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

[Boromir88]

It was more prevalent in Three is Company, but you also see in this chapter the idea of trees providing shelter and protection. Trees provide cover for the hobbits when hiding from the Nazgul. Provided a place for Frodo to sleep:

In the morning Frodo woke refreshed. He was lying in a bower made by a living tree with branches laced and drooping to the ground; his bed was of fern and grass, deep and soft and strangely fragrant...~A Short cut to Mushrooms

Before long the wood came to a sudden end...

At first they felt afraid, away from the shelter of the wood...

The protective nature of the trees in chapters 3 and 4 are interesting once we get to the encounter of "when trees go bad" with Old Man Willow.

This is a rather fun and necessary chapter too. I think critics consider this to be slow-moving, here we are 100 pages in to the story and Frodo's still in the Shire! However, Sauron's most dangerous servants have penetrated the Shire and remain as an almost constant threat. They just missed Frodo at Bag End, and they just missed him at Maggot's. I believe it's Ursula K. LeGuin who commented about the Lord of the Rings being like a roller coaster. You have moments of high suspense, intensity and action, but you also need the moments of respite and relaxation. You need parts likes Maggot's farm in the story, where it's important for the characters (and readers) to have a respite from danger and doom.

I also agree with Lommy about the "wail" of the Nazgul...the brief description is unsettling and scary. "cry of some evil and lonely creature," it's a statement about evil also being lonely. There are 9 Nazgul, bound together, but they aren't bound together in an oath of friendship, it's an oath to an object. They are bound together by the Ring. In contrast you have Sam who makes an oath to follow Frodo wherever he may go. And while the Fellowship makes no sworn oath, it is in friendship that binds good together.