Tolkien's Pictorial Code Letters

Post by **Jnyusa** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 5:47 am

Still picking away ...

The vertical letters between the WE and the haystack in the second letter I think might be the initials of the people that "we" refers to ...

A
+
C
H

and that might be an S scrunched between the C and the H.

C might be Christopher Wiseman (best friend) and H might be Hilary(brother). Can't make out who the A would be, or the S if that is an S.

Do we have a date on the second letter? The first one is 1904 which was the last summer that Tolkien's Mum was alive, and his bio says that they spent the summer with Fr. Francis.

Jn

Post by **truehobbit** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 1:24 pm

Jny, that's a great thought!

I had always assumed that both letters were written in the same summer - maybe there are/were even more.

It's such a pity that none of our members here (at least people interested in this thread) lives near Oxford (AFAIK) and could try to have a look at page 2 of the first letter!

Hi Roccondil, great to see you here!

The remaining two sentences, which read

“We each have found two lovely walks to take you when you do! Come out here which we hope will be soon.”

Only make complete sense to me if the order of the sentences is reversed. That is

“Come out here which we hope will be soon. We each have found two lovely walks to take you when you do!”

Yes, the exclamation mark is a bit irritating, but I think it can be taken as an additional stress, rather than the end of the sentence.

Post by **Jnyusa** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 4:40 pm

The only problem I have with reversing the order of the sentences is that the "which" no longer really fits.

Looking at the other S's in the second letter, I don't think that is an S in the group of initials after all. Can anyone figure out the small flourish to the left of the C and H in that group of initials? Is it perhaps a way of making a third letter out of the other two? - as he did with his own initials much later to make the elvish-style symbol of his name. E.g. the flourish to the left of the C almost makes it look like a K with an overlong left stem.

Jn

Post by **Roccondil** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 6:52 pm

truehobbit wrote:Jny, that's a great thought!

I had always assumed that both letters were written in the same summer - maybe there are/were even more.

It's such a pity that none of our members here (at least people interested in this thread) lives near Oxford (AFAIK) and could try to have a look at page 2 of the first letter!

Hi Roccondil, great to see you here!

Perhaps Roccondil should admit at this point that he does indeed live very close to Oxford.

So I'll see what I can do.

Post by **Jnyusa** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 7:08 pm

Three cheers for Roccondil!

Jn

p.s. We're running out of puzzle here. Perhaps we should make our own pictorial letters for one another in this thread. I guess one would need a scanner to upload them.

Post by **truehobbit** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 8:35 pm

Roccondil wrote: Perhaps Roccondil should admit at this point that he does indeed live very close to Oxford.

So I'll see what I can do.

You do?

Cool!

So - why haven't we seen you at a moot yet?

It's mandatory for all British TORCers to come to the UK-moots, didn't you know that?

Seriously, it would be great if you could ask the Bodleian whether they'd let you look at the manuscript - and I think it's safe to say we'll all envy you if they do!

And I know you haven't been on TORC for long, so you've probably never thought of meeting up with people, but it would also be great to see you at the next UK-moot!

(We don't bite - much.

)

Jny, I thought the supposed sign you mean was a blot of ink! Hmmh, not sure - we'll have to look at who was around at the time.

We're running out of puzzle here. Perhaps we should make our own pictorial letters for one another in this thread. I guess one would need a scanner to upload them

Cool idea

- I have the scanner, I'd probably lack the wit, though!

Post by **Jnyusa** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 12:05 am

I messed around all day and created a pictorial letter for all of you, while we're waiting for Roccondil to jog to Oxford on our behalf.

That was supposed to be my motivation for finally getting my scanner hooked up! Hopefully I'll get to that tonight and put up the letter tonight or tomorrow morning.

It's only two sentences long, but it took up a whole page doing it in pictures like that! Also, myself being no artist and having no photoshop or such, everything is clip art or lifted from the web.

Jn

Post by **truehobbit** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 1:17 am

w00tw00t!

That's so cool, Jny! Bring it on!

Post by **Roccondil** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 4:40 pm

truehobbit wrote:
So - why haven't we seen you at a moot yet?

As you say, I only joined last April, when I realised I could use the internet for something other than work-related research

(and buying stuff from Amazon).

Just to update you all on the Bodleian. Firstly, I should say, having seen this on a UK website..

The Bodleian library is in possession of some of Tolkien's original manuscripts which are, unfortunately, not accessible to the general public.

.. We should perhaps not get our hopes up too high.

However, I have emailed what I think is the correct address within the Bodleian with a suitably polite request and we shall see what transpires. I have offered to present myself in person and complete the eight page application to become a non-university reader at the library, if necessary.

I'll follow up with a phone call in a couple of days if I get no reply.

Wed Jan 04, 2006 6:18 pm

Thank you, Roccondil.

Post by **Jnyusa** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 8:03 pm

Indeed! Thank you!

Jn

Post by **Alatar** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 8:08 pm

Doh! I saw Jnyusa's post and ran in to look at her beautiful Pictorial Letter!

Wait a minute... is that what you need to print and scan? Just do a screencap...

Post by **Jnyusa** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 8:19 pm

Alatar, that's what Prim told me to do in the business forum. We've got a technical thread there so I stretched it's definition and asked there why my printer isn't working.

I've got to run to the bookstore now, but I'll try the screen cap later this afternoon. Thanks! If two people suggest it, it must work some of the time at least.

Jn

Post by **Jnyusa** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 10:42 pm

Ok - I had to do this as two screen captures because it wouldn't all fit in one shot, so the second image below repeats a large chunk of the first image, but it has the bottom of the 'letter' which the first image does not include.

Post by **truehobbit** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 12:43 am

Wow, that looks awesome, Jny!

How did you do it? Is it an apple paint-program or so?
It's so cool - how long did it take you to come up with the encryption?
I think I can read a bit of it, just can't name some of the pics.

I can't decipher the heading, but the first sentence begins:

The pictures must point to the word; so if...had been locked...

It must be the name of the bird, not just "seagull", but I don't know what they are called.
Wonder what might have been locked, though.

Roccondil, I wouldn't be surprised if the Tolkien Estate didn't want people they don't know to research Tolkien - but one can still hope!

Thanks so much for making the effort!

(

when I realised I could use the internet for something other than work-related research

Hehe, I know what you mean! I didn't have a lot to do with the Internet before coming to TORC, either!

And I'd also been there for seven or eight months before I first started to think of meeting people in real life.
So, re moots, if you'd be interested to meet some people IRL, check out the Events forum on TORC! The next moot is being planned for early March in Leeds, but not much is certain yet - still, if you think you might want to attend, just post in the thread, everybody is welcome!

)

Post by **Alatar** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 12:44 am

Hmmm... here's as far as I've gotten!

The ... Aroma?
Picture must? to the
word so if
snow sun had been locked

Post by **truehobbit** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 12:50 am

Alatar, I think the picture in the red box is not part of the text, but the heading of the letter (i.e. the date and place).
"Rome" is a good idea - but the pic can't be Rome, really, I think.

Post by **Roccondil** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 1:02 am

Hey - great stuff

Here's my first go at the start..

The picture must point to the
word; so if Peter
? cloud had been locked
in a room and...

EDIT: Oh, by the way Peter comes from P + tern - N (but I guess it must be something else really - what other seabirds have an N in?)

Post by **Jnyusa** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 1:25 am

Very good so far! Yes, the part in the red box at the top and in the blue box at the bottom is separate from the message.

Not all the details came out so well in the screen cap. The first picture inside the red box is a woman pouring coffee for a man ... it's very hard to see the coffee pot and cup in the picture.

There is one picture, I now see, that suggests more than one word ... the downside of unchangeable clip art ... but you should be able to figure it out from context.

Hobby, I just copied pictures onto a 'draw' page in Appleworks, either from the internet or from the clip art that came with my computer. Appleworks only allows me to resize, rotate and reverse pictures so I can't do anything fancy. Deciding how to encrypt the message took almost no time at all ... 15 minutes or so? Finding the pictures I wanted on the internet and then sizing and spacing them properly took a few hours! (How to waste a holiday afternoon)

The very last picture may be very hard to decipher because it came out so dark. If you all get everything right but that, I'll give you a clue.

Jn

edit: has evil idea

It would be fun to do a series of quotes from Tolkien all done in pictorial code.

Post by **truehobbit** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 2:41 am

Roccondil, the bird is indeed a tern, I looked up a pic.

Hah! It is Peter - Peter Jackson!

I'm not sure how the Xes and the red dot make Jack, but it must be this pic + sun, I think.

(I was thinking, do we know a Peter in relation to Tolkien...?)

Edit:
...had been locked in a room (is it just a room or a specific room?) and forced (fort - t + C + E + D) to...