LotR -- Book 1 - Chapter 06 – The Old Forest

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Welcome to the Downs Aldarion, and to the Chapter by Chapter discussion. Don't lurk! Come on in and participate. When do you expect you might be able to post on the most current chapter (currently we're talking about "The Bridge of Khazad-dum in Book Two).

It's an interesting question that you pose. I guess that the general ignorance of the hobbits toward Tom is another indication of their parochial and inward looking nature. What's intriguing about this in light of our discussion of Tom as a nature-spirit, is that the hobbits are all of them deeply in love with "tilled earth" -- they even live in the ground, and are thus very close to the earth and the natural. But they are unaware of Tom: maybe they are close to the earth in terms of cultivation and domestication. They know about "tilled earth" but are blind to the wild or untamed forces of nature represented by Tom?

But then, of course FARMER Maggot knows Tom -- is this why Maggot is such an imposing figure? He is a farmer and a friend of Tom, thus in touch with domesticated nature and wild nature? He has a full view of the natural world.

The more I hear and think about Maggot, the more fascinating a figure he becomes. . .

[Bêthberry]

Hi there Alda and welcome to the discussion side of the Downs. A bit different than chat, eh?

You pose a good question. For myself, I have always assumed that the "Hedge" and the bad blood caused years ago by the fire in the Bonfire Glade was the reason for the hobbits having very little to do with the Old Forest. This might account for their ignorance of Tom. It makes you wonder what he knows of the events of the Bonfire Glade, though, when the hobbits burned down trees and found over territory. (*hears the possibility of an RPG*) It is about the only bit of hobbit history we get which has the possibility of casting them in a less than friendly light.

Maggots feed on dead flesh--a very unsentimental name for the farmer. I think I would agree with Fordim that Farmer Maggot is one of those minor characters who really rewards closer examination.

Please do join in--posing that is, rather than lurking--on the rest of the Chapter by Chapter discussion threads.

[mark12_30]

I'm only up to post 13 in this thread, but before I forget-- there have been many comparisons between Treebeard and Old Man Willow; but to me, Old Man Willow seems much less like an Ent to me, and much more like a Huorn. His "Devouring" of Merry and Pippin is analogous to the Huorns devouring orcs. The Huorns move, but underground, sort of swimming through it; they don't "walk" like Ents do.

Interesting that Merry and Pippin, the Devoured ones, were the ones to go on to Fangorn.

(In contrast to Ted Sandyman, I do believe Sam's friend/cousin/whatever *did* see an Ent, 'walking'....)

OK, back to reading....

Davem wrote:

in the dreamlike air of the Old Forest, which seems to exist in a state between dreaming & waking.

....."Faerie". Yes, you do go on to spell that out... GOod stuff.

Davem also wrote:

And Frodo is the great dreamer, the one who is always half dreaming throughout his early life in the Shire, & who is most at home in the dreamworld of Middle Earth beyond the Shire's borders, who only seems to wake up once he leaves, & feels he is 'falling asleep again' when he returns home.

YES!!! That is the best explaination for that line I have yet found; well said. Thanks for pulling that together.

Frodo, it seems, never truly belongs in 'our' waking world - perhaps, like Galahad, he has been born solely to perform his task of taking the Ring to the Fire, & then departing back to the world of dreams.

More Wow.

[mark12_30]

From my jottings and scribblings:

Early in the chapter, Frodo sings at the trees, but his will fails; His voice starts out strong, then fades, not because he is finished, but because the trees loom over him. This is a contrast to his Bombadil-summoning in the Barrow; there, his voice starts out weak, and ends up ringing out. 'Something' has changed by then.

Northward, and to the left of the path, the lad seemed to be drier and more open, climbing up to slopes where the trees were thinner, and pines and firs replaced the oaks and ashes and other strange and nameless trees of the denser wood.

"Nameless" generally is not a compliment in Tolkien's style. Good things get named, at least by the elves! "Nameless trees" implies to me that they are not nice trees.

The contrast between Sam and Frodo is interesting; Frodo, dreamy and almost 'drownded', must be pulled out of the Withywindle and the Willow-Roots by Sam (later, Frodo pulls Sam out of the Anduin.) Then as they consider Merry & Piipin's plight, Frodo is cautious and hesitant; Sam is 'fierce'. It is Sam who sets the fire, and threatens to gnaw on the tree. While Sam is stamping out the fire, Frodo is running crying 'help, help' and feeling 'desperate: lost and witless'. This is a major contrast to his later temptation and courage in the Barrow.

Goldberry's voice falls silver-- like Nimrodel-- "Her voice as falling silver fell into the shining pool." To me, this is one of the most moving parts of this chapter:

Then another clear voice, as young and as ancient as Spring, like the song of a glad water flowing down into the night from a bright morning in the hills, came falling like silver to meet them:

Now let the song begin! Let us sing together
Of sun, stars, moon and mist, rain and cloudy weather,
Light on the budding leaf, dew on the feather,
Wind on the open hill, bells on the heather,
Reeds by the shady pool, lilies on the water:
Old Tom Bombadil and the River-daughter!

And with that song the Hobbits stood upon the threshold, and a golden light was all about them.

To me the final sentence is evocative because of the song before it and the voice that sang them into the light. What kind of voice must that be! And who writes such songs! It evokes another of my favorite lines, from further forward in the book, Many Meetings: "They spoke... ... of the fair things they had seen in the world together: of Elves, of the stars, of trees, and the gentle fall of the bright year in the woods."

[Estelyn Telcontar]

One of the most interesting things about this chapter is the fact that for once in Tolkien's writing, trees are used as enemies with a negative image. We have the old story of the attacking trees that were burned (now that would certainly be politically incorrect today, wouldn't it?!), the devious malice of the trees in misleading them, and Old Man Willow, who would have killed the Hobbits if left to his own devices. For someone like Tolkien, who had a great love for trees, this is a departure, is it not?

At first, Merry is the strongest of the Hobbits, encouraging the others, finding the way, and showing little fear. However, Sam is the one who rescues them, the only one who doesn't fall asleep from OMW's singing. I wonder why?

I can't help but wonder about the trees' ability to understand human language. It's not just the feeling that becomes oppressing, but when Frodo sings about the failing trees and woods, Merry admonishes him that the trees do not like that. If we assume that the Old Forest trees are a kind of Huorn, and that Elves taught the Ents and trees to speak, I suppose it is possible - though why they should understand Common Speech rather than Entish or Elvish is not entirely clear to me.

During this chapter Tolkien is also skilfully building up the suspense that goes with the Barrow-downs, giving hints of its sinister reputation and making sure the readers know that it is an undesirable place to which the Hobbits do not want to go.

I love the sentence that tells us (without saying the name) that the Hobbits have come to the Withywindle:

...bordered with ancient willows, arched over with willows, blocked with fallen willows, and flecked with thousands of faded willow-leaves.

Very evocative!

Tolkien's descriptive narrative is excellent in this chapter, not only showing us what the Old Forest looks like, but also making us feel the emotions that the Hobbits felt in there.

This is the Hobbits' first dangerous adventure outside of the Shire (and the danger within the Shire was brought in from outside, in the persons of the Black Riders). It shows that the perils do not begin in far-away foreign countries, but right outside their own borders.

One more thing - it's interesting to compare the Fatty of this chapter with the one at the end of the book - not only will his appearance have changed, but his courage will have grown so much that he leads a rebellion against the invasion of the Shire!

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

At the end of the chapter, an open door and light await them, with Goldberry’s welcoming song. I find the last sentence wonderfully evocative:

The last sentence is definitely wonderful, almost otherworldly. One would expect the hobbits in the next moment floating in the stellar space or something

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

One of the most interesting things about this chapter is the fact that for once in Tolkien's writing, trees are used as enemies with a negative image. We have the old story of the attacking trees that were burned (now that would certainly be politically incorrect today, wouldn't it?!), the devious malice of the trees in misleading them, and Old Man Willow, who would have killed the Hobbits if left to his own devices. For someone like Tolkien, who had a great love for trees, this is a departure, is it not?

Definitely. But I think it's this ambiguity Tolkien writes about always, even when he is mentioning the "magical realm", Faërie, he says that it's a world beautiful but dangerous. And if I make a little excourse into the future, Tom is going to tell the Hobbits later about the forest and explain some things about the trees' minds to them. And the Faërie comparision is quite appropriate here I think: the Hobbits, after what Tom tells them, feel like intruders in the place which is alien to them. But that's not, as I said, in the chapter itself, only in the next one (but I believe it still relativises seeing the trees as "evil" - the only "evil one" here who remains is the Old Man Willow).

At first, Merry is the strongest of the Hobbits, encouraging the others, finding the way, and showing little fear. However, Sam is the one who rescues them, the only one who doesn't fall asleep from OMW's singing. I wonder why?

First, Merry is definitely the leader here, at least until the time when the Old Man Willow comes (or, to be precise, when they come to him). But Sam is quite, well, practic still and "mundane" (first thing he does is to look for the ponies), so maybe there is some reason that due to his practical mind he was less vulnerable to such "unnatural" things? He does not even believe Frodo that the tree pushed him into the water. Just a thought, I don't know

I can't help but wonder about the trees' ability to understand human language. It's not just the feeling that becomes oppressing, but when Frodo sings about the failing trees and woods, Merry admonishes him that the trees do not like that. If we assume that the Old Forest trees are a kind of Huorn, and that Elves taught the Ents and trees to speak, I suppose it is possible - though why they should understand Common Speech rather than Entish or Elvish is not entirely clear to me.

I thought about it and now it seems to me that maybe the trees with their long life could, you know, listen to hobbits' language and learn it over the ages? They are their neighbours, after all; and Bombadil uses the language as well, speaking of it; and there were others earlier (some remnants of the Dúnedain from Arnor at one time were hiding in the Old Forest). And maybe, during all the ages, some more daring Hobbit who kept visiting the Old Forest may have talked to some trees, maybe not even realising what he's doing or that it has any actual effect, but the trees listened to him and learned to catch the meaning of some words.

This is the Hobbits' first dangerous adventure outside of the Shire (and the danger within the Shire was brought in from outside, in the persons of the Black Riders). It shows that the perils do not begin in far-away foreign countries, but right outside their own borders.

One thing about Old Man Willow - I find it insteresting that he is in fact the first "otherworldly" creature (apart from the Black Riders) the Hobbits encounter. And since The Hobbit, it's the first creature of this type; and also a new one, unseen before.

One more thing - it's interesting to compare the Fatty of this chapter with the one at the end of the book - not only will his appearance have changed, but his courage will have grown so much that he leads a rebellion against the invasion of the Shire!

Obviously. A reader always notices how the four hobbits' personalities have changed over the time of their adventure (Merry and Pippin being the strongest examples), but Fatty went through at least similar change.

[Rumil]

Evening All,

back again at the readthrough, so much to catch up on but you know my unreliability by now!

So again a chapter which has been very thoroughly discussed above, what to add?

I was impressed by the dream-turning-to-nightmare aspect of the Old Man Willow encounter.

It seemed to him that he could hardly hear the sound of his own shrill voice: it was blown away from him by the willow-wind and drowned in a clamour of leaves, as soon as the words left his mouth. He felt desperate: lost and witless.

This sems to me similar to a nightmare situation where one cannot perform ordinary actions. For example, being rooted to the spot when unspecified monsters are creeping up on you.

Another aspect was the singing of Tom's ''spells'', reminscent (in a small way) of the singing 'magic' in the Silmarillion.

Now for some interesting (?) small details.

First we have the ponies, showing how prepared Merry was for the journey, having likely splashed quite a bit of cash to purchase them on the expectation that Frodo would approve the plan on unmasking of the conspiracy.

Next dragonets! Old Man Willow's roots were described as like dragonets. Therefore the hobbits had a word for young dragons. I certainly can't remember any young dragons appearing in the legendarium, for example Morgoth kept Glaurung at home 'under wraps' until he was sufficiently old to be fit for battle (and then withdrew him again until his armour was hardened). So maybe this is hobbit inventiveness, or just possibly they had heard tales of the Dwarves or Eothoed encountering immature dragons around the Grey Mountains or Withered Heath, tantalising!

Frodo's hatchet- reminded me that the company had set out almost completely unarmed on their adventure, (something commented on in a later chapter). It would be a strange RPG where the characters had but one hatchet and presumably some general-purpose knives!

Tom mentions the 'black alder', perhaps another powerful Old Man Willow-like Huorn-ish adversary?

Yellow cream, honeycomb, white bread and butter: Reminds me of the spread at Beorn's house, therefore are Tom & Goldberry vegetarian? However this certainly implies agriculture, cream and butter mean cows, bread means ploughing, growing and harvesting wheat, Tom was a farmer, just like Maggot. The honey could concievably have been taken from wild bees, I bet Tom knew a few bee-calming ditties.