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

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Tolkien also mentions the Maggot family in one of his other works - the poem "Tom Goes Boating", in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. Maggot approaches Tom with his pony cart and they greet each other with the humorous contempt that only good friends can express. Tom calls Maggot "Muddy-feet", which sounds very similar to "Puddifoot". Besides reading that the two of them sat up long exchanging news of the area and the wide world, we also find that the daughters danced the Springle-ring - as far as I know, the only time aside from Bilbo's Birthday Party where that dance is mentioned.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

Besides reading that the two of them sat up long exchanging news of the area and the wide world, we also find that the daughters danced the Springle-ring - as far as I know, the only time aside from Bilbo's Birthday Party where that dance is mentioned.

The recent book Ring of Words has an entry for 'Springle-ring'. It states that the Oxford English Dictionary has no entry for Springle-ring, but it does mention an 18-19th century word 'springle' meaning ' a young man, youth or stripling'. They mention it could be a learned joke as 'springle/springald' has a meaning similar to 'halfling' - which is a Northern English/Scots word meaning 'one not fully grown; about the age of 15.'

[Thinlómien]

Fourteen, you say? Frodo, Sam & Pippin + Mr & Mrs Maggot + three daughters + two sons + one farmhand + three dogs. Makes sense, doesn't it?

A bit more seriously though, I always liked this chapter as well. While other posters on this thread have mainly considered it a humorous chapter, I must say I think it is partly one of the scariest in the book.

I mean, look at these quotes:

Ho! Ho! Ho! they began again louder. They stopped short suddenly. Frodo sprang to his feet. A long-drawn wail came down the wind, like the cry of some evil and lonely creature. It rose and fell, and ended on a high piercing note. Even as they sat and stood, as if suddenly frozen, it was answered by another cry, fainter and further off, but no less chilling to the blood. There was then a silence, broken only by the sound of the wind in the leaves.

"It was not bird or beast," said Frodo. "It was a call, or a signal - there were words in that cry, though I could not catch them. But no hobbit has such a voice."

Every time I read them, they just make a chill run down my spine. They must be among the creepiest passages in the whole book.

Also, the episode of Merry The Black Rider is very scary. I remember when my father read LotR aloud to me and my little sister when we were about 6 and 4 years old and that passage was simply horror. I was sure the Black Riders had finally found them and I was so relieved when it turned out that the rider was Merry. The passage is very impressive - especially as when something is read aloud to you, you can't even accidentally see the next phrases that reveal the truth.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

Fourteen, you say? Frodo, Sam & Pippin + Mr & Mrs Maggot + three daughters + two sons + one farmhand + three dogs. Makes sense, doesn't it?

No, it doesn't. Unless there were six dogs (or five, for that matter). Skipping the eventually discutable thing about dogs sitting down to eat, there are other things the dogs are doing by the time others sit:

In a short while fourteen sat down to eat. (...) The dogs lay by the fire and gnawed rinds and cracked bones.

Originally Posted by Lommy

While other posters on this thread have mainly considered it a humorous chapter, I must say I think it is partly one of the scariest in the book.

Originally Posted by Lommy

Also, the episode of Merry The Black Rider is very scary. I remember when my father read LotR aloud to me and my little sister when we were about 6 and 4 years old and that passage was simply [I]horror[/I.

Well, if you were 6 by that time, no wonder you considered it a horror and the chapter remained in your memory as that. I don't recall what feeling I had about this one, but I think the relief came probably too early for the mysterious rider to make any stronger impression on me. And concerning the other things, I never felt it scary - like I said about the previous chapter, the hobbits were still in the Shire, the Riders were something riding here and there in the woods and I did not know what deadly thing they actually are. Weathertop, now that was horror! But about that later, in due time.

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

No, it doesn't. Unless there were six dogs (or five, for that matter). Skipping the eventually discutable thing about dogs sitting down to eat, there are other things the dogs are doing by the time others sit:

Touché, you're right. But maybe the dogs first sat down and then went to lay by the fireplace...?

Originally Posted by Legate

And concerning the other things, I never felt it scary - like I said about the previous chapter, the hobbits were still in the Shire, the Riders were something riding here and there in the woods and I did not know what deadly thing they actually are. Weathertop, now that was horror! But about that later, in due time.

This is actually quite interesting. Because in my opinion, the Riders are very scary in the beginning, when we know absolutely nothing of them. The things Strider tells of them later & what they do at Weathertop make them really scary, yes, but not necessarily much scarier than they were in the beginning. And - this has been discussed elsewhere at great length - they become 90% less scary when they reappear in TT and RotK, riding on winged beasts and commading armies (possibly discounting the WK in Pelennor fields).

I don't know, I might have seen the Bakshi movie before being introduced to the books themselves. But early memories of the Bakshi movie might explain something here. I rewatched the Bakshi movie some years ago and while I mostly thought it was ridiculous, the Black Riders in the beginning (before Weathertop) were very creepy - creepy enough to force me to joke about them in order to maintain my calm .

Also, it is weird, but those quotes I posted are much more chill-causing in Finnish. When I looked them up from my English LotR they seemed somewhat... lame. Too ordinary words and phrasings, or something like that. At times the Finnish translation of the LotR succeeds in being more impressive than the original (gasp! ), and I think this is one of the few occasions.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

Touché, you're right. But maybe the dogs first sat down and then went to lay by the fireplace...?

Well, from the phrasing it looks like both the things happened at the same occassion. That's why I said there would have to be more dogs around; and in fact, even that won't help, as it seems all the dogs were lying by the fireplace.

Originally Posted by Lommy

Also, it is weird, but those quotes I posted are much more chill-causing in Finnish. When I looked them up from my English LotR they seemed somewhat... lame. Too ordinary words and phrasings, or something like that. At times the Finnish translation of the LotR succeeds in being more impressive than the original (gasp! ), and I think this is one of the few occasions.

In fact, as I noticed, on the other hand the Czech translation seems to make things sound a lot more "ordinary" than the original. "Good breakfast, Pippin, look, someone's calling down there in the woods." - "Hullo, I'm Maggot, we are having a nice autumn don't we; some bagman just visited me asking about Baggins." That describes the feelings pretty well. So, the original seems to lie somewhere in between our opinions - seemingly it's not that creepy, but also not that easeful. Nevertheless, surely one is strongly affected by the way he read it the first time, so the feeling is already deeply rooted inside us.

[Rumil]

Hi all,

who would have though so much would come out of a Short cut to Mushrooms!

I noticed that the landscape plays a part in the fear and unease felt in his chapter. The short cut rapidly leads into thickets and undergrowth and it starts raining. The journey turns arduous and frustrating (to say nothing of the regret at missing the 'Golden Perch'). At the same time the Hobbits are (though we don't fully realise it on first read) being hunted down by the Nazgul and in serious danger of thir lives. Of course the same landscape effect is more apparent later on in the Old Forest, Trollshaws and of course Mordor amongst others. The river-mist is another device that ceratinly heightens tension.

On minor points, it seems that the elves use bent living branches to make sleeping bowers. This is exactly the same technique that chimpanzees use!

When I first read this chapter I remember being confused as to whether Farmer Maggot was a Hobbit or one of the Big Folk for some reason. Perhaps its just difficult imagining hobbit-sized farming, surely it would be difficult for them to handle much of the livestock? I'm thinking bulls here but also pigs which can grow very big and aggressive, though we know there was bacon! Did the hobbits breed especially small varieties of animal perhaps, whereas our farmers have gnerally bred for bigger individuals. This can be effective, for example the miniature Shetland ponies etc. I guess the dogs were a reasonable size in order to terrify young Frodo so!

Note that Maggot highlights an increase in the number of 'outsiders' coming north up the Brandywine, again refugees or Saruman's spies? Also, regardless of their localism (partly in jest maybe), the Maggotses seem some of the most cosmopolitan Hobbits, Maggot knows Tom of course and has to be warned by his Mrs to avoid arguing with foreigners!

On the mushrooms themselves, I hope they were of a wide variety of species It's uncommon now in Britain, but on the continent many different types of wild mushroom species are gathered for food, and very delicious many of them are! I believe in rural France you can take them to the local pharmacist for identification in case you get mixed up with poisonous species.