Henneth Annûn Story Archive

For my birthday I received a book from my cousin called A Guide to Tolkien by David Day but whilst looking through the book I found a few spelling errors. As you could imagine I was really astonished and I¡¯m sure anyone would to find that Dior¡¯s son¡¯s name is spelled Elr¨¦d instead of El¨²red and that Ingw§×¡¯s tower in Tirion is no longer Mindon Eldali¨¦va but Mindon Eldali¨®va.

These few spelling errors of character and place names are not the only thing I found wrong. Other things such as naming Celeborn and Galadriel King and Queen of Lothlorien, when it is said specifically in the Unfinished Tales, The History of Galadriel and Celeborn (where David Day said he got the info from) that: ¡®they took no title of King and Queen; for they said they were only guardians¡¯. Wait there¡¯s more! ¡®Galadriel and Celeborn took up their permanent abode in Lorien and its government. But they took no title of King or Queen.¡¯

There are other little nitpicks that I could rave on about (Queen Celebrian, Gollum the Ghoul) but what I¡¯m really trying to get to here is that this book wasn¡¯t made as an accompaniment to the Movie Trilogy. If so then perhaps I would¡¯ve tolerated Celeborn and Galadriel being named King and Queen of Lorien, because that is how the movie puts it, but it has nothing in relation to the movie.

So basically what I¡¯m going to do is write a letter to the publishers about this and perhaps remind them that before publishing books the editors should check out the background on things (or at least to check if people and places have the names spelt right!) But before I do so there are just a few questions I have to put to all you Tolkien intellectuals on certain things because there could be a slight chance that I have gotten my stuff wrong.

Firstly, did the elves of Eregion ever note Celebrimbor as their King?

Any linguist, I always thought that Und¨®miel always meant Evening star, hence Evenstar, but Day says that it means Evening maiden.

Did the Maia Ilmar§×, handmaid of Varda, throw spears of light down from the night sky?

Those are the few I can find at the moment. Any help from HASA members would be greatly appreciated and if anyone who has the book and have found other errors I¡¯ve missed, please inform me.

--Elithien

 

Celebrimbor is called the Lord of Eregion, in a few places, but nowhere is he called King. I find very few mentions of Ilmare, and nothing about spears of light.

This is sad and does not reflect well on the author or his editor. Even sadder, if somewhat funny, I recall reading (but not where I read it) that the infamous Tolkien Sarcasm Page synopsis was actually incorporated into what purported to be a scholarly Tolkien book. The book was eventually withdrawn.
On the Sarcasm page here you can read the synopsis intended to catch lazy students, and then link to the article written by a reporter from the London Sunday Times who used the synopsis- I am sure he or she now regrets being too lazy to check the source.

Lyllyn

 

IIRC, the David Day book has been known for some time to contain a number of errors. Of course, it contains a lot of correct information also, but it is important to check with another, more reliable source before considering information from that book authoritative.

Ithildin

 

Quoting from the article by Ian Markham-Smith Galadriel is the good sister of the evil but beautiful Queen Beruthiel, who imprisons the Fellowship of the Ring in the forest of Lothlorien. In the book, Galadriel frees them from her sister's clutches. Really? I must have dozed off during that part of FotR... Ralph Bakshi's [...] trilogy was never completed. Uh..yeah it was. I remember watching a cartoon Gandalf sail off into the sunset with the hobbits. I remember the orcs marching to war singing "Where there's a whip, there's a way." This is so VERY wrong: http://flyingmoose.org/tolksarc/homework.htm

 

This is so VERY wrong: http://flyingmoose.org/tolksarc/homework.htm But very funny! Check out some of the links from the main Tolkien sarcasm page, particularly the LotR game put out by "melkor-bradley" Lyllyn

 

Lyllyn, I want you to know that I've wasted about an hour reading this and sending the link to everyone I know when I could have been working on updateing the travel times report. ...just thought you would like to know how you influenced my day

 

http://flyingmoose.org/tolksarc/homework.htm ROFL! I counted 7 errors in the first paragraph alone. Too funny...pathetic, but too funny. Cheryl

 

Too funny...pathetic, but too funny. Did anyone else notice that though the author *says* the London (?) Times used his page as a resource, the quoted article does not mention the page at all? Someone had a very good time writing that! I wonder how many poor kids are actually taken in and wrote reports based on that hysterical mis-telling of the story? Almost makes me wish I was a teacher, so I could write scathing comments on some poor kid's paper and scar them for life. Gwynnyd

 

Almost makes me wish I was a teacher, so I could writing scathing comments on some poor kid's paper and scar them for life. LOL! I was thinking the same thing. Eru help the student who uses that instead of reading the book...and has a teacher who knows the story. LOLOL Cheryl

 

Did anyone else notice that though the author *says* the London (?) Times used his page as a resource, the quoted article does not mention the page at all? Did you see the article written in the times? It is hysterical. He has it posted on the site too. The reporter goes on about Galadriel's evil sister... http://flyingmoose.org/tolksarc/blanchett.htm

 

Lyllyn, I want you to know that I've wasted about an hour reading this and sending the link to everyone I know when I could have been working on updateing the travel times report. ...just thought you would like to know how you influenced my day Hm, I would say I'm glad to be an evil influence and promote laughter and procrastination; but taking you away from one of my resource!nuzgul... I don't know. But then again, those pesky things have firm little teeth, they won't let go that easily! lyllyn

 

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