A Tribble of Middle-earth

When you have watched the waves washing up against the crumbling walls of the harbour of Mithlond,

when you have had shepherd’s pie in the Prancing Pony and burned your tongue,

when your weary feet have trudged the lonely miles between the Weathertop and the Last Bridge, all one hundred and twenty of them,

when you have listened to songs and stories in Rivendell and learned how to say meleth nîn and the words of an ancient Quenyan hymn,

when you have picked a snow drop at Cerin Amroth and thought it to be a niphredil,

when you have stood on the terrace in front of the Golden Hall of Meduseld and shivered in the cold wind blowing down from the snowy peaks of the Irensaga,

when you have learned the names of all the Gondorian beacon hills and can sing them to an old teaching song,

when you have had a pint in the Laughing Oliphaunt and tried to spot Iorlas in the crowd,

when you have set sail from Dol Amroth to find the Straight Way,

when you have heard tales about the kine of Rhûn on the shores of the Eastern Sea, drinking red wine from Dorwinion,

when you have haggled for sweet dates and sesame bread with street-merchants in Umbar and barely kept the shirt on your back,

when you have danced with the hobbits around the mallorn tree on the Party Field,

when you have celebrated New Year’s Day in Osgiliath, breathless in the arms of a dark-haired, grey-eyed ranger of the South,

when you have seen the floods of the River Carnen flow down from the Iron Hills in bright red floods over black sands,

when you have wandered farther still, where the stars are strange…

…then you are a fanfiction writer of Middle-earth.

oooOooo

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A/N: This was written for my first fanfiction anniversary on June 28, 2005. I hope you have enjoyed this little ramble through Middle-earth.

oooOooo

tribble – a tribble is a drabble that multiplied and grew from exactly 100 words to exactly 300 words as counted by MS Word. (Fun fact from LOTR fandom)

obscure canon references –

Mithlond – the Grey Havens; the place where Elrond & co sailed away from at the end of the movies and at the end of the books, too

Prancing Pony – the inn in Bree where the Hobbits stay on their way to Rivendell

Weathertop – the hill where Frodo was wounded on the way to Rivendell

Last Bridge – the bridge across the Mitheithel on the way to Rivendell

120 miles – according to the atlas of Middle-earth by Karen Wynn-Fonstad

meleth nîn – Sindarin for “my love”

Quenya – the older Elvish language, kind of the Elvish equivalent to Latin

Cerin Amroth – hill in Lothlórien where Amroth had his house; at the time of the War of the Rings the house was no longer there and the hill was covered in grass, in which the flowers elanor and niphredil blossomed

niphredil – a small flower with a slender stem and white or pale green blossoms growing in Lórien and especially on Cerin Amroth

the Golden Hall of Meduseld – the palace and most hallowed hall of the Rohirrim in Edoras

Irensaga – a saw-toothed mountain of the Ered Nimrais near Edoras

the Gondorian beacon hills – the hills on top of which the signal fires were lit to call Rohan for aid in war; the teaching song is one I wrote and it can be found at TFF (Tolkien Fan Fiction)

the Laughing Oliphaunt – belongs to Aeneid who graciously allowed me to refer to it here; it is a pub in Minas Tirith of her wonderful Tolkien fanfiction stories that can be found at HASA (Henneth Annûn Story Archive)

Iorlas – a man of Gondor and uncel of Bergil

Dol Amroth – castle and port, the chief city of Belfalas in Gondor

the Straight Way – the way across the Sundering Seas towards Aman, the Undying Lands, the Blessed Realm of the Elves

the kine of Rhûn – a kind of large white ox; also called the kine of Araw which lived near the Sea of Rhûn; Boromir’s horn was made of one of these kine

Eastern Sea – the sea of Rhûn

Dorwinion – land northwest of the shores of the Sea of Rhûn; the wines from Dorwinion were drunk by the Elves of the Woodland Realm

Umbar – the city and port of the Corsairs of Umbar in Harad

mallorn tree in the Party Field – Sam put the seed of a mallorn tree he had from Galadriel into the earth at the Party Field, where the minions of Saruman had cut down the party tree; it grew to be the only mallorn tree outside of Lórien and every year the Hobbits celebrated the day when it first blossomed

rangers of the South – the men at Henneth Annûn

River Carnen – Carnen means “Redwater” it flows out of the Iron Hills where the dwarves had mines, mainly for iron

oooOooo

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