LotR -- Book 1 - Chapter 09 - At the Sign of the Prancing Pony

[Aiwendil]

This chapter is a splendid one - I think that, at least on a superficial level, it's one of the most enjoyable chapters Book I. That effect, I believe, arises largely from Tolkien's skillful use of various contrasts in this chapter.

First of all, there is an obvious contrast with the preceding chapters. We have emerged from Tom Bombadil's country and back into the main plot. We are back to worrying about things like Black Riders. There is almost a sense of relief on the reader's part - important threads of the plot that have been hanging quite unresolved since chapter 5 are now taken up again.

Another contrast with what has preceded is that whereas all the previous narrative consists mainly of a cycle of journey/adventure/refuge scenes, this chapter does not fit readily into that scheme.

On the surface, it could be considered a refuge, a safe-place. But there are important contrasts within the chapter as well. Despite its ostensible status as a safe haven chapter, the atmosphere here constantly contradicts that interpretation - right from the meeting with Harry the gatekeeper, who says there are "queer folk about", we know that Bree is wholly unlike Bag End, or Woody End, or Maggot's house, or Crickhollow, or Bombadil's house. Tolkien also continues to reap the benefit of his slowly wrought tension with regard to the Black Riders. When we hear that "a dark figure climbed quickly in over the gate and melted into the shadows of the village street" we immediately think we know what it is - it's the same trick, of course, that he used with Merry at the end of chapter 4.

There are other contrasts here (and they carry over into chapter 10 as well). Big folk vs. little folk; merriment vs. fear of the strangers; Hobbit-like curiosity vs. suspicion; Frodo's song vs. his disappearance; Strider's ominous appearance vs. his true nature (he looks foul and feels fair). We are allowed to become comfortable, but never too comfortable. These contrasts contribute greatly to the build-up of tension. For the ominous gains something in power by being set aside the ordinary; catastrophes seem worse if they come in the midst of merriment. This is the sort of trick that Hitchcock would often use - a murder is all the more shocking if it happens in a friendly-looking little motel, in a shower (usually a safe, warm place). Similarly, Frodo's disappearance seems more catastrophic for following such a jolly song.

[Mithalwen]

I think maybe the suspicion is overstated ..... the hobbits are given a warm reception at first ... despite their outlandish cover story...... but the Breelanders are naturally nervous of the threat of mass immigration ... and given the identity of this particular Southerner... it is a pity they aren't more suspicious (UT)...

I suppose that the hobbits feel they are relaltively safe and relax their guard.... they are not alone in the wild and they expect to meet Gandalf (perhaps a smaller scale version of the feeling they have initially at Rivendell; that their part is done)..... after the horrors of the Forest and the Downs and (whether you love or hate him) the wierdness of Bombadil .they are in a "gated community".. the Pony is a relatively normal environment. Merry wandering off is perhaps is more plot than character driven since if he had been "minding" the scattier Pippin, the Frodo debacle might have been avoided .... but then Merry is (especially since Frodo is bound to be more cautious because of the ring) the most relaxed about being outside the Shire ... I don't know that he was taking a particular risk going out....although he did following the Nazgul...

I would say that the first sight of strider was one of the occasions when the film really did capture the picture in my mind......

[Tuor of Gondolin]

Some observations:

1) There is an interesting hint here of other hobbit communities and individuals otherwise not alluded to, one of JRRT's creation of a feeling of depth and barely glimpsed vistas.
"There were probably many more Outsiders scattered about the West of the World in those days than the people of the Shire imagined. Some, doubtless, were no better than tramps, ready to dig a hole an any bank and stay only as long as it suited them."

2) PJ's picture of Strider was abetted by VM, who read LOTR on the way over to New Zealand and sat in as Strider even when he wasn't being filmed.

3) Strider's introduction in Chapter 9 is well done. At first reading, you go back and forth as to whether he is a good guy or a bad guy, and it isn't really settled until the next chapter.

4) The tension is palpable at the end of the chapter:
a) Who is Strider
b) What does Barliman want to tell Frodo (and can BB really be that dense---actually, yes, although he can see through a brick wall in time)
c) Has Frodo betrayed his quest.
d) Has the Southerner been alerted to the Ring, does he even know about the Ring, is he a spy?

[HerenIstarion]

Some points (and again to go along with poems)

The Cow in the Moon poem is light hearted, but it adds up to foundations of old mythology which is guessed, but never fully seen at the roots of LoTR. There is direct references, which may have not been understood by hobbits themselves, but are there nevertheless

The stress falls on Man in the Moon and Sun as she:

The round Moon rolled behind the hill
as the Sun raised up her head.
She hardly believed her fiery eyes;
For though it was day, to her surprise
they all went back to bed!

cf:

The maiden whom the Valar chose from among the Maiar to guide the vessel of the Sun was named Arien, and he that steered the island of the Moon was Tilion

Such an undirect hint, inside an old folklore convinces me more then if Tolkien stated openly (say, in conversation between some characters) in 'reality' of the world I'm reading through.

I doubt, of course, that Arien really cared about bree drunkards going to bed in the morning, though . And yet, later on Legolas states:

I have not brought the Sun. She is walking in the blue fields of the South, and a little wreath of snow on this Redhorn hillock troubles her not at all

So Arien may care for doings down there, after all (logical chain - she does not care about this here hillock - so she may care about something else?) And such a lore is also expressed in 'lowly' hobbit lore - Sun cares for what goes below in general, and in Bree in particular.

I don't intend to tell you Man in the Moon really got drunk in the inn, but again - the principle does not contradict the whole 'truth' of the ME - Tilion is a maia, and there were historical precedents of maiar living among Children - Melian!

Again, what once was lore is now folklore. Or, again and again, hobbit poems are always more then they seem , even the most 'silly' ones

cheers

[davem]

Originally Posted by H-I

Again, what once was lore is now folklore. Or, again and again, hobbit poems are always more then they seem , even the most 'silly' ones

Its interesting that the poems always seem not just to be inspired by, but also to 'expand' the context in which they appear - Frodo's poem about woods failing in the Old Forest, Frodo's song here, Sam's Troll Song, Bilbo's song of Earendel at Rivendell, etc. They open up the mythological dimension - even if we don't realise it. This is why I think those readers who skip the poems miss a lot of the depth of the story.

Somehow songs are a means of transmitting old lore & keeping it alive & relevant. They keep the past alive in the present, linking past & present, almost in the way past & present are linked by experiences like Merry's in the last chapter.

[Mithalwen]

The song is interesting .... partly for me since it was the first part of LOTR I encountered in an anthology ... I remember being delighted at "recognising" an expanded version of the old nursery rhyme... so while it refers back in ME time to the creation stories which would be little known myth to the hobbits (though Galadriel would have known them as fact) they also refer forward to the world we know and nonsense rhymes for English children ..... and the oral tradition does last well it did to my pre computerised/pre-video generation.. . I remember a similar feeling of delighted recognition when I realised that a song I sang in the Brownies 20 years earlier was a slightly corrupted version of the folksong/lute song Lord Randall ..... I couldn't believe my ears .... even the tune was distinctly recognizable......

by the by I believe that it was the first thing Viggo shot as he arrived as a newcomer when the rest of the team had been together for months ... the start of method acting...

Oh I also noticed the idea of further hobbit communities when I reread .... but where? I wonder ... the Gladden ones had been abandoned and the Nazgul drew many blanks on their search? A more distant vista? Were there Hobbits on the far downs before Elanor & co removed there perhaps...

[Hilde Bracegirdle]

"There were probably many more Outsiders scattered about the West of the World in those days than the people of the Shire imagined. Some, doubtless, were no better than tramps, ready to dig a hole an any bank and stay only as long as it suited them."

I expect that this bit of the chapter, might be left over from the earlier drafts when Trotter the Hobbit was to be introduced rather than Aragorn.

It seems to me also that in this chapter the mask starts to slip off everyday mundane life in Middle-earth. The hobbits had expected Bree to be a different sort of place, but still it had enough of the familiar comforting aspects to lull them to some degree. Even Merry, getting out of his range of expertise, felt comfortable enough to go seek some air. But through Frodo's eyes we learn that not all is as seems, and that the common room, for all it's warmth is dotted with shady folk, including the town gatekeeper in the lot! And even though the Shire was not aware of the ring, evidently they might know about it here.

I clearly remember the first time reading the story, I thought Frodo's journey was about to derail and wondered what turn the story was about to take when Strider says,

You have put your foot in it! Or should I say your finger?