'The triple element' is a single item and is not used more than once in the word.

Still haven't seen any correct answers.

(Let me know if I'm either being too stingy or too profligate with hints, by the way.)

hS

EDIT: To bring it to the new page:

1. - The darkness a pig had within.
2. - How can it be both bald and straight of hair? A nigh-insurmountable problem.
3. - You speak not truth, in truth! An elvish insult cut short.
4. - Binding the triple element within.
5. - The slave tumbles, black-winged but doubly deprived.
6. - ... or old women, it falls.

6. NUMEN, the Quenya for west? The '...or' to be what completes it to make something that falls? Or NUMENOR itself?

Ohh - new men or old women (for the 'old women' element).

---------------------------

Thinking of clue 3, there are some Elvish insults on this thread (below), but I'm not sure how purely Tolkien they are:

http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=5379

1. - The darkness a pig had within.
2. - How can it be both bald and straight of hair? A nigh-insurmountable problem.
3. - You speak not truth, in truth! An elvish insult cut short.
4. - Binding the triple element within.
5. - The slave tumbles, black-winged but doubly deprived.
6. N umenor - ... or old women, it falls.

We have our first answer! ('It falls' is the straight clue here, as in the Fall of Numenor.)

The thread you link to is distinctly Grelvish (that's Grey Company Elvish); the double-Ls are a dead giveaway. The Grey Company used both Quenya and Sindarin as a basis to make their own language (for an RP thing, I think); it's not very accurate to Tolkien.

#3 is an Elvish word, and is definitely not a compliment.

hS

I was trying 'crones' for old women at one point. :D

2. A guess at DOL BARAN. Baran is from paran, meaning bare. Not sure about straight hair, unless it's metaphorical hair (Dol Baran had heather on it, but not sure how 'straight' heather grows).

Not Dol Baran, but you're in the right conceptual space.

hS

Ah, Grelvish! Takes me back...

Nice work on #6 from both you- a very outside-the-box clue.

Is #2 AMON LANC ("Bald hill") with a play on "lank"?

So "triple element" != "three different elements". What is a "triple element" then, we wonders?

1. - The darkness a pig had within.
2. A mon Lanc - How can it be both bald and straight of hair? A nigh-insurmountable problem.
3. - You speak not truth, in truth! An elvish insult cut short.
4. - Binding the triple element within.
5. - The slave tumbles, black-winged but doubly deprived.
6. N umenor - ... or old women, it falls.

A bald hill with lank hair. Makes sense! :)

There is only one triple element, and I found it by looking at the periodic table on my wall.

hS

Lithium?

I wouldn't need to look up to know that lithium is the third element. ;)

hS

Neither would I.:p But do you mean that's it?

Sadly no. I /did/ have to look at thr table for the triple element.

Maybe one of the 3-letter elements? Uub, Uut, Uuq, Uup, Uuh, [Uus], Uuo.

Maybe if you add some "binding" inside those letters you get the word. UTUMNO? But "tmn" is nonsense, it doesn't mean binding. (TNM is a system used to stage cancer, but I highly doubt that's relevant).

Edit: nevermind, there are more than one of these.

I actually updated my periodic table with stickers, so it no longer has three-letter elements on it. Not a clue, just trivia. :)

It's not Utumno.

(I mean, I guess it is a clue, because I'm saying it's not a three-letter element abbreviation. But keep thinking!)

hS

If it was a double element, it would be Bi. :p Maybe T[r]i? ;)


EDIT: just watch it be Lanthanum. Why? Cause when you get to La you trip and fall off the periodic table for a bit.

There's ozone, also called trioxygen, (O3), but I'm sure Hs wouldn't have to look that up. Do any other elements join in threes of their atoms?

I am tempted to ask if that is what's meant by triple element, but a) I believe O3 is classed as a molecule, and b) I don't think such things appear on the periodic table.

Googling doesn't yield anything for 'triple element' either.

I can only conclude that Hs is a very advanced chemist on the cusp of discoveries unknown to the rest of the world! :D

Ozone is a molecule, and not what I'm looking for. (And to answer your question, [X]3 is a pretty rare structure, because the bonds have to be seriously strained to form it. Oxygen can only pull it off because oxygen is desperate to combine with literally anything.)

Galadriel55, that Lanthanum joke is terrible - I wish I'd thought of it! (Also not right.)

The triple element is named after a person - a real person, not a mythological figure. You can see what makes it triple right there on any decent periodic table. And it may help you to think like a Roman (though it may also utterly confuse you; it often does!).

hS

Roentgenium?

*Goes looking for an element called Thricium.*

*Checks for an element called Iiicium*

Like a Roman ... maybe it has three I's in it ... 3 in Roman Numerals?

Einsteinium is the only one that works for that.

Maybe we have to look up the Latin word for 'three.'

...

Tribus, which doesn't seem to work either.

The triple I is what I was going for too. But Iridium too at least fits your way of counting. I was hoping for something with a more prominent iii.

I think Iridium was named after the goddess, Iris. Hs said the element we're looking for was named after a real person.

Wondering if the theme is the SECOND AGE, based on the two answers we currently have.

Someone has named the correct element since I last posted!

...

That's all you're getting. :D

hS

Einsteinium or Roentgenium, then. Es or Rg.

And I guess whatever the theme is, it isn't SECOND AGE.

Yep, one of those is the triple element. Poking the rest of the clue should yield up the final answer.

Not the Second Age, though technically I think all of the answers could apply to that Age.

hS

Is it RING? Is the password SAURON?

Ah, ok. Rg is element number 111.

Exactly. Element eleventy-one!:smokin:

Anyway, I should have said this before: my reasoning for the answer is that the clue really means "binding the triple element with 'in'", so R + IN + G.

I didn't see the numbers, because my phone was squishing the element names when I tried to view the periodic table, so I read a list of elements which didn't have them (or at least, not as obviously, if it did).

Yes and yes!

1. S - The darkness a pig had within.
2. A mon Lanc - How can it be both bald and straight of hair? A nigh-insurmountable problem.
3. U - You speak not truth, in truth! An elvish insult cut short.
4. R ing - Binding the triple element within.
5. O - The slave tumbles, black-winged but doubly deprived.
6. N umenor - ... or old women, it falls

Dang, I should've thought of that, I could have called it the party element.

Correct. And 'binding' is also the straight clue - as in, 'and in the darkness...'

hS

Yes, I'd realised- very elegant clue!:cool:

Now what in Middle-earth can the others be? Maybe ORC for #6, as an anagram of CROW minus W?

1. Shadow - "had" inside "sow".

Nerwen - nice work with the element! I didn't see the 111 at first, it took the explanation for me to catch on to that and the rest of the clue. That's a clever one. Hats off to you and HS for the creative clue!

1. S hadow - The darkness a pig had within.
2. A mon Lanc - How can it be both bald and straight of hair? A nigh-insurmountable problem.
3. U - You speak not truth, in truth! An elvish insult cut short.
4. R ing - Binding the triple element within.
5. O rc - The slave tumbles, black-winged but doubly deprived.
6. N umenor - ... or old women, it falls.

ORC and SHADOW, for exactly the reasons stated. Well done!

The final clue does not involve translating the opening phrase into Elvish.

hS

Orcs I guess are slaves. Roac (a raven) minus a is orc. Trouble is, that's only one deprived (one letter, unless the Umlaut counts) and it isn't really tumbled.

Whoops! Too late. I must have been replying to an unrefreshed version of the thread.

Remaining clue might start 'Ulie ....'

Surprisingly close! Now spell it like an elf.

hS

I did.

Apart from the elvish letters.

Úlairi?