[davem]

Originally Posted by Hilde Bracegirdle

When pondering them I have the tendency to believe that these dreams have something to do with Gandalf (and not just the content of them). For though he is absent in person his mind is very much on Frodo, and having spent some time in Lorien, the istar might have gained a little knowledge from Irmo on dull afternoons.

Originally Frodo's dream was very much to do with Gandalf - it was about Gandalf! In notes for an early draft Tolkien writes:

Black riders pursue him - Gandalf has insufficient magic to cope with Black Riders unadied, whoes King is a wizard. They pursue him over Sarn Ford & he cannot (or dare not) go back to Shire.

Eventually he is besieged in the Western Tower. He cannot get away while they guard it with five riders. But when Black Riders have located Frodo & found that he has gone off without Gandalf they ride away.

And Frodo's dream, after the snuffling figures, runs:

Suddenly he found that he had drawn near & the tower loomed loomed high above him. About its feet there was a wall of faintly shining stones, & outside the wall sat silent watchers: black robed figures on black horses, gazing at the gate of the tower without moving, as if they had sat there forever.

There came at last the soft fall of hoofs, climbing up the hill. The watchers all stirred & turned slowly towards the sound. They were looking towards Frodo. He did not dare to turn, but he knew that behind him another dark figure, taller & more terrible, had appeared: it beckoned, & called out in a strange tongue. The horsemen leapt to life. They raised their dark heads towards the lofty chamber, & their mocking laughter rang out cruel & cold; then they turned from the white wall & rode down the hill like the wind. The blue light went out.

It seemed to Frodo that the riders came straight towards him; but even as they passed over him & beat him to the ground, he thought in his heart: ‘I am not here; they cannot hurt me. There is something here that I must see’. He lifted his head & saw a white horse leap the wall & stride towards him. On it rode a grey mantled figure: his white hair was streaming, & his cloak flew like wings behind him. As the grey rider bore down upon him he strove to see his face. the light grew in thee sky, & suddenly there was a noise of thunder.

where the 'psychic' link between Frodo & Gandalf is spelled out. It seems like Gandalf was going to end up trapped in a tower one way or the other! This dream seems almost like a case of 'astral projection' in that Frodo is experiencing actual events, somehow present as an observer. The way Tolkien turns this into the symbolic dream which we end up with, retaining the basic elements of the original gives us a fascinating insight into how the creative process works.

One thing I'd like to bring up here is Sam's feelings as he crossed the river:

Sam was the only member of the party who had not been over the river before. He had a strange feeling as the slow gurgling stream slipped by: his old life lay behind in the mists, dark adventure lay in front.

The reason this interests me is, while it may simply be Tolkien's way of communicating Sam's emotional state, there is something in Unfinished Tales (The Hunt for the Ring) which is a bit puzzling:

My father nowhere explained the Ringwraiths’ fear of water....Thus of the rider (who was in fact Khamul of Dol Guldur*) seen on the far side of Bucklebury Ferry just after the hobbits had crossed it is said that ‘ he was well aware that the Ring had crossed the river; but the river was a barrier to his sense of movement’, & that the Nazgul would not touch the ‘elvish’ waters of Baranduin**.

*From notes recounting in detail the movements of the black Riders in the Shire it emerges that it was Khamul who came to Hobbiton & spoke to Gaffer Gamgee, who followed the hobbits along the road to stock, & who narrowly missed them at Bucklebury Ferry. The Rider who accompanied him, whom he summoned by cries on the ridge above Woodhall, & with whom he visited Farmer Maggot, was ‘his companion from Dol Guldur’. Of Khamul it is said here that he was the most ready of all the Nazgul, after the Black Captain himself, to percievethe presence of the Ring, but also the one whose power was most confused & diminished by daylight.

**[At the Ford of Bruinen only the Witch King & two others, with the lure of the Ring straight before them, had dared to enter the river; the others were driven into it by Glorfindel & Aragorn.

Now its not so much the fear of water (& the interesting fact that we now at least know who it was that spoke to the Gaffer, & Farmer Maggot) that I'm getting at, but the reference to the waters of the Brandywine being 'Elvish'. Why? The Baranduin flows out of Lake Evendim, in Arthedain, where the Numeorean city of Annuminas was founded, but have I missed some Elvish connection - Saruman does tell the Lord of the Nazgul that the Shire is situated 'on the borders of the seaward elvish country', but would that be enough to make the Brandywine an 'elvish river'?

Is there something in the elvishness of the waters that affects Sam's perception? Frodo has dreamt of 'crossing the river' - the Brandywine or the Anduin isn't specified, but there is definitely a timeless symbolism in crossing a river.

In short, why is the Brandywine 'elvish'?