Halfir Essays Compilation Project?

[The Elf Imperishable]

Hopefully this fits in the Lore thread. If it doesn't, feel free to move it somewhere else.

Halfir, otherwise known as David Gransby, was pivotal to the plaza in terms of scholarly work on Tolkien and fantasy lore in general. A lot of his writing is locked within those plaza databases, but we do have the Internet Archive for a glimpse into his brilliance. What say we do a compilation project of his essays here on this site? Is there anything legally preventing us from doing so?

Furthermore, there are currently literary scholarly articles citing Halfir's essays from the plaza, so I would argue that from a scholarly perspective, someone has to make sure Halfir's essays don't disappear into the Internet Void otherwise those other literary articles suffer too.

[Lúthien Tinúviel]

Hi Rivvy!

I'm not an expert, but I believe the fan forums would fall under both public domain and fair use laws, so as long as they're findable via Internet Archive, there probably are no legal prohibitions on posting them here.

Of course, as Halfir's faithful followers, I'm sure we'd dedicate a whole thread to attributing them to him. ;)

[The Elf Imperishable]

Thanks for the response Luthien! I'm glad that that's probably the case. Yes, we should dedicate a whole thread to attribute those essays to him. Needless to say, his legacy needs to be remembered.

Tomorrow I'll be diving in the archive to see what I can find.

[Thorin Firehelm]

Now there's a name from the past. halfir. I still remember hearing he had passed away. I definitely think getting an archive of his stuff together would be a fitting tribute.

[Reikon Suchi-ru]

One of the most impactful moments in my early Plaza history - when I had watched the movies but hadn't yet finished the books - was having halfir very kindly, eloquently, and informatively responding to a topic of mine in the Basic Lore forum. He was a titan of the Plaza even in the early days, and having him take the time to respond to my very basic question was thrilling. I was very said to hear of his passing and hope to be able to relive some of his greatest hits if this comes up!

[Turin Ringhûn]

I love this idea. I'm in agreement in Luthien about the public domain and fair use. It'd be a shame to lose his brilliance. Another thing I'd love to see pulled would be those lore debates, but that is another topic to discuss. At times, I thought I knew a lot, but then I'd read one of Halfir's posts and would be humbled. If I have time, I wouldn't mind helping pulling posts.

[Dimcairien Luiniel]

I’m in full agreement with this project.

I loved halfir, but I was also a bit scared of how smart he was. If anything, hopefully some of the “peeling the onion” threads can be salvaged.

[The Elf Imperishable]

I found a Peeling the Onion thread:

http://web.archive.org/web/201712061058 ... 84c01e975a

[Curunder]

Not his lore, but I was able to find the complete Order of halfir fan thread. http://web.archive.org/web/201308242351 ... halfir-III

[Oak]

I was a member of the order of Halfir. I am having problems getting that link to load unfortunately. It is very slow.

[Fairy Nuff]

I'm on board with that - far from being a problem, I think it is a duty to ensure that all that work and knowledge is not lost, and that more people have access to it for prosperity. I would suggest that we need to restore it in a form that makes it searchable, or is at least indexed, and that it should be somewhere secure/backed up - Narv has said that if this is only a short lived revival it might all go again, and even if it lives on, something may be lost in moving servers. I'd hate for a lot of work to go into it only for it all to disappear again. It serves to remind us that the internet goes on but content is fleeting.

That being said, how can I help?

[Narv]

I would agree that it'd be wise to try to do this in such a way that the archive isn't too tightly coupled with this incarnation of the Plaza. We can certainly host the stuff here and I will try my best not to bung it up, but perhaps also keeping all the curated links in a separate Google Doc or other website would be a smart idea!

[Ta'leus Shieldsong]

I've been working on saving the posts that were made on the Scholar's Forum of the past. I've managed to collect almost the entirety of those posts, and I am planning on working on retrieving Halfir's work as best as I can. I kind of like Narv's idea of compiling what we can of his works and keeping them in an openly accessible Google Doc that can be read by anyone. I will keep you all updated if and when I find anything of Halfir's stuff!

[Eldy Dunami]

I obviously wasn't privy to the behind-the-scenes conversations between Plaza staff and contributors to the Scholars Forum, but considering that not all of them were members of the site and it was a more formal, quasi-publication thing (that's how the introductory text in the forum header always read to me, at least), it might be advisable to only bring those back on a case-by-case basis, when it's possible to contact the original authors.

[Oro]

Eldy, I would agree with you mostly but on the point of Halfir’s posts I think that a tribute section of the website with a list of his essays would be a great nod to his time and effort that he spent here. I do not think there is any issue with using his posts as a memorial and less as a book that we are publishing. I do not think that we should represent it as our information but as a memorial to him for people to read.

[Eldy Dunami]

@Oro, yeah, I'd think halfir's posts are a somewhat different situation since, unlike the Scholars Forum, they were for the most part "normal" (if exceptionally high-quality) forum posts rather than part of a curated collection, and because he was so personally involved in the site. So I agree with you, I don't think that would be an issue. But then again, I am most definitely not a lawyer.

[Reikon Suchi-ru]

As others have mentioned, would hosting a separate page on the website with some of his posts / essays make sense? It stays as a static iteration of his works, doesn't link to the old archives too much (with broken links and whatnot), and could probably be made relatively easily? Perhaps once that page goes live just have someone on her copy the text into a forum post (with proper attributions of course) and then we could have a discussion.

[Curunder]

Hands and Breath of a Healer thread: https://web.archive.org/web/20071103153 ... 14936&PN=1

Norse Imagery thread: https://web.archive.org/web/20071103152 ... 06422&PN=1

[Oak]

Making a wordpress page that publishes his work might be a viable option. Just so his stuff doesn't go poof out of existence.

Here is his twitter ---> https://twitter.com/halfir There isn't too much on it.

This link may be of interest ---> http://lingwe.blogspot.com/2013/02/rece ... tions.html written by Jason Fisher.

It was originally written for the Plaza Scholar's forum but then halfir passed away. I am wondering if he has access to any of halfir's material.

[Troelsfo]

I will start here by very strongly recommending Simon Cook's discussion of @halfir's famous Tom Bombadil thread:
Tom Bombadil: Peeling the Onion

The issues associated with compiling what you describe as @halfir's “essays” are, I believe, not really a matter of copyright. The text was published by himself into the public domain and therefore remains public domain. The real issue is one of editing. His posts to the Plaza are not essays – they are posts to an internet forum, and thus they are part of a discussion in which they interact with other users on the forum. This makes it extremely difficult to edit the text into a form that could be presented as a self-contained text and still remain to some degree “faithful” to the original – to the ideas and opinions and interests and personality of their author, of @halfir.

But I do very much like the idea of here sharing links to threads on Archive.org to which @halfir made significant contributions and where (as far as we can judge now) all posts are archived.

[Saranna]

Wonderful - I have a retrieved copy of a halfir thread on Malory and the Red Book of Westmarch. have only done a little work on it but in such a tribute thread as we're suggesting, would it be best to present the posts as a dialogue - there's really only halfir and 1/2 main 'speakers' - then make it all one post. How would we approach this on longer threads though, if we can retrieve more?

[geordie]

Wonderful - I have a retrieved copy of a halfir thread on Malory and the Red Book of Westmarch. have only done a little work on it but in such a tribute thread as we're suggesting, would it be best to present the posts as a dialogue - there's really only halfir and 1/2 main 'speakers' - then make it all one post. How would we approach this on longer threads though, if we can retrieve more?

As one of those contributors myself, I would really love to see that thread again, Saranna.

[Saranna]

Will get to work on it as soon as I've got my current deadline sorted, geordie. Any ideas on how to format it? One long post?

[Saranna]

OK - I'm taking the plunge and will accept any howls of disagreement or even congratulations later. They say you can't go home again, but I have spent today in 2004 in the company of halfir and other members of the old Plaza. I am about to create a vast post in the next box with the results of my labours, a Word-format document reproducing every jot and tittle of halfir's thread on Malory and the Red Book of Westmarch. The format changes a little way through because the two sections of this came to me in different formats and clever formatting is bit beyond me. I have conserved the content for us and for future generations, I hope. I have removed the pictorial headings of each post and the icons of the posters to save some space. I have corrected minor typos and I think I've corrected every instance of 'Halfir' to 'halfir' as the High Lord preferred it. I have added 2 short notes on later developments but have marked them as such. The Valar alone know whether this will work, but here we go.

[Saranna]

Malory and the Red Book of Westmarch

Forum Name: The Books
Forum Description: Discuss the various Books by J.R.R. Tolkien
URL:/display_topic_threads.asp?ForumID=24&TopicID=155483
Date Printed: Wednesday, October 06, 2004 at 08:03
Topic: Malory and the Red Book of Westmarch
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted By: halfir
Subject: Malory and the Red Book of Westmarch
Date Posted: Tuesday, October 05, 2004 at 03:02
‘Still, I wonder if we shall ever be put into songs or tales. We’re in one of course; but I mean: put into words, you know, told by the fireside, or read out of a great big book with red and black letters, years and years afterwards.’ (Sam to Frodo: TT The Stairs of Cirith Ungol - my bold emphasis).
Later this month Professor Verlyn Flieger - a leading Tolkien scholar and author of A Question of Time: Tolkien’s Road to Faerie, and Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien’s World will present a paper at a Tolkien conference organized by Marquette University - in which she argues that Sam’s reference is in fact a reference by Tolkien to a particular copy of Malory’s Morte D’Arthur.
[A note from Saranna, 2020; The text of this paper by Flieger evolved into the chapter ‘Tolkien and the idea of the book’ and can be found in: Flieger, Verlyn: Green Suns and Faërie; essays on J. R. R. Tolkien. Kent State University Press, 2012. Pages 41-53.]

The phrase "big book with red and black letters" also describes an actual manuscript. This was the manuscript copy of Malory’s Morte D’Arthur discovered in the Fellows’ Library of Winchester College in 1934 and in the process of being edited for publication by Eugene Vinaver at the time Tolkien was writing.
It is a great big book with red and black letters. Red is important, and refers not to the elaborate decoration of initial letters at the head of chapters common in medieval manuscripts, but to a substantial portion of the book. All the proper names in the Winchester manuscript are entered in red ink, so that the pages are filled with "red and black letters."
Sam’s other phrase "years and years afterward" also evokes the whole Arthurian tradition, the survival in many manuscripts over many centuries of an historical event and characters. Flieger maintains that Sam’s description is derived from the Winchester manuscript, and that this manuscript was a material influence on Tolkien’s concept of the transmission of story through manuscript that emerges in his own work as the Red Book of Westmarch.
The manuscript had been found by Walter Oakeshott - a librarian at Winchester College Oxford in 1934.
Oakeshott writes of his find that at the urging of J.B. Oldham, an expert in 15th-16th century blind stamped book bindings and Librarian of Shrewsbury School (Kingsland), Oakeshott approached the Fellows’ Librarian for permission to enter the bedroom of the College Warden and open the safe containing medieval manuscripts in order to fill gaps in his knowledge of the Library’s holdings.
He goes on to say:
Accordingly, when at last I approached the safe with the key in my hands, it was with some excitement. I slid aside the metal grille, and was dashed to see at a glance that on the twenty or thirty manuscripts not a single medieval binding remained . . . It was a disappointment. But one did not get a chance every day to handle medieval books, so I pulled them out one by one and ran through one after another, catching a glimpse of an illumination here, or an interesting-looking text there, but making no systematic observations or notes. Two or three which were not in Latin but were in English caught my eye. One was very fat, some 480 leaves, paper not vellum, the text prose not verse, clearly about King Arthur and his Knights, but lacking a beginning or an end. Be it admitted to my shame that I had never read Malory, and my knowledge of him was about as sketchy as my knowledge of most things has alas had to remain. But I made a vague mental note of this prose Arthurian manuscript, and passed on to the next item.
Oakeshott goes on to relate that "by good fortune" a few weeks later in preparing for a visit from the Friends of the National Library, he set out an exhibit of early printed books including several by Wynkyn de Worde (Caxton’s successor in the book trade). In order to prepare a label for exhibit, Oakeshott consulted a reference work where, he says, he "came across a sentence which made my heart miss a beat":
"The compilation of the Morte d’Arthur’, writes Duff, ’was finished in 1469, but of the compiler little is known save the name . . . No manuscript of the work is known, and though Caxton certainly revised it, exactly to what extent has never been settled."
Oakeshott goes on to tell how he went to Wells Bookshop in College Street, bought the Everyman edition of the Morte D’Arthur, and "sought out the Librarian of the Fellows’ Library and begged from him the key of the safe again, saying (what was indeed true) that there was some point I wished to check." With the edition alongside the manuscript, Oakeshott determined immediately that it was indeed a version of Malory and quickly discerned the degree to which Caxton had revised portions of the original author’s work.
Reading of the discovery in the newspaper, Eugene Vinaver--already well-established as an Arthurian scholar--quickly motored from Manchester to Winchester, followed, it is rumored, by "an aircraftman on a motor-cycle" (T.E. Lawrence). When asked to show Vinaver the manuscript, Oakeshott showed him the safe but stalled for a short time awaiting permission from the Warden and the Fellows. In time, Vinaver made secure his claim to scholarly privilege in the matter; the result of Vinaver’s research was the 3-volume The Works of Sir Thomas Malory (Oxford, 1947).
Eugene Vinaver was Professor of Medieval French during my time at Manchester University, in England, and I wish I had known then of his relationship with Tolkien- for he surely had one.
In 1933 Eugene Vinaver, who had also been at Leeds when Gordon, Tolkien’s close friend and scholarly collaborator was Professor of English Language there, followed him to Manchester where Gordon had been appointed Smith Professor of English Language and Germanic Philology at the University of Manchester. (I later knew his wife-Ida Gordon who was a senior lecturer there).
Vinaver collaborated with Gordon on a comparison of the text of the alliterative Morte D’Arthur and the Winchester manuscript of Malory which had been discovered-as we have seen- in 1934.
So the links back to Tolkien are very close indeed and it will be of great interest to learn what arguments Professor Flieger will use to link Sam’s comments on the Stairs of Cirith Ungol to a Malorian manuscript found in the safe of the Warden of Winchester College Oxford in 1934!
N.B. Please note that apart from my own personal knowledge of some aspects of this story my sources are from Marquette University’s website, website information on Walter Oakeshott, and Tolkien the Medievalist edt. by Jane Chance.
Posted By: Naith Liathant
Date Posted: Tuesday, October 05, 2004 at 06:51
This is all very interesting, Halfir. I have never read any Flieger, let me start by saying that. Let me also say that the following shall simply be my assertion regarding the mention of the Red Book of Westmarch and Sam’s speech quoted above.
I have always assumed that since Tolkien aspired, in a sense, to create a kind of mythology that pleased him more so than Arthurian myth, through the Lord of the Rings and the great works surrounding it that the Redbook in this sense was a nod toward his own inspiration. Much as many aspects of the tales comprise themes / language / geography or other acknowledgements to these sources. In this I generally allude to adaptations of cultures and language and myth and folk tale.
More specifically and to get to the point, I always assumed that the Red Book would be a nod to the Red Book of Hergest. A fourteenth century manuscript that, together with the White Book of Rhydderch, comprises the Mabinogion. This is of prime import to the student of Arthurian myth. It is a collection of short stories and Welsh myth and folk tale.
Properly this consists of only four tales, none of which are Arthurian but it has come to include the Arthurian works of Gereint and Enid, Culhwch and Olwen, Peredur and The Dream of Rhonabwy. The most famous translation (arguably) of Lady Charlotte Guest also includes the story of Taliesin.
Alternatively and perhaps less convincingly, since none other than myself, that I am aware of, have linked the following, it could allude to another Red Book entirely, or at the same time, which I think quite likely. I believe this since Tolkien was so very clever and genius and knowledgeable of so many alternate fields of literature and lore.
The Red Book of Appin, asserts Montague Summers, was a manuscript that contained ’ a large number of magic runes and incantations for the cure of cattle disease, the increase of flocks and the fertility of fields. This document, which must be of immense importance and interest, when last heard of was (I believe) in the possession of the now - extinct Stewarts of Invernahyle. This strange volume, so the story ran, conferred dark powers on the owner, who knew what inquiry would be made ere the question was poised; and the tome was so confected with the occult arts that he who read it must wear a circlet of iron around his brow as he turned those mystic pages.’
The ’Tradition’ of folklore said this tome ’was stolen from the devil by a trick’.
Now I am not casting aspersions upon the use of the Red Book as a symbol, and remember I do say that there is a dual image here, but should Tolkien have been privy to the same understanding as Summers regarding this, the reference to the circlet of iron is certainly worth its weight in gold, even if only in entertainment value.
Source: History of Witchcraft & Demonology, Montague Summers
Posted By: halfir
Date Posted: Tuesday, October 05, 2004 at 15:35
Naith: Quite fascinating! Until Professor Fleiger’s paper reaches a wider public (I have written to Marquette to discover if and when they are going to publish it and the other papers or if we can obtain copies of it and the other papers) I will not try and second-guess what she is going to say.
With regard to your suggestion of the Red Book of Hergest I would draw your attention to Letter # 131 and Tolkien’s known aversion to the Arthurian canon.
As to the more recondite link to the Red Book of Appin my own feeling is that Tolkien, a very devout Roman Catholic would have eschewed anything of this nature- if he knew about it- but I admit the ’iron crown’ reference is most intriguing.
However, I think that the physical format of the book is what will play a major in Professor Flieger’s argument. Have you any idea in what format the Red Book of Hergest appeared?
But your thesis is most interesting even though it may - as may Professor Flieger’s -owe more to ’applicability’ than to authorial intent. However, in your favor is the fact that Tolkien was very au fait with the Welsh Language and with its tales- and this nods in the direction of The Red Book of Hergest.
Altogether a most fascinating and excellent piece of detective work and thinking on your part.
Posted By: Naith Liathant
Date Posted: Tuesday, October 05, 2004 at 16:41

halfir: The paper in itself will be most fascinating when you obtain a copy of it. Although I tend to agree regarding Tolkien’s theoretical and most assured dislike for the Red Book of Appin itself, the information above is the research of Montague Summers, himself a Catholic Priest (1880 - 1948). If Tolkien had known of this, and the research undertaken, or had in his own way discovered the tale of the Red Book of Appin, he might have had the darker part of his imagination stirred to form the link. The Red Book of Westmarch being Translations from Elvish and that being the recounting of the War of the Ring and destruction of the One Ring. The fact that the reader of the Red Book of Appin would have to wear a circlet of iron to wield the supposed dark power in the book might have been something that lit a metaphorical light bulb in the Tolkien mind.
To couple that Red Book symbolism to either the Red Book of Hergest or indeed the Morte D’Arthur, and thereby form two distinctive links to the Red Book of Westmarch as having some hidden meaning. The latter would certainly be the reason linked through Sam’s words and certainly a less dark and more accessible and well known possibility, also it fits with the language used in Sam’s speech so in that sense my comment truly is an aside. A fan's inner musing.
The reason I linked the Red Book of Appin to the Red Book of Westmarch is highlighted above. I certainly surmise that Tolkien, though not condoning such texts, would know that a text in itself is only as tainted as the reader allows it to be and as dangerous as the credence it is granted, and therefore to not necessarily eschew such as a source of inspiration when creating the dark power of the Rings Trilogy. However, that said, I doubt Tolkien would be putting that link to the fore!
So yes, tenuous, yet food for thought, and it was something to share!
I always thought his aversion to Arthurian myth was more born of aesthetic frustration and dissatisfaction. I shall have a read of said letter, thank you for the reference, could have been looking for that all night!
I would have to do more research as to the form of the Red Book of Hergest. I know it was written 1375 - 1425 but was not compiled into the Mabinogion until the mid nineteenth century. I would need to do some research to discover more. That did originally deal only with four tales, Pwyll, Branwen, Manawydan, and Math, three of which concern the hero named Pryderi. To reiterate, none of these were Arthurian.
<< Edit : My apologies if none of this makes any sense, blame my sleep deprived self, but this is an interesting discussion, and as I said, I rarely get out of Minas Tirith and P+FF, so I wanted to answer you speedily. >>
Posted By: halfir
Date Posted: Tuesday, October 05, 2004 at 17:34
Naith: it was something to share!
My dear sir, you do yourself an injustice! Something to share! It was a veritable horn of plenty- a cornucopia of stimulating and thought provoking ideas. I am delighted that you allowed it to venture outside the walls of Gondor (where I rarely venture as my distaste for the stewards has tainted my relations with your fair city and kingdom- even though I know that it is now in good hands!)
BTW did you know that Summers was very much used as a ’source’ document for the Dennis Wheatley Black Magic stories- The Devil Rides Out etc?
I will let you know Marquette’s response.
Posted By: Laielinwen
Date Posted: Wednesday, October 06, 2004 at 01:06
Wow halfir! Very exciting news! Do share with us what you find out.
Naith, as always you put forth excellent information that is well researched and pondered! The quality of your words is high as always. I’d expect no less. I’m thrilled to see you interacting with my oldest plaza friend. (erm... not talkin’ age J)
Posted By: halfir
Date Posted: Wednesday, October 06, 2004 at 02:13
Laie: I should hope not! After both my waistline and my age passed 46 I started counting backwards! I now admit to 21 -permanently - for both!
Posted By: Laielinwen
Date Posted: Wednesday, October 06, 2004 at 02:32
J backwards is good!
Posted By: Saranna
Date Posted: Wednesday, October 06, 2004 at 02:42
This is brilliant stuff - why have I gone and discovered it just as I have to dash out to my exercise class for elderly ladies? Don’t go away! :)

Saranna Wednesday, October 06, 2004 at 08:18 Warrior of Imladris

halfir, I am fascinated by your argument and indeed wholly convinced. I feel, however, that the suggestions of Naith are also interesting. When I first read LOTR long ago my assumption was that the Red Book of Hergest was being evoked, one of those associations that JRRT liked to play with (Crickhollow/Crickhowell, for another example). However, your description of the Malory text, which sadly I have never seen, does make it seem 99.99% clear to me that Sam's reference is to that work. Did Tolkien see it while Vinaver was editing, or do we not know that?
Perhaps I could find the answer to this following question in the Letters, which I have not read for some years~ (the Plaza as an instrument that prods one into re-reading would be a possible thread) ~ but could you clarify for me whether JRRT's dislike was actually toward the Arthurian cycle per se, or toward it's "Fenchification" in the Middle Ages? That is, was he trying to retrieve something that he felt had become obscured in Arthurian legend, or more radically, trying to provide what he believed that cycle never to have provided.
Dear me, what a pompous sentence. I have every confidence in your power to decipher it.

halfir Wednesday, October 06, 2004 at 16:34 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143
Did Tolkien see it while Vinaver was editing, or do we not know that?
Hopefully Professor Flieger will throw some light on that aspect. There is of course the connection between Gordon- Tolkien's close associate, and Vinaver, and all three were at Leeds.
Also C S Lewis reviewed (disagreeably I think) Vinaver’s edition (or rather his conclusions) when it was published in 1947 and Lewis and Tolkien were also close. And Vinaver himself refers to attending a lecture by Tolkien at Oxford during the period of his work on Malory, so I suspect in the close environment of Oxford University Tolkien was well aware of the work Vinaver was doing and either had sight of or had graphic description of Malory’s discovered work. (It would be nice to know if Vinaver was ever invited to an Inklings’ meeting!)
However, that is my supposition- I hope Verlyn Flieger will give us detailed confirmation.
My biggest irritation is that Vinaver- then I think Professor Emeritus was - as a fairly old man still at Manchester when I was- and I had no idea of his connection with Tolkien. Of Ida Gordon's I did - and she was no fan!
Tolkien's hostility to the Arthurian canon- which is set out perhaps at its crispest in Letter # 131 - the famous ';Waldman'; letter appears to revolve around the fact that it is a ';foreign'; transplant which does not adequately reflect England- but rather Britain; that its approach to 'faerie' is too excessive; and most fundamentally that it is overtly Christian:
';For reasons I will not elaborate, that seems to me fatal. Myth and fairy-story must, as all art, reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and religious truth (or error) , but not explicit, not in the known form of the ';primary'; real world. (I am speaking, of course, of our present situation, not of ancient pagan, pre-Christian days. And I will not repeat what I tried to say in my essay, which you read).
(Unfortunately HC does not tell us what essay Tolkien is referring to, but I am assuming it is the Lang Memorial lecture from 1939 ';On Fairy Stories'; which was first published in 1947 in ';Essays Presented to Charles Williams';)


I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Saranna Thursday, October 07, 2004 at 02:50 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445

Thank you, Halfir - Tolkien can always overthrow any assumptions one makes- by objecting to overtly Christian content, for example, when the simplistic view would be that as a Roman Catholic he would approve it. I understand your frustration over never having approached Vinaver on the subject of Tolkien. And envy you mixing with such legendary beasts! Having failed Oxford entrance due to my small Latin and no Greek at all, I was educated at Bedford College, when it was no longer for women only, under the redoubtable Kathleen Tillotson. Hot on Chaucer but not an environment in which one mentioned authors who had not yet done the decent thing, and died!
Yes, it must surely be On fairy-tales. I hope there will be more to this thread, it is fascinating.
"In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. For Behold! We are not bound forever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory."


mil35hokum Thursday, October 07, 2004 at 03:05

Apprentice of Gondor Points: 267 Posts: 22 Days: 201


i believe your reason might be valid enough but to me lotr is just magical interpretation of world war 2 i.e. when tolkein wrote the book . just assume mordor to be nazi germany of that time well italy can as well account for isengard gondor obviously would be england nd rohan be america or russia. anyways to one his own. it is just a point of view. what say?

death is just the beginning
AMIN OTHAR


halfir Thursday, October 07, 2004 at 03:19 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143

mil35hokum: I say- without being unkind- that you have not read the Introduction to FOTR when Tolkien makes it very clear that it has nothing whatsoever to do with WW2. Aspects of WW1 in the form of input to the character of Sam Gamgee and the foulness of the Dead Marshes and Mordor are there- but they are resonances- not direct comparisons.
Tolkien hated allegory in any shape or form and even the Malory example that I have given- and we have yet to read what Professor Flieger says - is not a template that Tolkien copies- simply a literary source that - if it turns out to be true - inspired him. No slavish copying took place, and while there is some symbolism in LOTR that is the most there is.

I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


halfir Thursday, October 07, 2004 at 03:33 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143

Saranna:
Under the redoubtable Kathleen Tillotson. Hot on Chaucer but not an environment in which one mentioned authors who had not yet done the decent thing, and died!
A very famous name! Professor Emeritus of Bedford College and a Vice President of the British Academy and an expert on Dickens, as well as Chaucer and Drayton if I am not mistaken.
I laughed out loud at your who had not yet done the decent thing, and died! comment. I fear this is still the case at many universities even now that the Master has died!
Academics dislike writers who are popular! Have you read John Carey's The Intellectuals and The Masses- Shippey quotes him in Tolkien: Author of the Century. Carey is scathing of what he calls the 'literary Sonnenkinder". I totally agree!
I am awaiting a reply from Marquette as to availability of papers or of their publication- but the conference hasn't yet taken place. I'd love to be there.

I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble

Saranna Thursday, October 07, 2004 at 03:51 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445

No, No don't give me any more to read! Well not yet. I must look up more Flieger. Your previous refs, are not, of course, in stock in the library service where I work, so I am seeking to mobilise the Interlending squad - a small race of orc-like people living mostly in the dark - -
Yes, Dickens also - though I never personally benefitted from her Drayton knowledge. I used to run into her in the BM when she was 90-ish and still working. Her memorial at Senate House was wonderful. A serious role-model for generations of women.
But on the subject of Tolkien and Malory - I do feel there is more to be said, beyond the big black and red letters, but as I am supposed to be working I had better leave this for now!

"In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. For Behold! We are not bound forever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory."


halfir Thursday, October 07, 2004 at 04:03 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143
There would be a link to Malory through C.S.Lewis as Lewis was a great fan of Malory.
Other than a brief reference by Tolkien in Letter # 145 in which a comparison of him with Malory in a review (which he showed to the Warden of Merton) inter alia got him a better college room, there is no reference in the Letters to Malory.
I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Saranna Thursday, October 07, 2004 at 06:31 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445

Well, but I waffle so much - I believe I meant that I see parallels with Malory's reworking of the Matter of Britain - as JRRT reworked the mythology of England. Let me try to clarify - though I am still supposed to be working!
Malory started off just copying from sources, and you can see in the early stages that he is functioning almost like a scribe. During the progress of the vast "Works" (OUP single-vol is the one I use), you can see him thrashing out something resembling modern English prose as he gets more involved with what he is doing, starts to write rather than transcribe, and finally ends up using words instead of copying them ("Ah, Syr Launcelot, there thou lyest . . . " etc).
Now, Tolkien set off writing tales to provide the context for his languages and mythology, and thanks to CT giving us so much of the early draught material, we can see a parallel development taking place, as the philologist evolves into the fiction writer. ("Nice Master." ) (I like the weepy bits!) And what a comfort it is to a struggling writer to see how dire some of those early draughts were, and to hear such statements as "I had no idea at first who Strider was," or words to that effect. So this is my tentative idea of a sort of affinity lying beyond the lettering!

halfir Thursday, October 07, 2004 at 18:39 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143

Saranna: You put me to shame! My simplistic assertion that: There would be a link to Malory through C.S.Lewis as Lewis was a great fan of Malory overlooks the obvious fact that Tolkien - well-versed in Medieval Literature himself - would certainly have studied and reflected on Malory!
Thanks for the timely intervention which saved me from making further simplistic gaffes!
Whether or not he saw the book that Vinaver was editing I do not know - perhaps Professor Flieger will help us there- but he certainly was aware of the Malorian epic and you fascinating extrapolation as to how it might have influenced him more directly than I had supposed makes interesting reading and gives food for thought. Moreover, Lewis'; own literary interests lay in that direction and doubtless the name of Malory came up fairly frequently at the meetings of the Inklings.
And I loved your perceptive comment:
as the philologist evolves into the fiction writer
He was truly seized by the 'awen' of the Bards!
I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Saranna Friday, October 08, 2004 at 03:06 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445

Your approbation, as ever, is music to my ears. I am still adding to my reading-list at a rate of 3 halfir suggestions per minute - -


halfir Friday, October 08, 2004 at 06:07
High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143

Then your occupation must be a boon!

I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


halfir Friday, October 08, 2004 at 17:32 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143

I have now received a reply from Marquette University to confirm that they will be publishing the proceedings of their Tolkien conference- of which this paper is part- in late 2005-2006!
They have also given list of names of those also attending and giving papers- but the conference is already sold-out. The names read like a roll-call of Tolkienian scholarship:
Douglas Anderson Carl F. Hostetter David Bratman S. Gary Hunnewell Marjorie Burns John D. Rateliff Jane Chance Christina Scull Michael Drout Thomas A. Shippey Matt Fisher Arden R. Smith Verlyn Flieger Paul Edmund Thomas Michael Foster Richard C. West John Garth Arne Zettersten Wayne G. Hammond
So we are going to have to wait a while for Professor Flieger’s paper!
I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Saranna Tuesday, October 12, 2004 at 08:48 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445


Thanks halfir - you are working hard to keep us up to date. I have decided to subscribe to the new annual review of Tolkien scholarship, but suspect that lore-wise I shall still be in the Shire while you are crossing the Misty Mountains cold!

"In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. For Behold! We are not bound forever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory."


halfir Tuesday, October 12, 2004 at 23:18 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143


I'll remember to take some thermal long-johns!

I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Saranna Wednesday, October 13, 2004 at 03:04 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445


Fine - I shall stay warm just running to keep up!


halfir Wednesday, October 13, 2004 at 04:08 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143



I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Saranna Thursday, October 14, 2004 at 08:46 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445

BUMP! Someone please get this back on track - stop me and halfir (I mean halfir and I) waffling on!


Saranna Friday, October 22, 2004 at 06:49 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445

Since no-one has done so, I shall have to commit a double-post just to let halfir know that I have got hold of a copy of Poetic Diction - last read 38 years ago. I suspect I understood far less of it than I thought at the time! So the rereading will be good for me!


Heron Friday, October 22, 2004 at 16:51 Guard of the Citadel Points: 3511 Posts: 3719 Days: 1128

I will not presume to address any of the points made above, not being a scholar of "logos," the Mabinogion, the cycles of either Chaucer or Arthur, or someone who can accurately use "exegesis" in a sentence. Which is why, halfir, although I admire the breadth of your learning, frankly, I tend to avoid the threads you open.
However, I thought the following might be of general interest. Dr. John Dexter of Providence College made an interesting point in his article "Invented Texts: Authority Conferred by the Non-Existent Author" (Ontological Linguistics, 10:3, 1967, pp. 398-432) Assuming, that is, that one has the stamina to get through all 30 pp (the last 4 are references) of his obscenely dense verbiage to find said point.
In essence, he states that many authors have claimed to base their works on texts which exist only in the imagination. Tolkien, obviously; also HP Lovecraft is another well-known example. (More recently, authors such as Laurie King have employed the same device, though she began writing well after Dexter wrote his piece.)
Providence College, being in Lovecraft’s home town, has an extensive collection of Lovecraftiana and it was while working on this that Dexter made a remarkable discovery. Lovecraft’s Necronomicon, of course, is his own invention, as is the entire history of "the mad Arab", Abdul Alhazred, its alleged author. Lovecraft even went so far as to invent a second book, the Liber Logaeth, which was supposedly an English translation of the Necronomicon from its original Arabic.
So far, nothing that any casual reader of Lovecraft, Smith, Howard, etc., doesn’t know. However, in his article, Dexter states that the Prov Coll library contains a book in an archaic form of Arabic (carbon dates to pre-Muhammed) that contains various blasphemous prayers and rituals to Angra Mainu (Ahriman). Angra Mainu and Morgoth, incidentally, bear considerable resemblance as the perverters-of-creation, though I’m sure that’s due to the nature of evil rather than to the Zoroastrian mythos being a strong source for Tolkien.
Furthermore, this book, according to Dexter, is a large book written in red and black ink. Lovecraft and Tolkien were (roughly) contemporaries and Lovecraft was an absurdly prolific letter-writer. Perhaps Tolkien’s book is a nod to the Necronomicon.
<Nessa Edit: Welcome Back. It is good to see you again!>


halfir Friday, October 22, 2004 at 23:43 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143

Heron: Great to see you in General Lore again- we have missed you. The last time I recall our meeting was your excellent thread on the Power of Song and Chant.
That is indeed very interesting information regarding Dexter's comment on Lovecraft and the book in 'red and black ink'. However, I tend to see it as coincidental rather than as impacting on Tolkien, and still find Professor Flieger's thesis persuasive.
Douglas A. Anderson who has written widely about Tolkien's sources (as well as editing the Annotated Hobbit) makes no mention at all of Lovecraft as having been in Tolkien’s range of fantasy reading, and nothing I have read in the Letters or in any of the many Tolkien biographies and studies of his literary inspirations makes any mention of Lovecraft, whereas he knew Vinaver and was at Oxford at the time Vinaver was editing the Malory work.
It would, however, be interesting to know what Professor Flieger thinks of the idea. Why don't you email her?
I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Heron Sunday, October 24, 2004 at 17:00 Guard of the Citadel Points: 3511 Posts: 3719 Days: 1128


halfir: you're very kind! My comment above aside (and my apologies if it sounded terse; I meant to say simply that I generally have little that's meaningful to contribute after you present your evidence), I enjoy the lore threads but seldom have the time to research the questions at hand. I will email the Prof. you mention.

Grey Company Captain
TG Co-Supervisor
Steward of Dor Moretirith
Bears the Quill of Gondor



halfir Sunday, October 24, 2004 at 18:08 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143

Heron: There is a Kent State University Website (publishers of Flieger's book 'Splintered Light) and from that you might be able to get an email address for her, or, more likely - as has happened with me in other similar instances- they will forward your message and if you are lucky you'll get a reply!
www.kentstateuniversitypress.com

I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Baelmyrrdn Monday, October 25, 2004 at 11:46 Nessa Admin Points: 11761 Posts: 14740 Days: 1150

This is an excellent and erudite discussion. So that it does not get lost, I would like to move this thread to Ad Lore. Will you permit me to do so?


Saranna Monday, October 25, 2004 at 11:52 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445

"I generally have little that's meaningful to contribute after you present your evidence" - Heron, we all know that feeling.

As for Ad Lore, hooray and three cheers, say YES, halfir!

"In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. For Behold! We are not bound forever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory."


Heron Monday, October 25, 2004 at 14:02 Guard of the Citadel Points: 3511 Posts: 3719 Days: 1128

Hi Bael! Good to see you again!

Grey Company Captain
TG Co-Supervisor
Steward of Dor Moretirith
Bears the Quill of Gondor



halfir Monday, October 25, 2004 at 14:51 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143
Saranna: How could I ever deny my good friend Bael anything- especially as she always asks after the event? And I hope your Basic Lore Goldberry thread moves here too - it is a subject close to Bear’s heart and on which she and I have conferred in an earlier thread which I will reference if and when your Goldberry thread moves here. It’s a great thread BTW!
<Nessa edit: Mea Culpa...but in my defense, I throw my "hasty" little self on the mercy of the Council. And humbly point out that I did wait almost two hours...so I tried to be patient... >

Saranna Tuesday, October 26, 2004 at 07:48 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445


"So here we all are in Ad Lore," said Saranna wonderingly, "and it's all feasting and fun . . . "


Nayeldraccon Thursday, October 28, 2004 at 01:40 Guardian of the Golden Wood Points: 3641 Posts: 8882 Days: 625

Oh my, my. halfir! You have touched on a weakness. I was inspired to learn French after reading an English copy of Le Morte'. Gimme a few days, and I'll pick you to pieces. Maybe I'll support you, maybe not. But I'll be here. It's a promise. I mean that.
Hmmmm...... In halfirian......ab imo pectore, adsum.


halfir Thursday, October 28, 2004 at 02:14 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143

Nay: Good to see you back again. I look forward to your contribution!

I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Saranna Saturday, October 30, 2004 at 07:37 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445

I am not in any position to make comments about Lovecraft, I fear. However, reverting to the Malory MS, I wonder if it was a very subtle reference to/acknowledgement of the ethereal ties binding LOTR and the Arthurian saga? No, everyone who drops in, I do NOT mean the LOTR is an allegory of Arthur! Tolkien felt that England lacked its own mythological dimension, and did not seem to feel that the Arthurian cycle filled the bill. It may have originated in Celtic times, and in the British Isles, but once carried overseas by fleeing Britons, and thence picked up by courtly French writers, it lost, he felt, its Englishness. Nevertheless, the echoes of Arthur are there. Indeed, long ago when I was very young, I would have assumed that any book called "The return of the King" must be about Arthur, (or just possibly the Stuarts). Superficial elements; a King who returns from obscurity; a wizard; a knightly caste; magic both good and evil; powerful female figures from the otherworld; a waste land; a small and unlikely hero. What lies beneath? Are there any deeper resonances of Arthur to be found? Over to you - -


halfir Saturday, October 30, 2004 at 15:57 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143

Saranna: It is interesting to read your thoughts as I was about to post a comment from Jared Lobdell regarding the Malorian influence on Tolkien as a writer.
In his book England and Always (a title taken from a phrase of Tolkien's) Lobdell has this to say:
'Tolkien's persistent use of 'and' to begin sentences, and especially to begin paragraphs, is strongly reminiscent of Malory. So, likewise, is the general 'medievalism' of his tone - indeed, it is the 'Malorian' quality to his prose that has, I believe, led to the widespread view that the Lord of the Rings is a medieval work'. {England and Always- Chptr. The Philologists World}
Lobdell - who was writing in 1981 - did not subscribe to the then critical fashion of identifying LOTR with the medieval world- nor indeed the A-S one- he had a very different take which I will return to in a later thread.
However, his comments provide some further weight to the argument that Vinaver's editing of Malory and the Red Book of Westmarch could be inter-related as the Malorian stylistic influence on Tolkien is perhaps greater than at first originally suspected, given his apparent unhappiness with the Arthurian canon as a 'mythology for England'.

I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


halfir Saturday, October 30, 2004 at 20:33 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143

Saranna: Through the kindness of Oin - in another context and another thread, my attention has been drawn to Letter # 165 where further ';evidence'; of a Tolkienian ';Arthurian connection'; is given.
';I write alliterative verse with pleasure , though I have published little beyond the fragments in The Lord of the Rings, except ';The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth'; (in Essays and Studies of the English Association, 1963, London, John Murray) recently twice broadcast by the BBC : a dramatic dialogue on the nature of the ';heroic'; and the ';chivalrous';. I still hope to finish a long poem on The Fall of Arthur in the same measure."3 (My bold emphasis)
N.B. The reference (3) in the text to pp. 168-9 of Carpenter’s Biography is incorrect. The references in that volume to the poem in question should be to pages 224-5).
Tolkien abandoned the 'Fall of Arthur' in the mid 1930';s (Carpenter-ibid) though as this letter shows as late as 1955 he was still hoping to complete it. In fact it remained unfinished.
[Note from Saranna 2020: Tolkien’s ‘The Fall of Arthur’ edited by Christopher Tolkien, was at last published by HarperCollins in 2013.}
I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble

Saranna Sunday, October 31, 2004 at 10:32 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445


Thank you indeed, halfir - yes, I remember reading about "The fall of Arthur", and so much regret its not coming to fruition. It would have been interesting, apart from anything else, to see a 20th century alliterative poem and whether that could work.

"In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. For Behold! We are not bound forever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory."


goldenhair Tuesday, November 02, 2004 at 07:12 Istari Scholar Points: 1233 Posts: 1046 Days: 868

I find Heron's mention of another book in red and black intriguing. My first thought after seeing the first two posts was that it is v. likely that a great deal of this type of thing was subsumed by Tolkien. I have seen the Red Book of Hergest described as the "influence" before...although I cannot say where. That there is a White Book of Rhydderch and The Red Book of Appin is a revelation to one educated in the states.
My second thought was that the Bible, at least since the 1970's in the states, has the words of Jesus printed in Red and the rest of the bible in black. I would imagine as a tradition, it was picked up from contemporary literature (or verse visa as the case may be). It seems that it may have been a device of the middle ages...perhaps used differently depending on the nature of the literature.
Tolkien’s natural inclination, as with many other so called sources, might be to create the 'prototype'.

"Don't expect to be rewarded if you tell the truth. Hypocrisy no longer has any power to shock us. We encounter it every day. But we encounter the truth so seldom that it shocks and embarrasses us.

RedEye Tuesday, November 02, 2004 at 17:08 New Soul Points: 1347 Posts: 1021 Days: 1153

My thoughts are in line with Goldenhair's. I too wonder if it is the actual Malory’s Morte D’Arthur, that Tolkien is alluding to with the "red and black letters" comment of Sam, or if such a style is common to other pre-printing press texts such as the bibles that Goldenhair alludes to. Most of my reading of medieval texts was long ago and of secondary rather than primary sources. Perhaps we will be so fortunate as to have a bona fide medieval scholar in our midst (or at least a student at a University who can ask a medieval scholar) who can tell us if such writing styles are common in other texts.
<O>


halfir Wednesday, November 03, 2004 at 18:22 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143

Even if they are, and of course we yet await Professor Flieger's analysis – the Tolkien/Gordon/Vinaver/Lewis connection and the actual time-frame, to me offers a very compelling argument in favor of Flieger's proposition.

I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Saranna Thursday, November 04, 2004 at 03:02 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445


Moi aussi.


goldenhair Sunday, November 07, 2004 at 08:23 Istari Scholar Points: 1233 Posts: 1046 Days: 868

Yes I eagerly await.
H, where do you find what events like this are happening around the world and what other sites re: JRRT do you favor in your search for quality articles?
"Don't expect to be rewarded if you tell the truth. Hypocrisy no longer has any power to shock us. We encounter it every day. But we encounter the truth so seldom that it shocks and embarrasses us.


Saranna Sunday, November 07, 2004 at 09:58 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445

One way to other sites I find very useful is simply to follow the links button at the left of the Plaza pages. Otherwise, if I get a hint - such as learning from halfir about Professor Flieger - I just Google that name or topic and see what comes up. There are loads of sites and of course some of them are rubbish! But it's easy to spot the good ones.


halfir Sunday, November 07, 2004 at 16:50 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143

goldenhair: I don't use too many sites, but the ones I favor are:
1. The Tolkien Society
2. Marquette University (Marquette is the home of a huge collection of Tolkien papers and related collections)
3. BBC News- arts and literature section
4. Surfing under the name of Tolkien and doing a quick skim of what new stuff appears to be there.
I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


goldenhair Monday, November 08, 2004 at 06:10 Istari Scholar Points: 1233 Posts: 1046 Days: 868


Thanks

"Don't expect to be rewarded if you tell the truth. Hypocrisy no longer has any power to shock us. We encounter it every day. But we encounter the truth so seldom that it shocks and embarrasses us.

[Saranna]

HAD TO SPLIT IT - IT WAS TOO LONG - HERE'S PART 2:
Saranna Wednesday, November 10, 2004 at 05:41 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445


halfir (and anyone else interested) - I am following the trend of this thread in getting further off the point! However, it was here that halfir suggested I re-read "Poetic Diction" and read "Language and myth". Having now done both, I want to thank you for the references, I have greatly enjoyed Cassirer's book in particular as it was new to me. I have put below the link to Guardian Review's abridged version of Paterson's T.S. Eliot lecture in case you have missed it. It is a little - well, I have to say elitist but that's the public librarian speaking! In what he has to say of the nature of poetry, he seems to me to hark back to both Barfield and Cassirer in places.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/poetry/feat ... 54,00.html


halfir Wednesday, November 10, 2004 at 06:03 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143


Saranna: Thanks for the reference. I will follow it up with interest.

I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Saranna Wednesday, November 10, 2004 at 06:12 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445

Oh, HI! Thought you were hors de combat - maybe it's the time zones confusing me, but nice to see you anyway (SEE? strange how one says that on the Plaza!)

"In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. For Behold! We are not bound forever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory."


halfir Wednesday, November 10, 2004 at 14:35 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143


Saranna: Just dipping in and out at present- sadly no time to apply full concentration!

I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


halfir Wednesday, November 10, 2004 at 19:35 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143


Saranna: Your url is being refused. Can you please check it again- I was surprised to see commas in the url line.

I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Saranna

Thursday, November 11, 2004 at 03:58


Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445
Support Profile Quote

Oh dear- perhaps you would get there better by following the steps I took - I was a bit worried when I copy/pasted it as it seemed to have strange characters. I Googled "Guardian Unlimited,” went into "Books" then "Review". I tried to locate it under the date (Review 6/11/04) but in the end had to enter Paterson as an author search within the site, and it was there. They are listed by date, latest last, so you should be able to reach it that way. Sorry my short cut was no help.


halfir Thursday, November 11, 2004 at 04:05 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143



I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Saranna Thursday, November 18, 2004 at 04:20 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445


Did you reach it? Was it worth the effort?


halfir Thursday, November 18, 2004 at 04:22 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143


Sadly I couldn't find anything like it on several somewhat abortive attempts!

I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Saranna Thursday, November 18, 2004 at 04:47 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445


Would you like me to email you the text?


halfir Thursday, November 18, 2004 at 14:53 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143

Saranna: That would be most kind.
[email protected]
I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Saranna Friday, November 19, 2004 at 05:54 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445

I shall do so at the weekend!


halfir Friday, November 19, 2004 at 06:37
High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143

Many thanks!
I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Saranna Saturday, November 20, 2004 at 02:24 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445

Posted! Hope it is worth it after all this build-up!


halfir Saturday, November 20, 2004 at 18:02 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143

Saranna: Your kind posting appears to have got lost in the great maw of cyberspace! I wonder if I could burden you to post it to me again?
[email protected]

I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Saranna Sunday, November 21, 2004 at 03:37 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445

O, Eru save us! I will try at once. (Mutter mutter).

Saranna Sunday, November 21, 2004 at 03:44 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445


Well - it says "sent" but it said that yesterday. Grrrrr. Please let me know.


halfir Monday, November 22, 2004 at 04:22 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143

My dear Saranna: A positive cornucopia of sense and sensibility- though I see what you mean about elitist- although that to me is not a pejorative word but a positive one.
I recall my feelings when I first read the great Julien Benda's wonderful essay Le Trahison des Clercs - The Betrayal of the Intellectuals - Paterson has a resonance of that. As he does also of this comment:
When hatred of culture becomes itself a part of culture, the life of the mind loses all meaning.
—Alain Finkielkraut, The Undoing of Thought
And I was always a lover of TS Eliot even if Edith Sitwell did call him 'a poet of the market place' - a complete misnomer if ever there was one, (but then she was clearly a nut-case, Plantagenet bloodline though she be!) Facade through a megaphone- glorious eccentricity! But I digress dreadfully!
I pounced delightfully on the following:
"for a reader to be astonished by the original phrase it must already be partly
familiar to them, if they are to register the transformation;"
silly workshop exercises where you write a poem in the
voice of your socks
the valorisation of talent itself was felt to be elitist and undemocratic
The populists, on one side, purvey a kind of
straight-faced recognition comedy, and have no need
either for originality or epiphany. On the other side
we have the avant-garde so desperate for transcendence
they see it everywhere: they are fatally in the grip
of an adolescent sublime, where absolutely anything
will blow your mind, as your mind, in its state of
recrudescent virginity, is permanently desperate to be
blown. The Norwich phone book or a set of log tables
would serve them as well as their Prynne, in whom they
seem able to detect as many shades of mindblowing
confusion as Buddhists do the absolute
when we were born, everything was pretty much
everything else. The breast was you, your mother the
breast, and the back garden your mother, the world was
an absolute and indivisible unity. There was nothing
to tell you otherwise. This perception is atemporal,
since the perception of the passing of time is
dependent first on the perception of difference, of an
asymmetrical and consecutive series of events, which
we did not then know.
There are also shades of Barfield in some of his comments such as:
the world was an absolute and indivisible unity.
I must certainly read more of this man- thank you so much for the introduction.
I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Olme Monday, November 22, 2004 at 07:43 Istari Scholar Points: 746 Posts: 167 Days: 1211


halfir, I certainly do not mean to take this further off course, and I’m not sure where i could've posted this that you would’ve read it. But when did you first read Eugenius Philalethes (Thomas Vaughan), and if you read a lot of his works, or alchemy texts in general. Thanks

Orthatham Udűn


halfir Monday, November 22, 2004 at 15:24 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143


Olme: I first read Thomas Vaughan at University- more years ago than I care to remember when one of my special subjects was the English Civil War and 17th century Constitutional History. About 1960 to be exact.
And I read quite a lot of his stuff- ill-remembered now- other than for Coelum Terrae which I re-read about two years ago again in search of information for the 'gold breeds gold' comment that Tolkien makes regarding the dwarven rings- which Geir has basically helped me with most recently with her excellent input.
It was that second latest reading that provided me with my signature.
I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Olme Monday, November 22, 2004 at 18:48 Istari Scholar Points: 746 Posts: 167 Days: 1211

halfir, I have absolutely loved your signature since you and I have been members, so i finally decided to search for it and i am reading Coelum Terrae right now(little by little in school). I find a lot of his ideas intriguing, a brilliant writer and alchemist (though it's a bit over my head, it's food for thought), but i won't put anything else in this forum. Your signature fits your posts very excellently.
Orthatham Udűn

halfir Monday, November 22, 2004 at 18:54 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143

Your signature fits your posts very excellently
Thank you, kind sir. And I agree Coelum Terrae is somewhat heavy going- you are not alone in your belief!
I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Saranna Tuesday, November 23, 2004 at 06:12 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445

Well, halfir, I must say I am pleased that you enjoyed the Paterson, and I do know what you mean by elitist not necessarily being a "bad" word. Working all my life as a librarian in areas that have to be described as culturally deprived, I try to hold that in my mind AS WELL AS the need to encourage children who have never been exposed to richness of thought or word, into feeling that they can, knowing that they can, play with their language and make things with it. (Not necessarily invoking the socks, though!). Yet of course the quality of what one may then reach towards, must be inviolate. Making things accessible doesn't mean making them easier. Poor literacy levels are so closely linked to the dumbing-down (in the west) of the texts from which children learn to read.
"Contempt for culture - - " - O, dangerous ground - must eschew the temptation towards an overtly political discussion. But yes, yes, yes!
Must here confess that is the first thing by Paterson that I have ever read. I too shall seek further.
Returning nearer the source of this long-flowing thread, I have just received my copy of the first "Tolkien Studies" and am delighted in particular with Nagy's "The adapted text" - he even refers to Malory as a comparison with JRRT's evocation of the "lost poetry of Beleriand" to give a sense of the prose tales as being adapted from ME antiquity. Not quite the same as my point above, but hearteningly confirmatory.


halfir Tuesday, November 23, 2004 at 06:27 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143

When hatred of culture becomes itself a part of culture, the life of the mind loses all meaning.
—Alain Finkielkraut, The Undoing of Thought
Saranna: Alain Finkielkraut is a brilliant younger version of the great Julien Benda -whom I adore. Benda’s great essay on the intellectual betrayal was written in 1927 or 28- I can’t remember which - and Finkielkraut wrote in about 1988.Both are children of all that was best about the 'Eclairecissement '- Enlightenment - and both decry the denial of reason in much of modern art and literature. They make somewhat strange companions to Tolkien and Lewis and men of the Old West - yet they all share the same concern -so brilliantly expressed by Dag Hamarskjold about Respect for the Word -which I quoted in the Hall of Fire -3 thread with regard to the Voice of Saruman:
Respect for the word is the first commandment in the discipline by which a man can be educated to maturity - intellectual, emotional and moral.
Respect for the word- to employ it with scrupulous care and an incorruptible heartfelt love of truth - is essential if there is to be any growth in a society or in a human race.
To misuse the word is to show contempt for man. It undermines the bridges and poisons the wells. It causes Man to regress down the long path of his own evolution.';
Amen, to that!
I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Saranna Tuesday, November 23, 2004 at 11:58 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445

Indeed - how moving, thank you halfir.


halfir Tuesday, November 23, 2004 at 14:03 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143


My pleasure. It is both passionate and beautiful. And, it is indeed doubly poignant given the tragic way in which Dag Hamarskjold died (or was assassinated!).

I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Saranna Wednesday, November 24, 2004 at 02:56 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445

Yes - I was at school then, O Valar how long ago - I recall how sobered we all were by it.


halfir Wednesday, November 24, 2004 at 03:20 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143


How sadly true- a great light was stolen from the world.

I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Nayeldraccon Wednesday, November 24, 2004 at 03:25 Guardian of the Golden Wood Points: 3641 Posts: 8882 Days: 625

*makes a point to stay under 200 chars.* halfir, you’ve already touched on the majority of the points I had hoped to make, and I have broken a promise. I’ll see you next time around. I’m sorry.
Vah! Denuone Latine loquebar? Me ineptum. Interdum modo elabitur.


halfir Wednesday, November 24, 2004 at 03:33 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143

Nay: Sorry you couldn’t join us earlier - but it's great to hear from you anyway. Don't stay away too long. You are sorely missed- though I understand the situation. My best wishes to you and yours.

I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


halfir Saturday, November 27, 2004 at 17:37 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143

As an informational for those who might like to get in touch with Professor Verlyn Flieger- although I doubt she will agree to us being given sight of her paper until it sees the light of formal publication by Marquette -she is contactable at:
[email protected]
This is not an invasion of her privacy as she is readily contactable as an Editor of Tolkien Studies at this address.
I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Saranna Monday, November 29, 2004 at 13:48 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445


So she is - and how polite and kind she was to me when I had to email her on an admin point when the TS office email would not respond!


Aldoriana Sunday, December 05, 2004 at 00:41 Scholar of Gondor Points: 951 Posts: 562 Days: 713


Thinking of the 'Red Book of Westmarch' only from the p.o.v. of its design which (as evident from the above posts here ) hints to the style books were "produced" in past times (Medieval times), I was tempted to look around and see if I can find some proofs for my thought - namely that this was indeed a preferred and popular style of presenting books in those times. "Fashion" trend - if you like.
My "theory" is that by "big book with red and black letters" Sam might've meant only and simply the way books looked in ancient times. The books of Medieval times, telling tales and legends and historical events - all seem to have been designed following the "fashion"-trend of those times. And this 'style' was, IMO, characteristic not only for Western Europe, but for the whole civilized world then.
To back up my "theory" I looked for some info about ancient manuscripts from my region (the Balkans) - to learn how books here were produced in those times and how they looked like ...
Here is something to look at and read. ( on the menu left, you can also open "Decoration")
http://www.gslis.utexas.edu/~slavman/ma ... tprod.html
Also, randomly Googling for appearance of medieval manuscripts, I picked up some of the first examples offered and they, too, seem to prove that this style was the typical one for books from those times.
Have a look at them and notice the free and frequent use of the combination "red-black":
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/ ... 601100.jpg
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/ ... 401048.jpg
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/medieval/images/85.jpg
So, to sum it up, based on the above, and I am sure that there are numerous other sources out there, Verlyn Flieger's theory:
"in which she argues that Sam’s reference is in fact a reference by Tolkien to a particular copy of Malory's Morte D'Arthur."
- isn't it a questionable one?
Because, her theory obviously refers to the outlook of the Malory's manuscript.
But ... in fact many other manuscripts might've looked in the same way! That was obviously the "fashion" -trend the those-times "publishers" followed.
Just some thoughts, you know .....
Ai! Aniron!


halfir Sunday, December 05, 2004 at 04:18 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143

Aldoriana: So, to sum it up, based on the above, and I am sure that there are numerous other sources out there, Verlyn Flieger's theory :
"in which she argues that Sam';s reference is in fact a reference by Tolkien to a particular copy of Malory's Morte D'Arthur."
- isn't it a questionable one?
We are in danger of running before we can walk. We are all becoming far too speculative over a thesis that we haven't yet read. And Professor Flieger is a scholar of some eminence whom I am sure would have taken the very fair points you make into account.
But before we burn the heretic-or her 'books' I suggest we need to wait and found out what she has said-in detail. And that, sadly, won't be for some time yet as the publication date is set for 2005 at the earliest!
I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Aldoriana Sunday, December 05, 2004 at 09:53 Scholar of Gondor Points: 951 Posts: 562 Days: 713

Fair words, Lord of Imladris!
I just wanted to share some thoughts on the issue!
And ... 'heretic' I think a book can never be! It all depends on the point of view. Right?
Ai! Aniron!


halfir Sunday, December 05, 2004 at 14:41 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143


Aldoriana: I agree- but tell that to the religious bigots!

I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Aldoriana Monday, December 06, 2004 at 22:54 Scholar of Gondor Points: 951 Posts: 562 Days: 713

Oh, poor them, if they met me - a typical representative of the most confused generation in the newer history of Europe!
Haven't I felt in full the theory of relativity on my own back .... meaning - mind !!!

Ai! Aniron!


halfir Tuesday, December 07, 2004 at 02:05 High Lord of Imladris Points: 12914 Posts: 16290 Days: 1143



I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble


Saranna Wednesday, December 08, 2004 at 03:30 Warrior of Imladris Points: 2316 Posts: 4627 Days: 445

I, as is my wont, say both yea and nay - I don't see why you should not both be right. Indeed, many MSS were similarly coloured, but I feel what halfir has demonstrated about the close chronology of the discovery/JRRT's writing, is very convincing.

[Saranna]

It looks rather crowded, as I feared it would, but it's all there in the two huge posts. I think some posts are a mere blank between heading and signature, but these were just emoticons. Perhaps I could re-install them, but at least don't worry about missing text.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Hi @Dwarrow Elf and @Saranna, now Saranna's copy and paste has been here for a while I worry this is not the best way to preserve halfir's work on the plaza - it is liable to get lost among all the other posts. Now the plaza elections are over perhaps it would be worthwhile engaging with the Admins to provide a section of the website for halfir's work? Let me start the ball rolling by some mentions:

@Moriel @Narv @Sil @Tarawen @Winddancer.

(And while I'm writing this, a postscript to the Admins: would you consider bringing back the old Scholars Forum? I'd be happy to help organize this, as, I am sure, also would some other lore fanatics on here. This is a great time in Tolkien studies, with diverse work from a variety of perspectives. A Scholars Forum would provide an opportunity to bring them together and maybe even facilitate their integration.)

[Saranna]

@simon Thanks for this idea Simon, I've been worried about it too, it was an act of haste as I had other work to get onto, but hopefully if what you envisage can be developed my collation of the text could be more fittingly presented.

[Winddancer]

@simon @Saranna I am heeere! Ready and willing to engage :D
However if it is adding forums, that is one for @Narv and @Tarawen as only they can do that. A scholars forum might be a nice way to have Halfir's work saved and to discuss the more serious side of lore. I pitched it to the others and I am sure they will swing by when they wake up :)

Edit: I stickied the thread for now so it wont get lost.

[Marceline]

Hey folks! From a technical standpoint, adding a forum or subform is possible - I would be up for helping out with that. I think the admin group would like to get a bit of clarity on what a restored Scholars Forum ("Lore Library" is another term we've been throwing around; feel free to let us know what you think of that!) would contain.

How would you all feel about this new forum being both an archive of halfirian excellence and a place for newer content sourced from among the lorists' connections in the field?

Tagging @Saranna, @simon for visibility since you two have been recently involved; though any lorists should also feel free to weigh in.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

I think I made a mistake mentioning the Scholars Forum on this thread. halfir's work could provide a foundation for such a forum (not 'Lore Library', please!) but that is something that can be addressed later. so, imo, the question on the table now should be simply 'what is the best way to honour halfir's contributions to the old plaza?' to which my suggestion would be editing his posts and publishing them on a page on this site dedicated to him. but if this or some such idea is acceptable then i think you Admins should turn to someone like @Saranna, who knew halfir and has already put in considerable effort elsewhere to honouring his memory.

[Narv]

Thanks @simon - the idea is more than acceptable to us, we think it's great. And we want to do whatever is going to work best for this task long-term - here are my own thoughts from the technical side of things for you, @Saranna and anyone else to consider (I'm not speaking for the other admins as we're all still brainstorming this) :

- The best medium for a halfir archive will depend a lot on the format of the content. Is the plan to archive entire threads, or individual posts by halfir? If threads, then would you like to take content from Internet Archive and format it separately, or simply link to Internet Archive page captures? (The latter definitely has the highest verisimilitude-to-effort ratio, but depends on IA keeping the content and not changing links etc).

- The infrastructure for adding 'Custom Pages' to a forum like this are very rudimentary and for complex content (such as re-creating threads like Saranna did above) they probably won't result in a great looking end result without significant effort. A page that instead links to Internet Archive, or some other external site (Google Document, WordPress, etc) is more feasible of course.

- The most reliable and easily maintained content mechanism we have within the site itself is, naturally, a forum, so that's where my mind goes first. A sub-forum within Lore could be added, a designated individual or two could be made its moderator(s), and they could add and edit content without needing to dig into spaghetti HTML code as one would on a custom page. I'm envisioning the moderator adding threads to the forum that correspond to their respective 'halfir threads', and that either link to that content externally or contain it in the thread itself. As you can tell this is my personal preference at the moment, though that fact may not be worth much as I haven't done this kind of thing before, so I'm very interested to hear what others think on that.

[Winddancer]

I cant even begin to fathom how much work finding editing and adding it to a single page would be. And then the added difficulty of maybe not getting the full discussion as the way back archive didnt save the entire conversation. Not that I am a afraid of some hard work, but that does seem a bit much to ask of anyone. Just from seeing what Saranna did for one thread, boggles my mind. That is a lot of editing, but again, what if the whole discussion is not viewable? How do we present that? Or do we just do the ones that are complete?

A google doc might work, as everyone could contribute.

Posting links works to some extent, if we believe that the links will always work and not suddenly stop working.

Tough one and I must admit I am at a loss as to which is the better route.

[Boromir88]

Thank you Saranna, simon, the Admins, and others for this project. I didn't know halfir personally, but being teenager/young adult to have someone like halfir so passionate about Tolkien and wanting to light the fire in others was a great inspiration.

I've stayed away from making hard commitments towards anything because I have all the time in the world now, but in September that will probably change. Two and half months seems like a while down the road, but they come very quickly. :(

So, just some ideas for the project...

I think there are certain threads that would be better presented as whole threads (or as complete as they can be reconstructed)...For example, I remember Tom Bombadil, Goldberry, Galadriel's mirror. Another one I was rather fond of his "Chanson de geste" topic about Feanor, Galadriel and Gimli. I think these threads that were started and recognizably halfir would be best presented as complete threads. It would also be good to have a back-up. I'm pretty familiar with Google Docs and working with other people to edit documents. This might be better to get a group of people instead of 1 person trying to put together a complete thread on their own.

Then there are other threads that halfir started, but he wasn't the main driving force behind the discussion...like his threads studying minor characters in the books. I think perhaps for these threads, it might be better just having halfir's posts to kick start a new discussion.

[Marceline]

Duly noted on no "Lore Library," @simon :smiley10:

Popping in with one minor suggestion - if we want to preserve the threads but don't want to rely on the Wayback Machine working forever (or even just working consistently...), could we save any working Wayback threads as PDFs? That at least would provide a "backup" of sorts that could be linked to with minimal effort.

[Saranna]

@EVERYONE who has posted above! I like the sub-forum idea personally. I still have the Malory discussion as a Plaza-formatted thread, but I don't have the skills to do much with it, unless I could turn the cut and paste doc into a PDF and get help with how to present that. Or is it the original thread that that would become a PDF?

[Marceline]

@Saranna - I think there are a couple options for preserving threads as PDFs - if you've copy/pasted thread content into a Word document, you should be able to export it as a PDF. Pages loaded from the Wayback Machine should be savable as PDFs if you try to print from your browser, then select the "Save as PDF" option.

I don't love this as a first option for presenting the essays because I imagine it could be messy or not look quite right, but it seems like at least a relatively low-effort way to make sure there is a permanent record of those threads, rather than relying on the unreliable Wayback Machine.

For a sub-forum, would you see this as both halfirian essays and newer scholars content?

[Chrysophylax Dives]

@Tarawen, @Winddancer, @Narv, @Saranna & @Everyone

1. Scholars Forum: it was me that introduced the idea of reviving this, and in the long run I would love to see this happen. But I think the idea should be postponed until we have sorted out the 'halfir archive.' it might be that this archive could be expanded to include new scholarly work; it might be that it should be separate; i think that will only become clear later and that, for now, we should focus just on the 'halfir archive' (one of the deepest lessons I have learned from Tolkien is the value of looking into the past and preserving memory of the dead and, while i was not active in the old plaza when halfir was alive, his posts were a primary reason i joined back then and - imo - the first step of going forward is to look back to the past - i hope that makes some sense!)

2. I think Saranna and myself are a bit unsure of how to proceed because we are not sure what things would look like. I have a Word version of 'Peeling the Onion'. It needs some work but in a few days I could supply it as a pdf. Would it be possible to use this great thread as a test case, as in I send it to you (Admins), you post it, and then we can all discuss if this is the way to go?

[Saranna]

@Tarawen @simon What you both said! I can also turn my word version, and/or the saved thread, into PDFs or download again from the archive as a PDF, and send that in for consideration. Like Simon, I can't do that straight away, early next week is more likely.

[Winddancer]

@simon Please do send it in and Tara and Narv can have a look at what can be done with it :D

[Boromir88]

I've been trying to uncover some of those wonderful Rings of Power topics from the earliest days. I remember there being more than one, but any attempt I've made has so far been fruitless. I have halfir's topic of the proper gemstones in the 7 and 9 rings of power I can begin and send to @Narv and the other admins when finished. Really wish I can dig into at least one of those Rings of Power threads though. :-/

Edit:

I was able to uncover the 1st "Rings of Power" thread started way back when in 2002. halfir mentions there were 5 in total, so maybe I'll try to get all of them together with the Gemstones of the 7 and 9 (or as complete as I'm able to) and put it all into 1 "Rings of Power" topic/thread?

[Narv]

Certainly, if you folks can send me a couple threads in whatever format(s) you have them (Wayback Machine link, Word doc, PDF, etc) I'll have a look and maybe put together a little proof of concept of what I have in mind, so you can have something concrete to give feedback on. You can send stuff to admins [at] lotrfanaticsplaza.com (where [at] = @).

[Winddancer]

Here is the Peeling the onion thread on the wayback machine: http://web.archive.org/web/200711022005 ... TID=193589

Edit: Oops just saw Rivvy had posted it, though mine is from a different time and there are more posts at the end (or less)

[Boromir88]

That did not take as long as I was thinking it would...

Here is a google doc of The Rings of Power - 1. It's pretty easy to format in google docs that make golden oldie threads look somewhat presentable. I took out posts that were like "*bump*" or "Count me in" for the most part. Anyone who has the link should be able to view the doc.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Awd ... p=sharing
Here is the thread in it's entirety from the Wayback machine. Admins let me know what you like, and if the link works.

http://web.archive.org/web/200505131845 ... Position=1

I will try to find the Rings of Power - 2 next.

Windy edit: @Narv @Tarawen

[Marceline]

@Winddancer - I just saw this! Ahh, apologies. Apparently edited-in mentions don't properly ping people - at least, I didn't get a notification about this.

@Boromir88 - nice! It's too bad the old "Print Version" button doesn't work on Wayback Machine'd pages. I believe @Narv had a concept in mind, so I'll let him take the lead here (but please let me know if I can help with the codestuffs, o Troll Overlord)

[Narv]

Thanks @Boromir88! The google doc looks good to me - I'll have a simple version of my subforum idea to show you, and the others involved in this discussion, shortly.

[Narv]

@Boromir88, @simon, and @Saranna,

I've given you three access to a test "Halfirian Archive" (official name TBD) subforum in Lore and added Boromir88's Rings of Power links as a topic in that forum. My thinking is that that subforum could be moderated by one or more of you, who could add more topics, each linking to a persistent, edited version of an archive thread plus a wayback machine link. Please let me know what you think of this format, pro or con (and definitely let me know if you can't see the subforum!). Permissions-wise, I can think of 3 doable options: 1) fully read-only for non-moderators; 2) full access for everyone to 'comment' on archived topics, but only the moderator(s) can add new topics; and 3) full access for everyone, like a normal forum.

You 3 are the only ones who can see it at the moment other than us admins, for the purposes of evaluating the format - if I missed anyone else who is an important part of figuring this out, I can add them too!

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Cool! Many thanks you @dmins.
by the by, rather than 'Lore Library' what about 'Entmoot'? (given the very slow rate of all our deliberations on such weighty matters.)

[Winddancer]

Isn't Entmoot a meeting? Maybe give it a name with halfir in it?