Riddles in the Dark

[Drífa]

I was hasty yesterday morning, thinking of the Garden and sin and the balance between good and evil. And so, I listened to two audiobooks while at work, On Fairy-stories, and when I got home, I gently opened my 1971 paperback copy of The Tolkien Reader and began to read. Of course, I will have to reread it because it has been a while since I have, and I must admit, I could read it 100 times and still not comprehend it all. But I did find this in the Notes section B (page 32)
...

The least useful question, therefore, for literary critics at any rate, to ask or to answer about Iphigeneia daughter of Agamemnon, is: Does the legend of her sacrifice at Aulis come down from a time when human-sacrifice was commonly practiced?

Is the answer Iphigeneia, who like Éowyn would rather die heroically, winning renown, than be dragged to the alter/left behind?

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Well, drifa, despite my declaration that i would only comment when the answer was guessed i am appreciative of your evident hard work and research and, for this reason, am stepping in - just for you, mind, with a reply:

no.

[Aranadhel]

Drifa, you make me feel old lol

[Drífa]

Old is good. I am old.

I listened again yesterday, three times - it is a short essay. Not sure how the names I investigated from the essay fit the riddle. So for today I will just guess and say, King Hrothgar? Do not answer if it is not correct, Master Riddler. I will keep reading today regardless.

So, welcome to a new week and a new riddle. No doors, hidden or otherwise in this one. I will say that despite the two biblical references you will not find my name in the Bible. You will find my name in Tolkien's essay 'On Fairy-stories' but you will not find it in any story of Middle-earth. And that is all the help i'm gonna give on this one!

mene mene tekel upharsin
That was my position too,
Though rather perched above,
Balancing as it were on a knife edge:
Sway but a fraction, and all is lost…
A doom like the first couple, who
Enchanted by the wormtongue,
Ate the bitter fruit.

The muster of Rohan stood with the King,
Aye, and all the brave men of Gondor.
But the miracle of Mithrandir was not for me.
No red dawn that day;
'Twas a golden sun that broke in a white sky.
O women of Gondor, will you pick up the pieces?

Say my name!

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Drifa, you make me feel old lol

Funny that, Drifa makes me feel young again.

Or usually, but not with that guess. You will find my name in On Fairy-stories, but it is a bit of a needle in the haystack. Try teasing out the key words of the riddle itself.

[Aranadhel]

Athelas

[Chrysophylax Dives]

The answer is still 'no'.

It worries me that i enjoy this so much.

Edit. Gah! As there are only the two of you here, and i do appreciate your efforts, i'll say this, which is not a clue or anything. But if you tried talking through the riddle it would soon unravel.

[The Good Hunter]

Gonna take a wild guess here and say King Arthur? He's mentioned once or twice in the essay and could fit within the confines of the riddle

[Aranadhel]

Joan of Arc

[Drífa]

A Needle in a Haystack?

[Chrysophylax Dives]

No, no, and no. And to quote the real master riddler on this thread: 'Try again!'

[Aranadhel]

Minas Tirith

[Drífa]

I am enjoying this week's riddle very much; reading all kinds of fascinating stuff. But I still have not made a connection with any of the names found in the essay.

So, today I shall guess, Humpty Dumpty? He was perched pretty high.

[Eldy Dunami]

Sir Gawain?

[Chrysophylax Dives]

I am enjoying this week's riddle very much; reading all kinds of fascinating stuff. But I still have not made a connection with any of the names found in the essay.

So, today I shall guess, Humpty Dumpty? He was perched pretty high.

Crack!

So, first of all, I practically gave it away in the introduction - "No doors, hidden or otherwise in this one"; so no key, hinges, or lid, eh? Your grandmother would have guessed! (But one thing i have learned from this thread is the art of distraction: following that give away with a reference to 'On Fairy-stories' ensured that you walked past it and jumped into a textual hunt.)

mene mene tekel upharsin = the writing on the wall
That was my position too,
Though rather perched above,
Balancing as it were on a knife edge:
Sway but a fraction, and all is lost… = descriptive of humpty's precarious position

A doom like the first couple, who
Enchanted by the wormtongue,
Ate the bitter fruit. = the Fall

The muster of Rohan stood with the King, = All the king's horses
Aye, and all the brave men of Gondor. = All the king's men
But the miracle of Mithrandir was not for me.
No red dawn that day;
'Twas a golden sun that broke in a white sky. = (metaphorical) description of poor humpty's end
O women of Gondor, will you pick up the pieces?

Splat!

You will all be pleased to hear that normal riddle service will now resume; over to you Drifa.

Edit: added sesame emphasis on Drifa's naming, and appropriate sound effects.

[Drífa]

Hahaha, lucky guess, although, Humpty was the last character I investigated. But I was think more of Richard III and the battle at Bosworth Field.
Thanks, @Chrysophylax Dives ! Good riddle! I will try and get one up later today.

[Drífa]

Middle-earth Related

It started with a positive
outcome and an unlockable lock.
I was the first of the first to hatch,
then there was one other;
a symbolic red patch.
Long it lasted till finally, alas, I was
the last of the last.
Who am I?

[Aranadhel]

Glaurung

[Chrysophylax Dives]

I should have known. All my best efforts and all i did was wave a red flag before a bull. the dwarf with the soft brown beard cracks the egg without even noticing and then drops this...

Little boys who play with fire get their hands burned.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Think you gotta give us a clue here Drifa, something to at least get us going...

[Drífa]

No, not Glaurung. It is not a creature.

[Aranadhel]

Can't be Feanor

[Drífa]

No, Fëanor, biologically, was an only child.

[The Good Hunter]

I want to say Maedhros, but I'm not overly confident

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Elrond

[Chrysophylax Dives]

O by my twigs & twiglets! Is this a door, dwarf?

[Drífa]

No, Fëanor, biologically, was an only child.

Nay to Maedhros, nay to Elrond, and nay to the door.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

what is this riddle talking about? people, elves, ents, dwarves, hobbits, the balrog, please share what you can glimpse! i got nothing. what is a 'symbolic red patch'?

what is a lock, unlockable or not, without a door?

is that gimli and his present?

[Ercassie]

You lost me when you talk about ‘hatching’ but say you are ‘not a creature’.

[Aranadhel]

Chrys and Drifa should open a riddle thread just for the both of them to write and answer.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

only drifa got the harley.

the hatch-no-creature and the unlockable door made me suspect i was digesting some of my own scrambled eggs, served up in a symbolic red patch - or something! but it seems no.

Edit: because i could not but use the proper name, i felt uncomfortable and deleted the story. i'll say though, on thinking on it from the perspective of the parents, this daughter was the last - and apparently final - child of nine. Give that one and then both parents with the family name had obviously been thinking on the double-name for a long time, i do find it hard to begrudge them the given name of their daughter, though they did her no kind deed i think (shades of a Johny Cash song).

[Ercassie]

I don’t think we need go quite as far as all that @Aranadhel. Though I will concede this one has me stumped.

The hatch and the ‘unlockable lock’ did take me down an ‘egg’ route, as per the riddle in The Hobbit where an egg is ‘a box without hinges’ and seems a similar line to a lock that is no door etc. But ‘who am I ?’ infers a person and apparently no creature. So this route of mine has pottered out to a dead end of confusion and I bow to the Riddle mastery of @Drifa, yet again.

@Chrysophylax Dives, just made me genuine grin over my breakfast. Thanks for that.

[Aranadhel]

Chill out, @Ercassie . I speak in jest...

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Chill out, @Ercassie . I speak in jest...

Wow, Aranadhel your words and icon are in discord - jest and chill and a bang on the head?? What about one of these?



or even this?



Anyways, as you may observe, i too got nothing on this riddle. I think we need:

[Aranadhel]

@Ercassie has a dark humour disposition lol. She can handle this...

I'm surprised you're stuck, @Chrysophylax Dives ahahahahha!

It's as spectacular as it is amazing wow..

[Drífa]

A riddle is a statement, question or phrase having a double or veiled meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved. Riddles are of two types: enigmas, which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical (HATCH) or allegorical language that requires ingenuity and careful thinking for their solution, and conundra, which are questions relying on their effects on punning in either the question or the answer.

There is a hint in the shades of that Johny Cash song.

Now start guessing!!

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Alright, modus operandi of drifa = work out of the text. so i reckon this bit of text that we are after begins with something that can be paraphrased as a 'positive outcome'. maybe there are two parts to the name (first and last to hatch)? maybe the second part is a title referencing a red patch?

[Aranadhel]

Johnny Cash? JESUS...

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Aranadhel, the song is named 'A boy named Sue'. Im pretty sure that's Country, but I don't have a clue how that gives a shade of a hint on the riddle.

Name + Title (symbolic red patch)?

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Gah. I'm in Dr Who with the face of Bo! Gotta go weed the garden, or something, anything!

[Ercassie]

Are we sure it is ‘that’ Johnny Cash song ? I think he wrote more than 150 songs

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Are we sure it is ‘that’ Johnny Cash song ? I think he wrote more than 150 songs

Ercassie, i edited the story you read this morning, introducing Sue's song. shame, because, as you noted, it was funny as hell

i don't even know why i am writing this. the riddle remains as impenetrable as ever.

[Aranadhel]

More like Impossible... I regret making my riddle so easy to decipher...

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Aranadhel, you fill me with fear as to what you will drop on us next...

but on this one, maybe we should call in admin help? @Romeran, O you who knew the horse of Rohan. Help!

[Aranadhel]

Nay, I only want to part with knowledge to my fellow Tolkien fans here, not fear.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

:) Precious little knowledge knocking around here atm. To be honest, I've given up inside of ever cracking this riddle.

[Aranadhel]

Where you from btw, Chrys?

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Ah. i was born and bred in London. Spent five years in the wilds of North Carolina. And now - for my sins - live in a small village in Israel, just on the border between the coastal plains and the mountains inland - in other words, here around me it is hilly :)

[Aranadhel]

Shalom to you then... so you're near the borders of either Lebanon or Golan Heights?

In a kibbutz

[Chrysophylax Dives]

:) both those borders are up north. we are in the middle, but in missile's range of Gaza.

there are still lots of kibbutzim (plural), but they are legacies of some early socialism with everything originally collective. but there were also always just villages (called: moshavim), which is where we are. this moshav was originally settled with Moroccan and Algerian jews, but it has now expanded and we built a house on the edge of the place, so it is (normally) nice and quiet.

Drifa - sorry to stray so far from the riddle!