Post by Cuarlang / Legladhor on Nov 22, 2013 2:25:12 GMT -5
The other day I noticed what I think is something of an easter egg in the new expansion.
In the course of the epic quest chain Éowyn mentions a certain woman of Harrowdale named Ellen Fremedon. When I read that name in the quest text I thought "'Ellen Fremedon'... that doesn't sound Rohirric, like the names of pretty much all the other NPCs I've encountered from Great River on southward... yet it sounds vaguely familiar." Then I realized: it's from the Old English poem Beowulf.
Beowulf's first three lines read thusly:
Hwæt! wē Gār-Dena in geār-dagum
þēod-cyninga þrym gefrūnon,
hū þā æðelingas ellen fremedon.
Listen! We have heard of the glory of the Spear-Danes
in the old days, the kings of tribes—
how noble princes showed great courage!
(translated by Howell D. Chickering, Jr.)
To hear not only how such lines sound but also how they were meant to be recited, check out the following clip of Benjamin Bagby's performance of the poem:
(Now, before you let Mr. Bagby's over-the-top delivery detract from your enjoyment of the performance, picture him performing thusly, not as a modern medieval musicologist in a solemnly silent theater in front of a couple hundred dour Swedes, but rather as a 7th-century Anglo-Saxon bard in a fire-lit mead hall (not unlike those we've seen depicted in LotRO since the Great River was added) before a few dozen doughty huscarls and their lord, all of them eating and drinking and chatting and so on. I don't doubt that an aggressive, arresting delivery would be needed when seeking to engage with such an audience.)
Being no Tolkien scholar, I can hardly elaborate on the matter, but suffice it to say that Tolkien was sufficiently interested in Beowulf and influenced/inspired by it that in 1936 he gave a lecture entitled "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" regarding literary criticism on the poem.
Given how the name Ellen Fremedon stands out among those of the other Rohirrim NPCs — that is, it doesn't fit the Anglo-Saxon pattern of a two-element name, cf. Éothain, Sigmar, Gúthlaf, et al. — I can only surmise that the naming of this NPC thusly is in tribute to that Old English poem which Tolkien found so fascinating.
In the course of the epic quest chain Éowyn mentions a certain woman of Harrowdale named Ellen Fremedon. When I read that name in the quest text I thought "'Ellen Fremedon'... that doesn't sound Rohirric, like the names of pretty much all the other NPCs I've encountered from Great River on southward... yet it sounds vaguely familiar." Then I realized: it's from the Old English poem Beowulf.
Beowulf's first three lines read thusly:
Hwæt! wē Gār-Dena in geār-dagum
þēod-cyninga þrym gefrūnon,
hū þā æðelingas ellen fremedon.
Listen! We have heard of the glory of the Spear-Danes
in the old days, the kings of tribes—
how noble princes showed great courage!
(translated by Howell D. Chickering, Jr.)
To hear not only how such lines sound but also how they were meant to be recited, check out the following clip of Benjamin Bagby's performance of the poem:
(Now, before you let Mr. Bagby's over-the-top delivery detract from your enjoyment of the performance, picture him performing thusly, not as a modern medieval musicologist in a solemnly silent theater in front of a couple hundred dour Swedes, but rather as a 7th-century Anglo-Saxon bard in a fire-lit mead hall (not unlike those we've seen depicted in LotRO since the Great River was added) before a few dozen doughty huscarls and their lord, all of them eating and drinking and chatting and so on. I don't doubt that an aggressive, arresting delivery would be needed when seeking to engage with such an audience.)
Being no Tolkien scholar, I can hardly elaborate on the matter, but suffice it to say that Tolkien was sufficiently interested in Beowulf and influenced/inspired by it that in 1936 he gave a lecture entitled "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" regarding literary criticism on the poem.
Given how the name Ellen Fremedon stands out among those of the other Rohirrim NPCs — that is, it doesn't fit the Anglo-Saxon pattern of a two-element name, cf. Éothain, Sigmar, Gúthlaf, et al. — I can only surmise that the naming of this NPC thusly is in tribute to that Old English poem which Tolkien found so fascinating.
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