Contents

1. Title page

2. Book 1

1. Chapter 1

2. Chapter 2

3. Chapter 3

4. Chapter 4

5. Chapter 5

6. Chapter 6

7. Chapter 7

8. Chapter 8

9. Chapter 9

10. Chapter 10

11. Chapter 11

12. Chapter 12

3. Book 2

1. Chapter 1

2. Chapter 2

3. Chapter 3

4. Chapter 4

5. Chapter 5

6. Chapter 6

7. Chapter 7

8. Chapter 8

9. Chapter 9

10. Chapter 10

4. Notes

Reading Middle-earth Vol. 1 – The Fellowship of the Ring

Copyright © 2020 Matthew Civico

All rights reserved.

Quotations from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring come from the 1999 paperback edition, HarperCollins, London.

Copyright © George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd 1966.

No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Under no circumstances may any part of this book be photocopied for resale.

Cover Art by Sarah Haidar

Dedication

For Maria-Josée, who is slowly making a Sam Gamgee out of me.

Thank you for believing in me on my behalf.

This book was also made possible by generous patrons:

- Allison Alexander

- Jesse Alvarado

- Jeremy Chandra

- Richard Civico

- Tyler Civico

- Veronica Demers

- Matthew Haley

- Maxim Lauzon

- Henry Lee

- Lester Liao

- Selina Louka

- Fernando Lovo

- Amélie Malouin

- Andy Menjivar

- Bradley Morrice

- David Robinson

- Jill Rosita

- Kyle Rudge

- Dane Savoury

- Zack Sobkowiak

- Mandi Vermilyea

- Mike Williams

- Samuel Yeung

Book 1

A Reader’s journey through Middle-earth

Few works of art have been as formative in my life as J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. The Oxford professor’s fantasy epic is preceded by The Hobbit and surrounded by The Silmarillion, a vast collection of created myths, tales, and histories of Middle-earth. I wrote this reader’s companion to be a helpful guide to those visiting Middle-earth for the first time, but also for those who regularly pass through the Eastfarthing and wander over the Westfold. Think of Reading Middle-earth Vol. 1 as a of travel journal filled with observations that can enrich your appreciation of Tolkien’s landscape. The format is simple. Read a chapter of The Lord of the Rings and then read the corresponding entry in Reading Middle-earth.

In addition to serving as a complementary guide to the story, Reading Middle-earth also attempts to distill Tolkien’s wisdom. The truth is we have a lot to learn from hobbits, elves, and wizards, and a close reading of the story offers instruction for living a good life. To this end, each chapter entry now concludes with a moral observation or application point connecting the story to our living, breathing world.

It’s my hope that Reading Middle-earth will nourish a love of Tolkien in new readers and help all those who are hobbits-at-heart deepen their appreciation for the professor’s story-garden, tended over a lifetime for our joy and hope.

With the quest before us, let’s step into the story. The beginning seems as good a place as any to begin: Meet the hobbits.

Prologue: Concerning Hobbits

The prologue to the first volume, The Fellowship of the Ring (1955), teaches eager readers more about hobbits, which Tolkien’s faerie tale for children, The Hobbit, first introduced in 1937. I’m sure many people thought 18 years was far to long a time to wait for information about such excellent and (more or less) admirable creatures.

The great work of [sub-creation] undertaken by Tolkien allows this prologue to read as literal history. He makes references to events, discrepancies, and stories both before and after the tale itself. It’s these nested layers of history, language, and myth that make Tolkien’s work so engrossing to read. Receiving the stories prompts readers to go searching for more, another detail that, once fitted into place, opens up even wider vistas to explore. Mythology is history that hasn’t happened and yet is relevant — even present — enough for us to enjoy.

Tolkien connects The Hobbit to the broader story of Middle-earth by subordinating his faerie tale within the legendarium as Bilbo’s telling of his own adventure, entitled “There and Back Again.” This practice of placing stories within stories will come up often as we read through because it’s key to Tolkien’s theory of storytelling and sub-creation.[1] Tolkien’s stories stick with readers because he gives all the elements, even the most fantastic, the weight of reality.

He goes on to highlight the “strange luck,” which led to Bilbo’s role in the greater tale of the War of the Ring, setting up a benevolent but inscrutable providence over the story. This strange luck is vital for considering the deep moral underpinnings of The Lord of the Rings, but that’s something we’ll explore in more details as it appears in the text.

Favourite quote

“[Hobbits] were, perhaps, so unwearyingly fond of good things not least because they could, when put to it, do without them.”

This quote gets at something within the character of hobbits, all hobbits, not just the heroes, that I believe Tolkien wants us to see in ourselves. At least it’s something we ought to see in ourselves, though this isn’t always the case. After pages of describing hobbits as people who eat, sleep, and sit under trees, Tolkien hints at the resilience to be found in hobbits; and it is in their deep and abiding love of the simple and the good.

What can we learn?

In these closing remarks for each chapter I’ll attempt to identify a lesson from the text. These will mostly relate to a traditional virtue, either Classical or Theological, which seems appropriate given Tolkien’s committed christian faith and his deep love of pagan mythology.

The prologue introduces us to hobbits and it points to some of their foibles and weaknesses, like disinterest in the wider world and a short historical memory. Imperfect as they are, hobbits are meant to show us that simplicity is indeed a virtue. What is simple is often held in common, shared, and that’s why even Big Folk can access the goodness—and the strength—of a simple hobbit life.

Chapter 1: A Long-expected Party

One of my favourite things about reading The Fellowship of the Ring is seeing the connections to The Hobbit. Chapter 1 reminds readers of the altogether unexpected party that swept Bilbo Baggins up into a very inconvenient adventure to reclaim long-forgotten gold. We re-enter Middle-earth at a different time, but the place (and the food) is comfortably familiar; it’s Bilbo’s one hundred and eleventy-first birthday, after all!

As Long-expected as the party may be, there are more than a few surprises.

The transition from children’s faerie tale—although it was never just for children—to fantasy epic is possible because of the mythic quality of Tolkien’s Middle-earth. It’s believable both stories took place in the same world but were simply prepared for different audiences. Historic myths, like the tales of King Arthur, often work the same way. Start with Disney’s The Sword in the Stone and then move on to T.H. White’s The Once and Future King before circling back around to The Idylls of the King or La Morte d’Arthur.

This perspective on stories, their value and their weight, manifests itself both within the story and without through Tolkien’s efforts to create a founding myth for England. He created Middle-earth to be to England what the Eddas and Sagas were to the peoples of Scandinavia.

One thing to look out for while reading The Lord of the Rings is how invested and preoccupied the characters are with stories, both their telling and their making.

The virtues of hobbits

We start to see the joyful simplicity of life in the Shire in this chapter, though it isn’t a perfect existence, as evidenced by troublesome relations like the Sackville-Bagginses. We see that Bilbo’s wealth isn’t resented, at least not by those with sense, because Bilbo is free with it, especially towards the needy.

In the Prologue: Concerning Hobbits I remarked on hobbits’ love of good, simple things. The first act of The Fellowship of the Ring establishes these truths about hobbits, but we won’t truly see the worth—or the power—of them until the final chapters of the saga. But for now, readers can begin to appreciate what makes the Shire feel like home to so many. Also, be prepared for a lot of Samwise Gamgee as we discuss the hobbit virtues.

In his conversation with Hobbiton’s miller, Gaffer Gamgee comments on how Bilbo taught Sam “his letters,” opening up the world of reading and writing to the young Samwise. This isn’t the first time readers will be reminded of the humble station of Sam Gamgee, or of his love of the stories his new learning opened up. It’s safe to assume Sam is pleased to know his letters, but his father the gaffer is unsure whether it will benefit him in the end:

“‘Elves and dragons!’ I says to him. ‘Cabbages and potatoes are better for me and you. Don’t go getting mixed up in the business of your betters, or you’ll land in trouble too big for you.’”

The gift of story doesn’t always require letters but its helped along a great deal by them. The quote above is a wonderful bit of foreshadowing for Samwise’s later musings on the tales that really matter.

The Party

The virtue of generosity is on full display as the long-expected party gets underway. Bilbo is carting in delicacies and workers from beyond the borders of the Shire but just when grumblings about buying local would be expected he does just that. Wealth doesn’t necessarily need to be accompanied by avarice. The businesses of Hobbiton and the surrounding townships are recipients of a second layer of generosity as Bilbo’s seeks to set a merry feast before his guests by buying out the stores and stocks of every baker, butcher, and grocer in town.

There is some pomp to the whole affair, seeing how both Bilbo’s and Frodo’s important birthdays happen to fall on the same date, but the whole thing reminds me more of raucous potluck dinner than a fancy dinner party. I’ll take a bit of joyous excess over gourmet scarcity any day; and so it seems would hobbits. Good, simple food and drink in abundance over exclusive rarities is also the approach applied to the guest list: practically the whole Shire is invited (or shows up anyhow).

I see a special magnificence in how the party is meant to go on for everyone even as the closest relations gather for a special dinner in the pavilion. Why not just invite the 144 guests to the feast in the pavilion? Why deck out an entire field for celebration and feed a small sea of hungry hobbits? Because sometimes the community is preferable to the individual; celebrations and joys are only complete when they are shared. The whole Shire will be talking about it, and reliving the shared experience, for years, not simply because it happened but because they were invited to participate.

The passing of the Ring

Now we come to the point where tension around Bilbo’s mysterious ring begins to grow. It’s becoming clear the ring isn’t just a useful trinket Bilbo picked up during his travels: it exerts a will.

The Ring reveals its character obliquely at first, when Bilbo’s comes to the point of passing it on. We see a very different Bilbo from the one returned from the Lonely Mountain at the end of The Hobbit. He isn’t only unlike himself, but also rather like Gollum, who serves here and elsewhere as a measure for the Ring’s corrupting influence.

On display in Bag End, after Bilbo’s joke at the party, is the fascinating interplay between the wills of the ring and ring-bearer. Bilbo willfully sets the plan in motion and agrees with Gandalf that the ring should be left to Frodo. But the ring works its will as well, bringing justifications to Bilbo’s mind which the hobbit seizes. Gandalf is able to appeal to the struggling Bilbo not with reason or coercion, but with friendship and trust. “Trust me as you once did,” says the wizard, although he is pressed to reveal a glimpse of his power in the process—a reminder that this grey old man commands more than fireworks.

Bilbo is finally able to give up the ring freely and feels lighter for it. His eager feet hop the hedge and carry him away from the rule of his magic ring, though they cannot bear him to place free from it upon Middle-earth. Even so, Bilbo is free from it for now.

The ring passes to Frodo, for good or ill. Revelations from the dark past and a menacing present await him—and the reader—in the next chapter.

What can we learn?

The vision of community life in this chapter is not a fantasy, but it has largely passed out of memory for most of us. People have always been individuals. However, it’s only in recent historical that we’ve come to define ourselves as such, and order life around the concept of the individual. In the Shire we see a picture of community that is deeper and more complex than we usually define it. Too often we define community as either chosen relationships or our most valuable ones: friends and family. But this is only part of the picture.

The reality of community is based on what is shared, what is held in common. In Hobbiton, this means dealing with the miller’s son, even if we don’t like him, because it’s the only mill in town and everyone needs bread. Obviously this isn’t a fact of life today. Modern, urban people are free from these types of unchosen, local obligations; we are also deprived of many of their fruits.

Chapter 2: The Shadow of the Past

Summary

This chapter holds a lot of backstory, drawing from Tolkien’s mythology to weave the faerie tale of The Hobbit into this heroic epic. It could be considered dry because of all the exposition, but I think of it as Tolkien putting stories into a story that loves talking about stories.

Also, this chapter holds some of the greatest quotes in the whole story!

The comfortable ‘not yet’

The familiar tension from The Hobbit between Bilbo’s Took and Baggins natures is clearly at work in Frodo when the chapter opens.[2] Frodo was, for years, quite content with country walks, good food, and all the comforts of Bag End. But like his uncle Bilbo before him, Frodo just needs the right push to set him on the path down the road from his door—the place where all adventures begin.

Frodo takes to wandering under the stars alone. While I can only imagine the existential musings of a hobbit, I suspect they’re much like our own. Whatever questions of purpose and meaning Frodo entertained on such walks, his answer to whether he would take a step outside his comfortable little world was always “not yet.”

That Frodo faces these questions most pointedly in autumn is something I’m familiar with. I’m always dreaming up new projects or wistfully looking out for a crunchy lane to tramp down when the leaves start falling. Autumn impresses the need to make the most of what we have, to do something with the harvest we have, be it talents, dreams, or a golden bushel of apples.

But autumn is also the perfect time to pull on another layer, put on the kettle, and say “not yet.” The shadows of both past and present are converging over Bag End, and Frodo will soon have less say in the matter; still enough say to show his virtue, though.

Stories in a story about stories

The first whisperings of the growing shadow come in the form of travellers’ tales more like storybooks than news. Samwise Gamgee, the faithful gardener, is our guide again.

Sam’s conversation with Ted Sandyman pits the enchanted faith of Bag End’s groundskeeper against the suspicious skepticism of the miller’s son. It’s almost like hearing Tolkien answer his critics on the value of faerie stories—“who invented the stories anyway?”—but Ted will not abandon the bounds of his experience; he is convinced the only dragon worth worrying about is the green one where he’s drinking his beer.

For a hobbit in a medieval fantasy, Ted is remarkably similar to late-modern readers. Ted likes walled gardens. He likes his stories to stay by the fireside and his truth to be visible and verifiable; a small world is one easily controlled and understood. His self is very much buffered in the sense Charles Taylor describes in his work A Secular Age[3]. Sam’s, on the other hand, is as porous as a sponge.

The news, or stories, depending on your outlook, about giants on the Shire’s borders and other strange comings and goings reach Sam with plausibility. How could someone see an elm tree walk across the moors if there is normally no elm tree there to imagine walking? Ted’s answer is that they can’t have seen one, but this is an argument from nothing, whereas Sam’s belief in the witness of his cousin Hal at least relies on the trustworthiness of Hal, and that of his eyes.

All truth is founded on trust.

Ted’s skepticism doesn’t lead to questions or truth; it shuts down inquiry to maintain comfort. Sam, although a lover of comforts, is easily moved when it comes to things wonderful and enchanted, such as elves, and strange stories of walking trees.

‘They are sailing, sailing, sailing over the sea, they are going into the west and leaving us,’ said Sam, half chanting the words and shaking his head sadly and solemnly.

Sam may be a simple gardener, but there’s more on his mind than the uncomplicated concerns of most hobbits. He’s open, if not inviting, to the world outside himself. Sam glimpses the wonder that’s there, and longs to get a closer look.

Given, not chosen

After years away, Gandalf returns to test and confirm the Ring’s true nature. He also gives Frodo a history lesson. Some readers may be tempted to gloss over it, but shouldn’t, because it’s grounded in questions of virtue and character that form a key thread running through the rest of the story. Gandalf essentially lays out the moral centre of The Lord of the Rings in these passages.

When it’s revealed that Frodo’s magic ring is the One Ring of the Dark Lord of Mordor, the “shadow at the border of old stories” falls heavily on Bag End. The more Gandalf explains, the more inescapable the peril becomes and the more Frodo is terrified. Then he makes the most obvious admission: Frodo wishes the shadow of Sauron had not fallen on his life.

“So do I, and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given us.”

Gandalf’s focus on the sheer givenness of life is not an easy truth, but it is a freeing one. It’s telling that as Gandalf continues tracing the path of the Ring from Sauron’s finger to Frodo’s waistcoat pocket, Frodo grasps at all the ways things might’ve been different. If only Bilbo had never found the Ring! Gandalf is quick to point out how Frodo’s good fortune in that case would likely mean the Ring in the Enemy’s hand already — not mention how the Ring’s usefulness to Bilbo on his adventure, however ill-advised its use was. The lengthening shadow of the present is nothing if not a “dreadful chance.”

This inscrutable providence will come up again and again as we make our way through the story, referred to as fortune, doom, and various other terms. It comes up again in this chapter actually:

‘It was not Gollum, Frodo, but the Ring itself that decided things. The Ring left him.’ ‘What, just in time to meet Bilbo?’ said Frodo. ‘Wouldn’t an Orc have suited it better?’ ‘It is no laughing matter,’ said Gandalf. ‘Not for you. It was the strangest event in the whole history of the Ring so far: Bilbo’s arrival just at that time, and putting his hand on it, blindly, in the dark. ‘There was more than one power at work, Frodo. The Ring was trying to get back to its master. It had slipped from Isildur’s hand and betrayed him; then when a chance came it caught poor Déagol, and he was murdered; and after that Gollum, and it had devoured him. It could make no further use of him: he was too small and mean; and as long as it stayed with him he would never leave his deep pool again. So now, when its master was awake once more and sending out his dark thought from Mirkwood, it abandoned Gollum. Only to be picked up by the most unlikely person imaginable: Bilbo from the Shire! ‘Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought. (Emphasis mine)

Such beauty! What depth! Frodo’s appropriately awed response?

“It is not.”

Frodo’s earnest response here is refreshing, not because I think Gandalf is misrepresenting the situation, but because it’s an undeniably human response. I was meant to be thrust into this impossibly dangerous and life-threatening situation on purpose? I’d prefer to be destined for more second-breakfasts, thank you very much. But here is the whole pivot point of the story, the narrative thread that runs from beginning to end: what will Frodo do with the time that is given him?

First of all, he’ll admit how scared he is of the whole business; there is no hubris in Frodo, or in any hobbit. Then he’ll give an equally earthy reply to the news that the Enemy knows the name of Baggins and of the existence of The Shire.

‘For now I am really afraid. What am I to do? What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!’

Frodo is still grasping for solutions in the past, but they’re smoke; perceptible but untouchable wisps of possibility. Gandalf again refocuses on the present and calls attention to the long shadow cast by unseen hope.

The wizard agrees with Frodo. It was pity that kept Gollum from the point of Bilbo’s sword, pity, and mercy not to strike without need—even a creature like Gollum, who deserves death. Gollum reminds us the good die and the evil prosper, yet we shouldn’t be quick to “deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”

“The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many—yours not the least.”

Pity and mercy are the moral foundation The Lord of the Rings is built on.

Frodo knows he isn’t made for perilous quests, but here he is, desiring the Ring to be destroyed, not wanting to face danger, but also not wanting darkness to descend on his home. He cannot stay in the Shire with the Ring, and Gandalf won’t take the Ring (for fear of becoming a conduit for its evil). Frodo is left as the only suitable bearer, at least for now.

The quiet ‘not yet’ of Frodo’s autumn walks quietly becomes a brave ‘ought.’ “I cannot keep the Ring and stay here. I ought to leave Bag End, leave the Shire, leave everything and go away.” Frodo knows this won’t be the adventure he’s imagined taking, but rather a “flight from danger into danger, drawing it after [him].”

This is the situation Frodo finds himself in. He might wish it to be otherwise, but it’s not, so he does what he believes he ought to do in the face of things just as they are, just as he’s meant to. It also happens that Samwise Gamgee is meant to meet the elves, and so the chapter ends in tears.

With his faithful (and curious) gardener and friend at his side, and his heart set on preserving the Shire, Frodo takes his first real steps out the front door of Bag End.

What can we learn?

The lessons of this chapter are planted as seeds and will grow throughout the story, but even as seedlings, they’re instructive.

First, there is so much about life we cannot control, almost all of it, in fact. But this doesn’t free us from responsibility, as Frodo demonstrates. Frodo’s reluctant taking-up of the Quest is an example of responsibility as duty: He lives in the world, possesses the Ring, and therefore has a responsibility to keep it safe and secret from the Enemy. There’s another layer at play, however. Frodo is also responsible for his individual actions; he is accountable for his actions and any failure to act. If he abandoned the Quest for fear or profit, we would condemn him, yet his is not the only responsible will at work.

So, Frodo has a duty as a person in the world to protect beauty, freedom, and life. He is also responsible for how he goes about doing this good work, yet Tolkien sows subtle reminders that Frodo’s will is not alone. Beyond the designs of even the Ring-maker, other powers are at work.

Chapter 3: Three is Company

The quest finally gets underway with the dangerous business of Frodo stepping out his front door. Although the ultimate goal hangs in the distant shadow, Frodo consoles himself with a smaller quest: getting to Rivendell, which isn’t such a bad place to visit. Frodo will take Sam to see the elves and get to see Bilbo again, but there are other forces at work in this chapter.

A Tale of Two Hobbits

This chapter cleverly makes use of many parallels between Bilbo’s adventure in The Hobbit and the beginning of Frodo’s quest. At this point no one expects Frodo to carry the Ring to Mount Doom, but it’s clear this journey will be nothing like Bilbo’s: he “went to find a treasure, there and back again; but [Frodo] goes to lose one.”

Gandalf reminds Frodo that none of us can see very far. We can look back, though, and there are lots of comparisons and contrasts to be drawn.

One difference between the two adventures is the characterization of the Shire. In The Hobbit, readers get the sense it’s a very good thing for Bilbo to go on his adventure. He is stuck in his ways, in a rut. He’s too predictable! And so we cheer his unexpected adventure and the change from his humdrum life it represents.

But in “Three is Company”, the Shire is exceptionally good and desirable. We’re told it had “seldom seen so fair a summer,” and are treated to images of trees heavy with apples, honey bursting its combs, and corn begging to be boiled. Indeed Frodo’s going means to lose a treasure in more ways than one.

In both stories the Shire is a place to appreciate and long for, especially in the darkest moments of each journey, but Frodo’s Shire would certainly be an easy place to say “not yet…” to, if asked to leave.

Speaking of the Shire as desirable, Book One of The Fellowship of the Ring would remain one of my favourite stories even without the rest of the tale. It’s surpassingly better as a whole, but there is something about the beginning of this journey, and beginnings in general, that call readers back to Bag End. It’s a small quest for small hands, away from home but not too far, where ignorance of greater dangers makes for thrilling travel. If this is all there was then the charge of unhealthy escapism would stick, but there is so much more. Every story has to start somewhere, though.

From danger into danger

There’s no question The Lord of the Rings is a darker tale than The Hobbit. The stakes are set in “The Shadow of the Past” and there’s a lot less dwarvish humour. Recent re-reads of The Hobbit have reminded me it isn’t some children’s romp devoid of danger. In good fairy tale tradition, the comic relief present through The Hobbit serves to soften the violence and terror inherent to the story.

Nevertheless, the grave dangers the hobbits begin to encounter in this chapter are of a different order than those Bilbo faces in the early stages of his journey.

Unlike Bilbo, Frodo is forced to go from “danger into danger” without Gandalf as a guide. The Black Riders on the road are veiled and shadowed, and they read as more frightening on the page than on the screen. Peter Jackson’s black riders unnerve with their screeching; Tolkien’s vision on the page is more about a slow, creeping sense of dread.

“Round the corner came a black horse, no hobbit-pony but a full-sized horse; and on it sat a large man, who seemed to crouch in the saddle, wrapped in a great black cloak and hood, so that only his boots in the high stirrups showed below; his face was shadowed and invisible.

When it reached the tree and was level with Frodo the horse stopped. The riding figure sat quite still with its head bowed, as if listening. From inside the hood came a noise as of someone sniffing to catch an elusive scent; the head turned from side to side of the road.”

A second encounter follows the first, and we can start to see how the Black Riders serve Tolkien’s themes as much as they drive the plot in the first act.

“The sound of hoofs stopped. As Frodo watched he saw something dark pass across the lighter space between two trees, and then halt. It looked like the black shade of a horse led by a smaller black shadow. The black shadow stood close to the point where they had left the path, and it swayed from side to side. Frodo thought he heard the sound of snuffling. The shadow bent to the ground, and then began to crawl towards him.”

Chilling. Tolkien’s Ringwraiths evoke a spiritual as well as physical fear. Here is an enemy that can surely break the body, but even more can lay waste to the will and spirit. Far more effective than the casualties the black riders inflict is their presence, always pursuing and close behind.

Old Walking Songs

There’s one last point of comparison I’d like to highlight. It’s small, but I love it. Over time, I’ve grown to appreciate the songs and poetry in Tolkien’s work, and one of my favourites is the ‘Old Walking Song’.

Bilbo and Frodo both recite this song with one small variation—here’s Bilbo’s version:

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.

When Frodo recites it, he makes it his own. In fact, he thinks he’s making it up on the spot. In his version, Bilbo’s “eager” feet become “weary” feet. It may be a single word, yet it perfectly illustrates how both stories exist in the same universe, but are told with very different purposes in mind. Bilbo’s journey in The Hobbit could be characterized as a life-altering adventure; Frodo’s is more a life-consuming quest, and I think this small but meaningful difference in the songs reveal this distinction perfectly.

What can we learn?

I believe it’s important to point out that the two kinds of adventure discussed here are not mutually exclusive: one does not crowd out the other. Life can have its adventures as well as its burdens, sometimes simultaneously! G.K. Chesterton had a quippy line about how “An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” And just as it’s clear that Bilbo’s adventure had its share of inconveniences (no second breakfasts, or handkerchiefs!), it’s also true that Frodo’s journey will have its quiet moments of joy and hope.

It’s not just a question of perspective, though. The paradox here is, if we can keep both eyes open, we might receive the instruction of inconveniences in our adventures and vice versa. As we go along our way on life’s journey, burdens are a guarantee, be they great or small. But we would also be foolish to ignore all the small, whispering ways our burdens are lightened on the road.

Chapter 4: A Shortcut to Mushrooms

Summary

We’re back with Frodo, Sam, and Pippin after a night with Gildor and the elves (and a description of bread that always makes me hungry), and the hobbits are feeling good. It doesn’t take long to recall the crawling, sniffing Black Rider(s) lurking about, though. The hobbits may still be deep in the Shire, but anxiety is never far behind as brushes with danger quickly become a dogged pursuit.

From danger into danger, but first: lunch!

The hobbits are making their way to Frodo’s new home in Crickhollow which is little more than an alibi for his journey out of the Shire. However, now there’s the added urgency (for Frodo, anyway) of knowing their mysterious pursuers are servants of the Enemy.

What stands out to me in this chapter is the consistent move from the anxiety of pursuing danger to the respite offered by some simple, good thing. The hobbits are seemingly ignorant of—or reluctant to acknowledge, in Frodo’s case—the danger of the shadow gathering around them. They’re nervous; they’re afraid, and not sure why. So, maybe quite naturally, they take solace in the common graces around them: a meal and a song, familiar terrain, generous hospitality, and finally, a fortuitous reunion.

Song and Drink

The first contrast comes when Frodo decides to go off-road to avoid the Black Riders. Soon after descending a steep ravine, Sam spots a horse and rider black against the sky where they left the road. Spurred on, they push their way through thick brush and trudge through heavy rain. Hunger, though, soon takes the place of fear.

The hobbits have an especially enjoyable lunch because of a surprise from the elves: a light, mead-like drink that eases their anxiety and refreshes them; “very soon they [are] laughing, and snapping their fingers at rain, and at Black Riders.” Fear and danger feel far away (though the reader doesn’t forget) as they sing a drinking song inspired by the elvish draught, until a wailing call carried by the wind reminds them they have cares as real and present as their pleasures.

They move on driven by fear, but again the dichotomy presents itself and they find respite from the threatening shadow. The hobbits take comfort in finding their way to familiar terrain and “the Black Riders [begin] to seem like phantoms of the woods.”

Hospitality & Friendship

Again, at Farmer Maggot’s, the contrast comes up. Frodo is almost as afraid of Maggot’s dogs as he is of his pursuers, but quickly finds he has more fear than Grip, Fang, and Wolf. A Black Rider has already been here, and again the shadow of fear falls on them, but before they can move on from this danger Maggot offers his hospitality and protection. The good drink they expected on the road, forsaken in their fearful shortcut, is compensated for by the ale and hearty food of the farmer’s table, and even the worry of nightfall is lessened by the promise of a ride to Bucklebury Ferry.

When they set out after dinner, the night itself recalls the crawling, sniffing riders close at hand: “…nothing could be seen in the darkness, and there was not a sound in the still air. Thin strands of river-mist were hanging above the dikes, and crawling over the fields.” The tension is high when the clip-clop of hooves approaches on the road. In yet another sudden turn from fear to delight, Merry Brandybuck reveals himself!

In typical hobbit fashion the last small, good thing to help keep the darkness at bay is basket of mushrooms. A basket of mushrooms for a mushroom thief, and Frodo doesn’t deserve a single one.

This chapter presents Tolkien’s notion of the eucatastrophe[4] in miniature. Small flashes of delight pierce my heart at every sudden turn towards goodness and beauty. They may just be a meal, a song, or a familiar field; they’re also so much more. Each is the hope that, even though the shadow of fear and death falls heavy all about us, a light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

What can we learn?

In the first half of Fellowship, Tolkien deploys the themes that will come to define the whole tale in the lower stakes mini-quest to meet Gandalf. The courage and resolve of the hobbits is tested and they are also fortified along the way by the gifts of hope and hospitality. The more hobbit-sized task presented to readers at the outset is a welcome reminder of how the heroic virtues required by great quests are valuable in a variety of circumstances.

If there is a reason to continue telling heroic fantasies to all ages it is this: The virtues that will carry Sam and Frodo to Mordor, and meet their needs along the way, are the same ones that grew in the quiet, mundane trials of Shire-life. The patience one exercises in seemingly low-value tasks like cleaning the home, maintaining relationships, and exercising discernment is the same patience that will be called upon in more heroic circumstances. As it is for patience, so is it also for the other virtues.

Hope in the dark can come from small candles, and no light is insignificant in darkness.

Chapter 5: A Conspiracy Unmasked

Summary

Frodo and his companions reach the first refuge of the journey, Crickhollow, upon crossing the Brandywine river, though it was never intended to be a refuge. Instead, it was supposed to be the starting point of the real journey, and the culmination of Frodo’s deception. He meant to slip out of the Shire quietly, but things didn’t unfold according to Frodo’s plan—or Gandalf’s for that matter.

But first, a bath!

After reading this chapter it’s clear showers and hot water tanks have dulled the pleasures of a hot bath. Even with our general under-appreciation of hot water, I would love to have a friend like Merry race home ahead of me after a long hike to steam up a bath and fry up some bacon and mushrooms. Do this for your friends sometime and see if it doesn’t improve your relationship!

“‘A bath!’ cried Pippin. ‘O blessed Meriadoc!’”

I imagine most of us will just have to comfort ourselves with singing bath songs in the shower. But more seriously, the focus here on the simple practice of bathing after a journey (or just a hike or long walk), is instructive. The efficiency and availability of what used to be great comforts have drained them of their power. What used to be called a blessing, often depending on others for its availability, is just a necessary feature of life now, without cost and now dull. Philosopher Albert Borgmann would call theses “focal practices,” which make life meaningful. In Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life, Borgmann says, “Figuratively [focal practices] suggest that a focus gathers the relations of its context and radiates into its surroundings and informs them. To focus on something or to bring it into focus is to make it central, clear, and articulate.”[5]

The hobbits, but also the other people’s of Middle-earth, are people who still practice these pre-modern focal activities, of which baths are just one example. Others focal practices are things like: making music, gardening, and preparing food and gathering around the table. That last one is an essential ingredient in friendship, a virtue these particular hobbits have in abundance.

Friendship: A Manifesto

If the relationships within The Lord of the Rings are a beautiful picture of friendship in action, then Chapter 5 is a manifesto for the kind of friendship revealed in later, darker pages.

The conspiracy unmasked in Chapter 5 is none other than the audacity of friendship. Merry, Pippin, and Sam have been spying on Frodo, making their own preparations, and offering the false impression of being totally ignorant of Frodo’s plans. Why? Because they love him. The unmasking of this benevolent conspiracy reminds me how modern life has thinned out what was once considered an essential facet of a meaningful life. It’s easier to consider friendship as more a matter of convenience than as a good and beautiful form of love that places particular demands on those in the relationship. Merry’s gradual reveal of the depth of the conspiracy after dinner is an inspiring picture of being invested in someone else’s life: no romance, no duty or obligation, just a faithful, invested presence.

Frodo’s mixture of annoyance and relief upon learning all of this is very true to life. It’s also a welcome reminder of the troublesome discomforts experienced when we’re reminded that we’re not ever only individuals; everyone is also in relationship others, all the time. The standard argument would seem to be this: Frodo has a right to his privacy and his friends have violated it.

“‘But I must go,’ said Frodo. ‘It cannot be helped, dear friends. It is wretched for us all, but it is no use your trying to keep me. […] Please help me and do not hinder me!”

Up to this point, Frodo believes his friends mean to stop him from leaving, and so he is surprised by the true goal of their conspiracy. Friendship says “you must go—and therefore we must, too.” But Frodo still isn’t having it. Deeply moved as he is, he tries his best to deter them, reminding them he is “flying from deadly peril into deadly peril.”

But they know all about the perils of the Ring, at least as far their knowledge of old, evil tales goes, and will not be denied their friend.

‘You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin—to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours—closer than you keep it yourself. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo. […] We are horribly afraid—but we are coming with you; or following you like hounds.’

Sometimes we choose our friends, true, but our friends can also choose us, even against our wishes. It’s a feeling that makes Frodo want to dance for joy, “if the danger [was] not so dark,” and that is exactly why he needs his friends.

The Inquisitiveness of Friends

Who wouldn’t want this kind of friendship in their life? It’s not one I’ve experienced often and, to my shame, not something I’ve regularly offered. This kind of radically invested friendship demonstrated by the hobbits is powerful magic, but it is not fantasy. However, it is difficult to practice when we’re all shut up in our holes.

Such inquisitiveness towards friends is difficult to practice because of many of the assumptions we assume about individualism. I assume, wrongly I think, that people don’t want to be bothered; they’re tired and just want to watch Netflix and be left alone. I assume this because it’s usually what I think I want, but it’s not — not really.

Many of us could probably do with more friendly intrusions, or even invasions. I know I could. After all, we allow devices completely uninvested in our good to invade our time and attention dozens (hundreds!) of times a day. Many of those interactions are with friends, certainly, but they’re mediated. Is it an intrusion if you can dismiss it? I seriously doubt if real friendship can ever be an opt-in feature. Imagine instead if the next knock on your door wasn’t an Amazon delivery, but the first revelation of some benevolent conspiracy? I think that sounds pretty nice, which means I probably ought to show up unannounced somewhere—there’s no better way to give a friend permission to do the same!

What can we learn?

This chapter’s lesson is a simple one: Friendship is good. The challenge of friendship is that it is not easy. Many new forms of communication today are asynchronous, meaning they do not engage both parties at the same moment. The ease and availability of this type of communication have nursed a generalized discomfort with conversation, especially the kind of extended discussion that Albert Borgmann would call “focal.” Still, most of us interact with others face-to-face every day. At the same time, we can observe a shrinking circle of relationships where we’re comfortable disclosing our hopes, fears, shames, and joys.

The friendship demonstrated by the hobbits in this chapter is a gift, but it is a gift similar to a well-tended garden. Friendship full-grown is a wonder only made possible by time, care, and attention. Tending to a friend is as simple and checking in regularly for no reason other than your interest in them. It looks like going beyond sharing passive entertainments (those have their place) to working together on shared projects or activities where character and personality are revealed—and appreciated—but the friends involved.

The virtue of friendship doesn’t have to be a fantasy we find only in stories. It will grow if we show up, but it will not blossom if we cannot shift the focus from ourselves on the (potential) friend in front of us.

Chapter 6: The Old Forest

Summary

The party leave Crickhollow in secret and enter the Old Forest, where they soon become lost. The trees are of the Old Forest are unfriendly to strangers and the hobbits have a suspicion that they’re being led astray under the heavy canopy. Forced deeper and deeper into the woods, the hobbits reach the river Withywindle and encounter Old Man Willow. The tree lulls three of the party to sleep, trapping two and making to drown the other. Samwise names the tree a villain, but the true hero of the moment comes skipping and rhyming out of the woods: the mysterious Tom Bombadil.

Dark woods, reaching roots, and a wind that whispers with the willow’s voice. The haunted forests of children’s tales always clutch at the imagination, and as much as they frighten us, they nevertheless draw us in. This is why I’m overcome with nervous excitement whenever I leaf through the pages of “The Old Forest.”

A small part of my anxiety comes from the certainty that trees aren’t fans of paper!

The Forest or the Trees?

The fear of the woods has largely left us except, perhaps, in the darkest corners of our imaginations. I was reminded in a small way recently why the woods are fit to be feared. I was walking in Montreal’s Parc Mont-Royal at dusk and turned toward the woody hillside as the light was failing; the feeling of being watched was inescapable. I stood on the threshold of a park, not a forest, yet the tall trees fended off the last of the daylight and made their own night, closing ranks in silence. I didn’t want to go in any further, and I didn’t. All forests are full of living things, it’s true, but I can’t help but believe every forest is alive. This must mean every forest has a character, and the Old Forest’s defining trait is a strong dislike of strangers.

The hobbits have heard all sorts of stories about the Old Forest but remain rather optimistic about getting through it without any trouble. Most would probably agree with Frodo when he downplays Pippin’s anxiety by suggesting they’ll be lucky “if there are no worse things ahead than the Old Forest.” Of course things will get much worse on their journey before long, but the forest will also prove worse trouble than they bargained for.

Enchantment and the Environment

Sometimes I think I could put my time to better use than thinking about stories full of people, places, and things that don’t exist. Whenever this utilitarian mood strikes I like to bake or brew something because food combines enchantment and utility in a satisfying and mysterious way. It doesn’t follow that things are valuable just because they’re useful, or that something which lacks a practical use isn’t valuable. The enchantments of faerie stories are signposts for reality in the mysterious way that food often is. We can reduce food to fuel and all go on living life, but this would make us poorer, despite our full bellies.

I see this same mysterious relationship at play in our relationship with the environment. Enchanted stories about places and creatures engender respect and a desire to protect those places and creatures. If the trees talk to each other and have a life we can understand, then we can’t easily destroy them, even when we find them vaguely threatening. Instead, we learn to live beside them.

Tomm Moore, the Irish animator and director behind The Song of the Sea was inspired by this kind of faerie folklore that enchants the natural world. He recounts a story in an interview with Cartoon Brew that illustrates the idea:

“When we asked why there were so many dead seals on the beach, our landlady said local fisherman were killing them out of frustration with falling fishery stocks. She said it wouldn’t have happened years ago, when there was a belief system that deemed seals sacred because they were the souls of people lost at sea, or actual selkies. That started me thinking that folklore and superstitions serve functions beyond entertainment, or quaint stories for tourists. They bind people to the landscape, and that is being lost.”

This gets at the heart of why the Old Forest is good, even if I would be terrified to enter it. Of the hobbits, Frodo seems least concerned with the magic of the forest and just wants to get through it safely. Pippin is the most apprehensive and Sam, well he keeps his head down. Even Merry, while dismissing the more outlandish stories, accepts that the forest is “queer,” and that the trees are not merely material, but have dispositions and moods. There is an unspoken acceptance that the Old Forest isn’t quite like other woods. I agree with C.S. Lewis’ assessment that stories of enchanted woods enchant every forest, meaning that all woods have a bit of the Old Forest in them.

If the woods and creatures (and all creation) are enchanted, if they’re alive, then I can’t simply abuse my use of them. Someone may need to fell a tree or kill a seal, but if they’re more than raw material these actions can’t be taken without reckoning the cost. Who wants to anger the woods that feed and house so many (and clean our air), or orphan a seaside child or their selkie mother?

It would be better, as Tom Bombadil demonstrates, to take a more conciliatory approach to the natural world, as he does when he rescues the hobbits from Old Man Willow. Using Tom Bombadil as an example isn’t perfect since he’s the master of everything in his domain, but it’s clear that Sam and Frodo’s well-intentioned attempts to burn the tree just made things worse before Tom showed up.

This chapter may have taken a detour from the text itself, yet I’m convinced we’re pressing on a point worth making. If the woods can be re-enchante, even a little, then more people might see our abuse of the world for what it is: a tragedy.

What can we learn?

Is the Old Forest magical, and easily dismissed as fantasy, or is there something more going on beneath its boughs? Middle-earth sticks in the memories of readers in part because Tolkien has created an imaginary world that mirrors reality. Middle-earth is beautiful because, as Peter J. Kreeft puts it, “Nothing is mere matter. Nothing is ‘mere’ anything. Reductionism is repudiated. More than that: there is so much life in things that we would call it ‘magic.’”[6] The magic of the Old Forest is that it’s more real than roots, branches, and leaves.

Tolkien’s rejection of mere materialism—the re-enchantment of nature beyond matter—is what gives the Old Forest, indeed all Middle-earth, its personality. These things exist outside the minds of the characters, but not for exploitation. The trees have their own being, their own plans, moods, and value. Tolkien reminds readers via fantasy of what farmer-poet Wendell Berry uses his eyes: The world exists under our feet and all around us, and we “live in it on its terms, not ours.”[7]

Chapter 7: In The House of Tom Bombadil

Summary

We’ve finally arrived at the house of Tom Bombadil and the fair lady Goldberry. The hobbits share a hearty dinner with the hosts and are waylaid another day by rain, but are happier for it. Tom toys with the Ring and invites his guests to lay down their worries — Tom is master, after all!

I thought about reading up on all the different interpretations of Tom and his place in the story, but I decided against it. Better to come at Tom with no presuppositions and let him be himself. He is, after all, a pretty polarizing character. Most readers either love him or hate him: I love him.

Ho! Tom Bombadillo!

I first read The Lord of the Rings when I was 12 years old, but honestly I barely read it. I read all the words, but I think I was more concerned with finishing it before one of my bookworm friends. This doesn’t mean I didn’t love my first reading, I did! I didn’t take the time to savour it, though. Subsequent readings have been slower and more deliberate, and I’ve let myself linger on images and questions. That said, certain parts of my first reading stuck with me. “In The House of Tom Bombadil” is one of those parts, which is notable because my endless rewatching of the movies didn’t reinforce it.

I’ve never forgotten Tom Bombadil and his lovely lady Goldberry. The time the hobbits spent in their house is one of the clearest pictures of The Fellowship of the Ring I have in my mind, second probably only to Bag End and the Shire. Clearest isn’t the right word, maybe brightest; that feels right. The ineffable quality of Tom and Goldberry make them difficult to pin down and impossible to ignore.

The hobbits’ reaction to Tom and Goldberry is far from the incredulity and annoyance many people recount when asked about the Master of the wood and the River daughter. The oddness the hobbits perceive is of a different order; it’s more awe-inspiring than head-scratching, yet still different again from the moonlit grace of the elves.

After reading “In The House Of Tom Bombadil” I’m always struck by my desire to spend just a little more time there. I can’t think of a better place to be stuck for an extra night:

Before long, washed and refreshed, the hobbits were seated at the table, two on each side, while at either end sat Goldberry and the Master. It was a long and merry meal. Though the hobbits ate, as only famished hobbits can eat, there was no lack. The drink in their drinking-bowls seemed to be clear cold water, yet it went to their hearts like wine and set free their voices. The guests became suddenly aware that they were singing merrily, as if it was easier and more natural than talking.

Frodo was glad in his heart, and blessed the kindly weather, because it delayed them from departing. The thought of going had been heavy upon him from the moment he awoke; but he guessed now that they would not go further that day.

Hospitality

Readers have speculated that Tom is a powerful Maia or Valar, powerful spirits and godlike powers respectively in Tolkien’s mythology, but whatever Tom Bombadil and Goldberry are, they are certainly good hosts. For all their mysterious power and questions about their origins and purpose, the pair essentially put up a bunch of tired hobbit hikers for two nights.

Theirs is a type of hospitality mostly foreign to modern readers, with our highways, hotels, and obsession with minimizing walking time. Hospitality of this more inconvenient sort has been outsourced to Airbnb, where comforts are features and the host is an unobtrusive concierge. We can travel the world independent of the inconvenient people who make the world worth exploring, and we’re quite happy with the arrangement.

The hobbits have encountered hospitality before and they’ll meet with a fair bit ahead, even as the world darkens. But Tom Bombadil isn’t the friend of a friend and no one has called ahead; this is hospitality as charity, which will beget more charity. The welcome Frodo and the hobbits receive at Tom’s cottage is bookended by their rescue from Old Man Willow and their dark encounter with wights on the barrow-downs, both times when Tom Bombadil shows his power.

In his house, Tom puts his power to a different use, and perhaps it’s truest: the enjoyment of what simply is. Tom is defined by a kind of true sight; he sees beyond what appears to what is. Out in the woods, there are trees and birds, rivers and lilies, but at home, there is the table, the fireside and gathered guests. Tom sees and sees that things are good.

Twice the hobbits sit around the fire with Tom, sometimes asking questions and sometimes sitting in silence. The second time, Tom makes light of the ruling Ring, completely unaffected by its power. This, more than anything else, asks insistently, “Who is this man?”

Making Sense of Tom Bombadil

“‘He is,’ said Goldberry, staying her swift movements and smiling. Frodo looked at her questioningly. ‘He is, as you have seen him,’ she said in answer to his look. ‘He is the master of wood, water, and hill. […] He has no fear. Tom Bombadil is master.’”

When I read this my mind immediately calls up passages in the Bible when God refers to himself as I AM. Is Tom Bombadil God? It seems unlikely, since Middle-earth already has a transcendent all-powerful god in Ilúvatar, though he and his angelic heralds, the Valar, are unmentioned (but not absent) in The Lord of the Rings.

I followed this thought and happened on the idea that Tom might be an incarnate Ilúvatar, since Jesus makes his claim to deity by repeating God’s I AM statements. But then I remembered that Tolkien “detested allegory in all its forms,” and my head started to hurt.

Do we really need to know who Tom Bombadil is or where he comes from; why he can handle the Ruling Ring with a smile and wink? Does he even matter? I think he does, because, while he’s narratively ignorable, it’s impossible to forget him—the master in yellow boots singing nonsense rhymes.

The more I consider Tom Bombadil, the more I think he exists in the world to just be. There are things in Middle-earth, and this world, that we can’t sufficiently explain; they just are—Tom is. There are limits to our ability to classify and quantify our world. This is the same reason why it’s silly to say, “They should’ve used the eagles to fly the Ring into Mordor and drop it in Mount Doom.” Why? Because giant eagles don’t belong to anyone; they aren’t available to be deployed—they do whatever they please because they’re wild!

Tom Bombadil is wild in the same way. He’s somewhere between the inscrutable eagles and exalted elves; sort of perfectly normal in the sense of a simple goodness that’s always just out of reach. This accounts for the hobbits’ awe and my inability to get Tom and Goldberry out of my head. Even when I ignore them for months or years at a time, Tom is there in my heart, setting a table and singing a song.

What can we learn?

I don’t doubt that there are some readers who could debate Tom Bombadil’s role in Tolkien’s cosmology, what he’s an allegory for (some say the English countryside), or whatever else is debatable. What Tom’s ultimate purpose is doesn’t really concern me. Instead, I believe he offers us a powerful reminder of the givenness and enchantment of reality. Tom, and his house, is delightful. The homely hospitality of his and Goldberry’s table is a bridge between the earthy virtues of the Shire and the transcendence of the elven realms ahead.

What Tom’s purpose is, I cannot say. However, that the vision of hospitality, welcome, and care for nature he represents is beautiful, is self-evident. Long live Tom Bombadil!

Sometimes the only thing we have to learn is to be thankful for the goodness and beauty we encounter, unlooked for and undeserved.

Chapter 8: Fog on the Barrow-downs

Summary

The hobbits say farewell to Tom Bombadil and Goldberry and set a course for the East Road that will take them to Bree. After stopping for lunch and a rather unexpected nap at the foot of a dark standing stone atop a green hill, the hobbits awake in a fog. Alarmed by the cold and sudden darkness, they lose each other and Frodo is separated from his companions. He is soon reunited with them under a cursed tomb, or barrow, when a barrow-wight seizes him.

Under the barrow, Frodo faces his most desperate moment of the quest so far. Unsure whether Sam, Merry, and Pippin are alive or dead, he is tempted to put on the Ring and escape, but a seed of courage sprouts, enabling him to flee this subtle temptation. Frodo leaps to the defence of his friends, but it is not enough.

Desperate, Frodo sings Tom Bombadil’s song and soon Tom’s booming voice washes over the hills and into the barrow—Tom saves the day again! The hobbits wake up and escape with prizes bestowed by Tom: knives from the long forgotten kingdom of Arnor. Tom breaks the curse of the barrow by freely giving away the mound’s treasure before accompanying the hobbits to the road, where he bids them a final farewell.

Hobbits and pagan heroes

Tolkien has a lot to say about the subtlety of evil throughout The Lord of the Rings, but I see this chapter primarily as an introduction to Tolkien’s varying conceptions of heroism. Part of why I love the first half of The Fellowship of the Ring is the absence of great heroes; I love how it introduces readers to Middle-earth through its least exciting citizens: hobbits.

Middle-earth is full of great heroes because Tolkien was fascinated with ancient warrior traditions from Anglo-Saxon and Norse culture. In fact, he made his name as an academic reminding people Beowulf was an epic, not just a Middle-English textbook. Dying, in these texts, is a matter of personal honour. The titular Beowulf, especially in his youth, boasts of his strength and physical triumphs, and rather than wait for old age to claim him, he chooses to die fighting a dragon. The archetypal warrior’s life is defined by the death he deals out and the death he dies; he disdains humility because it gets in the way of personal glory. But Frodo is unlike Beowulf, or any of the typical heroes who embrace death and laugh in the face of danger. He values life, and puts his hope in something other than himself.

The Fellowship of the Ring offers an alternative to the heroism of the old pagan heroes, who trusted their own strength and put on a brave face when confronting foes.

The Ring and the subtlety of evil

In the barrow, Frodo is far from the vision of far green country under a swift sunrise he had in the house of Tom Bombadil. At this point in the story, the Ring’s evil has only manifested itself as Bilbo’s desire to keep it and Frodo’s temptation to hide himself—despite already being hidden—from the Black Riders on the road. Now, the Ring works on Frodo in a subtle but powerful way, with almost no attention called to it in the text.

“He wondered if he put on the Ring, whether the Barrow-wight would miss him, and he might find some way out. He thought of himself running free over the grass, grieving for Merry, and Sam, and Pippin, but free and alive himself. Gandalf would admit that there was nothing else he could do.”

If he took this option out of danger, it would be right to call him a coward. Still, the thought makes sense because both the quest and Frodo’s life are at stake, and here the subtlety of the temptation is laid bare. Self-preservation rarely looks farther than the next moment of “running free over the grass.” This calculation is characteristic of an existential fear of death and it precedes all kinds of evil. Frodo, to his credit, chooses to risk himself to preserve his friends.

Frodo resists the fearful prompting of the Ring and awakens a courage he didn’t know he had. This is the hidden quality that made him the “best of hobbits” in the eyes of both Bilbo and Gandalf. Before leaving the Shire, Frodo looked in the mirror and saw an aging Hobbit with a bit of paunch, but under the barrow, this seed of determination sprouts. Frodo’s newfound courage outgrows his fear of death in large part because “he could not leave his friends so easily.” Frodo has no love for glory, only a great love for his friends. He does what he can, keeping the wight’s cold hand at bay, but finally places his trust outside himself entirely—crying out for Tom Bombadil.

What can we learn?

Does a hero who needs rescuing still qualify as a hero? I hope so, because I want to be one and I constantly find myself overwhelmed by troubles great and small, afraid that if I play the hero I won’t be able to deliver a victory.

Like Frodo, most are not great heroes. Few would choose to face the monsters and barrow-wights of the world, if we had the choice. But we can be thankful for the quieter heroism of hobbits that Tolkien favours. The virtue of what I like to think of as quaking courage is highlighted in Tolkien’s poem Mythopoeia: “Blessed are the timid hearts that evil hate, that quail in its shadow, and yet shut the gate.”

Timid hearts that quake are the small hands that move the wheels of the world by their minor deeds of courage, as Elrond will say in other words. Not despite great heroes, but alongside them. For each is called to courage according to their stature, great or small.

Chapter 9: At the Sign of the Prancing Pony

Summary

Frodo and the hobbits arrive in Bree and lodge at The Prancing Pony. Bree is unfamiliar to the hobbits, who aren’t comfortable in the world of “big folk,” but the town isn’t unwelcoming. In fact, the inn, with its generous meals of simple food and drink, is more like the Shire in some ways than any of their experiences on the road thus far.

After dinner, Frodo draws the eye of Strider, a rough, hooded ranger—wanderers held both in awe and disrepute by the locals—and soon finds himself the centre of attention. The Ring works its subtle will and the hobbits once again find themselves moving from one danger into another.

The Inn at the Crossroads

Bree is a short stop on the hobbits’ journey, but it stands out in the memory of readers. I like the idea of Bree. It’s a town on a crossroad; the inn is the centre of social life, bringing in locals and wayfarers. Bree also exists in the shadow of the old northern kingdom of men, Arnor. At Bree, the overgrown “greenway” from the north runs down to meet the road that first swept Bilbo, and then Frodo, into the wider world. Bree even has men and hobbits living side by side! This makes the town a sort of liminal space for readers, which erodes the boundary between our familiar world and the fantastic sub-creation of Middle-earth.

Although Bree isn’t the wide world, the world passes through Bree. The Pony’s common area is full of travellers from far away: dwarves on business to and from the mountains, men from the south fleeing trouble, and hobbits from the Shire—a rarity, according to the innkeeper—fleeing from danger into danger, though their host is unaware. The hobbits are glad to have news, but it’s hard to get news without being noticed. Going unnoticed is even harder when Strider is watching.

A Ranger of the North

I enjoy gradual revelations that maintain tension, and despite Strider’s quick transition from potential foe to friend I like the ambiguity in Frodo’s initial interactions with him. Strider’s weatherbeaten appearance and worldweary manner present him as more than a rogue but not quite an uncomplicated champion.

But in the common room of The Prancing Pony he isn’t yet the king-in-waiting. He’s vaguely threatening and makes Frodo uneasy with his knowledge—who is this mysterious stranger? Even if most readers already know, we can enjoy finding out all over again!

“Suddenly Frodo noticed that a strange-looking weather-beaten man, sitting in the shadows near the wall, was also listening intently to the hobbit-talk. He had a tall tankard in front of him, and was smoking a long-stemmed pipe curiously carved. His legs were stretched out before him, showing high boots of supple leather that fitted him well, but had seen much wear and were now caked with mud. A travel-stained cloak of heavy dark-green cloth was drawn close about him, and in spite of the heat of the room he wore a hood that overshadowed his face; but the gleam of his eyes could be seen as he watched the hobbits.”

Strider is not a comforting image, and Tolkien deliberately sows uncertainty in the common room of The Prancing Pony. Who will help or hinder the hobbits? Everyone seems foul, and Gandalf’s absence robs Frodo of the comfort he expected to find in Bree.

Everyday Evil

This chapter introduces readers to yet another form of evil that walks the world. The barrow-wights were a dark hand reaching out of the past, a very real but bounded force of elemental malice. The wights hate life; a man like Bill Ferny loves his own too much.

“But there was one swarthy Bree-lander [Bill Ferny], who stood looking at them with a knowing and half-mocking expression that made them feel very uncomfortable. Presently he slipped out of the door, followed by the squint-eyed southerner: the two had been whispering together a good deal during the evening. Harry the gatekeeper also went out just behind them.”

These are men looking to profit off the trouble of others. The hobbits are prey and far from safety; they are like pilgrims in need of hospitality, but the kindness of strangers is no guarantee. Whether Bill Ferny enjoys exploiting the weak or ignores its cost doesn’t matter much, since his only concern is how he can benefit from trouble. The next chapter paints a fuller picture of Ferny’s common viciousness and how, without excusing evil, even bad things can work themselves out for good—for one pony, at least.

What can we learn?

Not everything is what it seems to be. The hobbits are on edge after learning Gandalf is not waiting for them as planned, and the lack of news sours the small comforts of beer and food. Uncertainty turns every unknown into danger, and the hobbits see risks all around. That same uncertainty hides every potential help.

The tension will not be resolved in this chapter, though, just as it is rarely resolved quickly in life. It’s impossible to plan for exceptional evil, much less the everyday variety, but it holds that there’s no planning for unexpected help, from unexpected places.

Chapter 10: Strider

Summary

At the end of the previous chapter, everyone was talking about Frodo and his curious “magic trick”. The mysterious ranger, Strider, by some trick of his own, beats the hobbits to their room and surprises them with a request. Strider wants to accompany the hobbits on their journey.

Frodo is appropriately reluctant and unnerved by Strider’s knowledge of his errand. Soon the innkeeper, Butterbur, confesses his oversights and informs the hobbits of a message from Gandalf. Frodo eventually gives Strider the benefit of his doubt because of his faith in Gandalf, and because of the broken sword Strider carries, which the wizard referenced in his letter.

While Sam is laying out his doubts, Merry returns from an encounter with a Black Rider. With certain danger outside and potential danger sitting by the fire with them, Frodo takes Strider at his word: “If by life or death I can save you, I will.”

On Trust

Strider is suspicious; he’s disreputable, and he’s rough looking. He doesn’t project trustworthiness at first glance. But he could just as easily be reserved and solitary, and only appear seedy to the overly cautious, a diamond in the rough perhaps? That both interpretations fit reveal how difficult (and often useless) it is to assess people through quick observation. Even more, it shows the importance of being charitable—despite charity’s risks—in dealing with people.

When Strider is revealed as Gandalf’s friend, Aragorn, he admits to desiring the hobbits’ trust on his own merits and distills this human need beautifully:

“A hunted man sometimes wearies of distrust and longs for friendship. But there, I believe my looks are against me.”

He shouldn’t need to cut his hair and iron his shirt to be treated kindly, but it doesn’t matter because the hobbits aren’t given the luxury of choosing where their help comes from. The Black Riders are in Bree and information about Frodo’s disappearing act has been sold to the Enemy. Bill Ferny’s profiteering leaves the hobbits in a tight spot, but they can’t yet imagine the beauty of the blessing before them. Aragorn’s opposition to the way of the Enemy is demonstrated in how he resists. He says, “In darkness and loneliness [the Black Riders] are strongest…their power is in terror,” and encourages the hobbits to stick together under his protection. Frodo also intuits hidden Aragorn’s character:

“I believed that you were a friend before the letter came, or at least I wished to. You have frightened me several times tonight, but never in the way that servants of the Enemy would, or so I imagine. I think one of his spies would— well, seem fairer and feel fouler, if you understand.”

The king is already here and his kingdom is coming, if only in whispers. Aragorn may be ragged, but he is no beggar king.

What can we learn?

All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king.

Part of the lesson in this chapter is a perennial one: True value or worth isn’t always visible on the surface — appearances are not reality. This is, appropriately, just the surface of the famous Riddle of Strider. The poem is too often reduced to the first stanza, which has made the line, “not all those who wander are lost,” a cliché.

No, the beauty of the poem is found in its upside-down-ness, how it anticipates the joyful inversions of eucatastrophe. The riddle is also a prophecy, identifying Aragorn as the eponymous returning king. So, more than simply not judging a book by its cover, we are meant to see the means by which greatness is attained. The ashes speak of a life spent, burned out. The light, seemingly overcome by darkness, shines forth, declaring new life, renewed and raised up. The way up is down, and Aragorn reminds us that true kings are servants, not liars, beggars, or braggarts.

Chapter 11: A Knife in the Dark

Summary

The chapter begins with what’s either a flashback or a vision Frodo has in his sleep. We see Fatty Bolger back at Crickhollow, keeping up Frodo’s ruse and an attack by several Black Riders, who then flee Buckland to join up with the other riders.

The hobbits wake up in the parlour under the watchful eye of Strider. They discover their booked room ransacked, confirming Bill Ferny sold them out. To make matters worse, all the horses and ponies bolted during the night. Finding themselves delayed and without options, they’re forced to buy a sickly, underfed pony from none other than Bill Ferny.

Strider leads the hobbits out of Bree and into the wild. They make their way to Weathertop, where they find signs of Gandalf—an abandoned camp and a G rune scratched on a rock. The group makes camp, and Strider sings the tale of Lúthien Tinúviel, an elven princess who sacrificed her immortality to be with a mortal man. Despite the tale’s beauty, a sense of dread soon falls on them.

The dark shapes of Black Riders creep toward the firelight and Frodo is overcome by the will of the Ring. He puts it on, and the Black Riders reveal their terrible forms: pale wraiths cloaked in grey, ruined kings of men. Frodo calls out the names of the elvish queen of the stars, Elbereth, or Gilthoniel, in his terror and is stabbed by the crowned leader of the Black Riders.

Two Bills

A beautiful thread running through Tolkien’s work is how works of evil can unintentionally lead to good outcomes. There are grander examples of this theme in The Lord of the Rings, but this chapter introduces one I find all the more beautiful for its insignificance. Back in Chapter 9, I described Bill Ferny as a model of everyday evil. He’s selfish and shortsighted, which Tolkien views as invariably leading to vice. In fact, in The Silmarillion, Tolkien suggests that Sauron “was only less evil than his master in that for long he served another and not himself.” Bill Ferny gouges the hobbits in their need, overcharging them for his half-starved pony. His profiteering is petty evil, but evil nonetheless.

Despite Bill Ferny’s selfish intentions (and temporary selfish gain), the pony is saved to be a blessing. Away from its oppressor, the pony is invigorated and happily serves its new, kinder masters. Later on, Samwise will reveal what he’s named the rescued, overpriced pony: Bill. Out of Bill Ferny’s grasping selfishness, a good outcome. Bill the pony serves faithfully and happily, and none of the party (especially Sam) regrets paying three times Bill’s worth—everyone involved finishes happier, all except Bill Ferny.

More than meets the eye

Hints suggesting Strider is more than a ragged vagabond continue to trickle in throughout this chapter. He sings ancient songs and shows his knowledge of history, but his surprises don’t shock either the hobbits or readers yet.

More surprising is who quotes “The Fall of Gil-galad”. After Strider mentions the name of the old elf king, simple Sam recites a section that he memorized under Bilbo, and blushes when he’s asked to continue.

Sam’s self-forgetfulness is always endearing. He isn’t showing off what he knows; he’s just unable to contain what he loves! Sam has been absorbing stories since before Bilbo taught him to read, and he’s alert to any mention of elves or great tales. It’s likely none of the hobbits ever heard him recite such exalted verse before:

“Gil-galad was an Elven-king.

Of him the harpers sadly sing;

the last whose realm was fair and free

between the Mountains and the Sea.

His sword was long, his lance was keen.

His shining helm afar was seen;

the countless stars of heaven's field

were mirrored in his silver shield.

But long ago he rode away,

and where he dwelleth none can say;

for into darkness fell his star

in Mordor where the shadows are.”

Courage and Quaking Hearts

Courage and fear are inseparable because courage can’t exist without fear. Several times between Bree and Weathertop, Strider appears to be scared. He hushes Sam and Pippin when they mention Mordor and after Frodo suggests he’ll become a wraith if he loses any more weight, the ranger quickly silences him: “Do not speak of such things!”

Strider knows more about the enemies hunting them than the hobbits do, so his greater fear is justified. He has an understanding of the danger that sobers him, but the inexperienced hobbits are unsettled by his open foreboding.

‘And at all times [the Black Riders] smell the blood of living things, desiring and hating it. Senses, too, there are other than sight or smell. We can feel their presence—it troubles our hearts, as soon as we came here, and before we saw them; they feel ours more keenly. Also,’ he added, and his voice sank to a whisper, ‘the Ring draws them.’

He’s definitely not describing anything someone would want to find in the dark. Frodo responds with appropriate distress:

‘Is there no escape then?’ said Frodo, looking round wildly. ‘If I move I shall be seen and hunted! If I stay, I shall draw them to me!’

Then Strider shows how courage works itself outward, encouraging Frodo (or anyone) who can see the object of his fear:

Strider laid his hand on [Frodo’s] shoulder. ‘There is still hope,’ he said. ‘You are not alone. Let us take this wood that is set ready for the fire as a sign. There is little shelter or defence here, but fire shall serve for both…these Riders do not love it, and fear those who wield it.’

There is danger, and they won’t escape it. Frodo will be wounded that night and forever marked, but Strider’s courage and encouragement will win through. Although they aren’t spared pain or harm, Strider’s courage carries the battle on and keeps the darkness at bay; even if it can’t be called a victory, his faithful action moves Middle-earth closer to redemption.

What can we learn?

The theme of courage runs through The Lord of the Rings, and the story is ripe with varied examples along the spectrum of heroism. We have Frodo’s willingness to carry the Ring at all when he could’ve thrown in it a river and hid while wars raged around him. He also displays the specific courage of small hearts beneath the barrow on the downs — his love overcomes his fear even though he is not able to succeed in his own strength. The hobbits are standard-bearers for courage precisely because they are the smallest people in Middle-earth; hobbits are the “least of these,” who the great ignore at their peril.

Where Aragorn is an example of a captain, a leader who leads, not through coercion, but by cooperation, Sam exhibits the more ordinary courage of the care-taker. Sam’s attitude toward Bill the pony is similar to the care of the gardener or home-bound domestic. He doesn’t begrudge the pony its price. Instead, he labours to bring out its true value. Sam shows the courage, leaning on hope, to bring good things out of difficulty. Sam the gardener and care-taker has the eyes to see the potential of hard soil or a skinny pony.

O for the courage to take care, and to captain, for the good of those around us!

Chapter 12: Flight to the Ford

Summary

Frodo has survived his encounter with the Black Riders, but relief is short-lived. Strider judges that Frodo carries a dark taint beyond his skill to heal. With few options, and fearing another attack, they press on to Rivendell carrying a wounded and weakened Frodo.

Strider leads the hobbits through the wilderness for ten days before an unexpected respite finds them. The small company encounters three familiar trolls, the same three who turned to stone while deciding how to cook Bilbo, all those years ago. Samwise composes a song in tribute.

After some rest and more hard going, they rejoin the road to discover an elf token on the last bridge before the Ford of Bruinen. This good omen turns into good fortune when the elf Glorfindel overtakes the travellers. His news is bittersweet; Rivendell expects them, but there is still no word from Gandalf. Report of Frodo—and Gandalf’s absence—probably came by Gildor, whom the hobbits met before arriving in Crickhollow. Worse yet, they learn all nine of the Black Riders are in pursuit.

Glorfindel leads them towards Rivendell at a gruelling pace, and even Strider struggles to keep going. In the final stretch, the five Black Riders from Weathertop overtake them and the other four attempt to cut off their approach to the ford. Still veiled in the shadow of his wound, Frodo doesn’t flee. At Glorfindel’s command, his white horse, Asfalof, carries Frodo out of reach and across the shallow ford.

Frodo resists weakly and collapses in darkness across the river at the approach of the mocking Black Riders. The last thing he sees is the calm river transform into a torrent of froth-maned horses, the dim light of fires, and shouts from the far shore of the Bruinen.

A Very Different Journey

As I’ve mentioned before, I first read The Lord of the Rings before The Hobbit. Despite this unfortunate oversight, I still appreciate and enjoy the ways The Fellowship of the Ring calls back to and overlaps with Bilbo’s “there and back again” journey.

Right from Chapter 1, Tolkien hints at how this both is and isn’t a simple sequel. He worked on The Lord of the Rings in spurts for 17 years after the publication of The Hobbit. At the same time, he worked on the broader mythology of Middle-earth, which his son would later publish as The Silmarillion.

Frodo enters into an adventure just like Bilbo, but it’s a different experience. Frodo’s adventure is ultimately unchosen, though Frodo does choose to go and makes choices along the way. The Hobbit is not a childish story, but it is limited in its scope, where The Lord of the Rings is sweeping and epic, with appropriately high stakes.

Take this chapter’s scene with the stone trolls. There’s a sorrowful sense of the passage of time and falling darkness as the hobbits encounter what has hitherto been a fireside story. In The Hobbit, the troll encounter is funny and exciting, a first triumph! Now, the hobbits encounter this relic of Bilbo’s adventure after a first defeat. Frodo is wounded, and the discovery of the trolls—and the brief gladness it brings—only serves to throw Frodo’s ordeal into sharper contrast.

Wounds and the Weight of Broken Things

It might be because I love my large, single-volume edition of The Lord of the Rings, or because Tolkien is a particularly generous storyteller, but Frodo’s wound strikes me as coming very early in the story. It deserves a capital W because it’s not a mere injury; Frodo is damaged and carries that wound into the final pages of the story. Because it’s dealt so early, even before he formally takes up the quest to destroy the Ring, it presents a compelling picture of the world’s brokenness. Things break, yes, but many more are broken to begin with.

Running away from the brokenness and ignoring the needs created by evil is no more dangerous than losing sight of the everyday mundane joys of life. Both postures are hopeless because, in the first, the brokenness can’t be outrun, and in the second, the greatest weapon in the fight for joy is surrendered. Frodo’s wound never heals; he carries it with him forever. But when Sam recites his silly tribute to Bilbo’s old story, he demonstrates how to put the shadow in its place: by singing in the midst of it.

One thing I appreciate about this story is how it doesn’t minimize good and evil; it maximizes both. The shadow that looms in the distance is accompanied by genuine agents of that shadow, even if they’re not strictly corporeal. Evil in The Lord of the Rings is supernatural and banal, yet so is goodness. Something as simple as a hot bath can lift the shadow, and the name of the Lady of the Stars stays a Black Rider more than the swing of a sword.

For this reason, I believe the highest purpose of fantasy is to reintroduce us to a true cosmos, a universe that sings. As I’ve said elsewhere, “Fantasy winds its way into the cracks of our vision and illuminates alternative ways for how—and who—operates the universe.”[8]

What can we learn?

Tolkien was familiar with the charge that fantasy stories are nothing but escapism, stories for people who can’t cope with real life. He rebuffs this accusation in On Fairy Stories, and levels his own charge at the critics. Tolkien says critics of fantasy confuse the “Escape of the Prisoner with the Flight of the Deserter.”

Elsewhere, I’ve explained the confusion:

The difference is this: the Deserter abandons what he’s called to participate in. He escapes the trenches and flees the battlefield. But the Prisoner escapes from the prison back to the battlefield—he is a prisoner of war. The healthy escapist allows faerie and fantasy to equip him for life in the world, whatever it looks like.[9]

The one who desires escape rightly, like Frodo, carries a Wound and is looking for respite. The fantasy, or faerie, “winds its way into the cracks” of reality and readers leave equipped to carry the weight of broken things a little further, closer to where wounds will be healed.

Book 2

Chapter 1: Many Meetings

Summary

As I’ve mentioned, the beginning of Fellowship is my favourite part of the story, and “Many Meetings” is an effective epilogue for the first leg of the journey. Frodo is alive, he is reunited with Gandalf, and his wish to see Bilbo again is granted.

“Many Meetings” does double duty as both an ending to Book 1 and the beginning of Book 2 of Fellowship. The hobbits are safe for now, surrounded by the mountains and the wise, but they can’t stay in Rivendell forever; Sauron will come for the Ring. Yet, the hobbits believe their adventure is over! Frodo and his friends have already faced the most significant dangers and wonders of their lives, and Rivendell is their reward. Or so it seems.

The home of the elves

As far as Frodo is concerned, his task is over. He has delivered the Ring to the safest place in Middle-earth and nearly lost his life in the ordeal. With nearly half a book in hand, readers know Elrond’s house is only a way-station along the length of the quest, but for the hobbits it is their refuge and their reward.

Rivendell is called “the last homely house,” and it’s also a wonder to the hobbits; never have they been guests in such a place, which Sam describes it as “a big house” and “very peculiar.” He tells Frodo there is “always a bit more to discover, and no knowing what you’ll find around a corner,” echoing Tolkien’s preoccupation with the wonder of discovery. Sam’s words here are another early instance of Tolkien using the humble gardener to comment on stories, as they recall Bilbo’s song from Book 1, Chapter 3: Three is Company. The elves themselves are described by Sam as “like kings, terrible and splendid” but also “merry as children.” There is no contradiction in Rivendell; the wise sing songs, feasts are necessary, and merrymaking is a serious business. Whenever I read about Tolkien’s elves, I can’t help but think that our obsession with utility and production is the particular disease of mortals.

If the virtues of hobbits are simple, then those of the elves are sublime. Their feasts inspire songs, and their songs transport listeners to the depths of joy and sorrow. Tolkien’s elves elevate everything around them for the simple reason that they are immortal. Counterintuitively, with time being short, mortals move on to the next thing; the immortal elves, however, would rather die of a broken heart than not give creation its transcendent due. The elves are deeply acquainted with natural beauty and works of art, so their capacity to love and value all created things far surpasses our own.

Hospitality as preparation

When the ringing of many bells summons the hobbits to a feast, Frodo feels small and insignificant among his great and beautiful hosts. But the feeling quickly passes, because there is no haughtiness here. This is the unique power of hospitality: it both lifts and lowers. Everyone sits level at the table. Sam is an illustration of this when, asking to wait on Frodo, he has his request refused to bestow on him a greater honour: Sam, the servant, is served in the house of Elrond.

The hospitality of Rivendell is just a taste, a good thing to be enjoyed and offered whenever possible in an inhospitable world. The desire to linger with Tolkien's elves is common, and we are always too soon brought back to the waking world. After the feast, and all its talking and eating, Frodo is reunited with Bilbo during the after-dinner songs. The shadow of the Ring falls on the reunion, however, and Bilbo offers an apology and a prophecy:

’I understand now,’ he said. ‘Put it away! I am sorry: sorry you have come in for this burden: sorry about everything. Don’t adventures ever have an end? I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on the story.’

Frodo doesn’t know it yet, but his role in the story is only just beginning, and his rest in Rivendell is not his reward; it is preparing him. The abundance, comfort, and welcome of Rivendell offer Frodo a glimpse of the beatific vision of the elves. As far from perfection as it is, it is a vision of what could and should be, could the stain of evil ever be removed from the world. Frodo’s glimpse of the elvish virtues offers him the space to draw deeply from his simple nature:

“They spoke no more of the small news of the Shire far away, nor of the dark shadows and perils that encompassed them, but of the fair things they had seen in the world together, of the Elves, of the stars, of trees, and the gentle fall of the bright year in the woods.”

In an unrestful world, simple acts of hospitality offer a reprieve from the demands of living; guests and hosts alike are revitalized around the table. The serious business of merrymaking is preparation for the dangerous business of stepping out the front door.

What can we learn?

The Lord of the Rings is full of places and spaces and communion. From Bag End to rough camps and the otherworlds of elvish halls. Tolkien’s ability to bring these places to life in readers’ minds, to imbue them with a sense of history and place, are vital to their pull. However, we bring our own experiences of hospitality to these imagined and rest-stops. Each of us knows, I hope, what it means to be welcomed and invited into communion. That experience of pushing past the surface into the ease and comfort of home.

The elves represent the spiritual dimension of this hospitality, and like all things transcendent, it can be as frightening as it is beautiful. The hobbits offer us a more down to earth model that’s easier to practice. Beyond the camaraderie of the Green Dragon and the festivity of Bilbo’s Party Tree, hobbits are seemingly able to share and enjoy comforts in discomfort. Their meals on the road are simple, spare even (for hobbits), but it’s possible to imagine passing them and being invited to share. This model of mere hospitality is what needs to be revived today. The table doesn’t need to be set with silver to welcome visitors with the comfort of home, a table may not even be necessary. What’s essential is the welcome and the willingness to share what is common between us.

Even simple hobbit hospitality comes near to the beauty of elvish halls when we invite the traveller to table.

Chapter 2: The Council of Elrond

Summary

Don’t worry, “not all that was spoken and debated in the Council need now be told…” You’re welcome.

The Council of Elrond is nearly 50 pages of exposition that probably wouldn’t make it past an editor today. I’ll admit it’s not the most lovable chapter—with its layers of reported speech and complete dearth of action—but I love it just the same. I appreciate it more now since my first close reading of The Silmarillion. The chapter is full of meaningful connections with the broader mythology of Middle-earth, but it also holds some of my favourite passages in the whole story. Nothing happens, yet every recollection, aside, and gap-filling tale helps set the stakes for the quest.

Tolkien illustrator Alan Lee says it well in an interview about Christopher Tolkien’s final posthumous publication of his father’s work, The Fall of Gondolin:

What makes The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings work as well as they do is that they are set into this cultural background with its own history and languages. You get so much more from those particular stories if you actually delve back and enjoy the mythology of Middle-earth. In that process of the myths changing and developing, you get all these echoes of the earlier stories running through the later ones. It makes the whole thing richer and more satisfying and more dense.[10]

Satisfying indeed. This chapter is so rich it resisted my usual format, so instead of focusing on a single feature or theme, I’ve assembled some key quotations and commentary.

“…Elves deemed that evil was ended for ever, and it was not so.” (Elrond)

Elrond here is referring to the great battles to the First and Second Ages, remembering the great deeds of Elves and Men to tear down Sauron’s fortress of Barad-dur and Thangorodrim before it.

‘I remember well the splendour of their banners,’ he said. ‘It recalled to me the glory of the Elder Days and the hosts of Beleriand, so many great princes and captains were assembled. And yet not so many, nor so fair, as when Thrangorodrim was broken, and the Elves deemed that evil was ended for ever, and it was not so.’

“I have seen three ages in the West of the world,” Elrond says later, “and many defeats, and many fruitless victories.” The persistent presence and threat of evil that weighs on Elrond is precisely what the council must address. The War of the Ring is only the latest in a long line of conflicts and, unfortunately, will not be the last—it will change the world, however.

“There need not be, there would not be, any real change in our designs, only in our means.” (Saruman)

Gandalf’s telling of Saruman’s turn from the path of wisdom is an excellent example of the rot of corruption an unchecked desire allows to grow. Even in service of good ends. It illustrates Tolkien’s preference for the slow, frustrating work of cultivation over the rapid, destructive industry of progress and achievement. Gandalf represents the garden, patient and caring; Saruman the strip mine, burning and tearing his way to power.

Saruman’s outlook is a common one:

‘A new Power is rising. Against it the old allies and policies will not avail us at all. There is no hope left in Elves or dying Númenor. This then is one choice before you, before us. We may join with that Power. It would be wise, Gandalf. There is hope that way. Its victory is at hand; and there will be rich reward for those that aided it. As the Power grows, its proved friends will also grow; and the Wise, such as you and I, may with patience come at last to direct its courses, to control it. We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish, hindered rather than helped by our weak or idle friends. There need not be, there would not be, any real change in our designs, only in our means.’

The wizard’s argument is persuasive because it doesn’t suggest total submission to “the Power,” but rather, it’s manipulation. Let us hitch our wagon to this-or-that, to this politician, to that technique. It’s how religious folk who may otherwise have ethical values get played by political shills. Vote for me and let me dirty my hand for you, your meek ways haven’t worked—perhaps your ideals require less faith and more legislation to achieve their ends. But there is only one Lord of the Rings, and he does not share power.

It’s horrifying because it is tempting, especially in the face of struggle and the weight of past failures.

”Despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.” (Gandalf)

I’ve got this one on the cover of the notebook I draft these Reading Middle-earth chapter companions in. Gandalf’s words offer encouragement to foolish quests great and small, reminding us that we don’t know we won’t be successful. I love the way Tolkien portrays providence because it seems weighted ever so slightly toward action on the part of the creatures. There are powers at work in Middle-earth, but it’s rare to see anyone give a half-hearted effort. Frodo and Sam aren’t the sole actors in accomplishing the quest, and they fail dramatically at times, yet they still spend every ounce of their will in pursuing their goal.

Following this statement, the wizard makes a compelling case for a foolish plan: destroy the Ring where it was created. Gandalf contends this is the best way to avoid the malicious and exacting scrutiny of Sauron, who knows no measure but “desire, desire for power; and so he judges all hearts.” The Enemy will not expect the wise to throw away power.

After Frodo offers himself as Ring-bearer, Elrond follows up with this beautiful quote about all the things even the very wise do not know:

‘This is the hour of the Shire-folk, when they arise from their quiet fields to shake the towers and counsels of the Great. Who of all the Wise could have foreseen it? Or, if they are wise, why should they expect to know it, until the hour has struck?’

If we do not know all things, then there is always reason for hope—especially in a world where there are powers at work beyond the small hands of hobbits and humans alike.

What can we learn?

The selected passages from this chapter establish certain truths about life in the world. The first is the reality of the Fall; that life on earth does not go on as it was intended. It’s the Christian concept of original sin that sees every person, from the best down to the worst, as in need of redemption. Something is broken, which our endless labours cannot fix, as Elrond learned over his long years. Saruman and Gandalf then demonstrate two approaches to the cursed creation and the broken creatures within it.

Saruman’s approach elevates the ends above means. He is unconcerned with how his goals are achieved as long as he wins in the end. He’s a fitting object lesson for political polarization, where the vices of one’s opponents justify vicious means to restore tradition or virtue. Whatever the righteous cause requires can, and will, be justified. But this is a smokescreen because what Saruman really wants is what his ostensible enemy already has: Power. The once wise wizard has descended into nihilism, having abandoned hope in what he had once believed to be trustworthy, and so becomes an agent of the darkness he claims to resist.

Gandalf’s outlook is not one of being the lone font of wisdom. Instead of disdaining the weakness of his friends and coveting the power of his enemies, desiring to “at last to direct its courses, to control it,” Gandalf humbles himself. He knows he does not see all, even as Saruman is fooled by his Palantír, or seeing stone, into believing. His wisdom is folly in the eyes of enemies who see only raw power at play in the world, the mechanical necessities of realism.

Only Gandalf would put faith in the small hands of hobbits, themselves ultimately in the hands that hold the good wizard himself.

Chapter 3: The Ring Goes South

Summary

The fellowship of the Ring is here! Merry and Pippin fight for their right to risk their lives for friendship, and Bilbo gives Frodo the secret gift of mithril mail and his old sword, Sting. On the geopolitical front, Narsil, the sword of Elendil, is reforged as Andúril, the Flame of the West, and Aragorn takes the first steps toward his crown.

The fellowship makes its way south through the wild, but spies of the enemy soon threaten. Needful of speed and secrecy, Gandalf and Aragorn discuss their path. They decide to brave the mountain pass of Caradhras instead of the route Aragorn would only take “if there [were] no other way.”

The mountain is no servant of the Enemy, but it is wild and dangerous and of ill-will. Fickle and unforgiving, Caradhras turns the company back with cold, storms, and falling rocks. Defeated by the mountain, only one way remains open to them.

To Wish to Dare

Merry and Pippin again display the virtues of friendship beautifully. They're indignant at the possibility of not being allowed to accompany Frodo on his new task as Ringbearer. Although the young hobbits are quite foolish for wishing to go, as Frodo is quick to point out, Merry makes his case with folksy wisdom:

‘But we are envying Sam, not you. If you have to go, then it will be a punishment for any of us to be left behind, even in Rivendell. We have come a long way with you and been through some stiff times. We want to go on.’

The road the hobbits shared to Rivendell, with all its risks, served to reinforce the bonds of friendship that already united them. If you’re reading along then you know Fellowship is already two-thirds over by this point. The taking up of the real quest is a second inciting incident, and it demands choices from would-be members of the company. Here, Merry and Pippin are thinking less of themselves and even less of their duty to Frodo, because they don’t serve Frodo—they love him. If he is going into fire for them, they will throw themselves in alongside him, or so they wish.

And this is what makes their determination so staggering. Elrond tells them he cannot see the untold dangers ahead, and his counsel is to send elf lords in their place; this is indeed wisdom. But Pippin cries out, “We want to go with Frodo!” anyway, and Elrond says, “that is because [they] do not understand and cannot imagine what lies ahead.” His words are true, but it doesn’t stop Gandalf from encouraging their virtue.

‘Neither does Frodo,’ said Gandalf, unexpectedly supporting Pippin. ‘Nor do any of us see clearly. It is true that if these hobbits understood the danger they would not dare to go, but they would still wish to go, or wish that they dared, and be shamed and unhappy. I think, Elrond, that in this matter it would be well to trust rather to their friendship rather than to great wisdom. Even if you chose for us an elf lord, such as Glorfindel, he could not storm the dark tower nor open the road to the fire by the power that is in him.’

Gandalf here is demonstrating faith not only in the untested virtues of the hobbits but also in the value of powers outside their control. Where Sauron directs his wisdom to bend (and ruin) good things to his will, Gandalf’s wisdom is to yield to those good things, like Frodo’s selfless determination and now the hobbits’ unrelenting friendship. He refuses to control them to pursue his purposes; Gandalf trusts that the frail and the humble will, and must, labour alongside the great.

No Charge is Laid

There is an subtle detail here, which adds to the beauty of the fellowship as an assembly of heroes. The company is entirely voluntary and “no oath or bond is laid” on them to go further than they wish. Only Frodo is bound. He must carry the Ring and not surrender it to the Enemy or his servants. Everyone else is a free companion, and the chance to turn aside or stay behind at any point is theirs to take; this is staggering! No one swears. No one makes lofty promises. They agree to take up the quest and are free to put it down without fear or threat of retribution.

Even Aragorn, who tells Frodo that their “road lies together for many hundreds of leagues,” could turn aside anywhere along that path. Aragorn is free to make his homecoming his quest and pursue his kingdom first. So, with no constraints on their wills, the fellowship must continually choose the quest.

With every step, each member must decide if they will remain faithful.

What can we learn?

Love enables courage, that is the lesson of this chapter. Love can power outsized courage in even the smallest, least heroic travellers who walk the earth. Just because no one will sing songs about Merry and Pippin doesn’t mean they can’t make our hearts sing!

Here we see the outworking of the simple friendship espoused in “A Conspiracy Unmasked” at its first crosswords. The hobbits have come through trial and terror already, and cannot yet imagine the nameless fear they’ll encounter in the next chapter, and still, they choose to follow their friend. Put another way, Merry and Pippin do not wish to go on the quest, they want to love Frodo. They wish to express their love in deeds, not just in words, even though they have little to recommend themselves to the challenges ahead.

The beauty of friendship is how unaccountable it is to utilitarian points of view. Sauron thinks nothing of it, and even the wise Elrond must be brought around by Gandalf’s earthier wisdom. The virtue is not a tool to employ in service to the quest. It is the reason to take up the quest in the first place. Like the rest of the fellowship, the hobbits are not bound to go further than they’re willing. Merry and Pippin are willing to lay down their lives, but not for glory or even for victory. They lay down their lives for their friend — for Frodo.

Chapter 4: A Journey in the Dark

Summary

The fellowship turns back from the mountain pass and must move on from their first defeat. The southern passes closed, Gandalf proposes the dark path of Moria. The hobbits, Legolas, and Boromir, must accept the unchosen road through Moria after wolves attack the company in the night.

They make their way to the doors but find themselves pushed from danger into even greater danger under the mountain. Pippin's curiosity stirs something in the depths of the mines, but the tension here tightens more slowly than in the films. Gandalf has a smoke, Frodo keeps his mithril secret, and a single pair of pale eyes stalk the darkness.

Hopes, fears, and hobbits

Before ever seeing a wolf, Pippin despairs of the howls that ring around them and wishes he’d taken Elrond’s advice. “I am no good after all,” he declares, and the howls freeze his blood. Pippin allows fear to determine his value to the company. He is not wrong to fear wolves, but he is wrong to frame the danger as his weakness against the wolves — he is not alone!

Sam, ever the gardener, has some earthy wisdom with which to put courage back into Pippin.

‘My heart’s right down in my toes Mr. Pippin,’ said Sam. ‘But we aren’t eaten yet, and there are some stout folk here with us. Whatever may be in store for old Gandalf, I’ll wager it isn’t a wolf’s belly.’

Sam is rightfully afraid, just as Pippin is, but Sam recognizes that, while he may have to draw his sword, there are greater swords around him, and powers higher still than swords. Earlier, Sam perks up at the mention of returning to Rivendell in defeat. He has no desire to face wolves, much less the path of Moria, whose dark name chills even Aragorn’s heart. Instead, Sam desires to serve Frodo and, of course, save the Shire. With those necessities before him, Sam can look around and acknowledge his smallness, but he is also able to accept his small role in facing the darkness.

Sam draws his sword and stands shoulder to shoulder with the hobbits because there will come a time when their lives will depend on their care for one another. And so Sam is proved right when the wolves are turned back by sword, arrow, and Gandalf’s fire: “‘What did I tell you Mr. Pippin?’ said Sam, sheathing his sword. ‘Wolves won’t get him.’”

A Blessing for Bill

Bill the Pony gets short shrift in Peter Jackson’s films, even in his extra scene in the extended versions. Still, I’m thankful for every small detail of Sam’s relationship with the company’s faithful baggage animal.

Back in Book 1, Chapter 11: A Knife In The Dark, I described how Bill the Pony is rescued out of oppression into joyful service and how even his name, Bill (after his former owner), hints at a redemptive impulse in Sam. Now, faced with abandoning Bill to the wolf-infested mountains, Sam grieves for his new friend.

Desperate for an alternative, and loathe to choose between staying with Bill and continuing with Frodo, Sam gets upset. But Gandalf gently addresses Sam’s closely ordered loves and fears:

‘He’d follow Mr. Frodo into a dragon’s den, if I led him,’ protested Sam. ‘It’d be nothing short of murder to turn him loose with all these wolves about.’

'It will be short of murder, I hope,’ said Gandalf. He laid his hand on the pony’s head, and spoke in a low voice. ‘Go with words of guard and guiding on you,’ he said. ‘You are a wise beast, and have learned much in Rivendell. Make your way to places where you can find grass, and so come in time to Elrond’s house, or wherever you wish to go.’

'There, Sam! He will have quite as much chance of escaping wolves and getting home as we have.’

With some final reassurance from Bill himself, Sam says his goodbyes. But this isn’t the last we’ll hear of Bill the Pony. Tolkien has a way of imbuing minor moments and characters with weight, which helps them to linger much longer in the mind than expected. I love Bill, and it’s good that he is loved.

What can we learn?

How do we muster the courage that Merry and Pippin showed in the previous chapter when faced with the real, ravenous dangers? This chapter suggests we gather our courage in the seemingly upside-down act of remembering we are small. Small, but not inconsequential.

Samwise, here a stalwart solider-gardener despite his fear, draws his sword, knowing his hand is better fitted to a trowel. But he also knows he is not alone, “there are some stout folk here,” beside him. Sam will not carry the day in battle. But with his feet on the ground, he prepares to do what he can, knowing he has help, an ally greater than himself. Later in the story, Sam will turn his eyes to the heavens and consider all the help he cannot see.

Chapter 5: The Bridge of Khazad-dûm

Summary

The company learns the fate of Bilbo’s old friend Balin and is nearly caught in the same dark trap themselves. Sam is wounded, and Frodo narrowly escapes death as the fellowship flee Balin’s tomb, and Gandalf runs from an old, encroaching power even he cannot hold back.

Under the mountain, the fellowship passes through shadow and flame to finally reach the eastern slopes of the Misty Mountains, but it costs them dearly.

No Turning Back

I wouldn’t say that Samwise has been significantly changed thus far in the journey, but we see how circumstances bring out what is already within. One of Sam’s strengths is his inclination to nurture and preserve rather than break tear down, and he’s not one to jump into conflict, but a battle comes to him in Moria.

This hobbit gardener is wounded slaying an orc, and not only does he kill the orc, but he also leaps to the defence of Frodo. Sam is too late to protect his master, but Bilbo’s gift of the mithril mail means the Ring-bearer lives to see more of Sam’s preserving care. Sam, the gardener and country cook, hacks the spear of an orc captain in two deep under the Misty Mountains.

Frodo survives, and Sam dips into the well of his strength for the first time. This battle isn’t the first challenge for the hobbits, of course. When the Black Riders stalked them in the countryside, they represented an outside evil breaking into ordinary life. Now, out in the wide world, Frodo and Sam encounter the dangers of a world shaped more and more by the Enemy, which first set the Ringwraiths hunting.

Frodo’s errand is now a proper quest and will soon take its first tragic turn.

A Light, Veiled in Grey

Gandalf the Grey has been a wise and faithful advisor to Frodo long before the outset of the quest. He is a friend to the hobbit but, while respected and helpful, the wizard has not yet revealed his power.

“Suddenly at the top of the stair there was a stab of white light. Then there was a dull rumble and a heavy thud. The drum beats broke out wildly: doom-boom, doom-boom, and then stopped. Gandalf came flying down the steps and fell to the ground in the midst of the Company.

’Well, well! That’s over!’ said the wizard struggling to his feet. ‘I have done all that I could. But I have met my match, and have nearly been destroyed. But don’t stand here! Go on! You will have to do without light for a while: I am rather shaken. Go on! Go on!’”

Amid the persistent doom-boom of drums in the deep, Gandalf the Wizard meets his match. I love the way Tolkien plays with the sound of the words boom and doom here, alternating between them for the distant beat of drums in Moria. It’s hard to ignore the tension building quality of a “pursuing drum-beat: Doom, doom, doom.”

And the tension reaches its awful crest in sight of the exit.

In their flight, Gandalf remains behind to hold the narrow bridge of Khazad-dûm against the ancient evil, which nearly destroyed him earlier: a Balrog. He stands and declares to the demon: “You cannot pass!”

“The Balrog made no answer. The fire in it seemed to die, but the darkness grew. It stepped forward slowly on to the bridge, and suddenly it drew itself up to a great height, and its wings were spread from wall to wall; but still Gandalf could be seen, glimmering in the gloom; he seemed small, and altogether alone: grey and bent, like a wizened tree before the onset of a storm.

From out of the shadows a red sword leaped flaming.

Glamdring glittered white in answer.”

It bears mentioning that the small, bent, grey wizard is of the same order of creation as the Balrog. They are both Maia, divine beings below the godlike Valar of Tolkien’s universe. Gandalf, though, has willingly cloaked himself in weakness, having chosen (or been sent) to aid and advise the peoples of Middle-earth rather than dominate them.

So here he stands, in front of a monster of shadow and flame, not so much opposing as denying it. In the films, the line is, “you shall not pass,” and has since become a meme, but I much prefer the choice here of “you cannot pass.” The words call to mind Gandalf’s deep, though imperfect, knowledge of the arc of the universe. The wizard doesn’t know what will happen, but he does seem to be aware of how the story ultimately ends—not the story of this tale, but of all things.

I can almost see the “far green country under a swift sunrise” through the terrifying but temporary darkness of the Balrog.

Yet Gandalf falls, and there isn’t a hint of narrative hope that he isn’t a real casualty. Responsibility shifts to Aragorn and the company’s disagreements and various alignments soon begin to chafe without the wizard’s wisdom to calm them. Everything is different now, and the company, especially Frodo, will have to do without Gandalf’s light for a long while.

What can we learn?

Sad stories are unavoidable. Even the stories ending in triumph cannot escape episodes of defeat and grief. So it is in the stories of fiction, myth, and the lived tales of reality itself. For this reason, it’s important that readers reckon with Gandalf’s death — and the fellowship’s grief. The wizard is honoured through the final chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring by the mourning of his friends and companions. Note also that his presence is missed more than his power. It is Gandalf the man (but not just a man), and not Gandalf the asset who is lamented in speech and song.

The wizard’s worthiness is confirmed, not wasted, by his sacrifice. The quiet guide of the free people’s of Middle-earth is gone, swallowed by the earth and darkness. The sad stories will come, and we ought to sit with them before anything else. Mourn with those who mourn and lay our hearts open in lament. For now, the sad stories are true.

Chapter 6: Lothlórien

Summary

The final line of The Bridge of Khazad-dûm propels us straight into the pressing need for shelter explored in this chapter:

“Doom. Grief at last wholly overcame them, and they wept long: some standing and silent, some cast upon the ground. Doom, doom. The drum-beats faded.”

After the trauma of Gandalf’s fall in Moria, the Company must “do without hope” and reach the last stop in the wizard’s plans: Lothlórien. Aragorn cuts their tears short, and they rush along the river towards the golden woods of Lothlórien, nearly forgetting Sam and Frodo’s wounds.

This chapter strikes a chord on rest and how sometimes slowing down and even stopping, isn’t a luxury; it’s necessary. The Company needs time to heal. Aragorn does what he can to tend to Frodo and Sam’s wounds when he realizes he’s overlooked them and they rest—barely out of sight of Moria’s smoking gates—despite the risk.

Rest and Recovery

Tolkien’s elves have a timeless quality, which is appropriate given their immortality. Being immortal doesn’t spare them the vulnerabilities of being alive, though. This combination of timelessness and fragility is what makes the elves in Middle-earth so fascinating because living forever means you have near infinite opportunities to hurt. It’s no surprise then that Tolkien’s elves are identified by a solemn sadness. With their lifetimes of disappointments, losses, and pain, the elves cultivate the virtues of rest by necessity. Being alive is exhausting!

Without an expiration date on worldly pain, elvish wisdom calls for respite: to slow down, rest and recover. Immortality helps, of course, because the fear of missing out doesn’t bite quite as hard when you’ve been around for 3000 years. Just being in the land of Lórien stretches time for mortals, and Frodo catches a glimpse of what it was like “before the world was grey,” on the banks of the Nimrodel.

“For a moment Frodo stood near the brink and let the water flow over his tired feet. It was cold but its touch was clean, and as he went on and it mounted to his knees, he felt that the stain of travel and all weariness was washed from his limbs.”

It’s not that the elves have a robust theory of self-care and take plenty of vacations; elves experience the world differently. The elves seem to have a greater awareness of the givenness of creation. I often hear Tolkien dismissed on the grounds that he spends a page describing trees where brisk plotting or more characterization might better serve the story. Well, there’s a reason he does so. After being led, blindfolded, deeper into the woodland realm, Frodo’s eyes are uncovered, and we’re told he “looked up and caught his breath.” This is followed by 240 words describing two types of non-existent flowers and an invented species of tree. The grass in this clearing is “as green as Springtime in the Elder Days,” and it seemed to Frodo “he had stepped through a high window that looked on a vanished world.” This is what the world is like for elves: the flowers and trees, ever-enchanted, recall the genuine wonder of the world.

The company hasn’t even reached its destination, the city of the Galadhrim itself, and already they are recovering. The healing of their deepest wounds is still far off, but this respite in Lórien is a foretaste of the wholeness promised by creation as it should be—as it will be.

There’s a lot to unpack above, clearly. Tolkien's Catholic faith comes into play, but also Middle-earth's pre-Christian paganism. Better words than mine have been written about the strange interplay of sorrow and joy[11] in The Lord of the Rings, and they're worth reading. Yet, it's hard to ignore the way this story reopens hearts and eyes to all the things we allow to become dim and dull. It may not be enough to talk about trees and flowers more, but it's an excellent place to start.

The evil we bring with us

I meant to look at an exchange between Aragorn and Boromir just before they enter Lothlórien but I think it’ll be enough to simply quote it here and follow up in the next chapter.

“‘By strange paths has this Company been led, and so far to evil fortune. [...] And now we must enter the Golden Wood, you say. But of that perilous land we have heard in Gondor, and it is said that few come out who once go in; and of that few, none have escaped unscathed.'

'Say not unscathed, but if you say unchanged, then maybe you will speak the truth,' said Aragorn. 'But lore wanes in Gondor, Boromir, if in the city of those who once were wise they now speak evil of Lothlórien. [...]

'Then lead on!' said Boromir. 'But it is perilous.' 'Perilous indeed,' said Aragorn, 'fair and perilous; but only evil need fear it, or those who bring some evil with them.’”

What can we learn?

Sorrow and joy are easily regarded as a dichotomy of extremes. How can a person be sorrowful when they are experiencing joy? How is the home of the elves both fair and perilous? Dualities such as these rest comfortably in Tolkien’s mythology. The character of The Lord of the Rings is more ancient than 20th century England, and the tales Tolkien looks to for inspiration come from a time which was much more comfortable with paradox than our own.

We have never stopped needing to reckon with paradox, but we have effectively busied ourselves out of the hard work of facing reality as it is: whole and irreducible. In a world fallen from grace and disfigured by evil, we must learn to rest in the uncomfortable spaces of life—the sorrowful joys and the beauty and love that grow in the soil of dark times. The experience of paradox is to be stretched, placed under tension. But this tension is not something to flee; it is real life, startling and full.

We who walk and live upon the earth are much like those strangers who enter the perilous wood of Lothlórien. None escape unchanged.

Chapter 7: The Mirror of Galadriel

Summary

The Company comes at last to the city of Caras Galadhon, the seat of Celeborn and Galadriel. They stand before the elven lord and lady and share the distressing news of Gandalf’s fall. In a moment, Lady Galadriel tests each member of the Fellowship, and they each face their hearts’ hidden desires.

Lothlórien, being a faerie land, seems to stand out of time, and the Fellowship rests for indeterminate days. Frodo and Sam take advantage of the time to recover and address their grief in song and conversation. Aragorn presumably experiences the sting of nostalgia for his time with Arwen, and Legolas and Gimli go off together to appreciate the beauty of that place.

Finally, Galadriel approaches Sam and Frodo during one of their walks and takes them to her mirror, in which they see visions of “things that were, and things that are, and things that yet may be.”

The evil we carry

Appropriately for a brush with faerie, there are a lot of moral trials in this chapter. The testing isn’t explicit, but implicit, each member of the fellowship faces an interior test, revealing their own hearts. Most are not happy with what they see.

In this moment of testing, Galadriel seems to offer what each most desires but which can only be grasped if they turn aside from the quest. For Sam, it’s returning to the Shire to have “a nice little hole—with a bit of garden of [his] own.” The question put to him is, if he could be magicked there in a flash, would he go? Sam does want to go home, of course, and desires a humble home and garden.

“All of them, it seemed, had fared alike: each had felt that he was offered a choice between a shadow full of fear the lay ahead, and something that he greatly desired: clear before his mind it lay, and to get it he had only to turn aside from the road and leave the Quest and the war against Sauron to others.”

The temptation even comes with the understanding that the choice to forsake would remain secret. Sam and Boromir’s contrasting reactions to the trial are telling. When faced with relief from the burden of the Quest, Sam recognizes his desire to escape responsibility as shameful. Interestingly, only Sam shares his temptation candidly. His craving for a “bit of garden”—ordinary hobbit life—is a good thing. Yet, Sam recognizes it as dangerous not despite, but because of its very goodness. His honour and love, for humble homes and gardens, not so incidentally, bind him to the Quest, not to mention his dedication to Frodo.

Sam says Galadriel “seemed to be looking inside,” and he “felt as if [he] hadn’t got nothing on,” and so Sam shows awareness of the misdirection of his deep desires: his shame is a compass. Boromir, on the other hand, responds to his temptation with justification in place of humility. The great warrior’s self-delusion foreshadows his fall.

“’To me it seemed exceedingly strange,’ said Boromir. ‘Maybe it was only a test, and she thought to read our thoughts for her own good purpose; but almost I should have said she was tempting us, and offering what she pretended to have the power to give. It need not be said that I refused to listen. The Men of Minas Tirith are true to their word.’ But what he thought that the Lady had offered him Boromir did not tell.”

What word is Boromir claiming to uphold but his oath to protect and follow the Ring-bearer on the Quest? Boromir then again casts suspicion on “this Elvish Lady and her purposes,” and Aragon again reproves him. The travel-stained King will sleep in complete peace because he knows there is no evil in The Lady of the Wood or Lothlórien, “unless a man [brings] it hither himself.”

Boromir sees his temptation as an attack from outside, as the device of a potential foe to be overcome and bested, but Galadriel has done nothing but expose the desires of his own heart. Boromir doesn’t like what he sees, and he can’t simply be rid of it.

It’s not an easy thing to swing a sword at your own heart.

What can we learn?

Even the best members of the fellowship have brought some evil with them into Lothlórien. Sam and Boromir are foils, displaying two ways to deal with guilt and shame. Sam demonstrates the power of confession, bringing his temptation into the light, thereby weakening it. He exposes his shame to good judgement and lays the necessary groundwork to overcome it. Sam’s desires are good but disordered, so it is actually good that he cannot have what he wants at the moment. His strength is an honest reckoning of his selfish desires against the more objective value of the Quest and his dedication to it and Frodo. What Sam wants most at that moment is not what’s best, and he learns to not only put that desire in its proper place but to use it in service of the greater mission.

Boromir, in contrast, hides his weakness away in his heart where it grows. The great warrior’s dishonest reckoning of his selfishness will allow his lesser loves to grow to the point where he is willing to subordinate what is right to what he wants.

Chapter 8: Farewell to Lorien

Summary

The Company prepares to leave Lothlórien and is outfitted by the elves for the next leg of the journey. Apart from elvish cloaks and rope, and lembas bread to keep them on their feet, the fellowship receives individual gifts from Galadriel.

Also of note is Aragorn’s divided mind. Gandalf’s plans for the journey beyond Lothlórien was unknown to him, and his intention since Rivendell was to accompany Boromir to Minas Tirith. Now, with Gandalf’s burden on his shoulders, he’s doubly thankful for the gift of boats, which will allow him to delay his decision—to follow the Ring or go to Gondor—as far as the falls of Rauros.

Old wives’ tales

Before the departure of the Company, Celeborn warns them against entering Fangorn Forest, for it “is a strange land, and is now little known.” Boromir remembers warnings about Fangorn but recalls them as “old wives’ tales, such as we tell our children.” He’s doubtful about these tales because generations have passed since the people of Gondor visited the forest, “to prove or disprove the legends that have come down from distant years.”

Boromir is not worried about possibly braving Fangorn; he has made long and perilous journeys already: “I do not doubt that I shall find a way through Rohan, and Fangorn too if need be.” Despite Boromir’s well-earned confidence, Celeborn reproves his easy dismissal of “old wives’ tales.”

“But do not despise the lore that has come down from distant years,” says the ancient elf. Can the old and outmoded be useful for those of us who benefit from the knowledge and progress of the present age? Celeborn’s immortality gives him a low view of chronological snobbery, and he knows how “oft it may chance that old wives keep in memory word of things that once were needful for the wise to know.”

The elves are far from perfect, but they are nothing if not wise. May we learn the lessons history and human nature has to teach us, since there are no elves to be our guides.

The most useless gift

If the elves are among the wisest beings in Middle-earth, why does the great Lady Galadriel bestow a useless gift on the Ringbearer’s faithful companion? Sam will go all the way to Mount Doom with Frodo, but instead of a weapon, or even a belt to keep his pants up, Samwise Gamgee receives a box of dirt.

Yet, Sam “clutched the box and bowed as well as he could” upon receiving it from Galadriel, why? Because Sam’s greatest virtue is not his bravery, his hate for evil, or even his good sense. Sam’s most exceptional quality is his love of goodness, plain and simple; he loves growing things—not the act, but the living things themselves because he cannot make them grow himself.

The gift of soil from Lothlórien, blessed by the lady, is a promise of hope. More than just the hope of returning to the Shire, Sam’s gift is hope for renewal. “It will not keep you on your road, nor defend you against any peril,” Galadriel tells him. “But if you keep it and see your home again at last, then perhaps it may reward you.” The garden this soil blesses will reflect “a glimpse far off of Lorien [that] will never be seen on earth again save in memory.”

It is this hope, not of home as Sam left it but of home as it ought to be—a good and endless Shire—that will accompany Sam across the wastes of Mordor. It is this hope that will carry them home after so much fear and doubt.

What can we learn?

According to G.K. Chesterton, “Real development is not leaving things behind, as on a road, but drawing life from them, as from a root.”[12] This is a warning against progress for its own sake; it also encapsulates C.S. Lewis’ idea of chronological snobbery. Late-modern people are particularly guilty of this vice but has been a temptation throughout history. Lewis held that “Every age has its own outlook. It is especially good at seeing certain truths and especially liable to make certain mistakes.” Because of this reality, he recommended balancing one’s literary diet by reading old books alongside contemporary ones.

Celeborn has an easier time of this because he doesn’t have to read! As an immortal elf, he’s experienced the shifting tides of human progress. The imagined perspective of an eternal being is similar to the lessons we can draw from history and reading old books. Holding our own cultural moment loosely frees us from the shortsighted view that we are the greatest generation of humans to ever live, that we have nothing to learn from those who came before us.

The reality we all live is this: we have more in common with people who lived 1000s of years ago than we often care to recognize. Human nature exists, and one only needs to read Augustine of Hippo’s Confessions to realize that as much as the world and our experience of it changes, so much more stays the same. If the future demands that we tear people up by the roots, it ought to give us pause.

Chapter 9: The Great River

Summary

The company travels from Lorien to the falls of Rauros over 10 days. During that time, Gollum creeps around, they are set upon by orcs and a dark enemy, and they enter the ancient realm of the kings of men. Along the way, Aragorn wrestles with indecision: which road must the company take, east to the mountain of fire or west, to the white city?

“The tenth day of their journey was over. Wilderland was behind them. They could go no further without choice between the east-way and the west. The last stage of the Quest was before them.”

Calling, duty, and indecision

Decisiveness is often considered an essential quality of leadership. Here, however, Aragorn, the de facto leader of the fellowship, has been wrestling with indecision through several chapters. The elves of Lothlórien, wise as they are, cannot, or perhaps will not, offer any certainty. The leadership of the company falls to him, adding to the doubt which has plagued him since before Rivendell.

What does Aragorn’s indecision say about his leadership? Something positive, I believe. Since the loss of Gandalf in Moria, Aragorn’s role in the company has become complicated. Ever since the Council of Elrond, it was clear that Aragorn would return to Minas Tirith and claim his crown. He already carries Andúril, the blade that cut the Ring from Sauron reforged, and the narrator declares that “Aragorn son of Arathorn was going to war upon the marches of Mordor.” But his calling is beset by an unexpected duty: shepherding the Ring-bearer.

Add to this Aragorn’s fear of his own weakness as regards the power of the Ring, and it becomes obvious why indecision grips him. Does he keep the company together by convincing Frodo to come to Minas Tirith, to Boromir’s pleasure and in answer to the call of his birthright? Should he turn away from the need of Gondor and its people and take Frodo to Mordor? In either case, ought he proceed in power or in secret, and what of the company?

With no clear or clearly wise answer to these questions, Aragorn does the most prudent thing possible: he waits.

Deciding to be undecided

The first thing Aragorn does is take counsel. More importantly, he listens to the reasoning behind each of the companions’ position. Boromir will go no further than the falls before striking out for his city “alone, if [his] help has not earned [him] companionship.” The hobbits will follow Frodo because that is why they set out. And as for Frodo, he would prefer to follow Aragorn, and this divides Aragorn further.

But Aragorn knows he does not know, that he cannot see all the roads before him, much less the ends of those roads. His wisdom is knowing he is not wise—even the great are small in the wide world. This is beautifully illustrated in the passage of the Gates of Argonath, the mountain-high likenesses of Elendil and Isildur.

“Frodo turned and saw Strider, and yet not Strider; for the weatherworn Ranger was no longer there. In the stern sat Aragorn son of Arathorn, proud and erect, guiding the boat with skilful stokes; his hood was cast back, and his dark hair was blowing in the wind, a light was in his eyes: a king return from exile to his own land.”

And after declaring how he has nothing to fear from the gaze of the old kings, he recognizes the competing reality of his frailty:

“‘Would that Gandalf were here! How my heart yearns for Minas Anor and the walls of my own city! But wither now shall I go?’”

So Aragorn delays until he can delay no longer. Here we find the real lesson, which is we do not always decide. Before the company can vote on a course of action, everything falls apart. In the final chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring, the power to choose isn't granted to Aragorn. The Ring, working in Boromir, puts pressure on the existing divisions in the fellowship. Boromir tries to take the Ring, Frodo flees, and orcs attack. Boromir is killed and Merry and Pippin are captured; the landscape of choice is transformed.

In the end, Aragorn must make a choice, but it is a much easier one, and it is one that takes an honest accounting of his own weaknesses.

What can we learn?

Rest because even kings are small in the wide world, and the stars that turn above us, endlessly, are unconcerned with the wars and disasters of this middle-earth. But take courage in this simple truth:

Blessed are the timid hearts that evil hate,

that quail in its shadow, and yet shut the gate[13]

Rest, yes, but do not cease from resisting the hateful works of evil. Fear the darkness, but be of good courage — the stars turn endless above, and they exist for your joy.

Chapter 10: The Breaking of the Fellowship

Summary

Hardly the action-packed final act of the film, but the last chapter of Fellowship is a troll hoard of Tolkien’s big themes. There is a lot here to savour, and it’s worth a re-read.

Now, it’s time to decide the company’s course and, in the end, choices are made. None of the choices are wholly individual, or entirely successful, but everyone must accept the world as it’s given, shaped by choice among other powers.

The art of self-seduction

Boromir is not an evil villain, but his desires are disordered. He loves the wrong things, like glory, too much. Otherwise, he is a good man—brave, capable, and respected. Despite these good qualities, vanity is his greatest vice and not a well-hidden one.

When Boromir approaches Frodo in the woods around Parth Galen, he offers help; he doesn’t ask for anything. What he offers, for readers at least, is a lesson in moral self-seduction. Boromir offers what pretends to be good counsel but is, in truth, naked self-justification. There must be a rational argument for breaking his oath, the only problem is Boromir’s argument is weak and misguided. He does a quick job of convincing himself nonetheless.

First, Boromir offers help and comfort to Frodo. But when Frodo voices his doubt in the strength of men, Boromir immediately raises a grievance. “Yet that strength has long protected you,” he says, “far away in your little country, though you knew it not.” Frodo owes Boromir a hearing, and maybe much more, in Boromir’s mind.

Boromir also asks to see the Ring—now that they’re on the subject—and minimizes its importance. He laments that they “suffer so much fear and doubt for so small a thing,” and feigns disinterest when Frodo keeps it hidden: “As you wish, I care not.” Then the man presents his proposal:

“‘For you seem ever to think only of its power in the hands of the Enemy: of its evil uses not of its good. The world is changing, you say. Minas Tirith will fall, if the Ring lasts. But why? Certainly, if the Ring were with the Enemy. But why, if it were with us?’”

Only men can accomplish the task at hand; only Boromir is worthy: “We do not desire the power of wizard-lords, only strength to defend ourselves, strength in a just cause,” he argues. But then he descends into a self-aggrandizing monologue that sees himself as the glorious victor over the Dark Lord, “himself a mighty king, benevolent and wise.”

Now Boromir’s desire is laid bare, and he makes his request: if Frodo would but lend him the Ring. When Frodo refuses, Boromir turns to demands and threats, the most sinister of which is the offer to spare Frodo’s conscience:

“‘Why not get rid of it? Why not be free of your doubt and fear? You can lay the blame on me, if you will. You can say that I was too strong and took it by force.’”

Then Boromir abandons all pretence of friendship and loyalty—he will take what he needs, what he deserves. Boromir successfully convinces himself that his selfish desire is just and right.

And so the fellowship is broken.

Other powers at work

Tolkien’s work from The Hobbit through The Lord of the Rings employs unseen powers. By Tolkien’s own admission, The Lord of the Rings is a profoundly religious work, though it contains no mention of God or even any religious activity. The Ring, to our eyes, as it was to Boromir’s, is “so small a thing,” seemingly without the instrumental power of a nuclear bomb, which Tolkien emphatically denied it represented. Instead, it is Power like itself, at once tangible and intangible, and a corrupting force. Whether through the slow waste of obsession or the fires of conquest, the Ring works.

The Ring is a force of evil, but it is not the only power at work in Middle-earth. Does its corrupting influence break the fellowship? Yes, but just as certainly as the Ring works its will, another will strives against it.

In closing passages of The Hobbit, Bilbo’s “strange luck” is presented as the workings of a divine Providence. Gandalf tells Bilbo that he was meant to find the Ring. Later, in The Shadow of the Past, he informs Frodo that Bilbo’s luck was not anticipated by the maker of the Ring. This long thread of Providence is woven through Bilbo’s life and continues into Frodo’s. He is just a small hobbit in the wide world, yet his part to play remains. There is a hand at work in Middle-earth, invisible and inscrutable, and the Voice Frodo hears upon Amon Hen speaks for it.

When Frodo is set upon by the Eye of Sauron, drawn close by the ancient Seat of Seeing, readers get one of the few glimpses of the cosmic war being waged for Middle-earth. Here is the danger Frodo feared, even if he never fully understood it under his hill at Bag End.

The Eye draws near:

“He heard himself crying out: Never, never! Or was it: Verily I come, I come to you? He could not tell. Then as a flash from some other point of power there came to his mind another thought: Take it off! Take it off! Fool, take it off! Take off the Ring! The two powers strove in him. For a moment, perfectly balanced between their piercing points, he writhed, tormented. Suddenly he was aware of himself again. Frodo, neither the Voice nor the Eye: free to choose, and with one remaining instant in which to do so.”

I am thankful for the power that calls me to account and which, for my good, names me a fool when I am foolish. I am grateful for the power that sets me on quests I lack the strength to perfectly accomplish.

But I am still more thankful that I see more clearly than Frodo, however dark the glass remains.

What can we learn?

This is the end of Book Two of The Lord of Rings, which completes The Fellowship of the Ring. Like Frodo and Sam, I will not rest long before continuing on the journey. The fellowship is broken, but the bonds of friendship remain, and the Quest is more urgent than ever.

If there’s a lesson readers can walk away at the end of Fellowship it is this: the world is wonderful and, although failures and disappointments can leave us desperate, hope remains. The road to Mordor continues in Reading Middle-earth in Volume 2: The Two Towers (Coming Soon).

Matthew Civico writes about faith, technology, and the wonderful weirdness of being alive. Bylines include FaithToday, Christ & Pop Culture, The Curator, and Fathom. His work has also been collected in Thy Geekdom Come and Area of Effect Vol. 1, from Mythos & Ink Publishing.

He publishes Good Words, a newsletter that focuses on the interplay of technology and faith, and he co-hosts Stranger Still: A Stranger Things Podcast.

You can follow him on Twitter @mattCivico or mattcivico.com

Notes

1. The essay, “On Fairy Stories” is essential reading to understand Tolkien’s perspective and the power of storytelling and that of fantasy in particular.

2. Corey Olsen, a professor a medieval literature, refers to Bilbo’s Took and Baggins heritage as placeholders for the thematic tension Tolkien builds between the fantastic and the mundane.

The part of Bilbo that longs for adventure in The Hobbit is his poetic, Took side; the part that wants a tidy home and handkerchiefs is his Baggins half.

3. For more see: https://www.curatormagazine.com/matthewcivco/fantasy-and-motivation/ & https://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2008/09/02/buffered-and-porous-selves/

4. From On Fairy-Stories: “The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous “turn” (for there is no true end to any fairy-tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially 'escapist', nor 'fugitive'. In its fairy-tale—or otherworld—setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.”

5. A good resource on Borgmann’s work is Jonathan Lipps’ Blogging Borgmann series, available online: http://www.jonathanlipps.com/blog/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/

6. Kreeft, Peter. The Philosophy of Tolkien the Worldview behind The Lord of the Rings. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005. p. 88-9.

7. I imagine Wendell Berry and J.R.R. Tolkien would’ve been good friends, or at least agreed on many points.

8. Civico, Matthew. “Fantasy and Motivation.” 2017. https://www.curatormagazine.com/matthewcivco/fantasy-and-motivation/

9. Civico, Matthew. “Can Breath of the Wild Help us Endure Life’s Hurts?” 2018. https://lovethynerd.com/can-breath-of-the-wild-help-us-endure-lifes-hurts/

10. Full interview: ew.com/books/2018/08/27/fall-of-gondolin-jrr-tolkien/

11. Wood, Ralph C. “J.R.R. Tolkien's Vision of Sorrowful Joy.” ABC Religion & Ethics. Australian Broadcasting Corporation, October 6, 2016. https://www.abc.net.au/religion/jrr-tolkiens-vision-of-sorrowful-joy/10096472.

12. Chesterton, G. K. The Victorian Age in Literature. London: Oxford University Press, 1966.

13. Tolkien, John Ronald Reuel., and Christopher Tolkien. Tree and Leaf. London: Unwin, 1988.