One of the ravens who lived on Ravenhill, one of the foothills of Erebor, the Lonely Mountain. Carc seems to have been the chief of those birds, and dwelt with his wife above the Dwarves' guard-chamber on the hill. Thorin recalled him as being wise and famous at the time the Dwarves were driven out of Erebor by Smaug. When Thorin returned to the Lonely Mountain 171 years later, Carc was dead, but the ravens remained, led by his son Roäc.
Notes
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Carc was known to Thorin before the coming of Smaug in III 2770. That gives us the absolute earliest point where he was alive, but he seems to have been an important bird even then. His son Roäc was born in III 2788, so Carc must have survived until at least that year. Beyond that, all we can say for sure is that Carc had died before Thorin returned to Erebor in III 2941. The ravens of Erebor were extremely long-lived, but it is hardly surprising that Carc did not survive the period of one hundred and seventy-one years that Thorin was away from the Lonely Mountain.
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2 |
In pronouncing Elvish words, the r sound is usually distinctly pronounced, and 'rr' here is used to emphasise this. It should be noted that Carc is not an Elvish name, and the same rules of pronunciation may not apply. A rolling r sound does seem to fit well with the name as it might be spoken by a raven, but an alternative pronunciation like 'k'ahk' might in principle be equally valid.
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The name Carc might very well have had a meaning in the bird-speech of the ravens, but we're given no clue as to what that might have been. |
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- Updated 30 June 2021
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