"The Eagles!"

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

"The eagles are staying!"

https://www.google.com/amp/s/thespinoff.co.nz/society/16-08-2021/they-may-take-our-amazon-series-but-theyll-never-take-our-giant-airport-gandalf/?amp

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

Though Tolkien purists may approve of the move to the country most strongly associated with the author. (UK not England)
Scotland seems most likely for the outdoor shooting filming.

 

[CCC]

Scotland seems most likely for the outdoor shooting.

Shooting!!!


Here's a picture of Dundee in NE Scotland. Home of the Dunedain before they moved to Middle earth.
Pictured is the extinct volcano Law Hill, and Cox's Stack (jute mills all now closed down).
The Dunedain just got too bored living there so went looking for an active volcano and great tower worthy of mighty battles : )

 

[Olorgando]

Shooting!!!

View attachment 10136
Here's a picture of Dundee in NE Scotland. Home of the Dunedain before they moved to Middle earth.
Pictured is the extinct volcano Law Hill, and Cox's Stack (jute mills all now closed down).
The Dunedain just got too bored living there so went looking for an active volcano and great tower worthy of mighty battles : )

Well, some of the Dúnedain must have made a very much longer trip. There is the city of Dunedin on the South Island of New Zealand, second largest on the South Island after Christchurch, with an urban are population of just over 106,000 - so this ain't no village!

 

[CCC]

Not wishing to sound argumentative but Dunedin was the old name of the capital city, Edinburgh. Did you know, many of the street names and districts in Dunedin have Scottish place names, and there is even a statue of Robert Burns in the town centre. Perhaps in a looking glass universe both worlds are perfectly valid, side by side.

 

[Olorgando]

Not wishing to sound argumentative but Dunedin was the old name of the capital city, Edinburgh. Did you know, many of the street names and districts in Dunedin have Scottish place names, and there is even a statue of Robert Burns in the town centre. Perhaps in a looking glass universe both worlds are perfectly valid, side by side.

Hey, I have no problem at all with people being argumentative (being guilty of it myself aplenty).
But I really would like to see a theory of the sound shift that morphs "Dunedin" to "Edinburgh" ...

Then again, settlers of Scottish descent preferring to settle on the South Island of New Zealand makes sense. But then, those "Southern Alps" as per Wikipedia have 18 peaks over 3,000 meters! The highest lump in Germany falls just short of that threshold! But then again the highest lump in the UK, in Scotland, is roughly one third as high as our unimpressive record-holder. But then southern latitude compares badly with northern latitude in Europe.

I've occasionally wondered what the ancestors of the Maori settling South Island thought when they first saw those 3000'ers with their snow-covered peaks. As they brought tropical plants with them from the places they migrated from in Polynesia, they must have had massive problems extending their agriculture on South Island (it must even have been an issue to some degree on North Island!).

 

[CCC]

Maybe I was trying to show how clever I am. Truth is, I have a brother who lives in Dunedin and he has told me some facts and stories about the place.

Going way out on limb now, one of my favourite passages in Lord of the Rings is from the chapter, Fog On The Barrow-Downs. Having lived in Dundee, Tolkien's description of a Dun is highly fascinating:

They came to a hill whose top was wide and flattened, like a shallow saucer with a green mounded rim. Inside there was no air stirring, and the sky was near there heads ¦
So they went down into the hollow circle. In the midst of it there stood a single stone, standing tall under the sun above, and at this hour casting no shadow. It was shapeless and yet significant: like a landmark, or a guarding finger, or more like a warning.

On the Law Hill in Dundee there is a war memorial to the men who fought and died in WWI and WWII.
I checked Wikipedia for the date the memorial was erected:

A war memorial to the fallen of both world wars, first unveiled on 16 May 1925, stands atop the Law's summit.

An odd statement when you think about it!
As for Tolkien's inspiration for that particular passage I'm sure there are plenty Duns, or Tors as they are called in England, for him to have used. I just like the pure fantasy of it; something to fully immerse one's self in, when no one's looking.

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

I think there was a shift from some form of Gaelic to a northern form of Old English with a change in word order. Edin relates to the region. Dun means hill or hillfort and burh means fortified place.

 

[Olorgando]

DunEdinBurgh ... penny drops ... 😬