Grande-Riviere, France: Why not?

In an earlier post, I put out a guess that maybe the Brass Plates were also in France, along with Stones, Swords, and probably other things, all in or around Tom Bombadil's House.  This was a bit of a thought thread I was following, and it makes sense internally within the story I am exploring here.  I mean, there are other good places for them, as well.  Still on Eressea #2, for example, or maybe even with Asenath and her daughters in Tirion.  The latter makes sense in the spirit of the Holy Ghost 'bearing' (or keeping?) records - why not have these with them?

That all might be, but the France connection is too interesting for me to let go of just yet, and remains my favorite choice for a few reasons.

One reason just revealed itself in the last 24 hours, and involves words I haven't had a chance to share yet but may here soon since this is coming up.  

I have the "Germans" (Beings who I don't take as actually being German, but who show up in my words as speaking that language at the end of 2019 and into 2020, though I don't think necessarily very well!) mentioning at one point that they are searching for a "Freundebuche", which translates into "Friends-Book".  Actually, let me just briefly share that dialogue here.  This is the whole quote just so you have it in context:

Jan. 3, 2020
Gesehen Aus [I think short for Ausir] und auch kinder in stein
Wo ist ein grun stucke
Gross stadt Jorgen sie
Ich bin spielen
Freundebuche suchen

Just a small sample of some of the strange dialogue I started to pick up.  The "Germans", by the way, are part of the Joseph of Egypt Search and Rescue Team, I believe, and carry with them the Smoked Anor Stone (the Sun that was Darkened in its going forth, per prophecy, in my story).  This is the "stein" (German for Stone) that they mention on this particular day, and they seem to be using it.  By my guess, they would have just arrived in our world on Jan. 2, having left wherever they came from on Dec. 28 (so about 6 days of travel - I'll share that chronology in a different post if I ever get to it).

Apparently they can see things in the Stone, and "Aus" (who I think references Joseph, the object of their search) is somebody they see.  They mention a Gross stadt Jorgen, which would translate into Great City George, which I now think may stand for Washington, D.C. (but that will need to be a different post as well).  Either Joseph, a Green Piece (potentially the Elessar), or both (together?) might have been in Washington from what they saw.

It seems that they are also searching for this Freundebuche.  Suchen means "search".  I am guessing they are also doing this by means of this Stone.

The term Friends Book stands out to me now based on the words of the mysterious woman last fall who spoke to me.  I take this woman to be Claire, just so you know by the way, since her voice was not as familiar as others would seem to be, but it could have been another one of the Daughters as well, I suppose.

I think I have mentioned elsewhere that this woman stated "You will become friends with the Sons of Alma".  It was an exceptionally clear voice, and the words were said in conjunction with other commentary relative to this blog that I had just started writing.  I don't know if the "you" here was directed at me, or somebody else.  Given that it seemed my blog was a subject of her discussion, I assumed "you" did mean me, but that doesn't necessarily have to be the case.

The only Alma we know of that had more than one son (the "Sons" was definitively plural, per the woman), was Alma the Younger.  His sons, that we know of, were Helaman, Shiblon, and Corianton.  Of the three, Helaman has been on my mind the most, and he has tied into several things on this blog, most notably recently with the Brass Plates.  I mentioned earlier that of all the Book of Mormon characters, Helaman's charge over both the Anor Stone-Liahona as well as the Brass Plates were extremely explicit and direct, and this may be because that charge extended beyond his mortal life.  But who knows.

In any case, you have these Beings - The Germans - who I assume have the Anor Stone, and they are using it to search for a Friend-Book.  The woman who spoke to me talked about "Friends", and I potentially identified one of those Friends as Helaman, who had charge over both the Anor Stone and the Brass Plates.

Putting that all together, could the Friend-Book, then, be a reference to the Brass Plates?  There are so many strange riddles and potential connections that I don't put it out of the the realm of possibility, and in fact, currently think that it is the likeliest solution.  These Beings have arrived on Earth, and in addition to tracking down Joseph, they are attempting to locate the Brass Plates, which for some reason are thought to be on this world (I am not sure why or how they arrived).

The connection gets a little more interesting and not as far-fetched as you might think.

Since he started commenting on this blog with the very first comment having only Doug's full name, there is this tie-in William Tychonievich and Doug that I can't quite place.  It comes through in certain ways, not just physical appearance or professional training ( they are both linguists), but also in writing style, and I have to force myself at times to look past it and remember that William isn't Doug.

An interesting connection between the two came up again yesterday, once again having to do with writing, and in this case to a specific joke that centers on Plates.  Craziest thing, actually.

William pokes fun at the notion of Brass Plates being in France in his post Plates among the dead leaves.  He writes the following:

William Wright picked up on this theme [of golden leaves being symbolic of plates] in "The Brass Leafy Plates and all roads lead to France," proposing that my "leaves of gold" syncs have to do with the Brass Plates and that these are currently in France. (If anyone wants to follow up that lead, the first place I'd look is behind the altar in the Basilique Saint-Sernin de Toulouse; let me know if you find anything.)

When I read it, the joke/comment about searching in Toulouse kind of came across with a douchey tone to it that took me a second to place, but only a second, as it was unmistakable: Doug!  It's like William had channeled, at least to my ears-eyes, Doug's Doucheyness fairly perfectly.


I remembered exactly where I had read a similar type of joke-commentary, also having to deal with searching for plates.  In Doug's final book of his Cultural History of the Book of Mormon series, titled Book Fantasia, he makes the exact same kind of statement, also involving a search for Plates. He writes:

... But you may find Cumorah, somewhere loaded with a library of writings from the ancient world. I'd say look near modern day Hemet, California. (That's about as specific as I can get, though; so good luck digging and don't forget your peep stone, it's sure to come in handy.)

Carbon copy in intent and tone, though I guess William was helpfully much more specific in his guidance on where to search.  William read that book as well - maybe he picked up or incorporated that kind of thing from Doug. 

What interested me was that both writers were writing this in the context of finding Plates.  The reference to Cumorah being loaded with records in Doug's quote, for those not familiar, is based on the Mormon folklore of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery at one point walking into a hill or mountain that was filled with records, plates, etc., and was even said to have the "Sword of Laban".  We don't have a primary source from either Joseph or Oliver as to this event happening, but several second-hand accounts exist.  I may have actually brought up this story in the post that I have since deleted and in which William first commented on this blog, as I now think about it.

Anyway, I didn't think much more on this for a bit, but then I remembered something else The Germans said at the end of that same month.  On Jan. 26, 2020, here is the dialogue I picked up:

Jan. 26

Study find in big river stein

Arnu entuli has san

Arnu en stein

Stein

What I am focused on here is that first line ( you can see by the end January, by the way, the German is now fading into and mixing with English and Elvish).  I actually haven't thought too much about this passage , other than we get quite a few references to Stone (Stein).  So it was surprising to me that this particular quote came to my mind yesterday as I was thinking about both William and Doug's recommendation on finding plates.

An amazing thing happened, though.  I saw "study" differently than I had ever seen it before.  Previous to yesterday, I had always viewed this instance of "study" as a verb, as in to study something.  Since the word preceded find, this seemed to make sense in the broken-English sort of way that these phrases come in.  You study and then find a stone in a big river, perhaps, or something.

But now I understood it as a noun, meaning a Study, like a place filled with books.  Per Etymonline:  "room furnished with books, room in a house for private reading and writing".  Isn't that a proper word for the Cumorah that Doug references as 'loaded with a library of writings"?  That would be the exact definition of a Study, actually.

To top it off, in that same post where William channeled Doug and wrote his plate-finding recommendation, he actually specifically mentions Study in this way, in the context of his own room.  Just a couple paragraphs later, actually.  Here he is:

I'm away from my study at the moment and don't have access to any of my preferred translations of Virgil. The above are A. S. Kline's, taken from this site.

This reference to a physical study filled with books made me think that I was on the right path here.  It was not 'studying' that The Germans were discussing; it was a Study!  The Study, where, I am guessing, the Freundebuche Brass Plates were, and where the Sawtooth Stone would soon be (the next year in 2021, delivered by the Couriers).

And that Study, I am currently guessing, would be in the safe keeping of Tom Bombadil and his House in France.

So, this all came together really well.  If we change the word Study to something like Library, the first line The Germans said reads as:  "Library find in big river stein".  Leaving aside the "stein" ending, it now reads fairly clearly that one can find a library - the Room of Records -  in "big river".

Where is that, though?  Big river.  I mean it is just a big river, as a description, or is it specifically a name?  I am guessing name, as leaving it as a general term just isn't helpful.  There are rivers named big river.  The Rio Grande, for example, but that is in North America - I needed something in France.  Plus, it makes no sense to have a library 'in' a river.

Because I already started with the assumption that Tom's House is where these things are kept at, and that this is in France, I translated 'big river' into French.  There are a few variations, but Grande Riviere came up first and most directly.

I did a search for this as "Grande Riviere France", and hit a pretty good candidate.  It isn't a river, which again wouldn't have been very practical, but rather a small commune/ small agricultural area in eastern France.  The name is Grande-Riviere, so literally Big River.  Thus, the name at least checks out.

Could this be THE Big River, where the Study, and Tom's House, is located, per The Germans?  Impossible to say, and I don't think it matters for us anyway, because if we aren't invited, we aren't going to find it.

But it does check off a box or two.

It is in French Wine Country, which is a big one.  Remember that Tom mentioned bringing out the best wine when the Stone Couriers arrived.

It is reachable from the coast (where a boat would have landed) in under half a day's worth of driving (though I guess that is most anywhere in France).

Most interesting to me, and unexpected, however, is that Grande-Riviere falls within a district named Jura.  Jura is a French word that means "to make an oath, vow, or to swear".  One of the story details that came through regarding Faramir and Eowyn and their story was that they made some vow or oath to each other using "heart-language" before they separated, and my guess had been that this was done at Tom's House.

In my Mbasse post, I first mentioned this guess/ story detail:

In any case, I think I solved the riddle of the Nov. 2, 2019 words, at least in general terms.  Though I don't know exactly what was involved, Eowyn and Faramir were united with an eternal bond at Tom's house ahead of their separation (France is bakin'!)

...Elizabeth [having tied the name to Eowyn] also means "God is my oath", which also points to a promise or binding commitment, perhaps in some relation to the 'heart-language' that was used between Eowyn and Faramir. 

Which is why this little unexpected fact of Jura meaning an Oath or Vow is so intriguing.

Wrapping this up, this all means means that if you were to ask my guess, I would place Tom's House, along with the Library-Study of Records, which now includes the Brass Plates and the Sawtooth Stone, somewhere in Grande-Riviere, France.  That narrows it down pretty well, but still a big area to cover, and like I said, if we aren't meant to find it, it won't be found.

We'll see how this guess ages over time.