#Cirith ungol

[r2b2grady]

Probably one of the Devil's greatest lies is the image of hope as something fleeting and ephemeral. It ties into the lie that you have to effortlessly feel something for that feeling to be real. Just because I don't feel like there's gravity, or just because I can't see the movement of the floor as the world whirls endlessly through space, doesn't mean that those things aren't there, and the same can be said for things like hope.

Hope isn't just some flighty butterfly, something fragile and wispy. Hope is the woman praying daily at her husband's side in the hospital, waiting for him to wake and wondering if he'll remember her after his head injury.

Hope is the sailor clinging to the helm in the teeth of a gale, riding it out because he hopes and knows that the storm cannot last forever.

Hope is Samwise storming the tower of Cirith Ungol, not knowing whether he can truly overcome the orcs in the tower, but hoping that he can help his Master Frodo in some way at least.

Hope is the last stand of Húrin the Steadfast: holding the gap against the forces of Morgoth in Nirnaeth Arnoediad, the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, swinging his axe as he and his kinsmen fight to the death to protect the retreat of Turgon and the elves of Gondolin, shouting with each swing, "Aurë entuluva! Day shall come again!"

Hope is not something fleeting, something ephemeral. It can become such, because like any other emotion or feeling, it needs cultivation. But if you cling to it, if you hold it tight, then it will grow. If you let it, hope is a fighter, a shieldwarden, a warrior. Hope is not simple platitudes, but a knowledge that whatever things might feel like, the truth of the matter is different—no matter how hopeless things seem, things will not stay that way.

[whiteladyofithilien]

I truly think that the greatest of all of Samwise Gamgee's great deeds is the mortal blows to Shelob. Shelob the spawn of Ungoliant. Ungoliant who destroyed the trees in Valinor at Morgoth's bidding. This deed ranks above even Gandalf's slaying of the Balrog as far as sheer badassery goes.

Here is this little Hobbit who's spent his life gardening and just admiring elves as a thing in songs and far above him doing a deed so great that any elf lord in all the history of Arda would bow to him for it. The orcs thought there was a mighty elf warrior in the passage and they weren't too far off. Any ancient hero of elven lore would have ranked slaying the spawn of Ungoliant as one if not the greatest of his achievements.

There may be no more amazing deed of heroism in all the trilogy than this. Shelob the last descendant of the most foul of all creatures brought down by Samwise Gamgee. It's even more epic than Eowyn and Merry slaying the Witch-King for this is a remnant of a far more ancient evil. An evil that never was anything but evil. No tragic seduction by the Dark Lord here. Just the spawn of the light eating wholly evil giant spider who terrified even Morgoth.

[autistook]

March 14th - Samwise saves Frodo from the Tower of Cirith Ungol

'Frodo! Mr. Frodo, my dear!' cried Sam, tears almost blinding him. 'It's Sam, I've come!' He half lifted his master and hugged him to his breast. Frodo opened his eyes. 'Am i still dreaming?' he muttered. 'But the other dreams were horrible.' 'You're not dreaming at all, Master,' said Sam. 'It's real. It's me. I've come.'

[gnomescarfcomics]

Middle-earth shots of the week

[velvet4510]

Daily my thoughts stray to the fact that Beren the Renowned defiantly held the light of a Silmaril aloft to protect the love of his life from an enormous foul monster of darkness creeping toward them in a previously untouchable land of evil…and then thousands of years later, Frodo Baggins defiantly held the light of that same Silmaril aloft to protect the love of his life from an enormous foul monster of darkness creeping toward them in a previously untouchable land of evil.

[cimmerian-war-shrine]

[the-spirit-of-yore]

Minas Morgul par Alan Lee

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"BUT NONE COULD RIVAL HER, SHELOB THE GREAT, LAST CHILD OF UNGOLIANT TO TROUBLE THE UNHAPPY WORLD."

PIC INFO: Resolution at 1920x1500 -- Spotlight on a masterfully fear-inducing Tolkien Legendarium piece titled "Shelob, Child of Ungoliant," artwork by Lorenzo Mastroianni, uploaded to Reddit in June 2024.

"There agelong she had dwelt, an evil thing in spider-form, even such as once of old had lived in the Land of the Elves in the West that is now under the Sea, such as Beren fought in the Mountains of Terror in Doriath, and so came to Luthien upon the green sward amid the hemlocks in the moonlight long ago. How Shelob came there, flying from ruin, no tale tells, for out of the Dark Years few tales have come. But still she was there, who was there before Sauron, and before the first stone of Barad-dur; and she served none but herself, drinking the blood of Elves and Men, bloated and grown fat with endless brooding on her feasts, weaving webs of shadow; for all living things were her food, and her vomit darkness. Far and wide her lesser broods, bastards of the miserable mates, her own offspring, that she slew, spread from glen to glen, from the Ephel Duath to the eastern hills, to Dol Guldur and the fastnesses of Mirkwood. But none could rival her, Shelob the Great, last child of Ungoliant to trouble the unhappy world."

-- J R.R. TOLKIEN, from "The Two Towers,' Book IV, Chapter 9, "Shelob's Lair"

Source: www.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans/comments/16bkqu6.

[retroillustrates]

Elric of Melnibone/Cirith Ungol custom trousers (2023)

Estimated time: 3 days

Material: Faber castell and creabox textile markers

Original illustrations by Michael Whelan x and x

[davey-dammit]

Cirith Ungol flyer for a show on their farewell tour.

[bigfatsocialist]

This did pretty well on my TikTok so I thought I'd share it here :)

Also before anyone @s me I know Frodo speaks Elvish in the books, this was a dig at the movies

[winwin17]

The song "The Next Right Thing" from Frozen 2 is sooo Sam in Cirith Ungol when he thought Frodo was dead. Especially lines like, "You've gone to a place that I can't find," and "How to rise from the floor when it's not you I'm rising for?"

Now that I've realized this and re-listened to the song, I'm just 😭😭😭

[artbykadir]

Samwise The Brave

[loricvampyr]

Elric of Melniboné

[gandalf-the-fool]