Letters from Middle Earth

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

that was wonderful rosie, and nice that he (meaning elendur not TD ) finally found out who the mysterious captain was.

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

just discovered a letter, in dwarvish script.
I got a friend, named KhûdûrûÃ* to translate it for me:

From The Kingdom under the Mountain
Erebor

To: Durin V,
Khazad-Dûm

My dear Durin,

I received your letter not last week, and went immediately to Oropher in Mirkwood to consult with him. He said that this 'balrog' chappie is nothing to be worried about, and if he were, how come he hasn't attacked Galadriel, Celeborn and Celebrimbor over in Eregion already?

I am looking forward to Yule with you and your family, FÃ*s said she will bring a flagon of that ale you liked so much, last year was one hell of a party so let's make this one even bigger!!

Warmest Regards,

May your beard grow ever long,

Your brother,
ThrorûÃ*n

[Beor]

I dont think...ah, well, hindsight is 20/20 they say

We'll bring em down yet, ha ha!

[Telcontar_Dunedain]

Originally Posted by Last Child of Ungoliant

that was wonderful rosie, and nice that he (meaning elendur not TD ) finally found out who the mysterious captain was.

Well I guessed before hand which makes me smarter than Elendur!

[Manveru]

Originally Posted by Beor

Found this sucker when I was seven years old building a sand castle on the slimy shores of Eagle Lake near my house in Minnesota. There I was sitting on the sand, minding my own business, when suddenly, a boat sent its wake shooting right at me. When the water washed away, a small parchment laid at my feet. I blew my nose in it and stuffed it in my pocket. Only after going on leave after returning from Iraq did I think to find the shorts and dig out the letter. Apparently, I had taken them off that day and hidden them in the attic, where they have been since, since our attic sucks.

It is written in Sindarin Tengwar, but as someone of the Noldor would write it, with the dialect seeming to be a mix of Noldorin and Sindarin. There was a seal on it, but over time, it, as well as many other parts of the writing, has become indicernable. Here it is, in its entire recoverable form:

Celegorm, I need you to clean the tree today, it is getting cluttered, and the Fellowship is going to be here in two days. I need it picked up and ...(vacuumed?)..., and clean up your Feanor and Friends action figures. I am tired of stepping on them. Oh, and when you go to the market today, please pick up the following items:

1. Milk (1% please, I am starting the Atkins today)
2. Cheese (pre-shredded)
3. Pop-tarts
4. Some of those orc-shaped animal crackers.
5. Coke
6. starlight
7. some rope (I'm fresh out of rope, and I need to give some to one of these so-called "Hobbits".
8. some cheap gem or pendant or something. Aragorn is coming, and I need to give him something.
9. Elmers glue (for the kids)
10. frozen lembas
11. frozen peas
12. Ho-Ho's (screw Dr. Atkins)
Oh, and dont forget, the culligan guy is going to be by at one-thirty in the afternoon to re-fill my mirror. Make sure youre here for him, Elrond drank the mirror last weekend at the bachelor party for Glorfindel (II).

Thanks, honey, I love you

Galadriel

wait, you mean celeborn right? cuz celegorm is a son of feanor and that confused me for so long

[Pytt]

I also noticed that. and I think it is Celeborn who shall recive the letter...

[Rosie Gamgee]

Beor, that's hilarious. I love it!

[Beor]

Of course, my mistake. There are just so many Cele-'s in the text, it is sometimes hard to keep them all strait. That crazy JRR!

And thanks, Rosie, I appriciate the compliment

[Beor]

yo, Elessar! you see the latest Hot Rod magazine? its kickin yo! get me back, bra!

Legolas

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Rosie Gamgee

I just love all of you people- so kind in letting me labor under the delusion that I was keeping a secret. Here's the obvious answer to your questions: the very last letter in this series- although it’s not written by Elendur. This is Merry’s reply to the previous letter.

I didn't have the chance before to reply. Yes, we're nice people. Those letters were very impressive Rosie! And very enjoyable. Thanks for .. eh translating and posting them!

[Earniel]

I nearly forgot I had promised a translation of a letter. Here it is, Karl, all for you.

Dortholúmar Gardens,
20th of Cermië, 3434 S.A.

Dear old friend,

Never before have I had the need to use paper and ink, these strange Elvish methods, to get in touch you but now the necessity pushes it on me. My friend Linrod writes these words as I dictate them to him, for I have never learned the ways to entrust his Elven characters to paper, nor are my hands suitable for such fragile things as pens! Linrod will also strive to deliver this message and -when need be- read it to you. For otherwise I fear our plight would ever remain unknown to thee; for you ventures little outside your wood nowadays and you have no care for what happens beyond the eaves of your trees. Not that I blame you herein, my friend, for that has always been in the character of our race.

I have much to say to you, Fangorn, but time is short and I fear to overtax Linrod’s -though excellent - memory, for he assures me that we, Entwives, can be as longwinded as our male counterparts. Thus the need of paper and pen and Linrod’s nimble and swift fingers. But my Elven friend now urges me not to dwell on these technicalities and continue with the message, fearing there will not be enough time to say what must be said. For time is running out at last, Fangorn, and it will not wait for us unhasty folk. In fact, the time of the Entwives here is as good as over. And all it took was two moons. Two moons! Barely enough time for an Enting to develop its first shoots. But enough time to end all the work that the hands and minds of the Entwives wrought. How am I to put this dreadful news in words? The storm crept upon us unheeded, as never a storm has done before. But this time it did not merely damage our fruit trees or brought down the harvest too soon. No, to the scythe of this storm all the Entwives may fall.

It is a pity that I have to contact you after so long with such dire news. It is already a pity I have to contact you this way at all, for you seem further than ever before. I remember how you used to visit me in my garden from time to time, now already too many years ago. I remember you were grieved that I preferred the gardens to the woods, the cornflowers to the acorns and the fields to the tree vaults. I recall how you tried to teach me to love the woodlands by taking me to the deep groves where the trees whisper friendly words and speak of memories of when the world began; how you showed me to bury my roots deep in the cold and wild woodland rivers. I remember I took you to the flowering orchards of cherry and apple trees; how I taught you how to plant and care for corn so that it flourishes and grows high and golden.

But how long and hard we tried; we were too far apart and could not reach each other half way. So close and yet so far away… I wonder, was it the Entwives that strayed too much from the woods and forgot how to love them; or were it the Ents that forgot the fields outside the woods and thought not of them? And while we both cared for what grew and had our love, we split like two trees that grow out a single acorn. So similar, so alike and yet so different. Ent and Entwife. Entwife and Ent. One but never the other, but cut the root and both will wither.

And when darkness threatened before, now also many seasons ago, we Entwives moved away farther still and made our gardens across the Great River, beyond the view of your forest. And while what we turned our minds to thrived, the number of new Entings grew less every year so only a few now remain with us, all within a few seasons of adulthood. But we did not see. And after a while you came no longer to my new garden.

And now that darkness threatens again, we have to face it alone.

It first struck in the South, now two cycles of the moon ago. One late morning it was not the sun that coloured the southern sky but the hated glare of red, consuming fire. We did not guess its meaning then but we looked up from our gardens in wonder and turned our gaze South. Rumours too reached us that many things were happening in the West. We did not guess either relevance. We wondered, yes, but we cared little. For we had our gardens and it would soon be time for the first flowers of summer to open, the hedges needed mending from the first summer storms and the song of the birds distracted us. There was always something, wasn’t it? - that drew our attention ever back to our own domains... Eventually the light in the South faded as a fire that burns too bright and is quickly burnt out. And we looked South no longer. And even when the glare returned and sometimes also lit up menacing into the night, we heeded it not.

But at the beginning of the first week of the new moon a group of three distraught Entwives and a nigh-grown Enting reached our gardens. They were weary for they had come from far and without rest; the fire in the South had driven them forth. And the fire had been at their heels; for their bark was so badly scorched that one could scarce tell whether they were birch, fir or beech. Their fingers were crooked by the heat and their heads burned bald, except for a few withering patches. Their eyes reflected the burning horrors they had witnessed for they had had gardens in the south of our realm, so they told us, in a place we called Lasencalanith. But the south of our realm was no longer ours, they said, for their gardens had been carelessly trampled and fired; and the Entwives and the last Entings that still remained with them there were hunted, cut down by cruel axes, and burned on large death pyres while their piteous cries were lost in the crackling of the flames. Ah, how my heart ached at those words! And how it aches still for those words contained the doom of our realm and race.

Our potions and entdraught failed to strengthen the four fugitives, their evil wounds refused to heal and they died that day before the sun had sunken behind the hills. They did not even have time to tell me their names and that still - to this day - disturbs me much. Although I fear it matters little, for soon all our names might be equally lost.

[continued]

[Earniel]

[continued]

But even after their sorrowful deaths we remained, for these were our gardens, and where else would we turn to? To the woods where you and the other Ents dwell, the dark corridors of trees that appeal so little to us when we can have the fields to shape and watch over? We did not go back to you, but I would we had! By Yavanna Kementári who gave our foretrees life, I would we had!

During the two weeks after the death of the three Entwives and the Enting, more messengers of doom came our way. Entwives and Entings from all other gardens in our realm fled North but only a few could reach us there before the fire caught up with them. The laughter stilled in our meadows and the only things that still grew lushly in our gardens were our fears. Lasencalanith, Carnegildor, Namarillië, RaufÃ*rmalin, Ornesaryátar and many other gardens, so many others! all are destroyed.

We took who could reach us in our care and tried to relieve their burns and wounds, but even while many died we waited still, hoping the fire would die out ere it reached us. And now we have waited too long. For only the gardens of Dortholúmar are now left of what once was the wide realm of the Entwives. We cannot save our gardens and my heart forewarns me they will not be replanted in ages to come and the land will be barren as it was before we turned our minds to it. So much is lost already beyond recovery.

But we will make one, final effort to save what is left of us. We cannot turn West, as we shan’t be able to cross the Great River to reach your woodland homes before the fire consumes us. We cannot turn South nor can we turn North for strange things are moving in the North, that we cannot determine. And I will not risk running into one danger when fleeing from another! Nor would the fire overlook us there, under the eaves of the Great Wood. But perchance we might save some of us by escaping East. For a fire that is too greedy may miss a few shoots while it strives to devour all. Thus I will lead what Entwives and Entings that will follow me into the East, where we might be able to escape the fiery jaws that wish to crush us. There are but eighteen who can follow me, Eighteen! Of the dozens that there have been. Such is the misery of our downfall.


It is a dangerous road East, and I do not know whether we will be able to flee far enough ere the Dortholúmar Gardens too will fall to the writhing flame. But it is better to flee and to keep the dream of the gardens alive than to perish along side them. Even though our hearts bleed to leave them to the flames.

Should you visit me now, all you would find is ashes and empty lands. And yet I ask you to come. Not to gardens, for they will no longer be here, but search for me in the East! There are groves there where we can hide from the storm that hunts us, but they will only shelter us for a while. After that we have no alternative but to flee further, perhaps beyond the Rhûn-sea, and thus ever further from you and the other Ents. Therefore I would beg you to haste –oh, how strange it is to ask such a thing of you, Fangorn! – but the graveness of our situation forces me. Look for us in the East, Fangorn! Come to me! Together we might have braved the wrath of the fire but I cannot withstand it alone. So I must flee. Oh, come back to me! Or else we will be truly lost and I will never see a young Enting from my own bark wonder under grove or orchard.

Linrod bids me now to hasten as well, for his sharp ears can hear the war cries and the crackle of the fire, still distant enough but coming closer nevertheless. And there is still so much to be done. So I must bid you now farewell, my friend, where I wish I could bid you until we meet again. I turn my gaze to the East where I must go while there is still time. Come to me, Fangorn, my old friend. Find me thither! For we will not be able to hide long in the eastern groves and beyond that all roads end in shadow. Farewell now, my dearest friend, my time has run out and these will be my last words to you if we cannot meet again in this world. Linrod will try and reach you, hoping his Elven skills will allow him to slip through the holes of the net that is drawn around us, while I and my few companions flee the approaching fire in the other direction. I pray he will reach you safely.

Farewell, my friend!

Fimbrethil of the Entwives

Translator’s note: Judging by the unbroken seal the letter had when I took it from the coffin, I fear it’s safe to assume the letter never reached its intended target. How the letter ended up in the coffin among the others, or what befell the messenger, I cannot tell.

[Valandil]

Yay Eärniel! Great work!! Appropriately wordy and... moving! Life was rough in the bad ole days at the close of the Second Age... and to think what the 'Brown Lands' must once have been!

'foretrees' - Hah!

Since the letter never reached Treebeard and yet there may still be hope, I wonder if an RPG is in order...

"Quest for the Entwives"!!

[me9996]

Dear old gaffer
I am in the middle of nowhere with Frodo and a creapy crecher that Frodo calls "Smegol". I can't talk about why I'm here but I just want to tell you.
Sam

P.S.
Send 'taders

[Embladyne]

I wish I had found this thread sooner
Valandil, those translations of Firiel's letters were extremely touching...I'll get around to reading the rest of the thread, but I really need to get some sleep.
Hopefully, I'll have time to rummage around in the chest and find some interesting notes....

[Valandil]

Originally Posted by Embladyne

...Valandil, those translations of Firiel's letters were extremely touching...

You read them? Thank you!

(they're so LONG ... did you make it all the way through?)

[Rosie Gamgee]

Originally Posted by Eärniel

I didn't have the chance before to reply. Yes, we're nice people. Those letters were very impressive Rosie! And very enjoyable. Thanks for .. eh translating and posting them!

lol. Thanks.

Your own letter was very touching. Poor Treebeard, looking in vain for her... Just makes me think of him asking Merry and Pip if they'd seen the Entwives. So sad.

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Rosie Gamgee

Your own letter was very touching. Poor Treebeard, looking in vain for her... Just makes me think of him asking Merry and Pip if they'd seen the Entwives. So sad.

Originally Posted by Valandil

Yay Eärniel! Great work!! Appropriately wordy and... moving! Life was rough in the bad ole days at the close of the Second Age... and to think what the 'Brown Lands' must once have been!

Thank you both for the compliments.

Since the letter never reached Treebeard and yet there may still be hope, I wonder if an RPG is in order...

"Quest for the Entwives"!!

There was one just like that, a year or so ago but it stranded before it could properly get under the way. Maybe something to try when the Numenor-game is wrapped up?

[Rosie Gamgee]

Originally Posted by Eärniel

Maybe something to try when the Numenor-game is wrapped up?

Numenor-game. *stews*

Here's a bit of a letter- it was written hurriedly, and therefore a little hard to make out, but here it is:


Dear Merry,

Oh dear, you've got to come and help me, Merry! I'm getting MARRIED!!! Can you believe it?- to Diamond (y'know, the only from Long Cleeve?). I don't know how it happened. One minute, there we were in The Golden Perch (I took her out for a wee drink and a Springle-ring), having a ripping good time- boy, can she dance- and the next minute I was at her parents house getting cooed over. Me being the heir and all has really got them giddy.
Anyway, the wedding will not be for a few months yet, but I'm sure my head will still be spinning. I want you to be my best man- come and prop me up after I get myself properly un-sober? I've asked Fatty, and of course F and S, to be the groomsmen... oh dear, what am I getting myself into? She's a lovely g.irl- lovely is not the right word, but I cannot think at the moment- and I'm afraid I'm going to pieces over this.

Your Friend,
Pippin

p.s. Oh, yes- the reason I wrote this note was to tell you: As soon as D's parents let me go, I'm coming to Brandy Hall. You'd better have a warm bath and a stiff drink waiting for me.
BFF,
Pip

[Valandil]

Originally Posted by Rosie Gamgee

Numenor-game. *stews*

*cringes from guilt*