What will you be doing on your 91st birthday? If you are Sir Christopher Lee, you are releasing a heavy metal album based on the life of the French ruler Charlemagne. Recorded with Judas Priest guitarist Richie Faulkner, Charlemagne: The Omens of Deathis the follow-up to Lee’s 2010 release Charlemagne: By the Swordand the Cross. One can only hope to be so active in their Nineties! [Audio CD] [MP3 Download] [Vinyl]
Lee was born in Belgravia, Westminster, England on May 27th 1922 – making him exactly 91 years old today. We all know his work as Saruman in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings films, but did you know Sir Lee holds the world record for most film acting roles ever ! We at TheOneRing.net would like to continue to offer a good pint of well-earned ale as a toast to a true master of his craft! A better portrayal of Saruman there will never be! Cheers!
We’ve got a great reason to build up your Tolkien t-shirt collection! From now through Monday, we are offering 25% OFF our entire catalog with purchase of $30 or more. The sale includes our most popular designs: OBEY (The Eye of Sauron), May the Dwarves be With You, ‘I Like Big Books…,’ Lake Town Archery Club, Peter’s Dragon and more! We have also heard your feedback and adjusted our shipping rates to make purchasing even easier and more affordable. Don’t delay, this 25% Off offer is only good through Monday night at Midnight (Pacific). [Click here] As always, when you support TheOneRing.net all proceeds go to directly running the website. We are a true 100% volunteer not for profit website. Thank you in advance!
On May 25th, 1939, in the town of Burnley in northern England, the talented and beloved Sir Ian McKellen was born. Here’s to an amazing life, an amazing career, and to hoping you had a wonderful birthday!! If you haven’t already, send your Birthday wishes directly to Ian on Facebook or Twitter. [Ian McKellen Facebook] [Ian McKellen Twitter] And as a small mathom, here’s a rare pic of Ian as Gandalf without his beard!
…The boy nodded his understanding. “Can I ask you something?” The Jedi Master nodded. “What are midi-chlorians?” Wind whipped at Qui-Gon’s long hair, blowing strands of it across his strong face. “Midi-chlorians are microscopic life-forms that reside within the cells of all living things and communicate with the Force.”…
…”Use the Force, Luke.”…
…Raistlin lifted his thin, frail hand and allowed the spell component he had taken from his pouch to fall slowly from between his fingers onto the deck of the boat. Sand, Tanis realized. “Ast tasarak sinuralan krynawi,” Raistlin murmured, and then moved his right hand slowly in an arc parallel to the shore….
…”The One Power,” Moiraine was saying, “comes from the True Source, the driving force of Creation, the force the Creator made to turn the Wheel of Time.”…
Bibbidi, bobbidi, boo.
There seem to be almost as many ways of representing magic as there are fantasy writers. Role-players know the whole system with mages, spell components, spellbooks, the language of magic, etc. Jordan fans can tell you the ins and outs of the One Power, complete with a discourse on the varying characteristics of saidar and saidin, and the innumerable levels of strength among Aes Sedai. And Star Wars geeks (a word I use with love, considering that I myself am a dyed-in-the-wool geek!) were stunned when Lucas started explaining the universe-balancing Force with microscopic middlemen, instead of with the innate power of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. What ties them in common is that they each have a system, a framework with rules and laws almost more complicated than those of physics. Mages lose their spells after one casting, and must rest and recommit the words to memory before casting again. Aes Sedai spend years in training, because abuse of the One Power can too easily lead to death… and evidently you’ve got to be well-stocked on single-celled symbionts (is that even a word? My spellchecker sure doesn’t like it) to even make a dent in the Force. Fantasy writers delight in coming up with their own, hopefully brand-new systems, to give their books that added twist, that spark that no other sword-swinging Elf-hopping kender-singing dragon-flying books have. But what about Tolkien? Where is the system? What are the rules which govern the making of Rings of Power, which delineate the powers and limits of Istari, of Maiar, of Valar? He never talks about a framework or physical laws; we only see the results of the power’s use. Where does the power come from?
If you have a Tolkien/Middle-earth inspired poem you’d like to share, then send it to poetry@theonering.net. One poem per person may be submitted each month. Please make sure to proofread your work before sending it in. TheOneRing.net is not responsible for poems posting with spelling or grammatical errors.
Red Carpet’s Premiere Tour group dressed up for their Hobbiton visit
Red Carpet is steadily adding new locations into its tours in the light of the new Hobbit movie, says director Vic James.
“We’re pretty excited because since the Unexpected Journey came out, we’ve been able to add new sites and new people,” James says. “We visit landowners and check out new locations on a regular basis, as information and invitations come to hand.
“The Premiere Tour last November was the first to visit some of the new places and when the time is right for further landowners to allow visits, we will add them in.”
The north island leg of the tour includes, as before, Hobbiton and the central volcanic plateau that served as Mt Doom. A new feature are some rapids where the dwarves’ more hair-raising barrel-riding scenes were filmed.
The ‘top’ of the South Island is a beautiful addition to the tour, James says. Nelson, with its sunny bay ringed by mountains, is reached by a ferry cruise through the beautiful fjords of Marlborough Sounds. There’s a stop along the way at Pelorus Bridge, scene of Bilbo and the dwarves’ barrel-riding adventures.
Red Carpet’s LOTR tours always include visits to extras, artisans, actors and crew members for the films. Halfdan Hansen, son of the real-life Ringmaker for LOTR, has his studio in Nelson and has created a new version of the Ring, invisibly weighted with some denser metal so that it lies strangely heavy on the palm of the hand.
In Nelson there is also the option to take a two-and-a-half hour helicopter flight to Dimrill Dale and South of Rivendell. The flights have been a huge success with tour guests.
Olympus Rocks – a place to hide from the spies of Saruman
To accommodate the extra locations, tours are now 14 days duration. People can also choose to join the North Island 6 day or the South Island 10 day options. “It’s a long way to come to not see it all,” James says.
In his second of many articles for our worldwide community, Tedoras, long-time audience participant on our TORn TUESDAY webcast brings us a fascinating idea: a lost connection to the Beacons of Gondor perhaps… Read on for a short but very interesting look at how an ancient Biblical account may have inspired Tolkien! Take it away, Tedoras….
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The (Biblical) Beacons of Gondor
By Tedoras — special to TheOneRing.net
This past April 28th happened to be the Jewish holiday of Lag B’Omer (the 33rd day of the Counting of the Sheaves, to be more precise). Now, you are probably wondering how this little-known holiday relates to The Lord of the Rings(and, if you’re like me, you’d like to know what a “sheaf” is, too). It turns out a sheaf is a bundle for cereal plants—fortunately for us all, though, my story has nothing to do with Biblical agriculture. Rather, it begins with The Return of the King.
If you are like me, you love those amazing fly-by shots from The Lord of the Ringsfilms. One of the most epic sequences of such shots is the lighting of the beacons in ROTK(refresh your memory here). Whether your first encounter with these mountaintop fires was in literature or film, you probably thought it was an ingenious mode of communication. Certainly, they are by far the best means for sending urgent messages across long distances (and I hope the Gondorian who urged their construction was handsomely rewarded). In order to see the connection between these beacons and the aforementioned holiday, it is important to know the story of Lag B’Omer.
In short, Lag B’Omer commemorates a revolt in the year 131 CE. The Israelites, under the leadership of Bar Kochba, rose up against the Romans, who ruled the land at that time. Years before the Romans came, the Israelites had built a series of m’durot, or bonfires, upon the surrounding mountains. So, when the revolt began, (you guessed it) Bar Kochba ordered a beacon lit. A soldier took a torch to the top of a mountain, lit one the beacons, and thus sent word around the land that war had begun.
Certainly, the use of the beacons of Gondor to call for Rohan’s aid is reminiscent of this episode. Yet, was Tolkien inspired by this Biblical tale in his creation of the beacons? On the one hand, we know Tolkien was well-versed in the Bible; his contemporaneous English education saw to that. Furthermore, Tolkien was a lifelong scholar—thus, if not in school, it is likely he would have encountered this story on his own. Assuming Tolkien was acquainted with this tale, the unanswerable question here, of course, is whether or not he consciously recognized the Bible as their source.
However, on the other hand, a case can certainly be made that Tolkien knew not of the story of Bar Kochba’s revolt. For a realm the size of Gondor, it would make sense to have a system for mass-communication in the event of any important occurrence. And, while these beacons also housed fresh horses on stand-by for couriers, it is clear that signal fires would be a much faster means. The independent invention of the beacons is not only possible in terms of the technology available to Gondor at the time, but it is also becoming of the prudence and wisdom of the Gondorian kings of Old.
This is one of many familiar situations to us Tolkien fans: is there a “right” answer here? Personally, I do not think it really matters; I intended only to present a surprising and uncanny resemblance upon which I happened to stumble. But, of course, such a topic is up for interpretation—so I will let you decide for yourself.
What will you be doing on your 91st birthday? If you are Sir Christopher Lee, you are releasing a heavy metal album based on the life of the French ruler Charlemagne. Recorded with Judas Priest guitarist Richie Faulkner, Charlemagne: The Omens of Death is the follow-up to Lee’s 2010 release Charlemagne: By the Sword and the Cross. One can only hope to be so active in their Nineties! [Audio CD] [MP3 Download] [Vinyl]
