LotR -- Book 1 - Chapter 04 – A Short Cut to Mushrooms

[Estelyn Telcontar]

This chapter begins and ends with brief refuges from the danger of the Black Riders – from the Elven camp to Farmer Maggot’s house. In both cases, there were narrow escapes.

Sam has taken a big step in his growth through the conversation with the Elves. Not only was his task made clear to him, he sees farther than before, both in his opinion on the Elves (‘They seem a bit above my likes and dislikes…’ ) and in his vision of the goal of their journey. The latter is a foresight – very unusual for Sam. (‘I seem to see ahead… I have something to do before the end… I must see it through…’ )

Pippin has an important function as a guide and as an introduction to Farmer Maggot. Other than that, he brings a touch of light-heartedness to the conversations.

Frodo sets his will to the journey ahead (‘…we have got to try and get there; and it won’t be done by sitting and thinking.’ )

And Tolkien does a suspenseful bit of writing with the cloaked rider who seems dangerous and turns out to be a friend.

I look forward to seeing where the discussion of this chapter takes us!

[Kuruharan]

In this chapter, Frodo first verbalizes the impulse that he ultimately acts upon at the end of the book; that is his desire to not take his friends into danger. Of course, at this time he did not know that Merry and Pippin were planning to go with him. Still, he had a mental rejection of that idea.

At this time, Frodo and Sam continued their little understanding that Frodo thought others did not know about. However, at the end of the book, when Frodo has a better understanding of the evil of the Ring, he is more than willing to leave Sam behind as well.

Frodo does not want to bring others into danger because of what he must do.

[Bêthberry]

Well, I for one would be very happy to have neighbours such as Farmer and Mrs. Maggot. Their hospitality, nay, even more, their courage and active support, says much positive to me about The Shire.

There, for those of you who have felt I have been too hard on the hobbits, lies my admiration for them.

In a chapter which brings us another very strong experience of the threat these Black Riders bring, we also have one of the finest examples of the worth of the community in The Shire. These people and their decency and their community are what Frodo will be fighting to save.

[Aiwendil]

This chapter is very similar in both form and content to the previous one.

Form - the first part consists of a journey, with two appearances of the Black Riders (well, one actual appearance plus the screech) to develop tension. The second part is a "safe-place" scene where the Hobbits rest and are fed. Notice that, just as with the scene with Gildor, the Farmer Maggot scene begins with the threat of danger - though here it is only Frodo's imagined fear of Maggot's dogs.

Content - as with the previous chapter, we are still in the Shire and the goal is to reach the house at Crickhollow. Also, in functional terms, both chapters have the basic task of slowly building up suspense via the Black Riders. We have so far had one overheard conversation with a Black rider, three actual visual encounters, one screech, one reported conversation, and one trick encounter (with Merry). It is no easy thing to do what Tolkien is doing. On the one hand, you want to delay the actual confrontation with the Black Riders as long as possible, for that is how you increase the suspense. On the other hand, if the Black Riders don't make enough appearances, the reader will not be reminded of their threat. So every little incident is worthwhile - even the trick at the end of the chapter with Merry serves to remind us of the danger.

Incidentally, cutting across by Maggot's fields is, by my count, the first of three shortcuts that the Hobbits will take on their way to Rivendell (the others being through the Old Forest and across the Midgewater Marshes). The first was rather a success; they evaded the Black Riders and met up with Maggot. It's interesting to compare this with the other two.

[davem]

I have to advise anyone who can to read the early drafts of this chapter to see Tolkien's achievement here in context. In short, the early drafts are among the worst things he ever set down on paper, & he got stuck for 6 months at the end of it. Farmer Maggot as a complete psychopath, an interminable dialogue between the hobbits on the disadvantages of living in a two storey house (what if you found you had left your handkerchief upstairs & had to go all the way up there to get it, etc, etc). The final descent into farce - an invisible Bingo wandering round Maggot's parlour, drinking his beer & running off with hat - is truly awful, & one can only dread where the story might have ended up if Tolkien's writers block hadn't intervened to save us.

Comparing that to what we have brings home Tolkien's skill as an artist. The final version is perfect, as has been pointed out so well. One thing did strike me, though, & that's Sam's attitude to Elves on the one hand & to Bucklanders on the other. The elves he is in awe of, even though they are strangers, & one would expect him to be at least suspicious of them. The Bucklanders, on the other hand, he is suspicious of. What's Tolkien saying here about the nature of predudice?

[Hilde Bracegirdle]

Where does one find these early drafts?

[Carorëiel]

I'm reading Fellowship now for the fifth or sixth time, and every time I'm struck by different things as I go along. In this read of "A Short Cut to Mushrooms," two things stood out that I don't think ever really occurred to me before.

I think the first may tie in with what davem was asking about prejudice:

Originally Posted by davem

One thing did strike me, though, & that's Sam's attitude to Elves on the one hand & to Bucklanders on the other. The elves he is in awe of, even though they are strangers, & one would expect him to be at least suspicious of them. The Bucklanders, on the other hand, he is suspicious of. What's Tolkien saying here about the nature of predudice?

In addition to Sam's acceptance (and awe) of the Elves and suspicion of the Bucklanders, we have the display of the Bucklanders' attitude toward those who live in Hobbiton. Farmer Maggot says, "'You should never have gone mixing yourself up with Hobbiton folk, Mr. Frodo. Folk are queer up there.'" This is, of course, the inverse of what the Gaffer says in "A Long Expected Party" when he's telling the story of how Frodo was orphaned: "'Anyway: there was this Mr. Frodo left an orphan and stranded, as you might say, among those queer Bucklanders.'" This bit with Farmer Maggot had always seemed to be nicely amusing in the same sort of at-home-with-the-hobbits vein as much of the opening chapters, but this time through I got to thinking about just how good Tolkien is at subtly weaving social commentary through the narrative. (This certainly isn't the first time he does it in Fellowship; I just hadn't picked up on this instance of it before.) Of course, everyone is queer to someone else, and no one, really, is queer at all.

The second thing that jumped out at me has to do with Merry's appearance at the end of the chapter and the brief suspicion that he is a Black Rider. My father read LotR to me for the first time when I was very young, so I can't remember not knowing what was going to happen at any particular juncture. I can't remember experiencing this scene for the first time and not knowing that the rider was really Merry and that Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Farmer Maggot were in no danger at that point. So, as I was reading the chapter this time, I tried to imagine reading it for the first time. And what struck me was just how much of a relief it would be to expect the horrible and unknown but get a friend. Of course, this is something Tolkien does so many times throughout LotR (in "The Shadow of the Past," Frodo and Gandalf suspect a spy outside the window, but it turns out to be Sam; in "At the Sign of the Prancing Pony" and "Strider," Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin suspect the ranger of being a potential foe, but he turns out to be a friend and a guide; in "The White Rider," Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas fear they have encountered Saruman, but it turns out to be Gandalf; and so on) that one might even refer to it as a recurring theme. Is there a connection with Tolkien's theory of the eucatastrophe here?