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

[Estelyn Telcontar]

You know what, Legate? I'd never noticed this passage in detail before, but this time when I read it I started counting as well!! I looked at the sentence more closely and deducted from it that the Maggots have more than two sons. After all, "his three daughters" denotes that that's all of them, while "two of Maggot's sons" implies that there are more. Depending on whether it was "one or two" other Hobbits (farmhands, I would guess) that would mean two or three more sons. Considering the size of Hobbit families, seven or eight children is not improbable. The uncertainty whether the people were farmhands or (grown-up) children could have easily come from the bewildering crowd that was there all at once.

Darn, now that we've explained the possibilities, we can't use this as a quiz question!

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Ah, good spot with the sons. That would explain a lot.

But, anyway, when I read the part again it is somewhat hazy. The author must have known what he's writing. Why count up all the people so carefully when in the end the author skips the arrival of the rest? It looks like there is something missing at least. We are told what the sons did, what the daughters did, what Mrs. Maggot did, what the farmhands did, and then we are told that "all fourteen", as if their identities were something already known to us, sat down to the table. Yet we know only about eleven or twelve of them. You know what I mean? It is as if I said "In the room there was an old woman sewing, two boys fighting and then all six of them greeted me." Yes, in the Maggots' case we can at least deduce, as you did, that the missing ones could have been Maggot's sons - but anyway, it's odd at least.

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

Darn, now that we've explained the possibilities, we can't use this as a quiz question!

Surely not everyone will read this... and if necessary, I can always edit the post

[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.