Tolkien Fanzines from the S. Gary Hunnewell Collection: Prolegomenon to a Variorum Tolkien (2024)

CUYLER WARNELL (NED) BROOKS 911 Briarfield Rd. Newport News, Va .23605

The Staton illos in ENTMOOT are good, he's improved a lot, and the backcover by Janet Dottery is excellent. Didn't think too much ofChambers' things. Well enough conceived, but crude. I guess they areabout average for fan art though.Glad to see you got all of the page conversion equations right.Deathless curses are a hell of a lot ofwork to whomp up.

I knew I had heard something about a cartoon version of the HOBBIT!Is this Bill Snyder here or in England? It's not reallyclear from that last paragraph in TÎW.

Darn! I'llhaveto look around for somebody that can read music to find out how Ruth Berman's tune to GIL-GALAD WAS AN ELVEN KING goes. We should be ableto get all the Tolkien songs on tape somehow. I have facilities hereto copy 2-track or 4-track tapes, at any of the three standard speeds.

Banks Mebane's article is excellent, certainly much more interestingthan mine. I wish I knew that much about the LOTR. Thereseems little to choose between "omentielmo" and "omentielvo", but itseems to me that "amanier" is more musical where it appears in thepoem on p.489 of the Ballantine FOTR than the corresponding original"vanier".

Your stenciling of the tengwar for my poem is great. Even thothe poetry isn't much, the comparison of the tengwar and the certar isvery good. The tengwar are much shorter, besides being more beautiful.An ideal language for poetry.

Next ENTMOOT you should have Don Simpsonreply to all the comments on his tengwar system. I still think it istoo complex for a real language.

Phil Harmell showed me a letter from Don Wollheim saying that he had come toterms with Tolkien and that Tolkien was to get about $9,000 from thesales of the Ace books to date.

It was good to hear about the possibility of another I Palantir this year. Probably depends on whether Pelz can get the quality ofmaterial he wants.

MARK MANDEL No. 115, St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland 21404

TÎW is a lousy pun of a name for a lettercol... but who knows, itmight even be warranted.

June Konigsberg: Gollum had "thin lank hair"--see II-221.

As regards Middle-earth musical instruments, I think we can addto those mentioned by Tolkien several that would seem likely: some sortof recorder, for instance, an instrument which has appeared independentlyin different parts of the world. Simple percussion instruments,such as tambourines, chimes, and gongs could be included as well.

For the music itself, I see no great reason to exclude harmony;and when many musicians are playing together on diverse instruments(cf. Bilbo's "Unexpected Party"), harmony is almost a necessity.

The name "Middle-earth" is probably, as you say, an East-Westgeographical allusion; however, Pippen mentions "Middle-earth and Overheavenand...the Sundering Seas" (II-204), so it might possibly be(also?) vertical.

I think of Dwarves' voices as being deep and throaty: "their utteranceseemed to some rather harsh and gutteral." (III-412)

Ned Brooks:No. 24 shouldn't be used for "nk" as No.20 is for "ng"because No.20 isn't used for "ng", at least not the way you seem tothink. No.20 is used for "ng" in "so

ng

" -- which is phonetically notated<tengwar character> (cf. "noldo", III-401; also the word "ring" in the title-pageTengwar, written <tengwar character>)--not for "ng-g" (<tengwar character>g) in "hu

ng

er" or "so

ng-g

atherer",which, is written <tengwar character>. Your idea of using <tengwar character> for "ny" is good, exceptthat it's unnecessary: No.19 (<tengwar character>) already covers that sound and isthere for anyone to use.

I agree with you, Greg, that the o-curl looks wrong under a tengwaand so would the u-curl. And how would you distinguish "i" from "uh"? '

Ruth Berman's adaptation of

Adon Olam

toGil-galad" isbeautiful.But next time, when you draw the notes that go on lines, could you drawthem on the lines?

Banks Mebane's article is a masterpiece of scholarly nit-pickingin the finest tradition.

Those

tîw

in Ned Brooks' poem were well and handsomely drawn,though the

Certh

were kind of scraggly. But those dots aren't necessary--they're not even part of the characters. Tolkien put them in thechart only to separate the different temar: labials, dentals, palatals,gutterals , gutterals -/-w, assorted other consonants, vowels, and moremiscellany.

That illo on page 24 looksquite stern and manly. Is that JoeStaton's idea of you? Your own, maybe?

The mode of Beleriand is not a necessity for writing Eldarin; infact, in tyellar 5 and 6 it runs contrary to the standard spelling ofQuenya as explained in Part IIi of Appendix E in the Ballantine edition.The diacritical marks used in transcribing Elven-tongues intoRome-letters are mostly unnecessary in the original scripts: diaeresesare superfluous; accents are handled by the andaith (long mark; acuteaccent) in the mode of Beleriand, and the long carrier or double tehtarin others; and I think the apostrophe is used in Quenya to markletters of the tyelpetėma (cf. III-398) and in Sindarin transcriptionto separate an ng between two vowels from the one before it (III-339).To prove my point I enclose a Hymn to Elbereth (I-250) (Sindarin) andthe first section of Galadriel's Farewell-song, written in tengwarwith vowel-tentar (Quenya).

TED JOHNSTONE 619 So. Hobart Blvd. Los Angeles, Calif.90005 USA

Got ENTMOOT 3 today. Most awfully pleased to see someone of yourtalent carrying on the good work. Banks Mebane'sProlegomenon wasthebasis of what could be quite a valuable piece of scholarship. Is hegoing to do a detailed analysis?

The poem on p.4 isgood in everything but choice of meter. Thefour-beat is essentially cheerful and bouncy, and quite inappropriate.However, there are a number of very sad melodies in this meter; a felicitous marriage could surely be arranged. Lemme see what I can comeup with.

JAMES WRIGHT 1605 Thayer, Richland, Wa. 99352 USA

Entmoot 2: I thought the cover wasquite well done, and wouldlike to see more of Bill Reynolds' work .

Tolkienart is a very fertile field to work in, and I would like to seemore encouragement and discussion of it in Entmoot. And, of course,more art. As for Tolkien music/poems, I'm very much interested in thepromotion of the Tolkien folksongs, and would like to see some sortof attempt made to tape a sizeable collection of the better interpretations. (A dream I've had is to see an album of Tfolksongs,but thisis pretty far-fetched.)

When I said there was no chance of a pb Lord of the Rings, Iwas thinking of a one-volume edition (somehow serial pbs didn't strike me asbeing saleable). Now, of course, with the popularity among the collegesof Tolkien, he may end up as printedas Salinger orsomebody like that.

Entmoot 3: I didn't care too much for the cover.What was it,anyway? Gimli?

The title of your letter column is aMiserable Pun, and Yog-Suthoth and Cthulhu should get you for it, notto mention the whole Middle Earth crew itself. Ugh.

I doubt if anyone is interested, but I might as well say that ofall the characters in the Ring trilogy, the Ents fascinate me most.(I hesitate to say they are my favorites; it sounds so stupid.) Theirpsychology is much like that of the Istari, but adapted to their particularcharacteristics. The expression of Treebeard's: "Hoom," is oneI have been using for some time now because it is so wonderfully expressiveand rich. It seems to me that research into the Ents and theirlanguage could prove valuable. Perhaps I'll do it myself.

I don't understand Mebane's comment thatTengwar 25 should beused to represent the untrilled "r" when Tolkien has provided us witha symbol for it already, No.21. I also see you, Greg, use the Tîw 25a lot, too. I use 21 all the time, for two reasons: 1 ) it is the propersymbol and 2) it looks better than the other one.

I found the questions on the Tolkien Symposium so provocative Idare not try to answer them for the symposium itself. They are soworthy of extended comment I've decided to discuss them as completelyas possible in a publication of my own, probably devoted to this singleobjective.

Your representation of the Fëanorean on page 22 is extremelybeautiful. Congratulations on a job excellently done.

The Angerthas, however,are wretched.

As you may or may not know,John Boardman and I worked out a method for playing Diplomacy basedin Middle-Earth. The map for this, with a sketch of the rules, waspublished in a previous Graustark.

Generally I think

Entmoot

is a tremendous success,far surpassing

I Palantir

. It has inspired me to re-interest myself in Tolkien, andto actually start thinking about fantasy in a constructive light again,which is more than any other fanzine has done. So take a bow. You've actually put a gleam into cynical embittered James Wright's eye. Thisis the first time I've been really enthusiastic about something infandom for a long time. Hoom.

EARL E. EVERS, RA 51 533 159, 269 Sig Co. (Svc) APO NEW York, NY 09041

Funny things happen to me, weird even by fannish standards. Variousfans have pointed out the similarity of the Elven tongue to the Finnishlanguage in written and phonic structure, but I paid little attentionto this till last Christmas when I bought a typer. Guess what languagethe instruction manual was written in! Now there are some strangefannish legends about foreign-language instruction manuals coming withtypers and dupers, but Finnish?

And the structure of Finnish on the printed page, both word-endingsand general appearance, is strikingly similar to Tolkien's "artificial" languages. Now if I only had access to a Finnish-English dictionaryto find out if Quenya and its derivatives are some form ofFinnish in meaning as well as in structure, I'd be closer to figuringout just what JRRT is getting at with the twenty or so years of hislife he's spent on the Ring and Middle Earth. The deeper I go intoTolkien, the more I suspect he's gone the way of Johnathon Swift and Tolkien's own friend C.S. Lewis. Not to mention Richard S. Shaver and Ray Palmer. I mean creating a fantasy so realistic you come to believe init.

Notice how, the whole Middle Earth background turned from purefairy-tale fantasy in the

Hobbit

to psi-oriented and fairly believableSF in the

Lord of the Rings

. And if Tolkien, as rumored, completelyrewrites LOR, I'll bet he tries to make it even more realistic by eliminatingthe Ents and the Eagles and a lot of the other pure fantasydevices.

I'm surprised how few fans have noticed the similarity betweenthe Ring and the Shaver Mystery. As the Ring stands, it tries to tiein legend with orthodox science and Fortean science and produce a"True History of Man on Earth" , exactly as Shaver and Palmer tried todo. And Tolkien has done the more plausible if less comprehensive jobof the two.

If Elven is indeed Finnish, well, Finnish is the "mystery language"of the European language area. And I faintly recall hearing somewherethat Finnish legend or folk belief includesdark-haired, grey eyed"god-friends" among the original forebears of the Finns. Numenoreans,descended from the Rangers in times after the close of theLOR who migrated north with receding glaciers?

Again, I haven't seen much mention of this in fannish conjectureon the actual location of Middle Earth, but there is actually nodoubt if you study the Ring closely. Middle Earth was Europe from thelatitude of Scotland south to North Africa during the last Ice Age.I've seen a map in a geology book which confirms this quite closely;the British Isles were promontories of the Continent cut by deep firthswhich later became the Irish and English Channels, much of theMediterranean was dry land, and there was even a great river in theposition of Anduin.

Notice how Tolkien uses legend to explain mysteries of scienceand vice versa. Most of the "magic" in the LOR sounds like an accountof psionic warfare, with the psionically gifted Elves on one side andvarious telepathic alien BEMs on the other. Quite obvious behind thescenes are glimpses of his basic theory: the Elves, especially theValar, represent a culture much advanced in the science of "mind overmatter", using both native and artificially augmented psionics. Woveninto this is a story of culture-control of the various races of men,and close behind, a war between the Elves and the Bad Guys for theright to shape the destinies of men. (In this context it becomesobvious that the Bad Guys won - why else did the Rings held by the Elvenlords become visible? The men of the time may not have asked questionswhen the Elves said they were compelled to flee to the undyinglands, but the Ring makes the reason obvious. They threw everythingthey had against Sauron, the "servant or emissary" and then got theHell out before Sauron's master arrived.)

And notice how the Orcs resemble Neanderthal Men, the Hobbits "Little People" etc. Tolkien develops this resembling quite fully and in a lot of detail so as to tie in a lot of loose ends. Note like-wise his incorporation of names from the various cosmologies of Europeanmyth.

I'd like to see some debate on the above - it would make for abit more interesting reading than a big hue and cry over the pitch of the Hobbits' voices or the original tunes for the songs in the Ring. A lot of research could be done on each point I brought up, but anArmy library just doesn't include the material so I'll leave it toothers if anyone is interested.

DAINIS BISENIEKS, 1033 Pomona, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48103

The first thing that deserves comment is Dave Hall's letter.By and large, I agree with it. -/so do I./- Look:

LoR

is the book I haveread more times than any other. It is, as they say, not a book but aworld, and I have not been able to resist filling in details out of myknowledge of something I'm fond of. "The Watcher in the Water and Others" (I Palantir 3) wasmore of a put-on, an exercise in style. But my interest in the coinage of the ancient world (reawakened by a prolonged stay in Israel) led me to consider the coins mentioned here andthere in the books and to invent credible (I hope) details: who coined them, when, where, etc. The results are scheduled to appear in NIEKAS. No doubt when I see my article there I will not be happy with it; and I'll be tempted to improve on it. But, by and large, I would make no radical changes. I believe that's the way it would really have been.

That is the kind of writing of which I approve: a labor of lovefounded on knowledge. The chemistry of

hithlain

has been added to my stock of knowledge about middle Earth. But the notion that the BrownLands are the result of any sort of atomic weapon - no. That is one ofthe things I do not wish explained. All that anyone could do is transfer a vague idea of modern science and the jargon of science fiction to Middle Earth, where it does not belong. For another example... one ofthe things that I shall never want to know is the atomic number of

mithril

. Is the difference clear? If anyone, out of a knowledge of his craft or hobby, can illuminate some obscure corner of Middle Earth, then and only then will I be grateful for his contribution.

Yes, and I also approve the few genuinely witty verses of theOrcs' Marching Song. Most of the others are too, well, orkish for mytaste. I have written a verse to incorporate a dreadful pun that cameto me:

Wormtongue he rode up, but he didn't stay to sup,
In the flood he soaked his coat and pants;
Hobbits stayed and ate, and I heard them loudly state
That it wouldn't be a picnic without ents.
And that leaves me feeling that I've shot my bolt.

About so much of the material in ENTMOOT and other zines I have deep misgivings. I don't believe the verses can ever rise above thelevel of pastiche. I have yet to see a convincing portrait of any ofthe people in the story; that needs competent artists, first of all. National Review Ap. 20, '65 had some well-drawn hobbits to go with atwo-page review of TREE AND LEAF, but they looked too elfin. Skinny.I cannot help feeling that Hannes Bok could have illustrated

LoR

in away that would violate nobody's private vision. I can just see Bok'sversion of the pûkel-men... you know, the characteristic texture ofhis rocks. The other night I dreamed, and in color too, of findingat a book sale an

old

first edition of TOM BOMBADIL illustrated byhim.

The elvish script game I have not yet begun to play. I am secretly wondering when the demand will be great enough to justify the publicationof BASIC INTRODUCTORY ELVISH? It might even replace Esperanto, whaddaya think? I would learn Elvish, really, with perhaps moredevotion than I gave to Hebrew (until I went to Israel). The spiritof the songs of Rohan will be found, in my opinion, in many of theHebrew songs on "Songs of the Exodus" by Hillel and the Sons of Galilee.No connection, none whatsoever, with the movie. Unfortunately,the record (Kapp KL-1174) is no longer available.

Elvish song? I vote for the singing of Theodore Alevizos on"Songs of Greece" (Tradition TLP 1037) and another, now unavailablerecord. Please, all you fans, go out and buy this record! I want tocreate a demand for Alevizos. While you're at it, pick up a recording of Leos Janacek's "Sinfonietta" or his Slavonic Mass, both availableon several recordings. It is music completely without schmaltz there, that's the best thing I can briefly say about it.

BARRY TUNICK 4470 Elenda Culver City, Calif. 90230

I disagree with the suggestion that Disney do

TLotR

. Disney'sprivate vision of the world has been made public through his numeroussuper-popular productions. It's not, I hope, the type of vision that

TLotR

's readers have of Middle-Earth.

Can you see a Disney Cinderella-good-fairy type as Arwen Evenstar?A Jiminy Cricket as the tenth member of the Fellowship (with afew upbeat songs to make the quest seem less arduous)? Happy, GrumpyAnd Doc as Gimli's brothers? I hope you can't* and I hope you won't.

Disney has the technical resources to recreate an awesome Mordorand a splendid Rivendell, but his elves, his hobbits, his Gandalf?Spare us.

*If you can, perhaps your fantasy life has already been shaped in partby Disney in "Cinderella," "Dumbo," "Fantasia," etc., etc., etc., ("I care not who makes a country's laws -- or writes its songs -- so long as I animate its fairy tales.")

BRUCE ROBBINS Box 416-B 1627 Magnolia Cleveland, Ohio 44106

Middle-Earth is a Scandinavian term meaning simply "World of Men",thus clearly placing Tolkien's world on Earth; I presume to think beforethe dawn of history. I got this datum from Lin Carter's masterpieceof scholarship in XERO 7-9. I have written Lin for permission toreprint it with additional observations by me. So far I have had noreply--I would just as soon have you or Dick Plotz reprint it with myadditional comments.

Actually, the copyright situation works

for

Tolkien in so far asa movie version is concerned. Say, for example, that Disney decides todo his own (sickening) version of THE LORD OF THE RINGS. First, he'llhave to follow the plot of the public domain version strictly; any deviationcan be interpreted as plagiarism of the copyrighted version.Burroughs fans will remember the Charlton comic JUNGLE TALES OF TARZAN,which was forced to cease publication and destroy all remainingstock. As you may know, the book JUNGLE TALES OF TARZAN is inthe publicdomain. Charlton meant to produce a comic which adhered to the book--in a couple of minor places they didn't so it was possible to interpretthe comic as plagiarizing copyrighted Tarzan books. Secondly, evenif Disney does make the movie, not only will he lose the possible profitsby not being allowed to show the movie in England and elsewhere,you can be darn sure England will not allow Disney to show any other of his movies in Commonwealth countries until he pays royalties forprofits made on the showing of the Tolkien movie in the USA. I thinkTolkien is pretty well protected from having his work distorted on thescreen in a big way. (Small companies might venture unauthorized Tolkienmovies, but their creations would hardly cause the damage Disneycould inflict.)

The fifth printing of Ballantine's HOBBIT still has the same oldcover, which Tolkien himself has criticised. It has thicker paper too,to make it look worth the outrageous 95¢ price tag--hell, many a 75¢ Ballantine original is longer than THE HOBBIT. The

third

printing ofthe Ballantine FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING still has the inscription upsidedown. Some "Authorized Publisher" Ballantine has turned out to be. Andwhile I'm at it, Ballantine has still not answered Wollheim's open query in YANDRO some issues ago as to what Ballantine is doing with theextra 20¢ per volume they're charging--just exactly how well is Tolkienfaring financially by Ballantine? And lest one think it was a noble acton Ballantine's part to publish an authorized edition of Tolkien--theywere forced to--Ballantine and Houghton Mifflin have been publishingtogether for years. Were it not for this reason Ballantine may wellhave done what Ace did.

Hooray--a thesis on Tolkien! Here's one thesis that ought not gather dust--perhaps you could arrange to publish it when completed.

GEORGE BIRIS 344 West 12th Street, New York, N.Y. 10014

I like the art in your zine--the issue I received had a picture of a warrior girl onthe last page--I guess it would be Lady Arwen.

In your editorial, say that any questions regarding the tehtarshould be asked, and welcomed. I was taught (by Mark) that theO-curl was written thusly <unknown character> , the u-curl thus <unknown character>. I never questionedthis, and Professor Tolkien, on the title-page, puts them as such. InEntmoot, I find such characters as <unknown character>, and <three dots in form of triangle>. Please explain. Also,in the poem "Hope" by Ned Brooks, you have the word"and" written <unknown character>whereas it should be written <unknown character> of title-page of LotR again.

HARRY WARNER, JR. 423 Summit Avenue, Hagerstown, Maryland 21740

I thought that Ruth Berman made a shrewd choice when she linked the Tolkien poem with the Hebrew folk tune. It shouldn't behard tomemorize the melody by rote and it lies comfortably within the rangeof the average voice, two qualities that have been missing from someof the newly composed music I've seen to Tolkien poetry.

Incidentally, anyone who is interested in more sophisticated musicalversions of the Ring poetry mignt like to see how Brahms handleda set of poems vaguely reminiscent of those Tolkien wrote. He composed for voice and piano 15 poems by Ludwig Tieck, aGerman author. Theywere interspersed originally by Tieck in his prose version of a 12th century Provence legend about a young man's adventures in the age ofchivalry. The voice sings fairly simple melodies, frequently soundingas if it were derived from folk melody, while the piano provides quitecomplex accompaniments. Dietrich Fischer Dieskau recorded the wholebatch on a Decca lp that has been out of the catalog for a long timebut really ardent thinkers about music for Tolkien might find it in alibrary or college record collections, and it could conceivably beavailable on one of the European labels that are imported by largestores but aren't listed in the Schwann catalog. The original Germanpoems have much more the flavor of Tolkien than the English translation; but there is the major difference that Tieck was writing about astruggle for the sake of a woman's love instead of an effort to save apeople from evil and the songs reflect this romantic goal in a waythat you wont find in Tolkien's poems.

I wouldn't risk any remarks on the controversies over Tolkienlanguages and penmanship under any circ*mstances. But one thing occurred to me, time after time as I read through this issue. The arrivalof war would kill Tolkien fandom before it affected any other forms offanac. Everyone mentioned in any Tolkien fanzine would be behind barsas soon as a postal censor saw all those squiggles and unknown wordsand decided that the whole thing was a clumsy vehicle for concealingthe transmission of classified information.

Both Ned Brooks and Banks Mebane give me the strangest sense thatTolkien was an author who lived and died centuries ago, on whom modernscholarship is concentrating in an effort to unearth long-forgottensecrets about meaning. Their research is uncannily like some of theinvestigation that has been proceeding for the past couple of centuriesinto Shakespeare and the variationsin the earliest editions of hisplays. If by some chance Tolkien should be recognized eventually asone of the great writers of all time, studies like these might be thekeys toward unlocking mysteries that would be almost impossible tosolve a couple of centuries from now. Neither, I notice, mentions theluxury edition of Tolkien that is supposed to exist; but if there issuch a thing, I assume that it would be identical in text and paginationwith this or that hardcover version, and would vary only in thetype of binding and perhaps quality of paper.

The only Hollywood figure whom I'd really want to see tested asa producer or director of Tolkien fiction is Charlie Chaplin. I don'tmean that I'd like to have him turn them into comic movies. But I believethat Chaplin is one of the few Hollywood figures who had the intensity of purpose and the courage to be different, to avoid the stereotypesand obvious ways of appealing to the public. If he were youngenough, if financing could be worked out, if he were interested, I believethat he would get into the spirit of the Tolkien story and makeit something as distinguished and as different from the comedies thatwe think of when we think of Chaplin as his last two or three full-length movies were different in theme and manner from the slapstickthat made him famous.

BEN SOLON 3933 N. Janssen Chicago, Illinois 60613

Art and layout are improved greatly over the first two issues;likewise the material (it isn't my kind of stuff, but I dig the editorialpersonality).

I agree with you, Disney is probably the only film maker aroundwho could do even a half-way decent Job with LOTR. Certainly, youcould do worse --Bert I. Gordon, for example ...

I wrote to the Unwins in regard to the status of THE SILMARILLION;their reply is enclosed. It would seem that Jack Chalker isagain engaged in his ancient and honorable pastime of SpreadingFalse rumors through Fandom.

GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.
Dock Publishers
Ruskin House 40 Museum Street London W.C.I.

Ben Solon
3933 N. Janssen S.,
Chicago,
Ill. 60613

Dear Mr. Solon,

Thank you for your letter of the 25th February. I am afraid thatthe rumour you heard was untrue for Professor Tolkien is still verybusily engaged in writing THE, SILMARILLION and, since he is a perfectionist, I fear that it will be some time yet before it is ready, andcertainly not in 1966.
Yours sincerely,
for GEORGE ALLEN AND UNWIN LIMITED
(signed) Rayner Unwin

RICK OBERMEYER Box 3572 Florida State University, Tallahassee , Fla.32306

I was very disappointed in the art styles you have available.They looked too much like excerpts from a poorly produced S-F periodicalto me. The only illustrations that I felt came close to fittingmy preconceptions of Middle-Earth were those on pages 18, 20, and 21.While the cover seems to be of the same style, it loses big; but asfillers, they were great. I picture Middle-Earth as being a rough,untamed place, where beauty must either be rough itself or be protectedby the strong, or hidden away in small corners. The mood I was inas I first read Mr. Tolkien's works was like that of an impending thunderstorm. You know, the kind of "hushed stillness" just beforethe winds start to blow.

PETER SLOMAN, Dol Guldur, 625 Baseline Rd., Claremont , Calif. 91711

Good show! Stout fellow! At last there is a fanzine which is nota pain to read.

I agreewith Fräulein Rolfe

that Entmoot is less ambitiousand pretentious than most, and I hope it stays that way. In the interests of continuity, I enclose my own feeble scrivenings. I didthispoem the evening of the Liston-Clay fight.

I have been thinking for some time of a way to get ten milliondollars to produce a movie of TLOFTR, lest Uncle Walt do it first. Ihave even figured out the cast, though some of them don't sound quiteright. But how about Basil Rathbone for Saruman?

Or John Carradine asDenethor?

Possibly Leo G. Carroll as Gandalf?

For the most evil part in theBooks, whatever it may be (the Mouth of Sauron?) there must be themost evil-looking man in the world, Martin Landau. Has anyone ever considered doing a Wagnerian Opera based on the Books? It might work.

As for music, I know little about Irish or English folksongs, butthey sound about right. I think of the Rohirrim as a combination ofthe Anglo-Saxons and the Cossacks, and if it weren't for the Beowulfian quality of their songs, they should be put to Russian tunes, e.g. Stanka Razin, Meadowland, etc.

I play the recorder,a rather primitive-type instrument, and if anyone can supply me withsuitable music, I shall be eternally grateful.

Why all the fuss over the "proper" way of using the Tengwar? As Irecall, Tolkien said, that the Elves were not bound by hard and fastrules of usage, but used anything which got the sounds and meaningacross.

I keep wondering about Elrond and Earendil. The latter was thefather of the former, and Earendil was supposedly placed in the sky.(At least, his Star was.) It seems weird, to say the least, then, foranybody to be able to point out his father as being a constellation.

If Aragorn is about eighty years old when the War of the Ringtakes place, should we then think of him as looking old, or does thelongevity of the Numenoreans apply to aging of features as well asbodies?

DICK PLOTZ, 159 Marlborough Road, Brooklyn, New York 11226

Please, if you're going to print this, do so either in my mode orin Roman or Shavian. Your mode is too tedious. I like to be able toread what I write.

I have two pertinent comments to make. First, Donald Swann (from "At the Drop of a Hat") has written music to the songs in theHobbit and the LoTR, with Tolkien as consultant. They will probablybe recorded and released later this year. So much for fannish versions.

Second, Henry Resnick, son of Muriel Resnick, who wrote "Any Wednesday",is writing acomprehensive article on Tolkien to appear in the "Saturday Evening Post" in early April. One of the interesting factsto come out in Resnick's interview with the Great One was that Tolkienis very much in this world, and does not live a fantasy existence. Heactually reads three newspapers every day!!!

-/the article finally appeared in the July 2 issue, and a rather goodarticle it was. More about it in the editorial./-

THOMAS COLLINS, Book Editor, THE DAILY CALIFORNIAN, Esshleman Hall,University of California, Berkeley 4, Calif.

Dear Sir,

I am interested in doing an article on Tolkien's epic, and I find myself in need of further information. I would like to see as many different copies of "Entmoot" as you have available, and would like asmuch information about the publication as you think is relevant.

Gollum, incidentally, is being run for Ugly Man by a group of studentsknown as Orcs and Goblins. Ugly Man is voted for on the basis of theamount of money raised by the sponsoring group for Cal Camp, a summercamp run for underprivileged children in the area, and sponsored entirelyby students.

BANKS MEBANE, 6901 Strathmore St., Chevy Chase, Md. 20015

If Ned Brooks has difficulty hearing the "ng" in "think", let himtry to pronounce the word but stop before the "k". The result sounds alot more like "thing" than like "thin".

Ned's further comments in his letter point out how phonetic spelling emphasizes regional accents. I've talked to Ned several times, and hespeaks a Tidewater Virginia variant of General Southern, mixed withSouthern Highland. His Southern accent converts the vowel in "sat" intoa diphthong and it removes the r-coloring and broadens the diphthong in"there"; he doesn't pronounce "sat" like "set" (that's a different diphthong), but he does use the same vowel-sound in "sat" and "there".

After nearly driving myself crazy listening to myself pronouncewords, I think my suggestion about the "r" tengwar is valid. -- if mypronunciation is close enough to General American. Tengwa 25 would beused for fricative "r" ("retrospect"); 21 would be used both for frictionless "r" ("for", "harm") and for the "r-colored vowel" ("murder", "here", "there"). Don Simpson's mode works outso that 21 will always have an underposed dot when it represents r-coloring and will lack thedot when it is frictionless "r". I suppose he must have taken all thisinto account already, so I am only duplicating what he has thoughtthrough before me.

BOB FOSTER 376 E. 8th St. Brooklyn, N.Y. 11218

Entmoot is great - a whole fanzine in which to fight over

LotR

interpretation. I do have a few quibbles, complaints, ideas and queries plus a major point.

1) Eowyn (if it be she) on p.26 is ghastly. Her face is too thinand pale, clothing isn't right and the épée is horrible. Eowyn is

not

Reepacheep --Middle-earthers use broadswords.

2) The controversy over musical settings for Elven-songs seems tobe based on rather infirm foundations. For one thing, the musical instrumentsin

LotR

and The

Hobbit

may merely be Englished approximationsof the "real" Elvish instruments. Also, the scores of Elven-songs existonly in Tolkien's mind.

3) Finally, my main purpose. How about a big discussion - a symposium - on why people read & like Tolkien?

There are a lot of reasons: LotR is another fantasy for diehard sf'ers; it's escape for some people(although the escape is "into" something instead of "out of" our world--Audrey Weinstein); it's "something different" for frustrated would-be individualists; it's a very good book for discerning general readers; it'san opportunity for linguistic & historical study for students of languageand mythology. Why not set aside a portion of the Tîw for letters representingthese various views?

DON SIMPSON 3177 W. Fifth St. Los Angeles, California 90005

About Tengwar: I agree with Mebane's suggestion that

25

be used forregular "R" (as in "retrospect"), and

21

for the "R-colored vowels" of"either" and "harm." In Bell's "Visible Speech" there were 3 glides, an

R

-glide and

Y

and

W

glides; the

R

-glide would be 21 and his regular

R

-symbol 25. (either=<either in unknown characters>, retrospect <retrospect in unknown characters>; it's all diagrammatic--in "<unknown character>, "<unknown character>" means "point of tongue"; "/" means "vocalized"; and in the vowels "<unknown character>"is "high back" (the small "<unknown character>" is a "high front

vowel

glide") while "<unknown character>" is a "low front" vowel: I recommend Bell's book).I disapprove of using 26&28 for "rd" and "ld". I even hesitate at 3 & 7,which I feel can be rendered by 1+11 and 5+15 respectively. Keep themfor voiceless

R

&

L

unless a better suggestion is suggested. Brooks' suggestion of 24 for "nk",I loath on similar grounds: "ng" in "sing" is

one sound

, written with two letters because English has no letter for it"Nk" in "think" is

two sounds

the sound of "ng" in "sing"

plus

a "k" sound. The analogy "NK:N::NG:G" is false. I suggest we ignore 24. Brooksother suggestion-a tilde over 23 for the "ny" in "canyon"- is logicaland harmonious, and I second it. You are right about my tehtar chart. Iuse seven tehtar. Five are those Tolkien uses. One is his "A" tehta inverted "for "a" in "sat"). One is for the "uh" sound - I have been usinga dot under the letter, but I will probably be switching to a slantingmark like the "e" mark (/) only the slant will be opposite (\). Allothers on the chart are combinations for long sounds or diphthongs (English is chock-full of diphthongs). I don't think Brooks pronounces "set" and "sat" alike - "bear and "bar" is more likely. "Bare" rhymes with "air" for me, but "bear" is more a run-together "Bay-are." How do youpronounce "Beorn?" -/"bay-orn" /-. But "bear" for me is the same as "bare."

I don't think that the over-following-

or

-under-preceding-letterplacement for the tehtar is a complication (my using a dot under the following letter for "uh" was a complication-this removes it), but it

is

unnecessary. If I adopt it I shall invert the "o" and "u" curls. If Idon't adopt it, it will be because, as you say, there may be confusionas to which line a tehta belongs to.

About "Middle-Earth": I hear the Chinese call China the "MiddleKingdom" and various American and African tribes use similar terms. Andwhy do we call China "Eastern" when it's closer to the west? BecauseEngland (Greenwich, specifically) is the middle of the Earth - to theEnglish.

I have devised a system of punctuation for Tengwar which is harmonious with the letter shapes and complete even to quasi-quotes. Dan Alderson has the only copy at present. However, you need not use the modeof Beleriand. For numerals, I suggest using the letters as in Greek orHebrew, with 36 as a zero. This needs more thinking on.

FRED HOLLANDER Braave House, Lloyd House, Caltech, Pasadena, Calif.

The problem in writing and understanding the Tengwar script is notas great as it might seem. Mainly because, even if the person writinguses different pronunciations for some of the words, the person readingit can also use that pronunciation as he reads the letter. Since theyare often alike, and since any that are real stumpers can be figured outfrom context, the problem will not be too bad. In fact it is even betterin some ways than normal English, since an accent of any sort can beexprsssed in the spelling of the words a good deal better than it canin English. This would mean that any sucn communication would also carry over the personality of the speaker better than in the normal mode.

C.S. Lewis, in his Narnia books for children, developed a race of trees which moved and spoke and whose personality varied with the kindof tree that they came from. They were created by Aslan when he foundedNarnia, and although their powers diminished as different rulers came tothe country, they still existed up to the time of Caspian X. These werein some way similar to the Dryad and Hamadryadsof Latin mythology, and were in fact called by those names, though there is only one instance that I know of where they are mentioned leaving their tree form entirely,so they could not have been exactly similar.

The Dryads are, of course, another instance of "organized tree-like beings", though in this case they were separate entities whichdwelt in the trees rather than being the trees themselves come to life,as in the Narnia books.

Dick Plotz, you and I seem to have different ideas of what farewelland good-bye mean. I agree that namárië isprobably a final form, and itmay approximate to "fare well", but in English "farewell" means wishingwell on a journey with (probably) hopes for your return. Good-bye meansthe same thing but without the implication that there will be a homecoming. (This is my interpretation only; Webster says that they are exactly the same.) This is, of course, mere semantics. I prefer to use"I'll see you" or "I see you" for the temporary parting greeting, since"farewell" I reserve only for people leaving on journays, using it in its original sense. I have only used "

good bye

" once in recent years,though I have occasionally used "'bye" when too preoccupied to think ofanything else and because it is common usage.

STEVE PERKIN Box 331A Merced Hall 802 Font Blvd, San Francisco, Calif.

E. E. Evers' rhyme scheme fell off alittle bit (Eyes...seas, shores ...years) but the poem is beautiful, anyway. I consider Arwen one of the best of the understated characters of LOTR (of which there were many) and the poem captures this with precision and beauty. Very well done.

re Ned Brooksobjection to thetehtar having too many sounds for a "real" language and too few for a phonetic one, there is also a structure called a syllabary, which is supposed to fit itself between the two. However, it does this by being a series of sounds with each figure, rather than single sounds.

Ingrid von Essen, Drumsövägen 17A, Helsinki 20 Finland

I agree with Rick Brooks that if enough knowledge of Elvish couldbe gotten, the tengwar were best reserved for that. It's too dependenton pronunciation to be adapted to a language like English with so manyregional dialects. Anyway, I have both an American and a British accent,phony of course but about equally bad so I can feel objective, and Idon't quite like the thought of tengwar that reads like American. Thesounds of the New World seem singularly unfit for Middle Earth. Afterall, Tolkien himself is English.

When you read LotR, do you really hear, say, Aragorn speakingwith an American accent?

I could more easily accept British RP transcribed in tengwar. But Isuppose it'd be unnatural to lots of people. (I realize that since theydidn't speak English anyway I'm being rather ridiculous. But still.)If Disney gets hold of LotR I'll throw stones at the American embassy.

NAN RAUDE, 6721 E, McDowell Rd. Apt. 309-A, Scottsdale, Arizona 85257

A few comments on Entmoot 3:

l) On the subject of earth, I am reminded of a riddle fit, I think,to puzzle Gollum. It is the first poem in the so-called "Harley lyrics",the finest collection of Middle English lyric poetry, which dates from the first quarter of the 14th century. This poem,"Earth upon Earth."is the earliest recorded version of one of the most popular medievalmoralizing poems:

Erþe toc -/took/- of erþe erþe wyþwoh; -/wrong, harm/-
erþe oþer erþe to þe erþe droh; -/added/-
erþe leyde erþe in erþene þroh.-/grave/-
Þo -/then/- heuede -/had/- erþe ynoh.

Solutions?

2) If Banks Mebane reads Middle High German, or has a friend whodoes, he might look at the Alexanderlied, a MHG version of the life of Alexander the Great -- oneof the most popular stories of the MiddleAges. It contains an episode of flowers which turn into maidens, ormaidens who grow on trees, I'm not sure which. (I don't read Middle High,but a friend of mine once wrote a paper on the

Alexanderlied

.)

3) On music: If you are familiar with a bawdy Elizabethan song called"My Mistress Is a Hive of Bees" (it's on one of the Ed McCurdy

Dalliance

records), you will find the tune a lovely setting for "I sit beside the fire and think."

4) the theory of the world incorporating both Tolkien's geographyand C.S. Lewis's won't work: Caspian's speech in The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader",page 185, makes it clear that Narnia does not lie in around world.

JOHN CLOSSEN, 179 East Houston St., New York, NY 10002

I am somewhat puzzled by the controversy current over how best toadapt the characters of the Tengwar to the writing of English. Everyonewhose comments I have read seems to favor some more or less phoneticversion, ranging from various makeshifts to the fairly rigorous andand consistent (but also complex) systems devised by some whose knowledge of linguistics is fairly exact. Even those who deplore thistrend have failed to offer what seems to me the obvious solution.

To begin with, there are two major and somewhat interlocked objections to a highly phonetic solution. One, since pronunciation of Englishvaries from place to place in the U.S. and U.K., it follows thatusage in phonetic spelling will vary similarly. The solution to thiswould be to devise a linguistically exact uniform spelling convention. Atleast two such systems have been published that I know of; there aredoubtless many more. Which brings me to objection number two: to beginwith, students of linguistics learn to distinguish explicitly betweensounds, with a subtlety somewhat beyond the concern of many, and [UNREADABLE] the ability of some to acquire. The difficulty of having to be able tospell everything accurately in the international phonetic alphabet orthe like before essaying to write the same in phonetic Elvish shouldbe obvious enough. In addition, does fan X of Littleville Georgia rendera phonetic equivalent of his own local dialect (objection One again)or of the King's English, with which he is perhaps not accurately familiar or in some mythical American Standard known only to speech department faculties in Northeastern U.S.? Finally: ever try to teachanyone Tengwar? There are a hell of a lot of people who would love tolearn it but balk at the idea of having to take a short course (forsome, not so short!) on linguistics first.

There is, however, at least one aspect of English with which everyliterate user of the language is familiar- or should be, and will readilyadmit it -and that of course is the spelling. True, spelling variations exist especially between US and UK, but these are minor andmoreover are tabulated in most dictionaries. Now the spelling of Englishis wildly unphonetic - a linguistic nightmare.

BUT

IT IS WIDELY KNOW AND ACCEPTED!! Therefore, why not spell the Fëanorian version as nearly like written English as possible? This is no more difficult thandevising an elaborate phonetic system. If a phonetic system must be devised,why not adopt one for writing something like a generalized international phonetic alphabet, applicable to any modern language? Afterall, what is to happen when Tolkien is eventually translated? ArabicTengwar maybe? Japanese Tengwar? Urdu or Hindi or Telugu Tengwar? Iforesee much delightful work for the scholars.

Another problem comes to mind, however, which may prove far moreserious than divergent spellings, and this is the use of contractions,abbreviations, atypical ligatures and other incunabula. I have devisedsome of these, but have kept my inventive urges in check somewhat, sinceI did not wish to become illegible to my correspondents. The end resultof this trend might easily be a script with few or no phonetic equivalents,or at least no strict phonetic equivalents - and not in the originalsense in which Tolkien says the Tengwar was devised either. As anillustration, let us take the conjugation of a verb. In Tengwar, theverb run =< tengwar script>. By devising a set of signs (we might call them 'radicals' - sound familiar?) to indicate various tenses, these could bewritten without bothering about the spelled endings at all. They would have no definite phonetic value, the silent reader simply recognizingthem as tense radicals, and the reader aloud speaking the appropriatesounds for the spoken tenses. Since there would be only one such set,the written conjugation of all verbs would be perfectly regular, regardlessof the variety of the spoken forms. Similarly for comparisonof adjectives, and so on. Some point of balance would have to bearrived at between the spoken and written forms that would be upto the writer. Surprisingly few symbols would be needed, and theywould be of use for any languages whose structures might more or less correspond. The advantages of such an international syncretic script are interesting to consider. There might exist a single

written

language, whose symbols would be pronounced, if at all, in the reader'sown speech, whatever it was, the symbols having no unique phonetic value. Of course, arbitrary values might be assigned, producing aspoken language which could be written in any script, as long as variant writings (like Tengwar--) survived.

Meanwhile we all go on devising and defending our own particularpreferences in crypto-feänorian...

Yes I would like further issues of Entmoot, and by all means publish this letter if you have a mind. /-I think I do/- I would like tohear the response.

P.S. Comment on Don Simpson's system E.2 - I might suggest that <Tengwar letter> and<Tengwar letter> be used for rd and ld instead of RH and LH, since RD and LD arecommon endings in English, and RH and LH are relatively rare. LD especially occurs in phonetically reduced form in could, would, etc.