LotR -- Book 1 - Chapter 08 - Fog on the Barrow-Downs

[HerenIstarion]

‘Fog on the BD’ is the part of the book discussion of which I would not have missed for worlds (Even though nobody is likely to come up at my place and offer me worlds just to keep me out of it anyway, ).

I won’t take much of your time, since I do not intend to go through whole of the chapter, still more there are people around better qualified for a feat.

Yet some parts of it I can not let go unattended to. The verses (you may have noted my crash on Tolkien’s poetry before that, heh) are of extreme importance here, as well as throughout the whole bulk of the text, and, as is Tolkien’s brandmark, the importance is well hidden – the verses roll by without catching one’s attention on the first read, and it requires some turning back an reflecting upon to catch up on what’s really going on and what is it all about. I believe you won’t be bothered overmuch, since I’m not going to give you metric analyses or something, just textual one...

So far with preliminaries, let us turn to the matter at hand now.

There are seven versified occurrences in the chapter. Whether that has any significance, I can not tell, but with Tolkien one is always in doubt, so much of meaning the man puts into his words. Therefore, let us just say [as unconfirmed, but probably meaningful fact] that there are seven poems in the Chapter.

First to occur is the incantation the Wight chants over hobbits:

Cold be hand and heart and bone,
and cold be sleep under stone:
never mare to wake on stony bed,
never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead.
In the black wind the stars shall die,
and still on gold here let them lie,
till the dark lord lifts his hand
over dead sea and withered land

As in the previous chapter, it seems to me that all occurrences of incantations of the kind hint at ‘historical background’ of the LoTR in general, refer to Silmarillion, and to Christianity. Bear with me a bit to learn why.

I believe the whole cycle of poems in the chapter repeats on the minor scale the creative Music of the Valar. For, as the world was ‘sung’ into being with words, so words remain the medium of power, and require music to empower them some more. (That applies to all ‘songs of power’ – to the Wight, and to Bombadil likewise) Exact wording does not matter, but the concepts they deal with is what counts:

till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead.
In the black wind the stars shall die

This incantation is very much like to the ‘song-contest’ which takes place between Sauron and Felagund in the FA. Just compare:

[Sauron] He chanted a song of wizardry,
Of piercing, opening, of treachery,
Revealing, uncovering, betraying.

and more directly related:

The wind wails,
The wolf howls. The ravens flee.

Felagund answers with:

[Felagund]Sang in a song of staying,
Resisting, battling against power,
Of secrets kept, strength like a tower,
And trust unbroken, freedom, escape;

The concepts employed are alike, but in LoTR, the operation is more direct, i.e., there is no application of concepts as concepts (staying, resisting), but more specific of ‘none has ever caught him’ (= resisting), ‘he’s the master’, which may be ultimately drawn to ‘staying’ (after all, Tom always stays inside his boundaries!) etc... Taka a glance:

Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow,
Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow.
None has ever caught him yet, for Tom, he is the master:
His songs are stronger songs, and his feet are faster

Probable hint at ‘who is Tom Bombadil’ may be found in the incantation he teaches hobbits to entreat him to their aid:

Ho! Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo!
By water, wood and hill, by the reed and willow,
By fire, sun and moon, harken now and hear us!
Come, Tom Bombadil, for our need is near us!

Hobbits must implore to nature elements to summon him. May it be he is nature spirit? (though yours truly leans over to the ‘ëalar theory’, or all of the mixed up). Interesting too is that three out of four are mentioned: earth, water, fire, but not air. Why, one should ask? In addition to this one may reflect upon the following:

I am no weather-master

(by the end of the previous chapter)

So, Tom controls water, earth and fire inside his boundaries, but not air. That’s why Bombadil may not be Manwe (as I’ve heard some say. But merely earth spirit is not enough – what about water and fire, than? But, er, well, before I go too far along the road of Tom’s origin, let me refer you to burra’s excellent Derry Dol, Indeed thread and come back to my poetry business.

Let me say that all of the above was a prologue. The most imortant (one of the two) of the verses of the chapter is the incantation Tom chants to drive the Wight away:

Get out, you old Wight! Vanish in the sunlight!
Shrivel like the cold mist, like the winds go wailing,
Out into the barren lands far beyond the mountains!
Come never here again! Leave your barrow empty!
Lost and forgotten be, darker than the darkness,
Where gates stand for ever shut, till the world is mended.

Emphasis mine. What does it say to my ear, is that:

1. There are some gates that are shut (reference to Morgoth thrown out, I believe)
2. One day the world will change (reference to Arda Remade)

Ultimately, both statements also refer to Christian Myth, but refer to it as it is to happen in the future of ME, not as if it has already took place.

Another of importance is the incantation to bring hobbits back to life:

Wake now my merry tads! Wake and hear me calling!
Warm now be heart and limb! The cold stone is fallen;
Dark door is standing wid; dead hand is broken.
Night under Night is flown, and the Gate is open!

I wished to add emphases to selected symbols, but could not decide which to choose, as the whole poem is entirely set up of Christian symbols. Look for yourselves

The two ending poems are less complicated:

Hey! now! Come hoy now! Whither do you wander?
Up, down, near or far, here, there or yonder?
Sharp-ears, Wise-nose, Swish-tail and Bumpkin,
White-socks my little lad, and old Fatty Lumpkin!

Though one used to Tolkien’s subtleties may imagine (Christian) shepherd symbolism here too. So it may be argued that, alongside being a nature spirit, a bit of a maia (as Gandalf refers to him as to his equal, but that chapter is yet a long way off to bring it here), he is also just another hint at Christ to be found a-plenty throughout the LoTR (Aragorn, Frodo) (and, as Hilde Bracegirdle puts up a theory by the end of previous chapter discussion (post #45), may be a symbol of ‘perfect’ ‘unfallen’ creature too)
The last verse though sets the limit of Tom’s power, once again to remind us he’s not omnipotent (and so he can not be Eru Himself, as I’ve heard another part of mentioned ‘some’ say, but hint at Him):

Tom's country ends here: he will not pass the borders.
Tom has his house to mind, and Goldberry is waiting!

My country ends here too, and I will not pass the borders unless my mind changes

cheers

[davem]

I think that this chapter marks a transition, a crossing over from one world to another. We have so far been in the ‘Pagan’/Faerie tale world, the world of good & bad, where good is what benefits us, what is pleasant, & bad is what harms or threatens us. With this chapter we leave that world & enter the world of ‘Christian’ epic, the world of ‘Good’ & ‘Evil’, where the Good can require us to suffer & sacrifice ourselves, & Evil can be the easy, pleasant option - at least seemingly so at first.

And the transition seems to take place within the earth itself. Frodo goes through a death & rebirth initiation within the barrow. There is evidence that barrows & tumuli were used in this way - New Grange in Ireland was used as a place of religious gathering at dawn in mid summer, when the sun would shine through the entrance & illuminate the inside of the mound.

Frodo faces the ‘Guardian’ of the mound, in the darkness, faces his own fear & desire to escape, overcomes it, & then calls on the other, higher, Guardian for aid. The Guardian comes & liberates him. He is taken from within the earth, born again into a new world. He is one of the ‘twice born’, an initiate.

But the world he has been reborn into is not the world he had known. Even Tom, Jolly Tom, shows a different face:

There he stood, with his hat in his hand & the wind in his hair, & looked down upon the three hobbits, that had been laid on their backs upon the grass at the west(!) side of the mound. Raising his right hand he said in a clear & commanding voice:
Wake now my merry lads! Wake & hear me calling!
Warm now be heart & limb! The cold stone is fallen;
Dark door is standing wide; dead hand is broken.
Night under Night is flown, & the Gate is open!

It doesn’t require an intimate knowledge of Christian symbolism to see this figure, standing with his right hand raised, commanding the sleeping hobbits to awake, as a ‘Christ’ figure - or perhaps a ‘Merlin’ figure - as he then shows the hobbits a vision of the King to come.

Now the fairy story world will be left behind & a more ancient, a greater world will open up before them. this seems to be foreshadowed in Frodo’s ‘dream’ - yet is it a ‘dream’?

That night he heard no noises. But either in his dreams or out of them, he could not tell which , Frodo heard a sweet singing running through his mind: a song that seemed to come like a pale light behind a grey rain-curtain, & growing stronger to turn the veil all to glass & silver, until at last it was rolled back, & a far green country opened before him under a swift sunrise.

Now what’s interesting is that what happens is that Frodo, whether dreaming or not, only hears a ‘sweet singing’: the visions are his own creation, inspired by the song. He ‘dreams’ the music, & interprets it, gives it form. This is too much like the Ainulindale for coincidence. Like his last two dreams, of the elf-tower, & of Gandalf at Orthanc, this ‘dream’ is both an omen & a reflection of his psychological & spiritual state. And as the dreams move from psychological (looking down on a dark forest, hearing sniffling, then seeing the elf tower & hearing the sea - a confused mish mash of hopes/fears/desires grown out of his own confused mental state at eh time of dreaming), to ‘psychic’ (perceiving an actual event - though one that took place some days earlier in real time) to ‘spiritual’ vision, so the actual dangers he faces intensify:

The wight is a dark presence out of a dream lost on waking, a vague, ominous , faceless memory on the edge of awareness, sensation without shape or substance. Deeper, darker sleep than that sent by Willow Man, a sleep bordering on true unconsciousness, is the central concept in this far more frightening sequence, & here, as in the Old Forest, dreaming & waking are interwoven. (Flieger: A Question of Time.

his last dream confirms to him & to us that Frodo is not an ordinary hobbit, & his quest is not an ordinary quest. This dream confirms his coming rebirth. It is a confirmation to him (& to us) that he has a great task before him. He will pass through darkness, be ‘swallowed’ up, like Jonah (& Christ) & be reborn to perform his great task. The womb/tomb symbolism is blatant. He will pass through death to new life.

This episode - Old Forest-House of TB-Barrow Downs - is so similar to what happens to Smith in SoWM. We can see an echo of the King & Queen of Faery in Tom & Goldberry, & a twisted reflection of Smith’s star, which allows passage into Faerie, with the One Ring, which does the same for Frodo. Both are allowed to pass into the Otherworld - or perhaps we should say are ‘drawn into’ it. Yet Frodo’s task is to ‘save’ the otherworld he enters from an evil which would destroy it, while Smith simply wanders there, at times welcome, at other times unwelcome, but never seen as its saviour - indeed it seems the purpose behind the giving of the star is to save the inhabitants of this world from becoming lost in materialism.

Ironically, though, in the very act of ‘saving’ the Otherworld he is summoned into, Frodo brings about its destruction, for if he succeeds in his task he will destroy the magic that holds it in being, & it will pass from a self contained mythic world to the world we know, the world of history, of science - ultimately of materialism. Yet Smith seems to imply that the fairy world will not be entirely swept away, & that its inhabitants will remain.

Is Tolkien contradicting himself? LotR is about the loss of magic, the passing away of legends & the coming of history, while Smith seems to say it never went away at all, & that we still need it, & that it is constantly attempting to communicate with us. Or perhaps the magic went away for Tolkien himself after completing LotR - he never seemed to be able to properly return to Middle earth again - his stories after LotR are half hearted, unfinished (unfinishable?) attempts to get back there, culminating in a failed attempt to ‘rationalise’ the legends, to make them scientifically ‘valid’. Perhaps its simply the case that once he’d cast the Ring into the fire & watched the Last Ship pass into the West, taking the magic with it, he couldn’t ever really get it back. So, Smith is a story of hope - Tolkien’s own hope that. like Smith, even though he himself had renounced the magic star, his passport to faery, that star was not lost, & had been passed onto another.

So we have Frodo, passing through ‘death’ in the heart of the earth, awakening & leaving the fairytale world behind for the ‘Christian’ world of high deeds & true sacrifice, & finding that ‘there is no real going back’ once the magic has been given up - given up by him so that others may keep it. And we have Smith doing the same thing. Here in this chapter we see Frodo first giving up the magic, in favour of something ‘greater’ - whether he realises it at the time is another question. In his ‘dream’ he is shown his own renunciation, what it entails, & what lies beyond it. I wonder if Tolkien himself ever had a dream like that.

[Boromir88]

I've fallen behind in some readings, getting too busy here, but here's a quote I would like to say to see if it has any significance in this chapter. As it states in Appendix A...

Eriador, Arnor, and the heirs of Isildur
North Kingdom of the Dunedain
...Those hills (Tyrn Gorthad/Barrowdowns) were therefore revered by the Dunedain after their return; and there many of their lords and kings were buried. (Some say that the mound in which hte Ring-bearer was imprisoned had been the grave of the last prince of Cardolan, who fell in the war of 1409).

Whether this was the last prince of Cardolan, who knows, it only stated "it was said." I will have to read through this chapter to see if it has any significance with events that take place in the barrowdowns, and I'm pretty sure somewhere it was said the Witch-King had "commanded" the barrow-wright to take Frodo, this I'm not sure about and I'll have to do some looking for.

[Aiwendil]

This is the final chapter in the Tom Bombadil trilogy. The first was an adventure chapter, ending with the rescue of the Hobbits by Bombadil. The second was a safe-place chapter. The third is again an adventure chapter and again it ends with a rescue by Bombadil. This little Bombadil cycle, then, is both symmetrical and cyclic - rather like the seasons. But within the cycle, there is also a linear development. In the first adventure chapter, the threat came from trees; in this one, it comes from supernatural beings. This alteration in the quality of the danger is exactly what is needed to keep the reader enthralled and move the story along - imagine how much weaker it would be if the Barrow-downs were in chapter 6 and the Old Forest in chapter 8.

There is also a linear development in Frodo's heroism. Though both times, they are saved by Bombadil, Frodo plays a much more important part in the Barrow-wight episode. Moments of heroism for Frodo like this are all the more important because they more or less disappear by books IV and VI (and this is largely why Jackson's Frodo comes across so weakly, I think).

Heren Istarion wrote:

I believe the whole cycle of poems in the chapter repeats on the minor scale the creative Music of the Valar. For, as the world was ‘sung’ into being with words, so words remain the medium of power, and require music to empower them some more.

And of course Bombadil is always singing - even when his lines are not written out as verse, they are metrical, as though he is chanting poetry. Does this represent the Ainulindale living on in him, as though he embodies it? That would make sense with the earth spirit interpretation. I wrestled with this point a bit in the last chapter, for the Ainulindale is Art if anything is, whereas I had theorized that Tom was supremely Artless. I'm still bothered by this, but I don't see any point in going on about it.

Interesting too is that three out of four are mentioned: earth, water, fire, but not air.

Interestingly, it's hard to think of any place in the Legendarium where the four elements are mutually opposed, whereas the opposition of three elements comes up quite frequently. One would be tempted to say that in Arda there are only three fundamental elements rather than the Greek four (or five) - except that there would be disagreement as to what those three were. The fate of the Silmarils is that one is in water, one in the earth, and one in the air. The three Elven-rings represent water, fire, and air. Then we have Bombadil's earth, water, and fire. The only case I can think of where there are four opposed elements is with the greatest of the Valar - Melkor is fire, Manwe air, Ulmo water, Aule earth.

1. There are some gates that are shut (reference to Morgoth thrown out, I believe)
2. One day the world will change (reference to Arda Remade)

Good observation - but I think that the more relevant gates for the Barrow-wight are the gates of Mandos.

Davem wrote:

Or perhaps the magic went away for Tolkien himself after completing LotR - he never seemed to be able to properly return to Middle earth again - his stories after LotR are half hearted, unfinished (unfinishable?) attempts to get back there, culminating in a failed attempt to ‘rationalise’ the legends, to make them scientifically ‘valid’.

I've simply got to disagree here. Well, I agree with the last point - I think that all the Myths Transformed business of the round-earth cosmology was misguided. But I think that many of his greatest writings date from the 1950s or 1960s - the Narn, "The Wanderings of Hurin", the "Athrabeth", and "Aldarion and Erendis", not to mention the revisions of the "Lay of Leithien", the Annals, and much of the Quenta Silmarillion.

Of course, that's all well beside the point of the discussion. But I don't think that we ought to think of the loss of magic or the long defeat in LotR as anything personal or in any way autobiographical. Tolkien's writing and sub-creation did not end or lose its vigor with the end of The Lord of the Rings. Indeed, it's not so much LotR that disagrees with Smith as it is Smith that disagrees with LotR. For the idea of the long defeat was well established in the Legendarium well before LotR - in fact it sees its ultimate expression in the very earliest writings, "The Book of Lost Tales"; next to the projected ending of that work, the endings of the Quenta Silmarillion and of LotR look positively jolly. And of course Smith was written after LotR.

Nonetheless, I think you're quite right here:

So we have Frodo, passing through ‘death’ in the heart of the earth, awakening & leaving the fairytale world behind for the ‘Christian’ world of high deeds & true sacrifice, & finding that ‘there is no real going back’ once the magic has been given up

That's a simplification, but it's a good simplification. Of course, the fairytale world is not completely left behind, nor was the Christian world completely absent prior to this point. Indeed, it is vital to LotR that those two worlds are in fact unified; the fairy-tale stuff of the Old Forest and the Theological element of Eru's grace and the destruction of the Ring are in fact both part of a single self-consistent world. But in terms of the narrative, you are certainly right - there is a change, albeit a subtle one, from fairy-tale ethic to Christian ethic, from "good and bad" to "Good and Evil" (nothing like using Nietzche's own terminology against him!)

[davem]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

I've simply got to disagree here. Well, I agree with the last point - I think that all the Myths Transformed business of the round-earth cosmology was misguided. But I think that many of his greatest writings date from the 1950s or 1960s - the Narn, "The Wanderings of Hurin", the "Athrabeth", and "Aldarion and Erendis", not to mention the revisions of the "Lay of Leithien", the Annals, and much of the Quenta Silmarillion.

I can half agree with you, but all those writings remained unfinished, or they became theological tracts (Athrabeth), or they simply repeated or were re writings of already existing things. Also, given the free time he had post LotR, & especially after his retirement, we have to ask why he didn't complete the Sil, or anything else. Of course, this is not the place to discuss this, but I'd refer anyone interested in the idea that Tolkien did effectively 'renounce' the magic after completing LotR to Christine Chism's essay Middle-earth, the Middle Ages, & the Aryan Nation: Myth & history in World War II, in Tolkien the Medievalist.

LotR is a work of renunciation & loss- willing & unwilling, & I think we almost see Tolkien's own renunciation in the post LotR period, culminating in Smith - his 'old man's book'. Tolkien spent his last years repeating & reiterating what he'd already done, because I think he felt he'd said everything of real value in LotR. I'm not saying that he didn't produce works of incredibly beauty, but if there is a 'sequel' to LotR, its Smith, & nothing he produced in the post LotR period is really new or original apart from that.

I do agree that 'This is the final chapter in the Tom Bombadil trilogy.' In fact these three chapters could almost stand alone as a novella, if we excised the Ring. It would stand as a hobbit adventure story, a perfect sequel to the Hobbit. The four friends set off on a journey, go through the forest, meet Tom, encounter the barrow Wight, are rescued & return home. So it can stand alone - actually, Brian Sibley, who dramatised the BBC Radio version of LotR, having missed out this section from the original dramatisation, later went back & dramaitsed it seperately, as The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, & it works as a stand alone drama. But while it can stand alone, without the rest of LotR, I don't think LotR, as Aiwendil says, works without it.

So there, as usual, we agree on somethings but disagree on others

[Mithalwen]

This is not going to be very learned but I think that the Tom Bombadil bit is my least favourite part of LOTR ... the bit I would most happily chop ... maybe it is because I thought Old Man Willow and Barrow Wights were so scary when I first tried to read LOTR as a child .... it was the point where it became a whole different world to the Hobbit... but even now I don't feel he belongs .... and I find him irritating..... maybe it is the waterlily picking.... or the sub- "There was a lover and his lass" poetry....

[Aiwendil]

I can half agree with you, but all those writings remained unfinished, or they became theological tracts (Athrabeth), or they simply repeated or were re writings of already existing things.

But the tendency toward revision and leaving things unfinished is true of all the Silmarillion material, pre-LotR as well as post-LotR. And "Wanderings" and "Aldarion and Erendis" were wholly new, while the Narn and the revisions introduced a lot of new material. You're right, of course, that this isn't the place to discuss this in any depth, but it does have some bearing on your point about the loss of magic.

Mithalwen wrote:

or the sub- "There was a lover and his lass" poetry....

You do actually bring up an interesting point, and one that has some bearing on the Art vs. Nature conondrum. That is, though Tom is always speaking in verse and lapses into outright song very frequently, none of his poetry is particularly good. And I say this as someone who likes Tom Bombadil. When he rhymes, the rhymes are often forced (whatever would he do if he didn't have yellow boots?) and the meter is often uneven. Even the Hobbits are better poets than he - let alone "Earendil was a Mariner", Frodo's lament for Gandalf, or Sam's song in Cirith Ungol; I'd even take the Bath Song over Tom's stuff for sheer poetic value. So in the sense that he's constantly singing, Tom does seem tied to Art; but his Art is completely uncontrived - he doesn't even take the time to contrive it that the songs he sings are good songs; he simply sings without thought of artistic value. So perhaps he is one with Arda, and his songs do not represent any actual artistry or sub-creation on his part; they are simply part of him because he is part of Arda, and because Arda is the embodiment of the Ainulindale. He is not an Artist; he is Art. And Art does not have Artistry.

[Lalwendë]

I think one of the reasons I like this chapter so much is that it contains so much archaeological detail. Firstly, the landscape of the Barrow Downs is recognisable as that of the downs of southern England, an area rich in pre-history. To the south west of Oxford are the Lambourn Downs, where can be found the Seven Barrows. In addition, there is the Vale of White Horse, and nearby, Waylands Smithy, another barrow which tapers down to very small proportions at one end and has an entrance very like the barrow in which Frodo is trapped. In Cornwall there are mysterious barrow-like constructions called Fougous, which some archaeologists say were used as grain storage, and some say were used as places where people could go into trance and contact the dead. This makes me think of the hobbits lying in a state of trance, trapped in the barrow.

Tolkien, in addition to his impressive knowledge of languages and folklore, clearly knew much of archaeology and pre-history. The hill on which the hobbits take their lunch is like a henge (very like Arbor Low in Derbyshire), and there appear to be both longbarrows and roundbarrows, as in the Salisbury Plain landscape. Later in the book we also see the Rohirrim making use of burial mounds or barrows, which is also interesting.

Does Tom Bombadil end up acting as a grave-robber/archaeologist after his rescue of the hobbits? He causes the barrow to partially collapse, and he removes the treasures. Not only that, but he leaves treasures open to the air on top of the barrow. This itself has a link to pre-history as one form of burial was to leave bodies on hillsides so that animals may eat the remains - thus sending the spirit of the deceased back to 'earth'.

The other reasons I like this chapter include the language, which is wonderful, including this:

Frodo heard a sweet singing running in his mind; a song that seemed to come like a pale light behind a grey rain-curtain, and growing stronger to turn the veil all to glass and silver, until at last it was rolled back, and a far green country opened before him under a swift sunrise.

Finally, from the first moment I ever read this chapter, I have found it eerie and chilling. I am in a way glad it was cut from the film as I don't think I would have liked a film interpretation to interfere with what is an enduring nightmare for me. A nightmare I rather like, though.