[Sharkû]

"North amid their noisome pits lay the first of the great heaps and hills of slag and broken rock and blasted earth, the vomit of the maggot-folk of Mordor;" (V, 10)

`That is the fairest of all the dwellings of my people. There are no trees like the trees of that land. For in the autumn their leaves fall not, but turn to gold. Not till the spring comes and the new green opens do they fall, and then the boughs are laden with yellow flowers; and the floor of the wood is golden, and golden is the roof, and its pillars are of silver, for the bark of the trees is smooth and grey. So still our songs in Mirkwood say. My heart would be glad if I were beneath the eaves of that wood, and it were springtime! ' (Legolas, II, 6)

"A swooning light
faint filtered in, for facing North
they looked o'er the leagues of the lands of mourning,
o'er the bleak boulders, o'er the blistered dunes
and dusty drouth of Dor-na-Fauglith;
o'er that Thirsty Plain, to the threatening peaks,
now glimpsed grey through the grim archway,
of the marching might of the Mountains of Iron,
and faint and far in the flickering dusk
the thunderous towers of Thangorodrim." (Lays, I ii)

"They came now from the north, for so Mîm had led them, and the light of the westering sun fell upon the crown of Amon Rûdh, and the seregon was all in flower.
"See! There is blood on the hill-top," said Andróg.
"Not yet," said Túrin." (UT, II 6)

'And, Legolas, when the torches are kindled and men walk on the sandy floors under the echoing domes, ah! then, Legolas, gems and crystals and veins of precious ore glint in the polished walls; and the light glows through folded marbles, shell-like, translucent as the living hands of Queen Galadriel. There are columns of white and saffron and dawn-rose, Legolas, fluted and twisted into dreamlike forms; they spring up from many-coloured floors to meet the glistening pendants of the roof: wings, ropes, curtains fine as frozen clouds; spears, banners, pinnacles of suspended palaces! Still lakes mirror them: a glimmering world looks up from dark pools covered with clear glass; cities. such as the mind of Durin could scarce have imagined in his sleep, stretch on through avenues and pillared courts, on into the dark recesses where no light can come. And plink! a silver drop falls, and the round wrinkles in the glass make all the towers bend and waver like weeds and corals in a grotto of the sea. Then evening comes: they fade and twinkle out; the torches pass on into another chamber and another dream. There is chamber after chamber, Legolas; hall opening out of hall, dome after dome, stair beyond stair; and still the winding paths lead on into the mountains' heart. Caves! The Caverns of Helm's Deep! Happy was the chance that drove me there! It makes me weep to leave them. [...] We would tend these glades of flowering stone, not quarry them.' (Gimli, III, 8)

`Day is near,' he whispered, as if Day was something that might overhear him and spring on him. `Sméagol will stay here: I will stay here, and the Yellow Face won't see me.' (IV, 2)

Also consider the issuing forth of the host of Minas Morgul, and the hobbits in the Withywindle valley for examples of Tolkien's 'magical realism'.

Obviously, the view of an animated nature is not only provided by an author on his work of sub-creation, but also, and mainly, by the dramatis personae themselves within their world.

[ May 21, 2002: Message edited by: Sharku ]