I guess that everybody has their favourite? Mine is Imrahil - the Prince of Dol Amroth...
What man, and what a place that is!
beyond,
in the great fief of Belfalas, dwelt Prince Imrahil in his castle of Dol Amroth
by the sea, and he was of high blood, and his folk also, tall men and proud with
sea-grey eyes.
last and proudest, Imrahil, Prince
of Dol Amroth, kinsman of the Lord, with gilded banners bearing his token of the
Ship and the Silver Swan, and a company of knights in full harness riding grey
horses; and behind them seven hundreds of men at arms, tall as lords, grey-eyed,
dark-haired, singing as they came.
foremost
on the field rode the swan-knights of Dol Amroth with their Prince and his blue
banner at their head. ‘Amroth for Gondor!’ they cried. ‘Amroth to Faramir!’ Like thunder they broke upon the enemy on either flank of the retreat
at
their rear the banner of Dol Amroth, and the Prince. And in his arms before him
on his horse he bore the body of his kinsman, Faramir son of Denethor, found
upon the stricken field.
Tirelessly Gandalf strode from Citadel
to Gate, from north to south about the wall; and with him went the Prince of Dol
Amroth in his shining mail. For he and his knights still held themselves like
lords in whom the race of Númenor ran true. Men that saw them whispered
saying: ‘Belike the old tales speak well; there is Elvish blood in the
veins of that folk, for the people of Nimrodel dwelt in that land once long
ago.’ And then one would sing amid the gloom some staves of the Lay of
Nimrodel, or other songs of the Vale of Anduin out of vanished years.
from Dol Amroth
came the harpers that harped most skilfully in all the land
Very much an aspiration, but much too cool for the likes of me... I am not worthy!
(Note added - my son points out that what I was asking-about was really concerning a 'background' character - rather than the 'minor' character I originally wrote in the title... So I've changed it.)
11 comments:
Barliman Butterbur.
@Philip - Good choice, so un-cool that he comes-out the other side... but he isn't really 'minor'.
I guess we're not counting Faramir as 'minor' either, then.
That's okay, I guess I can be one of those nameless hobbits at the end that reclaim the Shire and live happy family lives that are not important enough to write about in any great tale.
Certainly one of the minor Rohirrim - I'm partial to Widfara, who in peacetime dwelt upon the Wold, but there's also Gamling, Grimbold, Erkenbrand...
@CCL and SJE - Your choices do you credit!
I'd like to think I could be Beregond or Hama but I'd likely be Nob. In my dreams Gildor Inglorion.
@Ray - It makes me realise the wide range of choices - even life as Nob seems like a pretty good one (except for the attacks by first Black Riders and then Ruffians within the space of six months). However, I wouldn't fancy stabling horses, especially not if I was just 2.5-3ft tall...
@CCL and SJE - Your choices do you credit!
Thanks, that means a lot. As a matter of fact I'm impressed by Chiu's choice as well - I just finished planting my summer garden and have been feeling very hobbit-like.
Regarding the bit about stabling horses: for a brief period I once took riding lessons, partly inspired by my love of Tolkien's Rohirrim. It turns out that horses are actually quite fearsome and dangerous!
A soldier of Gondor, a man fighting against the darkness, despite all odds. A man who survived the siege and walked to the Black Gate itself on a likely suicide mission because of an unknown hope.
What a beautiful thing!
@BE - Since your Gondorian soldier is unnamed he would, in modern stories, probably be a Red Shirt character. This is parodies somewhere in Order of the Stick, when a disposible henchman in the comic strip is ('accidentally') named, after which he rejoices that he will not be getting killed in the same strip (because the author would not have bothered naming him if that was his fate).
I find the joyous courage of the Riders of Rohan in battle to be very admirable and moving, probably because it is so unlike myself.
A fine anthology of quotations to make the case (and give food for thought - e.g., "Belike the old tales speak well; there is Elvish blood in the veins of that folk" and "the harpers that harped most skilfully in all the land")!
I dearly love Ghân-buri-Ghân - is he 'bigger than "background"'?
Ethan Campbell was good about him and the Drúedain, in contrast with the Dunlendings, recently:
https://apilgriminnarnia.com/2018/02/14/wood-woses-tolkiens-wild-men-and-the-green-knight-by-ethan-campbell/
David Llewellyn Dodds
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