I nearly said Tirith! But I had started looking for a connecting theme, or a wiggly password.

Can you explain the wordsmith part of ithil? Is it to do with ithildin being used for writing?

Is H Halls of Mandos, or is that too close to Squatter's guess?

... or is the Helcarexe narrow enough that one would have to enter it alone?

I found TALIEN as another word for flets, used as guard posts in Lothlorien, but I can't make the cryptic bits work with it.

Ithil is hidden in the words of the clue, wordsmITH ILlustrates.

Cannot say yes to any of the guesses so far. This is where it becomes challenging with respect to the theme. I would recommend forgetting about Minas Tirith and approaching the clues without the geographic and temporal connnection in mind.



EDIT: Reposting on this page.

1. TINUVIEL Remove bonds, live briefly and eccentrically, like a bird.
2. ITHIL Wordsmith illustrates concealed silver flower.
3. RATH DINEN Eater switches direction after pointless anger in the street.
4. IORETH The riot is short and disordered: too much talk slows down progress.
5. T Guardpost seems to charge tax in popular game.
6. H You go in solo, but usually travel in company.

5. is Tol-in-Gaurhoth, and 6 could simply be Huan

I get all the elements in those two answers except the 'popular game.' Ah, ok ... 'in' for popular ... but what is Gaurhoth? Some obscure variant of lacrosse, or something?

Is the theme watchtowers - the watchtowers themselves, parts of them (like Rath Dinen), people who worked in one (Ioreth) and beings who visited or rescued someone from one (Tinuviel and Huan)?

Yes and yes.

1. TINUVIEL Remove bonds, live briefly and eccentrically, like a bird.
2. ITHIL Wordsmith illustrates concealed silver flower.
3. RATH DINEN Eater switches direction after pointless anger in the street.
4. IORETH The riot is short and disordered: too much talk slows down progress.
5. Tol-in-gaurhoth Guardpost seems to charge tax in popular game.
6. Huan You go in solo, but usually travel in company.

Nah, I was referring to Werewolf = gaurhoth. By the way sign ups are open for a simple game. (No shameless plug here at all, absolutely no self-advertising.) :Merisu:

No, the theme was Minas Tirith - but there were two Minas Tiriths in the legendarium. The clues were split in half between the two.


Back over to Squatter.

Yes, I remembered there was a Minas Tirith in the First Age, and I believe that became Tol-In-Gaurhoth. But one clue is Ithil ... wasn't that the Minas that became Morgul, so not one of the Tiriths?

Great password, by the way!

Yeah it was. Maybe it wasn't a very strong theme.

That was a good little theme, and Ithil does fit, albeit tangentially. Minas Anor only became Minas Tirith after the fall of its sister city.

I've put this together in something of a hurry, but hopefully it should be a bit easier to parse than my last one.

1. Just over a century before rise of moody cinema, this character was known to be good
2. Silver youth admits little Tolkien to dwarf tourist attraction
3. Ancestor lost everything on doubles at first
4. King was simply nothing when confused
5. River's southern profundity? Quite the reverse!
6. Provincial dormer through which one might glimpse the king
7. Wear on saddle perhaps swallows large sum in equestrian parts.
8. Captain has man downstairs in a flap.
9. Setter doubly English about tree behind falling note in place for a good hiding
10. Ash or alder holding genius by another name.
11. Route descending from one point to another.

Will try Undeep for 5 as reverse of profundity.

Not quite. You're not accounting for the whole clue.

6. Aldor?

True. how about North undeep then reversing also Southern.

If Mary Beard is a genius, could 10 be Treebeard?

Indeed so

That's more like it.

Not even if she is, I'm afraid.

1. Just over a century before rise of moody cinema, this character was known to be good
2. Silver youth admits little Tolkien to dwarf tourist attraction
3. Ancestor lost everything on doubles at first
4. King was simply nothing when confused
5. NORTH UNDEEP River's southern profundity? Quite the reverse!
6. ALDOR Provincial dormer through which one might glimpse the king
7. Wear on saddle perhaps swallows large sum in equestrian parts.
8. Captain has man downstairs in a flap.
9. Setter doubly English about tree behind falling note in place for a good hiding
10. Ash or alder holding genius by another name.
11. Route descending from one point to another.

1. CIRION. CI = 101; film noir is moody cinema, rising/running upwards/backwards.

Password CALENARDHON, and Rohan for the theme.

Which I think might make 10 OROFARNE. (A rowan is a mountain ash, although my botany does not extend to alders).

And 4 EOMER (0 + mere).

I think 7 is RIDDERMARK. Mark for wear. Could the large sum be D for a thousand? Can a saddle be called a rider?

You're right about everything except 10. And the theme if I'm being really pedantic.

Speaking of pedantry: D is 500; M is a thousand. Wear on saddle = Rider mark. Also I appear to have confused Cirion with Mardil for some reason. Fortunately you got him anyway.

1. CIRION - Just over a century before rise of moody cinema, this character was known to be good
2. A Silver youth admits little Tolkien to dwarf tourist attraction
3. L Ancestor lost everything on doubles at first
4. ÉOMER - King was simply nothing when confused
5. NORTH UNDEEP - River's southern profundity? Quite the reverse!
6. ALDOR - Provincial dormer through which one might glimpse the king
7. RIDDERMARK - Wear on saddle perhaps swallows large sum in equestrian parts.
8. D Captain has man downstairs in a flap.
9. H Setter doubly English about tree behind falling note in place for a good hiding
10. O Ash or alder holding genius by another name.
11. N Route descending from one point to another.

Maybe the theme is Calenardhon, then - Rohan plus Anorien.

I think some answers predate or are otherwise not exclusive to Rohan, so I suppose it's an important distinction. Having a theme that's not the password just seems like too much work to me.

We didn't use to have themes as well as passwords. But G55 did a really good one that had both, and then it seemed like a good challenge to write them that way.

2. AGLAROND. Ag + lad + Ron(ald).

(The caves behind Helm's Deep).

I've been thinking for a while that 9 could be Helm's Deep. There is ELM there, and a note (D). I just can't get sheep to = setter. It ought to be a dog. Although it does have the same form in English in the plural (double??)

Unless the setter is John Noakes's Shep and we double the E!

Or ... perhaps the setter is a badger, or a brock.

Exactly.

There's a very good reason why you can't get Helm's Deep to work for 9: it's not the solution. I can tell a setter from a collie, even when it's barking up the wrong tree.

1. CIRION - Just over a century before rise of moody cinema, this character was known to be good
2. AGLAROND - Silver youth admits little Tolkien to dwarf tourist attraction
3. L Ancestor lost everything on doubles at first
4. EOMER - King was simply nothing when confused
5. NORTH UNDEEP - River's southern profundity? Quite the reverse!
6. ALDOR - Provincial dormer through which one might glimpse the king
7. RIDDERMARK - Wear on saddle perhaps swallows large sum in equestrian parts.
8. D Captain has man downstairs in a flap.
9. H Setter doubly English about tree behind falling note in place for a good hiding
10. O Ash or alder holding genius by another name.
11. N Route descending from one point to another.

Good one! I've been trying to make that one work for days, but couldn't get the right cryptic combination.

Meanwhile, a google search for "ash or alder" yielded a bunch of guitar stuff. Virtuoso guitarist? Rockstar? I've toyed a bit with various rocks and stars just cause that would be a pretty amusing interpretation.


Deorwine for 8, as it contains "down"?

Did it really? Just goes to show how little help Google is going to be, I suppose. Rock on, though.

I think you might get closer to the answer if you considered the other six and a half words in the clue as well.

10 I am now confident is Orald the name for Tom Bombadil down that way

The very same. Your confidence is well placed.

1. CIRION - Just over a century before rise of moody cinema, this character was known to be good
2. AGLAROND - Silver youth admits little Tolkien to dwarf tourist attraction
3. L Ancestor lost everything on doubles at first
4. EOMER - King was simply nothing when confused
5. NORTH UNDEEP - River's southern profundity? Quite the reverse!
6. ALDOR - Provincial dormer through which one might glimpse the king
7. RIDDERMARK - Wear on saddle perhaps swallows large sum in equestrian parts.
8. D Captain has man downstairs in a flap.
9. H Setter doubly English about tree behind falling note in place for a good hiding
10. ORALD Ash or alder holding genius by another name.
11. N Route descending from one point to another.

If the clue works out tidily, as it did, then it is more likely right. However confidence about anything else rather lacking so will ponder more.

I didn't know Tom was a genius! :) I guess his poetry is day-off stuff.

I suspect Squatter meant it in the sense of genius loci, that is how I took it anyway, since Bombadil's poetry is sub-Vogon, in my opinion.

While the primary meaning is intended to recall genius loci and therefore Tom, the alternative meaning is an intentional misdirection.

I didn't realise they ever referred to Bombadil/Orald in Calenardhon. Whereabouts is it mentioned?

At the Council of Elrond

Orald is an Old English word, so should represent Rohirric. It's likely that it survives from a now extinct language spoken by the ancestors of the Rohirrim before they came to Calenardhon. It's a tenuous link, but I did say that I put this together in a hurry: the link with Calenardhon came from an on-line source that I didn't fact-check.

Council of Elrond. Elrond comments that the Old Forest is the remnant of a larger expanse that stretched as far as Dunland and the Orald was the name of Bomabadil among the Northmen ancestors of the Rohirrim. Gandalf implies that his range was greater in previous times so it is possible that Bombadil walked the fringes at least of the Mark at one time though who knows if the Rohirrim had any legends of him. No doubt Balfrog could point you in the direction of an article on the subject ;)

By any chance, is 10 simply the North-South Road? Or is that a trap for heffalumps?

Not a trap, although I may claim later that it was a cunning double bluff. In any case, that's the right answer.

1. CIRION - Just over a century before rise of moody cinema, this character was known to be good
2. AGLAROND - Silver youth admits little Tolkien to dwarf tourist attraction
3. L Ancestor lost everything on doubles at first
4. EOMER - King was simply nothing when confused
5. NORTH UNDEEP - River's southern profundity? Quite the reverse!
6. ALDOR - Provincial dormer through which one might glimpse the king
7. RIDDERMARK - Wear on saddle perhaps swallows large sum in equestrian parts.
8. D Captain has man downstairs in a flap.
9. H Setter doubly English about tree behind falling note in place for a good hiding
10. ORALD - Ash or alder holding genius by another name.
11. NORTH-SOUTH ROAD - Route descending from one point to another.

Perhaps the setter is Huan, he drops a note (a) and to get HORNBURG we need ORBRG.

No tree though. Couldn't get Huorn to work as well as Huan. And GB not same as two Englands.

(Awaits inevitable sardonic slicing of the Squatter).

I've been playing around with Helm's Deep, on the premise that elm is a tree, there are a couple letters that could be used as notes, and maybe double E in deep is two Englands. But even if you stretch it this way, there are still extra bits. And no setter.

Setter - what's a setter? Just a dog? Someone who sets? Who or what is known for setting something? It makes no sense right now.

This is absolutely brilliant. The clue is good too, deceptively simple but with more logic to it than I've initially thought.

Huan isn't a setter. Tolkien seems to imply that he's some special breed native to Valinor. Also the answer isn't Hornburg, which is too close to Aglarond to make for a good password. As for doubly English: well, that's definitely not British. A possible clue for Hornburg would be something like "Short gardener joins Navy, getting back rations for use against Isengard."

As I told Pervinca earlier on, the reason you can't make Helm's Deep fit the clue for 9 is that it's not the right answer. When I get a convoluted one like this, I usually forget about what the answer could be and try to break down the clue into instructions and mini-clues, then play around with solutions for those combined in different ways. Often I don't even bother with the overall definition until I think I have an answer. Never make assumptions about which part of the clue applies to which other part: it's a classic trick to get you applying an instruction for one element to another one through misleading grammar.

I already knew what a possible clue for Hornburg could be, thanks. I was merely playing with it because it is a good place for a good hiding in two senses of the expression.

Furthermore, I personally wouldn't consider it remotely remiss to put it in the same puzzle as Aglarond. But never mind.

My reasoning too. The only better place that intuitively comes to mind is Dunharrow, but most stuff there doesn't start with an H. There's Harrowdale but that worked less well than the other options.