Tonight To Do for Tolkien freaks

:P

is there a specific story to those odd-looking poles they’re holding?

And more not-comics news, but it’s pretty cool…
(Well… “In The Night Kitchen” has word balloons, so maybe Sendak is a cartoonist?)

Where the Wild Things Are: Original Drawings by Maurice Sendak
October 6 through November 1, 2009
Morgan Library and Museum

Full listing here:
http://therumpus.net/2009/10/wild-things-take-ny-the-spike-jonze-special/

is there a specific story to those odd-looking poles they’re holding?

I didn’t find any indications in glossaries that there are specific terms for the staffs. A fan fiction story described combat with the staffs:

LONG OROPHIN FANFIC PASSAGE DELETED BY THE EDITOR.

SYN : NO TOLKIEN FAN FIC QUOTING. That goes for everyone.

Tom, you’ll have to ask Colleen. She’s creative, apparently.

No fanfic? awww…

I was about to link to my Gimli/Meriadoc Brandybuck story titled “I Am No Man!”…

Happy to help out with your arms and armor studies, Tom. It’s always a pleasure to aid the boys who don’t know their toys.

The elf twins are pictured with medieval lances which could run between 9 and 16 feet long. I used photo reference I acquired myself at a reenactment, and the arms and armor are accurate.

Of course a pike could be even longer than a lance: up to 20 feet.

Lances were sometimes heavily decorated, especially for tourneys, hence the leaf design here, which I thought appropriate considering the subject. The lances I used for reference were wound by ribbons.

The little woman is capable of doing basic research, apparently.

I’m sorry, was my question somehow insulting? I know that Tolkien has a meticulously detailed world and I couldn’t remember lances being a big part of that. I’m not really a medieval weapons guy, I’m afraid. Thanks for the info.

No, I thought your question was funny. Tone is notoriously hard to convey online, so I suppose my tone didn’t come across as funny, either. Sorry about that, and no worries.

Tolkien wrote of weapons a lot, but usually doesn’t describe them in detail. He wrote of spears specifically, but there is little info on size and shape, except for the spear of Gil Galad. Which was supposed to be big. How big, I don’t know.

I’ve been doing a series of drawings for prelim work for a painting of the rescue of Celebrian, and I’m really not sure how to approach the weapons there. I’m rooting around a bit on the visuals.

Yeah, I’m a Tolkien geek.

In the end, the elves may get Colt revolvers. You never know.

And to totally geek you out, the spear of Gil Galad is briefly referred to as a lance in “Fellowship”, and was nine feet long with a blade two feet long. I dunno if it would have been as thick as my funny-looking poles. But here’s the direct link for info at Tolkien Wiki:

http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Aeglos

So, there’s my precedence for the use of cavalry lances in Tolkien art.

And now everyone knows what a big Tolkien nerd I am.

I was talking to someone or other at Baltimore, ans we both mentioned “Kel-e-born” and looked at each other and said, “Wow we are geeks.”

It’s the hard C that clinches it. Sort of like knowing who really studied Latin, and who’s just Catholic.

I can always tell a real Tolkien geek, because a Tolkien geek would remember the line from “The Fall of Gil Galad”:

“His sword was long,
His lance was keen…”

Dude.

Lance.

It’s right there.

When a real Tolkien geek looks at this drawing, it precipitates an argument about whether or not the horses would have tack. No one has ever asked about the lances before.

My precedent for the tack on the horses is the scene in “Fellowship” where Glorfindel shows up riding a horse with tack. With bells on.

You should hear me and Mike Kaluta argue about the color of Legolas’s hair.

I should stop now, because they are going to cart me off to a hospital in a moment.