Quote:
You have walked 96 miles.
You have passed The Bonfire Glade (78).
You are only 2 miles from the Bald Hill in the Old Forest.
You still have 362 miles to Rivendell.
'I don't know what stories you mean,' Merry answered. 'If you mean the old bogey-stories Fatty's nurses used to tell him, about goblins and wolves and things of that sort, I should say no. At any rate I don't believe them. But the Forest is queer. Everything in it is very much more alive, more aware of what is going on, so to speak, than things are in the Shire. And the trees do not like strangers. They watch you. They are usually content merely to watch you, as long as daylight lasts, and don't do much. Occasionally the most unfriendly ones may drop a branch, or stick a root out, or grasp at you with a long trailer. But at night things can be most alarming, or so I am told. I have only once or twice been in here after dark, and then only near the hedge. I thought all the trees were whispering to each other, passing news and plots along in an unintelligible language; and the branches swayed and groped without any wind. They do say the trees do actually move, and can surround strangers and hem them in. In fact long ago they attacked the Hedge: they came and planted themselves right by it, and leaned over it. But the hobbits came and cut down hundreds of trees, and made a great bonfire in the Forest, and burned all the ground in a long strip east of the Hedge. After that the trees gave up the attack, but they became very unfriendly. There is still a wide bare space not far inside where the bonfire was made.'
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I will be to the Bald Hill in the Old Forest by the morrow, if not further.
Me thinks my goal to get to Rivendell by Dec. 17 is highly unrealistic, so I've changed it for the moment. It's to get to my 111th mile my ROTK. Get it? Eleventy-one? Whatever...
EDIT: New goal...I went back to the R2R page and 111 isn't a landmark, so I'm changing it to 115, Tom Bombadil's house. A nice place to rest and watch ROTK with my feet up instead of constantly on the R2R. But...like you really care..... [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]
[ October 09, 2003: Message edited by: Sirithheruwen ]