User talk:GandalftheGraeme

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GandalftheGraeme, welcome!

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June Giveaway Winner

Congratulations! You were the randomly selected winner in our June giveaway I've sent you an e-mail but just in case I'm also letting you know on your talk page :) Once we receive your shipping address we will ship your chosen art piece to you. Thanks so much for your contribution! Hyarion (talk) 17:37, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Using the "This is a minor edit" checkbox

Thank you for your interest in Tollien Gateway and for wanting to contribute to improve the pages on Tolkien Gateway. I noticed that you had the "This is a minor edit" checkbox checked on all your edits, so that all your edits in the "Recent changes" list were marked with an "m" as minor edits. If you read the "How to edit a page" page on wikipedia, to which you received a link on the top of this discussion page after you created your user account, you will see that a "check to the "minor edit" box signifies that only superficial differences exist between the version with your edit and the previous version: typo/grammar corrections, fixing a formatting problem, etc. A minor edit is a version that the editor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute." Your edit on the Letter to Arthur Tolkien page was not a minor edit, because it change the age of Tolkien at the time that he wrote the letter and since it is possible that you could have made a mistake in calculating the age, such an edit required a review. Also your edits on the Elven life cycle page and Eagles page were not minor edits, because they were not restricted to typo/grammar corections or fixing a formatting problem. --Akhôrahil (talk) 07:39, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Edits on the "claimed" Blue Wizards page

Your edits on the Blue Wizards page were minor edits. Did you notice the prominent blue box at the top of the Blue Wizard's page, which said that "Akhorahil is currently busy with major revisions to this article. Before editing, discuss your intentions on this article's talk page."? This text was generated by a claimed tage in the page. No edits should be made on a claimed page before discussing intentions to edit the page on the page's talk page (i.e. discussion page). When it is planned by another user to edit a page your edits may be superseded or otherwise made unnecessary in the future. --Akhôrahil (talk) 07:39, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Spider stings

Hi. I started a discussion on the Discord server about your edit to Spiders that said it's clear that Tolkien meant that Shelob was depicted as stinging Frodo. That's not clear to me at all, so I hope you'll explain it. Spearwielder (talk) 01:08, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

"Now the miserable creature was right under her, for the moment out of the reach of her sting and of her claws."

"There she crouched, her shuddering belly splayed upon the ground, the great bows of her legs quivering, as she gathered herself for another spring – this time to crush and sting to death."

I don't see how this can possibly mean "to bite." It would be a strange choice for Tolkien to pair "bite and claws" instead of "teeth and claws," if that's what he meant, not to mention the action of the scene just doesn't support "bite" at all to me.

Further, John D. Rateliff explores this "error" in a section describing multiple discrepancies between real spiders and the "spider-like" Shelob, Ungoliant and the spiders of Mirkwood in his *The History of The Hobbit,* where he notes (commenting on Tolkien's recollection of being "stung" by a "tarantula" as a small child):

"This little bit of autobiography is important because tarantulas do not sting: they bite – a small point, but nevertheless suggestive. Tolkien cannot be faulted for forgetting such a detail, since he was only a toddler when the incident occurred, but its significance is that his account shows that even years after writing The Hobbit he was under the impression that spiders have stings. This strongly suggests that Tolkien’s other departures from spider physiology were simple mistakes, however uncharacteristic, rather than deliberate changes for effect – unlike, say, the Nazgûl’s mounts, where he expressly stated that he was not attempting historical accuracy in his depiction but merely drawing on the ‘semi-scientific mythology of the “Prehistoric”’ as inspiration (JRRT to Rhona Beare, 14th October 1958; Letters p. 282).

In point of fact, Tolkien could not have been ‘stung by a tarantula’ as a child because these spiders are not native to the Orange Free State or indeed southern Africa at all. Instead, the name is locally applied to solifugae, an aggressive arachnid also known as ‘wind scorpions’, ‘sun-spiders’, or ‘camel spiders’ but in fact neither a spider nor a scorpion but a cousin of both. The true tarantula (L. tarantula) of southern Europe is a type of wolf spider, a free-ranging hunter very like the Mirkwood spider pictured in Tolkien’s halftone of Mirkwood. The name’s most common usage today is through its application in the New World to various large hairy spiders of North, South, and Central America (Theraphosidae), some of which are so large that they can prey upon frogs, birds, and very small mammals (the so-called ‘bird-eating spiders’ and ‘monkey spider’)." GandalftheGraeme (talk) 04:45, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

I think Rateliff jumped to a conclusion. It seems just as possible to me that Tolkien didn't know how spiders inject their venom but thought "sting" was an appropriate word for it, or knew they bite but still thought "sting" was an appropriate word, though archaic at the time.

I agree that Tolkien used "sting" to mean a body part in your example, as well as when he tells Gandalf that he's wounded "with knife, sting, and tooth." But "sting" could mean part of a spider (or "any venomous beest", as I mentioned in the Discord comment), though examples are hard to find. Here's one from Towards a Natural History of Serpents (1742), by Charles Owen: "I proceed to the Spider, another little venomous Insect, whose forked Tongue or Sting, is very fine and sharp..."

The second sentence you quoted continues, "no little bite of poison to still the struggling of her meat; this time to slay and then to rend." (Emphasis added.) That looks very much as if she bites to knock her prey out, though possibly "bite" there is some kind of figure of speech.

I find the scene very easy to picture with biting. Shelob wants to spring at Sam, knock him down, and bite him, or crush him and then back up and bite him. It's harder to picture with a sting because we don't know where the sting would be. Incidentally, it's odd that Tolkien never describes what his giant spiders do to their prey, which makes me wonder whether he really didn't know what real spiders do.

So I don't think Tolkien makes it clear at all what Shelob does to Frodo.

(Irrelevantly to this argument, Rateliff may have jumped to another conclusion. There are in fact members of the family Theraphosidae in South Africa, and they're sometimes called tarantulas though maybe more often baboon spiders. Some are big, though not as big as the biggest South American species, and have painful bites. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpactirinae) Spearwielder (talk) 14:31, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

I meant to add that Shelob's appearance is described in considerable detail. The part of her body that's most important to the plot is whatever she poisons Frodo with. Her "beak drabbling a spittle of venom" is mentioned, but nothing about a separate sting, even though Sam gets a back view of her when she flees into her tunnel. Spearwielder (talk) 19:24, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

I mean we wouldn't really describe spiders as "insects" today either, as far as the Owen reference. Tolkien also got the "beak" wrong (spiders have chelicerae), and implied that the spiders of Mirkwood have compound eyes, which real spiders do not (as far as that goes tarantulas aren't even "true spiders," but that's getting into the weeds a bit), and he also suggest Shelob doesn't molt, again unlike actual spiders. I'll admit I have no idea if harpactirinae live in what was once the Orange Free State, or did in the late 19th century (and Rateliff may not either).

I guess I just don't see why obcure, centuries-old examples of a word need be sought out when there's little to suggest the modern and far more common meaning is out of place. Etymonline suggests "sting" has been mostly limited to stinging insects since the 14th century. GandalftheGraeme (talk) 02:47, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

I'd say there are good reasons to consider obsolete senses of "sting". Tolkien uses the word "bite". He describes Shelob's venomous beak and many details not directly relevant to the story, but never describes a stinger. And surely it was well known that spiders bite--better known than that they're not insects--but he used "sting" about the one that bit him. Edit: Also Tolkien used archaisms.

In regard to what bit him, I looked things up and by far the best possibility seems to be the Highveld Baboon Spider, Harpactira hamiltoni. It has been observed recently in or near Bloemfontein and it's described as "commonly found and seen". I think Rateliff's comment should be taken out of the article. The only thing that I see as possibly worth keeping is the suggestion that what bit little Ronald might have been a solifuge, but I'd want independent confirmation that they're locally known as tarantulas. (I don't know whether there are other spiders or spider-like animals in the area that have painful bites.)

Another subject: Maybe Shelob's beak, which you pointed out, should go into the article as another example of a difference from real spiders. Spearwielder (talk) 13:10, 20 August 2025 (UTC) Spearwielder (talk) 13:10, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

I'm not convinced, personally, but I won't make any more edits. GandalftheGraeme (talk) 01:17, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

It seems probable at least that Tolkien didn't know (or care) a whole lot about the anatomical details of real-life spiders. GandalftheGraeme (talk) 01:18, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

OK, I'll give it a shot, and of course you should feel feree to continue editing. I agree that Tolkien may well not have known or cared much about how real spiders inject venom—which seems strange, considering that he wrote scenes of horror involving people getting poisoned by giant spiders. (He also may not have cared much about flies, since Frodo and Sam found stinging flies in Mordor.) Spearwielder (talk) 03:02, 6 September 2025 (UTC)