The quick version!
Siân Glírdan is the fusion persona of the elven roleplay character, Janowyn, High Bard of the River Kingdom and her ‘real world’ creator, author, Jan Hawke. Glírdan is the elven word for ‘songsmith’, and Siân is a Welsh variant of Jan (in case you were wondering!).When it became obvious to Jan, that Jano had a far better handle than she could ever have on writing in the fantasy genres, Siân was born, fully formed and raring to go.Befouled, is one of the earliest pieces of fan fiction that Siân wrote for a fantasy pen and paper roleplaying forum in the Tolkien universe. Dealing as it does with a topic that The Master only ever touched upon so lightly as to be practically non-existent, namely, how the race of orcs was created, Siân decided to adapt her speculative work for her own world. Names and places have been changed from their original usage on Arda and the storyline changed so not to conflict with Tolkien's worlds. It is now brought to you as a dark study in evil and genetic manipulation.
… and ad nauseam!
... as you may have gathered by now, Siân Glírdan is a nom de plume. Having read this far, you will also know that my given name is Jan (for short). What you will not know is that my maiden name is a Scots Gaelic variant for Smith.
The accent on Glírdan is there ‘just because’, as this is a hybrid composite that was never used by ‘the Master’. You can meet Siân Glírdan online at a number of places including:-
It will also have been obvious throughout, that Professor John Ronald Reuel Tolkien CBE FRSL is one of my great literary heroes. I discovered him at the age of ten, and he changed my life forever when he consigned Gandalf to the murky depths of Moria - I could not stop crying and did not read on for almost a week, so great was my shock and grief.
As a philologist author, one of Tolkien’s greatest achievements was the creation of several fantasy languages for his world of Arda. Of those, it is Sindarin, the lingua franca of the Elves of Middle Earth (not of Valinor), that was most widely adopted by the roleplaying community I joined in 2005. In Sindarin the word for smith is dan. For a bard, or ‘songsmith’, this is combined with glir to form glirdan.
One of the main roots on which Sindarin is based is Welsh, which Tolkien described as ‘the Queen of Celtic languages’. My paternal grandparents were of Scots and Irish descent respectively, and so Siân, the Celtic variant for Jane, was a rather obvious choice for the translation of Jan. Janowyn the High Bard was the catalyst for bringing the wholly mortal Jan the Bard back to the world and so, for my future writings as a fantasy storyteller, I am adopting Siân Glírdan as my official persona, honouring both Jano’s and my own heritage.
The accent on Glírdan is there ‘just because’, as this is a hybrid composite that was never used by ‘the Master’. You can meet Siân Glírdan online at a number of places including:-
It will also have been obvious throughout, that Professor John Ronald Reuel Tolkien CBE FRSL is one of my great literary heroes. I discovered him at the age of ten, and he changed my life forever when he consigned Gandalf to the murky depths of Moria - I could not stop crying and did not read on for almost a week, so great was my shock and grief.
As a philologist author, one of Tolkien’s greatest achievements was the creation of several fantasy languages for his world of Arda. Of those, it is Sindarin, the lingua franca of the Elves of Middle Earth (not of Valinor), that was most widely adopted by the roleplaying community I joined in 2005. In Sindarin the word for smith is dan. For a bard, or ‘songsmith’, this is combined with glir to form glirdan.
One of the main roots on which Sindarin is based is Welsh, which Tolkien described as ‘the Queen of Celtic languages’. My paternal grandparents were of Scots and Irish descent respectively, and so Siân, the Celtic variant for Jane, was a rather obvious choice for the translation of Jan. Janowyn the High Bard was the catalyst for bringing the wholly mortal Jan the Bard back to the world and so, for my future writings as a fantasy storyteller, I am adopting Siân Glírdan as my official persona, honouring both Jano’s and my own heritage.
twitter ~ @SianGlirdanBard
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