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Queen Beruthiel

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Queen Beruthiel

Postby A#minor » October 9th, 2005, 2:56 am

Here's little-known tid-bit about Tolkien's LOTR.

40) Who was Queen Beruthiel? (Aragorn mentioned her during the journey through Moria.)

The reference is to Book II, Ch 4 "A Journey in the Dark": " 'Do not be afraid!' said Aragorn. There was a pause longer than usual, and Gandalf and Gimli were whispering together; ... 'Do not be afraid! I have been with him on many a journey, if never on one so dark; ... He is surer of finding the way home in a blind night than the cats of Queen Beruthiel.' " (FR p. 325).

This is a striking case of Tolkien's creative process. It seems that
the name meant nothing when it first appeared: it just "came" as he was
writing the first draft of the chapter. Later, however, he "found out" whom she "actually" was, his conclusions being reported in UT.

She was the wife of King Tarannon of Gondor (Third Age 830-913), and was described as "nefarious, solitary, and loveless" (Tarannon's childlessness was mentioned without explanation in the annals). "She had nine black cats and one white, her slaves, with whom she conversed, or read their memories, setting them to discover all the dark secrets of Gondor,... setting the white cat to spy upon the black, and tormenting them. No man in Gondor dared touch them; all were afraid of them, and cursed when they saw them pass." Her eventual fate was to be set adrift in a boat with her cats: "The ship was last seen flying past Umbar under a sickle moon, with a cat at the masthead and another as a figure-head on the prow." It is also told that "her name was erased from the Book of the Kings (`but the memory of men is not wholly shut in books, and the cats of Queen Beruthiel never passed wholly out of men's speech')." (UT, pp 401-402)


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"My brain and this world don't fit each other, and there's an end of it!" - G.K. Chesterton
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re: Queen Beruthiel

Postby magpie » October 10th, 2005, 4:18 pm

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re: Queen Beruthiel

Postby Zeuxis » October 11th, 2005, 11:05 pm

I already knew her from the ICE's sourcebook entitled "Treasures of Middle-Earth" (1994). There are some references to that queen and her dreadful cats (but it could also have been to those cats and that dreadful queen, I can't remember ;) :D)

I used to buy these kinds of books not to play RPG but to get a better insight into Tolkien's world. This was before all the marketing surrounding the movies.

Nowadays, ICE is no longer in charge of that license whereas, all things considered, they did a pretty good job :rolleyes:
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