elirazantys reblogged
elirazantys reblogged
im gonna throw up
elirazantys reblogged
Okay I'm almost done with Fellowship, here's an incomplete list of shit I noticed and thought was buck fucking wild on my first ever read-thru: medieval edition.
- In literally the second line of the book, Tolkien implies that Bilbo Baggins wrote a story which was preserved alongside the in-universe version of the Mabinogion (aka the best-known collection of Welsh myths; I promise this is batshit). This is because The Hobbit has been preserved, in Tolkien's AU version of our world, in a "selection of the Red Book of Westmarch" (Prologue, Concerning Hobbits). If you're a medievalist and you see something called "The Red Book of" or "The Black Book of" etc it's a Thing. In this case, a cheeky reference to the Red Book of Hergest (Llyfr Coch Hergest). There are a few Red Books, but only Hergest has stories).
- not a medieval thing but i did not expect one common theory among hobbits for the death of Frodo's parents to be A RUMORED MURDER-SUICIDE.
- At the beginning of the book a few hobbits report seeing a moving elm tree up on the moors, heading west (thru or past the Shire). I mentioned this in another post, but another rule: if you see an elm tree, that's a Girl Tree. In Norse creation myth, the first people were carved from driftwood by the gods. Their names were Askr (Ash, as in the tree), the first man, and Embla (debated, but likely elm tree), the first woman. A lot of ppl have I think guessed that that was an ent-wife, but like. Literally that was a GIRL. TREE.
- Medieval thing: I used to read the runes on the covers of The Hobbit and LOTR for fun when I worked in a bookshop. There's a mix of Old Norse (viking) and Old English runes in use, but all the ones I've noticed so far are real and readable if you know runes.
- Tom Bombadil makes perfect sense if you once spent months of your life researching the early medieval art of galdor, which was the use of poems or songs to do a form of word-magic, often incorporating gibberish. If you think maybe Tolkien did not base the entirety of Fellowship so far around learning and using galdor and thus the power of words and stories, that is fine I cannot force you. He did personally translate "galdor" in Beowulf as "spell" (spell, amusingly, used to mean "story"). And also he named an elf Galdor. Like he very much did name an elf Galdor.
- Tom Bombadil in fact does galdor from the moment we meet him. He arrives and fights the evil galdor (song) of the willow tree ("old gray willow-man, he's a mighty singer"), which is singing the hobbits to sleep and possibly eating them, with a galdor (song) of his own. Then he wanders off still singing, incorporating gibberish. I think it was at this point that I started clawing my face.
- THEN Tom Bombadil makes perfect sense if you've read the description of the scop's songs in Beowulf (Beowulf again, but hey, Tolkien did famously a. translate it b. write a fanfiction about it called Sellic Spell where he gave Beowulf an arguably homoerotic Best Friend). The scop (pronounched shop) is a poet who sings about deeds on earth, but also by profession must know how to sing the song or tell the story of how the cosmos itself came to be. The wise-singer who knows the deep lore of the early universe is a standard trope in Old English literature, not just Beowulf! Anyway Tom Bombadil takes everyone home and tells them THE ENTIRE STORY OF ALL THE AGES OF THE EARTH BACKWARDS UNTIL JUST BEFORE THE MOMENT OF CREATION, THE BIG BANG ITSELF and then Frodo Baggins falls asleep.
- Tom Bombadil knows about plate tectonics
- This is sort of a lie, Tom Bombadil describes the oceans of old being in a different place, which works as a standard visual of Old English creation, which being Christian followed vaguely Genesis lines, and vaguely Christian Genesis involves a lot of water. TOLKIEN knew about plate tectonics though.
- Actually I just checked whether Tolkien knew about plate tectonics because I know the advent of plate tectonics theory took forever bc people HATED it and Alfred Wegener suffered for like 50 years. So! actually while Tolkien was writing LOTR, the scientific community was literally still not sure plate tectonics existed.
Tom Bombadil knew tho. - Remember that next time you (a geologist) are forced to look at the Middle Earth map.
- I'm not even done with Tom Bombadil but I'm stopping here tonight. Plate tectonics got me. There's a great early (but almost high!) medieval treatise on cosmology and also volcanoes and i wonder if tolkien read it. oh my god. i'm going to bed.
edit: part II
Tags by @nerdanaro
Thank god someone who can spell in Old Norse (not me). I joke but is a fantastic addition, both in general for Tolkien’s literary context and for the Norse side of galdor!! as the tags say it’s effectively the same term in both Old Norse and Old English, requires singing or chanting, but there’s a slight difference in how it shows up (amusingly, Old English sources, tho they’d been Christian for longer, are relatively chill about galdor if the right ppl are doing it the right way).
A lot of the time when I explain the scop in Beowulf someone asks if they’re like a skald: yep! Again with distinctions, etc, but whatever we know way more about skalds, anyway.
I love Norse lawyers. Nothing to add there, I just. Love that whole deal.
First off I just discovered these posts and I have been going through your tag and am filled with delight
Secondly, you may be interested to know that the runes used on various covers are known as the Cirth or the Angerthas, there's a whole section on them in Appendix E. There's a lot of overlap with Norse runes (which I've only made a cursory study of personally) but they are their own system. Appendix E also has a section on the Tengwar which is the other letter system you're likely to see.
Thirdly, the lines about how the seas used to be different could refer to a few different things; the first and more obvious one is about how Middle-earth used to be significantly larger, and west of the Blue Mountains there used to be a continent-sized piece of land known as Beleriand which was broken and swallowed by the sea at the end of the First Age. The second and arguably more exciting interpretation is the line about how Tom remembers the world "before the seas were bent" which is a reference to how the world basically used to be flat, and you could sail from the Western shore of Middle-earth all the way to Elvenhome in the west, and beyond that to Valinor, where the Valar (gods, essentially) dwell. But in the Second Age the men of Numenor (for various reasons, many of them the council of Sauron) decided to storm Valinor, and in doing so attain (or demand) immortality, and in response, Numenor was sunk into the sea and destroyed, leaving only a few survivors, and later sailors attempting to find Valinor would eventually sail so far that they circumnavigate the world entirely and come back reporting that "all the seas are bent." Certain people (namely Elves) can still sail the straight path, but for everybody else, the world is round now. I think that is pretty damn neat.
elirazantys reblogged
elirazantys reblogged
you’re not a girl, you’re a devil
elirazantys reblogged
Do not cite the deep magics to me, witch. I was there when it was written.
This isn’t old this is fucking XP
Wasn’t this like one or two generations ago
What generation are we on now
windows XP came out in 2001 (2001 was twenty two years ago) and its last update was put out in 2008 (2008 was fifteen years ago), since XP windowls has released Vista, 7, 8, 10, and finally the most curent windows version windows 11. so no XP wasnt one or two generations ago…. it was five generations ago…. and that is…. wow
That can’t possibly be right.
elirazantys reblogged
the worst, most insecure lil guy ever <3
elirazantys reblogged
elirazantys reblogged
celticpyro
Please watch this.
robert-the-redhead-lover
Shit, I’ve only seen stills of this.
wereralph
the photoset really didn’t do this scene justice im yelling
this is one of those rare cases where the dub adds deliciousness to the source material
Honestly him pouring out all his pencils onto the desk and looking at the guy expectantly was actually such a power move
elirazantys reblogged
can i jsut say… isnt it insane that polar bears go underground like imagine just walking along with a shovel and u start digging a hole and a bear is in there
killuwa
THEYRE JUST? THERE…. IN THE SNOW
sad-sad-sage
I know it‘s supposed to be scary that there is apex predators just potentially sleeping under the surface of the snow like some kind of greek mythology monster but it just makes me laugh bc them living in holes just means polar bears just have little houses and look out of their little windows like:
elirazantys reblogged
Groceries
elirazantys reblogged
elirazantys reblogged
Imagine waiting for the coast guard or whatever to show up and instead a replica of 18th century merchant ship pulls up and tows you to the coast.
pov: you’ve been transported to the 17th century
#in the article it says that the sailboat sailors were concerned because they could not be towed quickly because of the kind of boat#so they asked Götheborg what type of ship they were and warned that they would not be able to go above a certain speed#and götheborg went ' we are also a sailboat. 50 meters length. no worries :) '#and the poor sailboat sailors were just like ' That's not possible. they have to be messing with us' and then the ship Rolled Up (via bunjywunjy)
I'm crying. Here's a photo of a sailor from the Götheborg watching over the little sailboat in tow:
From the story:
We repeatedly emphasized that we were aboard a small 8-meter sailboat, but the response was the same each time: "We are a 50-meter three-masted sailboat, and we offer our assistance in towing you to Paimpol." We were perplexed by the size difference between our two boats, as we feared being towed by a boat that was too large and at too fast a speed that could damage our boat. The arrival of the Götheborg on the scene was rapid and surprising, as we did not expect to see a merchant ship from the East India Company of the XVIII century. This moment was very strange, and we wondered if we were dreaming. Where were we? What time period was it? The Götheborg approached very close to us to throw the line and pass a large rope. The mooring went well, and our destinies were linked for very long hours, during which we shared the same radio frequency to communicate with each other. The crew of the Götheborg showed great professionalism and kindness towards us. They adapted their speed to the size of our boat and the weather conditions. We felt accompanied by very professional sailors. Every hour, the officer on duty of the Götheborg called us to ensure everything was going well.[...] This adventure, very real, was an incredible experience for us. We were extremely lucky to cross paths with the Götheborg by chance and especially to meet such a caring crew. Dear commander and crew of the Götheborg, your kindness, and generosity have shown that your ship is much more than just a boat. It embodies the noblest values of the sea, and we are honored to have had the chance to cross your path and benefit from your help.
"Our destinies were linked for very long hours" is just knocking me out.
elirazantys reblogged
google help me
the thing is, stephen king is generally pretty good at creating complex, well-rounded characters, which makes it all the more jarring when one of those characters abruptly comes out with what i'll term a "kingism". i don't know how best to define a kingism other than "you'll know it when you see it". it's the voice of the author intruding on the voice of the character, and in this case the voice of the author has a bad sense of humour and is ravenously, inexplicably horny
random example of a kingism aka "he would not fucking say that"
this too is a kingism
one of the hallmarks of a kingism is that when a character is being Horny On Main (or In Maine), they can never do it in a normal way. they have to come up with a sequence of words that nobody has ever said before in the history of the english language. here's another example:
i'm starting a collection
elirazantys reblogged
oh brother 😔 I had this date a few years back with an autistic guy, where he was like “by the way, you’re autistic too,” and I was like “oh, haha, no I’m not!” and then he went through this listing of every diagnostic trait he’d noticed ending with “and you haven’t made eye contact with me ONCE!” while I sat there getting more and more furious.
in retrospect I think it was very funny, and I hope he’s doing well
Neither diagnosed nor undiagnosed but a secret third thing: peer reviewed.
elirazantys reblogged
if you’re offline or away and i message you something (like a link to a meme or a picture or w/e) honestly just assume that i’m just leaving it there for when you get back and not expecting you to answer straight away. i don’t need you to respond with “hey, sorry, i wasn’t at the computer!” or anything. i was leaving u a gift for later.
This also applies if you’re online and just don’t want to or have the energy to deal with humans in the moment. Just because we have the ability to reply in real time does not mean we have the obligation.
im like a cat i drag the posts to ur doorstep and if ur not there it’s ok, the post will be on ur porch for later
elirazantys reblogged
elirazantys reblogged
HATE when you’re inserting your email somewhere and literally from the first letter the website is like “invalid email address” like yes i know. I’m typing it right now. My email address is obviously not just the letter ‘m’. Stop
elirazantys reblogged
tilthat
pretty funny i guess
had to be there
Translation is always tricky, but I remember this slightly different:
Figs were an imported delicacy at the time, and the donkey just managed to eat them (without being given any on purpose). Seeing a donkey eating several times their own value in figs, the philosopher looked to his servant who might have been standing there either in shock, despair, or both, and said something along the lines of “Oh don’t just stand there. Get him some (undiluted) wine to wash the figs down with”. With (undiluted) wine also being an expensive drink.
I feel like that context makes it funnier. Basically like standing in front of your burning mansion with a butler, meeting their eyes, and telling them that you still feel a little chilly and ask them if they could put on an extra log or two.
idk what’s funnier, the burning house situation, or being the butler as you watch your master laugh so hard at his own joke that he fully fucking dies.
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Which is Your Black Cat?