non fiction meta by hennethgalad

Chapter 1

  'ar' also means 'noble, royal' as in Aradan, Arwen, Aragorn, Ar-Pharazôn etc. 

the Mouths of Sirion is an interesting name in itself. in 1903 the book 'The Riddle of the Sands' was published. it was set off the coast of Germany, about two intrepid young English men in a small yacht who knew their way across the shifting sandbanks well enough to stumble on early German invasion boats. 

   Tolkien, with his enthusiasm for his anglo-saxon forebears, would have been interested in the places described in the book. 

   such shifting sands move like the waves of the sea, rippling and weaving patterns, and swallowing the unwary. the fact that they shift so frequently may account for why Tolkien used the plural 'Mouths' instead of Mouth. 

   are any other rivers so described ? 

the 'ver' part may be Vairë, the weaver, who is weaving not merely images but the world itself. that would give 'land of the noble weaver', the Vala, the elemental force which shapes the land, shifts the courses of the river and turns the sands into a riddle. it may be a warning to be wary not only of the sands, but also of the inscrutable purposes of Vairë and the Valar. 

  a heads-up, and up...