Tag Archives: jrr tolkien

Basque Fact of the Week: The Deiadar (Hornblower) Mountains of Bizkaia

In the movie adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, there is a scene in which the city of Gondor is being attacked and, to summon help, the so-called warning beacons of Gondor are lit. These are a series of outposts scattered across mountain peaks that are set […]

Did you know…?

Bilbao, the capital of Bizkaia, was known for its steel. So well known that a type of sword popular in England and America was called a bilbo, after the Basque city. (In Basque, the name of Bilbao is Bilbo…)  In Basque, they were called Labana Bizkaitarrak. These swords were made in Bilbao and exported widely. […]