Watch this Clip NOW

[davem]

http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/sear...kien&go=Search

First video clip on right hand column

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Davem...


You win the Internet.

Thank you very much for this little film thing! It is so great to hear the professor himself speak of matters of the elder days and not The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings only. I like his quote "Men are... Men are just men."

[narfforc]

Cheers Davem, great clips

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Wow, davem, great, thanks very much! (ahem... had to listen to it three times to decipher what Prof's talking about... I calmed myself that after all, it's an old material...)

[davem]

This is my attempt at a transcript - anyone do better?

Everybody including divine spirits under God in this mythology makes mistakes. Of coudse the Gods made a primary error instead of leaving the Elves & Men to find out their way under the guidance of God they invited the Elves, because the rebel among them, the wicked god, Melkor was alive, had devastated a large part of the world, they took them back into their paradise in the West to protect them & so that the whole machinery starts from the, er, the rebellion of the Elves & therefore the rebellion of the evil they did in their bursting out from Paradise & therefore what you've got in our period is two lots of Elves, one that never started, just didn't bother to be anything higher than they were; they're the ordinary woodland Elves of the far east, those who started to go to the Divine Paradise & never got there, which are the Grey Elves of the West & those who got & came back as Exiles. The High Elves, who sing this song to Elbereth in the beginning of Lord of the Rings are Exiles who'd once known what it was to see the demiurgic gods in person.

Now Dwarves create a difficulty don't they, in this particular thing? They have certain grievances against Men & against Elves. They're incarnate in bodies rather like ourselves; we don't know much about them. They apparently are mortal though they are longeval. Where do they come into the scheme? Well, of course gave a great deal of thought, er to, to find their origin. I don't think I'll say anything about it at the moment, but they have a rational origin related to that theme, but they're not, er, a part of the Children of God. that's all I can really say about this. Men? Men are just Men.

[Lalaith]

This clip is fantastic, thank you Davem.

The stuff he is saying is fascinating, but so is the body language.
He really doesn't like talking about elves. His eyes are darting about all over the place, and he keeps covering his mouth with his hands.
Then he talks about dwarves, he's much happier, he looks straight into the camera.
Where's Kuru? He'd be delighted....

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Lalaith

The stuff he is saying is fascinating, but so is the body language.
He really doesn't like talking about elves. His eyes are darting about all over the place, and he keeps covering his mouth with his hands.
Then he talks about dwarves, he's much happier, he looks straight into the camera.
Where's Kuru? He'd be delighted....

Well, I actually think he's not much happy with the camera in the first place...

[Bêthberry]

Great find, davem.

If that video clip is a fair sample of The Professor's speech patterns, now I certainly understand all the comments from his students that he was not an eloquent lecturer--although I do recall W.H. Auden lauding him on his readings of Beowulf.

Honestly, I felt like grabbing his cheeks and shouting, move your jaw and mouth, man, speak that we may hear ye!!!

btw, I just went back to listen a second time, and now I get a "forbidden" message that the video cannot be played.

[Kuruharan]

Where's Kuru?

Right here.

He'd be delighted

With seeing the clip, yes. But this is not new information to those of us of latter days.