For the little maia, the word I recall is “papallu”; a young shoot, a sapling, a beloved offspring. Something to be nurtured while it grows, like a spark.
Month: July 2016
tartapplesauce
replied to your post “Sudden theory about the sinking of Beleriand for use in future…”
This is a great headcanon and explains exactly what would be the destructive results, lasting for a very long time, of such total warfare as needed to dislodge Melkor (and why they decided to send the Istari to deal with Sauron second time round instead of another invasion force) And that is *exactly* why the Valar are not, despite if (some) Elves and (many) Men wish they would, going to ride out with banners waving to stomp Melkor or Sauron until it gets very, very “no other option” – because when the gods who made the world go to war, the world gets *broken* – and the Valar don’t want to destroy the world if it can be at all avoided.
Thank you so much! 😀
The Valar aren’t always good at making decisions regarding the well-being of Arda, but I always figured they had good reason for staying out of the war besides just “the Noldor haven’t said ‘sorry’ yet.”
As a long-time fan of Mission Ack., can I just say, it’s an honor to have you here, I apologize deeply for the insanity that is to follow.
(I think yours was the first Silmarillion fanart I ever saw, back before I’d had a chance to even read the book!)
♦
Hah. For the haughty prince, I think “šanāṣu”; to sneer and turn up the nose, one whose expression is always that of a pampered courtesan addressing a ragged suitor. That is all the nuance I have ever seen from thee, whose mouth would not melt ice.
♦ ey
Ah, my stubborn foe, o headstrong fool: “Zikku” is the word in my mind for you… A zenith, a culminating point, and also the cutting edge of a blade. (Ironically, its homophone, “ziqqu”, means the ornament of a crown…)
I might say also “Kuzābu”; beautiful, well-formed, for that you are… though your beauty lives on only in the lights of my crown.
Sudden theory about the sinking of Beleriand
For use in future projects:
Continents don’t just sink, they’re not floating landmasses; but they can be covered by rising sea levels.
What’s a cause of rising sea levels? Melting glaciers.
Where does Morgoth live? Where all the glaciers are.
Melkor’s forces are entrenched and burrowed all throughout the Iron Mountains. He’s got the whole north to himself, the reaches of Everlasting Cold; the opposing armies can’t even get past Thangorodrim, let alone get into all the nooks and crannies, the hiding places and secret strongholds that are scattered throughout the mountains. So, the best way to wreck his complete shit all in one pass is to simply melt the icecaps– with the help of Arien or Varda or Aulë or Ulmo or all of them.
The mountains become totally uninhabitable. The orc armies are trapped, buried in avalanches and drowned in mud, or forced to flee South, pushing Melkor’s forces into the waiting armies of the Valar.
When the great forges flood, they explode catastrophically. The subterranean levels of Angband fill with water.
The flooding doesn’t stop once the war is over; the great thawing of the North can’t be reversed. Melkor was camped out in the highest elevation in Beleriand, everything else is downstream.
Beleriand doesn’t sink in a day, it takes its time.
Ossiriand doesn’t stand a chance as the seas rise, Doriath is encircled by water and finally submerged; even the Encircling Mountains and the ruins of Gondolin are eventually swamped, waterlogged, becoming a lake of brown water.
The weather changes. Mudslides ruin the hills and mountains. The rivers back up and overflow with brackish sea water, killing all the freshwater life. Forests die, are uprooted, and swept away.
Everything turns to mud and logjams and floating corpses long before it is taken into the sea.
Elves scramble to save what they can of their history from water damage and mildew, but much is destroyed before it can be carried to safety. And the past seems less and less worth saving, buried in the mud and volcanic ash and grey rain.
The migration east is weary and cold; men and dwarves suffer from the constant wetness in their boots and clothes, while the Eldar suffer unthinkable loss in their souls. The remaining umaiar and Melkor’s creatures slink over the mountains wherever they can, masterless, their fires dulled to dying embers.
It is a long time before the refugees of Beleriand find reason to be joyful again.
Uinen/Erendis for the Tolkien Femslash Week Bingo!
Cards: pairings – g31 (human/Ainu), book titles – i15 (Sing You Home)
♦
“Ajudāru”. An impudent servant, in need of discipline.
♦
As I do not know this elda personally, I can only liken her to that which I liken all elven minstrels: “kudurānnu”; a little bird that brays ceaselessly like a donkey.
♦
If I am being generous and true to your name, I’d say the word you evoke is “ūmiŝ’ukkudu”, like a violent storm that does not turn back, and the day that shines like fire; a man whose aggression inspires fear.
If I were less generous, I’d call you “ú-ziqnanu sagkuudû”, a beardless fish with its head cut off.
♦ from both muses please Iloveyou
The word my jester brings to mind is ‘zūkku’: it means ‘clarity’, as in the transparency of quiet, clear water. He is gentle in manner and speech, and hides nothing from me.
~M
_____
Of Salgant? “Rīmtumārû”. A white calf, fattened and gleaming, whose sacred body shines.
~S
A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river
but then he’s still left
with the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away
but then he’s still left with his hands.–Boot Theory, Richard Siken
Maglor, throwing away the Silmaril
Send me a “♦” for the first word my muse thinks of when your muse is mentioned.
Old English just has some wonderful words and kennings. I mean, really:
Their word for sea? It was often swan-rad or “road of the swan.” Spider was gangelwaefre, literally “the walking weaver.” They had the simple and now-obsolete word uht, which describes that time just before sunrise when mist still hangs heavy over all the fields and lakes and the last few stars are still out.
…Also, they didn’t say body. They said ban-cofan, which means “bone-cave,” and if you don’t think that’s some hardcore shit right there then you need to get out of my face before I turn your skull into a mead-cup.
Norse poets also combined kennings to get compound kennings! Which is how you get “stallion of the whale road” (ship) and “provider to the swans of the mead of battle” (warrior). From what I can tell, one can do this pretty much indefinitely, which leads to things like this:
The killer of the giant’s offspring
broke the strong bison of the gull’s meadow.
So the gods, while the keeper of the bell despaired,
destroyed the seashore’s hawk.
The horse that rides the reefs
found no help in the King of the Greeks.Meaning
Thor
broke the ship.
So the gods, while the Christian priest despaired,
destroyed the ship.
The ship
found no help in Jesus.You can write whole sagas that way. The text can just get arbitrarily abstract and culturally specific. And of kennings also reflect judgment, perspective, cultural values and priorities. (There are dozens of kennings for ‘blood’, ‘warrior’, ‘sword, ‘sea’, and the like. Not so much most other things). It’s such a cool method for encoding meaning!
This is all over the place in Tolkien, unsurprisingly. He doesn’t have his own kenning system, except for personal epithets, but he does do a lot of repeating fixed images and phrases in his prose to lend it the feeling of formulaic epic poetry. The influence of Anglo-Saxon poetry is especially important in connection to the whole Aelfwine thing in BoLT (interesting essay on which here).
Reblogging for @an-animal-imagined-by-poe‘s excellent addition.
MisbehavingMaiar: Tumblr Archive 