and the torrent of words creating this story rushed forth.

Morwen and Thengel appear only in Appendix A of Lord of the Rings, though Gandalf occasionally invokes him when addressing Theoden as "son of Thengel."

I have taken the liberty of having the youngest sibling of Morwen be Forlong, who shows up in "Minas Tirith" as 'old Forlong the Fat, the Lord of Lossarnach.' If he was a toddler, say 18 months in 2943, he would be 77 or so, and worthy of the comments expressed by Bergil, who quoted the above line, and further description of him is this: 'on it [a horse] sat a man of wide shoulders and huge girth, but old and grey-bearded.'

My apologies to Lloyd Alexander; both Dallben and Taran[gil] are character names from his "Book of Three" stories, but they sounded suitably Gondorian.

All names for the Rohirrim are either hybrids using Tolkien's listed names and their respective meanings or are simply from my imagination and Anglo-Saxon list that I carry around with me.

Two months after I finished writing this, I discovered that according to two paragraphs in Unfinished Tales, Morwen is supposed to be tall and of Numenorean descent. So my story is canon as far as what little information is given in the Appendix of LotR, and personally, I like the idea of her coming from more common stock.

Rohirric-sized hugs to Jen, fearless beta reader extraordinaire. My works constantly improve under your keen eyes!

To Amy, whose support and willingness to listen to me go on and on about my stories and fanfiction in general, thank you. Without Tolkien, without your class, without your unflagging generosity of time, none of this would have come to pass.

The quote at the top is from The Ruin, a piece of "anonymous" 8th-century Anglo-Saxon poetry, as translated by Michael Alexander. It reflects how I felt after reading Altariel's story, "A Game of Chess," whose beautifully-written narrative was the inspiration for this story.