bunn

You must declutter! Why do you have so much stuff! How will buyers see the rooms in your house if they are full of Things????

Also moving house:

Was your double glazing installed in 2001, or in 2003? Please provide details of the last boiler service, and the boiler installation certificate! We will also need a copy of the certificate for the negative radon test from 2008, so I hope you kept that!

Some sort of plastic robot, but what sort, and where from?  And what is it doin' ?

And also to the Hobbit.

And you may well ask: but bunn, why did you write a happy ending to the Silmarillion?  And why is it 41291 words long?  Did you have nothing better to do?

I have no answer to these questions and am avoiding your eyes.

The House of Fëanor : Little Pity

I was just looking at this Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%A2n_the_Blessed

And I noticed the note: Not to be confused with Brian Blessed.


I shall never again be able to imagine Bran the Blessed as NOT played by Brian Blessed. :-D

I was told today that when foundations were being laid for the new road bridge across the Tamar in Launceston some years ago, the excavations uncovered a set of Roman bridge foundations. (Launceston may, or may not, be the same place that is called Uxelis in Ptolemy's Geography). The internet knows nothing of this intriguing fact(ish)*. My source is the business partner of the coordinating civil engineer on the bridge (now retired).

This sort of thing is the reason that I still haven't got my 'Marcus Goes To Dumnonia' story into any kind of order despite having started it about a year and a half ago. I am almost tempted to ditch it as fiction and issue it as a local history leaflet instead. :-D


*factish is a word I think I have just invented for something that may, or may not, be a fact. 

I'm reading the last of three historical novels by Kathleen Herbert, who I first encountered as an authority who had written academic studies on Anglo Saxon religion and culture.   The last book is titled 'Bride of the Spear' and -  that title really should have warned me.   The spear in question belongs to the god Lugh, and you really don't want to think about the novel's premise about that spear, fertility, and a ritual involving 8 year old virgins.    This may possibly be accurate, or at least, supported by the available evidence, what there is of it - but still.  Ewww.

It made me think about what makes me go on reading and why I may actually give up on this book half-way, even though it is fluently and carefully written with many beautifully descriptive passages, and is set in a period that greatly interests me (late sixth century) and full of fascinating side details.
( Read more... )

By far the most popular version of the story of 'The Hobbit' is the version loosely translated from the Thain's Book copy of the Red Book of Westmarch by Professor JRR Tolkien in the mid-20th century.  Professor Tolkien was of course an entertaining writer with a strong grasp of the Old Westron sources for the late Third Age period, but it is most unfortunate that his translation, riddled as it is with pro-Gondorian sentiment, has taken such a firm hold of the popular imagination that the other sources - not available in convenient English translation - have been forgotten.  

The "Thain's Book" translation is often read by non-specialists in the period as a complete and accurate description of events at the end of the Third Age.  More accurately, it should be considered as a group of sometimes self-contradictory sources, none of which survive in the original.  This group of texts had at least three authors, one of whom later admitted he had lied in his original account, and later amended it.   The material has certainly been recopied and 'corrected' several times by much later writers.  It occasionally deals with matters, such as the history of the dwarf-kingdoms and the political organisation of Northern Rhovanion, of which none of the original authors had much understanding or experience. 

In this context, it is pleasing to discover that the recent movie based on the life of Bilbo Baggins (or Mad Baggins, as he is usually referred to in later Westron sources originating from the Shire)  has called on material beyond Professor Tolkien's English translations.  I believe this to include material available until recently only in Khuzdul, and now of course, translated into modern Croatian as the nearest equivalent modern European language. I also noted elements of a version of the legend that to my knowledge, is preserved only in material written in the most obscure dialects of Sindarin, and now held in the archives office in Machynlleth.   

The sources for this period that originate from outside the Shire are of course also problematic in many ways.  Like the Thain's book, they are often self-contradictory, particularly on the important but almost undocumented area of Dwarf military organisation and economic development. Source preservation has been poor, particularly in the case of the document that is thought to be Balin's personal diary, available today only in the most fragmentary and puzzling form.  Re-copying has added errors, particularly to the Khuzdul sources which are notoriously difficult to transcribe quickly or accurately.  The Sindarin material probably glamorises life in Rivendell and accentuates the military power of the Sindarin-Noldorin remnant living there - but it may still be more accurate than the Shire-version, which was very clearly written by a hobbit who had at that time no grasp at all of any of the Elvish languages. 

None the less, such attention to detail is most unexpected in a movie made for the entertainment of the masses, and deserves to be recognised and commended.  I look forward eagerly to the planned future works, and particularly to the release of the full bibliography.