398 – Changes

Hello, this is Jack Wilson, the host of the History of Literature podcast. For the past 10 years, I've been talking to novelists, biographers, and scholars about the greatest books in the history of the world and the men and women who wrote them, like our recent episodes on Dante and Love, a starter pack of 10 Indian classics, the pop culture that influenced Sylvia Plath, and a talk with scientist and novelist Alan Lightman about the wonders of nature. Join us at the History of Literature podcast wherever you get your podcasts. happy to do so but you did but you did yeah folks pull up a bench in the common room and join us i'm james tauber the sage of the south and i'm here with the man of the west who is greater than the swans of gorbel god alan sister well i'd say that's a low bar but we don't know a thing about the dewey they might be the most incredible swans ever anyway that's the point though now that i think about it is it's a low bar that's really what you're doing yeah all right folks join us for Hazard's history lesson as we continue our four-part look at the unique story of Tal Elmar. And folks, no matter whether you came to Middle Earth through the books, the films, the TV show, or something else, each of you is welcome here in our common room. The Prancing Pony podcast continues in our 10th season of reading and talking our way through Middle Earth with conversations, digressions, and even speculations. Oh, no doubt about that. Not to mention a few puns and bad jokes here and there, especially the bad jokes now that James is with me. But our purpose here is to dive deep into the lore, discuss the story, our favorite characters and themes, Tolkien's inspirations, and a whole lot more. And while we take the work seriously, the same can't be said about ourselves, as you can already tell. We're just a couple of friends chatting at the pub, and we're glad you've joined us. And I'm sure you'll be glad you joined as well. But before we start with today's chapter discussion, it's time for, well, another one of these combination kingly gifts and mini interview sessions with an author. tonight's guest has built a warm and welcoming online community in the talking fandom through her website tea with talking she writes and speaks on talking and was on the short list for talking society award for best online content in both 2023 and 2025 your attorney is coming i promise it's got to it absolutely someday someday it is hard to believe though that it's been nearly three years since she appeared in what was only the third week of today's talking times all the way back in May of 23. So it is long past due that we had her back on. I can't believe it's been so long. That's wild. So folks, please welcome a real hobbit at heart and author of the new book, Into the Heart of Middle-Earth, Caitlin. Thank you so much for having me. That was a very kind intro. Well, you know, we have fond memories of you here, even if they do go back a ways. I didn't realize how long it had been. Time has really flown. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah. Well, When you were on the TTT with me way back in the day, you talked about the importance of community. Years later, update our listeners. Tell us a bit about your corner of the fandom and why community speaks so strongly to you. Absolutely. So it has been an incredible couple of years for Tea with Tolkien. Our community has just been growing at such a crazy speed. Even in the last month, we've had more than 500 people join our Discord server. We've had to bring in new moderators. It's been hard to keep up, but I just feel like the more I share about Tolkien, the more people just show up out of nowhere. That's great. It especially seems to happen when we start a new book club. So we're doing the Silmarillion, and then we're going to be going into the Lord of the Rings coming up soon. And so you just end up finding people who are, especially with things like the Silmarillion that are a little more difficult to read. they are just it's something that's been on their their list for years people have always wanted to read it but feel like they couldn't and so to be able to provide this level of community where we can support each other in reading Tolkien and kind of learning how to interpret him and keep track of different characters especially in the Silmarillion I think people are just drawn to it and it's been incredible that makes sense yeah I mean the Silmarillion is especially one that it seems best to tackle that with friends. Yes, it's great. It's great. And you can, there's no, there's no bad questions. You know, people are coming from all different walks of life. I mean, I've read the Silmarillion, I don't even know how many times, but there are people who are brand new to it and they have no idea what's going on there. It's like you open the book and your head's just spinning. And so to be able to experience it with other people, I think is really great. Now, not everyone goes from blogging and tweeting to writing an actual book. What led you to begin such a huge undertaking? It wasn't my idea. I had actually written a couple of freelance articles for someone who is an editor at an online magazine. And he eventually, I don't know, over the years, we kind of kept in touch. And then he ended up getting a job at Ave Maria Press, which is my publisher. And he emailed me and he was like, hey, do you want to write a book? and I always try to be very receptive when opportunities come my way because it felt like terrifying. It's a big project to write a book. It wasn't something that I thought I could ever do but here it came to me and I felt like I can't say no. So I actually worked with my editor to kind of craft a couple of different ideas for the book and then we decided together what would be maybe the best idea. And then he presented it to the team and they loved it and then kind of just went off from there. Well, that's a perfect segue into our next question. What is the elevator pitch for Into the Heart of Middle-Earth? Like what's the short version of the book? What's it about? Who's your reader? So the book is a spiritual journey for the Hobbit at heart. It's really for anyone who has wanted to go deeper into the Lord of the Rings. And what I love so much about this book is that you are discovering more and more about the Lord of the Rings as you're reading, but you're also discovering more about yourself and the world that we live in. So as we're reading Tolkien, I really believe that Tolkien can transform his readers. To enter into Middle Earth is to be changed. And the person that you are when you open the book for the first time is not going to be the same person when you've finally finished The Return of the King. It's It's just such an incredible journey. And I think it's almost like, what's the point if you're not being changed? Because there is so much that we can learn from Tolkien. And the way that he sees the world has affected the way that I see the world and the way that I interact with people in my life, myself. And so my goal with this book is to help others on this journey. No matter if you're new to Tolkien or if you've read Tolkien before, hopefully I can provide some new perspectives. That just leads me to ask, I think, possibly the most obvious question there is, what is it that's the biggest change for you that reading Tolkien has brought into your life, the thing that you might not have reached otherwise? Definitely, I would say, and I feel like this is almost a little bit like superficial, but the way that I interact with like the natural created world, like even just like trees, like I appreciate trees and just being outside so much more than I ever did. And I think a lot of that is just I've grown up with Tolkien. So as I've grown up, I just have grown in my love for nature and the outdoors. But I just I also would say that the biggest way Tolkien has impacted me is the way that I approach the desire for power because I like I want to be the greatest I I have a lot of ambition and like I can be I tend to be more prideful than I would like and with Tolkien's villains like it's very clear-cut the directions that you don't want to go in yeah and I can see them as a very easy example of what I shouldn't do when I do, if I'm, you know, wanting power or whatever. And so I would say just learning from Tolkien's heroes, but also learning from his villains too. That's a good one. No, I think you're absolutely right. We get some really good negative templates for what to avoid. The sins of Melkor come to mind. So writing a book is hard. Cutting stuff to meet a page limit is even harder. What, What, if anything, did you have to cut from the final product that you wish you could have kept in? So I did so many lore dumps in the book. And my editor, he's familiar with The Lord of the Rings, but he isn't quite as deep into it as I am. And so I think we were a really good team because I would start ranting about Elros and Numenor. and he would be like, what's any of this? And so, you know, you want the book to be approachable for a large audience. And so what I tried to do is boil things down and kind of get to like the main core of the points that I wanted to make. And I did have to cut a lot, but I saved everything I cut in one big document. And I think that document is like 40,000 words long. So we've got like the start of a second book there. I was going to say, there's half your sequel already. Yep. That is great. I mean, I guess the next question is, when is the sequel coming and what will it come? Oh, my gosh. Let me get this. This has been like a three-year-long journey, so let's take this one step at a time. Fair enough. Now, your book is admittedly aimed or at least partially aimed at the Catholic reader of Tolkien. Your community is based on that as well. But, of course, aimed at is not anywhere near written exclusively for. Just as your community Tea with Tolkien is open to all, your book welcomes readers from different worldviews. What do you hope your non-Catholic readers in particular take away from Into the Heart of Middle Earth? Oh, that's such a good question because my goal with Tea with Tolkien is I am inspired. I'm personally inspired by Tolkien's faith, and I find a lot of meaning in it, but I never want anyone to feel excluded from our community or like I'm trying to force some kind of interpretation onto them. So what I love is being able to shine light on maybe different symbols or different meanings that a non-religious person might not have picked up on. And in the book, I do talk about some different saints that influence Tolkien that you might not have known about or different stories from the Bible that Tolkien is actually kind of related to. He did some work for translating the Jerusalem Bible. And so it's like little things like that you might not know about. And I feel like they do add a lot of depth to the story without kind of like trying to force any kind of perspective onto you. It's kind of the way that Tolkien didn't like allegory, but he liked applicability. So that's kind of the same approach I try to take. Like I have my own perspective. I'll share it. But I hope that whatever I share is going to be kind of like a good jump off point for anyone to go in any direction they need to go. So you're taking more of the Tolkien approach than the C.S. Lewis approach. I'm always, always trying to take the Tolkien approach. No, no, no, no. Azan is Jesus. It's not an allegory. He just is. I digress. We don't do that here. No, I didn't think so. I'm really looking forward to reading this. It's going to be a great one. Of course, I have to admit, I have had a sneak peek. I've been able to take a look at the advanced copy before it's come out. But you can, of course, go out and pre-order Caitlin's book now, folks. or you can buy it after it releases later this month on February 20th from your local bookseller or from Amazon and we'll include a link in the show notes that we will Caitlin thank you for joining us today really appreciate it thank you so much for having me it was so nice to chat with you two great catching up as well folks we'll uh we'll have her back again when it's time to publish the sequel. Alan, would you like to get us started with the first reading? And it chanced on a morning of spring that when his other sons went out to labor, Hazard kept Tal Elmar at his side and they walked forth together and sat upon the green hilltop above the town of their people. And they looked out south and west to where they could see far away the great bite of the sea that drove in on the land. and it was shimmering like gray glass. And the eyes of Hazad were growing dim with age, but Tal-Omars were keen, and he saw, as he thought, three strange birds upon the water, white in the sun, and they were drifting with the west wind towards the land. And he wondered that they sat upon the sea and did not fly. I see three strange birds upon the water, father, he said. They are unlike any that I have seen before. "'Kean may be thine eyes in youth, my son,' said Hazan, "'but birds on the water thou canst not see. "'Three leagues away are the nearest shores of the sea from where we sit. "'The sun dazzles thee, or some dream is on thee.' "'Nay, the sun is behind me,' said Talalmar. "'I see what I see. "'And if they be not birds, what are they? "'Very great must they be, "'greater than the swans of Gorbilgod, of which legends tell. "'And lo! I see now another that comes behind, "'but less clearly, for its wings are black.' "'Then Hazard was troubled. "'A dream is on thee, as I said, my son,' he answered. "'But an ill dream. "'Is not life here hard enough "'that when spring is come and winter is over at last, "'thou must bring a vision out of the black past?' "'Hoo, ho, ho!' It takes a twist, doesn't it? Doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We'll get to all that. So last week was all about introducing us to the main characters of this story, Hazard and Tal Elmar, but also about the history, including Hazard's parents, Uldah and Elmar, for whom Tal Elmar is named. Yeah, exactly. So the entire section that we read last week didn't begin the story at all. It just served as necessary background for us to understand the characters and events and sort of kind of at least grapple with the idea of the location and time, including the mystery, of course, of who the fell folk truly are. But now, having come to know Hazad and Tal Elmar, we actually begin the story itself. And it's on a spring morning when those other two sons that still live with Hazad are out working. It does occur to me that Tolkien does this a lot, of establishing a bit of background history and so on. He does it in The Hobbit, he does it in Lord of the Rings. Even in The Hobbit, the actual starting point of the story doesn't happen until six paragraphs in. We get all this background about who Bilbo Baggins is and where he lives and his parenting. That's true. And even more if you read the prologue. I mean, he does this, yeah. And, you know, but here we get a similar thing. We're finally now in the story. So Hazard and his youngest, Tal Elmar, climb a hill. They look in a southwesterly direction towards a bight. That's a curve or recess in a coastline. Most Australians know this because we have the Great Australian Bight, which is in the southern coast, which is huge. Not clear how big this bite is. So let's talk a little bit about what we might be able to work out from this description. They're looking at a southwesterly direction. There's a bite. Yeah. That's a tough one because we talked last week about how it could have been happening near the mouth. We know what's happening near the mouth of a river, right? There's no argument there. So we've talked about the Angren or the Eisen. We've talked about the Lefnui. We've talked about the Morthon. Tolkien himself seems to have landed on the idea, perhaps, of the Morthon, because that's the one where he goes, you know, oh, maybe it's the Eisen or the Morthon, period, right? So like he asked the question, but then he answered the question with the Morthon one. Which, just to remind people, those two rivers are extremely different locations. Very, very far apart, especially the mouth of the... And different directions, yeah. I mean, yeah, if you look at their sources, they're not quite as far apart. Right. The source is similar, but, you know, the Ungrund is flowing west. Yeah. And ends up going to the sea off to the west, and Morthond is to the south. And not just anywhere in the south, it's to the eastern part of the Langstrand as well. So it's... Yeah, it comes out, if you're familiar with the map, it comes out just above Dole Amroth at where Ederland is, where the Elfhippet is. Right. Where all those rivers sort of come together. The Morthon comes down. You've got the Ringlo that comes down as well. They meet just above Ederland. So just to give a sense of the distance between the two possible, at least two of the possible mouths of the river that we're talking about, it's pretty much the distance from maybe the Shire to Rivendell. Yeah. Yeah, it's 400 miles. You wouldn't confuse the two. No, you wouldn't confuse the Brandywine with the Bruinen, for instance. Right. And yet that's about how far apart they are. Looking at a map, the Eisen comes out on a north-south stretch of the coast, so it comes out almost due west. And it's really at the same latitude as Helm's Deep. Right. So it's really very, very far away from the mouth of the Morthon, which comes out at a line just barely above where Pilargir is. Right. South of Minas Tirith. Yeah, south of Minas Tirith. I mean, not due south, but in terms of latitude. Correct, exactly. I mean, it's a good 60 miles, 70 miles south of the Stone of the Wreck. It's definitely, they're not close. And so my thought was, well, maybe this location, right, that, okay, they're looking in a southwest direction towards a bite. And you look and you realize, nope, I can draw a spot above the mouth of the Isen that means you'd be looking southwest towards that bite. You could draw one for the left as well, where you're looking southwest towards the bite where that goes in. And same with the Morathon, really all of them. Yeah. I mean, the large-scale structure of the coastline, I don't think, helps us at all here. Nope. It doesn't. It doesn't. This is the fractal nature of coastlines, right? Yeah. You can get this variation even at a much smaller scale. Exactly. You're just looking in a particular direction. Well, that's a relative direction. So you can place that dot anywhere you want. Right. And to the southwest of that dot will be where Abite is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. All right. So that part doesn't help us. Oh, well. but while Hazard could use a new prescription for his glasses stop calling me out yeah I was thinking of you I did have an optometrist appointment not that long ago so there you go so in contrast to you and Hazard Tal Elmer has great eyesight and believes that he's seeing three strange birds on the sea and the text says that they're drifting with the west wind towards the land. Now, does that help us? Does that mean, though, that this is near, let's say, the west-facing Eisen? But the mouth of Morthond lets out in a small bay to the north of Dol Amroth. That would actually... It does have a coast. It's got a little bit of a north-south stretch. I don't think we can tell. You could literally have a ship bearing due east, sailing straight into Eveland. It doesn't help us there either, unfortunately. Oh, well. We'll keep trying. We'll keep trying, folks. But tell Elmer, he's a bit confused, why are these birds just sitting on the water and not flying? And he goes from thinking about them to talking about them, telling his dad what he sees and acknowledging that they're nothing like other ships he's seen. Well, of course. I mean, you can consider that he's almost certainly seen boats before, but what he's seen in terms of boats are going to be things like small fishing boats, canoes or something. Canoes, right. Yeah. Small two to maybe four man where you'd throw a net out and catch some fish. He's seen nothing in the class of these massive Numenorean vessels. And in fact, as we'll see later with a line that we get from Hazard, they don't even seem to have sailing vessels of any size. Right, right. Hazard basically says, you know, don't tell me what your elf eyes see, son. You can't possibly be spotting birds from here of all places. So they're far enough away. He's like, you can't be seeing birds on the water, man. That's six miles from here, right? three leagues, right? Did you say three leagues? Yeah, three leagues, yeah. So we're talking about a long way off. The human eye can resolve objects that are about car size from that distance, so they'd have to be really, really, really big birds for him to be able to spot them. But big ships? Well, that's definitely something he could see. Right. But the problem is, of course, the idea of ships or anything being that large is so alien to Hazard that he assumes the sun has blinded him or is imagining things. Right. And Tal El-Nah reminds his dad that the sun is behind him. Does that help us? I was thinking like, hmm, okay. So the sun in spring in the northern hemisphere, because that is where we're talking here. We know it's spring because they've just said that. It would be rising north of due east. So it would be rising not due east precisely unless it was the very first day of spring. So if they're looking southwest, the sun would be behind them. But the problem is that's just as true of a west-facing beach like the mouth of Ison as it would be of the mouths of the left New York Morthon. Because, again, it's all about relative positioning. They're to the northeast of this bit of the water, because they're looking southwest, and the sun is behind them because that's where the sun is in the spring. and and also i mean just saying the sun is behind you i just think that only rules out half the sky it could be anywhere it doesn't mean it's directly behind you right right could be 45 degrees off to one side or whatever yeah correct so we're still not getting any help from this folks but we will keep trying he's looked out i know i'm seeing something right i'm not imagining things the sun isn't dazzling me right so if they're not birds they're really really really big. And we get this mentioned, I love it, the legendary swans of Gorbelgård, which of course, tell me that doesn't make you think of the cats of Queen Borutheel. Absolutely. I mean, it's this thing that Tolkien drops in, like legends tell of these things. Like we're all supposed to know about this, but I'm not going to tell you anything more. Exactly. Legends tell you, but I'm not going to tell you. Thanks, Professor. Really appreciate that so much. Some say. Some say. The swans of Gorbel God. I'm not sure whether I like them better than the Cats of Queen Beruthiel. And now I need to make up a story like Tolkien did for the Cats of Queen Beruthiel. How they had one black one and all the rest were white, or one white and all the rest were black? I can't remember now. I think it was one white that spied on the others, and the others were all spies, but the one spied on the rest. so what would the legends of the swans of Gorbel God right so that's what I'm trying to figure out the Gorbel Gorbel Gorbel just makes me think there should be turkeys the turkeys of Gorbel God the turkeys of Gorbel Gorbel Gorbel Gorbel Gorbel that would be scary given how big they are giant they are angry don't worry we don't celebrate Thanksgiving here folks you're safe And by safe, I mean, please don't kill us, Angry Birds. And now they're playing a game on their iPhone, flinging themselves across its structures and knocking them down. Legends, the legends. The legendary swans. All of which legends tell. What makes a swan legendary? The size, at least. Well, yeah. I mean, if they're as big as a galleon, or at least whatever size ships the Numenoreans are on, if these aren't the galleon-sized treasure ships, Maybe these are just, you know, sloops, barks. I don't know. Can you tell I played Sid Meier's Pirates growing up? It makes me wonder if they got a letter of bark. But the legendary swans of Gorbel God, let's think, what would make them legendary, James? Besides the size. Besides the size. They're carnivorous swans. So they have teeth, razor-sharp teeth. Big, sharp, nasty, pointy teeth. I'll kill you. Maybe. Yeah, yeah. Maybe. Maybe they talk. Ooh, talking swans. But they're swans, so what do they say? Get out of my way. You annoy me. I'm angry with you. Swans are mean little. I mean, it occurs to me. They're geese. They're both mean, aren't they? I don't know. I've never really gotten to know a swan well enough to say much about its personality. Yeah. I just remember reading a story once about a swan drowning somebody in a river. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. It does occur to me that if these swans are as big as ocean sailing vessels, then the swan boats are tiny compared to these. Yeah, that's true. The swan boats that we see, you know, like Galadriel's. Galadriel, certainly. I don't know. Do we have an indication of the size of the ships that were making at Aqualande? No but they would have needed to at least been large enough to cross the ocean in theory or Feyenoord would have wanted them I mean if they were tiny six ships he would have said nah these are too small This is a crazy thought here. What if the origins of the swans of Gorbal God was the men of Middle-earth seeing the Nold Oli arrive? And then watching them burn. And then just making up a story about we saw these burning swans. The legendary swans of Gorbal God. Throwing it out there. I like it. I like it. It's the asterisk about the swans of Gorbelgad. There you go. All right. Moving on, since we have no choice. Yeah, yeah. So, for what it's worth, they were originally the swans of Dur-No-Belgoth. Oh, wow. And it's tempting to try to do a bit of word nerdery there. But, of course, I don't think we're talking about Elvish. I don't know that we are. I think all the names that we're getting here are kind of proto-Dunnlending. Certainly Gorbelgad. Yeah. Yeah, which would be Gorbelgoth if it was Cinderin, yeah. Well, yeah, if we were following Cinderin pronunciation. Right. But I don't think it is, and I don't think Dur nor Belgoth is either. That sounds closer to it, though, doesn't it? It sounds related, and I wonder if it is an attempt to apply some sound changes. Yeah, Belgoth to Belgod, Gor to Nor. Yeah. It does feel like almost a Cinderization. yeah and that maybe that's what he was going for is a cinderization of a proto-dunlein of a local yeah because cinderin did that you know they they would they would take i mean they took dwarven words and came up with words that with cinderin versions that sounded like that yep and obviously quenya and and so on um you know kelleborn being a cinderization of that other name yep that other name james this may be a family-friendly show but we can still talk about teleporto here, I promise. Telep or no. Telep or no. All right. Well, now, though, things get exponentially worse. Okay, son, you see these three white, very large white birds. You think they're ships. They can't be ships. They can't because those ships are that big. They can't be birds because we're six miles away. Now you see a fourth one. Harder to make it out because its sails or its wings are black. Yeah. And that really troubles a lot. Oh, yeah. He really does. Yeah, because it shifts that you're dreaming to it's not just a dream. It's actually a nightmare. Yeah, there's nothing here. Yeah, he's saying it's springtime, winter is gone, and you have to bring up this story now. And it's a story that he says is out of the black past. The black past. What is he talking about? What is the black past for these people of the hills of Agar? We don't know because we don't. So little is told of us, but. Yeah. Although we've been, I guess at this point, we've been told about the Dark Kings. Is that right? Yeah, the Dark Kings. Yeah. Yeah. That was the, was it the Dark Kings in the draft and then he changed it? No, I think the Dark Kings was what he landed on. He changed two. Yeah, I think so. Right. Presumably that's related. There's this black past. And it's just sort of interesting. we're going to find out more in a moment but or at some point in in the future but this sort of is interesting from a timeline point of view because we're going to find out more and more that this is not the first time that these encounters have happened this is this is sort of an interesting hint of this it is that this sort of thing has maybe happened before long enough before that it's a story and part of the black path history's become legend legend right legend become myth but not so far back that he doesn't have personal memories. At least personal memories of the stories. Of being told about it. We'll get to that for sure. Tell Elmar, on the other hand, is just confused. What do you mean I had to bring up this story? I don't know what you're talking about. You've not taught me much in the ways of lore, Dad. You've taught my dumb brothers. I love the way he puts that. But you've given me a lot less information, a lot less knowledge, and he wraps up with that classic I can't read your mind, Dad. And he's not wrong. yeah why do you think there's this association with the seasons here i think it's interesting that he says that winter's over why are you bringing this up now why are you bringing up this winter's clearly a hard time i mean but it just seems a funny thing to me to say like to say you know don't tell these stories when it's not winter i mean maybe there's a tradition of of telling scary stories when maybe or certainly not ruining spring and summer with the memories of awful things. I don't know. No idea on that one. Unless it's sort of metaphorically talking about not just the literal spring and the literal winter, but also in a sense in a larger scale, we're now living in more of a spring. Right. Which they do seem to be, you know, because he talks about how, last week we talked about how the battles had not happened in recent times and they were no longer, you know, dealing with the fell folk as much. I mean, the last encounter with the fell folk was when Hazard's father captured Elmar. And this is, so we're talking about quite some time ago. You know, 15 plus years. Yeah. Yeah. So soon we'll get some unproven rumors about the men of Numenor. Let's put it this way. I don't think Elendil fans wrote this part of the story. But before we do, Well, I want to take a minute to thank the amazing community that's grown up around this show. And after all, there is a lot more talk going on at the Prancing Pony podcast than just us. Fortunately. Thank goodness. The PPP really does have a warm and welcoming listener community. If you've got questions or just want to talk about how much you love Middle Earth, be sure to check out our common room on Facebook and across all social media. On Facebook, just look for the Prancing Pony podcast. Yeah, there's a page, but you're going to want to join the group for that great fan community. Now, on every social media platform other than Facebook, we are at Prancing Pony Pod. And you can find our subreddit at r slash Prancing Pony Pod. And please be sure to check out my daily show, Today's Tolkien Times, on YouTube and all your favorite podcast apps. Get your daily Middle Earth fix with everything from Middle Earth Map Mondays to Word Nerd Wednesdays. Be sure to watch or listen at youtube.com slash at Prancing Pony Pod. And James, I think it's your turn to take us into these stories of the black past. glad to. Three folk we hold as enemies, the wild men of the mountains and the woods, but these, only those who stray alone need fear. The fell folk of the east, but they are yet far away, and they are my mother's people, though I doubt not they would not honour the kinship if they came here with their swords. And the high men of the sea, these indeed we may dread as death, for death They worship and slay men cruelly in honour of the dark. Out of the sea they came, and if they ever had any land of their own, ere they came back to the west shores, we know not where it may be. Black-tailed's come to us out of the coastlands, north and south, where they have now long time established their dark fortresses and their tombs. But hither they have not come since my father's day, and then only to raid and catch men and depart. Now this was the manner of their coming. They came in boats, but not such as some of our folk use that dwell nigh the great rivers or the lakes for ferrying or fishing. Greater than great houses are the ships of the Goheleg, and they bear store of men and goods, and yet are wafted by the winds, for the seamen spread great cloths like wings to catch the airs, and bind them to tall poles like trees of the forest. Thus they will come to the shore where there is shelter or as nigh as they may. And then they will send forth smaller boats laden with goods and strange things, both beautiful and useful, such as our folk covet. I love this history lesson, and we're going to definitely dive into it. We did skip the first little bit here. It actually seems an awful lot like a face slap on his part. Right after it sounds like, I can't read your mind, Dad. We read that he strikes his own brow. I could just, this is such, striking his own brow. I need a strike brow emoji. Face, face, face palm. I think that's exactly what this is. It's like, oh, duh. Of course I haven't taught you these things. But before he acknowledges, well, it's been a long time since I've talked about it. You know, maybe you weren't even born yet. It is possible. You're the last son. So, what's interesting here is he talks about this like it's vague. I mean, I love the way he says this, shadow of a dream in the back of my thought. You've read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. This is like that line about the thought never considered the merest possibility of thinking about crossing my mind or something like that. That's what this is. This is like vague upon vague upon vague, the shadow of a dream in the back of my thought. But he provides a lot of specific information in this history lesson. But what is he talking about when he says like this is this vague, vague, deep back memory that I can barely recall. And then, oh, yeah, they spread sales and they bring these goods. And they. Yeah. What do you make of that sort of almost not contradiction, but dichotomy, I guess. Yeah. I mean, it is interesting. Maybe once he gets going with the three, the three different categories, he just starts riffing on it and realizes that there's there's he remembers a lot more. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, but let's work through these because I think this is actually really helpful information to kind of get a sense of the other groups of people that are involved in this story. I agree. This history lesson is exactly where you started reading, and that's identifying our enemies. Right, exactly. So he says there are three categories. You've got the wild men of the hills and forests. The irony here is, of course, Tolkien wrote this story, quote, from the point of view of the wild men. I love that. It's a different sense of wildness. And I think it goes back to what we talked about last week, the group that was displaced by. Yeah, the ones that Elmar was criticizing him, right? His whole statement last week, and I loved it, was that bright eyes and white skin are no warrant for stealing our land, essentially. And she's like, oh, what about broad shoulders and stumpy legs or whatever it is she said, you know, describing their physiology? because it was those things that you used to drive out, not just drive out but hunt the former inhabitants of this land who we came to the conclusion that we're talking about the Druidine here. Right. But it's interesting that even to wild men, somebody else has got to be the wild men. Right. Right. It's all relative. I'm civilized. You're a savage. That person is going to be like, no, I'm civilized. That person over there is a savage. Yeah, exactly. It's all relative. And interestingly, we're told that you don't need to be scared of those unless you're sort of out on your own. Right. If you're wandering alone in the wilderness, well, that's on you, pal. Yeah. That's a you problem. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So then we get to the fell folk of the East, this mysterious enemy that, you know, we haven't yet firmly identified. We talked a bit about it last week. The gray-eyed, tall, fair-skinned people that are clearly not Easterlings or Haradrim, based on that physical description. And they might not be kingsmen or Numenoreans either, based on geography. One of the things we talked about last week was that maybe they were edine that didn't go to Numenal. Right. So they're related to them in Numenal. Yeah. And that's the thing. I mean, I think we know, we discover later on that they have to be related in some way because of the language. Yeah. And we'll find that out at the end of the story in a couple of weeks. So, or I think even next week, we'll get to at least the first of those moments. But it's clear that there's some kinship, but we don't know what that kinship is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One thing we do know is, of course, that they're Hazard's mother's people, Elmar's people. We know that. We know that. It's clear. It's just the relationship with the Numenoreans we're not clear about. Yeah. But Hazard says that those people, the fell folk of the East, are far away. And he knows full well that they wouldn't care about the kinship that exists. Yeah. You might be related to us, but we're going to kill all of your people. Yeah. But, of course, the boogeyman of this enemy list is really the high men of the sea. I mean, these high men, these are the Numenoreans, even if the fell folk might also be connected or tangential to the Numenoreans. These high men of the sea are the ones that are viewed by Hazard as being as dreadful as death itself. Yeah, and I think this is really interesting. He claims that they worship death and that they kill people in service to the darkness. And this really does a lot for discussions of the timeline and when this is taking place. Until this point, I think we'd been pretty open to the possibility that this could have been anywhere after 1200, right? We know they're making permanent havens. Yep, yep. That exact term was used, and we know from the tale of years that the permanent havens started being made in 1200. But I still, I think it might still be. The thing that I'm struggling with here is that stuff that he's saying here, that they worship death and kill people in service to darkness, That didn't actually happen until well after Sauron had been brought back to Numenor as a prisoner. And the time between Sauron being returned as a prisoner and the time of the downfall of Numenor itself is only 57 years. Hazard is talking like this is something that's been going on for centuries, like it's part of their ancient history. So even though we know as the reader that the Numenoreans do end up doing these things, this cannot be true in Hazard's recent past. yeah it is confusing because as as we'll discuss in a moment they start talking about taking people presumably for yeah i don't know if it's for sacrifice or for sacrificing on the yeah they do say so the eating thing i mean that's the first we've heard about that yeah but presumably the the sacrifice is the same thing that is discussed in the akalibar that's the thing i will and we'll talk about when he comes up with that statement about taking them for food or for sacrifice but it almost feels like the sort of hyperbole that accompanies a legend because it cannot possibly be true at this point in time Right, it's like the old lady in the cottage eats children It's that sort of folk tale almost Now, does it end up coming true? Yes, it does And that's the weird bit. Why is that? Because there's no way that Hazard is remembering a time where this was already happening, because that window is only 57 years from the time Sauron is prisoner to the time of the downfall. And as we'll read later, there's a lot of time that passes before they get to that point, before they're taking people and killing people and even worshipping the dark. There's a long period of time that we'll get to sort of some vague, we don't get actual pinpointed years, but we get things like, and several years passed, or then eventually this thing. And so we're talking about maybe a 25-year window, 30-year window at most. So I just don't buy that this is happening in the story as a factual thing. I think this is something that they are seeing in their enemies, just like, well, the Dunlendings, who think that the Rohirrim, you know, torture their prisoners. Right. And, of course, that was just Sauron lying to them. Right. I don't know who told them these lies, but unless it was, of course, Sauron himself. Yeah, it's interesting. So I'm just looking at the tale of years again. So, you know, 1200 is when the permanent havens are talked about. It's around 1800 during Tar Minashtir's rule that we're told the Numenoreans began to establish dominions. Right, after they got that taste for power. Yeah. So after the success of defeating Sauron, that's an interesting point to note. Sauron had been defeated by 1700. Yeah. And so if we see signs in this narrative of Sauron being strong, then it's probably not as early as 1700. Right, right. 1800s when the Numenoreans are establishing dominions on the coast, which this sounds like it probably is part of. Yeah, because we do get that, because he'll say later about them establishing their fortresses and things. Yeah. So we're in the post-1800 window. And we're told that's when Sauron is extending his power eastwards. So Sauron, you know, having been defeated in Eriador, is now focusing on the east. Yeah. This is when the shadow falls on Numenor. And this is when we do start to get a lot of – this is coming more now from the line of Elros in Unfinished Tales. The next few rulers, like Kiyotan and Antanamir, there's a lot of talk in the line of Elros about their greed. Yes. Servants brought back metals and gems. They oppressed the men of Middle-earth. The entry for Kiyotan in the line of Elros also says that's the first coming of the shadow. Yeah. So I think that strongly sounds to me, so we're talking about sort of the 2000s, early 2000s, seems a possible time that this sort of stuff is going on. And I just want to point out, because it may become relevant later on, the Nazgul start to appear around this time as well. 2251 is when the entry is for, in the tale of years, for the Nazgul first appear. So as the Nazgul, as the Nazgul, they might also have appeared as kings of men and mighty, right, the dark kings. So there are all sorts of possibilities for overlap here. That sounds strongly like it's the early 2000s. But I just want to point out that's still a thousand years before. Before. Yeah. So. Well, and that's the thing, because even Tolkien himself isn't 100 percent sure when he's writing this story, because later on and we get to this, I think, in the fourth and final episode. he talks about the king being sauron and explicitly being sauron yeah but then he writes a note to himself or is this during sauron's time as prisoner on numenor right which when i read that i'm kind of like we'll get to we will talk about that in a couple weeks time but it's so interesting yeah i i yeah he was still working this out and who knows what he would have changed oh yeah to make it yeah yeah i mean he had he would have had to nail down the geography and nail down the time and then make those fixes. And I like that because what this shows us is he's more interested in telling the story first. Then he'll fit it into his legendarium. And I like that. Yeah. I like that. I mean, the interesting thing as well is that, you know, I keep referencing things like the Akalabeth and the line of Elros and things like that, but they all come later. Yeah. So we can't necessarily use that as evidence for something in this story because he hadn't written those when he wrote this. and yeah it's wild it really is yeah yeah let's get back to to you know we don't know where they're from but we do know they came out of the sea right and we get stories about these people from up and down the coast that's another thing up and down the coast does that make you that makes me think of a north south coast like where the eisen comes out it does i do want to point out though that it's interesting different languages have different ways of talking about the directionality of relative directions yeah so for example in in in hebrew you know in biblical hebrew people always traveled up to jerusalem yeah but that was an elevation thing right it didn't matter whether you were south or north so you we've got to be careful with some of these terms true but you're right i think the intuition in english is that up and down yeah especially when it's up Up and down. If it was just up the coast, then maybe you're right to say, you can't really say that, but up and down. You also get Tolkien playing around with, you know, West being up on maps. That's true. Yeah, you can't really decide. And the other thing is even somebody from the mouth of the Morathon, right, from near where Etheland is on your maps, could still hear from news from the north and south. They could hear from somebody up near the Aizen. They could hear from somebody down in Umbar. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Hazad says, of course, that they have long time established their structures here on the coast. Okay, long time. And this comes back to what you were talking about, the coastal dominions that began around Second Age 1800 after the first defeat of Sauron. Umbar then becomes a fortress of Numenor in 2280. Pilargir is built by the faithful in 2350. So, does this narrow the time frame a little bit to where we're in that at least post 1800, but probably even post 2280? I don't know about post-2280, but it certainly feels around like 2000 to 2200 kind of thing to me so far. So Pilargir does not exist yet because that was one of the things. I think in my early reads of this, I was imagining the mouth of Morthond and I was imagining from the east being actually Pilargir. Like I told you, that was one of my original readings was that these are somehow related to the Numenoreans. But I think you've convinced me that's not the case. and certainly if the story happens before then particularly because the way they're described as coming west with their cattle and all that kind of stuff with an entire people group that doesn't sound like what the people in Pelagia the Numenoreans in Pelagia would do that's fair so it narrows the time frame a little bit for us but not really enough it says for sure we're talking about well after 1800 though but interestingly we're told these high men of the sea haven't been around since Bulldower's time so it's not that they've constantly been there There's been a long period of time where they stopped coming. So what do you make then of Hazard saying that back then they came only to raid and catch men? It seems like something that would warrant more than an only. What do you mean by only? They only came to fish. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They only came to capture and take our people away? What do you mean only? Yeah. Exactly. That's crazy. Unless they just simply mean they didn't stay. Ah, they came. They didn't stay. Like the Vikings came and destroyed Lindisfarne and then left. This wasn't settling like they would do later. Yeah, taking slaves. Right, okay. Remember when we talked about why Tal Elmar said these ships were birds? It was because he couldn't conceive of ships this big? Well, Hazard confirms that here. The arrival of these high men of the sea was in ships that were bigger than big houses. I mean, they were huge. And that's also where we get a little bit, again, we don't have any word nerdery on this, folks, but we do get their name for these Numenoreans, the Gohileg. And as big as these ships are, you know, they carried lots of men and property. And it seems like Hazard's people might have had small boats for fishing or ferrying, we're told, but they aren't sail-powered. Right. The way Hazard describes sailing, it's clearly an alien concept. Yeah, it is. And I love these metaphors. It's great. We've talked before about sort of these very Old Testament, sort of biblical-like descriptions. And this reminds me of that, these sort of things in prophecy where people are trying to describe what they're seeing. Describe a thing that they have no context for. Exactly. In a way that will hopefully be recognized in the future, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So in this case, you know, these things have great cloths-like wings and they're bound to big tree-like poles. So, I mean, it's clearly talking about sails and masks. How would you describe sails and masks? Without the word sails and masks and the idea of the concept, how would you describe it? Right. Yeah. It's big cloths like wings to gather the wind. Yeah. Tied to these big sticks, big trees on the ships. Yeah. It's interesting the analogy with the wings as well, because obviously they're seeing these craft travel using these giant cloths. Blown by the wind. Yeah. And the closest thing they can think of is birds. Birds on a wing. With their wings. Yeah. And when these vessels arrive, they get close to the shore and send out landing craft. Right. The smaller. And we're told with merchandise, basically, that we all like. Yeah. Right. The things that we covet. Yeah. The things that we want. They're coming to give us stuff, but with an ulterior motive. Also, are they coming with an entire cavalry unit? That's what I want to know. Sorry. a regiment of cavalry comes off this boat it's just like wait a minute wait a minute so sorry rings of power my apologies sorry not sorry so they sell their stuff to the wild men for cheap or they just give it away and pretend to feel sorry for them this has a very colonial feel to it doesn't it you talk about the English settlers coming and bringing necklaces and things to the Native Americans on Manhattan. It just really gives me the creeps because you know there's an ulterior motive. And that's what we know from other passages, but also from, anytime I get a chance to read from Letter 131, I will. That's the letter to Milton Waldman that's also the introduction to the Silmarillion. They're talking rights of the Numenoreans that in those days, they would come amongst wild men as almost divine benefactors, bringing gifts of arts and knowledge and passing away again, leaving many legends behind of kings and gods out of the sunsets. I love this use of the word legends here. It's this idea that these things happen and then over time, legends develop around them of who these people were and so on. In some cases, people thinking of them as gods. But Hazard says they're not really there as benefactors, right? Hazard isn't. He's skeptical. By this stage, they've worked out what's going on. Their real interest is in the land and the people. Yeah. And they count the people and spy out the countryside That totally fits I mean even going back to Aldarion day well before permanent havens were established you know he was there looking for resources What can we take? What things can we utilize? What's our commercial gain from this place? Yeah. And obviously, if you've got people there as well, well, then you need to count those people and know how much resistance you're going to face in trying to take the thing that you want to take. Yep, yep. And that establishing of the situation in terms of people and so on, I think it's going to come up again in the context of where we think the story might have been going. Yeah, absolutely. Just to preempt some of that, we'll get to that. But for now, Alan, would you like to continue reading? Absolutely. And if they do not return, men should be thankful, for if they come again it is in other guise. In greater numbers they come then, two ships or more together, stuffed with men and not goods. And ever one of the accursed ships hath black wings, for that is the ship of the dark, and in it they bear away evil booty. Captives packed like beasts The fairest women and children Are young men unblemished And that is their end Some say that they are eaten for meat And others that they are slain with torment On the black stones in the worship of the dark Both maybe are true The foul wings of the seamen Have not been seen in these waters for many a year But remembering the shadow of fear in the past, I cried out and cry again, Is not our life hard enough without the vision of a black wing upon the shining sea? Hard enough indeed, said Tal Elmar, yet not so hard that I would leave it yet. Come, if what you tell is good sooth, we should run to the town and warn men, and make ready for flight or for defence. "'I come,' said Hazard, "'but be not astonished if men laugh at me for a dotted. "'They believe little that has not happened in their own days. "'And have a care, dear son. "'I am in little danger save to starve in a town empty of all but the crazed and the aged. "'But thee the dark ship would take among the first. "'Put thyself not forward in any rash council of battle. We will see, answered Tal Elmar But thou art my chief care in this town Where I have and give little love I will not willingly part from thy side Yet this is the town of my folk and our home And those who can are bound to defend it, I deem Again, lots more to unpack here Yeah, a lot more So we continue with Hazard's history lesson Be grateful if these high men of the sea don't come back That's right Because if they do, it will be in larger numbers than before. Many ships carrying soldiers. And regiments of cavalry. So I think that addresses some of the stuff we were just discussing before, that they do have these sort of reconnaissance missions that involve just a small handful. Fying out the land and counting the people. Exactly. And then they come back to actually take them. To settle the land, one might say. Yeah. Or to just steal it, as the truth might actually be. All right. And always one of these ships, when they come back, has the black sails. And Hazard calls it the ship of the dark. He says that that's the one where they carry off treasure and captives. The captives being women, children, or young, unblemished men, which thankfully I never would have had to worry about that. do you get the feeling this i don't know do we take this whole ship of the dark thing that that to me sounds like there's a little bit of an extra legend it's the monster under the bed yeah i i'm not taking this with a grain of salt i'm taking this with a full shaker of salt at least at least the role of that ship i'm not saying you weren't taking people no no no of course but this idea that oh that's the ship that's right that's the one with the black sails right yeah you'll get an explanation from the Numenorean side about the Black Sells in a moment. We sure will. Or not in a moment, later on. Well, yeah, it won't be this week. It'll be, I think, either next week or the week after, yeah. But the disturbing bit is this claim by Hazard that the captives are either food or sacrifices for the dark, and maybe both. Yeah, why not both? It's a weird use of that gif, but yeah, why not both? Yeah, I mean, because this, look, again, I feel like there's no way in the world this is actually taking place during the very small time window between when Numenoreans actually did start taking captives to sacrifice in the temple and the downfall. Because that's a tiny window of 30 years, maybe. So for that to be happening now just doesn't seem, because the guys we're going to see at the end of the story, the Numenoreans we're going to see, are clearly of the faithful, not of the king's men. The king's men would shoot first and ask questions later, and these guys are clearly friends of the Eldar. I mean, later on we'll see they even think that Tal Elmar is an elf when he comes out of the woods. Right, right. And with admiration. So clearly they're of the faithful. I don't think, it just doesn't feel like that time frame. I still think we have to bear in mind that a lot of our knowledge of that time frame might not have been established by Tolkien yet. That's an excellent point. He may have imagined that they are doing this and have been doing this for a lot more time. During the writing of Lord of the Rings, in the drafts, there were only 13 kings. Right. Yeah, Numenor had not been around as long. Yeah, and it only grew into the 24 during the writing of the appendices towards the end. Right. So, yeah, I just keep coming back to this idea that we're looking at stuff that was written after this. Exactly. To try to unlock the keys to this. We're using future knowledge. And Tolkien might have changed his mind about this sort of stuff. Could very well have changed his mind. That's a really good thing for us to keep in mind. I keep forgetting that, so thank you for pointing it out. Because to me, I read this story after I read those others. Therefore, to me, it comes after. But in Tolkien, this story came first and only later did he refine and, you know, flesh out the Numenorean story, the Akalabeth in particular. That's a very good way of putting it, yeah. I think this is interesting, though, because this gives us, I think, an interesting, or that thought gives us an interesting insight into what Tolkien was faced with with the Silmarillion in the late 50s and early 60s. This realization, how am I going to make all this work? Right? You imagine him coming back to, we know he didn't come back to this. No, he did not. But maybe that, maybe this is one of the reasons. Maybe he looked at it and thought, I don't know how I'm going to make this work anymore. How can I solve this? Right. It's, you know, similar to the stuff that we read in Morgoth's Ring and so on, of the changes he started to think about for the Silmarillion. Yeah, this is a great example of that, realizing that he'd made changes in the writing of Lord of the Rings that had a big impact on what was, what he may have originally envisaged was going on in this story. Yeah, because he hadn't worked on the appendices at all yet. I mean, he'd worked on it, but he hadn't, they weren't written because he was still, this was between the two towers and Return of the King, which I still find incredible that he wrote this story in that time frame. But yeah, I mean, he had the appendices sorted in a way, but not finalized by any stretch. Right. Well, if we go by what is published, right, we're going to do a quick sidebar on the worship of the dark, which is important so we understand a little bit more of that context. But again, like James says, Tolkien had not written this yet. Therefore, we can't use it to nail down the time frame for Tal Elmar. You know, we have to we have to take that, you know, and be a little flexible with it. But but here's why why I was sort of like adamant, like, oh, no, it can't possibly be because it's such a tiny window. So here's why that's the case. We get the fact that it was really long after Sauron was taken prisoner that these things happened, and we get several bits of time clues. First, it took three years for Sauron to go from prisoner to closest to the secret councils of the king. And it's only then that we read, then slowly a change came over the land. And that change included the faithful being called rebels. Yeah. I mean we've talked about this before just what an incremental process it was in Numenor getting up to this point but even then it was only once Sauron had ingratiated himself into the court at Numenor oh all the council listened to him at that point exactly and it's once Sauron had everyone's ear that's when he taught them about worshipping Melkor because you can't just drop that on day one And people are going to be like, you're out of your mind. Right. But you get them ready for it. Yeah. It's the, I think we use this analogy last week. It's the frog in the pot of boiling water. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. It just doesn't know. Exactly. But then still more time passed before the Meneltama was deserted and the white tree felled. And it's only then, after all of that, that we read that Sauron caused to be built upon the hill in the midst of the city of the Numenoreans, Amenelus the Golden, a mighty temple. Tell us about that temple, James. Yeah, it was in the form of a circle at the base, and there the walls were 50 feet in thickness, and the width of the base was 500 feet across the center, and the walls rose from the ground 500 feet, and they were crowned with a mighty dome. And that dome was roofed all with silver and rose glittering in the sun, so that the light of it could be seen afar off. But soon the light was darkened And the silver became black For there was an altar of fire In the midst of the temple And in the topmost of the dome There was a louver Whence there issued a great smoke And the first fire upon the altar Sauron kindled with the hewn wood of Nimloth And it crackled and was consumed But men marveled at the reek that went up from it, so that the land lay under a cloud for seven days, until slowly it passed into the west. And there, reek is referring to the cloud, the visible cloud, not the smell. Tolkien often uses that older meaning of reek, talking about the cloudiness or the fogginess or sort of that visual element rather than a stench. By the way, that place is massive. 500 feet. And when you realize the walls rise 500 feet and then are crowned with the dome. So originally, I think when I first read this, I imagined it as a 500 foot wide, like half sphere. But then you realize, no, no, no. The walls rise 500 feet first and then the walls are crowned with the mighty dome. So you're talking about a 50 story building. Right. So it's quite a bit bigger than the Redcliffe camera. Yeah, quite a bit bigger than the Redcliffe camera. That's right, because we have heard that's the inspiration for it. One of the inspirations. All right, so after that cloud, after the hewn wood of Nimloth is thrown on the altar, that's when we read, With spilling of blood and torment and great wickedness, men made sacrifice to Melkor that he should release them from death, and most often from among the faithful, they chose their victims. So it took time before they get to the sacrifice of humans. And even then, we read about death coming sooner rather than later and the conflict on the island. Eventually, enough time passes, though, that for long, it seemed to the Numenoreans that they prospered, even after the sacrifices. So if they were not increased in happiness, yet they grew more strong and they're rich men ever richer. for with the aid and counsel of Sauron, they multiplied their possessions and they devised engines and they built ever greater ships. And it's only after all this that the Akalabeth tells us they hunted the men of Middle-earth and took their goods and enslaved them and many they slew cruelly upon their altars. So that passage from the Akalabeth sounds like it's what Hazard was saying had happened like a generation or more earlier than the story. But there's such a small window before the fall because the fall is in 3319. Well, plus in all other respects, this seems like it must be a thousand years earlier. Right, that's the other thing, yeah. And as we're going to find out, again, it's the faithful that have shown up as well. So it's complicated. I don't think that this can be fully resolved. I don't think it can. At least timeline-wise. No, or even geography-wise. Or geography-wise, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, of course, it's shortly after this, this point where they hunted the men of Middle Earth, that the Akalabeth tells us that Ar-Farazon began to build the fleet and now James I just need Farazon! Farazon! We're just calling back to our Rings of Power wrap up folks. He began to build a fleet that would sail to Amon and then that's when Amondil Elendil's father tries to pull an Earendil. An unsuccessful Earendil. It's been a long time since they've been in this region, though, Hazard says, because remember, the previous stories had been from up and down the coast. So, yeah. If we go back to that history lesson earlier on, he was talking about them coming with gifts, helping the locals, but now we get to, they're going to take you away and sacrifice you on an altar. That's not the work of a single generation anyway, is it? I don't, I mean, it certainly wasn't by the time we got to the Taurians. That is to say the way Tolkien eventually wrote that. Yeah, it does sound like time compression, like rings of power level time compression, not just Peter Jackson level of time compression. Right, right. They're the levels of time compression. Are we talking about Peter Jackson time compression? Are we talking about rings of power time compression? Yeah, exactly. 17 years or 1,700 years, yeah. But it's not so long that he doesn't remember. And if that's what Salah Omar is seeing, it's enough to terrify Hazard, right? It is, yeah. He's hard enough without the black wings showing up again. and Tal El-Mar agrees, yes, life is hard, but hey, not so hard that I'm willing to die. Yeah, I kind of like living. It's nice. It may be hard, but it's better than the alternative. Exactly. He basically says, if what you say about the black wings is true, we need to head back to town and warn people. Yeah. We need to either fight or run. Right, exactly. Hazard doesn't think anybody's going to believe him, and he says something here that I want us to linger on and consider a little bit. they believe little that has not happened in their own days. He's talking about his people having a general lack of belief in actual history. And I wonder, and again, maybe I'm trying to read too much into this, but what does this say about them as a people? What does it say even about the histories? The fact that Hazard's own history lesson, if your people as a whole don't believe any of the stories from the past, is your story credible yeah it's it does raise the question of what's different about him why is he different in that he is holding on to the son of elmar for one right i suspect that's a big part of it right that he has a different interest in that it does remind me the first thing that popped into my head is of course we're told of of shifting attitudes among the hobbits with regard to interest in their history that's correct yeah after they hadn't previously been interested. After the scouring of the Shire, they become they were very insular before, very interested just in their genealogies, and that's about it. Yeah, and you know, I think there are a lot of lessons nowadays about this. Oh, yeah. Certain groups of people that, I mean, it's the whole, you know, if you don't remember history, you're bound to repeat it. I mean, it is a modern phenomenon, and I'm not, I mean, I think the only one that I'll mention is there are quite a few where I think people just don't tend to believe it, but I'll say right up front, anybody who thinks, you know, that the Holocaust didn't happen, for instance, you're not paying attention. You're choosing to believe fictions and lies if you think that. And that's the thing here. That's what Tolkien's talking about, is a people who have chosen to no longer believe factual history. Right. But the problem here is it also means they're not recording it. Right. It's not like modern day where you can't get away from the history unless you really choose to if the people stop writing down the history it's gone yeah or reciting it orally it need not necessarily be written down but recording it in some way yeah if you don't if you don't have an interest in in that yeah because he does say they believe little that has not happened in their own days so it's wild just culturally there doesn't seem to be that exactly and i think that's i think that is another one of these things where we're seeing Tolkien elevate Tal Elmar and Elmar above the people that they were stuck in, right? And Hazard. Well, and Hazard, yeah, kind of as a bridge between the two. He's half, it seems, you know, his father's people, but he's also still very much Elmar's son. Yeah. That's interesting. And he's also concerned about the risk that Tal Elmar is taking. Oh, yeah. Hazard doesn't believe he's in any danger himself. Yeah, it's not like the Numenoreans are going to want him. Yeah, but Tal Elmar is definitely one of those young men unblemished that they'd want to take. Well, yeah, I mean, I don't think, I mean, Hazard's going to be all stringy. Nobody wants to eat him. Anyway, Tal Elmar, as we observed last week, puts his father in a place of priority, right? I mean, he is Tal Elmar's chief care here in a place where, and I thought this was interesting, he doesn't get nor give love. Yeah. And this comes back as well to remember the comment about him believing that the elderly should be taken care of. It's another one of these strange beliefs. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But Tal Elmer is basically saying, I'm not leaving you to run away just to avoid my own capture. No. And while no one else here loves me and the Felix Mutual, it is where we live. Right. And this is another one of these strange beliefs. I love this. he basically says you know, it kind of goes a long line with sacrificing for the elderly as he talks about. If you're able to defend your home, you're duty bound to do that. And again, that doesn't feel like a belief that would necessarily be shared by the rest of his culture. You know, this sort of greater good concept that I think is not inherent to the people of the hills of Agar. Interesting stuff. Yeah. We told you about the amazing PPP community after our earlier break. If you are part of that community and want to enjoy something even more special, come join the fellowship of the podcast on Patreon. You'll get to be in the best Discord community around, one that includes host hangouts and even live episode recordings. We're doing one right now and doing our very best to not pay attention to them at all because they're a little wild. Go enjoy it, folks. You really will. All right. Your support there, though, is what enables me to do what I do, right? To work full-time doing all of these shows. The Francine Pony Podcast, Today's Tolkien Times, Rings of Power Wrap-Up, where we speculate about Numenorean ships and cavalry companies, as well as my streaming show, The PPP Plays. When you join, you also get episode postscripts, ad-free episodes, free merch, and more. And you can join our Questions After Nightfall episodes or even appear as a guest in the North Wing. Go to patreon.com slash prancingponypod to show your support and join the fellowship of the podcast. Don't forget to rate and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and please recommend this to your friends. You can do that directly on Spotify. Now just share it right from the show. All right, James. Well, take us away. We've got one more character to introduce here. Let's go meet him, shall we? He's a charmer. The Jabba the Hutt. of that's a great way of putting it now i can't get that out of my mind perfect you'll get that folks as we get the description of this guy you'll get it yeah they're the blob the blob with the lizard eyes yes the lizard eyes that was like oh my goodness you got it yeah there was no watch for the hills of agar were far from hostile borders where the power of the fourth king ended the town master sat by the door of his house in the sun dozing or idly watching the small birds that gathered scraps of food from the dry beaten mud of the open place in the midst of the houses. Hail Master of Agar, said Hazard, and bowed low. But the master, a fat man with eyes like a lizard, blinked at him, and did not return his greeting. Sit Hail Master, and long may you sit so, said Tal Elmar, and there was a glint in his eye. We should not disturb your thought or your sleep, but there are tidings that maybe you should heed. There is no watch kept, but we chanced to be on the hilltop, and we saw the sea far off and their Birdsville omen on the water. Ships of the Goheleg, said Hazard, with great windcloths, three white and one black. The master yawned. As for thee, blear-eyed Carl, he said, thou couldst not tell the sea itself from a cloud. And as for this idle lad, what knows he of boats or windcloths, or all the rest save from thy crazed teaching? Go to the travelling nappers with thy crone-tails of Go-Heleg, and trouble me not with such folly. I have other matters of more weight to ponder. Hazard swallowed his wrath, for the master was powerful and loved him not. Batal Elmar's anger was cold. The thoughts of one so great must needs be weighty, he said softly. Yet I know not what thought of more weight could break his repose than the care of his own carcass. He'll be a master without people, or a bag of bones on the hillside, if he scorns the wisdom of Hazard, son of Bulldar. Blair eyes may see more than those lidded with sleep. Oh, solo. I can see him now, like, pulling on a slave girl with a chain. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. We did skip a tiny, tiny bit here. It's basically the two of them heading down the hill and getting back to town at midday. only old ladies and kids were in the town. Everybody else is out in the fields early spring, right? So they're sowing the crops or at least preparing the fields. Yeah. And then we learn where we picked up that there was no town watch, let alone a wall or any protective structure. And we're told this is because they're not near any hostile borders, well within the realm of the fourth king. Now, this has got to be the same fourth king that we talked about earlier, where Hazard's father, Buldar, had gone off to fight with the forces of the fourth king, and that's when they encountered the fell folk. It's also the fourth king is the guy that Tolkien originally called North King, but changed. So, interestingly, though, he had changed it to North King early on. We talked about, so in the text early, it's the North King. Tolkien wrote Fourth King, changed it to North King, but here he didn't make the change. Just a mischange, do you think? yeah i mean we know from history middle earth talking often did this he would change your name and forget all the places that he needed to make the change that's yeah more likely so they go to uh to the master of the town who's sitting outside in his house apparently dozing or wasting time maybe he can't fit through the door anymore how's that greets the master first but gets no response at all it's like just ignores him uh but we get this description that will come back again of the master's eyes as being lizard-like. But the eyes thing is going to come back again, and I just want to briefly mention this. So you've noticed this as well as I do, that Tolkien's descriptions of the way people's eyes look are often a description of character. I'm thinking of two that come to mind immediately was the squint-eyed southerner, which, and Christopher Tolkien explains that when he's talking about squint-eyed here, he's talking about shifty eye, you know, very untrustworthy appearance in terms of the way he looks at people. And then also Wormtongue. I'm trying to remember the description of his eyes, but I remember getting this vivid description that he was not clearly not to be trusted just by the look of his eyes. Like there was something about it. Yeah. The other one that comes up a lot is Gollum. Oh, yes. Gollum's eyes are often described. Yes. And there's a difference between the eyes. Blinking, the way they blink and so on, yeah. I love how Jackson captured that in the films where you get just the different size pupils between Smeagol and Gollum. Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it's a way that he captures that same thing. But I just thought it was interesting that we get a description of this guy that is pretty vague. We don't get like, oh, he was really, really tall or he was really, really short. Or we do get the idea that he's fat. but always we don't know about how long his beard is you know it's probably not five feet long like Hazard what we get is his eyes and it because it about his character but anyway yeah well not only that he has eyes like a lizard also the fact that he blinked Yes We told Like that the reaction we get told that he blinked at him And then I also want to point out the response from Tal Elmar is that there was a glint in his eye. Yeah. And I love that little throwaway. Because we were told earlier, of course, that when Tal Elmar gets angry. Yeah. We see the flints in his eye. Yeah, exactly. So we're getting like the early bits of that, and it's almost always because of his dad, remember? And that's certainly going to be the case here. Yeah. Absolutely. Now, having deferred to his father, Tal Elmar greets the master, and, you know, with a glint in his eye. Yeah. As we said, we don't know the master's name yet. No. But notice that Tal Elmar does wish him health and long rule, which is presumably just the etiquette, right? Yeah, it's a formal greeting. He's almost certainly not sincere. No, I don't think he likes this guy. No, pretty obvious he doesn't. Yeah. And he brings the warning with that dig about sleeping. I love that. We shouldn't interrupt your thought or your sleep. He points out that there isn't a watch being kept, and then he mentions the birds of ill omen, which his father then clarifies because, you know, I don't think this guy is going to get the picture unless we spell it out for him. Ships of the Gohileg, one of them with the black sails. Right? So he's now calling back to the legend that he just taught his son and is hoping, at least, or believes that the master is going to know what he's referring to. Oh, oh, the Gohillig and there's a black ship. Okay. One of the ones with the black sails. Yeah. But is that his response? He doesn't get the response that he expected. No, the master seems unbothered. He yawns. and you know basically insult Hazard basically saying an old man you're essentially blind you couldn't tell the ocean from the sky I feel kind of called out and your son he doesn't know any of this stuff except for the fact that you're a crazy old man who's teaching him crazy old things and now we just come back to what Hazard said in the previous passage they don't believe anything that hasn't happened in their own lifetimes yeah you know so he doesn't have a personal memory of it, the master. He has cultural memory of it, right? He knows of the cultural story, but to him, it's an old wives' tale. It's a boogeyman. It's not a real thing to be afraid of. Yeah. And he tells them to go to the traveling nappers with their old wives' tales. So what is a napper? Good question, James. A knapper with a K. Well, and it would have been that in Old English, right? Yep. Well, what is a napper? The footnote actually tells us this. A napper or canapa is someone who breaks stones or flints. And it's a word that is actually onomatopoeic. The online etymology dictionary explaining that the verb canap or nap is echoic of its meaning, to strike with a sharp sound. And that by the 1530s, when it meant to chip or break by a sharp blow, the sense shifted from the sound to the act that makes it. And then it was a little bit after that that the initial K went away. It was pronounced in Old English and Middle English, but after that it was just the nappers, the traveling nappers. Yep. The footnote also tells us that in an earlier version that the word used here was actually tinkers, people who would repair metal utensils and so on. But in either case, traveling merchants providing services, people that would likely traffic in rumors since they're going from place to place. Exactly. And that's the point here. That's what he's saying is go to the people who would listen to your rumors and your silly stories. he tells him go away stop bothering me kid you know I've got more important things to think about as could be evidenced by his doing absolutely nothing when they walked up and both Hazard and Tal Elmar are angry but we see a real difference here in the way that that manifests Hazard is said to have swallowed his wrath recognizing that the master isn't a fan and has some power in the town in the meantime Tal Elmar's anger is described as cold. I don't know that there's a lot there. I just, Hazad, I think, is used to just having to swallow his anger and just not, I am too weak. I am not in a position to fight. The master has power. I do not. We know that his family's wealth and power have receded. That even happened in his father's time, as wealthy as he was to begin with. It's part of the curse that Elmar put on him, basically. It was that as long as I'm here, your family is going to start suffering. So I just, the cold anger really hits me because we just got done with Eldarion and Arendis, and that was very much Arendis' anger. You know, she was not the kind to just yell and scream and lay into Eldarion. And basically when their relationship was over, it was because she went cold, you know. And there were some really interesting analogies there about not letting winter come again and things like that. But here, I see Tal Elmar being the other half of that saying, right? We talk about cold and calculating. And I think that's what we're hearing here, is a guy who's now scheming and making his next move. We start to see a chess game. Was it Tal Elmar that was described as proud in a good way? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Proud of his heritage, essentially. And I think there's a little bit of that difference here in the sense that Hazard is kind of almost resolved to the fact that he's going to be treated badly. He's beaten down. He's almost let it consume him, whereas Tal Omar's still got that pride in who he is. Yeah. And so does respond, especially because his dad's just been insulted. Yeah, exactly. He's still got the dog in him, you know, and unfortunately, Hazard doesn't. And he gets particularly annoyed when his dad gets assaulted. He gets angry on somebody else's behalf, not his own. And he gets rolling with a snark pretty quick, right? As great as you are, oh, the things you're concerned with must be very important indeed. I'm sure, yeah. Yeah, although I'm not sure what could be more important than keeping your body intact. That is what he says, that's right. Yeah, you'll be master of no one, or maybe even dead yourself, if you ignore my father's wisdom. notice he's not saying his own wisdom or his eyesight his father's wisdom I love that because again that just speaks to who Tel Omar is he's not saying look trust me because I'm brilliant and smart and the greatest my dad says this is a problem and this is a problem you need to listen to him and his nearly blind eyes see more than your sleepy eyes he's not wrong but does that fit I kind of like this because it's Tal Omar not quite following his own rules. This is the same guy who says, if you must gainsay the elders, let it be done with respect. Not let it be done with barrels of snark. Well, I mean, it just goes to show, I think, how much disdain he must have for the master. Yeah, he really does for the master. We're not seeing his eyes yet. We got a glimpse of it when we saw the glint rather than the flint and the fire, and that's it. But this sure does seem to be one of those moments, right? because it was his father's behalf that always gets him mad. I get that. Yeah. I think I probably get the maddest when it's my kid. Yeah, for sure. We talked about that last week too, the sort of similarity with the way the dwarves work, the strong connection between parents and child. Yeah, exactly. So we'll see just how much of a reaction he managed to get out of the master in what we read next. So, Alan, would you like to take us away? I will. the fat face of Jabba the Hutt I kid, I kid the fat face of Mogru the master grew dark and his eyes were bloodshot with rage he hated Tal Elmar yet never before had the youth given him cause save that he showed no fear in his presence now he should pay for that and his newfound insolence Mogru clapped his hands even as he did so he remembered that there were none within call that would dare to grapple with the youth, nay, not three together, and at the same time he caught the glint of Tal Elmar's eye. He blanched, and the words that he had been about to speak, slave's son and your brat, died on his lips. Hazad-u-Buldar, Tal Elmar-u-Hazad of this town, speak not so with the master of your folk, he said. A watch is set, though ye who have not the ruling of the town in hand may know it not. I would wait till I have word from the watchers, whom I trust, that anything ill-boding has been seen. But if ye be anxious, then go summon the men from the fields. Tal Elmar observed him closely as he spoke, and he read his thought clearly. Now I must hope that my father errs not, he said in his heart, for less peril will battle bring me than the hate of Moguru from this day forth. A watch, yea, but only to spy on the goings and comings of the townsfolk. And the moment I go forth to the field, a runner will go to fetch his servants and club bearers. An ill turn have I done to my father in this hour Well, he who begins with the hoe should wield it to the rose end He spoke therefore still in wrath and scorn Go you to the nappers yourself, he said For you are wont to use these sly folk And heed their tales when they suit you But my father you shall not mock while I stand by It may well be that we are in peril Therefore you shall come now with us to the hilltop, and look with your own eyes. And if you see there ought to warrant it, you shall summon the men to the moot hill. I will be your messenger. And Mogru also, through the slits of his eyelids, watched the face of Tal Elmar as he spoke, and guessed that he was in no danger of violence if he gave way for this time. But his heart was filled with venom, and it irked him also, not a little, to toil up the hill. Slowly he rose. I will come, he said, but if my time and toil be wasted, I shall not forgive it. Aid my steps, young man, for my servants are in the fields. And he took the arm of Tal Elmar and leaned heavily upon him. well I'd say Tal Elmar got what he was looking for definitely got under the skin of the master poke the bear the master whose name we finally found out here by the way Mogru not Grogu, Grogu's cuter also a lot quieter over the next couple of paragraphs Tolkien gives us direct insight into the thoughts of both Mogru and Tal Elmar and it's another one of these great examples of how Tolkien uses inner dialogue What are some of the stories or some of the moments in the story that you think of when you think of that sort of technique that he uses? Because he uses so well. Yeah, that occasionally dipping into Sam's thoughts. Ooh, uh-huh. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Like, well, like when he, oh, like when he thinks, when he puts on the ring and starts thinking about the gardener and all of this stuff. Yeah, yeah, you're right. Sam's definitely who would get some peeks into his mind. And I was thinking more recently with the Eldar and Arenda story being very fresh in my head, that inner dialogue with Meneldur after he gets the letter from Gil-Galad and he's just thinking about it. And you get to read his thoughts. It's very – what Tolkien does in those moments is give us an even more intimate look at that character. We're not getting to hear just the words. We're getting to hear the thoughts behind those words. And he does it very sparingly, which makes it all the more powerful. Yeah, that's true. He just dips in when it's really significant to do so. That's a very good point. Yeah. So first we learn that Mogru has always, though for no apparent reason, hated Tal Elmer. Although the fact he's not afraid that Tal Elmer is not afraid of Mogru is clearly a part of that. Very much so. And with this outburst, Mogru is determined to make Tal Elmer pay and summons people to come and do that since he clearly can't do it himself. Yeah. But, of course, to no avail, because he immediately realizes that no one would be willing to take Tal Elmar on. He needs a trap floor where you could just drop him into a pit with that beast. Yes. Yeah, that's what he needs. Sorry. The job of the thing is it's just going to keep going. And in the new version, not the original version, but in the new version of Tal Elmar, we actually see him. The special edition. The special edition, yeah. We actually get the CGI of Mogru climbing up the hill. Yep. We finally see the flint eye here, and I love it because it causes Mogru to turn pale. And he manages to stop himself from calling him a name, right? Slave son and your brat. Instead, he refers to them by their names and their patronymics, which is going to be very traditional, just like they're grieving to him. But he warns them, do not speak to your master like that. Yeah. he tells them there is a watch, even if they don't know it, and he'll wait for word from them. But he adds, you know, if you're worried, go get men from the fields. It's basically an opening move in a chess game. Yeah, it really is. And we'll see that chess game go even into the next episode as well as he continues to think, what is Mogru thinking? And Mogru is thinking, what is Tal Omar thinking? They go back and forth. But Tal Omar is quick on his feet. He reads his mind quite clearly. He knows, though, that he has to put complete faith now in what his father has told him about the high men of the sea and the black wings, because fighting those guys is going to be less dangerous than earning the wrath of the master. Right. I mean, if I die in battle, it's over. Nothing to worry about. But if I can live the rest of my life in this town and I'm only 18 under this master who hates me and has power over me to make my life difficult, that's a bad place to be. in a way he's looking at his dad and being like, that's what he's experiencing. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interestingly, we see what Tal Elmar thinks is the actual purpose of the town's watch, which is to spy on the people. That's interesting, isn't it? Yeah. Like this isn't to keep us safe. It's like those fences. That fence isn't designed to keep people out. It's to keep people in. Yeah. That's what this is. This is a police state, if you will. in the sense that Mogru is just keeping an eye on what people think and say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He knows or at least believes that if he were to go and get the guys working in the field, someone else will go and get Mogru's thugs. That's right, Mogru's thugs, absolutely. We know where you live, Tal Elmar. We're going to come and visit you. Those are nice knees, Tal Elmar. It would be a pity if something happened to them. He realizes he's put his father in a tough spot. Once again, I put myself in a tough spot. I put my dad in a tough spot. He's not thinking of himself. And we get this really interesting proverb. I love it. It's about finishing the job. He who wields the hoe and then has to run it to the end of the row, right? Yeah, yeah. I love that. I like the rhyming in it as well with hoe and row. And we have our own, that's a tough row to hoe is the saying. Not that everybody gets that right. In fact, most people don't. they say road instead of row or they get some other thing wrong with it. But yeah, I like that. Finish what you start. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So when he speaks again, he keeps the same angry and mocking tone. Oh, yeah. You go to the rumor spreaders yourself. You use them regularly when their stories are to your benefit. And you know he does. I mean, that's how this guy rules, right? it's through well certainly not through his physical prowess shall be said he's not going to accept Magdrew mocking his father like that's mock me say what you want about me but you will not mock my father he doesn't say my father and I you shall not mock it's just my father he didn't care about himself it is only his father's honor that concerns him here and he reminds him that the entire town may be in danger and his master you're coming with us to evaluate this and if you believe it to be a danger then I'll be your messenger to gather them in I thought it was interesting because he says if you see this to be a danger but he doesn't say and if you don't, like he doesn't give him an alternative like I'll be your it's not an ultimatum it's just a flat out ultimatum not a you get A or B and I think this just comes down to how certain he is in his father and how much he believes in him Yeah. Mogru reads his mind too, right? I mean, he may not be as perceptive as Tal Omar, but he is good at this. I mean, like we said, he didn't take the lead of this town by being the mightiest warrior. So he knows that as much as he hates these two, he's able to perceive rightly that they're not setting him up to kill him. He can take the risk of going. Right. But he doesn't want to. No. And he's ticked about having to climb the hill. That's right. He's irked. I love it. We looked at Urked a lot because it shows up in Eldarion and Arendis a bunch. Uh-huh. And it's almost all Eldarion. Eldarion was irked by Arendis. Arendis' tears irked him. He was constantly irked because he's just the most irkable guy. And it just doesn't surprise me at all that the person who's irked here is the master. Yeah. It's never the really, really good guy that gets irked. Now I'm thinking of Steve Urkel. that's not something i was thinking that's great i won't try to do a steve urkel voice thank you i appreciate that so does our listeners but finally he stands up and agrees to go but with the threat if this is for nothing i won't forgive you yeah yeah you thought i hated you before that's right just wait yeah he demands talelma's help since his own servants are in the fields yeah it's spring right they're doing all the work those are the same servants that he clapped for earlier and What was a vain effort to punish Tal Elmar for his newfound insolence? Insolence being another word that we looked at in Eldarion Arendes in depth because, again, Eldarion talking about the insolence of all these women that she was isolating with with her daughter. So he takes the boy's arm and leans his weight heavily upon him. Intentionally, I'm sure. And we'll journey with them to the top of the hill. Next week. That we will. Barlamin also, through the slits of his eyelids, watched the faces of Bob and Nob as he spoke and guessed that he was in no danger of violence. James, what does Barlamin the Hutt have in his bag for us today? Well, very timely. Michelle from New Jersey asks, what was your favorite Tolkien-related acquisition in 2025? Not necessarily released in 2025, but you got it in 2025. Okay, okay. So it doesn't have to be... A 2025 release. Yeah, I mean, it could have been a... Like if I finally got my hands on a first impression, Lord of the Rings, which I didn't, by the way, because I haven't sold a kidney. Yeah, let's see. We can't say Caitlin's book because it hasn't come out yet. No, I won't acquire it until 2026. Yeah, yeah. And at this point, it doesn't even look like my copy of Don's book is going to come in until after the end of the year. I know it's out. I just haven't seen it yet, and my pre-order hasn't come. In terms of, oh, boy, there's a lot. That's the thing. I'm thinking back to the early part of the year where I acquired a bunch of really cool things. Outside of books, did you get anything? I'm trying to remember whether I acquired them in 25 or late 24 in terms of, like, the Lego set and the light kit for Barad-A-Dur. That's one. Oh, a couple of the Weta sculptures The Doors of Durin Even though it came out I think in 23 May have been 24 I didn't acquire it until 25 And I just love that because it's lit up You can actually get a little power pack And the light glows like the moon on the Ithildene with the, oh it's so cool So possibly that or if it is a book It's going to either be the Folio Society Hobbit, which did come out in 24, but I missed the window. You got it in 2025. I decided to buy it in secondhand, so I got it in 25. Or, honestly, Mike Trout's book, Tower of the Ruin, is just breathtakingly good at every turn. It's so good. That's got to be a contender for Book of the Year in the Tolkien Society Awards. Well, because we didn't have a release actually by Tolkien. No, it's actually the first year where we don't have one of those. That pretty much is a requirement for somebody else to win. I don't think anyone's ever won against talking. I think that almost needs to be a separate category. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I think for me, I did get a certain first edition, first impression. Actually, a complete set of History Middle Earth. Oh, my jealousy nerves are tingling. Yeah, so that's probably my prized possession, and it did come in 2025. these first impression histories of middle earth history middle earth uk yeah because the first the first impression us is a little easier to come by it's still pricey but yeah i think because isn't it volume 12 peoples of middle earth that's particularly hard to find a first impression they only did yeah they get they get harder and harder it's quite easy to get book of lost house lots of first impressions there um i don't know what the print runs were i'm guessing the print runs kind of dropped off as you went through the volumes but that that's that's probably my my prized possession in terms of actual Tolkien content the other thing I'll throw out there that is very dear to my heart for for a bunch of reasons not by Tolkien but Tolkien related yeah and that's the ancient Greek lexicon that Michael Tolkien gave to his daughter Judith no way um so being a ancient Greek yeah scholar that it means a lot to me to actually have a a Tolkien-associated ancient Greek dictionary. That's really cool. So that came up for sale in 2025, and I bought that. Well, I would imagine a fairly small number of people who would have been as deeply interested in that because it's a Greek lexicon. Yeah, exactly. It's a small audience. Yeah, exactly. It was a double pleasure for me. That's wonderful. Yeah. Oh, I love that. That's a great one. I've got to think more because I have to admit, I didn't acquire very much in 25. I was so busy with so many things. And, you know, as you can see, the shelves behind me are kind of full. There's not a lot of room for a lot more books on there, let alone, you know, what a sculpt, but I'll find a, I'll find a way. Oh man. Good stuff. Well, thank you folks for joining us for another episode of the Prancing Pony podcast. Please join us again next week when Tal Elmar is promoted from messenger to spy. Alan and I want to thank the members of Team PPP. Editor Jordan Ronells, Barlim and Becca Davis, Social Media Manager Casey Hilsey, Event and Patreon Community Coordinator Katie McKenna, Graphic Artist Megan Collins, Video Editor Yonatan Lazins, and Website Guru Phil Dean. And please take a minute to check out theprancingponypodcast.com. That's where you'll find show notes, outtakes, Prancing Pony Ponderings, and our fully revamped PPP merch store. after far too long with Teespring. And seriously, folks, don't use them. We are over with Fourth Wall now, and we're very pleased with what we've seen so far. That storefront is where you can get all sorts of cool PPP merch, including the amazing chapter art that Megan's been doing for us for three plus seasons. We're all about the books here at the Prancing Pony Podcast, so be sure to also visit our library page. We try to make sure that any book we've mentioned on the show is linked there for you to purchase. 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Subscribe now through Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast app. One last thing as always, don't forget to send your thoughts, comments, and most of all, the contact info for your local nappers to Barlamin at theprancingponypodcast.com. Barlamin does have a lot of mail to sort through though, so we'll try to get to you just as soon as we're able. As always though, this has been far too short a time to spend among such excellent and admirable listeners. but until next time may you rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill