriptive phrase, though what word includes 'RUTH' I have no idea (other than ruthless and Aranruth). The other three, though, are probably personal names.

Here's a list of all the named animals Tolkien Gateway can easily provide, which include at least one of S and T.

The obvious go-to for the 'she' clue is SHELOB, and sure enough, she turns out to be a bushel with the U changed for an O.

The only 'unwilling' word that seems at all possible to fit unscrambled into a word is loath. ASFALOTH consists of the shop Asda, with a D>F shift, plus the archaic spelling LOTH.

The set of S names remaining looks like this:

... which are all horses. I don't think Pervinca would duplicate a species, so my guess is that the S clue is one that didn't make it onto my list. It's clearly a longish name, since it's an anagram of three words.

• 'Claw' could be talon; spur is a possible too.
• 'Nun's cap' is probably either habit or (apparently) coif.
• 'Sedentary' suggests still, or perhaps idle.

(No combination of those appears on the horsey list, of course.)

Coming back now to what seems to be 'badger-folk's ???ruth???', that might be part of truth, but the logical word there would be 'untruth', which a) doesn't point at anything and b) requires an insect known as the unt (archaic plural of ant??? But you said it wasn't ants). The list of words starting with 'ruth' is delightfully chemical - it includes both ruthenium and rutherfordium, as well as the charming adjective ruthenic - but despite how much I would enjoy 'Tom Bombadil versus the Badger Alchemists', I don't think Tolkien ever wrote it.

hS