As time marches on, I’m becoming an ever greater Lord of the Rings fan. For example, as I’ve already mentioned in a previous entry, I intend to learn Elvish (Sindarin to be exact) this summer. (As a side note, a post on Elfling this past week alerted me to a collection of Sindarin lessons put together by Gildor-Inglorion at The Council of Elrond.) However, now my obsession has extended into the realm of movie replicas.

I was talking to Kyrie on IM a little while ago, and I inquired of her about some references in her blog to doing various things with “Sting”. It turns out that she picked up an unauthorized replica of Frodo’s sword Sting on sale this past summer. Being the curious sort, I popped over to eBay to see if there were any Sting replicas on there, and if so, how much they went for. A quick search turned up a ton of them, both authorized and unauthorized, and a wide selection of other LotR(Lord of the Rings) swords as well. The sword that really caught my eye was Narsil, the sword of Elendil, which Isildur took up to cut the One Ring of power from Sauron’s hand, so as a reward for surviving midterms (although how well I survived is yet to be determined), I decided to make use of my entertainment budget to buy myself a Narsil replica. Now, the official authorized replicas made by United Cutlery were going for about $150, which is a bit out of the price range of an unemployed seminary student, even if it is $100 or so off retail. However, the unauthorized replicas (the replicas of the replica, if you will) were considerably cheaper, so I decided to go that route. I ended up paying only $36 plus shipping for my Narsil, which includes a decorative wall plaque to hang it on.

The UPS tracking page indicated that my package would be delivered on Thursday, which happens to be the day that I’m in class all day. When Thursday came around, I was very anxious to get through class and go home, so I could pick up my package from the office where the UPS guy would drop it off, since no one was home. When I finally got home, I quickly dropped off my stuff, headed over to the office, picked up my large package, and hurried back to my apartment. With eager anticipation, I cut the box open and pulled out 52 inches of cold, hard, orc-cleaving steel. I still can’t get over how HUGE this thing is. I’ll post some photos at some point, but for now you’ll have to settle for the stock photo at right.

And while we’re talking about weird takes on Tolkien, what do you get when you mix The Hobbit, Leonard Nimoy, and a bunch of girls with pointy ears? Apparently you get The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins. Ummm… yeah… ’nuff said ’bout that.

The other day, I was watching some of appendix disc 2 from The Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition, and I happened to reach the section on the added scene where Aragorn sings part of The Lay of Lúthien. Much to my delight, this segment included the movie’s language guru Róisín Carty reading the Sindarin text aloud while the camera showed the script. I hadn’t seen that text on Gwaith I-Phethdain (turns out it’s under the soundtrack section), so I was excited to have a new Sindarin text with spoken example to work with as I begin to learn Elvish pronunciation.

Tinúviel elvanui
Elleth alfirin edhelhael
O hon ring finnil fuinui
A renc gelebrin thiliol