Stories of Arda Home Page
About Us News Resources Login Become a member Help Search

Dreamflower's Musings  by Dreamflower 12 Review(s)
Speedy HobbitReviewed Chapter: 3 on 9/7/2013
Definitely one who thinks they just have their young wait longer for the responsibilities of the coming of age- and they live longer simply because the altruistic, social and relaxed proclivities of hobbit society and their tendency to take care of each other contribute to longevity along with the resilience they have that exceeds that of humans against illness and injury. This chart is definitely useful for your work though!

Author Reply: It's one of those areas where folks have to agree to disagree. I've read many fine stories by writers who hold your opinion. And though I think there is some evidence in favor of my theory, barring a finding of a definitive statement from Tolkien himself, we'll never know who's truly right!

Speedy HobbitReviewed Chapter: 3 on 9/7/2013
Definitely one who thinks they just have their young wait longer for the responsibilities of the coming of age- and they live longer simply because the altruistic, social and relaxed proclivities of hobbit society and their tendency to take care of each other contribute to longevity along with the resilience they have that exceeds that of humans against illness and injury. This chart is definitely useful for your work though!

Speedy HobbitReviewed Chapter: 3 on 6/5/2007
Woohoo, my age converts to 32 for hobbits! Time to prepare for my coming of age status! Adulthood? Yikes!

(But of course! My friends are going NUTS over the fact that I'm going to be 21 in 3 months!)

Author Reply: *grin* Happy birthday in advance!

MithLuinReviewed Chapter: 3 on 2/5/2007
This is useful, to know what people have in mind. I don't think it can be quite true, though, because Merry-at-the-Party acts much too old to be 11 (in human years)! But if the relationship isn't linear, it's impossible to figure out, so this is as good as we can do :) Thanks!

Author Reply: Well, that's one of the reasons I think of Merry as precocious. But as I said, it's up to each author to decide how that affects social, emotional and mental ages.

I feel as though, whatever a hobbit's *physical* age, he will still have the actual number of years of *memory*. Therefore, while my five-year-old hobbits will be the physical and emotional equivalent of a three-year-old, they will have the *vocabulary* of at least a five-year-old. And an eleven-year-old Merry might not quite be an adolescent physically and socially, but he has the memory and intelligence of a nineteen year old. I hope that makes sense.

LarnerReviewed Chapter: 3 on 9/24/2006
Handy....

Author Reply: Thanks! That's what I hoped for!

AndreaReviewed Chapter: 3 on 6/29/2006
Very useful for the reader indeed! Thank you!

According to the formula I would be 53 1/2 years old, if I were a hobbit.
So ... where's that adventure ;-)

Author Reply: *giggle* Perhaps you are already on it, LOL!

ElemmírëReviewed Chapter: 3 on 6/28/2006
As one who loves to use this, thank you for posting it in an easy place to reference!!! Now, instead of scrolling through your LJ entries or attempting to find the link you once placed in reviewing one of my tales, I can just come here. YEAH!!!!!

That's a good idea Lindelea has about posting the Shire calendar. I, like you, just refer to my ROTK book or my own chart. I never thought using the proper hobbit names for the months or days would be very annoying to others, however. It makes me wonder if I should perhaps place the equivalent in parantheses next to the hobbit name.

Author Reply: Well, as I said, I thought it might be useful!

I might give it a try, if I could figure out how to format it here. But I'm afraid mere italics give me fits. Anything complex like a calendar would be messed up six ways from Sunday!

LindeleaReviewed Chapter: 3 on 6/28/2006
While you're at it, what do you think (hint, hint) of posting a handy-dandy reference chart with names of months and days? I hadn't thought of these chapters as a reader's reference (as well as writer's) until I read the reviews for this chapter, but it makes sense.

"Thrimmage" and "Winterfilth" and the like do nothing for me when I run across them in a story. They're a source of frustration, really, and nagging aggravation as I read through a chapter looking for clues as to the story setting--and it distracts me from the plot, and usually LOTR is under someone's bed and so I can't go and look it up. I'm glad that JRRT himself didn't use them in his narrative but only mentioned them somewhere in his appendices, or I might never have got past the first chapter of LOTR. LOL!

Author Reply: Hmm...you know you could be right. I use a blown-up photocopy of the Shire Calendar from the back of the book, with the days of the week penciled in at the edge. I try to keep it handy, but sometimes I misplace it. I'll have to give it some thought. I'd have to figure out how to make it work here, what with the formatting and all.

You know, I chose to use them for two reasons: first of all, they are not *really* an exact equivalent, so having, for example, the 30th of February just threw me! And the holidays don't exactly fit in correctly either, nor do the days of the week--our Sunday is the first day of the week, Shire Sunday is the second and "Saturday" or "Sterday" is the first! And the other reason is that it sort of helped me to "stay" in Middle-earth to use the M-e terms.

I later began to wonder if I had not made a mistake in using them, but by that time I had done so in so many stories that I decided to continue, for consistency's sake.

LindeleaReviewed Chapter: 3 on 6/28/2006
Good tool. I have a young writer-friend who worked out a similar chart and gave it to me for fun (knowing my weakness with number-crunching); I had told him I worked with a 2/3 or 3/2 ratio (depending on which way you're converting) and he worked out the numbers.

Aargh! Out of time, or I'd leave a long, chatty review. What am I doing online, on a "non-online day"? (working on a group's newsletter, that's what, that is "past deadline" and sneaking a peek at story alerts that come in)

Author Reply: It does make it far easier to have it all set out like this!

Sneak away dear, I won't tell on you! *wink*

demeter dReviewed Chapter: 3 on 6/28/2006
Indeed, very helpful! thank you. I really must learn my way around LiveJournal. Many of my favorite authors here are also at LiveJournal, some opf them were there first.

Author Reply: Well, I was *here* first, but a lot of my things appear on LJ before they come over here--usually because of community challenges, gift fics, or such. LiveJournal is a lot of fun, and the hobbity communities there are pretty welcoming.

First Page | Previous Page | Next Page | Last Page

Return to Chapter List