Faraica, Crooked Beings, and a random Easter Egg found

 This morning I was looking for something in relation to Wormtongue in the LOTR chapter, "The King of the Golden Hall".  I didn't find what I was looking for, but I think I found something better, plus a little reference that I had missed before related to Aragorn.

Let's actually cover the Aragorn reference first, before diving into unpleasant subjects like Wormtongue.

I have guessed that Aragorn was also Thingol in the first age of the world (see my post The Return of the King:  Salmar, Thingol, Aragorn, and 'John', for example).  Thingol in the Sindarin language means simply "Greycloak or Greymantle".

In a scene from "The King and the Golden Hall", after Theoden is released from the manipulative grip of Wormtongue by Gandalf, Eowyn and Aragon first meet.  Here is the description of their meeting, and I've highlighted the relative passage that jumped out to me:

The woman turned and went slowly into the house.  As she passed the doors she turned and looked back.  Grave and thoughtful was her glance, as she looked on the king with cool pity in her eyes.  Very fair was her face, and long hair was like a river of gold.  Slender and tall she was in her white robe girt with silver; but strong she seemed and stern as steel, a daughter of kings.  Thus Aragorn for the first time in the full light of day beheld Eowyn, Lady of Rohan, and thought her fair, fair and cold, like a morning of pale spring that is not yet come to womanhood.  And she now was suddenly aware of him:  tall heir of kings, wise with many winters, greycloaked, hiding a power that yet she felt.  For a moment still as stone she stood, then turning swiftly, she was gone.

I hadn't been looking for it, but there it was:  the 'greycloaked' reference.  It is one of those things that, by itself, wouldn't make anyone, including me, make a connection between Aragorn and Thingol, but based on everything else I've thought through, it just really jumped out.  Particularly since it is mentioned in the same sentence as this hidden power that he has, and that she can sense.

Anyway, it was a nice little reference to find, while I was digging around regarding less savory characters.

Faraica

I shared my first set of words from October 24 - 26, 2019, and what I think they mean, just a couple days ago in my post "Bees hiding in plain sight".

On the last night of that series (Oct. 26), I also had a dream where I spoke a word to another being.  Here is how I recorded it:

“I was speaking with a ringwraith (at least felt like one).  I at first told him that he was an illusion.  I then called him a ‘Fah-rah-ic (eek)’ which I think is ‘Faraica’ à a ‘crooked or bent spirit’.”

It was an evil Being in my dream, and like I wrote, it had the feeling of a ringwraith, though I believe I mentioned that to capture how evil I felt this Being who I was addressing was.  I would later also associate or guess that perhaps this was a Son of Feanor, specifically the one who was called "Darkest" in Doug's account of what happened at Doriath.  Of all of the things I have read in those stories, the events at Doriath remain the most disturbing.  At first this was due to the events that were outlined there, and this was only added to by how much I don't believe the account as it was recorded in Doug's stories.  Dark deeds have been twisted and used for their own dark purposes by Dark Beings.

In any case, I don't feel that it was a Ringwraith or a Son of Feanor who was being addressed to here, though the being certainly was a Dark one.  I realized a little while ago that this Being from my dreams was none other than Dairon-Wormtongue-Brigham himself, or at least that is how I currently view it.

The word "Fah-rah-ic" is an interesting one.  Again, this was a spoken word - I was saying it to this other Being as I was addressing them, so I had to sound it out when writing it after I woke up.  The definition I give above in my notes seems to be from me combining Fae (spirit) and Raica (crooked, bent, wrong, with also a nod to Rik, which means twisted).  So, a Crooked Spirit.  It was the best I could do at the time, and isn't a bad guess.

However, I would slightly modify it today.  The Raica still stands - that one is good, I think, given it was a direct hit and seemed to match up well with the content of the dream.  But I would replace Fae with Pha/ Fa.  Pha means "from before of time".  So, a Being that has been crooked from 'before' or, as I would say, from the beginning:  Faraica.

I mentioned that RIK is the Elvish word that seems to have been merged with RAYAK to form Raica, and thus 'twist' is a component of the definition.  I am calling that out specifically because it is this description for Wormtongue that I stumbled on, not once but three times, all in the context of 'twisted' meaning a bent or crooked Being or soul.

I was in "The King and the Golden Hall" chapter because I was looking for something with respect to Wormtongue.  It was actually, strangely, something I was exploring relative to Darth Vader from Star Wars, of all characters, but I didn't find what I was looking for with respect to that (I do have a reason I was looking into this, but that is another story).

However, I noted that 'twisted' was the primary adjective used to describe Wormtongue, and specifically his words.  

In the first instance, Gandalf uses twisted to describe Wormtongue's words.  He says this (after Wormtongue has insulted Galadriel):

The wise speak only of what they know, Grima son of Galmod.  A witless worm have you become.  Therefore be silent, and keep your forked tongue behind your teeth.  I have not passed through fire and death to bandy crooked words with a serving-man till the lightning falls.

We have already covered the lightning reference in another post with respect to Brigham (Wormtongue:  Omar's intrigue in another King's court), but here I am referencing the use of twisted.  By itself, again, it isn't much, but I wasn't looking for this in particular, and the word jumped out at me and reminded me of Faraica, and I had to make note of it.

Only a few paragraphs later, Gandalf will once again remark on the twisted and bent nature of Wormtongue's words:

Yet counsel I could give, and words I could speak to you.  Will you hear them?  They are not for all ears.  I bid you come out before your doors and look abroad.  Too long have you sat in the shadows and trusted to twisted tales and crooked promptings.

In reading this scene and description, I remembered that there were a few other places that we might get descriptions of Wormtongue, and I was curious as to whether the reference would be similar.  Looking up the run-in that the Hobbits, Gandalf, Galadriel, and company had with Saruman and Wormtongue in "Many Partings" came up empty (the focus was on Saruman), as did Gandalf's confrontation with Saruman at Isengard (also focused on Saruman).  However, I remembered that Wormtongue got into Isengard before the Isengard confrontation and ran into Merry, Pippin, and Treebeard on the way.  Maybe there was something there?

I was not disappointed.

In "Flotsam and Jetsam", there is a great scene where Pippin recounts their encounter with Wormtongue to Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas.  If you get a chance, you should read it.  It is right at the end of the chapter.  Based on everything I suspect about this Being, it was just about perfect.  I loved it.

Anyway, for our purposes and tying back to Faraica, Pippin relates their experience in seeing Wormtongue come up the road:

"We rushed out before the gates, and I stood and stared, half expecting to see Strider and Gandalf come riding up at the head of an army.  But out of the mist there rode a man on an old tired horse; and he looked a queer twisted sort of creature himself..."

Once again we had 'twisted' in the sense of a wrong or bent Being used to describe Wormtongue, kind of like how Obi-wan Kenobi described Darth Vader to Luke:  "Twisted and evil".  But, of course, Darth Vader didn't start out evil, whereas Wormtongue-Dairon-Faraica has been bent from the beginning, the difference being Vader could be redeemed.

There may be a quite a few people described as twisted in the LOTR - I don't know.  I am not trying to make an argument for Wormtongue based on the uniqueness of the word itself.  It is everything around the thought - it makes sense.  And, it is interesting to find these specific descriptors for Wormtongue now at this time, while noting that Faraic was the word and dream that would have capped off the words I shared a couple days ago and which I had referenced there as specifically leaving out but maybe covering in another post.  Well, here that one is, or at least one of them - there was another dream at the beginning on Oct. 24.

So, a fruitful search, and I think I have settled what and who this Faraica from my dream was.