Thread: Simbelmynë

If you visit a Spring Rewards Vendor at one of the Spring Festival sites in Eriador you will find a Simbelmynë Circlet, a Simbelmynë Cloak, Simbelmynë Tunic & Trousers, and a Simbelmynë Dress. You will also find the Simbelmynë Steed at Hengstacer Farm in the Northern Bree-fields. It is most appropriate that on this Memorial Day weekend we encounter the word simbelmynë for the first time in The Lord of the Rings Online.



The Simbelmynë Steed and Dress


Simbelmynë in The Lord of the Rings

As Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli approach Edoras, the chief city of Rohan where the Golden Hall of Meduseld resides, they spy sixteen mounds where lay buried sixteen Kings of the Rohirrim. Upon the mounds grow small white flowers.

At the foot of the walled hill the way ran under the shadow of many mounds, high and green. Upon their western sides the grass was white as with a drifted snow: small flowers sprang there like countless stars amid the turf.

‘Look!’ cried Gandalf. ‘How fair are the bright eyes in the grass! Evermind they are called, simbelmynë in this land of Men, for they blossom in all the seasons of the year, and grow where dead men rest. Behold! We are come to the great barrows where the sires of Théoden sleep.’

Tolkien, J.R.R. ‘The King of the Golden Hall’. The Two Towers.



The burial mounds of the Kings of Rohan as depicted in Peter Jackson’s theatrical adaptation of The Two Towers

Professor Tolkien used Old English, or Anglo-Saxon if you prefer, as an analog for Rohirric, the language of the Rohirrim. (Modern English is an analog for Westron, the common language spoken in Middle-earth.) Simbelmynë is composed of two Old English elements, simbel, meaning ‘always, continually’ and myne meaning ‘memory, remembrance, memorial’, etc. (See Old English Made Easy dictionaries.) Gandalf provides the translation ‘Evermind’.

While no one is certain how Old English words are pronounced, scholars have used clues from surviving Old English literature to make a best guess. According to this system, see the Old English Pronunciation Guide, Simbelmynë would be pronounced SEEM-bale-mü-nay (The ü is pronounced by shaping your lips for ‘oo’ but saying ‘ee’.)

Excellent catch! Thank you.

Very nice post. Thank you!

I was wondering about this. Thanks!

Originally Posted by oldbadgerbrock

While no one is certain how Old English words are pronounced, scholars have used clues from surviving Old English literature to make a best guess. According to this system, see the Old English Pronunciation Guide, Simbelmynë would be pronounced SEEM-bale-mü-nay (The ü is pronounced by shaping your lips for ‘oo’ but saying ‘ee’.)

Shouldn't that be SEEM-bell-mü-neh though? When it comes to letter/sound ratio Anglo-Saxon is almost always 1/1.

According to the web site I linked e is pronounced as follows:

e is pronounced [e], as in Modern English fate; that is, it is like the e of a continental European language, not like the “long” or “short” e of Modern English (actually [i] or [ɛ]). Helpan ‘help’, fēdan ‘feed’.

Another website may tell you differently. I believe this one to be correct.

Originally Posted by oldbadgerbrock

According to the web site I linked e is pronounced as follows:

Another website may tell you differently. I believe this one to be correct.

I see

e is pronounced [e], as in Modern English fate

this statement is misleading. It is true that there is 'e' in fate, however the whole word is pronounced [feɪt] i.e. the 'a' in fate stands for two vowels. However in the word simbelmynë it is only one vowel. Due to the way English phonology works I don't think there is a "proper" way to express this. I suggested bell [bɛl] because it closer to the intended sound.

Originally Posted by Reniannen

It is true that there is 'e' in fate, however the whole word is pronounced [feɪt] i.e. the 'a' in fate stands for two vowels.

You're correct. The problem, however, is that there isn't a good example of [e] in Modern English, which is undoubtedly why the author used 'fate'. I think the key phrase is "it is like the e of a continental European language." A good example would be the Italian word 'tre', but unfortunately most English-speaking Americans aren't familiar with Italian.

(For those who are wondering, letters enclosed in brackets [ ] are the symbols used for the International Phonetic Alphabet, or IPA for short.)