Sidecast - LOTR: An Author's Journey, Book 2 Chapter 6

00:05 - Julia Golding (Host) Hello and welcome to Mythmakers. Mythmakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding. I'm an author but I also run the centre. 00:19 Anyway, we are doing a journey through the Lord of the Rings, looking at it from an author's point of view, and we have reached chapter six in book two, that's, the latter end of the Fellowship of the Ring, and this chapter is called Lothlorien. Now, immediately I say that I'm sure that you are coming up with strong visual images of your own of what you think that place is like. And it's an absolutely splendid chapter and I think it really does display the enchantment of Tolkien's world building, particularly in the world of the elves, but interestingly also in the very same chapter in the world of the dwarves, and we'll be looking at that, seeing well, suggesting how he does it. I don't know that we'll ever solve the mystery of the accumulative effect of reading it, but I'll have a look at some of the things I've noticed as an author. When I was analyzing it, I was thinking that it's probably a chapter that falls into four sections. So first of all we have the leaving the gates of Moria, and there's sort of a dwarven interlude. It feels elegiac and wintry, that's the kind of imagery that's being evoked there. And then there's a transition into a more spring-like environment as they approach Lothlorien. And this is a moment where they have a pause and Legolas notices that Frodo and Sam are lagging behind because they were both injured in the previous chapter. And there's a section with Frodo and Gimli talking about their journey and there's the Nimrodil poem which Legolas recites. So the third section, after that sort of slow entry into Lothlorien, is staying up in the treetops with Haldir Rumil and the other elves who are on watch, and it's when the orcs pass below and it's held in the night time. And then the last section is a daytime in Lothlorien, as they walk blindfold to Cerin Amroth, which is called the heart of Elvendom on earth, and it's it sort of leads into the heart of Aragorn. In a way it's showing what his motive is in a very subtle way and it ends with Frodo and Aragorn together. Also, I'm calling this the time slip section and you'll see why in a minute. 02:59 Right, so let's turn to the details of the chapter itself. So the first thing technically to point out is it starts with speech. Is Aragorn saying, recalling his words to warning Gandalf of the dangers of going to Moria, also reaffirming that he is the one who is leading the way and also telling them they've got to get moving this technique of using if you compare it to other chapters which have slower entry points, it means you, it's like a sprint start as opposed to a gentle wind up. It gives a sense of urgency to this section. Mainly Aragorn and Gimli do the talking in this part, which is appropriate because it's Gimli's reprise of the mountains being their enemies. He even shakes his fist at Caradhras, and there were echoes of previous speeches in this section. 03:57 If you're wondering, if you're looking in the detail, if you're wondering what Wynne is and what exactly that is in English, I will tell you Wynne is a colloquial name for firs or gorse, so a prickly bush. Tolkien very often liked using the older names or the more local dialect names, which fits, because the point of view mainly is that of the hobbits, and so they might well use a more familiar name to them. Anyway, I thought I'd just help you out on that. They're passing through on this side of the mountain, one of the many faded places in Middle-earth, with its cracked stones and paths that are broken up and the broken columns. I think what you might want to sort of imagine is Tolkien is thinking of the Roman remains. Not so much left in the UK, though we do have some particularly up like a Hadrian's Wall and places like that, but certainly what you might find in the landscape of Greece or Turkey the idea of a once fine civilization that has vanished, and we are the little people who follow on afterwards, and so his Middle Earth is full of places like this. 05:16 Gimli is talking to Frodo at this point and Sam follows. Notice how many times Sam just latches on. Frodo's asked off to a council or to come and see the place where Durin looked into the water, and Sam follows anyway. It's actually hilarious the number of times that happens. But he's basically Frodo's bodyguard, isn't he? He's his right-hand man, so he's not going to be left behind. 05:46 I always find it slightly odd that the two who do go with gimli are the? Um, the injured ones in the party. Um, mary pippin, you're passing up this chance to see this wonder. Uh, anyway it the. I suppose, looking at it another way, the choice to go on a kind of pilgrimage to see the Miramere is better with fewer people around. It gives it a more solemn moment, and Frodo, as our main point of view, is a good person to go with. Anyway, it's a little niggle. That's always got to me at that point. Why don't the others go as well, anyway? 06:22 So here is the bit I was referring to where we get the magic of tolkien's vision of the dwarf culture, and it's done through the evocation of the miramere, which is this wonderfully deep lake that is thrust into the heart of the mountains like a spear, a spear point. Just think it's worth reading that section because it's so beautiful. They stooped over the dark water. At first they could see nothing. Then, slowly, they saw the forms of the encircling mountains mirrored in a profound blue, and the peaks were like the plumes of white flame above them. Beyond there was a space of sky there, like jewels sunk in the deep shone, glinting stars, though sunlight was in the sky above Of their own stooping forms, though shadow could be seen. 07:20 So it feels magical, though I think Tolkien is picking on some possible in nature things here. I believe that if you're down a very deep well and look up, you can see the stars, even though it's daylight. So there's a sense of that depth and also the fact that their reflections, their shadows, aren't on the water. It gives that sense of the timelessness, the age of the dwarven vision, for which these mortals don't even make any imprint on the surface. I also want to just point out here something I'd not thought of before, but there is a resonance, isn't there, between this and the mirror of Galadriel? Another reflective resonance isn't there between this and the mirror of Galadriel, another reflective pool that shows the past and and also the future in the case of Galadriel. So she says, um, this is looking ahead, that it's. They may find it magical, but that's not her name. For the same thing it seems a bit similar in the case of the dwarven vision. Here it's not magic in that, but it's something deeply felt, deeply expressed of dwarven culture, so beautiful. 08:35 And it's notable that when the little party of three return and Pippin saying what did you see? What did you see, pipp? Why didn't you go along? Sam is too deep in thought to answer. And there is a definite deepening, all the way through Lord of the Rings, of Sam's reaction to cultures outside the Shire. He was the most sheltered of them all, but in many ways he is the most open and he is possibly the most changed too by encountering other cultures. And the fact that he is silent and is lingering over this vision, I think and there's a page break is Tolkien asking us to also pause and think about the dwarf culture of Durin and his followers. And now, when they get back, they start to follow rivers. 09:26 This is a chapter of following rivers, and they actually start at the source of the Silverload. If you look at the map, you'll see the Silverload is the river that goes from the mountains all the way into Anduin, the great river. So it is the silver thread running through Lothlorien. And it's fitting that they start right up the source. Gimli says don't drink, it's too cold. And we also get a tease here of Lothlorien in the distance, the sort of the golden shimmer on the horizon. And we also find in this chapter two very good guides, one of which is Legolas, and then, as they actually get into Lothlorien, he passes that over to Haldir. 10:11 But at this first half of the chapter, here's our guide, and in my edition page 349, he gives a very useful introduction to where we're going. There lie the woods of Lothlorien. That is the fairest for the dwellings of my people. There are no trees like the trees of that land, for in the autumn their leaves fall not, but turn to gold. Not till the spring comes and the new green opens do they fall, and then the boughs are laden with yellow flowers and the floor of the wood is golden, and golden is the roof, and its pillars are of silver, for the bark of the trees is smooth and gray. So he evokes the place that we're going to. Though we're visiting it in the winter, we are almost changing into spring here, because there is something about the beauty of spring captured for all forever in Lothlorien. That's the little tease. 11:15 We then move on where they're sort of trying to reach safety before nightfall. Aragorn's hurrying them along and this section is from Frodo and Sam's joint point of views because they're feeling pretty rough and it's notable that at the start of this next section we hear how both of them are feeling. But we also get the sense that Aragorn's steps into leadership are faltering ones. He's used to being in the company one suspects of people who can keep up with him, and he's having to adjust his ideas because the hobbits are failing. But he shows his, the good side of his character, that's his blind side, he shows a good side of his character by recognizing and apologizing that he was in the wrong. And they must have been feeling pretty rough because Aragorn and Boromir carry them to the Little Dell. 12:10 Now I want to just pause on the Little Dell. You may not have thought about this since you last read it, but this just I was saying that there are always these details which are lovely to rediscover. No matter how many times you read your way through lord of the rings, I find that stopping and thinking about places which I've just skimmed over before always come up with new delights. And here it is the specificity of the place they stop. So here we are. It's a place that doesn't loom large in the lore of Middle Earth, but so they go past another little stream and they go into a dell. About it stood fir trees, short and bent, and its sides were steep and clothed with heart's tongue and the shrubs of waterberry. At the bottom there was a level space through which the stream flowed noisily over shining pebbles. So he's evoking. It's a very common sight actually. 13:12 If you're walking on somewhere like exmoor or dartmoor, where tolkien often went on walking holidays, this kind of little dell is absolutely somewhere you could go and find today Beautiful. It feels safe. Of course they're not safe yet, but it's this sort of private space so they can do their bit of medical attention that is required at this point. But Tolkien doesn't forget the ticking clock, because you don't want to lose the tension. He mentions that already the sun was westering. So we're in a northern hemisphere where days are short in winter and they haven't got long to find better safety than this. So some wonderful details and to come in this short bit of medical aid, aragorn swings into action as the hands of the king, of the hands of the healer here, and I love the little link back to Weathertop because he's still carrying with him the dried leaves of Athelas that proved so helpful when Frodo was hurt before. 14:21 We also get a beautiful description of the male shirt. We saw it briefly when Frodo was putting it on and when Bilbo gave it to him, but I think I this might be my favorite description of it and it's the first bit of levity after losing Gandalf. It actually makes the surprise of it makes Aragorn laugh. The silver corslet shimmered before his eyes like the light upon a rippling sea. Carefully he took it off and held it up and the gems on it glittered like stars and the sound of the shaken rings was like the tinkle of rain in a pool. I don't know how possible all those things are, but we're possibly because I haven't heard that sound before. Maybe it's. It sounds as though it might be quite noisy to wear, but anyway I. It evokes something beautiful, and this chapter is strangely often referring to the sea and to beaches and to the, those those things that come from westernness or from the undying lands, even though we are far, far inland, and the male shirt seems to be almost like a seashell that's supposed to have the sound of the sea in it. The male shirt seems to be falling into that kind of role. So I love that little description role. So I love that little description. 15:49 This exchange between Aragorn and Gimli and Frodo is also beautifully done, by the way, in the BBC audio version of this, particularly the little exchange between Aragorn and Gimli. Aragorn says here's a pretty hobbit skin to wrap an elven princeling in. Now, now, I'm not sure if he's a poet and didn't know it, but there is obviously a rhyme there. And Gimli is of course astonished by the workmanship and he has a wonderful bit of um just awed, dwarven awe at this. He says I've never heard or tell of one. So fair. Is this the coat that gandalf spoke of? Then he undervalued it, but it is well given. So again, he's not saying I want it, he's he hasn't. 16:34 Treasure doesn't hold a grip on his heart. Um, like it, you know. The danger of holding under treasures is well made in Tolkien. It also actually casts an interesting backlight to Thorin, because, though Thorin went a bit crazy with the dragon horde, he did give Bilbo this coat, and that's an interesting thought to his generosity to his allies. Even though he went, he got the dragon sickness anyway. And of course, mary is the one who explicitly um mentions bilbo. Bless the old hobbit. So bilbo is never far from tolkien's mind, and so he puts him in the mind of the fellowship at all times. Okay, so off they go again. 17:26 When I was reading this section it's Frodo and Gimli talking here I was reminded of how, when you're walking, that you have the chance to talk to different people in the party. You can fall in with different people, and this seems to be what's happening here, and I like that feeling of the long, extended walk where you have times walking alongside different people, and Frodo is actually for the, I think for the first time confiding that he has heard or thought he heard perhaps somebody following them. Gimli is a bit dismissive of it here because he can't hear it now. So therefore he says all I can hear is the night speech of plantain stone. Um, but at least frodo's told someone, and later we'll find the. Some of the sharper eared, better trackers know that they're being followed, but nobody tells each other, never really quite understand why. Um, but anyway, perhaps we'll work it out. They can't do anything about it at the moment. I suppose is part of it. 18:31 So now we are on the edge of Lothlorien and the trees that Tolkien chooses to evoke here are poplars, here are poplars. Now, poplars are tall, thin trees with wonderful foliage that glitters in when, when the breeze goes through them. They sort of have this sort of fluttery, metallic sheen to them, and they're often used as boundaries or border trees, so you might see them on the edge of a road, for example. Um, there's plenty of them in northern france that he might have seen when he was fighting there, but also boundaries in sort of rural parts of southern england as well, anyway. So that's the tree he is evoking here, so that to me reminds me of boundaries, and maybe that's what he was thinking of. But the trees he's looking at are not poplars, they are the mallorns, of course, in the dim light of the stars, their stems were grey and their quivering leaves a hint of fallow gold. Now, this word, fallow gold, is repeated a lot in this chapter Gold, silver, pale, blue, green. There's a limited colour palette which makes the colours of Lothlorien even stronger. I don't think he mentions crimson, for example, or purple, or any of those colours at all, and they're all spring colors. And the repeated use of this same limited set of spring-like colors, I think, is part of how the spell of this chapter is woven. It's like you hit the same notes and subliminally we are being lured in to imagine this spring-like young world. 20:32 There is, I must say, a perplexing lack of communication in Middle-earth. We mentioned it in the last couple of chapters about how they didn't know what happened to Barlin's people. But even Legolas, who one would have thought an elf would have time to, you know, walk up through the woods to find out what's happening. He is relying on the stories of his people. Maybe it's not deserted. I mean. Aragorn knows full well it's not deserted, but the fact that and legolas is his friend, so this sort of mistiness about what's going on in other parts of middle earth always perplexed me, when actually we're talking about a land journey of a few weeks anyway. The what, what they're achieving here, from a fictional point of view, is they're not being told too early. 21:30 The surprise is being held back as to who and what is in control of Lothlorien. Why was Eruand sending his sons messengers there? What is this power at the heart of Lothlorien? But anyway, the mystery is kept going for a bit longer. Boromir weighs in. Have you noticed how many times really Boromir is pulling against the rest of the Fellowship? And here is one of them. It's his, I told you so moment. 22:05 He would much prefer a plain road, though it led through a hedge of swords. He does get a hedge of swords and he doesn't get through it, of course, when he eventually dies. But he's not helpful. As Aragorn says, you can't go back, we've got to go forward. There is no way. That's the only choice. So he's being very unhelpful at this point. 22:31 And they have a debate about the meanings of unscathed and unchanged. So boromir says nobody goes through the woods without being scathed or they don't move, come through unscathed. And aragon counters with unchanged, because of course we later learn that he spent much of his youth there and that's where he fell in love with Arwen. So for him it's a happy place, of course. And note also that in the conversations between Boromir and Aragorn, again Aragorn tops Boromir. It's as though he can't give Boromir the final word. So the kingship steward thing is is already at play, because Boromir says then lead on, but it is perilous. Rather than give him the final word, aragorn says perilous, indeed fair and perilous, but only evil fear it, or those who bring some evil with them Follow me. That's a sort of sentiment that's repeated around Boromir after his heart is tested and the way that he is changing so that his desire for the ring takes over. 23:49 Legolas is still our guide, and part of the information he is going on are the songs of his people, and he talks about them, telling the stories of Lothlorien, but also about the places there. So the river, the next river they come across, nimrodel tributary, a smaller river, is described as having rainbows on its falls and golden flowers on the foam. All part of this color palette, that of of things which are shiny and gem-like, and of course that golden keeps coming up and they wade across the river. So it's a smaller river than the silver load because they can wade it at this point, and it's described as a sort of cleansing experience. So Frodo is our point of view here. He lets the water flow over his tired feet. It was cold but its touch was clean. And as he went on and it mounted to his knees he felt that the stain of travel and all weariness was washed from his limbs. It's a very important power of Lothlorien. Is that cleansing. It's like a baptism, isn't it? The washing away of the burdens. And it reminded me of the power of literature to have that baptizing effect. Cs Lewis said that his imagination was baptized by reading George Macdonald's Fantasties. He was reading it on a train. It's a fantasy book from the Victorian era and the imagery and the power of the world building and the messages of the book he describes coming out of the book and bathing everything else in this sort of newly baptized light, and I think this is what we're getting here. There's, the power of this place is not only having that effect on the cleansing effect on the characters. But I think it also has that by association in our minds as readers. That's why, part of the reason why it's such a powerfully evoked place. 26:12 There's another section later on which I'm going to highlight where this is very, very acutely seen. Legolas is the tale teller. Um, he's telling stories of the sunlight and starlight upon the meadows of the great river. That's where they are. The meadows by the great river is where they later meet with kelleborn and galadriel. Before the world was gray. Now gray is actually quite a color of lothlorian, because the gray cloaks, for example. But when the world was gray. That's a sort of contrast to the golden age, the silver age, the bronze age. It's the sense of we are now in the twilight, twilight of the gods, in that sort of love of northern myth that Tolkien has. But it also shows the nostalgia of the elves that they are looking back and thinking everything was better before. So they feel they are lingering, fading, whereas someone like aragorn is coming into his kingdom. He's going to build something, he's going to start something. They are at the end times of their particular contribution to Middle Earth. 27:30 Note also here that the river is given qualities of a living creature Tolkien's care for all things like creation, nature. This totally fits in. We have speaking trees, of course, and the river daughter is a sort of voice of a river, isn't she Earlier, on way back in the beginning of the book. But here the river is alive and the voice it has is that of Nimrodel, who is. It's not that she literally the Elven Maiden is there, it's that her experience and her memory is in the waters. 28:08 The Nimrodel poem is a sort of a ballad, isn't it? It's in ballad form, with alternately rhyming lines, stanzas of four lines, and it's the love story, unfinished love story, of Nimrodel and Amroth. It's the second unfinished love story because when Aragorn tells the story of Beren and Luthien, he also doesn't finish. That particularly is the song doesn't finish because it's much longer. And the same thing happens here. Legolas stops and says I can't tell you the sad bits, and he refers to the dwarves waking up the Balrog. 29:00 And so there is a repeat, in the sort of stories of Lothlorien, of the similar idea of a thwarted love, whereas Beren and Luthien, of course, is in the end a happy, ever after kind of love story, even though it has sorrow in it. This one is that they are parted, or we don't know if they ever found each other. So it's that, like again, that tragedy and grief is always never far from the elven experience and that is an undercurrent flowing through even somewhere as beautiful as Lothlorien, like the river flows through the landscape. So we get this little dip into the history of the reasons why the dwarves and the elves at these parts fell out, and that little nod to that is a reminder, because it comes up, obviously when they meet the elven guards. They're looking for a safe place to perch, and I notice here that there's one of those lines which gets misplaced in the film. 30:09 So the way that Gimli is imagined in the film is comic. He is not as comical at all in the book. I don't think I mean, I'm just thinking that for Tolkien the hobbits are the comical ones and the dwarves are the dwarven race. Tolkien, the hobbits are the comical ones and the dwarves are the dwarven race, whereas in the film Gimli's often the one sort of puffing away at the back and you know, there's the sort of mind the beard jokes, which is not that Tolkien really. I hadn't really struck me until I saw what they did with this line. Anyway, let me show you what I mean when they try and climb a tree and are told to drop down because the elven guards are there. It is the hobbits who are saying who are they, what are they doing? And legolas says they say that you breathe so loudly that they could shoot you in the dark. 31:05 In the film that line is given to haldir, to sort of g up gimli, to kind of you know, needle him, and sam hastily put his hand over his mouth. So it's actually turned more into a sam moment. Sam later on is um described snoring. So he's a heavy breather, is sam um? And so it's the hobbits who are the funny creatures here, not the dwarves. Anyway, just thought I'd point that out. So Legolas takes Frodo up into the Talon. Notice, guess who follows? It's Sam. Haldir now takes over as our useful guide to all things Lothlorien. 31:52 And there's an interesting comment here about what the elves know about the hobbits. Again, there's this lack of communication in Middle-earth because really the shah's not that hard to find. Anyway, he says we had not heard of hobbits or halflings for many a long year and did not know that any yet dwelt in middle earth. Now the dwarves knew because they'd been trading um and walking through the shower. But anyway, um, the secret of the existence of the hobbits didn't penetrate very far, and which actually helped them, because sauron took a while looking for them. Um, but it was interesting that the suggestion is there were hobbits that were known previously and Haldir is thinking they may all have vanished. I guess maybe the hobbits think the same of the elves. You know, maybe it goes both ways. 32:44 Then Legolas shows that he is used to these diplomatically awkward situations, because he's describing who's in the party and he's rather hoping that Haldir can't count, because he has to finally admit that the eighth person is a dwarf. A dwarf, said Haldir. That is not well. We have not had dealings with the dwarves since the dark days. They are not permitted in our land. I cannot allow him to pass. Gandalf says to the barog you cannot pass. 33:35 So we've now got another block, phrased very similarly, as Haldir tries to stop poor old Gimli, who's not done anything wrong, coming into his land. But he's got a law which I think Celeborn is quite keen to enforce, and so he can't make the decision, or he's only got a limited room of maneuver. Anyway, frodo steps up here, and Frodo, who is so passive in the film, he's the one who makes some really good arguments why Gimli should be allowed in. He says he's one of Dane's trusty people and friendly to Elrond and chosen by Elrond, and so Legolas gets made the sort of guarantor of Gimli and note that this is the turning point actually for their friendship, because when we leave Lothlorien, gimli and Legolas have become the great friends that they're known for, and so this moment where Legolas sort of has to take responsibility for him is one of the starts of that. Really, though his tone towards Gimli has already been changing, which is nice to see. 34:43 So the hobbits are now up in the trees, and this is a light-hearted moment about their experience of having to sleep on a platform with no edge. I don't blame you. That sounds pretty terrifying, and sam works his way up to quite a labored pun. Uh, the sooner I'll drop off, if you take my meaning. This is the kind of hobbit talk which Tolkien loved and other people told him could do with some cutting, but we'll allow him. He has avoided hobbit talk for a while, so we'll let him get away with it then. 35:21 So we're still in the darkness in the nighttime section, and this is where we get the orcs passing beneath them. Nice to see sting being used have to keep reminding us. When you've got these artifacts in a book, you can't just forget them for chapter one chapter. It's nice to keep using them to remind us of their presence. But we also get the closest shave with golem. He gets as far as two pale eyes looking at Frodo. 35:50 This arrival of Gollum is a long, long procedure, isn't it? I'd forgotten until I started analysing this chapter just how many times we almost, but not quite, meet him. He gets another. Gollum must be one of the luckiest creatures in Middle-earth in some way, because again, he isn't killed by the elves because they're not sure if he's bad or not. So he gets a lucky escape. We get a name of the other elf who hasn't yet been named Orophin. He is sent back to warn of the incursion of the orcs, leaving Haldir and his brother Rumil to conduct the travelers the next morning further into Lothlorien. 36:40 So this is the final section of the book, and this is done in daylight. So we've gone from nighttime and orcs and rumors and the glimpse of Gollum to a morning which is described as pale, blue skies, a fallow gold sea. That's the description of the, the leaves, that's one of the many mentions in this chapter of oceans and beaches in an inland realm and one of the first things they encounter is the rope bridge. Nice to see here that Pippin, after having been nervous about jumping the seven foot chasm, he's not the one worried about the bridge. He goes across holding onto the rope very nimble, and Sam has one of his lovely grounding statements about how his Uncle Andy couldn't have even done that. And it makes you wonder about all those tales that we don't yet hear about the characters among the hobbits. So Uncle Andy is obviously one about whom family tales were told, but he brings in someone like small and only famous within a family. In this context where legolas is talking about nimrodel and amroth, I like the fact that it's still this local folk folkloric presence in, with sam's grounding there. The other thing I noticed when I was looking at this as an analytical way is how the land is organized. So the um, the knife, which is where they're going to once they cross the river, is described as a spear. Uh, tolkien said it's like a spearhead between the arms of Silverload and Anduin the Great, this stretch of land, and it's a small detail, but the Miramere is described as a spearhead thrust towards the mountains the other way. So in this chapter we've gone from one spearhead pointing that way to one pointing the other. This chapter we've gone from one spearhead pointing that way to one pointing the other. I don't suppose even Tolkien noticed he did that, but it does give a symmetry to this particular chapter journey. 39:22 We get the banter here between Gimli and Legolas, with Aragorn trying to make peace about whether or not they should be blindfolded, and Gimli, of course, is annoyed or outraged to be singled out, and Legolas is saying get over it, in Elven terms. And then when he's told that he has to be blindfolded, of course he is not pleased either. Anyway, aragorn does show that he can wrangle his company by making the suggestion that they all go blindfold. We get the sensory impact here that if you're blindfolded you can't see, so you have to rely on your other, uh, your other senses. And so frodo, who is our point of view that we are following, he, he goes through what he can sense about the place they're going, and I think one of the spells cast by lothlorien is that it's a full sensory experience and that makes it feel more real and more intense. He could spell the trees and the trodden grass. He could hear many different notes in the rustle of the leaves overhead the river murmuring away on his right and the thin, clear voices of birds in the sky. He felt the sun upon his face and hands when they passed through an open glade. So we are out. In fact, today I'm recording this on a day where I'm cutting the grass sam would be pleased, and if I go outside and sit in my garden, that's exactly what I would feel the sun on my face, the birds in the sky. So in a way, I there always is a moment, a chance to transport yourself to lothlorien on a sunny spring day in countryside in the uk. So I that's why I love the idea of lothlorien. I suppose it's an even more intense version of where I live. 41:17 In many ways, there is a fascinating thing that happens at the end of this chapter, which is the time slip moment. When they leave, they talk about how time has changed, being there, and this is where it starts to go all a bit strange, and Frodo notices it. He says he felt as if he had stepped over a bridge of time into a corner of the elder days and was now walking in a world that was no more. In Rivendell there was a memory of ancient things in Lorien. The ancient things still lived on in the waking world. So and it goes on. Actually I was going to stop there, but I like the next bit too. Evil had been seen and heard there, sorrow had been known, the elves feared and distrusted the world outside. Walls were howling on the woods borders, but on the land of Lorien no shadow lay lay. So it's a wonderful evocation. 42:19 You're stepping back into the past when you go into Lorien and Frodo, because of his sensitivity to such things, feels that moment when it begins to slip, obviously not really in terms of the story, but it has that feeling of being suspended and out of time. Then they get the message that they're allowed to be blindfolded and the good thing about that is that the moment they are told this is when they are at Cairn Amroth, which is this hill in the old heart of Lothlorien. So you get the ta-da, ta-da moment. Didn't like this in the film. Always thought that painted backdrop and also it wasn't Cairn Amroth, it was um Galadriel and Celeborn's home that they. That is shown. That's not where they are in the book. So if you found that moment underwhelming in the film. 43:20 Go and read the book moment, because this beautiful hill, the old hut, is the place that they have reached and it's empty, it's not lived in. It's a hill with beautiful flowers and trees, and the flowers that are given names are Eleanor and Nifredil. They are described in such a way that for a British reader sound very close to celandines and snowdrops. So the star-shaped yellow flower and the white sort of green white flowers, very similar to those, and they are the flowers that are the first ones that appear in january and february here, winter flowers that herald spring, very, very fitting for the positioning of lorian in this chapter. 44:14 Frodo is a really marvelous point of of view in this and there's a section here on page 365 in my copy, where he's analysing what he feels about it all. Everyone else is lying down, by everyone else. I think we can assume Pippin and mary are lying down, but anyway he is thinking about it. He feels as though he has stepped through a high window that looked on a vanished world the light was upon it for which his language had no name. All that he saw was shapely, but the shape seemed at once clear-cut, as if they had been first conceived and drawn at the uncovering of his eyes, and ancient as if they had endured forever. He saw no colour but those he knew gold and white and blue and green. But they were fresh and poignant, as if he had, at that moment first perceived them and made for them names new and wonderful. Perceive them and made for them names new and wonderful. 45:22 This reminds me of um part of tolkien's essay on fairy stories, where he talks about the re-enchantment that fairy tales are able to bring into such simple ideas as trees and flowers and green um, making us perceive them afresh and again. Also, that concept is in his poem misappear um, which is I would suggest you read if you want to understand how he makes loftlorian work, but if you want to see another writer doing a similar thing. This section also reminds me of the last battle where, when they go through the stable door in CS Lewis's book, the Narnia they reach is more intense. The greens are more green, the blues are more blues and their idea that you're sort of heading into the reality, what is the most real place at all? You could get philosophical and say it's like meeting the platonic ideals for real. That's a possibility. Or it could be almost like a concept of what is heaven compared to earth. That's an idea that CS Lewis plays with in the Great Divorce, his meditation and what it might be like to be in heaven. So this may be one of the things that explains why Lothlorien feels so different from everywhere else, because this place where everything is more real does feel a bit like an elven heaven. 46:53 But I would say that in that there is a problem, isn't there, because it is the timelessness where it doesn't change. Frodo says he felt a timeless land that did not fade or change or fall into forgetfulness. That is also not living, in a way, because living is about change. And it's interesting that Tolkien in his letters, criticizes the elves as being like embalmers, people making mummies, embalming the past to not change. So that's where he criticizes them. Change so that's where he criticizes them. Sam's also interesting here because he is allowing himself to expand his idea of elves. He says I thought that elves were all for moon and stars, but this is more elvish than anything I heard tell of. I feel as if I'm inside a song. If you take my meaning. That goes back to the idea of tales and songs being more intense versions of reality. So he feels like he's stepped through into that. 48:07 Haldir is still with us as our guide and him being there and explaining what they're seeing gives us a chance to connect our experience in Lothlorien back to the bigger context of the quest. We don't want to forget what we're about. We don't want to just be like lotus eaters and stay in Lothlorien forever. They can see outside the golden land and they can see as far as southern Mirkwood where Dol Guldur, which is the old fortress in Mirkwood, where a shadow lies it's a stand in here for Barad-dur, one of the Dark Lord's citadels. So it reminds us that while there is a bright light shining on Lothlorien, it is only an island, and here we get the idea of it being an island in a sea of change. 49:00 Frodo, actually, under this spell, says he stood still hearing far off great seas, upon beaches that had long ago been washed away and seabirds crying whose race had perished from the earth. That's a hint at the sort of fossil record and how. I live on a place with chalk downs, and chalk downs were once seabeds. I'm sure Tolkien was thinking of that and the age of the earth, but also it connects the elves to the fact that they came from over the seas. It's the seashell metaphor again that the place where Galadriel came from over the seas. She brings it with her. So the beaches and the oceans are present where she lives. 49:46 Quite beautiful section. All of this. I love all the bells that are being rung for me in my imagination. And the last part, the very last short part of it, is meeting Aragorn. And it's lovely that Frodo and Aragorn have this moment together because they are really are two key protagonists in the future of Middle-earth at this stage. And Aragorn is holding a bloom of Elinor and he's wrapped in some fair memory. And the thing that Frodo notices is that the time slip happens to Aragorn too, and he's seen, clothed in white, a young lord, tall and fair, and he's speaking as if speaking to Arwen, arwen, van Imelda, namarie. So this moment where time goes fluid and he is both in the past and in the present, frodo witnesses, but it also connects us to what Aragorn's motive is. 50:46 It's not ever really thrust so strongly in our mind as it is in the film version of this, because it's a novel not a film. But he is on his own quest to be the king of both Arnor and Gondor in order to earn Arwen's hand in marriage, and so this is a moment which just nods to that. And it's notable that we started with a wintry, elegiac stage saying farewell to Gandalf, visiting a stone memorialising a dead dwarven king, that we end with a golden, that sort of silvery and white. This is a golden elegiac moment, a mixture of joy and grief. And Aragorn says here is the heart of Elvenden on earth by the way, he says it, not Haldir again film. And here my heart dwells. Ever, unless there be a light beyond the dark roads that we must tread, you and I. So he's saying that that moment I had with Arwen, that may be all I get, unless we come through to light. After this, come with me. And rather than shooting off ahead and leaving poor old Frodo to puff behind with his wound, he takes Frodo's hand in his, and taking Frodo's hand in his, he left the hill of Cairn Amroth and came there never again as living man. 52:21 I had to re-record that because actually my voice went all broke up because I find that really beautiful. I know these are fictional characters that we're talking about, but at this stage we're very invested in them. But also there's the sense of loss that Tolkien very much knew, and if you've had any loss of yourself, the place that you never get to go back to, that's associated with those you've lost. All of that is being channeled into this the friends that he lost during the war, for example, the fears that he would not see them again. And it's a beautiful way to end this chapter, introducing us to Lothlorien, and we all can now look forward to meeting our favourite Elven, queen Galadriel, in the next chapter. But at the moment we'll leave our heroes standing on Cairn Anor. 53:14 - Speaker 2 (None) Thanks for listening to Mythmakers Podcast Brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. Visit OxfordCentreForFantasy.org to join in the fun. Find out about our online courses, in-person stays in Oxford, plus visit our shop for great gifts. 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