This list is specific to the revised text of The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion first published in 2008 by HarperCollins. See here for addenda and corrigenda to the original edition of 2005, and here for addenda and corrigenda to the new edition added by date (beginning 4 May 2008).
A few of the changes we submitted for the new edition were not incorporated, or only partially incorporated, and further errors were introduced in editing and typesetting. Most notably, because two corrections to the order of notes were overlooked, accompanying changes to page references in the index (which were taken up) became erroneous; and because a long note from our Web page was inserted in the book without our knowledge, we found too late that a new page break produced in the index still more errors (of fact or omission).
Here, as elsewhere, The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion is abbreviated RC for convenience, e.g. ‘RC:655’ = Reader’s Companion, p. 655.
p. xvii, l. 17: For ‘messges’ read ‘messages’.
p. xxiii, l. 12 from bottom: For ‘Book III’ read ‘Book II’.
p. xlvi, l. 6: For ‘Minas Morghul’ read ‘Minas Morgul’.
p. lxiv, l. 5 from bottom: Delete ‘in Anórien,’.
p. lxv, ll. 2–3: For ‘Andrast’, not in Anórien. ‘My father’ read ‘Andrast. My father’.
p. lxxviii, l. 18 from bottom: For ‘stealthily’ read ‘shabbily’.
p. 4, ll. 17–18: For ‘in height between 3 and 4 feet in height’ read ‘in height between 3 and 4 feet’. Our transcription from the Bodleian manuscript has ‘in height’ twice, but Christopher Tolkien’s transcription published in Unfinished Tales, p. 287, has only the first instance, and is undoubtedly correct.
p. 33, note on Boffins: Fredrik Ström reminds us that a ‘Sergeant Boffin’ appears in Tolkien’s Mr. Bliss.
p. 52, ll. 12–23: On eleventy-first, see further, the discussion of eleventy-one in Peter Gilliver, Jeremy Marshall, and Edmund Weiner, The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary (2006), pp. 112–13.
p. 56, l. 16 from bottom: In Amon Hen 199 (May 2006), p. 23, David Doughan comments that we could have said more about the word gaffer. While we would not go as far as he suggests, we should have mentioned that gaffer is recorded in general English dialect use also with the meaning ‘grandfather’, and is found ‘prefixed to a proper name as a term of respect’ (English Dialect Dictionary).
p. 65, l. 6 from bottom: For ‘backarraper’ read ‘backarapper’. As backrapper, the word is recorded by Joseph Wright in his English Dialect Dictionary as Warwickshire dialect. See also Peter Gilliver, Jeremy Marshall, and Edmund Weiner, The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary (2006), pp. 92–3.
p. 76, l. 5: For ‘many an age, I hope’ read ‘many an age’.
p. 97, block quotation at foot of page: At the end of the first paragraph, the three-dot ellipsis should be a four-dot ellipsis, i.e. including the full stop after ‘again’.
p. 108, note on Borgil: In ‘A Definitive Identification of Tolkien’s “Borgil”: An Astronomical and Literary Approach’, Tolkien Studies 2 (2005), pp. 161–70, Kristine Larsen also argues that Borgil should be identified with Aldebaran, ‘the sole astronomical object which truly fits the etymological, astronomical, and literary evidence’. ‘However,’ she adds, ‘in the end, one can never know with absolute certainty whether Tolkien meant for Aldebaran to be Borgil (as astronomical inaccuracies do infrequently appear in his work), unless further manuscripts are discovered which shed light on his thinking in this matter’ (p. 168).
p. 116: The text from The Hunt for the Ring given here continues in Marquette MSS 4/2/36 with a comment by Tolkien that the Nazgûl would not touch the Baranduin, as its waters were ‘Elvish’. In Unfinished Tales, p. 344, Christopher Tolkien comments that his father ‘nowhere explained the Ringwraiths’ fear of water’, and quotes relevant words from MSS 4/2/36. ‘But it is not made clear’, he adds, how the Ringwraiths ‘crossed other rivers that lay in their path, such as the Greyflood. . . . My father did indeed note that the idea was difficult to sustain.’ Nonetheless, it is an issue we might have done well to explore in a note. Our memories are unclear as to why we did not.
p. 137, ll. 13–17 from bottom: Although the OED cited as the earliest use of barrow-wight Lang’s Essays in Little (1891), Peter Gilliver, Jeremy Marshall, and Edmund Weiner in The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary (2006), p. 216, note that the compound appeared much earlier still, in Grettis Saga: The Story of Grettir the Strong, translated by William Morris and Eiríkr Magnússon (London, 1869), Chapter 18: ‘Everything in their way was kicked out of place, the barrow-wight setting on with hideous eagerness. . . .’
p. 155, l. 14: For ‘some time considerable’ read ‘some considerable’.
pp. 175–6: The notes beginning 193 (I: 206). the Silmarils and 193 (I: 206). the Elves of the West are reversed in order.
p. 218, ll. 17–18 from bottom: For ‘bearing a flame’ read ‘flame-bearer’. See further, Peter Gilliver, Jeremy Marshall, and Edmund Weiner in The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary (2006), pp. 132–3. Flammifer is Latin; compare aquifer ‘water-bearer’, conifer ‘cone-bearer’, etc.
p. 264, l. 9 from bottom: For ‘war horn’ read ‘war-horn’.
pp. 321–3: The notes beginning 362 (I: 377): ‘And you?’ she said and 362 (I: 377): ‘Many things I can command are reversed in order.
p. 327, ll. 7–17 after titling: In Amon Hen 199 (May 2006), p. 24, Helen Armstrong adds to our note that ‘“long home” is a term that exists in Middle English, meaning simply “the grave”’. Tolkien himself comments on the phrase at the start of Some Contributions to Middle English Lexicography (Review of English Studies, April 1925, p. 210), noting an unrecorded occurrence (‘langan hame’) in the Old English Vision of Leofric which is ‘specially interesting in showing that the expression meant “grave” and not “the future life,” or “heaven”’.
p. 343, l. 14 after titling: For ‘of Second’ read ‘of the Second’.
p. 361, ll. 4–7 from bottom: Julian Wilson remarks in correspondence that the plural hilts has the same sense as the singular hilt. Tolkien evidently came to prefer hilt and emended some instances of hilts in The Lord of the Rings. Later editors have noted his preference and applied it to corrected texts of this work.
p. 370, l. 25: For ‘436’ read ‘437’.
p. 383, l. 1: Preceding this note should be a paragraph heading: 464 (II: 67): ‘Hoo now!’ replied Treebeard.
p. 383, ll. 6–7: Timothy Fisher has queried our statement that ain’t is ‘generally pronounced very like “ent”’. Indeed, the general pronunciation of ain’t, according to current dictionaries as well as the OED, uses the rising vowel sound as in day, not the short e of went. What we should have said was that the construction of Treebeard’s ‘Ents but ain’t’ strongly suggests that Tolkien meant to make a joke based on a similar pronunciation of Ent and ain’t. Many readers have taken it as such, e.g. in the Rómenna Meeting Report of 24 August 1985, it is ‘noted that in at least some British dialects, the words “Ent” and “ain’t” are probably pronounced identically’. Certainly there was in Tolkien’s England, and is still, considerable regional variation in vowel sounds, and there is some comment on the Web that ain’t in (some parts of?) southern England is pronounced ‘ent’; but we can find no authoritative statement to this effect. The pun, however, is clearly there in Tolkien’s text. In any case, ain’t is a contraction not only of ‘are not’ (as in the words glossed) but also of ‘am not’, ‘is not’, etc.
p. 389, l. 9 from bottom: For ‘back’ read ‘behind’.
p. 390, l. 6 after titling: For ‘carried’ read ‘carried’ (italics).
p. 392, ll. 19–29: In Amon Hen 199 (May 2006), p. 25, Helen Armstrong suggests that the balrog as ‘a thing of slime’ ‘is a fine description of a cold, wet, fire-extinguished balrog’. Our comment was not meant to identify the balrog of Moria as itself a shape-changer, only that (as we wrote, emphasis added) ‘Gandalf’s account recalls shape-changers in myth and legend’.
p. 401, l. 9: For ‘Beowulf’ read ‘Beowulf’.
p. 422, ll. 9, 10: For ‘550’ read ‘551’.
p. 429, l. 3 from bottom: For ‘those you now wear’ read ‘those you wear now’.
pp. 435–9: In regard to the ride of Gandalf and Pippin to Minas Tirith, Tolkien wrote to Elsie Honeybourne on 21 December 1967 that ‘an easing of tension was needed at the end of the “Book” (but of course provided instinctively and not by planning). To ride with Gandalf must have been like being borne by a Guardian Angel, with stern gentleness a most comforting combination to children (as we all are)’ (bloomsbury auctions online, sale of 24 May 2007).
p. 444, l. 11: Tom Shippey discusses ninnyhammer in his ‘History in Words: Tolkien’s Ruling Passion’, The Lord of the Rings, 1954–2004: Scholarship in Honor of Richard E. Blackwelder, ed. Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2006), pp. 32–4.
p. 445, ll. 13–14: Tom Shippey makes a brief comment about noodles, relating it (as we did, through the OED) to ninnyhammer, in his ‘History in Words’ cited above, p. 33.
p. 459, note for p. 642: In response to our note on ‘That is the only way big armies can come’, one reader (among several who have written to us on this point) has suggested that Gollum was referring to big armies opposed to Sauron, who would attack Mordor in the north rather than in the Morgul Vale. The fact remains, however, that Gollum says ‘That is the only way big armies can come’ immediately after stating that Sauron ‘will come out of the Black Gate’, the sequence of words naturally tending to the interpretation that ‘big armies’ refers back to Sauron’s forces. Another reader has suggested that the Black Gate is the only way for big armies to come out of the interior of Mordor, where they did not have to cross mountains; but this seems to us too fine a distinction for Gollum to be making.
p. 464, l. 7 from bottom: Before the note for ‘in-falling freshet’ there should appear a paragraph heading, 651 (II: 259): Here they washed themselves.
p. 465, ll. 10, 11 from bottom: For ‘656’ read ‘657’.
p. 491, ll. 11, 12 from bottom: For ‘722’ read ‘723’.
p. 513, l. 18 from bottom: For ‘N[úmenórean’ name]’ read ‘N[úmenórean] name)’.
p. 513, l. 4 from bottom: For ‘he case’ read ‘the case’.
p. 521, l. 12: In regard to daymeal, Peter Gilliver, Jeremy Marshall, and Edmund Weiner in The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary (2006), p. 101, cite the gloss of dag-mál in Cleasby and Vigfusson’s Icelandic–English Dictionary: ‘one of the divisions of the day . . . synonymous with dagverðarmál breakfast-time . . . when the ancient Icel[anders] used to take their chief meal, opposed to náttmál, night-meal or supper-time’. Tolkien, however, places the ‘daymeal’ of Gondor in the evening.
p. 523, l. 6: For ‘769’ read ‘768’.
p. 527, l. 8 from bottom: For ‘777’ read ‘776–7’.
p. 528, ll. 11, 12, 14: For ‘777’ read ‘778’.
p. 534, l. 11: For ‘he fact’ read ‘the fact’.
p. 541, l. 1: For ‘Théodon’ read ‘Théoden’.
p. 541, l. 7: For ‘Luxemburg’ read ‘Luxembourg’.
p. 541, l. 15: For ‘there independence’ read ‘their independence’.
p. 571, ll. 3, 6, 9 from bottom: The boldfaced words to be glossed should be in italics, as set in the original poem.
p. 571, ll. 1–6 from bottom: The notes for ‘the South-kingdom’ and ‘Stoningland’ should be placed before that (in the middle of the page) for ‘There Théoden fell . . .’
p. 580, l. 20: The separate note for ‘the high tongue’ should be joined, as a separate paragraph, to the preceding note, in which the glossed words are included in the quotation, thus: The high tongue is Quenya.
p. 580, ll. 2–4 from bottom: The paragraph on ‘The Valinorean language . . .’ should follow that for ‘Rustics’.
p. 580, ll. 2–3 from bottom: In the Lambengolmor Tolkien linguistics forum, message 850, Fredrik Ström correctly commented that our gloss asëa aranion ‘leaf of kings’ is not attested in Tolkien’s writings. In message 851, however, Arden R. Smith defended this translation as an extrapolation from the gloss of athelas ‘kingsfoil’ in an unpublished etymology by Tolkien together with ‘the transparent meaning of aranion “of kings”’.
p. 581, l. 1: For ‘864’ read ‘865’.
p. 581, ll. 1–9: The note for ‘no virtue . . .’ should follow the heading ‘Your pardon lord!’.
p. 607, l. 13: For ‘Marges’ read ‘marges’.
p. 608, final line: Jaakko Pirinen has pointed out to us, and is undoubtedly right, that here Shriekers refers to the Nazgûl.
p. 609, l. 6: For ‘remember vaguely’ read ‘remember it vaguely’.
p. 625, l. 2: For ‘954’ read ‘954–5’.
p. 625, l. 3: For ‘swords. . . . And’ read ‘swords. . . . [paragraphs:] And’.
p. 644, l. 6: For ‘Then Éowyn gave to Merry’ read ‘This is an heirloom’.
p. 653, l. 3 after titling: For ‘to’ read ‘towards’.
p. 653, ll. 16–19 after titling: The note for ‘Bree-hill’ should follow the note for ‘At length they came to Weathertop’.
p. 653–4: The note for ‘up-away’ should follow the note for ‘Pickthorn’ on p. 654.
p. 655, l. 15 after titling: In the Lambengolmor Tolkien linguistics forum, message 844, Fredrik Ström queried our comment ‘See also note for p. 107’, suggesting that ‘p. 10’ (i.e. our note on hayward) was meant instead. Although too much time has now passed to be sure, we are inclined to think that we did mean ‘p. 107’, referring to our mention of guards at the Hay Gate. This query does point, unfortunately, to a regrettable duplication of comments on hayward on RC:35 and RC:655. The first note was written early in the project and forgotten 620 pages later.
p. 659, l. 11 from bottom: For ‘getting under cover’ read ‘“getting under cover”’.
p. 662, ll. 3–5 from bottom: The note for ‘All the chestnuts were gone’ should follow the note for ‘tarred sheds’.
p. 666, l. 4: Add to the note: Shale is the shell or outer covering of the nut.
p. 702, ll. 8-17: In Amon Hen 199 (May 2006), p. 25, Helen Armstrong suggests that we quibble too much over Arwen’s phrase ‘There is now no ship that would bear me hence’: ‘Had Arwen been able to cross the Sea, she could have done so then, never mind the Havens. It seems likely from this and other context . . . that Arwen could not sail, will she or nill she.’ This may be so.
p. 724, penultimate entry: Tolkien noted in one of his check copies of The Lord of the Rings that he had told a correspondent in 1965: ‘I believe he married a sister of Fredegar Bolger of the Bolgers of Budgeford’ (The Peoples of Middle-earth, p. 117).
p. 728, l. 11 from bottom: For ‘more that two’ read ‘more than two’.
p. 808, ll. 13–14: This note, incorrect in different ways in both editions of RC, should read: ‘I think – No, I will not say,’ > ‘I think—No, I will not say,’ [en dash > em dash, to better indicate pause].
Works Consulted: A useful reference work for understanding Tolkien’s language in The Lord of the Rings (and other works), published after we wrote the Reader’s Companion, is The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary (2006) by Peter Gilliver, Jeremy Marshall, and Edmund Weiner. We have cited this selectively in addenda, but it is also worth consulting more broadly.
p. 832, col. 1, entry for ‘Aman’, l. 5: For ‘175’ read ‘176’.
p. 833, col. 1, entry for ‘Anórien’: ll. 2, 4, for ‘541’ read ‘542’.
p. 835, col. 1, l. 8 from bottom: For ‘Backarraper’ read ‘Backarapper’.
p. 841, col. 2, entry for ‘Celebdil’, l. 3: For ‘compared to the Jungfrau’ read ‘compared to the Silberhorn’.
p. 842, col. 2, entry for ‘Cirion’: Add reference to p. 541.
p. 843, col. 2, entry for ‘Concise Oxford English Dictionary’: For ‘152, 152’ read ‘152, 153’.
p. 848, col. 2, entry for ‘Eldar: Noldor’: Add, in first sequence of numbers, reference to p. 176.
p. 851, col. 1, entry for ‘Eorl the Young’: Add reference to p. 541 to first sequence of numbers, and to subheading ‘Oath of’.
p. 854, col. 1, entry for ‘First World War’: Add subheading: ‘Great Britain, treaty obligations in 540–1’.
p. 859, col. 2, entry for ‘Gregorian Calendar’: For ‘lxvii–l’ read ‘xlvii–l’.
p. 860, col. 1, add reference: ‘Greyhame (earlier Grayhame) 369’.
p. 860, col. 1, l. 5: For ‘Grimá’ read ‘Gríma’.
p. 865, col. 1, entry for ‘Jungfrau’: Delete ‘and Celebdil’.
p. 871, col. 1, entry for ‘Moon(s)’, l. 6: For ‘26’ read ‘261’.
p. 878, col. 1, entry for ‘Rammas Echor’: Add reference to p. 542.
p. 880, col. 2, entry for ‘Rohan’: l. 5, add reference to p. 542; l. 16, for ‘541’ read ‘540’.
p. 883, col. 1, entry for ‘Second World War’: Add subheading: ‘Great Britain, treaty obligations in 540–1’.
p. 884, col. 2, add entry: ‘Silberhorn 267’.
p. 887, col. 2, entry for ‘Théoden’: Add reference to p. 541.
p. 892, col. 1, entry for ‘War, and Tolkien’: For ‘lxxvii–lxviii’ read ‘lxxvii–lxxviii’.
p. 893, col. 2: Add cross-reference: ‘World War see First World War; Second World War’.
For both this page and our earlier list, we are indebted to Magnus Åberg, Chris Anderson, Helen Armstrong, David Bratman, Marjorie Burns, Pieter Collier, Merlin DeTardo, Timothy Fisher, Troels Forchhammer, John Garth, David Giraudeau, Jay Hershberger, David Kiltz, Yuval Kfir, Joe Kraemer, Christopher Kreuzer, Oliver Loo, Brian P. Maxwell, Johan Olin, Jaakko Pirinen, Alan Reynolds, Helios De Rosario Martínez, Jaakko Pirinen, Laura Schmidt, Manuel Schnell, ‘sevilodorf2’, Fredrik Ström, ‘Thaliorne’, Petri S. Tikka, Angela Wagner (‘Nielíqui Erurén’), Tony Wearing, Julian Wilson, and Danny Zumbrun for calling some of these points to our attention.
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