Talk:Goldberry

I believe she's over by the waterfall, yea. Tom Bombadil sends you to see her as a quest at some point if I remember correctly. Someone from up by the horsefields has a quest that sends you off to talk to someone or other who then sends you to her. And she's got a quest that she sends you on as well. I don't think hers has any prereq's but I'm not sure. It's late & I'm not logging in to check. --TD

River-maiden Redirect

Just wanted to question if the "River-maiden" article should redirect to this article instead of the River-maids article? River-maiden is more of a generic term and contains the known info on the River-maidens within the Legendarium. The article includes links to Goldberry and the other named NPCs. However, the opposite is not true - Goldberry doesn't refer back to the River-maidens in general or any specific NPCs. -- Squirmier (talk) 12:08, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I think you got your pages backwards -- the "River-maiden" page does redirect to "Goldberry"?

At the time (2008) the "River-maden" page was created, there was only Goldberry. I suspect the page was created because people could not remember what Tom called her - maiden being a more commonly used term than "maid" today. (In fantasy, "damsels in distress" are always "fair young maidens" -- never "comely young maids," for some reason or other. Convention, I guess. Or maybe because "maid" connotes servant - definitely the usage pattern which Tolkien himself would have been most familiar with as in "Upstairs, Downstairs" and other Brit period literature.

At any rate, I added a reference to the River maids on Goldberry's page.

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 20:03, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I meant to suggest that River-maiden -> River-maids was the optimal redirect. The existing redirect (River-maiden -> Goldberry) is potentially confusing because there is no way to know which of the five unique NPCs inspired the article search. -- Squirmier (talk) 10:34, 16 January 2015 (UTC)