Mardorunando

redeemer of the world

Mardorunando noun "Redeemer of the world" (VT44:17). Unless the initial element mardo- is a distinct and otherwise unattested word for "world", it may be the genitive form of mar (mard-) "earth", q.v.

mardorunando

proper name. *Redeemer of the World

A name or title of Christ as the redeemer of the world, used in Tolkien’s Quenya translation of the Litany of Loreto prayer (VT44/12).

Possible Etymology: The first element is the genitive form mardo (“of the World”) of the noun mar(da), elsewhere translated as “dwelling” (PE17/107). This word (and its relative már) did not usually mean “World” in Tolkien’s later writings, but the earlier form ᴹQ. mar (mard-) was sometimes glossed “Earth” in his writing from the 1930s (LR/72, Ety/MBAR in Martano “Earthbuilder” and Endamar “Middle-earth”). Alternately, this may have been a restoration of the much earlier ᴱQ. marda “world”. In later writings, the usual Quenya word for “World” was Ambar.

The second element of this name is runando, apparently meaning “redeemer”.

a eruion mardorunando, eru órava (o)messë

God, the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us

The seventh line of Tolkien’s Quenya translation of the Litany of Loreto prayer (VT44/12). The first word is the vocative a “O” followed by Eruion, a name for Christ as the “Son of God”. The third word Mardorunando seems to be a translation of “Redeemer of the World”. The fourth word Eru is Tolkien’s usual Quenya name for God. The phrase órava (o)messe “have mercy on us” is essentially the same as in the first line; see that entry for discussion.

Decomposition: Broken into its constituent elements, this phrase would be:

> a Eru-ion Mard-o-runando, Eru órava (o)me-sse = “✱o God-son world-of-redeemer, God have-mercy us-on”

Conceptual Development: Tolkien began two incomplete forms Io >> Yón before settling on Eruion. As in the first line, Tolkien first used the dative ómen for “on us” before revising it to the locative (o)messe (VT44/12, notes on line 7).