# Cats of Queen Beruthiel?!!



## reem (Mar 1, 2003)

what in tarnations are the cats of Queen Beruthiel??!!...i'm assuming they're cats..ofcourse, but where did this come from?
they were mentioned by Aragorn in the ines of moria. he was describing gandalf as " He is surer of finding the way home in a blind night than the cats of Queen Beruthiel!"
reem


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## Anamatar IV (Mar 1, 2003)

Mmmmm that story is mentioned very briefly in Unfinished Tales and I THINK is told in one of History of Middle earth books. But I have not read the story in HoMe so I couldn't give you more information.


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## Aulë (Mar 1, 2003)

Berúthiel was the dark and mournful Queen to Tarannon Falastur, the twelfth King of Gondor. She owned ten marvellous and magical cats, that she set to spy on the doings of the people of Gondor. Her scheming was her undoing, though, since her husband set her adrift on the Great Sea, with only her cats for company. She sailed into the far south and was never heard of again, but she and her mysterious cats lived on in legend for millennia.

(from Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth)


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## Alcuin (Dec 9, 2008)

Here is a link to an interview Tolkien gave in 1966 to his former student, Daphne Castell, in which he discusses in greater detail Queen Berúthiel of Gondor and her famous cats.

_(Added_

As far as I know, this is only extensive material in publication anywhere about Queen Berúthiel.


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## Mike (Dec 9, 2008)

Well, Alcuin, that was the first time I've read Michael Moorcock say _anything _positive about Tolkien. Bravo for linking the article!


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## Prince of Cats (Dec 10, 2008)

Great find, Alcuin - Thanks for sharing!


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## Bucky (Dec 23, 2008)

Perhaps if Tolkien didn't waste time on things like the Cats of Queen Beruthiel, he might've finished the Silmarillion......


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## Firawyn (Dec 26, 2008)

Don't let Elgee catch you saying that...


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## Bucky (Dec 27, 2008)

It's funny though, Tolkien being the type of guy he was, he HAD to go figure out a story about the cats....

Or, the 2 other wizards.....

Or, how could there ever be 2 Elves with such a unique name as Glorfindel?
And since it WAS the same Glorfindel returned from the dead, when and how did he return to Middle-earth?

Or where did orcs come from & did they have souls......

Or....

Add it all up & this plethora of secondary topics often kept Tolkien's 'eye off the prize' (finishing The Silm).

Of course, it all adds to the rich history we DO have.


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## Alcuin (Dec 30, 2008)

Bucky said:


> Add it all up & this plethora of secondary topics often kept Tolkien's 'eye off the prize' (finishing The Silm).


Hence _Leaf by Niggle_. If you have not read it, you definitely should!


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## Barliman Butterbur (Dec 30, 2008)

reem said:


> what in tarnations are the cats of Queen Beruthiel??!!


 They were mentioned as part of a simile...and that's it. Never heard more about them.

Barley


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## Bucky (Jan 2, 2009)

Reread this thread, Barly, the answe is right here in the 3rd post......


*Hence Leaf by Niggle. If you have not read it, you definitely should! *

I read it several times, but many years ago.

I recall liking it though.


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## Alcuin (Jan 2, 2009)

The link! The link! The details about the Cats of Queen Berúthiel are in the link!

Here it is, in plain text: http://www.fantasticmetropolis.com/i/tolkien/full/

It “is a link to an interview Tolkien gave in 1966 to his former student, Daphne Castell, in which he discusses in greater detail Queen Berúthiel of Gondor and her famous cats.” It was published during Tolkien’s lifetime, and it is the most detailed published source of information about Queen Berúthiel and her notorious cats.


Here are the two paragraphs of import. Tolkien is speaking to Castell: 


> “There’s one exception that puzzles me—Berúthiel. I really don’t know anything of her—you remember Aragorn’s allusion in Book I to the cats of Queen Berúthiel, that could find their way home on a blind night? She just popped up, and obviously called for attention, but I don’t really know anything certain about her; though, oddly enough, I have a notion that she was the wife of one of the ship-kings of Pelargir. She loathed the smell of the sea, and fish, and the gulls. Rather like Skadi, the giantess, who came to the gods in Valhalla, demanding a recompense for the accidental death of her father. She wanted a husband. The gods all lined up behind a curtain, and she selected the pair of feet that appealed to her most. She thought she’d got Baldur, the beautiful god, but it turned out to be Njord, the sea-god, and after she’d married him, she got absolutely fed up with the seaside life, and the gulls kept her awake, and finally she went back to live in Jotunheim.
> 
> “Well, Berúthiel went back to live in the inland city, and went to the bad (or returned to it—she was a black Númenorean in origin, I guess). She was one of these people who loathe cats, but cats will jump on them and follow them about—you know how sometimes they pursue people who hate them? I have a friend like that. I’m afraid she took to torturing them for amusement, but she kept some and used them—trained them to go on evil errands by night, to spy on her enemies or terrify them.”


Berúthiel was the wife of Tarannon Falastur, 10th king of Gondor (from Meneldil) and first of the Ship-kings. He died childless: I think we can assume that he refused to have children with Berúthiel because of her Black Númenórean practices. Berúthiel was sent home in a ship, with a cat on its prow: a royal divorce. Thereafter, Gondor went to war with the old Black Númenórean kingdoms south and inland of Umbar: of the four Ship-kings, one died in combat against Harad, and another drowned in a storm on his way to Umbar. The wars with the Black Númenóreans and their descendants never completely ended in the Third Age: an army from Harad participated in the attack on Minas Tirith in the Battle of Pelennor Fields, and Aragorn seized the fleet of Umbar at Pelargir.


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## Alcuin (Jan 4, 2009)

_[noparse][added rather later as a new post...][/noparse]_

I thought I had seen more about this elsewhere. In Unfinished Tales, the essay “The Istari”, footnote 7, Christopher Tolkien writes that


> …the story of Queen Berúthiel exist[noparse][/noparse] … in a very “primitive” outline… Berúthiel lived in … Osgiliath, hating the … sea …; she hated all making, all colors and elaborate adornment, wearing only black and silver and living in bare chambers, and the gardens of the house in Osgiliath were filled with tormented sculptures… She had … cats … setting them to discover all the dark secrets of Gondor… [noparse][A][/noparse]ll were afraid of [noparse][her cats][/noparse], and cursed when they saw them pass... [noparse][/noparse]er name was erased from the Book of the Kings…


He goes on to say that Tarannon set her in a boat with just her cats, and the north wind took her back south. Sometime afterwards, it would seem from Tolkien’s other writings, a series of major wars with the coastal and inland kingdoms of the south broke out. 

I think Tarannon hoped that his marriage to Berúthiel would bring all the Númenóreans under his rule, even those whose ancestors had been King’s Men (the Black Númenóreans), expanding his kingdom dramatically and possibly solidifying a claim as High King. The title “High King” properly belonged to the kings of Arnor, but the kings of Gondor refused to acknowledge any overlordship or suzerainty after Isildur died. (They do seem, however, to have retained more or less cordial relations with Arnor, and there is no record of any fighting between the two kingdoms.) 

But there were also still noble families of Black Númenóreans in Middle-earth, and possibly even descendants of the House of Elros. These Black Númenóreans would have claimed seniority over the House of Elendil. Marrying Berúthiel would have strengthened any claim made to seniority over all the other Dúnedain nobility; unfortunately, the attempt seems to have backfired rather badly, ending in a nasty divorce and several centuries of fighting with his ex-in-laws.

(Some smart folks have suggested that Tarannon’s adventures – and perhaps his dynastic designs – might have played a part in inspiring the younger sons of Eärendur to set up their own kingdoms of Rhudaur and Cardolan.)


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## Barliman Butterbur (Jan 6, 2009)

Bucky said:


> Reread this thread, Barly, the answe is right here in the 3rd post......
> 
> 
> *Hence Leaf by Niggle. If you have not read it, you definitely should! *
> ...



Ha! I never read that, started on the bottom post. Thank you, I learned a lot more than I thought existed about QB & C! 

Barley


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