Transcript
[0:00] Hello to the Mythmaker's Sidecast, an author's journey through Lord of the Rings. And today we have reached Chapter 8 in the first book of The Fellowship of the Ring, which is called Fog on the Barrow Downs. Now, before we do one of our customary deep dives into this chapter, I just wanted to say how great it is to have these chapters, which weren't treated in any filmic sense in the Peter Jackson versions, because I still feel they're mine in a funny kind of way, that my imagination doesn't have to battle with strong images that I've seen on film. So I've been really enjoying reading my way through these sections. But let's have a look at this chapter. The structure of it really is as follows. It starts with a series of goodbyes and then we move into the beginning of a journey begins in optimism with a transition to fear and then you go into the barrow and you have the moment of bravery the eventual rescue by Tom Bombadil and then there's a post-grip to that saving as the adventure she moves on to connect to Brie.
[1:21] That image of going into the earth and coming out again is almost a rite of passage. It seems a bit like some of those initiations that you get in some cultures, or a baptism. The idea of baptism in the church, which of course Tolkien would have been well familiar with, is the idea is you go under the water and come out again. So there is this sense of renewal in this chapter but let's not skip over the very beginning it has a most wonderful first paragraph i'd encourage you to go and read it again so they it starts by saying that night they heard no noises and it goes into frodo's dream which some of you i'm sure will find very familiar, He says 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.
[2:29] Now, many of you will be saying, hang on a minute, doesn't Gandalf say that to Pippin in Minas Tirith? No, it's said here, and it's not attributed to Gandalf.
[2:41] In fact, in this context, what does it possibly mean? Okay, it might be some sense of the elven countries, but it also might be a reference to the unspoiled world that Tom Bombadil represents, because he is this kind of Adam figure, the unfallenness of nature. There is something fresh and new about him. So maybe it's about death. It certainly fits with that theme of baptism, the renewal that's going on in this chapter. But anyway, I thought I'd just highlight that in case you were wondering where that passage came from in the book. I also note that it's in the Annie Lennox song, a beautiful song that is used at the end of the third film. And I think she won an Oscar for it. Anyway, so moving on, after that waking up, the tempo picks up, the prose tempo picks up. So they're getting ready to go. And this is reflected in the short sentences, but also what's happening. Their quiet ponies were almost frisky, sniffing and moving restlessly. It's kind of, let's get going, buckle up everybody.
[3:54] And they do get started finally. And they've forgotten to say goodbye to Goldberry. And here we get one of those patterns in Tolkien he likes. He likes to have beautiful ladies standing on sort of hills with the light behind them. So the way he describes Goldberry here is very similar to, in my mind anyway, I think we'll find this when we get to that chapter, to how we see Galadriel when they leave Lorien and set out on the ship. the river. Here I'm wondering if there is a connection to the pictures you see of the Virgin Mary in many Catholic churches with the halo around them. It seems to be calling on that kind of iconography just softly in the background. The other transition which is used here is the idea that you go from a place of intense colour to a muted world. That's what's happening as they leave the home built by Tom and Goldbury because they go out into a world which seems mistier and browner and less fresh. You remember that also happens in Lorien. They leave the golden leaves of Lorien and enter it back into the ordinary world. So it's a little as if you're leaving the world of magic and fairy tale in its fullest sense back into a more everyday world.
[5:24] One thing I noticed on this read-through, which made me laugh, is Goldberry's instructions.
[5:30] We tend to think more of Tom chatting away because he's very eloquent and he's the one who intervenes. But Goldberry is also very much an equal partner in the advice that she gives them. She's the one who's been offering reassurance. And here she gives them some very good advice. But it's funny that her advice really suits ponies rather than hobbits. Because it's and hold to your purpose north with the wind in the left eye and a blessing on your footsteps now hobbits and humans we both have eyes on the front of our face so you're not going to get the wind just in your left eye um not really it's much harder whereas if you're a horse or the ponies some hope the ponies are listening um that makes more sense anyway it would fit with their sort of idea that they treat the ponies as equal to the hobbits. So it's just a sweet little detail there I thought.
[6:23] As we've seen when the hobbits set off in the forest, the old forest, they start optimistically and it's usually in good weather, all those things. But we get these warnings which always undercuts. We know that they are foolishly optimistic. There is no surprise that this is going to go horribly wrong the pattern has already been set and this the warning here is when they come across the finger post so they come to this hollow circle and in it stood a single stone standing tall under the sun above now at this hour casting no shadow it was shapeless and yet significant like a landmark or a guarding finger or more like a warning again there seems to be a favorite image here because you'll notice there's another finger post this one associated with Saruman and Isengard that comes later and I suppose there's also the connection to the.
[7:29] Crossroads that Frodo and Sam come across with the fallen statue there's the idea that you can find these objects in the landscape that act as a kind of warning or an encouragement, um sort of they can blend those two in one so that's the warning they get but they're not listening properly they're not certainly not keeping the wind in the right eye because they sit down and have something to eat which is typical hobbit behavior but will spell disaster, And here we get one of those wonderful weather transitions. This is where a book is better than film because no one does weather quite like Tolkien. And it goes from the sunny day to the sense of the mist moving in and trapping them. They find themselves in a hall of mist whose central pillar was that standing stone. So they've gone from the openness and the views and the optimism to being blinkered and shut shut down by having lingered too long in this hollow place and one thing I really like here as well in the weather transition is remembering the experience of the characters within it.
[8:41] Sometimes as a writer you can spend a long time describing the external as if the eye is the only way of experiencing a landscape and here we have a very telling detail where he picks up um how the hair hung lank and dripping on their foreheads so you get that that sense of them all being sort of soaked by the mist the heaviness and lank the negative sound of that it's a discomfort.
[9:13] So, of course, if you're in somewhere you don't want to be, you want to get out of it. And Frodo makes the rookie mistake here of rushing on without his companions. Understandable. And I think there's also a sense that they're being driven inevitably by the Barrow Whites. Whereas in the Old Forest, it was the spell of Old Man Willow that was leading
[9:35] them inevitably to destruction. It's almost a sense here that they are flies being lured in to the web by the paros, the barowites which makes them panic, makes them scared makes them flee I mean the ponies sense it and that's why they run off eventually and here I think it's one of those places where I start to remember, Tolkien is also a war writer and his experience of combat because I think this is a typical example of the fog of war it might be the first time when they have to think about standing together in a fight, they feel there may be a battle ahead of them they've got this sort of um having to band together but they get split they're they're surprised by the enemy there's confusion there's doubt there's mistakes it's not Frodo having a grand plan and them all executing it it's all the plans just going to pieces as soon as reality gets in the way and we get a fabulous moment when Frodo is alone.
[10:39] Normally if you think about it a lot of the characters spend a lot of time in fellowship with others talking to other people and there are fewer times when they're actually standing alone and there's a beautiful here description of Frodo alone in the biting wind in the faint stars with the wind hissing and it emphasizing just how scary that moment is for him. I love the biting wind in particular because it's both the sense of cold but also the sense of teeth.
[11:12] And then we find he's overcome and Frodo finds himself in the barrow. I just want to pause here and think about Barrow Whites and the nature of evil. The Barrow Whites were made use of in the most recent season of The Rings of Power. And one thing I was asking myself when I was watching that is, what are they? They don't seem an obvious tool of Sauron, though they could be attached to him because there is a mention of a Dark Lord. They seem more like The evil things that were hinted at in the old forest, they seem almost like a primal evil that has come into the fallen world, introduced by Melkor from his dark song that he sang at the founding of the world. Things like that.
[12:05] They're inhabiting the bodies of the fallen. They don't seem to be like the ghosts of fallen kings. They are something else who are inhabiting, who've crept into that. So in a way, they're inexplicable. They don't fit neatly into a group like the Orcs or the Balrogs, but they are more like Goldberry is good and Tom Bombadil is good. They're part of the palette of evil, shall we say. And it's interesting that the colors that they are used to be painted with are slightly different because they are represented by a pale greenish light, a cold glow. And I love this one. They're immeasurably dreary. The idea that evil is banal is in that. And they are the antithesis of life and light. If you're thinking about the early part of writing this story when Tolkien wasn't that clear about his direction and what he was going to do with the story, he was a writer who found his story by discovery. One of the things he is doing is seesawing between darkness and light, but different forms. So you had the old man willow with its greenish and natural world, tree hunger.
[13:30] Then the familiar home and domestic light and love and laughter, Tom Bombadil. So what's the opposite to that? well you go to something which is dreary and dark and cold and a tomb is the opposite of a home, and it's interesting here another for those of you who know the film well there's another little heads up of a borrowed bit which is the song in the extended version this song is or part of this song is given to golem um cold be hand and heart and stone and cold be sleep under stone so they've borrowed this song which does fit of course a barrow right really well and it's wonderful to see it here in its situation this has some of the this is a poetry battle you've heard of rap battles Tolkien was there before he was doing poetry battles because we've got this desperate um lyric.
[14:31] Dreary lyric from the barrow right which ends about till the dark lord lifts his hand over dead sea and withered land real apocalyptic stuff and that's the one mention where we feel that they're on the side of the dark lord um though they are their own sort of evil one wonders i imagine uh plot spoiler sauron is defeated but one feels that the barry rights would probably stay on they don't their fate isn't attached to his at least i don't think so i like here that um frodo isn't instantly brave he has a moment where he imagines escaping and grieving.
[15:15] And almost saying oh well like what else could i do i can put on the ring and disappear and i had no other choice i had to leave them behind and this links to sam's comment much later on, when they're approaching the out the borders of Mordor about people in those tales had lots of chances of turning back but they didn't and this is one of those times when Frodo has the chance to turn back give up run away another one is coming up at the council of Elrond of course a bigger decision but this is a really important one too.
[15:51] And he takes the brave decision not to. And this is where the rap battle, my poetry battle, finds its answer because he comes in with the Tom Bombadil silly song, Ho Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo, by Water, Wood and Hill, by Reed and Willow, and so on. And it's the song that's been taught him as a chant to summon Tom Bombadil to their rescue. It doesn't feel like a summoning spell. It feels as though I always sort of understood it as a reader that Tom was just so alive to everything near his land that he could hear. He's got superly acute, like Superman, superly acute hearing. And indeed, he's able to come and you hear the answer and he comes and removes the stone. So again, a religious echo here. He rolls the stone away and it's a kind of resurrection. Not obviously the hobbits aren't a Christ figure, but more like Lazarus, I think, coming from the tomb. He brings life back into that tomb.
[16:58] His great power, I think, is shown by the relative ease with which he is able to banish the right, the white. Sorry these are which he banishes the white and i like the change of song here get out you old white vanish in the sunlight shovel like the cold mist like the winds go wailing so he's using some of the words that the barrow white had used in his song or its song and turning it against the white himself so things like cold and wailing and all those sorts of whitish words barren lands so he's sending him into the world of his song and away from the hobbits and this breaks the power the barrow white has over that tomb and the thing here which i think.
[17:57] Thematically makes Tom Bombadil work is that he gives a version of what the whole story is about here. They take the hobbits up out into the sunshine and they bring out all the possessions to scatter them on the hill. This is a story about setting out to lose a treasure, not to possess it. It's the opposite of the usual quest, which may be to find a magic object. This is to get rid of it.
[18:26] And he shows by example here that the way you get rid of evil is by setting its treasure out and not trying to possess it not being the dragon who sits on the horde or the barrow who sits on the horde you have to put it out in the sunshine for all comers.
[18:42] And there's a detail here of Merry being caught in someone else's memories, which I think is intriguing. And it also links the next chapter we have them meeting Aragorn. And it's the memory that Merry is caught in through the spell of the tomb and the people who are buried in it is the one about his ancestors.
[19:07] Aragorn's ancestors in the battle against Angmar. So again we're getting these little hints of what's to come and the kind of people we're going to meet going forward and if you didn't need anything more than the rolling the stone away aspect of this we also get the baptismal rebirth uh image here of tom saying to the hobbits to run about naked it's like the garden of eden isn't it um which is also underpinned by the fact that he mentions the true names of the ponies one of the versions in genesis of the garden of eden story as adam naming the animals and tom here is doing that he's naming the animals i'd also want to just underline here this is where they get their swords uh in the film version aragon aragon just happens to have them hanging around um yeah it's a filmic shortcut um.
[20:06] This links to, they get swords of lineage, which becomes important, particularly later for Merry, that he has a sword from the horde that was taken from the northern kingdom of Arnor that was used in the fight against the witch king of Angmar. So again, we've got a little pointers here to things which will later become important. So I've said that Tom takes out the treasure to scatter it. And he is the one who hands over these things. They're gifts. The hobbits don't take the swords for themselves.
[20:44] And the one thing he takes home with him is for Goldberry, which is a beautifully described brooch, which I've always wanted, actually. But she takes in memory of an unnamed person that he remembers. Fair was she says Tom Bombadil and this is another of Tolkien's what he describes as vistas of untold stories that stretch off into the past that you never actually hear the full story of in Lord of the Rings but you get a sense of depth and a reality to the world as a result so we don't hear any more about this um roach set with blue stones like the wings of blue butterflies but we do hear more about the leaf-shaped blades forged by the men of westernness of course because these are going to be wielded uh in frequent occasions going forward um frodo obviously gets to wave his and stab at the cloak of the Black Riders when they attack on Weathertop. And of course, Merry's sword has the greatest adventure of all.
[22:01] There's a strange moment here, which again emphasizes the power of Tom Bombadil, preparing them for what they need to know, because they have a shared vision,
[22:11] when he's talking about the men of Westerness. And they see the shapes of men, tall and grim with bright swords, and last came one with a star on his brow then the vision faded and they were back in the sunlit world that one with the star on his brow of course is an image of the ruling house who they will then meet in the shape of Aragorn so it's both his forebears but it's also the person they're about to meet very shortly. And then the last part of this chapter is booting us off, off the Barrow Downs and kicking us on into the next chapter where we reach Bree.
[22:54] And as a reader, you feel safe whilst they are with Tom Bombadil. You're pretty sure that nothing can touch them when they're with Tom. In fact, you kind of almost want him to go with them. All the way, somehow he would just get them to Mount Doom, no problem. But anyway, he says that's not possible because he only keeps within his borders. He won't go outside his land. And this is another sign of his not falling to temptation. Another way of describing the Lord of the Rings is an examination of what people do when they're faced with temptation. Will they take the ring? Will they ask for it for themselves or demand it for themselves?
[23:35] Um tom bombadil with his great powers his presumably could rule kingdoms but he is content with a little bit of earth a little bit of land that he and goldbury have established their home they don't want any more they are content with enough probably a lesson in there to all our contemporary billionaires um but it's better to be more like tom bombadil than be like Sauron in this world. I also like here about the way the hobbits are listening to Tom's language and his singing as they ride along. You have to remember that Tolkien is a lover of languages and any mention of language should be paid attention to. The hobbits are listening to chiefly nonsense or else perhaps a strange language unknown to the hobbits, an ancient language whose words were mainly those of wonder and delight.
[24:32] That's talking, perhaps we're thinking about how language starts and what you use it for. And if there can be such a thing as a language that is purely unfiltered so that it expresses a kind of the holiest of emotions, wonder and delight. And Tom does that. That's what he is.
[24:56] So we leave behind this perplexing, intriguing figure who we don't meet again in the story. He is mentioned but we don't meet him again and the last word is left to sam who says he's a caution and no mistake calling somebody a caution is the kind of thing my grandmother's generation used well she's a caution meaning wow you know they're something of a laugh but also remarkable it's it's a particularly early 20th century word and now we get the hobbits hurrying along to brie and we get Frodo saying that he's going to go under the name of Underhill. But we also are given some pointers, a bit like Goldberry's instructions to keep the wind in the left eye. We know that Tom Bombadil thinks Butterbur is a safe person to lodge with. So we have one little bit of direction given us here because we're about to enter a world where we meet big people for the first time and some of them are enemies some appear to be enemies and some turn out to be allies so it's a much more confusing world that the hobbits are about to enter.
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