Talk:Eriador

This article could really use some work. --Dwarf Lord 00:30, 22 October 2006 (CDT)

Boundaries

Further to Dwarf Lord's comment some time ago, I intend to work on this article, but can I just check something with other people.

"Eriador was of old the name of all the lands between the Misty Mountains and the Blue; in the South it was bounded by the Greyflood and the Glanduin that flows into it above Tharbad."

― Appendix A, Part I (iii) "Eriador, Arnor and the Heirs of Isildur"

By my reckoning, therefore, contrary to what the article states, the Enedwaith and the Dunlendings are not in Eriador. Does anyone agree/disagree? --Mith 10:08, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. We can't get a more specific source than that. -- Ederchil ^{(Talk/Contribs/Edits)} 11:00, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

VT Ref

I'll get you the etymology VT ref this afternoon, Mith. (I'm at a university computer now). -- Ederchil ^{(Talk/Contribs/Edits)} 07:39, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Ederchil! Unfortunately I don't have any VTs (it's on my to-do list - I'll probably buy the lot when 50 comes out), but I knew there was a reference in 42 from Wikipedia's talk page and the VT Index.

Okay. The VT one is complicated. It's a note (unnamed, dated 1949-53), quoted by Hostetter in a reply to a letter by Fredrink Ström from Uppsala. Ström muses on Eriador and the Lone-lands in The Hobbit being one and the same. It's a note dealing with -dor and the disappearance of -n-. On the linguistic timetable, it can be placed near the end of Noldorin. Part of the note reads:

"eryā 'isolated, lonely', Eriador = 'wilderness'."

The title of this section is "Letters to VT", page 4.

Another etymology is found in PE 17:

"= Lonely Land. *eryā (S eir, air)."

This is identified by Christopher Gilson as a ballpoint addition. The reference would be

J.R.R. Tolkien, "Words, Phrases and Passages in The Lord of the Rings" (edited by Christopher Gilson), published in Parma Eldalamberon 17 (July 2007), p. 28.

Okay, maybe not with the new referencing system, it's just a copy of a cite on Arnor. It's written in the same entry. -- Ederchil ^{(Talk/Contribs/Edits)} 11:23, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! - I just needed a proper reference for that. There's quite a bit there to think about now. I have, myself, been toying with whether Lone-lands and Eriador are one and the same. Unfortunately not even my Annotated can help with that one - it's a very ambiguous quote, "Now they had gone far into the Lone-lands, where there were no people left, no inns, and the roads grew steadily worse." (Roast Mutton) What's your thinking on it? Would be saying they are the same count as bias editing? --Mith 12:00, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually "our" (as in "Encyclopedia of Arda"'s) article on Lone-lands says yes. I certainly think so, but I don't think we should present it as fact. Similarly, Tolkien translated Rhudaur as "troll shaws" (also PE17), does that mean the Trollshaws are Rhudaur? -- Ederchil ^{(Talk/Contribs/Edits)} 12:06, 10 September 2008 (UTC)