While elves on the river and men on the lake might be oarsmen, only Gollum paddles.

• 05.012 He paddled it with large feet dangling over the side,
• 05.056 and paddled to the bank;
• 05.103 paddling wildly back to the dark shore;

“Oar” now occurs less frequently, though not by much, than its plural per the Google Ngram Viewer.  Before the mid-eighteenth century, this was not the case.  Predecessors of the word seem to come from Scandinavian tongues.

• 08.027 There aren’t any oars.
• 10.009 and oars were pulled,
• 10.045 The white oars dipped

“oar, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 9 May 2015.

To rhyme with “grab” in the middle of the line, the goblin poets of Middle Earth present our singular occurrence of “nab”: catch or seize.

• 04.019 Grip, grab! Pinch, nab!

“Magnificent” is one of The Ten Thousand, but “magnify” is not!  What do we do with that, friends?

• 13.008 which echoes magnified alarmingly;

“Laburnum” is a genus for two small trees in the pea family.  The flowers are bright yellow on long hanging stalks with many flowers together.  Both species are sometimes called “golden chain tree”.  Gandalf’s fireworks, to be described that way, must have been long, swooping successions of gold starbursts.

• 01.017 and laburnums of fire

Wikipedia contributors. “Laburnum.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 21 Apr. 2015. Web. 9 May. 2015.

Much of our story takes place in the mountains, but we only hear about ice in Gollum’s underground lake and the river from Mirkwood to Lake-town.

• 05.010 it was icy cold.
• 09.055 in icy water,