33 days to the release of
Return of the King!
Sorry for the delay, folks. My phone line failed this morning! Imagine my horror. Now, if this were, say, June, I'd just skip today's Friday Fact. But since there are only 5 more Fridays before the release date, I'm forging ahead - damn the torpedos!
Friday Fact:
In the Fellowship, there is a mysterious reference to the cats of Queen Beruthiel. In the Mines of Moria, Aragorn, referring to Gandalf, says "He is surer of finding the way home in a blind night than the cats of Queen Beruthiel." Queen Beruthiel and her cats are mentioned no-where else in the books, not in LOTR, The Hobbit, or the appendices. Personally, I was always fascinated by this reference; so I was delighted to discover the following story, in the words of Christopher Tolkien:
"...the story of Queen Beruthiel does exist, however, if only in a very "primitive" outline, in one part illegible. She was the nefarious, solitary, and loveless wife of Tarannon, twelfth King of Gondor (Third Age 830-913) and first of the "Ship-Kings," who took the crown in the name of Falastur "Lord of the Coasts," and was the first childless king (LOTR, appendix A, I, ii and iv). Beruthiel lived in the King's House in Osgiliath [which was near Minas Tirith, straddling the river Anduin], hating the sounds and smells of the sea and the house that Tarannon built below Pelargir "upon arches whose feet stood deep in the wide waters of Ethir Anduin;" she hated all making, all colours 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 beneath cypresses and yews. She had nine black cats and one white, her slaves, with whom she conversed, or read their memories, setting them to discover all the dark secrets of Gondor, so that she knew those things "that men wish most to keep hidden," setting the white cat to spy upon the black, and tormenting them. No man in Gondor dared touch them; all were afraid of them, and cursed when they saw them pass. What follows is almost wholly illegible in the unique manuscript, except for the ending, which states that her name was erased from the Book of the Kings ("but the memory of men is not wholly shut in books, and the cats of Queen Beruthiel never passed wholly out of men's speech"), and that King Tarannon had her set on a ship alone with her cats and set adrift on the sea before a north wind. The ship was last seen flying past Umbar under a sickle moon, with a cat at the mast head and another as a figure-head on the prow."
(Source: Note 7 on The Istari, from The Unfinished Tales)
Here's another long one! Some of these are becoming more "essay" than "fact". But I appreciate everyone's positive feedback about the length of the recent friday facts.
As I mentioned above, there's just over a month left until the release date. Starting tomorrow, I am planning to start posting a Bonus Fact on Saturdays and a Bonus Quote on Sundays. Enjoy!
10:41:25 PM 
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