Middle Earth Ranger Forum

Okay, here goes. I've been making a few Dunedain Sister knives for the past couple of years now. Two or three of our forumites own them. I hope they are happy with them.

But it's time for her to come of age. She's growing up. She has a brother on the way in about a year- as I have mentioned in another thread. So she wants a new name. In the meantime here are some teaser pics:





Some stats so far:
OAL: 12 3/4"
Blade length: 7 5/8" Original knives 7"
Blade width 1 3/8" About the same as original.
Thickness: ~ 3/16"

Fittings will be cast antique bronze with a simple knotwork pattern.
Handle will most likely be walnut.

Okay, contest rules: Pretty much same as always. The name should be Elvish and feminine. Explain what the name means and why you chose that name. At the beginning of September, I'll open a poll and the winner will be chosen by popular vote at the end of September. The winner will of course receive the knife with a vertical sheath. Runner-up will receive a knife of lesser value, but still lovingly crafted.

If you are under age in your area to own a knife, or if you live in an area where it is prohibited by law, I may come up with a haversack or something similar as a prize. Second place will receive a belt pouch or something of that sort. I'll expound more upon that if anyone needs me to.

So if you've wanted one of my knives, but like most of America these days, are too poor to put out the cash, here's a chance to own one. After this contest, this style will be available on a special order basis unless I happen to make one and put it out there for general sale.

Any questions?

Oh, and in these pics, I need to finish the edge bevel and it is ready for heat treat. It will be edge quenched, but because of the nickel content of the steel, it may not show much of a quench line. I hear that could interfere with the visibility of the line.

Beautiful design, Eric!

Thanks Greg. When I was working on the wax, I completely changed the detail that has always been at the front of the handle. In the ones that I have done, that detail has been carved into the wood, like on the last D-Sis above it. It didn't look right. Something was missing. I leaned over it, staring at it for a while before I finally gave up and went to bed. While laying in bed, I figured out that I was robbing the knife of a part of what made it a D-Sis in the first place. So instead of being carved into the wood, the design will be in bronze with an added guard.

Oh, the two pieces of green wax are what I am going to carve the fitting from for casting.

And as I get more done on the knife, I'll post progress pics so no one loses interest.

As I thought about the contest, I wondered how many names should each person be able to submit. Two names per person.

What fun! Thank you for your generosity in hosting this contest, Eric.

As for two names per person, I don't really see the purpose to submitting more than one name. If a contestant were to submit two names, the votes might be spread out among them and the chances of winning decreased. That's how I see it, anyway, so I only plan to submit one.

Well, that's a good point. The reason I limited it to two was that I didn't want anyone submitting a whole list of names. If one name is good with everyone, then one it is.

So limit one name per contestant.

By the way, if any of our forum members are looking at this contest and wishing they could enter, but don't feel confident in their Elvish abilities or just aren't quite sure how to fuse those two words together to get their compound, please feel free to toss me a PM and I'll see if I can help you out.

HMMM...gonna have to do some thinking on this one...might try my hand.

And for those that don't know, my family owns 3 IF knives with a 4th in the works. These are great knives.

hmm ok so one limit per person.. but not household hehehe I will have to get my braincells working hard.. They've been slackin a bit lately.

Nope, not limited to one per household. I hate that there are some who can't really compete for the knife. I had plenty of knives when I was 13-14 years old. But times have changed and so have laws evidently.

But now I'm in danger of hijacking my own thread.

Thanks Erich for your good word. I'm striving to improve all the time. I want each knife to be better than the last.

I might as well get this started.

My entry/name suggestion is Sigiliel. Note that the "g" is hard.

I had been considering a few crazy ideas such as Lothodhaduial (which I personally find very pretty) but I decided it would be best not to use a name that people would stumble over when trying to pronounce. So I went for simplicity -- no more than four syllables.

Anyway, Sigiliel is comprised of the elements sigil, "dagger, knife" and iell, -iel, "girl, daughter, maid; feminine ending." The name could straightforwardly mean "maiden-knife," "daughter-dagger," (if we're going for aliteration) or just "knife" with a feminine connotation.

I chose this name because of its ability to express the weapon's identity without misinterpretable metaphor while being easily pronounceable, memorable, and femininely associable. I find the suffix -iel to have an intrinsically phonosemantic feminine association. In other words, it just sounds feminine, and it is, which is the primary trait of the knife we want to make sure is infused into its new name. We want people to hear the name and think, "Oh, that's the Icthean Forge's sister-knife." At the very least, the average American can hear the name and decide that it sounds a little bit like Galadriel, so it must be feminine. If we're not counting on phonosemantics.

Oh, and I also think that Sigiliel sounds nice.

Further, if this name goes through, I might suggest that you give the brother-knife a parallel yet masculine name. Something like Sigilion, perhaps.

Ernildhir wrote:Further, if this name goes through, I might suggest that you give the brother-knife a parallel yet masculine name. Something like Sigilion, perhaps.

WHOA!!! One knife at a time! I might make this an annual thing or something. Haven't decided yet.

Eric C wrote:

Ernildhir wrote:Further, if this name goes through, I might suggest that you give the brother-knife a parallel yet masculine name. Something like Sigilion, perhaps.

WHOA!!! One knife at a time! I might make this an annual thing or something. Haven't decided yet.

Sorry... I got excited.

Here's my entry:

I chose Egimeril (emphasis on the first i). The g, like Ernildhir's, is hard.

Egimeril basically translates to: "Thorn of the Rose" or "The Rose's Thorn". I chose this name because like the knife, a rose is both pretty and potentially dangerous, as well as it being a strong feminine image. It refers to nature, which as we all know, is very important to the elves.

It is comprised of:
eg- thorn
i-the
meril- rose
(-il is also a feminine suffix, like -iel is)

I know I didn't put "of" or a possesive in there, but it's because it would have made the name sound bad or made it hard to pronounce. I was originally going to call it "Willowthorn" because I liked the way it sounded, but to my knowledge, willow trees don't have thorns of any kind!

Hope you like it!