Abbey Tournament Festival 2013 by Rob Masefield
Tag: edain
The logistics of the War of Wrath are pretty interesting if you think about them. I was wondering about what exactly the Teleri were doing for those fifty years besides being very bored when I remembered all those refugees on Balar. I’m not sure if Tolkien states exactly how fast Beleriand sunk but I think it was a gradual process throughout the war rather than all at once at the end. So you’ve got a slowly disappearing island and a lot of people who need somewhere to go but the mainland isn’t a safe place and the Teleri have a lot of room on their ships…
Basically, imagine the Teleri and Edain refugees. Generations of them, living and dying on their ships. Water burial becoming a custom because what else can you do. Tiny grubby kids who love the elves and are loved by them despite both thinking they look kind of strange. Elves visiting Numenor and finding descendants of that kid who wouldn’t get out of the crow’s nest (it was one time, please stop telling that story, Lady Earwen).
#the teleri are my favourites#except for when the vanyar are#worldbuilding problems#edain/elves friendship is the best (via @laurelsblue)
Rare Thracian Gold Inscribed Ring, 5th Century BC
Only four Thracian inscriptions of any length have ever been found, this ring being one of them. It’s from Ezerovo, Bulgaria and it has an inscription in Thracian but the letters used are ancient Greek: ΡΟΛΙΣΤΕΝΕΑΣΝ / ΕΡΕΝΕΑΤΙΛ / ΤΕΑΝΗΣΚΟΑ / ΡΑΖΕΑΔΟΜ / ΕΑΝΤΙΛΕΖΥ / ΠΤΑΜΙΗΕ / ΡΑΖ // ΗΛΤΑ
The words have been separated as: ΡΟΛΙΣΤΕΝΕΑΣ NΕΡΕΝΕΑ ΤΙΛΤΕΑΝ ΗΣΚΟ ΑΡΑΖΕΑ ΔΟΜΕΑΝ ΤΙΛΕΖΥΠΤΑ ΜΙΗ ΕΡΑ ΖΗΛΤΑ
i.e.: “Rolisteneas Nerenea tiltean ēsko Arazea domean Tilezypta miē era zēlta.”
Proposing the following translation: “I am Rolisteneas, a descendant of Nereneas; Tilezypta, an Arazian woman, delivered me to the ground.”
curufinwefeanaro replied to your post: Going to see Battle of the Five Armies…
|| I will entertain your scholar self with questions about whether Húrin ever had an indigestion of elven pastries.
Frequently. Every single time he blamed something else, because it can’t be the elven food, elves are awesome.
After four or five times he stopped denying it to himself, but denied it all the more loudly to Huor, and kept eating them – and getting indigestion – to prove a point, dammit.
This delights me
More pondering while listening to the Silm Audiobook:
Melkor has a vested interest in keeping Men from becoming friends with the elves– he has one of his spies (imhc, either Sauron or Langon) impersonate one of the chieftains in order to spread dissent and plant the idea that “there is room in the world” for both Men and Orcs, if the elves will only let them be.
And yet, when that plan yields only moderate success, Melkor goes and sends an orc raid against the (later) People of Haleth, aaaaallllll the way in East Beleriand, which… kind of undermines the message of his original propaganda?
Why would Melkor do this directly after planting the idea that Orcs and Men could mutually ignore each other and keep to their respective territories? (I don’t buy the idea that he just lost his temper– not on this occasion anyway. XD) I mean, he could have kept hostilities between Men and Orcs to a minimum, while stirring up trouble between men and elves and just waiting for tensions to reach a boiling point on their own. (That tactic has worked well for him in the past. See entry: The Sons of Finwë.)
To me, this move makes sense if you imagine Melkor trying to rush things. He can’t afford to wait for generations of men to live and die in the service and camaraderie of elves before the inevitable inter-species messiness starts; he needs to drive a wedge in NOW, while everyone is still wary of each other.
“So, Men still think they can get cozy with the Eldar in Beleriand, huh? Well, let’s show them just how much elves -really- care about the safety and wellbeing of non-elf vassals!”
To make his point, he sends an orc raid against Haleth’s kin in Caranthir’s lands– and Lo and Behold, they lose their chief and take heavy casualties before Caranthir shows up with the cavalry.
It sort of works? Haleth does basically give the finger to the elves after that, leading her people independent of elven rule, and going on to live a long and noble life giving side-eye to Thingol and stabbing spiders/orcs.
Of course, since Melkor’s plans never really go like he wants them to, the fact that the Edain aren’t 100% Elf-Friendly doesn’t actually make them less of a threat to Orcs, nor does it make them less wary of Angband.
But who knows? Maybe a united Caranthir/Haleth front would have gone on to be a bigger threat to Angband in the long run than an independent Haleth in Brethil, and Caranthir dubiously allied with the Folk of Uldor?
MisbehavingMaiar: Tumblr Archive 