Black Humor

Calvin having an encounter with a Shieldmaiden at the Pelennor Fiels:

ca

Edited by Námo, 02 January 2010 - 11:25 PM.

'You seem to know a lot', said Uglúk. 'More than is good for you, I guess. Perhaps those in Lugbúrz might wonder how, and why.'

And not only "those in Lugbúrz" did. For a long time, the Peoples of the West have wondered, too: How did Grishnákh learn about the One Ring? It was only in the Fourth Age that the files of Mordor's Secret Service, the Ears of Sauron, were opened to the public. This stunning record from the eavesdropping protocols leaves no doubt about Grishnákh's sources of knowledge:

Time: December 12, 3018 Third Age, Early in the morning ...


KHAMÛL: Ey, G...Grishy, gimme zat bottle.

GRISHNÁKH: I zink ya had enuff.

KHAMÛL: Noooo. No one can drink a Ringf... (ooops)... a Ringfrith under the table. I am in full control of myselfff... (Burp).

GRISHNÁKH: Under the Eye's control, rather.

KHAMÛL: Thaz a lieeeee! I know exaccc... I mean, exaccally what I'm doing. The Eye won't stand that insult. Once He got zat Ring he will stop all of ya nasty little beasts telling such rubbish about us precious Nazgûl...

GRISHNÁKH: He got nine of 'em, anyway. And some others.

KHAMÛL: Not theeese ones. The other. The One.

GRISHNÁKH: The One?

KHAMÛL: Shhhhhh... no one dossss haff to know!

GRISHNÁKH: Come on, Khamûl, here's another pint.

KHAMÛL: Zanks. You're a real pal, Grishy. That Dormi... that Doriwim... That Dorwinion vintage is really the meanest one far around. (Burp.)

GRISHNÁKH: Now about that One...

KHAMÛL: Shhhhhh... no one dosss haff to know. Because, ya know, ze Eye lost it. Ya know how He isss, growing aged of all the millenia and so on. Hafff ya ever witnessed a Maia with progressing Alzheimer? I hafff, and I tell ya: Not a splendid sight, not at all. Always tossing zings around and blaming us Nazgûl for hiding zem from Him...

GRISHNÁKH: So He lost it?

KHAMÛL: Can't remember where He left it. Some ages ago, some say. Now, if only He gez it back, He could twist the noses of all them Tarks and Snagas in the West around. Understand what I mean?

GRISHNÁKH: An' ya? Do ya haff any idea where zat Ring of His is?

KHAMÛL: Not me, not me. But don't tell anypoddie, zat wretched fellow, zat Gollum sneaky zat wasss stinking 'round here, he dossss know somezzzing. Shire, he says, and Baggins. Beyond the Great River zat is, and zere is ash nazg... sorry, wrong language. I mean, zere is zat Ring of His.

GRISHNÁKH: Very interesting. Now, mind ya if I go out a little bit down to the Great River? I need some smelly night air to get sober again, I think.

KHAMÛL: Of cossse, of cossse. I'll stay he... heeeere. Waiter, gimme anozzer one! (Hickup)

Edited by Námo, 31 October 2009 - 09:39 PM.

Calvin having an encounter with a Shieldmaiden at the Pelennor Fiels:

I just love Calvin ... even when acting evil he is just so sweet and nice!

Edited by Lord of Mordor, 01 November 2009 - 08:27 PM.

Glad to know that you too are a fan of Calvin, Sûl ... that's also what I thought when posting that one.

... also nice, that both Chris and you seems to enjoy the little 'conversation' between Nasgûl and his Chief-in-command!
I really like this kind of humor: although written mostly for the reader to have a good laugh, it has a core of seriousness - in this case touching on the issue of treason, and if you have to epitomize Isengard in one word it is this: TREASON.

Tolkien did some very beautiful essays, published as Myths transformed in the last volume of The History: on the origin of orcs - on how their nature were "corrupted" by Morgoth, and the difference between the Evil of Morgoth and that of Sauron - and on the limitations in Sauron's dominion by means of hate and fear, cf.

... there remained one flaw in his control, inevitable. In the Kingdom of hate and fear, the strongest thing is hate. All his Orcs hated one another, and must be kept ever at war with some 'enemy' to prevent them from slaying one another.

Edited by Námo, 02 November 2009 - 09:57 AM.

although this IS a bit late ... Merry Xmas to the T3A Community!

Edited by Dant, 28 December 2009 - 08:02 AM.

Excavations at the former site of Barad-dûr has revealed a sensational discovery, written in Black Speech and Fëanorian letters:

The Personal Diary of the Dark Lord Sauron

translation from Black Speech: Mordor's Secret Service (aka 'The Ears of Sauron')

the following extracts published by courtesy of:

August 2, 3018 TA:
This place sucks. Watching out from the top window I can see only slag and ashes. I much preferred our old block in Mirkwood Towers. At least there was green to be seen.
It was my wife, of course, who wanted to move here. Mirkwood Towers was too much frequented by travelling salesmen, she said. Plus, the last one, a dwarf, stole a map and a key. But I think what she really disliked about our flat was Moggie the Bullfrog's estate across the River, in Moria. True, I have been more often there than at home. But where else would I go?
Mount Boom smells again like a thousand years' egg. I wonder what the cook is preparing for lunch today.

September 4:
A ring has been found, we were told. Perhaps it is the one that I lost in the sink long ago when my wife made me wash dishes again. She wants to have some Nazgûls to retrieve it for a reasonable price before it is offered to Sotheby's. I offered her two. But as always she had the stronger arguments and took all nine plus my best thoroughbreds. The Orcs call me again the Black Eye.

September 30:
Disturbing news from the North: Black Riders frequenting inns, engaging in fistfights, compensations soaring - what was the Witch-king's business in the Prancing Pony, anyway? It is never good to leave the Nazgûls too long on their own.
They did not get that ring. I really would not mind, but it seems to be a trifle that my wife fancies. If I remember correctly, she gave it to me at our silmarillian wedding. By Morgoth, when was that? At the 5000th or already the 6000th anniversary?

October 20:
Women never listen to what Ainur are saying. For millenia I told her that the Nazgûls have to stay clear from running water! (Of course I did, or she would always borrow them for sweeping floors.) Now they are again "my" Nazgûls who blindly bump into any foolishness that Arda keeps for them. And, by the Great Darkness, she still refuses to believe me that steering them into the Greyflood was a user error from her side.
Why did I not leave her in Angband when there was opportunity?

November 12:
The Nazgûls have returned: undressed and invisible, but so soaked that we can always trace them by following the wet footprints on the parquetry. My wife says we will have to find some other stallions for them. I wonder what kind she may think of. Well, give them some bats, give them some dinosaurs, anything except my pigeons.

December 24:
I kindly suggested a nice weekend at the seaside of Núrn, but no way. Having only my fun in mind, she said, while there was still so much dirt and dust to clean in Lugbúrz before New Year. I proposed that the Orcs might paint our walls white, that would render that light-grey ash from Mount Boom less visible. Her answer gave me headaches as if the Iron Crown was upon my brow.
The Orcs with their sensible feeling for prominent anatomical features called her the Mouth.

January 15, 3019 TA:
There was a raid in Moria. Moggie the Bullfrog has been found guilty of harassment and sent into the Void. What a pity: as a free holder he was unsurpassed, always had the best material available in the Misty Mountains. This is no more like it was in the Good Elder Days when you could find a proper night-club at any corner of Arda Flat. Now there is, I think, only one more left, the Blue Parrot, run by two wise-guys from Overseas. Somewhere in Rhún that is. Sharkû was a regular visitor there before he set up his own business.

February 23:
Sharkû has designed a new device for himself, they say. Apparently it's a white hand with the middle finger raised. Great – why did I not get that idea first? This red eye of ours always reminds me of my wife only. But why in white, I wonder? He was wearing this new technicolour dreamcoat of his for months now!

February 27:
Dûshgoi says some of their Orcs have gone strange ways. One Grishnákh in particular seems to be out trying to find that darn ring. I wonder how he knew about it. Was that not a matter between us and the Nazgûls only?
Alas, the Mouth can never be shut.

March 5:
Picky is gone! Hadn't I said to Khâmul: "Don't fly near Isengard, southern cuisine favours roasted winged-beast"? Picky has always been my darling! Three times it won the Gundabad-Lugbúrz air race! Now someone took it down with an arrow. A big Elf warrior, he thinks, the idiot. There was no Elf warrior since the Last Alliance. Hasn't he wits for a less silly excuse?
And Khâmul came back leaving again wet footprints all over. The moron swam across the Anduin. And every time he does that he keeps complaining that we did not restore the bridge in Osgiliath.

March 6:
A half-grown fellow rang in the middle of the night. When I had crawled out of bed and twenty floors down and picked up, he asked me who I was. I said: "I am the Eye." He understood "YMCA" and wanted to order a bedroom.
Sharkû should not leave his palantir lying around like that. Next time some fool might kick it out of his window.

March 10:
A bleak, dawnless day today. The cook burnt the meal and set the kitchen aflame. Firefighters from Harad and Khand were all over the site. The reck must have been visible from Minas Tirith or even further. I suggested to remove to Mirkwood Towers till the cinder will be wiped down from the wallpaint again, but my wife refuses. What a pity. I would just jump and swim in the Sea of Rhún. Haven't been there for six decades.

March 15:
What shall I say? For some days now my wife has been going around in armour and men's clothes. I always suspected something like that about her; but she just says that this was the newest fashion in Middle-earth. She must have seen that on palantir again. In Rohan, I think, they have a liking for such. In my opinion she looks like the mother-in-law of Ulfang the Accursed; the Orcs, however, say she appears better that way. Especially if she pulls down the vizor.

March 17:
I am not going to watch palantir any longer. Really, there is nothing interesting on! Dûshgoi has crime&blood all day (I asked Gorbag whether that was really necessary and he said we are only serving the audience's desire <sigh>), Minas Tirith has failed completely and broadcasts just a modernistic still image, and Orthanc seems to have been taken over by some dissidents: It repeats monarchistic propaganda all day long. I much preferred Sharkû's Orc&Man porns.

March 23:
Now even to the Towers of the Hollow Teeth there come these travelling salesmen. My wife prohibited me to go out and talk to them. No, this time she wants to go out herself and send them away. She says whenever I leave home I am making a fool out of myself, like during the cruise to Westernesse or even worse, back in Tol-in-Gaurhoth.
Why did she remind me? I am still haunted by those dreaded Valinorean fleas that the dog left on me!

March 25:
This day caused me a real headache. No, not because Lugbúrz fell on it. That happened because the Nazgûl were again looking the wrong way. I told them to take care that no one dumps his waste into the fissures! And Khâmul said the ring was not even the problem at all, it was the little fellow that they kicked after it – even a honourable volcano like Mount Boom would not swallow that! But the real reason for the headache is my wife. When she came back from the Gate, at once she started nagging that she could not leave me alone for two days without me turning the household into a total disaster. And then she knocked me over the head with that terrible thing she bought from the travelling salesmen. They say these items serve for dispersing a mob or arguing with relatives in a little country far north.
No, enough is enough! A Mouth is hardly tolerable, but a Mouth with an UMBRELLA is worse than a fart of Morgoth. Really, I will go and cast myself into the Void. That's a nice and quiet place. And I pray, yea, even to Eru the One that he will not send my wife after me!

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