Footnotes — The Lord of the Rings

*As the records of Gondor relate this was Argeleb II, the twentieth of the Northern line, which came to an end with Arvedui three hundred years later.

† Thus, the years of the Third Age in the reckoning of the Elves and the Dûnedain can be found by adding 1600 to the dates of Shire-reckoning.

* See Appendix B: annals 1451, 1462, 1482; and note at end of Appendix C.

* Represented in much reduced form in Appendix B as far as the end of the Third Age.

* See note 2, III, p. 1111

* Elves (and Hobbits) always refer to the Sun as She.

* The Hobbits’ name for the Plough or Great Bear.

* The Brandywine River.

* See note in Appendix F: Of the Elves.

* See Appendix F under Ents.

* Every month in the Shire-calendar had 30 days.

* See Appendix F, 1131.

* There were thirty days in March (or Rethe) in the Shire calendar.

* It was probably Orkish in origin: sharkû, ‘old man’.

1 A few references are given by page to this edition of The Lord of the Rings, and to the hardback 4th (reset 4th edition (1995)) edition of The Hobbit.

2 Cf. pp. 244; 598; 971-2: no likeness remained in Middle-earth of Laurelin the Golden.

1 p. 243; p. 712.

2 p. 193; p. 712.

3 The Hobbit, p. 49; The Lord of the Rings, p. 316.

4 pp. 233–6.

5 pp. 361–5; pp. 712, 720; pp. 915, 922.

6 pp. 52, 185.

1 See pp. 974, 978.

1 p. 235.

1 p. 597; p. 971.

2 p. 242.

3 p. 244.

4 p. 243.

1 He was the fourth son of Isildur, born in Imladris. His brothers were slain in the Gladden Fields.

2 After Eärendur the Kings no longer took names in High-elven form.

3 After Malvegil, the Kings at Fornost again claimed lordship over the whole of Arnor, and took names with the prefix ar(a) in token of this.

1 See p. 755. The wild white kine that were still to be found near the Sea of Rhûn were said in legend to be descended from the Kine of Araw, the huntsman of the Valar, who alone of the Valar came often to Middle-earth in the Elder Days. Oromë is the High-elven form of his name (p. 838).

1 p. 185.

2 p. 201.

1 These are a strange, unfriendly people, remnant of the Forodwaith, Men of far-off days, accustomed to the bitter colds of the realm of Morgoth. Indeed those colds linger still in that region, though they lie hardly more than a hundred leagues north of the Shire. The Lossoth house in the snow, and it is said that they can run on the ice with bones on their feet, and have carts without wheels. They live mostly, inaccessible to their enemies, on the great Cape of Forochel that shuts off to the north-west the immense bay of that name; but they often camp on the south shores of the bay at the feet of the Mountains.

1 In this way the ring of the House of Isildur was saved; for it was afterwards ransomed by the Dúnedain. It is said that it was none other than the ring which Felagund of Nargothrond gave to Barahir, and Beren recovered at great peril.

2 These were the Stones of Annúminas and Amon Sûl. The only Stone left in the North was the one in the Tower on Emyn Beraid that looks towards the Gulf of Lune. That was guarded by the Elves, and though we never knew it, it remained there, until Círdan put it aboard Elrond’s ship when he left (pp. 45, 108). But we are told that it was unlike the others and not in accord with them; it looked only to the Sea. Elendil set it there so that he could look back with ‘straight sight’ and see Eressëa in the vanished West; but the bent seas below covered Númenor for ever.

1 The sceptre was the chief mark of royalty in Númenor, the King tells us; and that was also so in Arnor, whose kings wore no crown, but bore a single white gem, the Elendilmir, Star of Elendil, bound on their brows with a silver fillet (p. 146; pp. 848, 861, 967). In speaking of a crown (pp. 170, 247) Bilbo no doubt referred to Gondor; he seems to have become well acquainted with matters concerning Aragorn’s line. The sceptre of Númenor is said to have perished with Ar-Pharazôn. That of Annúminas was the silver rod of the Lords of Andúnie, and is now perhaps the most ancient work of Men’s hands preserved in Middle-earth. It was already more than five thousand years old when Elrond surrendered it to Aragorn (p. 972). The crown of Gondor was derived from the form of a Númenórean war-helm. In the beginning it was indeed a plain helm; and it is said to have been the one that Isildur wore in the Battle of Dagorlad (for the helm of Anárion was crushed by the stone-cast from Barad-dûr that slew him). But in the days of Atanatar Alcarin this was replaced by the jewelled helm that was used in the crowning of Aragorn.

2 p. 227.

3 p. 5; p. 1016.

1 The great cape and land-locked firth of Umbar had been Númenórean land since days of old; but it was a stronghold of the King’s Men, who were afterwards called the Black Númenóreans, corrupted by Sauron, and who hated above all the followers of Elendil. After the fall of Sauron their race swiftly dwindled or became merged with the Men of Middle-earth, but they inherited without lessening their hatred of Gondor. Umbar, therefore, was only taken at great cost.

1 The River Running.

1 That law was made in Númenor (as we have learned from the King) when Tar-Aldarion, the sixth king, left only one child, a daughter. She became the first Ruling Queen, Tar-Ancalimë. But the law was otherwise before her time. Tar-Elendil, the fourth king, was succeeded by his son Tar-Meneldur, though his daughter Silmariën was the elder. It was, however, from Silmariën that Elendil was descended.

1 This name means ‘Ship of Long-foam’; for the isle was shaped like a great ship, with a high prow pointing north, against which the white foam of Anduin broke on sharp rocks.

1 ‘I gave Hope to the Dúnedain, I have kept no hope for myself.’

1 p. 335.

1 It flows into Isen from the west of Ered Nimrais.

1 The dates are given according to the reckoning of Gondor (Third Age). Those in the margin are of birth and death.

2 pp. 787, 797.

3 p. 1054.

1 For her shield-arm was broken by the mace of the Witch-king; but he was brought to nothing, and thus the words of Glorfindel long before to King Eärnur were fulfilled, that the Witch-king would not fall by the hand of man. For it is said in the songs of the Mark that in this deed Éowyn had the aid of Théoden’s esquire, and that he also was not a Man but a Halfling out of a far country, though Éomer gave him honour in the Mark and the name of Holdwine.[This Holdwine was none other than Meriadoc the Magnificent who was Master of Buckland.]

1 The Hobbit, p. 50.

1 p. 317.

2 Or released from prison; it may well be that it had already been awakened by the malice of Sauron.

3 The Hobbit, pp. 207-8.

4 The Hobbit, pp. 22.

5 Among whom were the children of Thráin II: Thorin (Oakenshield), Frerin, and Dís. Thorin was then a youngster in the reckoning of the Dwarves. It was afterwards learned that more of the Folk under the Mountain had escaped than was at first hoped; but most of these went to the Iron Hills.

1 Azog was the father of Bolg; see The Hobbit, p. 24.

1 It is said that Thorin’s shield was cloven and he cast it away and he hewed off with his axe a branch of an oak and held it in his left hand to ward off the strokes of his foes, or to wield as a club. In this way he got his name.

1 Such dealings with their dead seemed grievous to the Dwarves, for it was against their use; but to make such tombs as they were accustomed to build (since they will lay their dead only in stone not in earth) would have taken many years. To fire therefore they turned, rather than leave their kin to beast or bird or carrion-orc. But those who fell in Azanulbizar were honoured in memory, and to this day a Dwarf will say proudly of one of his sires: ‘he was a burned Dwarf, and that is enough.

2 They had very few women-folk. Dís Thrain’s daughter was there. She was the mother of Fíli and Kíli, who were born in the Ered Luin. Thorin had no wife.

3 p. 268.

1 March 15, 2941.

1 p. 243.

2 p. 597, The Hobbit, p. 151.

3 p. 971.

4 p. 317.

1 p. 670.

1 It afterwards became clear that Saruman had then begun to desire to possess the One Ring himself, and he hoped that it might reveal itself, seeking its master, if Sauron were let be for a time.

1 Months and days are given according to the Shire Calendar.

1 She became known as ‘ the Fair’ because of her beauty; many said that she looked more like an elf-maid than a hobbit. She had golden hair, which had been very rare in the Shire; but two others of Samwise’s daughters were also golden-haired, and so were many of the children born at this time.

1 p.7; p. 1042, note 2.

1 Fourth Age (Gondor) 120.

1 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 46 seconds.

1 In the Shire, in which Year 1 corresponded with T.A. 1601. In Bree in which Year 1 corresponded with T.A. 1300 it was the first year of the century.

2 It will be noted if one glances at a Shire Calendar, that the only weekday on which no month began was Friday. It thus became a jesting idiom in the Shire to speak of ‘on Friday the first’ when referring to a day that did not exist, or to a day on which very unlikely events such as the flying of pigs or (in the Shire) the walking of trees might occur. In full the expression was ‘on Friday the first of Summerfilth’.

1 It was a jest in Bree to speak of ‘Winterfilth in the (muddy) Shire’, but according to the Shire-folk Wintring was a Bree alteration of the older name, which had originally referred to the filling or completion of the year before Winter, and descended from times before the full adoption of Kings’ Reckoning when their new year began after harvest.

1 Recording births, marriages, and deaths in the Took families, as well as matters, such as land-sales, and various Shire events.

2 I have therefore in Bilbo’s song (pp. 158-60) used Saturday and Sunday instead of Thursday and Friday.

1 Though actually theyestarë of New Reckoning occurred earlier than in the Calendar of Imladris, in which it corresponded more or less with Shire April 6.

2 Anniversary of its first blowing in the Shire in 3019.

1 Usually called in Sindarin Menelvagor (p. 81), Q. Menelmacar.

1 As in galadhremmin ennorath (p. 238) ‘tree-woven lands of Middle-earth’. Remmirath (p. 81) contains rem ‘mesh’, Q. rembe, + mîr ‘jewel’.

2 A fairly widespread pronunciation of long é and ó as ei and ou, more or less as in English say no, both in Westron and in the renderings of Quenya names by Westron speakers, is shown by spellings such as ei, ou (or their equivalents in contemporary scripts). But such pronunciations were regarded as incorrect or rustic. They were naturally usual in the Shire. Those therefore who pronounce yéni únótime ‘long-years innumerable’, as is natural in English (sc. more or less as yainy oonoatimy) will err little more than Bilbo, Meriadoc, or Peregrin. Frodo is said to have shown great ‘skill with foreign sounds’.

1 So also in Annûn ‘sunset’, Amrûn ‘sunrise’, under the influence of the related dun ‘west’, and rhûn ‘east’.

2 Originally. But iu in Quenya was in the Third Age usually pronounced as a rising diphthong as yu in English yule.

1 The only relation in our alphabet that would have appeared intelligible to the Eldar is that between P and B; and their separation from one another, and from F, M, V, would have seemed to them absurd.

2 Many of them appear in the examples on the title-page, and in the inscription on p. 50, transcribed on p. 254. They were mainly used to express vowel-sounds, in Quenya usually regarded as modifications of the accompanying consonant; or to express more briefly some of the most frequent consonant combinations.

1 The representation of the sounds here is the same as that employed in transcription and described above, except that here ch represents the ch in English church; j represents the sound of English j, and zh the sound heard in azure and occasion.

2 The inscription on the West-gate of Moria gives an example of a mode, used for the spelling of Sindarin, in which Grade 6 represented the simple nasals, but Grade 5 represented the double or long nasals much used in Sindarin: 17=nn, but 21=n.

1 In Quenya in which a was very frequent, its vowel sign was often omitted altogether. Thus for calma ‘lamp’ clm could be written. This would naturally read as calma, since cl was not in Quenya a possible initial combination, and m never occurred finally. A possible reading was calama, but no such word existed.

1 For breath h Quenya originally used a simple raised stem without bow, called halla ‘tall’. This could be placed before a consonant to indicate that it was unvoiced and breathed; voiceless r and l were usually so expressed and are transcribed hr, hl. Later 33 was used for independent h, and the value of hy (its older value) was represented by adding the tehta for following y.

1 Those in ( ) are values only found in Elvish use; * marks cirth only used by Dwarves.

1 In Lórien at this period Sindarin was spoken, though with an ‘accent’, since most of its folk were of Silvan origin. This ‘accent’ and his own limited acquaintance with Sindarin misled Frodo (as is pointed out in The Thain’s Book by a commentator of Gondor). All the Elvish words cited in Book Two chs 6, 7, 8are in fact Sindarin, and so are most of the names of places and persons. But Lorien, Caras Galadhon, Amroth, Nimrodel are probably of Silvan origin, adapted to Sindarin.

1 Quenya, for example, are the names Númenor (or in full Númenore), and Elendil, Isildur, and Anárion, and all the royal names of Gondor, including Elessar ‘Elfstone’. Most of the names of the other men and women of the Dúnedain, such as Aragorn, Denethor, Gilraen are of Sindarin form, being often the names of Elves or Men remembered in the songs and histories of the First Age (as Beren, Húrin). Some few are of mixed forms, as Boromir.

1 The Stoors of the Angle, who returned to Wilderland, had already adopted the Common Speech; but Déagol and Sméagol are names in the Mannish language of the region near the Gladden.

1 Except where the Hobbits seem to have made some attempts to represent shorter murmurs and calls made by the Ents; a-lalla-lalla-rumba-kamanda-lindor-burúme also is not Elvish, and is the only extant (probably very inaccurate) attempt to represent a fragment of actual Entish.

1 In one or two places an attempt has been made to hint at these distinctions by an inconsistent use of thou. Since this pronoun is now unusual and archaic it is employed mainly to represent the use of ceremonious language; but a change from you to thou, thee is sometimes meant to show, there being no other means of doing this, a significant change from the deferential, or between men and women normal, forms to the familiar.

1 This linguistic procedure does not imply that the Rohirrim closely resembled the ancient English otherwise, in culture or art, in weapons or modes of warfare, except in a general way due to their circumstances: a simpler and more primitive people living in contact with a higher and more venerable culture, and occupying lands that had once been part of its domain.

1 [These words describing characters of face and hair in fact applied only to the Noldor: see The Book of Lost Tales, Part One, p. 44.]