“Thee” and “thou” in “The Lord of the Rings”

[Guinevere]

How could I have missed this great thread?! Yes, I know, it’s my own fault; I have been shamefully neglecting the Downs for much too long!

I found one more example of the use of "thou" in the LotR: Faramir, recalling his encounter with Boromir’s funeral boat :

"Boromir! Where is thy horn? Whither goest thou? O Boromir!"

This indicates the closeness of the brothers, and it has this archaic word order "Whither goest thou" (Old English seems to have been closer to German than modern English)

Before reading Tolkien, I had met these forms only in Shakespeare and the Bible. The quotations where thee and thou are used have a special impact on me, they always have the effect of "other time".

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

And yes, I too am now curious as to what Krege did with the new translation - I may have to pick it up from the library to compare. I've attempted to avoid that till now!

Since we have the new (Krege) translation in the house, I will go and see if and how it differs from the old one, using the examples Pitchwife mentioned.