Talking about the use of the word “quarrel” today, it suddenly occurred to me you could write a version of Lewis Carroll’s “Tweedledum and Tweedledee” using the “quarrel” of the last line to refer to the failure to kill J. R. R. Tolkien’s Smaug when he first seized the Lonely Mountain. So I did.
Yes, I’m a big nerd. And yes, I know that Girion used an arrow, not a quarrel, but clearly that would disrupt the whole underpinning of the exercise.
Erebor and the realm of Dale
Joined with the Wyrm in battle;
For fire, and ruin, and death, and bale
awaited those who stood like cattle.
But then flew down Smaug from on high,
Curved like a Mirkwood barrel;
Which frightened poor Lord Girion so,
He went wide with his quarrel.
Robert Mackenzie 