What four words relevant to the Furies are made from anagrams of these
20 letters? One of these letters may be wrong. ELOIRNEEADHETRLBDNEC.

---

Request for Question Clarification by hammer-ga on 29 May 2003 05:31 PDT

Since you decided to try one of my suggestions, may I post it as an
official answer?

- Hammer

---

Request for Question Clarification by knowledge_seeker-ga on 07 Jun 2003 12:53 PDT

Hey there ant1943!

It looks like this has been a fun project for many of our researchers.
Perhaps now that you've finished the puzzle and learned the correct
answer, you'd like to award your $5 fee to one of those researchers?

If you'd like to do that, just post a note that identifies the
researcher you'd like to reward by using your CLARIFY ANSWER button.

*note that only actual researchers have "clickable" names and that
other commenters are not able to collect the fee.


-K~

From the letters above, the following words pertaining to the Furies
can be made:

Alecto
Electra
Athene

Past that, I'm stumped.  If you knew that al of the letters were
correct, it would make it worth going further.  :)

The D might be incorrect. However there must be four words and you
have already used 19 letters.  I came up with "Electra nor Helen
bride" but can't find this as a quote anywhere. Thanks.

Perhaps if you would post the preliminary steps that led to this
sequence of letters, the researchers would have a better shot at this.

I wonder if we're on the right track here?

For what it is worth:  in Greek mythology they are the Erinyes (or
Eumenides); the Romans called them The Furies : from Furiae (sometimes
also called Dirae).  There may have been more Erinyes originally, but
they eventually became three: Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone.  (taken
from Bulfinch's Mythology) and they were associated with Anger,
Jealousy and Murder.

I cannot find the latin/ roman versions of their names, but this might
be a line of investigation.

Twenty letters is not a lot to play with - we need to be looking for
short words?

Per Magnesium's comment: could we have more information?  The exact
question/  puzzle and the sequence of steps so far could be very
useful.

Good luck!

This is from a crossword called "Cross purposes". The instructions
are:-
Eleven across answers are thematic and need changing before entry in
the grid. The wordplay in the remaining across clues lead to the
answer plus an extra letter(not entered in the grid); these letters,
in clue order, form part of an apposite quotation.
The wordplay in each down clue leads to the answerwith one letter
replaced by another (in one instance the letters are the same);
neither of these letters is entered in the grid. The replacement
letter in each pair continues the quotation. The original letter must
be arranged with its fellows to form four more thematic words (one of
which has two valid spellings) to be written below the grid. Solvers
must also highlight two words relevant to the theme in the grid.

I've solved all the clues.  The quotation is from Milton's Lucidas -
"..blind Fury with th'abhorred shears".  The eleven acroos answers
that have to be changed contain words like passion, anger, pique, etc.
 These words are removed and replaced in order by two letters from the
names of the three Furies eg Impassion = Imal (the first two letters
of Alecto) and so on using all the letters of the three Furies.

"Eumenides" and "Erinyes" are the two relevant words that can be found
in the grid and are highlighted.

So I'm stuck with turning the 20 letters (which I think are correct)
into four more thematic words.

Any more ideas would be much appreciated. Thanks ant1943.

It sounds as if you are definitely on the right track - you must be,
everything else fits.

But are the four words necessarily a quotation?  Could they be four
words on the theme - you can form 'hate' (or 'hatred', but not both)
and 'bile' - but then I'm stuck with the letters remaining.  Is this
line worth investigating?

It certainly doesn't have to be a quotation.  I'd already tried words
like hate, etc but, like you, got nowhere.  The fact that one word has
to possible spellings suggests to me, although not really sure why,
that it is a "mythical word". I thought of Hecate/Hecat and the three
witches in MacBeth. However I don't think that they are named and the
link to the crossword theme is too weak. I also thought of Roman names
for the Furies but can't find them.  Also there would be presumably
three not four.  Still two days to complete this. Thanks for your
ongoing interest.

I can't get it, but I'll add to the words found:

DICE (Which is also spelled DIKE and means Justice. The Furies were
the assistants of Dike)

THREE
DIRAE
BLEED
TORCH
IRE
HELL
CRONE
HAIR
HERA

- Hammer

I don't know if it's right, but I have a possibility:

HORN (The Furies heads were covered with horned snakes)
BLEED (The Furies were born of blood)
ETERNAL 
DICE (DIKE - Goddess of Justice)

- Hammer

There's also:

THREE
CRONE
BLINDED
ALE

Maybe Milton was drunk?...

- Hammer

I've checked the letters again and, apart from possibly D, I am sure
the rest are right.
I like Dice, Eternal
Could Born be another or Horned? Not sure I like Bleed very much.
I'll keep thinking. Thanks (I'm going to join Milton with a beer if
this is solved)

I also meant to write that I've found a site with a lot of Erinyes
detail. It's at www.theoi.com/Ouranus/Erinyes.html
It hasn't given me the answers but it has a lot of detail.

If you aren't sure about the D, might it help to give us the clue
which leads to the D - just to double-check?

Here's the clue. Remember it's a down clue so that one letter is
missing from the grid entry.

Ignorant bachelor concealed remorse for dragon (8)

I think the correct answer is LINDWORM. The grid entry is LIN?ORM,
probably LINWORM
worm=remorse but don't see the rest.
D has to come out to make the quotation.
I'm assuming that D is the other letter as "in one instance the
letters are the same".
Hope this may help. Ant1943

Lindworm looks good.  Chambers Dictionary gives Lindworm: a wingless
dragon (from Scandinavian lindorm).

Worm gives remorse, as you say.  Ignorant bachelor?   LID might
conceal - making N the letter to omit.  But if D is needed for the
quotation...  I hope I haven't muddied anything here.

I fear you're running out of time.  If we do fail, I hope that when
you do get the answer you'll post it and put us all out of our misery!
r2l

"Ignorant bachelor concealed "

I think this is "blind" (ignorant) with the "b" (for bachelor)
concealed. Not that that helps find the four words you're looking for.
Although does it make it less likely that "blind" is one of them?

Yes I'm sure that is the reasoning. Blind-B + worm = LINDWORM
Confirms that the letter is D.
So back to the start.

Still about 30 hours left, so any further thoughts welcomed.

If we fail, then I will post the correct answers when they are
published on June 7th.

Ant1943

Ant1943 - 
Are we safe to assume the answer is to do with the Erinyes?
Milton's "blind Fury" is generally taken to be Atropos (known for her
scissors/shears).
://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22blind+fury%22+atropos&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

Re Leli's question:

I wondered about that too. Perhaps we're dealing with Fates, not Furies?

- Hammer

Brainstorming, but, if we're dealing with the Fates there's:

BIRTH
CRADLE
NEEDLE
ONE

- Hammer

I had thought about the Fates earlier because of Atropos but got
nowhere.  Re Hammer's list, where's the answer with two correct
spellings? Could "and" be one of the 4 words?
ant1943

ONE can also be spelled WON...

- Hammer

THREAD & NEEDLE are there but stuck after that.

It sounds like you're saying it could be the Fates, not the Furies.
Are there any other possibilities?

- Hammer

Well about 12 hours left. I'm going to send in an entry but what to
put in as the four thematic words.  Any last minute thoughts?
ant1943

Good luck, ant.  

My experience with these puzzles is that either the answer is so
obvious that you kick yourself and kick yourself again - or it is so
obscure that you wonder how anybody could have found the answer...

Whatever, this has been fun, thanks for letting us share!

Thank you everyone for your help.  I have always felt that themed
crosswords are not necessarily a solitary pursuit.  I have been doing
them for about ten years now.  Up until 18 months ago, I usually did
them in spare moments with two work colleagues.  Since then I have
retired and don't have regular access to their ideas.

I agree with r2l that the answer will probably be either blindingly
obvious or completely obscure.  I just hope I gave you the correct 20
letters!

I have sent in the crossword with 4 words suggested by hammer:
HORN, BLEED, ETERNAL, DICE.
I chose those because of two spellings of DICE/DIKE.

Thanks again and I will post the answer on June 7th.

ant1943

The solution has been published today.  The letters we were using were
correct.  r2l came closest to the idea and perhaps it should have been
pursued further.  The words were all ones meaning anger/fury:
CHOLER
BILE
DANDER
TEEN/TENE
Thanks again for all the interest.
ant1943

Rats!

It was the title "cross purposes" that set me thinking down the "bile"
line of thought; sorry I didn't push it further.

Great fun, thanks for sharing this with us.  Look forward to the next
time, r2l.