Middle-earth Journeys
It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door…You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.
No doubt.Riv Res wrote: But, I also do not believe that the Professor was above having some fun as if saying..."Hey! Look what I can do with language." IMHO
But if his goal was to create a mythological world for Great Britian langauges would be a huge part of making it authentic. As would his maps too. All to soon Tolkien was taken from his work. Can you imagine if he had the life of an Eldar and living 50 more years to work on his world? 
I second that! That's what I feel the most sad aboutI suspect he was the kind of world-builder whose work would just get deeper, richer, and more complex, with the same satisfactions, frustrations, and questions we now have with the body of his work still very much present in the additions. And it would never be finished! And you know what? Bring it on! I would not want it any other way.
...the story can't go on and on.If Gandalf did know about the ring, one would have to accept that he did't know which ring it was. In LOTR he travels to look through the archives to find out which characteristics were on the ring and then checks with Frodo on his return.Riv Res wrote:Bruce, I believe it is actually is in Unfinished Tales, that Gandalf virtually admits that he sent Bilbo with Thorin so that Bilbo could find the Ring. How much he actually knew and how much was mere chance and conjecture is a little hazy. I believe that Tolkien liked it that way.
It is not often noted, but had it not been for the valor of the Kings and peoples of the Lonely Mountain, Erebor, and Dale, an enormous orc army would have swept over the North while our heroes were fighting on the Pelennor Fields. Again from the LOTR Appendix A:"Master Gandalf, I know you only by sight, but now I should be glad to speak with you. For you have often come into my thoughts of late, as if I were bidden to seek you. Indeed I should have done so, if I had known where to find you."
Gandalf looked at him with wonder. "That is strange, Thorin Oakenshield," he said. "For I have thought of you also; and though I am on my way to the Shire, it was in my mind that is the way also to your halls."
"Call them so, if you will," said Thorin. "They are only poor lodgings in exile. But you would be welcome there, if you would come. For they say that you are wise and know more than any other of what goes on in the world; and I have much on my mind and would be glad of your counsel."
"I will come," said Gandalf; "for I guess that we share one trouble at least. The Dragon of Erebor is on my mind, and I do not think that he will be forgotten by the grandson of Thror."
The story is told elsewhere of what came of that meeting: of the strange plan that Gandalf made for the help of Thorin, and how Thorin and his companions set out from the Shire on the quest of the Lonely Mountain that came to great ends unforeseen."
Also, keep in mind that Gandalf's little "side-trip" away from Thorin's expedition was none other than the gathering of the White Council that drove Sauron out of Dol Guldur, not exactly a small undertaking. In addition, think of all the important allies Gandalf connected or reconnected with along the way -- Elrond and the elves of Rivendell, the Great Eagles, Beorn, Thranduil and the elves of Mirkwood, Bard and the people of Laketown/Dale, and Dain Ironfoot and his people who re-established the Kingdom Under the Mountain after Thorin's death.So it was that when the War came at last the main assault was turned southwards; yet even so with his far-stretched right hand Sauron might have done great evil in the North, if King Dain and King Brand had not stood in his path. Even as Gandalf said afterwards to Frodo and Gimli, when they dwelt together for a time in Minas Tirith . . . .
"I grieved at the fall of Thorin . . . and now we hear that Dain has fallen, fighting in Dale again, even while we fought here. I should call that a heavy loss, if it was not a wonder rather that in his great age he could still wield his axe as mightily as they say that he did, standing over the body of King Brand before the Gate of Erebor until the darkness fell."
"Yet things might have gone far otherwise and far worse. When you think of the great Battle of the Pelennor, do not forget the battles in Dale and the valour of Durin's Folk. Think of what might have been. Dragon-fire and savage swords in Eriador, night in Rivendell. There might be no Queen in Gondor. We might now hope to return from the victory here only to ruin and ash. But that has been averted -- because I met Thorin Oakshield one evening on the edge of spring in Bree. A chance-meeting, as we say in Middle Earth."
