andie, she/her, 26, united states. this blog is full of Tolkien. also other art, photos, fandoms, and big-eyes-emoji stuff, but mostly Tolkien. i tag! my girlfriend is bright ivanaskye, who is a lot, but not too much
where’s that video of the naked crackhead literally running the speed of a moving car and I use the term literally literally he was deadass keeping up with the car
Hi! Humans don’t have an eye shine, so that’s not a person!
Okay so Tolkien’s universe has Magical Objects, yes?
The Palantirs, Feanorian Lights, Silmarils, the Lamps, the Trees, the dragon helm, Beleg’s bow, Turin’s sword, the elfstone/elessar….ect. With cool functions like health-preserving.
These is cool af but my guess is they are NOT EASILY MADE or made on the first try. So there must be worse, trial attempts at Magic Objects. And just really lackluster ones.
So, I propose:
Seashell that slightly amplifies your ability to hear crabs scratching things
Goblet that was intended to be poison detecting, but was not successful and instead just makes a high pitched hiss whenever it contains anything but pure water
Jacket that’s basically a normal jacket but keeps you a little bit warmer than the fabric usually would
Ankle bracelet that was supposed to protect against breaks but instead just freezes up your joint for a few minutes at any random time
Shirt that does not need a hot iron to get the wrinkles out, but can rather function perfectly fine with a lukewarm iron
Circular glass that, when looked through, makes red objects appear more pink but otherwise changes nothing
Hairbrush that was supposed to sing but instead just makes a low moan noise once a day
Cloak that makes the wearer 1% less likely to encounter a bee swarm
Blanket that keeps dog hair from sticking to it, if and only if the hair comes from a dog whose 4 grandparents were all born under a full moon
Ear ring that was supposed to tingle when someone in another room says your name, but instead just vibrates slightly in response to loud noises
Paint that does not stain fabric, but only works when the fabric itself is inside someones mouth
In peacetime, the ruler grows their hair long. In war, they cut it short.
A ruler with long hair is held in great esteem, for defending the peace.
The traditional declaration of war is for the ruler to send their cut-off hair to the enemy ruler. The statement carries greater weight the longer the hair: to receive long hair says that you have angered one who is slow to anger, that you have incurred a wrath not easily woken.
Violent war-mongering leader frantically and aggressively tries to shave just a LITTLE hair off the top of their head into an envelope.
A faraway king receives a heavy wooden crate filled with a coil of the longest hair he has ever seen.
A despised ruler finds hundreds of pounds of cut-off ponytails at her castle entrance, each one belonging to her own people.
A young emperor refuses to cut their hair and insists on trying to make peace with invaders. The enemy leader steps forward, draws their blade, and cuts the emperor’s hair themselves.
Hellen cuts her hair off and throws it in Cathy’s face at her son’s soccer scrimmage.
When the tale of their journeyings was told, there were other tales, and yet
more tales, tales of long ago, and tales of new things, and tales of no time
at all, till Bilbo’s head fell forward on his chest, and he snored comfortably
in a corner.
He woke to find himself in a white bed, and the moon shining through an open
window. Below it many elves were singing loud and clear on the banks of the
stream.
Sing all ye joyful, now sing all together
The wind’s in the tree-top, the wind’s in the heather;
The stars are in blossom, the moon is in flower,
And bright are the windows of Night in her tower.
Dance all ye joyful, now dance all together!
Soft is the grass, and let foot be like feather!
The river is silver, the shadows are fleeting;
Merry is May-time, and merry our meeting.
Sing we now softly, and dreams let us weave him!
Wind him in slumber and there let us leave him!
The wanderer sleepeth. Now soft be his pillow!
Lullaby! Lullaby! Alder and Willow!
Sigh no more Pine, till the wind of the morn!
Fall Moon! Dark be the land!
Hush! Hush! Oak, Ash, and Thorn!
Hushed be all water, till dawn is at hand!
“Well, Merry People!” said Bilbo looking out. “What time by
the moon is this? Your lullaby would waken a drunken goblin! Yet I thank
you.”
“And your snores would waken a stone dragon – yet we thank you,”
they answered with laughter. “It is drawing towards dawn, and you have
slept now since the night’s beginning. Tomorrow, perhaps, you will be cured of
weariness.”
-The Hobbit, “The Last Stage”
what she says:i’m fine
what she means: it’s 2 am and I can’t stop thinking about the Pied Piper. Initially i thought it was just an old faerie tale but i’ve been reading up on it and it turns out that at some point in the town of Hamelin, a bunch of children really did go missing all at once in fact a stained glass window in the local church in 1300 was made to tell the story AND Hamelin’s written history literally BEGINS in 1384 with the sentence “it is 100 years since our children left.” There are a ton of theories about what the piper could actually represent but historians are pretty much convinced that something did take away children en masse in the 1200s in Hamelin and to this day we still use the phrase “it’s time to pay the piper.” When will we pay him? Who was he???? Like okay I see the theories but what if some flute paying faerie really just led a bunch of kids away in 1284 I cannot get over this.
So there was a post going around about how Elves can both talk to animals and eat meat (presumably after the animal dies?), and I just wanted to say that the reason Elves can deal with that sort of thing is obviously because they already practice ritual cannibalism.
Reasons:
When the Elves woke up, there was complete darkness. Nothing was really growing. Obviously they survived by eating the first ones to die. Ergo, no cannibalism taboo develops.
For someone touted as the High King of all the Eldar, Ingwe certainly never shows up during the Darkening. Explanation: he was busy nomming on the body of his dead best friend, Finwe, in adherence to traditional Quendi mourning traditions.
Honestly, would you want dead bodies/burial grounds littering your immortal, eternal paradise? That would be incredibly morbid.
When Fingolfin crosses the Helcaraxe, much notice is made of this people’s suffering. Do you know what’s common to groups lost in the wilderness that isn’t mentioned? Cannibalism. Obviously this is because they already practice cannibalism, so it wouldn’t be all sorts of horrifying to them.
Also brings up sad points because Elenwe’s body is specifically mentioned as lost. Unreachable. This means they couldn’t mourn her properly. By eating her. Some other poor sod probably starved to death because of that. Truly horrific.
You know the types of places where people develop cannibalistic habits? Well, Thangorodrim probably had a lot of those. And yet, cannibalism isn’t mentioned at all in the Silm. Probably because it wasn’t considered particularly horrific.
Speaking of death, Tolkien never mentions burial practices. Granted, Elves are immortal, but we know a lot of them did die. But no burial practices. This is obviously because any recovered bodies were subsequently consumed. Any remaining bits (mostly bone) were probably interred, but the important part is that the strength of the deceased was returned to their community.
Why would Tolkien mention Elves being reborn into their children? Because that’s how he misinterpreted their funerary (not burial!) practices. Everyone knows that Elves go to Mandos when they die. Only the flesh is consumed, and the “rebirth” is metaphorical.
Do you know why there isn’t a lot of anthropologic evidence pointing to the past existence of Elves? Because they ate each other, so anthropologists and/or paleontologists have very little to actually find regarding their existence.
(Prions? What prions? Seriously, though, prion diseases are scary. Ergo, one completely unrelated meta post here possibly explaining why Elves might not have gotten prion diseases.)
And there’s probably a lot more reasons, but hopefully I’ve made my point.
ephal ephalak idon hi-akallabeth 