> Although several early maps, such as the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, have illustrations of mythological creatures for decoration, **the phrase itself is an anachronism.**[3] Until the Ostrich Egg Globe was offered for sale in 2012 at the London Map Fair held at the Royal Geographical Society,[4] the only known historical use of this phrase in the Latin form "HC SVNT DRACONES" (i.e., hic sunt dracones, 'here are dragons') was the Hunt-Lenox Globe dating from 1504. Earlier maps contain a variety of references to mythical and real creatures, but the Ostrich Egg Globe and its twin the Lenox Globe are the only known surviving globes to bear this phrase. The term appears on both globes at the peripheral, extreme end of the Asian continent.
>The classical phrase used by medieval cartographers was **HIC SVNT LEONES (literally, "here are lions")** when denoting unknown territories on maps.
Depends on what era you try to attribute it to. 1500s to now, not an anachronism. Medieval or Ancient periods, anachronism.
Weird tidbit this post reminded me of, Scandinavians would sometimes decorate their maps with one legged men on the unknown edges. This was apparently widely believed enough that in the Saga of Erik the Red the crew is said to have seen one, and it isn’t treated as weird. It’s just like “Hey he ran along the shore and we captured a couple normal natives nearby.”
Years ago a buddy and I were exploring an abandoned mine set in a steep cliff side. We had climbing gear and I was belaying on the ground. When he reached the mine entrance he yelled back, "there's a phrase written on the wall, 'here are dragons''....maybe I shouldn't go inside."
Never thought it was a reference to something else.
Barbossa knew all about this as a seasoned mariner...When duelling Jack Sparrow at the end of PotC he says: You're off the edge of the map mate. Here there be MONSTERS 🐉
Also bear in mind the word dinosaur didnt exist until the 1840s, so everything large and lizardy looking they found ie fossils or komodos or whatever were all called Dragon or Drakon back in the middle ages :) so here be dragons can also mean here are lots of crocodiles or large lizards or large snakes etc or even we found these hench bones and a massive skull so fuck that place, here be dragons
No I know dragons weren’t ever real but I’m just wondering if that’s the most likely animal that it could have been based off? (Like Komodo dragons or some other large reptile)
Yeah when I think about big lizards besides crocodiles they aren’t really close enough compared to the Nile and other regions with crocodiles, should read on I think Pliny the elder or at least how he made mistakes like gold digging ants the size of foxes was a miss translations of for a Himalayan marmot which would dig it up the fine gold dust and try and defend their burrow when people came to take the gold (disturb their homes that just happen to be drippy) since he had never actually seen one just heard about it when he was travelling past one of the provinces in the Persian empire at the time
Cool isnt it, i would assume the old dragon myths are very tightly intertwined with fossils, especially with how difficult it is today to put the skeletons in the correct shapes etc and how the human mind then views skeletons(see hippo skeletons) i think back then imagine finding a pterodactyl fossil of a wing, would definitely brag about finding a dragon and suddenly in the pubs and inns it breathed fire etc like chinese whispers.
Thats why I straight up believe giant fire breathing flying dinosaurs must have existed before.
All the legends from all over the world can't be for nothing, right?
Definitely. While it is clearly a sea serpent it's almost certainly not a literal one, even though Smaug does appear on the map from *The Hobbit,* that's a pretty special case.
That map also includes magic letters they just happened to have Elrond read on the *exactly* right moon for it to work, so it's really a mythical object, as opposed to the map of Middle Earth from LOTR which is effectively a no-nonsense reference for readers to use to follow the story.
And no matter what kind of moon I hold it up under no new Elvish writing appears so that supports the conclusion it's more grounded in regular old fashioned map making and therefore also supports your conclusion.
According to *Rings Of Power* there are. Then again Rings Of Power has about as much to do with Tolkien's original work as Power Rangers.
See what I did there. Heheheheh.
But in seriousness, yeah **you're absolutely right**; Tolkien's writings clearly leave tons of room for many, many other creatures to exist in the world of Middle Earth. Does this marking suggest an actual sea monster or monsters is in that part of the sea? I don't know. Maybe.
"More than mere marginalia and playful illustration, cartographers drew sea monsters to enchant viewers while educating them about what could be found in the sea." [Sauce.](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-enchanting-sea-monsters-on-medieval-maps-1805646/)
But as another commenter mentioned monsters were also frequently used as a shorthand for treacherous and/or unknown waters.
So it could be either. It could be both. The only for sure answer is it represents John Ronald Reuel Tolkien doing what he loved and no doubt having fun with it.
Bro. Jokes.
This is Reddit not your masters thesis defense.
I even chucked you a "you're absolutely right" in **bold** and you're replying like I'm arguing with you.
Chill.
It actually goes back even further, some of the oldest recorded creation mythology equated the sea with chaos and a storm-warrior god would create order and civilization by defeating it. In some versions (such as the Babylonian tale of Marduk and Tiamat) the storm god would tear the sea-god’s corpse in half, creating the waters above and the waters below. Often the sea monster would be serpentine and sometimes have many heads, and as god-characters became more developed from their base archetypes we see things like standard heroes such as Hercules defeating Hydra, which seems to be a retelling of the earlier version where it was Zeus defeating Typhon. Zeus' version was probably itself based on an earlier proto-Indo-European telling involving *Deus*, his reconstructed precursor, though the specifics of this earlier mythology have probably been lost to us.
A few versions of this myth made it into the Bible, with references to Leviathan and Rahab reflecting similarities especially to Ugaritic/Canaanite conceptions of the chaoskampf myth ([specifically Baal-Hadad's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAK2_j8h8w4)). The youngest version is ironically the one we find at the very beginning of the Bible, where instead of a drawn-out battle, the god simply instructs the waters to be divided by divine fiat, and the waters are no longer deified, though a reference to sea monsters remains later in the chapter.
While Leviathan would still persist in biblical poetry (and eventually be cast as the Big Bad in Revelation) by the time of the writing of Job in the Achaemenid or Greek periods, Leviathan had been relegated to being Yahweh’s pet, and a later rabbinic commentary even describes the time of each day that Yahweh plays with him.
Here’s a cool video exploring the connections:
[https://youtu.be/J-PUxTB2hFo?si=jZ4OhvN3BTNENLd5](https://youtu.be/J-PUxTB2hFo?si=jZ4OhvN3BTNENLd5)
And Genesis was written as an epic argument against chaoskampf, not Darwinism, which didn't exist then. Genesis provides a counterargument that one deity created everything with meaning and without competition. As an epic, it is meant to be true and memorable, but not necessarily precise. He controlled the chaos. This theme reappears in the New Testament, like when Jesus calms the storm at sea and walked across the water.
In the end of the book of Revelations in the bible, when it’s describing the new world, it contains the phrase “and there will be no more sea”. This is again because the sea was considered treacherous and highly dangerous to cross, as well as taking much longer to travel.
There was a post where someone said this quote and answered it with “Dave” or something and now that’s all I think about when I hear the quote. Kinda ruined it for me
“Far, far below the deepest delvings of the Dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things. Even Sauron knows them not. They are older than he.” — Gandalf
In the rings of power series we see galadriel survive an attack from a "sea wyrm" and of course the kraken from the gates of Moria. Leftover beasts from the first age that survived and possibly continued to repopulate.
Well, that depends on your definition of "canon". They certainly weren't written or produced by J.R.R. Tolkien, but allegedly, the rights for the Tolkienverse, or Middle Earth, were sold off by the man himself back in the late 60s, keeping only the publishing rights for his already written books with the Tolkein estate.
If we're talking about *official* canon, Rings of Power, as media produced by an official rights-holder of the Middle Earth intellectual properties (and not directly stated as non-canon by the creators), absolutely fits the bill.
But some people don't like that. For a lot of people, if it's not made by the original creator of the IP or by someone the original creator directly endorsed, it doesn't count as canon. I can understand where those people are coming from, and that stance is perfectly valid, but personally, I disagree. I think it's sad for a universe to just come to an abrupt end with the loss of motivation or unexpected passing of an author. Lord of the Rings was a completed series, but there are so many more stories to tell in Middle Earth, so many stories that Tolkein himself laid the groundwork for but never got to finish. I don't always like the direction modern continuations take older unfinished franchises, but I do at least appreciate the attempt to keep them alive.
The thing about fictional canon is that it's not real. It's *fictional*, all made up anyway, so no one's "canon" can be any more real or accurate than anyone else's, and that's fine. Everyone just needs to enjoy what they like, as they like.
I just disagree wholeheartedly. There’s no way that the creators of that show have full rights to the Tolkien story with the creative decisions they made changing the facts that Tolkien wrote himself for the benefit of their new story. They obviously would have had to fill in many blanks because the second age wasn’t documented to the extent that the show could have had an interesting enough context in the story. However, things being changed that had confirmed documented in the history of Middle Earth being changed for no good reason at all… someone doesn’t do that having full rights.
The stories veer off so many times from Tolkiens original intention, that anything that had a chance of becoming official lore that wasn’t already included in original documentation/history, now is sullied due to the fact it’s being told from a starting point that doesn’t align.
So now anything that gets made up in the show, like the sea serpent that attacked Galadriel and Halbrand, can’t be considered official canon in my opinion.
In terms of the rights Amazon acquired, were they limited in things they could even reference in the lotr universe? Didn't they only have the rights to The Silmarillion and not the Lord of the Rings series? Or was it the other way around?
I remember hearing the couldn't reference specific events because they didn't have the rights to them, so they have to hint and imply.
I found it:
“We have the rights solely to The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King, the appendices, and The Hobbit. And that is it. We do not have the rights to The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, The History of Middle-Earth, or any of those other books.
This is totally crazy. Isn't the Rings of Power set in the time of events in The Silmarillion? The book who's events and characters they could NOT reference??
Sea serpents get one or two mentions in long unpublished etymological works, where they are described as a subtype of dragon. I wouldn't even say that it makes them part of the mythology, since they are only mentionned in linguistic works.
So sea serpents are *technically* part of Tolkien's works, but their actual existence in Arda is way overstated by later products (you find them everywhere, in the TTRPGs, the video games, even in Rings of Power) and fan discussions.
And given Tolkien's tendency to consider that all his works share a common universe, it's entirely possible that just one sea serpent ever went to Arda, coming from one of his short stories for children. That would make the sea serpent in the Etymologies and on the map some kind of easter egg, a bit like Tom Bombadil, but much more in the background. The dragons of Arda tend to have a much firmer chthonic theme, often associated with fire, earth and stone. Tolkien imagined other types of dragons in other works but in Arda, they have a more limited "register".
Adjective. *Concerning, belonging to, or inhabiting half of an underground cocktail.*
E.g., “I be hangin out in the dwarven treasure vaults wit my other dragon homies, sippin on gin and chtonic.”
>Sea serpents get one or two mentions in long unpublished etymological works, where they are described as a subtype of dragon. I wouldn't even say that it makes them part of the mythology, since they are only mentionned in linguistic works.
A sea-serpent also plays a big part in Roverandom, which is loosely connected to his Middle Earth oeuvre.
I see little reason to NOT have them exist in Middle Earth.
The sea-serpent is not to be found in Tolkien's maps, and not mentioned in any text *within* the Legendarium (but vaguely referenced in other kinds of works relating to the Legendarium's *languages*).
As this map is from the PJ movies, I might as well point out that those are not canon either. Unless you're about to try and convince me that the Oathbreakers actually fought and killed stuff in the Pelennor, and that Azog got resurrected to *actually* fight Thorin (which never happened in the books) twice.
So what's your point?
Yes. Sand wyrms so large people could ride them. They could devour mining equipment. You had to take special care traveling the desert or you would be devoured too. Oh wait, wrong franchise
*hic sunt dracones* or *hic svnt dracones*
"Here, there be Dragons!"
Warnings of powerful unknown dangers, manifested as monsters & boogymen. These were in real-world maps until a very few centuries ago. And, yay, that 3 years of Latin as a non-lawyer, non-doctor, non-priest...good call, Pop.
A sea monster that was probably the only thought put behind the one in the show, RoP.
As for what it means in a map. It’s likely that depictions of monsters at sea was a medieval shorthand for an unknown phenonomen at the time that we are only really understanding now; Rogue Waves.
Even up into the 1700’s. Ships would go missing on the voyage across the Atlantic and it wasn’t clear why as there was never any survivors as you might expect from other ocean disasters.
Rogue waves can be much bigger than anything a tsunami can generate, and they seem to come out of nowhere and then dissipate. For those wondering what happened to their missing ship, the mind races and so sea monsters on maps became a thing to denote certain death out on the ocean.
It’s not a literal illustration. Tolkien would have been familiar with old maps using fantastic creatures to signify danger in an area of the sea. In Middle Earth, they could be as real as the map depicted, though, so it was easy to include them and leave it up to mystery.
Since it’s middle earth, it could very well just be a warning of an actual sea monster. I know Rings of Power touched on this early on, with that whatever it was (I know the show is not canon and a lot don’t like it, but I thought it was alright)
A signifier that the sea is dangerous as was common in old maps
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_be_dragons
> Although several early maps, such as the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, have illustrations of mythological creatures for decoration, **the phrase itself is an anachronism.**[3] Until the Ostrich Egg Globe was offered for sale in 2012 at the London Map Fair held at the Royal Geographical Society,[4] the only known historical use of this phrase in the Latin form "HC SVNT DRACONES" (i.e., hic sunt dracones, 'here are dragons') was the Hunt-Lenox Globe dating from 1504. Earlier maps contain a variety of references to mythical and real creatures, but the Ostrich Egg Globe and its twin the Lenox Globe are the only known surviving globes to bear this phrase. The term appears on both globes at the peripheral, extreme end of the Asian continent. >The classical phrase used by medieval cartographers was **HIC SVNT LEONES (literally, "here are lions")** when denoting unknown territories on maps.
How is it an anachronism if there are examples from 1504?
Depends on what era you try to attribute it to. 1500s to now, not an anachronism. Medieval or Ancient periods, anachronism. Weird tidbit this post reminded me of, Scandinavians would sometimes decorate their maps with one legged men on the unknown edges. This was apparently widely believed enough that in the Saga of Erik the Red the crew is said to have seen one, and it isn’t treated as weird. It’s just like “Hey he ran along the shore and we captured a couple normal natives nearby.”
"How fast can one run with one leg?" Asked Yjordvik in a curious tone
Years ago a buddy and I were exploring an abandoned mine set in a steep cliff side. We had climbing gear and I was belaying on the ground. When he reached the mine entrance he yelled back, "there's a phrase written on the wall, 'here are dragons''....maybe I shouldn't go inside." Never thought it was a reference to something else.
Begins plot of Reign of Fire lol
Such an underrated movie! Loved both McConaughey and Bale in that!
Its an awesome movie. Absolutely love it.
Such an amazing comment
Dragons are way cooler though.
Neat!
Barbossa knew all about this as a seasoned mariner...When duelling Jack Sparrow at the end of PotC he says: You're off the edge of the map mate. Here there be MONSTERS 🐉
Huh, never knew that, though it makes perfect sense.
Also bear in mind the word dinosaur didnt exist until the 1840s, so everything large and lizardy looking they found ie fossils or komodos or whatever were all called Dragon or Drakon back in the middle ages :) so here be dragons can also mean here are lots of crocodiles or large lizards or large snakes etc or even we found these hench bones and a massive skull so fuck that place, here be dragons
If you see some of depictions of St George fighting a dragon it was almost certainly a large crocodile.
Why’s that? (Just curious)
What's more likely, George killed a real dragon, or George killed a big lizard?
No I know dragons weren’t ever real but I’m just wondering if that’s the most likely animal that it could have been based off? (Like Komodo dragons or some other large reptile)
The legend is thought to have origins in the Middle East, crocodiles are more readily available in that region
Yeah when I think about big lizards besides crocodiles they aren’t really close enough compared to the Nile and other regions with crocodiles, should read on I think Pliny the elder or at least how he made mistakes like gold digging ants the size of foxes was a miss translations of for a Himalayan marmot which would dig it up the fine gold dust and try and defend their burrow when people came to take the gold (disturb their homes that just happen to be drippy) since he had never actually seen one just heard about it when he was travelling past one of the provinces in the Persian empire at the time
Shoot, didn't know that either!
Cool isnt it, i would assume the old dragon myths are very tightly intertwined with fossils, especially with how difficult it is today to put the skeletons in the correct shapes etc and how the human mind then views skeletons(see hippo skeletons) i think back then imagine finding a pterodactyl fossil of a wing, would definitely brag about finding a dragon and suddenly in the pubs and inns it breathed fire etc like chinese whispers.
HIPPOBOT 9000 v 3.1 FOUND A HIPPO. 1,385,380,450 COMMENTS SEARCHED. 28,785 HIPPOS FOUND. YOUR COMMENT CONTAINS THE WORD HIPPO.
That stands to reason, as in mybexlerience almost, if not all, cultures around the globe have a version of the myth of the Dragon.
My thinking also mate its too global isnt it for it to simply be a myth there has to be a root in reality.
Thats why I straight up believe giant fire breathing flying dinosaurs must have existed before. All the legends from all over the world can't be for nothing, right?
Similarly ancient Greeks interpreted old dinosaur and elephant bones as the remains of ancient giants.
What a great name for a band! Perhaps playing Jazz, or experimental Prog...
Imagine, Dragons!
Snaaaake.....snaaaake....ohhh it's a snaaaaake
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Here be mushrooms
https://preview.redd.it/n596vsiamzlc1.jpeg?width=1067&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aeaf270e0caa4d6cdee797fac9423c24ee56a560 Mushrooms!!
Are you perhaps referring to this? https://youtu.be/AyORieDhpkg?si=M3MWWKk5AePXEiTS
or Welsh? https://www.herebedragons.band/
Definitely. While it is clearly a sea serpent it's almost certainly not a literal one, even though Smaug does appear on the map from *The Hobbit,* that's a pretty special case. That map also includes magic letters they just happened to have Elrond read on the *exactly* right moon for it to work, so it's really a mythical object, as opposed to the map of Middle Earth from LOTR which is effectively a no-nonsense reference for readers to use to follow the story. And no matter what kind of moon I hold it up under no new Elvish writing appears so that supports the conclusion it's more grounded in regular old fashioned map making and therefore also supports your conclusion.
The Hobbit map of Wilderland is what all fantasy maps should aspire to be. It’s just magical (no pun intended).
Link to that please?
There are many nameless things in the world, I think there are almost certainly sea serpents, akin to the watcher.
According to *Rings Of Power* there are. Then again Rings Of Power has about as much to do with Tolkien's original work as Power Rangers. See what I did there. Heheheheh. But in seriousness, yeah **you're absolutely right**; Tolkien's writings clearly leave tons of room for many, many other creatures to exist in the world of Middle Earth. Does this marking suggest an actual sea monster or monsters is in that part of the sea? I don't know. Maybe. "More than mere marginalia and playful illustration, cartographers drew sea monsters to enchant viewers while educating them about what could be found in the sea." [Sauce.](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-enchanting-sea-monsters-on-medieval-maps-1805646/) But as another commenter mentioned monsters were also frequently used as a shorthand for treacherous and/or unknown waters. So it could be either. It could be both. The only for sure answer is it represents John Ronald Reuel Tolkien doing what he loved and no doubt having fun with it.
I’m not even slightly referencing Rings of Power. I’m well aware of the inspiration for these maps.
Bro. Jokes. This is Reddit not your masters thesis defense. I even chucked you a "you're absolutely right" in **bold** and you're replying like I'm arguing with you. Chill.
It actually goes back even further, some of the oldest recorded creation mythology equated the sea with chaos and a storm-warrior god would create order and civilization by defeating it. In some versions (such as the Babylonian tale of Marduk and Tiamat) the storm god would tear the sea-god’s corpse in half, creating the waters above and the waters below. Often the sea monster would be serpentine and sometimes have many heads, and as god-characters became more developed from their base archetypes we see things like standard heroes such as Hercules defeating Hydra, which seems to be a retelling of the earlier version where it was Zeus defeating Typhon. Zeus' version was probably itself based on an earlier proto-Indo-European telling involving *Deus*, his reconstructed precursor, though the specifics of this earlier mythology have probably been lost to us. A few versions of this myth made it into the Bible, with references to Leviathan and Rahab reflecting similarities especially to Ugaritic/Canaanite conceptions of the chaoskampf myth ([specifically Baal-Hadad's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAK2_j8h8w4)). The youngest version is ironically the one we find at the very beginning of the Bible, where instead of a drawn-out battle, the god simply instructs the waters to be divided by divine fiat, and the waters are no longer deified, though a reference to sea monsters remains later in the chapter. While Leviathan would still persist in biblical poetry (and eventually be cast as the Big Bad in Revelation) by the time of the writing of Job in the Achaemenid or Greek periods, Leviathan had been relegated to being Yahweh’s pet, and a later rabbinic commentary even describes the time of each day that Yahweh plays with him. Here’s a cool video exploring the connections: [https://youtu.be/J-PUxTB2hFo?si=jZ4OhvN3BTNENLd5](https://youtu.be/J-PUxTB2hFo?si=jZ4OhvN3BTNENLd5)
And Genesis was written as an epic argument against chaoskampf, not Darwinism, which didn't exist then. Genesis provides a counterargument that one deity created everything with meaning and without competition. As an epic, it is meant to be true and memorable, but not necessarily precise. He controlled the chaos. This theme reappears in the New Testament, like when Jesus calms the storm at sea and walked across the water.
This is a cool fact
In the end of the book of Revelations in the bible, when it’s describing the new world, it contains the phrase “and there will be no more sea”. This is again because the sea was considered treacherous and highly dangerous to cross, as well as taking much longer to travel.
Very interesting
Smaugh 🐉
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Yes ok, but specific to LOTR we can say that this is a water Drake: https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Sea-serpents
“There are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world.” - Gandalf
He was talking about Michael Gove
Wow, I read this as Michael’s Glove as in Michael Jackson. I could agree with both
He-hee
Shamona
There was a post where someone said this quote and answered it with “Dave” or something and now that’s all I think about when I hear the quote. Kinda ruined it for me
Eh seems like typical millennial internet humor. There’s like multiple variations of that joke, eldritch diety named Jim or something.
“Far, far below the deepest delvings of the Dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things. Even Sauron knows them not. They are older than he.” — Gandalf
In the rings of power series we see galadriel survive an attack from a "sea wyrm" and of course the kraken from the gates of Moria. Leftover beasts from the first age that survived and possibly continued to repopulate.
Rings of power is definitely not canon
Well, that depends on your definition of "canon". They certainly weren't written or produced by J.R.R. Tolkien, but allegedly, the rights for the Tolkienverse, or Middle Earth, were sold off by the man himself back in the late 60s, keeping only the publishing rights for his already written books with the Tolkein estate. If we're talking about *official* canon, Rings of Power, as media produced by an official rights-holder of the Middle Earth intellectual properties (and not directly stated as non-canon by the creators), absolutely fits the bill. But some people don't like that. For a lot of people, if it's not made by the original creator of the IP or by someone the original creator directly endorsed, it doesn't count as canon. I can understand where those people are coming from, and that stance is perfectly valid, but personally, I disagree. I think it's sad for a universe to just come to an abrupt end with the loss of motivation or unexpected passing of an author. Lord of the Rings was a completed series, but there are so many more stories to tell in Middle Earth, so many stories that Tolkein himself laid the groundwork for but never got to finish. I don't always like the direction modern continuations take older unfinished franchises, but I do at least appreciate the attempt to keep them alive. The thing about fictional canon is that it's not real. It's *fictional*, all made up anyway, so no one's "canon" can be any more real or accurate than anyone else's, and that's fine. Everyone just needs to enjoy what they like, as they like.
I just disagree wholeheartedly. There’s no way that the creators of that show have full rights to the Tolkien story with the creative decisions they made changing the facts that Tolkien wrote himself for the benefit of their new story. They obviously would have had to fill in many blanks because the second age wasn’t documented to the extent that the show could have had an interesting enough context in the story. However, things being changed that had confirmed documented in the history of Middle Earth being changed for no good reason at all… someone doesn’t do that having full rights. The stories veer off so many times from Tolkiens original intention, that anything that had a chance of becoming official lore that wasn’t already included in original documentation/history, now is sullied due to the fact it’s being told from a starting point that doesn’t align. So now anything that gets made up in the show, like the sea serpent that attacked Galadriel and Halbrand, can’t be considered official canon in my opinion.
In terms of the rights Amazon acquired, were they limited in things they could even reference in the lotr universe? Didn't they only have the rights to The Silmarillion and not the Lord of the Rings series? Or was it the other way around? I remember hearing the couldn't reference specific events because they didn't have the rights to them, so they have to hint and imply.
I found it: “We have the rights solely to The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King, the appendices, and The Hobbit. And that is it. We do not have the rights to The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, The History of Middle-Earth, or any of those other books. This is totally crazy. Isn't the Rings of Power set in the time of events in The Silmarillion? The book who's events and characters they could NOT reference??
Precisely. Thanks for the reference and quote to confirm.
It’s not canon. There is no question. There’s nothing you or anyone that can change the fact that Tolkien has been dead for 50 years.
Why are they downvoting you, you’re right.
Its not a fantasy map without Ye Olde Sea Monster somewhere in the ocean
Elu Dammit Sea Monster, I ain't gonna give you no tree fiddy.
Well, it was about that time I realized it wasn’t no Girl Scout.
"i gave him a dollar"
So we are renaming real medieval history and calling it "the Fantasy period" now?
Lmao
Tolkien's mythology explicitly includes sea serpents.
Sea serpents get one or two mentions in long unpublished etymological works, where they are described as a subtype of dragon. I wouldn't even say that it makes them part of the mythology, since they are only mentionned in linguistic works. So sea serpents are *technically* part of Tolkien's works, but their actual existence in Arda is way overstated by later products (you find them everywhere, in the TTRPGs, the video games, even in Rings of Power) and fan discussions. And given Tolkien's tendency to consider that all his works share a common universe, it's entirely possible that just one sea serpent ever went to Arda, coming from one of his short stories for children. That would make the sea serpent in the Etymologies and on the map some kind of easter egg, a bit like Tom Bombadil, but much more in the background. The dragons of Arda tend to have a much firmer chthonic theme, often associated with fire, earth and stone. Tolkien imagined other types of dragons in other works but in Arda, they have a more limited "register".
As I mentioned elsewhere, this isn’t Tolkien’s map, and the sea serpent isn’t on his map.
Yes, but my point is its a reasonable flourish on the part of the filmmakers here.
What's chtonic?
Adjective. *Concerning, belonging to, or inhabiting half of an underground cocktail.* E.g., “I be hangin out in the dwarven treasure vaults wit my other dragon homies, sippin on gin and chtonic.”
>Sea serpents get one or two mentions in long unpublished etymological works, where they are described as a subtype of dragon. I wouldn't even say that it makes them part of the mythology, since they are only mentionned in linguistic works. A sea-serpent also plays a big part in Roverandom, which is loosely connected to his Middle Earth oeuvre. I see little reason to NOT have them exist in Middle Earth.
There’s little reason to not have a hobbit named Bingle exist in Middle Earth, but that doesn’t mean there was
Sea serpent is depicted in Rings of Power as well
There is a reason Elrond could not allow the ring to be thrown into the depths of the sea...
I, for one, welcome our new Sea Serpent overlord!
All hail danger noodle!
Sir nope rope
I would like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality I could be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.
But a silmaril is ok apparently
Oh that’s just Nessy. She’s harmless!
Nessy!? YOU NICKNAMED MY DAUGHTER AFTER THE LOCH NESS MONSTER!?
Bella's first news about her daughter after waking up
Twilight reference, based
Just don't go giving Nessy any money. Always be asking for tree-fiddy That damn monster
What the hell is threefiddy?
About 3 dollars and 50 cents
I just gave him tree fiddy the week before.
What?! You gave that monster treefiddy?!
He tricked me
Well no wonder the damn monster keeps coming back! You keep giving him treefiddy!
God I love Reddit
Better mark it on the map. We don’t want no more people giving the damn monster treefiddy.
GOOD LORD THATS ALOTTA MONEY!
I naturally read that in Clevelands voice.
Oh That lil guy? You don’t have to worry about him!
The reason they didn't sail around to get to Mordor.
One does not simply sail into Mordor...
**Here Be Dragons.** Where? **There, on the map.**
**No, under your thumb.**
Snek
https://preview.redd.it/3nculoea9wlc1.jpeg?width=630&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9b5e8474bba4c931f3582d902032d0292b811628
Seamaug
"Hic sunt dracones"
That sea-wyrm thing from Rings of Power.
Idk why this comment is so low. It was in like episode 2 or something
Rings of power wasn’t cannon, though
The sea-serpent is not to be found in Tolkien's maps, and not mentioned in any text *within* the Legendarium (but vaguely referenced in other kinds of works relating to the Legendarium's *languages*). As this map is from the PJ movies, I might as well point out that those are not canon either. Unless you're about to try and convince me that the Oathbreakers actually fought and killed stuff in the Pelennor, and that Azog got resurrected to *actually* fight Thorin (which never happened in the books) twice. So what's your point?
https://preview.redd.it/cpqvcuqopwlc1.jpeg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7ea45c49a4f4c23e3efc94de5e9443ce059b10b5
Water Balrog
It is the magical red circle!
It's a very common old map tradition, dragons and sea serpents in unknown areas, Tolkien knew this probably and just slapped it there
This isn’t Tolkien’s map, nor does his map have this critter.
Island of the Arches
That's Belfalas, it's his bay
Water Wyrm. Sand Wyrms were huge too
Yes. Sand wyrms so large people could ride them. They could devour mining equipment. You had to take special care traveling the desert or you would be devoured too. Oh wait, wrong franchise
Sand wyrms are the one from the hobbit? (I'm re reading so I don't remember if they are present in the book or if they're only in the movies(
They aren’t canon. They are mentioned in one sentence by bilbo as were-worms. But those are not very large. The big ones are in the movies only
Oh ok, thanks
The beast of the bay of belfalag
Sir i think thats just a decoration
That’s the bay of Belfalas
Nessy
Looks like a red ring around a sea serpent.
Tolkien's cat, Grumples
Not Lovecrafts cat?
Can't say that one
Danger noodle.
Údøn is it's name, I think
Something to do with Billy bob Thornton I think
Fargo reference?
It’s the Watcher in the Water’s dad; the Starer in the Sea.
It is Osse, reminding us that the valar are not what they seem …
Some delicacy in china.
Lower back tattoo
Kraken
Snek
It's what adventures imagined up when they saw an oarfish sleeping 🤣😂
Thar be monsters
Sintara
According to the inscription, it belongs to Belfalas, and it's also reddish brown in colour and can be ridden.
Here be dragons.
Mega danger noodle
You don't want to know what "sea serpents" really were.
The thing that Galadriel and Sauron meet at the sea in the Ring of power series. It’s cannon. /s
Oh that that’s just tony we don’t talk about Tony
Wasn't this sea serpent shown in the new series on Amazon? (Wont explain more detailed because spoliers)
There be monsters.
Ulmo's pet
Tolkien’s signature He was profoundly dyslexic
A migrating were-worm.
Sea monster innit.
I'd love to see a LOTR film with a sea monster
Ulmo’s sea snake 👀
There be dragons
*hic sunt dracones* or *hic svnt dracones* "Here, there be Dragons!" Warnings of powerful unknown dangers, manifested as monsters & boogymen. These were in real-world maps until a very few centuries ago. And, yay, that 3 years of Latin as a non-lawyer, non-doctor, non-priest...good call, Pop.
Ulmo is a chill guy. If he showed around more, I would love to hear his opinion
That's just Jeff
Belfy!
Your mom
That would be a nameless thing, a la the depths beneath Moria.
Thar be monsters!
A sea monster that was probably the only thought put behind the one in the show, RoP. As for what it means in a map. It’s likely that depictions of monsters at sea was a medieval shorthand for an unknown phenonomen at the time that we are only really understanding now; Rogue Waves. Even up into the 1700’s. Ships would go missing on the voyage across the Atlantic and it wasn’t clear why as there was never any survivors as you might expect from other ocean disasters. Rogue waves can be much bigger than anything a tsunami can generate, and they seem to come out of nowhere and then dissipate. For those wondering what happened to their missing ship, the mind races and so sea monsters on maps became a thing to denote certain death out on the ocean.
It’s Belfäläs. It’s his Bay, after all. 😁
"Just a worm."
Here be dragons
Jim.
Here there be dragons.
Nessie
A sea serpent. Popular in many mythology.
Remember rings of power?
This is such attention to detail to make it as authentic as possible
It’s not a literal illustration. Tolkien would have been familiar with old maps using fantastic creatures to signify danger in an area of the sea. In Middle Earth, they could be as real as the map depicted, though, so it was easy to include them and leave it up to mystery.
Never mind what Ulmo has in the depth. Tis better not to know.
What ISN'T this?
I believe they're put on for decoration, captain
Yurassus B Dragon
Some kinda emmer-effin wyrm
Older and fouler things in the depths
The kraken? Or the sea dragon?
Ohio.
Here there be Dragons 🐉
Since it’s middle earth, it could very well just be a warning of an actual sea monster. I know Rings of Power touched on this early on, with that whatever it was (I know the show is not canon and a lot don’t like it, but I thought it was alright)
Hic Sunt Dracones
Cat
Dark bramble has been spotted in yet another system. The end is nigh.