Serni
The Serni was a river in the south of Gondor.[1]
If flowed from a source in the south of the eastern White Mountains southwestward through Lebennin until it met the River Gilrain just above Linhir. Although it was shorter than the Gilrain, the river then continued under the name Serni for another 20 miles until it opened into a delta which was located just to the west of the Ethir Anduin.[1] The mouth of the Serni was blocked with shingles.[2]
Etymology[edit]
The name Serni is an "adjectival formation" deriving from Sindarin sarn ("small stone", "pebble") (therefore probably meaning "stony"[3] or "pebbly") or the equivalent of the Quenya collective sarnie (sarniye) ("shingle", "pebble bank").[2][4][5]
The name of the river is spelled Serni in the maps of The Lord of the Rings and The Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor. In the footnote 1 of the Preface of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil it was spelled Sernui[6] until the 2014 edition, where the editors Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond have changed the name to Serni, considering Sernui "very likely a typographic error for Serni" even though they refer to a comment by Carl F. Hostetter who informed them that sernui "would be possible as an unattested adjectival formation *'stony' from sarn 'stone'".[7]
Portrayal in adaptations[edit]
2014: The Lord of the Rings Online:
- The river Serni was found in Lower Lebennin in the region of Central Gondor. As its name indicated,[source?] it was strewn with rocks. There were two fords, with the western one being south of the town of "Malbarth" and the eastern one south of "Ost Anglebed". The Serni was the domain of the stern River-maid Grey-eye, one of the Five Sisters, though she and her sisters were widely considered a myth by the time of the War of the Ring.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, "Map of Rohan, Gondor, and Mordor"
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.), Unfinished Tales, Index, entry Serni
- ↑ Robert Foster, The Complete Guide to Middle-earth, p.348
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor" (edited by Carl F. Hostetter), in Vinyar Tengwar, Number 42, July 2001, entry Serni, p. 11
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, Carl F. Hostetter (ed.), The Nature of Middle-earth, "Part Three. The World, its Lands, and its Inhabitants: XXII. The Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor", entry Serni, p. 381
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, "Preface"
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien; Christina Scull & Wayne G. Hammond (eds), The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, "Commentary", p. 120-121; cf. Preface, p. 31.
