athelas

[bonny_kate]

I don't think of myself as knowing LOTR particularly well. Sure, I've read it nearly as many times as Narnia, but I don't wander around relating everything to LOTR the way I relate everything to Narnia (and Dante, of course). But I have recently had cause to revise my opinion.

Maggie, Liz and I were talking about a name for a superhero whose power is healing. I suggested the flowers that Aragorn uses in the Houses of Healing. Maggie and Liz have never read LOTR (something I hope to remedy). They do not know about the Houses of Healing. Right.

So then I promptly suggest we look it up, and finding nothing much via Google, I suggest the fabulous Encyclopedia of Arda. They are not aware of the existence of the Encyclopedia of Arda. I begin to wonder if, perhaps, I have a larger than average knowledge of LOTR. But, not knowing the proper name of the flower, we don't find anything in the encyclopedia.

Then I have an epiphany. Maggie *owns* LOTR, so I could just look it up. I flip through Return of the King, find the chapter Houses of Healing, zip along to where Aragorn is talking about needing the plant, and there it is; athelas. Now, if I truly knew LOTR well, I should have remembered that it was athelas (although I did remember the common name, which is kingsfoil), but I did manage to find it in under five minutes.

Now I want to read LOTR again. With special attention to the appendices and pronunciation.

Comments

[lady-moriel.livejournal.com]

I need to re-read LotR too. I haven't in...I don't even know, ages. I'm forgetting a lot of things I used to know offhand, though that's probably because similar trivia from new fandoms tends to muscle in over trivia from older fandoms. But I do kind of miss it.

Although if you remembered "kingsfoil," couldn't you have just...looked that up and checked alternate names for it? 'Cause...Wikipedia pops right to "athelas" if you search for kingsfoil. But then Wikipedia is more or less my best friend, so.

[charismitaine.livejournal.com]

I'm the same way--I used to know a lot of Rohan's history that is totally gone from my mind now....which is a shame, because I put a lot of work into researching it at the time.

[bonny-kathryn.livejournal.com]

I could have looked it up as kingsfoil if I'd thought of it.