Characters paying attention

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

It's certainly possible; but the lack of commas in "through dragon-lair and hidden door /
and darkling woods" suggests that they may well be a single list. 'Dragon-lair' has to be Erebor, and 'darkling woods' sounds like Mirkwood - which would fit very firmly with a Hobbit-theme, and not work at all for LotR (Gandalf wasn't with Frodo for any forests!).

Good point about the Moria-gate, though; given that we're told this is only scraps of the original dream-song, that's probably a good interpretation.

hS

Well, but if the dragon lair, hidden door and presumably Mirkwood are meant to be a part of the same journey, then actually it makes MORE sense to assume the hidden door refers to Dol Guldur, as the Moria door passage happened elsewhere and half a century later.

Sidenote: I am also very much suspicious about the "southern hill". If we disregard the easy and boring option that Frodo's grasp of southern geography is too weak and he just had to quickly think of something that rhymes, or the other undoubtedly funny option that he is hinting at Gandalf's unrecorded trips for inferior pipeweed to Southlinch (although that would not make sense time-wise; I doubt Frodo or indeed anyone knew or cared about Breeland pipeweed before the crisis caused by Sharkey); anyway, disregarding those, this seems like yet another bit of insight into the obscure "Incánus in the South" business!