The Lord of the Rings Code

[Theron Bugtussle]

Used ELS of 9, rows indicated below

(If someone can help me format this in a courier-type font for fixed width character spacing, it would help!)

109 || D E L E E R L O O O T O G P E G A A M H R D I U M S R U O F E H T
110 || R A A N S D R F E K H R E Y D F A D S O S E O L N O L D H E E F E
111 || A E L L R I I N L V R S T D I S I O R D D M C I D W B R L U D L T
112 || R C T S C T O T S E H A W I E E E C I L A E O H O S R M T N T M N
113 || D S L E A D R A I L R A I O R O I W E F C R E A A R A E T E R O H
114 || D D N A G B A F E W B H E O D D G C W I E G D I E H F I S N A E F
115 || I L D F T S E R N A E E V O D E S H O R H D R B O E T U E R R S I
116 || A R D R T U D E D C C N R W H O N L E D D H P M E U M S L T C K E
117 || R K C E N T W Y D E E D F T R C T B H E S W E T S H E R T A S C O
118 || P I R I H W E E G T H A I R D F N E E N F F H A F H T T E A N F R
119 || M S D I H D G E E A A F M O R R E I S E T P O F A R T T M E O E A
120 || U E A T W D I I T E O E E T B R T D R G W T D L F N H R R A I E B
121 || E L D E W R R D H F R C D T G E R W O M I R D N R G G H E A O

For reasons that will become clear, I used only UP and DOWN directions searching for secret coded messages. Text-encoded messages are in the following pattern:

message

(Starting line numbers and DIRECTIONS indicated in parentheses after each line.)

Explanatory comments.

|| Here is the message I found. ||

feat: do or die sea raid

(feat-121 UP, do-111 DOWN, or-121 UP, die-120 UP, sea-112 DOWN, raid-117 UP)

Author's fantasy--a Norse viking, involved in murder, rapine, pillage, etc. Note the UP and DOWN in the message encoding, perhaps in line with the nautical wave action.

bar: met doe eye coed, two demi...

(bar-120 UP, met-116 DOWN, doe-114 UP, eye-116 DOWN, coed-117 UP, two-117 UP, demi-121 UP)

Landfall, let the carousing begin. In a social establishment, the raider met someone that caught his fancy. There is a lot of up and down in the message, though, to be sure, the last phrase seems to be incomplete. Both words are up, however, perhaps signifying prominence.

rig raft...tent

(rig-121 UP, raft-112 DOWN, tent-120 UP)

A positive action, breaking with, or escaping from the ship and the life led in the past. And still more up and down. The message may have somewhat to say about why....

lest fat sow get me--fie! gene rot

(lest-,116 UP fat-119 UP, sow-109 DOWN, get-109 DOWN, me-119 DOWN,fie-114 DOWN, gene-120 UP, rot-118 DOWN)

Apparently, the life left behind from involved attachment that was...undesirable.

[Elennar Starfire]

Bored in school, I worked this out from The Road Goes Ever On:

"Go run! Odor is he!"

Perhaps I'm not so good at this...but it's fun anyways!

[mark12_30]

(like in HWAT for what),

HWAT is clearly a modernization of HWAET, the opening word of Beowulf, meaning 'hearken or listen'.