CROSSWORD (Plain HTML Version) Greetings -- Quickbeam here. Welcome to our Green Books 4th Anniversary! So how do we thank you for 4 years of readership? Well, by testing your cerebral limits.... how else!? Introducing our official GB4A Cryptic Crossword. This puzzle was secretly created by one of the world's leading Tolkien scholars, Bill Welden, who worked on the Elvish you find in Peter Jackson's LOTR film trilogy. You have a choice between using the interactive Java version below, or the plain HTML version for those without Java or those who might want to print out the puzzle and work on real paper. The interactive system is the easiest and most fun to use, however - just click on the grid, start typing, and when you're done click Submit! You can find the solution page here: click to see solution!. N.B. the problem that some people have been encountering with Java of the applet crashing upon grid-completion has now been remedied. On behalf of Ostadan, Anwyn, Tookish, Turgon, and myself -- we raise our glass and thank you for helping us explore the WORDS and WORLDS of J.R.R. Tolkien. A Note from Bill Welden The crossword puzzle is the most popular modern equivalent to the riddle game of the old days; and the British have devised a particularly insidious version, called a "cryptic" crossword. In honor of our favorite Brit, Professor Tolkien himself, I have put together a cryptic crossword with a Middle-earth theme. This is my first one of these, and this one hasn't been tested on anyone ahead of time, but I have tried to make it difficult, and I hope I've succeeded. Don't expect to get it all at once. If you haven't ever done a cryptic crossword before, you'd better read the instructions first: these puzzles aren't like the crosswords your parents taught you.

Across 1 Hand-picked grain, divided by collection centre. (8) 5 Makes the same pitiful squeal. (6) 10 To stay alive, leave around the beginning of September. (5) 11 Spar in ring with Earendil, for example. (9) 12 Point toward the West in expression of joy and bounty. (9) 13 Elvish was my bastion against the ravages of time. (5) 14 Approaches crooked lanes around Bag End. (6) 15 Weakest subject frequently is Latin. (7) 18 Make strong Exilic Noldorin past tense. (7) 20 Is kept in view. (6) 22 Elf's ancient parting response. (5) 24 Leaders of North and South are hiding in unimportant early city of Gondor. (5,4) 25 One Ring, done, finished, tossed aside. (9) 26 Wait and ask between the middle of May and the end of June. (5) 27 Skip out with just what you have coming. (6) 28 Note about trail seen in certain phase of moon. (8) Down 1 Let's fall over like old monuments. (6) 2 Alas, someone High-Elven died embraced by fifty-one woodelves. (9) 3 Unhinged facing door led to inner circle of Minas Tirith. (7,2,6) 4 Nesting nuts?! (7) 6 First Lady often has request poorly executed. (5,2,3,5) 7 Elvish pool and stars. (5) 8 Help with unresolved state of difficulty up around front line. (8) 9 Crebain almost never up from South. (6) 16 Took wife a rose. (9) 17 Digs near ruinous remote outpost of Gondor. (8) 19 Appointment with one of the big folk up in the capital of Gondor. (6) 20 Room on Arda, marred, for Elvish bastard? (3,4) 21 Shining silver generally found in Middle-earth. (6) 23 Simple answer offers tips. (5)

Instructions for Cryptic Crosswords

In a cryptic crossword puzzle each clue has two parts: one half is a traditional style crossword clue, and the other half is an anagram or other form of word play. Part of the challenge is to figure out which half is which and where one leaves off and the other begins.

Here's an example. The clue is "Kin of Legolas, singing, surrounded by Wargs(9)" (the number 9 at the end is the number of letters in the word). If you are imagining a group of elves huddled in the forest, singing bravely while wild wolves peer out hungrily from the darkness, you are entirely on the wrong track!

It usually helps to ignore any first impressions you get from the clue. Here, the traditional portion of the clue is "Kin of Legolas", and the answer is WOODELVES. The wordplay comes when you surround the letters in the word ODE (which is a sort of "singing") with the letters in WOLVES (which are "wargs") between the O and the L: WO-ODE-LVES. See? "ODE surrounded by WOLVES" (or since that would be easy, and therefore not so much fun, "singing, surrounded by Wargs").

Two clues instead of just one! What more could you ask?

Here is another example: "Ancient evil ruler is crazy, knighting a farm cow (5,4,2,6)" (four words; five, four, two and six letters respectively). The traditional clue portion is "ancient evil ruler" and the answer is WITCH KING OF ANGMAR, which is an anagram of "knighting a farm cow". The word "crazy" in this case indicates that an anagram is involved. Again, the surface meaning of the sentence is intended only as a distraction. If it suggests Caligula's appointment of his horse to the Senate of Rome, so much the better!

There are often one or more words (in this case the single word "is") linking the two halves of the clue. Such words are never added merely to dress up the clue: they always (and grammatically!) describe the relationship between the traditional clue portion and the wordplay. The answer (WITCH KING OF ANGMAR) "is" an anagram ("crazy") version of "knighting a farm cow".

By the way, that business we did in the first example, giving clues ("singing", "wargs") instead of the actual words (ODE, WOLVES) won't ever happen with an anagram. Everybody agrees that that would make it just too difficult. Where the wordplay is an anagram, all of the scrambled letters will appear in the clue.

Cryptic crosswords almost always use words as clues for their common abbreviations without any special indication (and this puzzle is no exception). So, in an extreme case you might find "Fourth Age Sun God married current retired steward (7)". The traditional clue here is just "steward" and the answer is FARAMIR. The wordplay goes like this: FA (abbreviation for "Fourth Age") + RA (the Egyptian sun god) + M (abbreviation for "married") + I (abbreviation for "current") + R (abbreviation for "retired").

Sometimes the two halves of a clue will both be conventional crossword clues. Here is an example: "Holds a bridge gaming convention? (5)". The answer is TROLL, and the clues are "holds a bridge" (which is, after all, what trolls are most famous for) and "gaming convention", since "to troll" is a traditional way, or a "convention", for fishing -- or we could say for "gaming", since fish are a sort of game.

Here, as in American style crosswords, a question mark means that there is something fishy about the clue. In this case the dictionary insists that "gaming" refers only to playing games of chance and cannot mean "fishing". That's no fun, so we use it anyway, but add the question mark in order to be completely fair.

Every now and then it is possible to come up with a clue in which both the conventional clue and the wordplay are identical (but, of course, must be read in different ways). Then the clue is given only once, but with an exclamation point to make sure everyone knows how clever the puzzle-maker is! Try: "Misguided boor confronted with Elvish treasure! (7)". The answer is BOROMIR, which is an anagram ("misguided") form of BOOR, followed by MIR, an Elvish word meaning "jewel", which is a kind of treasure!

As in this last example, there are often several sorts of wordplay combined in a single clue. You may want to start by checking out some of the excellent cryptic crossword sites on the internet. You will find many more examples, as well as tips for solving these puzzles. Search for "cryptic crosswords" or follow one of these links to get started:

http://www.crypticross.com/cryptics/solvingguide/solvingguide.html
http://www.biddlecombe.demon.co.uk/yagcc/

One last hint: to figure out every last clue, you should know that one of my favorite pastimes (for more than thirty-five years now) is the study of the Elvish languages. Almárëa nai tiëlya! (Good luck!)