Gems of Long Lake (new discoveries)

[Galadriel55]

It's been a while since I've actually read LOTR in English (as opposed to just looking up specific details), my rereads in recent years have all been in Russian. So, while flipping through for Password inspiration, I came across this passage, the beauty of which was lost in translation and which I've just rediscovered:

Originally Posted by FOTR, Many Meetings

`You needn't,' said Bilbo. `As a matter of fact it was all mine. Except that Aragorn insisted on my putting in a green stone. He seemed to think it important. I don't know why. Otherwise he obviously thought the whole thing rather above my head, and he said that if I had the cheek to make verses about Eärendil in the house of Elrond, it was my affair. I suppose he was right.'

I read this, and it just hit me that this is Elessar insisting that Bilbo include the Elessar. Still don't know why, but I was endlessly amused.


When did I start this thread? 9 years ago? Still plenty of gems left to go around, literal and (ha!) literary.

[Mithadan]

I recall noticing that passage myself. Though when I first read it, I associated the green stone with the beryl left to show that the Last Bridge was safe to cross. It was not until later that I associated the green stone with the Elessar.

[Huinesoron]

I've just stumbled across one that tickled me immensely:

Originally Posted by The Hobbit - An Unexpected Party

"Gandalf, Gandalf! Good gracious me! Not the wandering wizard that gave Old Took a pair of magic diamond studs that fastened themselves and never came undone till ordered? Not the fellow who used to tell such wonderful tales at parties, about dragons and goblins and giants and the rescue of princesses and the unexpected luck of widows’ sons?"

My first thought on 'widows' sons' was Aragorn: at the time Bilbo is speaking, he's ten years old and living with his widowed mother in Imladris. The Lord of the Rings, in some part, is the story of a country widow's son who grows up to become a king - a classic fairytale of the sort that Bilbo is describing.

But then I discovered that Belladonna Took died eight years after her husband - making Bilbo himself a widow's son - and indeed, Gandalf calls him just that: "To think that I should have lived to be good-morninged by Belladonna Took’s son, as if I was selling buttons at the door!"

Was there ever a widow's son who had more luck (both good and bad) than Bilbo Baggins of Bag-End? He may not have rescued any princesses, but dragons and goblins and giants - oh my!

hS