Tolkien Quotes

[half]

Originally Posted by Nick

Yes, that one's a classic.

But more useful as advice for Angband than for Sil.

[Scatha]

Originally Posted by half

But more useful as advice for Angband than for Sil.

Really? The lessons I took away from that story seem to be pretty applicable in Sil ...

[Djabanete]

Originally Posted by half

But more useful as advice for Angband than for Sil.

"Wield Ringil" is undoubtedly the best advice anyone can give for Angband

[ghengiz]

Originally Posted by Djabanete

"Wield Ringil" is undoubtedly the best advice anyone can give for Angband

indeed

now that the best one is settled, what could be the worst one?
I propose
"fight every monster you see",
"melee an umber hulk, it's just a puppy",
"let's make a party with a room full of breeders!",
"when hungry, fight a jelly. it could drop food",
"win staring contests with floating eyes will add a bonus to your charisma, the more monsters are around to witness, the better"
...
other suggestions?

[LostTemplar]

"fight every monster you see in melee."

[fph]

There's a whole thread on that... http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=686

[debo]

I just started reading the unfinished tales, and I'm a bit sad that I read the Children of Hurin prior to giving it a go -- a lot of the content was in Children of Hurin almost verbatim. (Always great to revisit it, though.)

Looking forward to the later stuff!

[half]

Originally Posted by debo

I just started reading the unfinished tales, and I'm a bit sad that I read the Children of Hurin prior to giving it a go -- a lot of the content was in Children of Hurin almost verbatim. (Always great to revisit it, though.)

Looking forward to the later stuff!

Quite a few Tolkien aficionados that I know were very disapproving of the Children of Hurin. I loved it and hope that more things like it will be released. The History of Middle-Earth series is mainly trying to be a scholarly compendium of all of Tolkien's writings that will be useful for future scholars. It has many footnotes, some of which are amazing (such as the one that introduces Cat Warriors) and many of which are just distractions for non-scholars.

I really like the idea of taking a thread from the First Age (or anything else really) and writing up a stand-alone version of it. Ideally as many of Tolkien's words as possible should be used. I'd be pretty happy with either a few words of someone else mixed in to let the story come out, or short paragraphs in italics explaining that we are now jumping to a later part of the tale, or even just a row of stars separating the original parts. If it is incomplete, that is fine by me. Mixing it with a lot of good Tolkien artwork is a given.

I'd love to see short books like this on things including:

The Lay of Leithian (in poetry)
The Lay of the Children of Hurin (in poetry)

[Nick]

Originally Posted by half

I really like the idea of taking a thread from the First Age (or anything else really) and writing up a stand-alone version of it.

I actually sat down and tried to write a version of The Fall of Gondolin once, starting from where Tuor broke off in Unfinished Tales and intending to update the original (from The Book of Lost Tales) to the same style.

I wrote about two sentences, agonising over every word, and then decided I was not cut out for it. I would love if someone with the ability did that; it's pretty much my favourite story.

[debo]

Originally Posted by half

Quite a few Tolkien aficionados that I know were very disapproving of the Children of Hurin.

This actually kept me away from the book until just this year. After re-reading the silmarillion, The Broken Sword, and Eric Brighteyes for the umpteenth time, though, I started to crave something in the same vein. I was poking around looking for tragic, viking-ish tales, and Children of Hurin came prominently to the top of the list. I read it and loved it.

Originally Posted by half

I loved it and hope that more things like it will be released. The History of Middle-Earth series is mainly trying to be a scholarly compendium of all of Tolkien's writings that will be useful for future scholars.

I've skimmed through some of these, and sometimes I find a gem or two that I enjoy reading (especially in the footnotes, as you mentioned), but it doesn't quite scratch the same itch as the complete stories.
I'd love to see short books like this on things including:

Originally Posted by half

The Lay of Leithian (in poetry)
The Lay of the Children of Hurin (in poetry)

Yes, having works in verse (rather than prose) with accompanying artwork would be great. Mead has become a popular thing here in Canada... I've thought of organizing a "mead hall" night where people gather together at a long table (preferably by a fire) to drink mead and read stories like these aloud!

(I actually went to a low-ceilinged mead hall in Stockholm and it was awesome. They even had a dude in there in full costume playing a lute!)