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#1 | |
Princess of Skwerlz
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: where the Sea is eastwards (WtR: 6060 miles)
Posts: 7,500
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This is a chapter of special significance to us on the Barrow-Downs forum! (It is also, incidentally, the fourth chapter in a row that was omitted in the movie version.)
It begins with another of Frodo’s dreams and the hobbits’ farewell to Goldberry. Then the journey begins pleasantly before taking a turn for the worse. As in the Old Forest, they get the feeling of being trapped, helplessly caught by a deadly danger. This time it is Frodo who awakens and must decide to do something. He has to summon up his courage to fend off the immediate threat, then calls Tom for help. What is significant to you in this chapter – the glimpse of history Tom gives in telling the background of the Barrow-Wights? The first hint at the existence of the Rangers (including their king)? Or the importance of the blades of Westernesse that they take with them? What do you think of Tom’s reason for not accompanying them further? The chapter ends with a repeated motif – they again approach a safe haven, with a door and a fire. My favorite lines: Quote:
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'Mercy!' cried Gandalf. 'If the giving of information is to be the cure of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering you. What more do you want to know?' 'The whole history of Middle-earth...' Last edited by Estelyn Telcontar; 08-08-2004 at 11:51 PM. |
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#2 | ||||||||||||
Deadnight Chanter
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So comes Monday morning...
‘Fog on the BD’ is the part of the book discussion of which I would not have missed for worlds (Even though nobody is likely to come up at my place and offer me worlds just to keep me out of it anyway,
![]() I won’t take much of your time, since I do not intend to go through whole of the chapter, still more there are people around better qualified for a feat. Yet some parts of it I can not let go unattended to. The verses (you may have noted my crash on Tolkien’s poetry before that, heh) are of extreme importance here, as well as throughout the whole bulk of the text, and, as is Tolkien’s brandmark, the importance is well hidden – the verses roll by without catching one’s attention on the first read, and it requires some turning back an reflecting upon to catch up on what’s really going on and what is it all about. I believe you won’t be bothered overmuch, since I’m not going to give you metric analyses or something, just textual one... So far with preliminaries, let us turn to the matter at hand now. There are seven versified occurrences in the chapter. Whether that has any significance, I can not tell, but with Tolkien one is always in doubt, so much of meaning the man puts into his words. Therefore, let us just say [as unconfirmed, but probably meaningful ![]() First to occur is the incantation the Wight chants over hobbits: Quote:
I believe the whole cycle of poems in the chapter repeats on the minor scale the creative Music of the Valar. For, as the world was ‘sung’ into being with words, so words remain the medium of power, and require music to empower them some more. (That applies to all ‘songs of power’ – to the Wight, and to Bombadil likewise) Exact wording does not matter, but the concepts they deal with is what counts: Quote:
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So, Tom controls water, earth and fire inside his boundaries, but not air. That’s why Bombadil may not be Manwe (as I’ve heard some say. But merely earth spirit is not enough – what about water and fire, than? But, er, well, before I go too far along the road of Tom’s origin, let me refer you to burra’s excellent Derry Dol, Indeed thread and come back to my poetry business. Let me say that all of the above was a prologue. The most imortant (one of the two) of the verses of the chapter is the incantation Tom chants to drive the Wight away: Quote:
1. There are some gates that are shut (reference to Morgoth thrown out, I believe) 2. One day the world will change (reference to Arda Remade) Ultimately, both statements also refer to Christian Myth, but refer to it as it is to happen in the future of ME, not as if it has already took place. Another of importance is the incantation to bring hobbits back to life: Quote:
![]() The two ending poems are less complicated: Quote:
The last verse though sets the limit of Tom’s power, once again to remind us he’s not omnipotent (and so he can not be Eru Himself, as I’ve heard another part of mentioned ‘some’ say, but hint at Him): Quote:
cheers
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Egroeg Ihkhsal - Would you believe in the love at first sight? - Yes I'm certain that it happens all the time! Last edited by HerenIstarion; 08-09-2004 at 01:40 PM. |
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#3 | |||
Illustrious Ulair
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: In the home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names,and impossible loyalties
Posts: 4,240
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I think that this chapter marks a transition, a crossing over from one world to another. We have so far been in the ‘Pagan’/Faerie tale world, the world of good & bad, where good is what benefits us, what is pleasant, & bad is what harms or threatens us. With this chapter we leave that world & enter the world of ‘Christian’ epic, the world of ‘Good’ & ‘Evil’, where the Good can require us to suffer & sacrifice ourselves, & Evil can be the easy, pleasant option - at least seemingly so at first.
And the transition seems to take place within the earth itself. Frodo goes through a death & rebirth initiation within the barrow. There is evidence that barrows & tumuli were used in this way - New Grange in Ireland was used as a place of religious gathering at dawn in mid summer, when the sun would shine through the entrance & illuminate the inside of the mound. Frodo faces the ‘Guardian’ of the mound, in the darkness, faces his own fear & desire to escape, overcomes it, & then calls on the other, higher, Guardian for aid. The Guardian comes & liberates him. He is taken from within the earth, born again into a new world. He is one of the ‘twice born’, an initiate. But the world he has been reborn into is not the world he had known. Even Tom, Jolly Tom, shows a different face: Quote:
Now the fairy story world will be left behind & a more ancient, a greater world will open up before them. this seems to be foreshadowed in Frodo’s ‘dream’ - yet is it a ‘dream’? Quote:
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This episode - Old Forest-House of TB-Barrow Downs - is so similar to what happens to Smith in SoWM. We can see an echo of the King & Queen of Faery in Tom & Goldberry, & a twisted reflection of Smith’s star, which allows passage into Faerie, with the One Ring, which does the same for Frodo. Both are allowed to pass into the Otherworld - or perhaps we should say are ‘drawn into’ it. Yet Frodo’s task is to ‘save’ the otherworld he enters from an evil which would destroy it, while Smith simply wanders there, at times welcome, at other times unwelcome, but never seen as its saviour - indeed it seems the purpose behind the giving of the star is to save the inhabitants of this world from becoming lost in materialism. Ironically, though, in the very act of ‘saving’ the Otherworld he is summoned into, Frodo brings about its destruction, for if he succeeds in his task he will destroy the magic that holds it in being, & it will pass from a self contained mythic world to the world we know, the world of history, of science - ultimately of materialism. Yet Smith seems to imply that the fairy world will not be entirely swept away, & that its inhabitants will remain. Is Tolkien contradicting himself? LotR is about the loss of magic, the passing away of legends & the coming of history, while Smith seems to say it never went away at all, & that we still need it, & that it is constantly attempting to communicate with us. Or perhaps the magic went away for Tolkien himself after completing LotR - he never seemed to be able to properly return to Middle earth again - his stories after LotR are half hearted, unfinished (unfinishable?) attempts to get back there, culminating in a failed attempt to ‘rationalise’ the legends, to make them scientifically ‘valid’. Perhaps its simply the case that once he’d cast the Ring into the fire & watched the Last Ship pass into the West, taking the magic with it, he couldn’t ever really get it back. So, Smith is a story of hope - Tolkien’s own hope that. like Smith, even though he himself had renounced the magic star, his passport to faery, that star was not lost, & had been passed onto another. So we have Frodo, passing through ‘death’ in the heart of the earth, awakening & leaving the fairytale world behind for the ‘Christian’ world of high deeds & true sacrifice, & finding that ‘there is no real going back’ once the magic has been given up - given up by him so that others may keep it. And we have Smith doing the same thing. Here in this chapter we see Frodo first giving up the magic, in favour of something ‘greater’ - whether he realises it at the time is another question. In his ‘dream’ he is shown his own renunciation, what it entails, & what lies beyond it. I wonder if Tolkien himself ever had a dream like that. |
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#4 | |
Laconic Loreman
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I've fallen behind in some readings, getting too busy here, but here's a quote I would like to say to see if it has any significance in this chapter. As it states in Appendix A...
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Last edited by Boromir88; 08-09-2004 at 10:38 AM. |
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Late Istar
Join Date: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,224
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This is the final chapter in the Tom Bombadil trilogy. The first was an adventure chapter, ending with the rescue of the Hobbits by Bombadil. The second was a safe-place chapter. The third is again an adventure chapter and again it ends with a rescue by Bombadil. This little Bombadil cycle, then, is both symmetrical and cyclic - rather like the seasons. But within the cycle, there is also a linear development. In the first adventure chapter, the threat came from trees; in this one, it comes from supernatural beings. This alteration in the quality of the danger is exactly what is needed to keep the reader enthralled and move the story along - imagine how much weaker it would be if the Barrow-downs were in chapter 6 and the Old Forest in chapter 8.
There is also a linear development in Frodo's heroism. Though both times, they are saved by Bombadil, Frodo plays a much more important part in the Barrow-wight episode. Moments of heroism for Frodo like this are all the more important because they more or less disappear by books IV and VI (and this is largely why Jackson's Frodo comes across so weakly, I think). Heren Istarion wrote: Quote:
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Of course, that's all well beside the point of the discussion. But I don't think that we ought to think of the loss of magic or the long defeat in LotR as anything personal or in any way autobiographical. Tolkien's writing and sub-creation did not end or lose its vigor with the end of The Lord of the Rings. Indeed, it's not so much LotR that disagrees with Smith as it is Smith that disagrees with LotR. For the idea of the long defeat was well established in the Legendarium well before LotR - in fact it sees its ultimate expression in the very earliest writings, "The Book of Lost Tales"; next to the projected ending of that work, the endings of the Quenta Silmarillion and of LotR look positively jolly. And of course Smith was written after LotR. Nonetheless, I think you're quite right here: Quote:
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#6 | |
Illustrious Ulair
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: In the home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names,and impossible loyalties
Posts: 4,240
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LotR is a work of renunciation & loss- willing & unwilling, & I think we almost see Tolkien's own renunciation in the post LotR period, culminating in Smith - his 'old man's book'. Tolkien spent his last years repeating & reiterating what he'd already done, because I think he felt he'd said everything of real value in LotR. I'm not saying that he didn't produce works of incredibly beauty, but if there is a 'sequel' to LotR, its Smith, & nothing he produced in the post LotR period is really new or original apart from that. I do agree that 'This is the final chapter in the Tom Bombadil trilogy.' In fact these three chapters could almost stand alone as a novella, if we excised the Ring. It would stand as a hobbit adventure story, a perfect sequel to the Hobbit. The four friends set off on a journey, go through the forest, meet Tom, encounter the barrow Wight, are rescued & return home. So it can stand alone - actually, Brian Sibley, who dramatised the BBC Radio version of LotR, having missed out this section from the original dramatisation, later went back & dramaitsed it seperately, as The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, & it works as a stand alone drama. But while it can stand alone, without the rest of LotR, I don't think LotR, as Aiwendil says, works without it. So there, as usual, we agree on somethings but disagree on others ![]() |
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#7 |
Pilgrim Soul
Join Date: May 2004
Location: watching the wonga-wonga birds circle...
Posts: 9,451
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This is not going to be very learned but I think that the Tom Bombadil bit is my least favourite part of LOTR ... the bit I would most happily chop ... maybe it is because I thought Old Man Willow and Barrow Wights were so scary when I first tried to read LOTR as a child .... it was the point where it became a whole different world to the Hobbit... but even now I don't feel he belongs .... and I find him irritating..... maybe it is the waterlily picking.... or the sub- "There was a lover and his lass" poetry....
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“But Finrod walks with Finarfin his father beneath the trees in Eldamar.”
Christopher Tolkien, Requiescat in pace |
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#8 | |
Laconic Loreman
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I love this chapter in all it's spooky, ghostly feel. And you just know despite Tom's warnings to steer clear of the barrows, or pass them on the western side, that the hobbits were going to be in trouble once they fell asleep on the "east side."
![]() Twice Bombadil rescues the hobbits from the perils in the Old Forest, and when Tom says he must leave, we have the same feelings as the hobbits: Quote:
We spend 5 chapters in the Shire, feeling like it's been fenced in and protected from the "real world." But as Gildor tells Frodo, the Shire is no longer protection for Frodo. The wide world outside knows about the Shire and has broken in. The hobbits decide to go through the Old Forest where they again leave the real world, and the threat of the Black Riders is put off for the time being. They get trapped in the dangers of this alien world, and are rescued by Bombadil, the Master alien himself. It seems weird to see a character who knows exactly what to do again Old Man Willow, and Barrow-wights, and the Ring has no power of him. We feel exactly like the hobbits "if Tom can handle all that, then surely he would know how to deal with Black Riders and the hobbits would be much safer with Tom." But, they wouldn't be. Tom is not the master of 'the Road,' the real world, that the hobbits must get back on. Tom is truly confined to his own borders.
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Fenris Penguin
Last edited by Boromir88; 10-02-2016 at 05:17 PM. |
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#9 | ||
A Voice That Gainsayeth
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: In that far land beyond the Sea
Posts: 7,431
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This chapter, on re-read, was much creepier than I remember. And here I thought I remembered.
I liked this chapter for its insight into the Middle-Earth history and lore, a glimpse of the history of the old kingdoms that had been there before, it gives a sense of space, or rather time and its vastness. Angmar and Carn Dûm are mentioned, places whose names are just amazing and I always found their history fascinating. And imagine, Merry actually had a vision of encountering men of Carn Dûm and being stabbed by one! I like the dark description of the darkness that comes with the Barrow-Wight, I also like the description of the Barrow-Wight and its eyes, I like even more the sunny feel afterwards when the hobbits had been saved and I love the "dealing out the treasure" that Tom does, and the remark about the unknown wielder of the beautiful brooch with blue stones. Tom clearly knows much, and in surprising detail. What I never liked about this chapter was how Tom rebukes the Hobbits for doing something when there wasn't really a better option for them. It's a common trope in many fairy-tales, I recall, and it has always annoyed me since childhood: some wise old man or seeress says "oh, you should have known better, young one," while there was no way the young one would have known. Now, I am not referring to the Hobbits becoming lazy and resting near the standing stone, or even worse, on the wrong side of the stone: that is a justified rebuke. But Tom does not stop there and says: Quote:
One last thing, a bit of deeper lore, if I may. There is the famous chanting of the Barrow-wight. I would like to know what people think about its last verses. (Or maybe that should be a separate thread.) Quote:
And if so, then we have the only one occasion (as far as I know) where in LotR (or almost in anything, including the Silmarillion if I am not mistaken!) there is a reference to Dagor Dagorath. Which would be quite cool, and typical for Tolkien (like how originally all casual remarks about "the Necromancer" or "Moria" in the Hobbit were also just thrown in "by chance").
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"Should the story say 'he ate bread,' the dramatic producer can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own." -On Fairy-Stories |
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#10 | ||
Gruesome Spectre
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Heaven's doorstep
Posts: 8,035
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But contrast that with Bombadil's "banishing" song: Quote:
And finally, Tom mentions a 'mending', which appears to be a quite different version from the wight's. Tom sees the world's end as it should (shall) be, and in his overcoming the wight, seems to confirm his is the right one.
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Music alone proves the existence of God. |
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#11 | ||
Curmudgeonly Wordwraith
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Ensconced in curmudgeonly pursuits
Posts: 2,506
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And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision. |
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#12 | |
A Voice That Gainsayeth
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: In that far land beyond the Sea
Posts: 7,431
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However, now what you said just further strenghtens my belief that it is possible to successfully argue for the Dagor Dagorath scenario. Because Tom is actually saying the same thing, then, and in "my" version, it is not that what Tom says invalidates the Wight's wish into being a mere wish, but actually they would both be right. Like this: if the "end of times" means that Morgoth will return and all evil will come together for the final battle, that's what the Wight is talking about. But afterwards, we know that the world will be remade, and that is what Tom is talking about. It's such an absolutely wonderful example of how losing hope works - interpreting a positive thing in a negative way by overshadowing the hope, like a tunnel vision with the Wight intentionally obscuring the light at the end of the tunnel. In fact, it is also the way the word "apocalypse" has been twisted in our culture to effectively mean "destruction", even though the point of all apocalyptic literature has always been to bring hope to those who were in the middle of chaos and destruction. Imagine any story with a happy end, of course the heroes have to go through all the danger. But what the Barrow-wight does is to cut the story just at the worst moment, and tries to pretend that there is nothing afterwards. Tom actually reveals (ha! Apocalypsis - revelation - indeed!) that there is something after, the good end, when "the world is mended". Huh, some really deep eschatology in this, actually. Incidentally, that also means that even if the Hobbits ended up "never waking 'til..." as the Wight intended, there would be awakening for them, afterwards. Because there is afterwards. (But of course, that is outside the scope of the story of the Ring. Nonetheless, I think interesting.)
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"Should the story say 'he ate bread,' the dramatic producer can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own." -On Fairy-Stories |
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#13 |
Dead Serious
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A question that comes up earlier in the thread is about the nature of Merry's dream or memory of the soldier of Cardolan who died speared by the men of Carn Dûm--this is something Verlyn Flieger talks about in one of her books (A Question of Time, I am 98% sure--it's been the better part of a decade). I remember none of the specifics, and do remember thinking that some of her thinking was conjecture, but where she made comparisons within Tolkien's work, it's hard to complain.
And there are definite comparisons in Tolkien's work, most notably his Lost Road and Notion Papers fragments, where the modern day protagonists having dreams of ancient happenings are a major element. Within The Lord of the Rings itself, we have Faramir's dream of the sinking of Númenor--fascinatingly, an actual autobiographical detail from Tolkien himself. It's notable to me that Merry dreams/remembers one of the Dúnedain of Cardolan: this syncs him up with Faramir (a Dúnadan remembering a specifically Númenórean event) as well as the Lost Road--this dream memory business seems to be a specially Númenórean thing. This is especially interesting to me because this is the first place in the book where the legend of the Númenóreans gets attention and focus (it DOES get exposure, I admit, in "Shadow of the Past," but that is just one in a laundry list of historical references and not made central). By the way, it's fascinating to me that we, as fans, generally say "Númenor," no doubt following the overall lead of the Appendices, Unfinished Tales, and the rest of the Middle-earth corpus, which makes it the overwhelming term of usage for Tolkien--but in the narrative of The Lord of the Rings itself, the term doesn't edge out Westernesse by all that much prominence, and Westernesse is definitely the word I remember learning first (I couldn't tell you which is encountered first). On a more general note, I love "Fog on the Barrow-downs." I love most chapters and I generally give a little extra love to the chapters that the movies passed over solely because my mental images were never distorted, but "Fog on the Barrow-downs" still holds a special place to me. It's far and away the best Bombadil chapter, beautifully atmospheric, full of all the best ficto-archaeology (not just the Barrow-downs, which I always remember, but Arthedain's dike, which I never used to notice), and ends on a perfect anticipatory moment of moodiness to lead into the Bree chapters and the next stage of the story.
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I prefer history, true or feigned.
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#14 | ||
Shady She-Penguin
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: In a far land beyond the Sea
Posts: 8,093
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![]() ![]() The image of the hobbits in the white clothes and the unnaturally long hand coming to cut their throats with the sword is very powerful and very creepy, but one that has not been included in any adaptation as far as I know, and also seldom depicted in any fan art or official art. Only this one by Ted Nasmith comes to mind, and it very well illustrates how strange the whole scene is (including the green light): ![]()
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Like the stars chase the sun, over the glowing hill I will conquer Blood is running deep, some things never sleep Double Fenris
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#15 |
Dead Serious
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I have no idea, from a Watsonian perspective, why the Wight would dress three of the Hobbits in white garments, but my mental picture from a Doyleist angle has always associated the regarbed Hobbits as Egyptian in influence: white-garbed in a tomb FEELS very Egyptian, even if it's probably not strictly accurate.
Certainly, the Númenóreans had some Egyptian influences, in their death-obsessed aspects and in their megalithic sculptures, so it's an on-key vibe for the barrow*, even if there's no specific reason for the Wight to take pointers from the Egyptians. Although, thinking of how the Númenóreans (think of the sails in the incomplete Tal-Elmar story) make black into their most solemn colour, perhaps there is something oppositional about white around death. Now that I think about it, as an open-ended question (and I am too lazy to find a copy of the RotK...), what is Faramir garbed in for the pyre? *I initially wrote "for the Barrow-downs" and had to correct myself!
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I prefer history, true or feigned.
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#16 | |
Gruesome Spectre
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Heaven's doorstep
Posts: 8,035
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I don't think the color of Faramir (or Denethor's) clothing was recorded, just that both lay under the same covering. I took that to mean each wore what they already had on. There is apparently some ceremonial aspect to the "sacrifice" prepared by the Barrow-wight. I still think that his incantation to Sauron is not insignificant, and that white, which, according to Aragorn, Sauron did not use, was perhaps symbolic. The hobbits were to die wearing the color of Sauron's opposite, meaning that the White itself would one day perish. That would complement the incantation, which suggests that dark day when Sauron would be master of all Middle-earth.
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Music alone proves the existence of God. |
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