Guide to Nomenclature of the Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

Author:J. R. R. Tolkien [Tolkien, J. R. R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-12-04T06:52:36+00:00

Things

Few of these entries require comment, since they are either in alien (especially Elvish) languages, or simply in modern E. (= CS) and require normal translation.

Elder Days. This is naturally taken by E. readers to mean 'older' (sc. former) but with an archaic flavour, since this original form of the comparative is now only applied to persons, or used as a noun in Elders (seniors). In inventing the expression I intended this, as well as association with the poetic word eld 'old age, antiquity'. I have since (recently) come across the expression in early E.: be eldern dawes 'in the days of our forefathers, long ago'. This, meaning 'days of the seniors', might help in devising a translation that is not just the LT equivalent of 'the older days'. The Swed. version has simply i Äldre46 tiden; the Dutch de Oude Tid (less correctly, since this would naturally also apply to the other ages before the Third).

(The similarity to Eldar, pl. of Elda 'Elf', is accidental and unintentional. Elda is the Q. form of the Grey-elven word edhel.) [Compare Elder Kindred under Persons.]

Elven. With regard to this old adjectival form, see note upon it under Persons [i.e. under Elven-smiths].

Evermind. Flower-name, translation of Rohan simbelmynë47 . The element -mind has the sense 'memory'. The name thus resembles 'forget-me-not', but a quite different kind of flower is intended: an imagined variety of anemone, growing in turf like Anemone Pulsatilla, the pasque-flower, but smaller and white like the wood anemone. Translate by sense. The Swed. and Dutch versions both omit the element -mind, and so produce names equivalent to 'everlasting flower', which is not the point. Though the plant bloomed at all seasons its flowers were not 'immortelles'. (Swed. evighets-blommor, Dutch Immerdaar.)

Ithilstone. [Spelt Ithil-stone in the text.] Translate the second element -stone.

Kingsfoil. Translate: -foil (from Old French foil) = 'leaf’, as in cinquefoil, etc. Only the leaf48 of asëa was valued.

Lithe. The former and later Lithe (OE līða) were the old names for June and July respectively. All the month-names in the Shire Calendar are (worn-down) forms of the OE names. In the Hobbit Calendar (the) Lithe was the middle-day (or 183rd day) of the year. Since all the Hobbit month-names are supposed not to be CS, but conservative survivals from their former language before migration, it would be best to keep Lithe unaltered – as would be necessary with the other calendar names in any translation of the Appendices. The Dutch version keeps Lithe. (The word was peculiar to E. and no related calendar word is found elsewhere.) The Swed. version rewrites the passage I 20 (new edition I 19) [2004 edn., p. 10; Prologue] 'who was elected... at Midsummer': Han valdes vart sjunde år vid midsommarvakan uppe pä Kritklipporna i sommarsolståndets natt. This, besides omitting the Free Fair and misrendering the White Downs (a name) as 'the chalk cliffs' (!), misrepresents the passage and the customs plainly alluded to. It was not a night festival or 'wake', but a day-celebration marked

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