Four not-at-all-related items!

[heliopausa]

asakiyume has posted on LJ to say that Irom Sharmila Chanu has arrived in Delhi for trial on the charge of attempting suicide - but what she is actually doing is hunger-striking to protest the appalling

Comments

[asakiyume]

So hengest meant horse, and Horsa sounds like it may have meant horse too, so it was the attack of the horses! And all the Riders of Rohan are henchmen!

That's pretty neat that they were talking about dinosaurs even as far back as Dickens.

And here's hoping we hear positive news from Delhi.

[heliopausa]

Yes, Horsa meant horse. :) Sudden arrival of the Horse Brothers! (and attendant henchmen.)

And yes again, re: Delhi.

[wellinghall]

And the Hobbit brothers who founded the Shire in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings were Marcho, which means horse; and Blanco, which means (white) horse.

[heliopausa]

Oh-ho! I didn't know that! One more strike for the Shire-England resonance! (I only recently saw that there was a town in England called Bag Enderby - I think I was looking at Tennyson's biog at the time.)
Blanco sounds very - and oddly - Romance-language for Tolkien?

[wellinghall]

Do you know Tolkien's book Finn and Hengest?

[heliopausa]

No, I don't. Is it semi-history?

[wellinghall]

It looks at two pieces of poetry, one The Fight at Finnsburgh and the other a section of Beowulf, and sees what we can deduce by piecing the two together in a philological way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finn_and_Hengest

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Finn-Hengest-The-Fragment-Episode/dp/0261103555

ETA: And yes, it is semi-history, as it touches on why Hengest left his native country and came to England.

[heliopausa]

It sounds terrific! Just the sort of thing I'd like to read. Thank you! :)

[wellinghall]

And thank you for the derivation of henchman!

[heliopausa]

You're welcome! :-)

[wellinghall]

I like near-instantaneous, near-free, round-the-world communication :-)

[heliopausa]

Me too! Though this is the first time I've had such a thing happen on LJ! Great fun!