Hidden Nuggets we see all the time...

[Sarsomar]

oh and im now feeling a little insulted :O

[jarishs]

I did a 'search' and wasn't able to see if this has been posted or not. But, some time ago, I noticed runes on the largest stone in the circle you go to when you're defeated. After looking them up, I found they spell the word "weak", backward. I told a friend of mine, "I wonder if I should be insulted?"... ::laughs:: But, of course, I wasn't. It was just too funny.

-Goldrush
*******

I don't think that is correct...they are runes spelling something...it back a ways in this thread though.

[Beleg]

http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Rally_Point

They appear to say CAEW, which is Sindarin for Resting Place.

[jarishs]

LOL it is weak backwards if you saw it phonetically.

[Sarsomar]

woot 1000 posts. ah and beleg nice job on the class (what we wish others knew guides)

[Subroc]

Btw, what other little (not necessarily lore-related) "easter eggs" are there in-game? I know the snowman in Ered Luin, the lead figure quest and the sand castle in Evendim.

Oh and I swear I saw a bog lurker fight a toad or somesuch a little southeast of Meluinen a week or two ago. Fellows saw it too... first time I saw critters fighting each other. Neither was winning btw, one fellow decided to kill them both

I haven't read this entire post yet so I don't know if someone mentioned this yet or not. I seem to remember in closed beta coming across a wolf attacking a deer and getting a deed for it. Anyone else remember something like that?

[thinkingbear]

Sorry that this is off-topic but...

Jonathan Rudder (just noticed your name)... I appologize if I am wrong, but did you write The Milhavior Chronicles? If so, I got it as a gift a week ago... I loved it. Is it true this was your first book? Because that book looked like it was written by a seasoned author! Good job!

If anyone in this forum has not read this book yet I HIGHLY recommend it... you will not be disappointed!

I am half way through Book III right now and it is really very good. Book IV is sitting on my desk waiting to be devoured next. Berephon, please tell me Book V is done and already at the printers!

[Berephon]

I am half way through Book III right now and it is really very good. Book IV is sitting on my desk waiting to be devoured next. Berephon, please tell me Book V is done and already at the printers!

Unfortunately, not. Besides being the final and longest of the series, there was this little thing of moving from Nashville, TN to Worcester, MA that's put a crimp on writing (and worse yet, publishing.) I expect Book V to be released either late this year or sometime next.

[Arasilion]

What is your book about? I might give it a look-see :-)

[Hazmat]

Worcester, the city of hills, Always set your parking brake!

[skorpion352]

i was adventuring in the north downs on my captian earlier and came accross what appears to be an old signal fire, much like the ones in gondor. it is between othrika and esteldin. i took a could of screenshots for everyone:

[Adder]

!!!!! This is truly amazing and refreshing! I have unfortunately and involuntarily been away from LOTRO since my last post way back on August 1st, 2007. (The powers that be decided to grace me with a series of incidents that crushed me financially and from which I am only now beginning to recover - a serious work-related injury for which the insurance company refused to pay my wages until recently and the care of my Mother who has Alzhemier's, dementia, and the effects of a major stroke, and the death of my main puter {brownout/surge which my surge protection failed to stop!} - all contributed to my absence... but I did manage to keep my subscription active!).

After getting my DSL started again, I decided to load LOTRO onto my laptop though didn't really expect it to be able to handle the game. While downloading the updates last night (it took all night), I decided to come here to the forums and to the lorebook to catch up with as much as I could (fishing!!!, housing!!!! - man I've missed a lot). When I eventually came to the General Discussion forum, I nearly swallowed my teeth... there at the top, stickied, was this hidden nuggets thread, with 1000 replies and counting!!! Unbelievable!! I have started reading through it and intend to read every post. This is why I have missed LOTRO so much... the attention to detail and the uniqueness of the community.

It may take me a week or two to get through the whole thread though... my laptop actually is able to run the game! I have a LOT of catching up to do. Heck, I need to relearn the game. With all that I've missed, I've become a NOOB again.

Anyway, from the few pages that I have read, great finds everyone. This makes my coming back all the more sweet.

[djheydt]

Fellow half-Finn! What a rare breed we are. Rarer than pure Finns, I'd say ;D

I'm not at all Finnish, but my cat is a half-Finn, can she count? Her mother came from Finland and she has a very short face compared to most North American cats.

She was originally my son's cat, and he came to me and said "I need a name for my cat! She's Finnish! She's black; she's a witch cat! Can you find me a Finnish witch name?"

So I leafed through the Kalevala and found Louhi, witch and poisoner (and, I recently discovered, shape-changer).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louhi\

She's not very witchy, really; she does sometimes piddle on my bed but I think that's a different aspect.

[djheydt]

Good eye, though a minor lapse in memory. The line "Where now the horse and the rider?" is from the song about Éorl the Young, father of the Éorlingas of Rohan.

And which is itself a quotation from an Old English poem called "The Wanderer."

/e searches bookcase, finds Anglo-Saxon Reader

Line 92 ff:

Hwær cwom mearg? Hwær cwom mago? Hwær cwom maþþumgyfa?
Hwær cwom symbla gesetu? Hwær sindon seledreamas?
Eala beorht bune! Eala byrnwiga!
Eala þeodnes þrym! Hu seo þrag gewat,
genap under nihthelm, swa heo no wære!

"Where has the horse gone? Where is the rider? Where is the giver of treasure?
Where are the seats at the feast? Where are the revels in the hall?
Alas, the bright cup! Alas, the mailed warrior!
Alas, the king's splendour! How that time has passed,
Dark under night-cover as if it had never been!"

[Note, inter alia, theoden "king" and maþþum "treasure".]

And as I paraphrased it once for another purpose:

Where is the rider, where the horse,
Where is the armoured knight?
Where is the harp, the deeds of song
That filled the hall with light?
O shining helm, O splendid prince,
O valour on the green,
Now dark and silent under night
As if they had never been!

I had a lovely reverse shock, back at university, reading both this and Beowulf *after* I had read Tolkien. There's a passage in the latter where a churl discovers a dragon's hoard and steals a cup to give to his lord. "But," as my AS professor put it, "the dragon kept an inventory....."

[djheydt]

Also, I wonder if the choice of "leaf" of paper was intentional. Tolkien wrote an allegorical short story (even though Tolkien said he hated allegory) called "Tree and Leaf." The main character, Niggle (nee Tolkien) starts painting a leaf and soon finds himself painting the whole tree to go with it. The story goes on from there and I won't spoil it for you but C.S. Lewis makes an appearance in the short story, also as another otherwise named character, whom Tolkien blames for being a constant distraction to him.

Oh! Do you think Parish is Lewis? I don't. Parish represents the whole of non-Inkling academia, which expected Tolkien to quit writing fairy-tales and put out more scholarly papers like Sigelhearwa Lond. Which was, of course, his main job and his duty, and he did neglect it for what the clerks of Oxenford cannot but have regarded as mere time-wasting.

But Lewis was one of those who encouraged him.

[djheydt]

Oh, yes ... and while I had my Bright's Anglo-Saxon Reader out, I did a little more research and I think I've found something no one has mentioned yet.

We've all agreed that Ronald Dwale of Dwaling is Tolkien. Well, where did the name Dwale come from? I never heard it before and I suppose none of us have. So I looked in the glossary, and I didn't find it as such. but I did find dwelian, "to lead into folly, deceive; be led astray, err." (Bright adds, "cf Mod. dull.")

Now, the name "Tolkien" is German, and here's what Tolkien's relatives said of it (I'm quoting Carpenter's biography):

A certain Georg von Hohenzollern ... had shown great daring in leading an unofficial raid against the Turks and capturing the Sultan's standard. This (said Aunt Grace) was why he was given the nickname Tollkuehn "foolhardy," and the name had stuck.

(Carpenter calls this "typical of the kind of tale middle-class families tell," in other words he doesn't believe it. I don't either. But never mind that.)

Can we see a connection between an Old English verb meaning "to lead into folly, to lead or be lead astray" and a German adjective meaning "foolhardy"? Well, maybe.

I also looked up "dwale" in the Oxford English Dictionary, and found it, but it's listed as "probably borrowed from Scandinavian" and meaning "a soporific drink, sp. deadly nightshade."

So I dunno. Maybe, just maybe, we can see a range of meaning in the name Dwale from "bold, daring, foolhardy" (which is how Tolkien might have seen himself, academically anyway) to "one who drank something that knocked him for a loop" (which is what most of his colleagues thought). Berephon, would you know anything about this?

[djheydt]

Now I have finally finished reading all through this long and entertaining thread, a few more remarks.

Evidence for female Dwarves: there's a Dwarf in Othrikar who occasionally says, "My wife's gone up to Thorin's Hall to have her beard braided. Maybe in a few days I'll go up and join her."

Evidence for female Numenorians: there are several female Dunedain in Esteldin.

As to the line where Tolkien mentions that at one point he didn't know who Strider [=Trotter] was, I found it in the introduction to Tree and Leaf:

These two pieces ... were written in the same period (1938-39) when The Lord of the Rings was beginning to unroll itself and to unfold prospects of labour and exploration as daunting to me as to the hobbits. At about that time we had reached Bree, and I had then no more notion than they had of what had become of Gandalf or who Strider was; and I had begun to despair of surviving to find out.

[Shilling]

Unfortunately, not. Besides being the final and longest of the series, there was this little thing of moving from Nashville, TN to Worcester, MA that's put a crimp on writing (and worse yet, publishing.) I expect Book V to be released either late this year or sometime next.

While I expect you're not supposed to push your books via Turbine's site, I always like to read books written by people I've "met." (Online counts, right?) For some reason, it always seems more real, and I like knowing that I'm generating income for real people. Besides, they sound like cool books. So Amazon just shipped my copy of Sharamitaro. Looking forward to cracking a good book the next time lotro has some down time.

Thanks to MistDragon for bringing this up originally!

[Berephon]

Oh, yes ... and while I had my Bright's Anglo-Saxon Reader out, I did a little more research and I think I've found something no one has mentioned yet.

We've all agreed that Ronald Dwale of Dwaling is Tolkien. Well, where did the name Dwale come from? I never heard it before and I suppose none of us have. So I looked in the glossary, and I didn't find it as such. but I did find dwelian, "to lead into folly, deceive; be led astray, err." (Bright adds, "cf Mod. dull.")

Now, the name "Tolkien" is German, and here's what Tolkien's relatives said of it (I'm quoting Carpenter's biography):



(Carpenter calls this "typical of the kind of tale middle-class families tell," in other words he doesn't believe it. I don't either. But never mind that.)

Can we see a connection between an Old English verb meaning "to lead into folly, to lead or be lead astray" and a German adjective meaning "foolhardy"? Well, maybe.

I also looked up "dwale" in the Oxford English Dictionary, and found it, but it's listed as "probably borrowed from Scandinavian" and meaning "a soporific drink, sp. deadly nightshade."

So I dunno. Maybe, just maybe, we can see a range of meaning in the name Dwale from "bold, daring, foolhardy" (which is how Tolkien might have seen himself, academically anyway) to "one who drank something that knocked him for a loop" (which is what most of his colleagues thought). Berephon, would you know anything about this?

Tolkien himself suggested the "dull" or "foolhardy" definition of Dwale to a Dutch translator, which was probably the nickname of an individual for whom Dwaling was named and was uncomplimentary. EDIT: I wouldn't doubt that the story about Tolkien's own name came into play in the naming of Ronald Dwale, though I don't know for certain, as I was not the one who named him.

[Berephon]

!!!!! This is truly amazing and refreshing! I have unfortunately and involuntarily been away from LOTRO since my last post way back on August 1st, 2007. (The powers that be decided to grace me with a series of incidents that crushed me financially and from which I am only now beginning to recover - a serious work-related injury for which the insurance company refused to pay my wages until recently and the care of my Mother who has Alzhemier's, dementia, and the effects of a major stroke, and the death of my main puter {brownout/surge which my surge protection failed to stop!} - all contributed to my absence... but I did manage to keep my subscription active!).

...

Anyway, from the few pages that I have read, great finds everyone. This makes my coming back all the more sweet.

Welcome back! You started a landslide, then left!

It's still my favourite thread.

[Galruth]

When you come across the bridge into Duilond you see several statues of Elves. There is one with a 'cloak' across his shoulder holding a sword and another with a mace and shield. I've always wondered if one is meant to honor Elwe/Thingol Greycloak of Doriath and his sword Aranruth.

[Adder]

Welcome back! You started a landslide, then left!

It's still my favourite thread.

Thanks for the 'welcome back' Berephon.

It's mine too... not because I started it but because of all of the great finds and discussions.

While I was offline I did take the time to reread the Hobbit, the Trilogy, and parts of the Silmarillian as well as some of the short stories (Farmer Giles, etc.). I'm looking forward to searching for more nuggets as well as 'discovering' those posted here by everyone. Last night I was ingame for the first time since last summer, and spent a good part of the time just reacquainting myself with the basics (and fishing ), but I did take the time to visit the 'cart crash' in Bree, and I spent some time on the Bree hill just looking at the sky (I had not done so before but after reading the posts about the night sky and the constellations, I had to have a good long look... simply amazing!).

I took notice that you have written a series of books! I will definitely look into acquiring the set in the near future!

[Lurkerinthemist]

I made it through 14 pages of the thread so I don't know if any of these have already been mentioned:

My favorite comments are those made by the Unfriendly people of Ost Forod. I laugh every time they insult me or threaten as I walk by. Sometimes I insult them back or do some unpleasant emote at them. I love it when an NPC refers to my correct class, race or gender.

The fact that you can bump the skaters in Forochel is a riot and one of my favorite things to do when I'm there. (I'm easily entertained) The quest names for the Lost Fellowship are very creative - Three Sheets to the Wind, Lost his Marbles, etc. And the fact the the captain's herald is AWOL really cracks me up since I play a captain myself.

I walked into Bree Town Hall the other day and realized the Watchers on the second floor were telling me that Tol Ascarnon and the Isenkeep had fallen - I didn't log in to MP to check it, but I assumed that was real-time status of the Moors.

[djheydt]

Tolkien himself suggested the "dull" or "foolhardy" definition of Dwale to a Dutch translator, which was probably the nickname of an individual for whom Dwaling was named and was uncomplimentary.

Cool. Indeed, the original Dwale, Roland's ancestor, would have been the founder not only of the town but of its inhabitants, the Dwalingas.

[Sarsomar]

welcome back adder i wasnt here when your started this forums but this is one of my favs. hope you have fun in lotro agian