#5 could be MELKOR (reversed); he was certainly ahead of the other Ainur, and loved singing his own solo, and his name literally means 'he who arises in Might'.

Alternately, the geographical theme we seem to be wandering towards could indicate LAMMOTH, the valley holding the echo of his great cry. It would probably still be reversed.

Edit: incredibly cheeky answer to #1 - if we accept Tom Bombadil as the 'incarnation of the One (=solitary)', then he did indeed live in what Frodo called 'the shadowed land'... making the answer OLD FOREST. :D

hS

#1 is not OLD FOREST but a much earlier and less famous "land of shadows". You may have forgotten about it. A lot of people did, unfortunately for them. <--hint.

#2 is not UNGOLIANT. You were closer before. It is a thing, rather than a "Person, Beast or Monster".

#4 is ERED GORGOROTH. "Legendary one walked valley, bewildered" is the cryptic part. I'll explain if you like.

#5 is MELKOR (backwards). "Echo" does refer to Lammoth, but is more a hint to how the answer relates to the theme.

#6 is the right approach, but the answer is an *even prettier* pass.;)

1. Incarnation has a solitary element in this land of shadows.
2. Unsettled surfeit for the insatiable.
3. As he reflected, he lived in high places, in the company of a noblewoman.
ERED GORGOROTH Legendary one walked valley, bewildered, in dreadful mountains.
ROKLEM (Melkor) A mighty avant garde soloist, in retrograde. Or is that an echo?
6. Twice-twisted suffering? We have come to a pretty pass.
7. A venomous insect, yes- but me, a mixed-up globule? Take it back!
PHIAL OF GALADRIEL: Star-power? She bottled it!

Note: all answers are in the The Silmarillion, The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, and are significant to the main plot.

2. Unless it's one of the Two Trees, Ungoliant also drained the WELLS OF VARDA.

Yes, could you explain the cryptic aspect of Ered Gorgoroth, please?

It's not the Wells of Varda, so- you've said it yourself. You are looking for a single-word anagram (hence "unsettled") of a word meaning "surfeit".

And ERED GORGOROTH = HERO TROD GORGE. (Beren?):smokin:

Telperion is an anagram of repletion.

Always thought replete meant full up, rather than excess.

1. Incarnation has a solitary element in this land of shadows.
TELPERION Unsettled surfeit for the insatiable.
3. As he reflected, he lived in high places, in the company of a noblewoman.
ERED GORGOROTH Legendary one walked valley, bewildered, in dreadful mountains.
ROKLEM (Melkor) A mighty avant garde soloist, in retrograde. Or is that an echo?
6. Twice-twisted suffering? We have come to a pretty pass.
7. A venomous insect, yes- but me, a mixed-up globule? Take it back!
PHIAL OF GALADRIEL: Star-power? She bottled it!

It does, but I thought it was close enough for the purpose.

Attercop!

Assuming that's right, I will guess Cirith Ungol for the pass, and that all the answers are connected to (a) giant spider(s) or had dealings with them/one.

There is a Winding Stair AND you get twisted in Shelob's webs, then eaten? I thought of this one before, but thought I had to gather letter-type elements. Pretty pass could be ironic and a dry statement on the sticky situation?

Which makes #1 AVATHAR, or Avatar + Hydrogen, for where Ungoliant lived.

I want to say the Pass in #6 is the CALACIRYA, through which Ungoliant and Melkor fled (I think), but I can't get 'twice-twisted suffering' from it. It is very pretty, though.

Oh! And #7 must be Blob + I = BILBO, famed spider-irritator.

hS

Bingo!
 

A Incarnation has a solitary element in this land of shadows.
TELPERION Unsettled surfeit for the insatiable.
T As he reflected, he lived in high places, in the company of a noblewoman.
ERED GORGOROTH Legendary one walked valley, bewildered, in dreadful mountains.
ROKLEM (Melkor) A mighty avant garde soloist, in retrograde. Or is that an echo?
CIRITH UNGOL Twice-twisted suffering? We have come to a pretty pass.
O A venomous insect, yes- but me, a mixed-up globule? Take it back!
PHIAL OF GALADRIEL: Star-power? She bottled it!

Exactly.

Indeed- except that, like "legendary one walked valley, bewildered", you can *also* get the answer a completely different way, via yet another anagram. (I- I can't help it...:eek:)

The first and last guesses are correct. The pass is CIRITH UNGOL as Pervinca guessed. Does either of you want to try getting the other solution, or shall I tell you?

AVATHAR Incarnation has a solitary element in this land of shadows.
TELPERION Unsettled surfeit for the insatiable.
T As he reflected, he lived in high places, in the company of a noblewoman.
ERED GORGOROTH Legendary one walked valley, bewildered, in dreadful mountains.
ROKLEM (Melkor) A mighty avant garde soloist, in retrograde. Or is that an echo?
CIRITH UNGOL Twice-twisted suffering? We have come to a pretty pass.
OBLIB (Bilbo) A venomous insect, yes- but me, a mixed-up globule? Take it back!
PHIAL OF GALADRIEL Star-power? She bottled it!

Ah, Bilbo IS the insect. Of course he is - naughty little fly!

I was trying something with blob, but didn't make that connection.

Taniquetil for the last one - Manwe and the noble Varda?

Cirith Ungol ... I can see TURN, but can you show me the rest?

I've no guesses at the anagram - if it has TURN then there's also letters for LOGIC, but 'HI! LOGIC TURN' doesn't really spring out as relevant. ;)

Still thinking about #3. Assuming it's not Taniquetil per Pervinca, I guess 'reflected' indicates it's reversed. Hmm...

EDIT: If the 'noble lady' is Shelob Herself, then 'he' who lived in the high place known as the Tower of Cirith Ungol is SHAGRAT (or TARGAHS, reversed).

hS

All done!
 

No, definitely not Manwë and Varda- but I was wondering if someone would guess that...:D

That's it! The clue more-or-less paraphrases the line, "You should try being up here with Shelob for company".

As for CIRITH UNGOL- the second way of arriving at the answer is TWISTED SUFFERING = COILING HURT, "twisted" again for the anagram.

So-

AVATHAR Incarnation has a solitary element in this land of shadows.
TELPERION Unsettled surfeit for the insatiable.
TARGAHS (Shagrat) As he reflected, he lived in high places, in the company of a noblewoman.
ERED GORGOROTH Legendary one walked valley, bewildered, in dreadful mountains.
ROKLEM (Melkor) A mighty avant garde soloist, in retrograde. Or is that an echo?
CIRITH UNGOL Twice-twisted suffering? We have come to a pretty pass.
OBLIB (Bilbo) A venomous insect, yes- but me, a mixed-up globule? Take it back!
PHIAL OF GALADRIEL Star-power? She bottled it!

Theme: giant spiders.

Well done, both of you!

And over to you, Pervinca!:)

Ok. I have a couple on the laptop. I'll post one when I get home.

Great password, Nerwen. :)

Thanks. The really hard part was finding names to fit it!

Here you go:

1. Ring gleams - troubled soul! – in his hand.
2. Crush first person in the confusion, to find him.
3. Palindromic maiden meets sailor, lord.
4. Acquire nothing but Charles Ryder’s servant in the confusion for her emergence.
5. Shadowfax either side of a flutterer round and round? Involved in an altercation where fire met fire.

Tentatively, LUTHIEN for #4, partly from "Lunt", but I don't get the rest of it.

And #3 is ANNATAR. "Anna" + "tar" meaning "sailor" in English and "lord" in Elvish.

Why not, indeed?

SMEAGOL: Ring gleams - troubled soul! – in his hand.
2. Crush first person in the confusion, to find him.
ANNATAR: Palindromic maiden meets sailor, lord.
UNGOLIANT: Acquire nothing but Charles Ryder’s servant in the confusion for her emergence.
5. Shadowfax either side of a flutterer round and round? Involved in an altercation where fire met fire.

Your reasoning is correct, except that Smeagol is gleams plus O for ring. Smeagol himself is the troubled soul - or the soul, if I'm not allowed to use troubled twice. Think I was thinking soul as in person (like Bilbo was 'a kindly little soul'), otherwise I guess I'd have put 'doubly' or something.

For #1, SMÉAGOL contains both "gleam" and "ego" (a possible stand-in for "soul").

How about UNGOLIANT, then? "Lunt" + "gain" + "o" interpreted as zero.

See above. I have accidentally edited instead of quoting. Again.

Yes, Lunt was correct but Luthien wasn't, and 'lord' was the straight part of the Annatar clue, for Lord Sauron/Annatar.

Smeagol and Ungoliant are correct, but see the correct reasoning for Smeagol (in my last post).

SMAUG for the password, Evil for the theme?

And is #5 GOTHMOG? "Moth" + "O" + "GG"?

SMEAGOL: Ring gleams - troubled soul! – in his hand.
M: Crush first person in the confusion, to find him.
ANNATAR: Palindromic maiden meets sailor, lord.
UNGOLIANT: Acquire nothing but Charles Ryder’s servant in the confusion for her emergence.
GOTHMOG: Shadowfax either side of a flutterer round and round? Involved in an altercation where fire met fire.

Theme is villains, but with an added specific detail.

Balrog met Feanor = fire met fire.

Sorry, I forgot to say that I was assuming the straight clue in #5 referred to Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs vs Fëanor.

For #2, MANGLE I = MAEGLIN?

Now, if that's right, what *do* these people have in common, other than wickedness?

Association with fire? Gothmog is a Balrog, Ungoliant copped it from Balrogs, Maeglin and Sméagol perished in flames, Annatar used a volcano as his forge... and Smaug is a dragon.

Maeglin is correct. The further distinction is just that they are all different kinds of beings. Not all different species, perhaps, as 3 of them I think are Maiar, but they are all different kinds of creatures.

I like your version too, though!

Over to you. :)

SMEAGOL: Ring gleams - troubled soul! – in his hand.
MAEGLIN: Crush first person in the confusion, to find him.
ANNATAR: Palindromic maiden meets sailor, lord.
UNGOLIANT: Acquire nothing but Charles Ryder’s servant in the confusion for her emergence.
GOTHMOG: Shadowfax either side of a flutterer round and round? Involved in an altercation where fire met fire.

[Theme: villains (all different species/kinds of creatures).]

Here you go-

1. Boys and sailors scrambled for this Númenórean beauty.
2. Evergreens found among the doubly displaced.
3. Evil and lonely? In these fair woods?
4. Carved up, more high and honorable article gives support to a quest and guards a crown.
5. Another senior citizen sung better, and gave him something to weep over.
6. A sound of danger troubles its branches.
7. A sleeping shepherd, one rating away from a Tasmanian conifer.

Is 7 HUORN ... close to Huon pine, I believe (after a quick google) native to or at least growing in Tasmania?

Is 'one rating from' an indicator to take one letter from 'rating?'

And assuming there may be a theme, a guess at ENTWASH for the password?

1. Boys and sailors scrambled for this Númenórean beauty.
2. Evergreens found among the doubly displaced.
3. Evil and lonely? In these fair woods?
4. Carved up, more high and honorable article gives support to a quest and guards a crown.
5. Another senior citizen sung better, and gave him something to weep over.
6. A sound of danger troubles its branches.
HUORN A sleeping shepherd, one rating away from a Tasmanian conifer.

I was thinking of rating = film classification. Huon pine is of course correct.

Now, look, Pervinca, how unoriginal do you think I am? We just had ENTWOOD!:p

Fair enough. ;)

Is #5 OLD MAN WILLOW? 'Senior citizen' + [weeping] willow, plus he was embarassingly outsung by Tom Bom Jolly Tom Tom Bombadillo.

And if we're doing stab-in-the-dark guesses at the password... NIMLOTH would fit, and would keep to the 'tree' theme.

(I have been driving myself crazy staring at the list of Numenorean tree species, just so you know.)

EDIT: So, for #1... NISIMALDAR, the Numenorean land of fragrant trees, can be broken up as LADS + MARINI. 'Lads' as in boys, and 'marin' is French for sailor. 'Marini' isn't a French plural, but it could be a Quenya one (of a French word)...

EDIT 2: And #4 must be LEBETHRON, the wood used to make walking sticks for Frodo and Sam, and also (apparently) to carry the Crown of Gondor. It was definitely carved up, but I feel there's an anagram in there that I'm not seeing... unless 'high and honorable' is referring to the theory that Lebethron is the Entwives? :D

hS

Ahh, good one. Article = THE, and the rest makes NOBLER.

Am going to guess that 6 has the word 'timber' in it somewhere.

I think there's a Timbrethil, meaning 'star-birch.'

NIMLOTH it is!

#1 is not NISIMALDAR, but close.
#4 is LEBETHRON [Anagram: THE NOBLER]
#5 is OLD MAN WILLOW, for exactly the reasons given.
#6 is not TIMBRETHIL (whatever that is).


N Boys and sailors scrambled for this Númenórean beauty.
I Evergreens found among the doubly displaced.
M Evil and lonely? In these fair woods?
LEBETHRON Carved up, more high and honorable article gives support to a quest and guards a crown.
OLD MAN WILLOW Another senior citizen sung better, and gave him something to weep over.
6. A sound of danger troubles its branches.
HUORN A sleeping shepherd, one rating away from a Tasmanian conifer.

M for Mallorn? Lorn = forlorn, lonely, and Mal is, hmm, a Latin root for many words that imply evil. It's also French for evil.