• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.
Were any hobbits surnamed Goldwater or Woodhouse?

Those names always make me laugh
 
Were any hobbits surnamed Goldwater or Woodhouse?

Those names always make me laugh

Woodhouse is not used as a hobbit name, but the entire race of the Druedain (Ghan-Buri-Ghan who guides the Rohirrim through Druadan Forest) is translated as Wood-woses (from the OE wudu-wasa) from which Woodhouse is derived.

Wikipedia Druedain
 
Rare ‘Lord of the Rings’ adaptation discovered after 30 years

A long-lost Soviet television adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy has been unearthed after being lost for 30 years.

lord-of-the-rings-russia-2.jpg


Based on Tolkien’s first installment, “The Fellowship of the Ring,” the 1991 film “Khraniteli,” which translates as something close to “guardians,” aired on Leningrad Television just once before it was presumed lost after the fall of the Soviet Union later that year.


Made during a period of economic collapse in the USSR, the humble work serves as a time capsule of Soviet-style entertainment, marked by low-budget set design and special effects, and a soundtrack composed by Russian composer Andrei Romanov of rock band Akvarium.

Unexpectedly, Russian state network 5TV, Leningrad TV’s successor, shared part one and part two of “Khraniteli” on YouTube last week, and more than 450,000 have tuned in so far.

“Fans have been searching the archives but had not been able to find this film for decades,” according to Russian-language fantasy fansite World of Fiction, which investigated the missing movie back in 2016.

https://nypost.com/2021/04/05/soviet-lord-of-the-rings-adaptation-found-after-30-years/

maximus otter
 
One of my kids was once listening to the audiobook, and got to Boromir's death just as he left college, by the race-course. It's quite a long walk into town from there and he says they were still singing the interminable dirge about Boromir's death, when he hit town...

Re. US influences, I'm not so sure (and I could be wrong - will have to go look it up). He'll have found his student's mentioning of Kentucky names - well, UK names surviving in Kentucky - interesting but I suspect those names just appealed (probably remembered from South Birmingham is my bet), and the student is misremembering their own influence on him, in retrospect. The professor who taught me Old Norse used to find my Yorkshire dialect words interesting - or rather, the fact I could translate some Old Norse words because they were similar to dialect my mother's family had spoken and the kids I went to school with. Philologists are like that.

Don't really find any US lit influences in there whatsoever, and of course, no Shakespeare. (Fortunately re. the Shakespeare). I think the Brandywine thing is a coincidence - it's the hobbits' homely take on the river others called Baranduin. That sort of stuff happened with English place names, where something's name morphed into something else because to later ears it sounded like that word. I doubt he read any American Lit or very much. He started out with classics, swapped to English and stuck with everything pre 1066.
I also listen to the audio version of the three books. I LOVE the Fellowship, but have to skip over the songs. They are bearable in book version, where you can ignore them, just read the lyrics, or make up your own tune, but when you are subjected to all 143 verses of Tom Bombadil trilling about his very suspect meeting of his 'wife'...well. It's enough to put you off.
 
Rare ‘Lord of the Rings’ adaptation discovered after 30 years

A long-lost Soviet television adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy has been unearthed after being lost for 30 years.

lord-of-the-rings-russia-2.jpg


Based on Tolkien’s first installment, “The Fellowship of the Ring,” the 1991 film “Khraniteli,” which translates as something close to “guardians,” aired on Leningrad Television just once before it was presumed lost after the fall of the Soviet Union later that year.


Made during a period of economic collapse in the USSR, the humble work serves as a time capsule of Soviet-style entertainment, marked by low-budget set design and special effects, and a soundtrack composed by Russian composer Andrei Romanov of rock band Akvarium.

Unexpectedly, Russian state network 5TV, Leningrad TV’s successor, shared part one and part two of “Khraniteli” on YouTube last week, and more than 450,000 have tuned in so far.

“Fans have been searching the archives but had not been able to find this film for decades,” according to Russian-language fantasy fansite World of Fiction, which investigated the missing movie back in 2016.

https://nypost.com/2021/04/05/soviet-lord-of-the-rings-adaptation-found-after-30-years/

maximus otter
And I bet the Tolkien estate was unhappy then and now is whetting its lawyers. That's one low-budget Birthday Party scene.
 
Shouldn't this thread be in Fortean Culture? Mods?
 
Is this a good time to point out that there's a large convenience store chain, up here in the north, called Proudfoot?
I know that as lovely as the countryside here is, it aint the Shire.
 
Is this a good time to point out that there's a large convenience store chain, up here in the north, called Proudfoot?
I know that as lovely as the countryside here is, it aint the Shire.

Proudfeet!
 
I also listen to the audio version of the three books. I LOVE the Fellowship, but have to skip over the songs. They are bearable in book version, where you can ignore them, just read the lyrics, or make up your own tune, but when you are subjected to all 143 verses of Tom Bombadil trilling about his very suspect meeting of his 'wife'...well. It's enough to put you off.
I re-listened to one of my favourite chapters in the audiobook version, the other week - the barrow downs. And then re-listened to it again, it was so good! Tom is annoying but also a glimpse of something very, very intriguing. (If you knock out his songs).
 
Rare ‘Lord of the Rings’ adaptation discovered after 30 years

A long-lost Soviet television adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy has been unearthed after being lost for 30 years.

lord-of-the-rings-russia-2.jpg


Based on Tolkien’s first installment, “The Fellowship of the Ring,” the 1991 film “Khraniteli,” which translates as something close to “guardians,” aired on Leningrad Television just once before it was presumed lost after the fall of the Soviet Union later that year.


Made during a period of economic collapse in the USSR, the humble work serves as a time capsule of Soviet-style entertainment, marked by low-budget set design and special effects, and a soundtrack composed by Russian composer Andrei Romanov of rock band Akvarium.

Unexpectedly, Russian state network 5TV, Leningrad TV’s successor, shared part one and part two of “Khraniteli” on YouTube last week, and more than 450,000 have tuned in so far.

“Fans have been searching the archives but had not been able to find this film for decades,” according to Russian-language fantasy fansite World of Fiction, which investigated the missing movie back in 2016.

https://nypost.com/2021/04/05/soviet-lord-of-the-rings-adaptation-found-after-30-years/

maximus otter
I think we need Krepostnoi to translate.

That is so bad it's good.
 
I re-listened to one of my favourite chapters in the audiobook version, the other week - the barrow downs. And then re-listened to it again, it was so good! Tom is annoying but also a glimpse of something very, very intriguing. (If you knock out his songs).
The barrow wights are very very spooky in the audio book. Such a shame they were left out of the films.
 
The barrow wights are very very spooky in the audio book. Such a shame they were left out of the films.
Trouble is you can hardly have the Barrow Wight without Tom Bombadil to rescue them (or another intervention in the story to erase the need for him) and if Frodo and co can defeat a Barrow Wight then why not the Ring-wraiths that pursue them in Bree. It would damage the sense of suspense, while also confusing the casual audience.

The first half of Fellowship is one of my favourite parts of the story, I love the section between the first night under the fir tree through to the Bucklebury Ferry, the slowly building fear of pursuit is sublime. The subsequent passage of the Old Forest and the other misadventures caused by short cuts are, in my opinion, some of the most atmospheric and world-building parts of the story. I have heard many complaints that Tolkien took forever to get going with the story but in my opinion the story would not be the same without that very dense set of misadventures at the beginning giving us a good sense of how capable the Hobbits are and where their strengths and weaknesses lie.

However if this had all been faithfully filmed it could have taken a whole film just to get to Bree. So I can understand why they cut the majority of that material, sad though it is.
 
Trouble is you can hardly have the Barrow Wight without Tom Bombadil to rescue them (or another intervention in the story to erase the need for him) and if Frodo and co can defeat a Barrow Wight then why not the Ring-wraiths that pursue them in Bree. It would damage the sense of suspense, while also confusing the casual audience.

The first half of Fellowship is one of my favourite parts of the story, I love the section between the first night under the fir tree through to the Bucklebury Ferry, the slowly building fear of pursuit is sublime. The subsequent passage of the Old Forest and the other misadventures caused by short cuts are, in my opinion, some of the most atmospheric and world-building parts of the story. I have heard many complaints that Tolkien took forever to get going with the story but in my opinion the story would not be the same without that very dense set of misadventures at the beginning giving us a good sense of how capable the Hobbits are and where their strengths and weaknesses lie.

However if this had all been faithfully filmed it could have taken a whole film just to get to Bree. So I can understand why they cut the majority of that material, sad though it is.
Tolkien did have a habit of subscribing to the notion of 'why use one paragraph to describe something when you can use 3 chapters' :p
 
Tolkien did have a habit of subscribing to the notion of 'why use one paragraph to describe something when you can use 3 chapters' :p
Oh yes, brevity was not his friend. But I also love Fellowship - it's just such a 'road' novel. There's something very atmospheric about it and the descriptions of the long walks and the nights under the trees. I also agree that you couldn't have the barrow wights without Tom Bombadil and he would have been hard to work into the film without his appearing as a deus ex machina (which he sort of is in the story too, to be fair). I can't remember how the film gets around the hobbits having swords - as, in the book, they take them from the treasure of the barrow wight.
 
Trouble is you can hardly have the Barrow Wight without Tom Bombadil to rescue them (or another intervention in the story to erase the need for him) and if Frodo and co can defeat a Barrow Wight then why not the Ring-wraiths that pursue them in Bree. It would damage the sense of suspense, while also confusing the casual audience.

The first half of Fellowship is one of my favourite parts of the story, I love the section between the first night under the fir tree through to the Bucklebury Ferry, the slowly building fear of pursuit is sublime. The subsequent passage of the Old Forest and the other misadventures caused by short cuts are, in my opinion, some of the most atmospheric and world-building parts of the story. I have heard many complaints that Tolkien took forever to get going with the story but in my opinion the story would not be the same without that very dense set of misadventures at the beginning giving us a good sense of how capable the Hobbits are and where their strengths and weaknesses lie.

However if this had all been faithfully filmed it could have taken a whole film just to get to Bree. So I can understand why they cut the majority of that material, sad though it is.

In today's IP driven, franchise hungry world Tom Bommers will get his own Netflix series and we will find out about his Dark And Gritty Origins, which will then lead to Goldberry getting her own spinoff which will see her Even Darker And More Grittier Origins as she smites the patriatchtree among the Ents.

The Barrow Wight will get a Youtube series where he does unboxing vids and gives make up tips.
 
... but when you are subjected to all 143 verses of Tom Bombadil trilling about his very suspect meeting of his 'wife'...well. It's enough to put you off.

So, inspired by the resurrection of this thread, I am now re-reading Fellowship again and I am wondering if some editions omit some of the poetry. The copy I originally read as a child was a 1950s or 60s edition (might have been a first edition, come to think of it) but nowadays I read a reading copy (the dog tends to like shoving his nose into whatever I am reading!) which is from the third printing of the 1991 HarperCollins edition. I do vaguely recall a lot of verse in the chapter 'In the House of Tom Bombadil' but in my reading copy there's just a short verse about the meeting of Goldberry and Tom Bombadil, p124.

Nothing in that verse reads as 'very suspect' to me, though I could see how it could be read as somewhat sinister in a way. Curious if your copy has more verse here, and if some has been removed from more recent editions. I intend to look out my older copy and check that too (not sure I still have it, sadly).
 
So, inspired by the resurrection of this thread, I am now re-reading Fellowship again and I am wondering if some editions omit some of the poetry. The copy I originally read as a child was a 1950s or 60s edition (might have been a first edition, come to think of it) but nowadays I read a reading copy (the dog tends to like shoving his nose into whatever I am reading!) which is from the third printing of the 1991 HarperCollins edition. I do vaguely recall a lot of verse in the chapter 'In the House of Tom Bombadil' but in my reading copy there's just a short verse about the meeting of Goldberry and Tom Bombadil, p124.

Nothing in that verse reads as 'very suspect' to me, though I could see how it could be read as somewhat sinister in a way. Curious if your copy has more verse here, and if some has been removed from more recent editions. I intend to look out my older copy and check that too (not sure I still have it, sadly).
No, T made some edits as he went mostly for consistency and to fix the "finding the ring" thing but cutting poetry was not one of them. It's not all that long a poem really, but if you're not fascinated by early English/Norse poetry metres as he was it can go on a little. And of course all of Tom's spoken words are in a meter whose name I don't know but it's all in --..-(pause or -) -..-- . Very cunning of T.
 
I wasn't suggesting this was a Tolkien edit rather perhaps a later editorial choice by a publisher.

Since length and verbosity has been brought up a couple of times, I'd like to say that in my opinion nothing in LotR strikes me as excessively long or verbose. If the poetry is not to your taste or interest, it is easy to skip over (though less so in audiobook form, I suppose). For my part I tend to skip some of the poems but read others, though when I was younger I read them all dutifully. That said I also read the Bible, the Torah and the Koran too when I was young, even the Silmarillion is an easy read compared to some of those!
 
I spent the Easter weekend introducing my 7 year old stepdaughter to the entire LOTR movie series. Absolutely fantastic. Rekindled my love for them as I watched her love grow.

Been doing some reading and listening to a lot about how Tolkien's deep Christian faith informed a considerable part of his story-telling.
 
Back
Top