Sidecast - LOTR: An Author's Journey, Book 2 Chapter 8

00:05 - Speaker 1 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. Now, this is a Sidecast episode on the Lord of the Rings, looking at the novel from the point of view of someone who writes for a living. So I've called it the Author's Journey. 00:32 And we have reached in book two, that's towards the end of the Fellowship of the Ring, chapter eight, a chapter called Farewell to Lorien, and indeed it does what it says. It is the chapter where they take their leave of Lorien. Now, if you look at this chapter, it falls into, I'd say, three main parts, two or three main parts. The first is the initial debate about what they're going to do next, how are they going to travel on from Lorien? So that's a discussion with Celeborn and then a discussion amongst the Fellowship. And then there's an extended rest of the chapter which is about different forms of gift giving. So initially the gift giving is with the ordinary elves, and then the last part of the chapter is when they meet Celeborn and Galadriel again for the more formal personalized gift giving. So that's like the third part. You could argue that the whole chapter is one long series of giving of gifts, but we'll look at that in a moment. 01:42 I found myself actually making quite a lot of notes on this chapter because I realized there are a lot of really interesting themes that come up and there are things that I had not noticed. The number of times I've read this book and still I am coming across new things, so I hope in this I will be highlighting things that you also haven't noticed, so that you can have a new, fresh enjoyment of this chapter. The first thing I noticed is that you can have a new, fresh enjoyment of this chapter. The first thing I noticed is that where they meet is to initiate the leaving mechanism, as it were, the detachment of the company from their rest time in Lorien is they meet in a place which is called the Chamber of Celeborn. Now, this is quite an interesting hierarchy here, because obviously Galadriel is the senior elf in many ways, having come from Valinor, but in terms of who is known as the Lord of Lorien, it seems that Celeborn is given that name. In the same way, Thranduil is given the name of the Lord of the Elves of Mirkwood, and I hadn't really noticed that until I thought, oh yeah, they're highlighting here, or Tolkien highlighting that it's Celeborn who is the person associated with the place, because Galadriel arrived there or came to Middle-earth later. 03:03 Celeborn serves quite a useful function in this chapter, aside from his kingly presence, and that is that he is the one who often reiterates the geography of where we have reached in this complicated tale and also reminds us of the stakes, and that is what he does at the beginning of this chapter. He reiterates the stakes, both personal and to the wider world, saying basically, you can stay here if you want, but that will have effect on people's lives beyond just your own. Confirms that they all wish to go on. And note here that Boromir is not. He could have just nodded his head and kept his own thoughts to himself, but he is increasingly more bolshie, he's more pushing back. He has been all the way through, but he can't just accept that he's going on. He has to say, well, I was going on anyway. Whatever you say that he's going on, he has to say, well, I was going on anyway, whatever you say. And this is his the grit, the place that he actually puts the pressure on the company is always this attitude of my agenda. I know I'm right, and Tolkien is reminding us of that, because of course it's going to come to the breaking point in a chapter or so's time. 04:26 We also hear that they can't make their mind up. It's a problem when writing a book. If you're trying to keep us in suspense as to what decisions people are going to make, how do you do that without it becoming tedious? It's a bit like in Hamlet how long can you keep us watching a play about a prince who is thinking about whether or not he should take revenge for the death of his father? They are delaying this decision. It's a genuinely difficult decision for them, because Aragorn had thought he was going to go to Minas Tirith and become king. You know, take on that, or try to earn Arwen's hand in marriage and all those stakes for him, but without Gandalf he has to step into the shoes of leading the company, and so one way of keeping the suspense going, so it's not annoying, is to do what Celeborn does Is use a strategy where they don't have to make the decision yet it's not come to the absolute crunch moment, and so they are given elven boats, which means that they can literally sail between the two, the east bank and the west bank, they can keep going without the decision having to be taken. Also, we get a nice little detail here that Merry is quite fond of boats because he lives near the Brandywine and he says that you know, not all hobbits look at boats like wild horses. We know, and it's later made very clear, that the person who does regard boats as wild horses is, of course you guessed it Sam. 05:58 It's helpful the way Celeborn lays out the way markers down the river. You'll go through this land and then meet these falls and so on, because as a writer, if you're creating a fantasy land and we know that elements of this story Tolkien was inventing as he went along filling in his map, so to speak that it gives you something to write towards. And if you have problems sustaining a story, you might need a little bit of a kelleborn in your mind and perhaps in your story too, someone who will say well, after the wood is the castle. You know that kind of thing, so you know where you're going, because that will suggest events on the way to you if you start putting in the geographical markers. So it's very useful to have a kelleborn. 06:43 There's a little passage which you may not have noticed after they accept the gift of the boats with some relief. It's like a company reaction to the boats, where everybody's different response is marked and there's a joint one, which is a kind of fatalistic one, which is whatever perils lay ahead, it seemed better to float down the broad tide of Anduin to meet them than to plod forward with bent backs. So there is a feeling in this book, no matter how many delays they have, there is a tug like a tide bringing them towards confrontation, and the river in a way stands for that. At this point they are being taken into the adventure even if they wanted to keep out of it. And note also, at the end of this little interview with Celeborn and Galadriel, that we have another of these biblical cadences that we examined in the last podcast, where Galadriel says do not trouble your hearts. She's changing her tune here Do not trouble your hearts over much. So actually she's saying you've got to be a little bit worried, but it's going back to the idea that the elves strike this angelic almost cadence Do not let your hearts be troubled. So it's still a note that's played again and again by Tolkien. So after seeing the Lord and Lady of Lorien, we have another of our fellowship huddles where we see them working out what they're going to do. We had obviously ones before they decided to go up the mountain path and so on. We've been talking about that as we go along. 08:27 Here is another of these, and of course the last one happens right at the end of this book. But this is the second to last one. I think it's like a mini council, and what's most notable about here? Because they're reiterating the point that they can't make their mind up. What's most notable about here? Because they're reiterating the point that they can't make their mind up. But there is something new here to notice. Ah, he self-corrects and makes some other you know folly to throw lives away. But Frodo realizes that Boromir is talking about the ring. It's interesting that in the film this line is moved to the confrontation between Frodo and Boromir in the scene where Boromir's supposedly collecting wood. It's actually from this section. So the slow burn of Boromir's descent into a sort of greed and madness is threaded in a different way in the actual novel. 09:42 Okay, so we're now moving into the general gift giving and it starts with lembas. It's one of those miracle foods of the Elves. We've had the cordial on a couple of occasions. There is an echo here with this don't eat too much of it. It's like a wafer with the creamy insides. There is a connection here possibly to the bread of communion which you don't bolt down, but it's supposed to. It's not a meal in that way, it's a symbolic meal and it's supposed to be soul satisfying. So there is a connection, I think quite deliberate, here between a sort of sense of a spiritual food that Lembus represents. It's unlike any of the other food, it's unlike cram, it's unlike the food that Faramir later gives Frodo and Sam. It is a special spiritual food. I always imagine it a bit like some kind of macaroon. I think people have tried to make recipes for it, but I suppose really the point is it isn't like anything any of us have ever eaten, because it is beyond that, it's elven. So you have to let your imagination think of something even better than anything you can possibly eat. We do get a nice shout out here to Bjorn and the honey cakes, which for the observant reader will take them back to the Hobbit, where for Bilbo eating the honey cakes was a high point. 11:11 So, moving on from Lembas and of course Lembas is going to be important for the rest of the story, particularly for Frodo and Sam, we have more gifts and these start out as generalized gifts, so obviously the boats, but we've got gifts of a hood and a cloak, which is naturally a camouflage. And it's Pippin this time who raises that question of elven magic and again gets the answer wow, we don't quite know what you mean. But there is a lovely detail here which I think picks up one of the themes of this chapter, which is about making and creativity. And the elves say to Pippin and Merry leaf and branch, water and stone. They that's the cloaks have the hue and beauty of all these things, under the twilight of Lorien, that we love, for we put the thought of all that we love into all that we make. Now, this is the difference between the creativity of the good and the bad. In Middle-earth, the rude, crude weapons of the orcs are not made with love, often made out of slavery and fear and servitude, whereas the weapons, the cloaks, the leaf brooches another important gift are all made with love, even the rope. We assume and I think this is a really interesting theme in picking up with lembas being like a spiritual food. These gifts also have their spiritual aspect of protection and comfort and a sense of cleanness. Later on, when Frodo is in really pretty bad situation in Mordor, having the elven cloak next to his skin is a huge comfort. So there's a power of goodness because it's made with love. There's a whole kind of spiritual, theological writings about the dignity of work and making, which I'm sure Tolkien is aware of. But also for us as creatives I guess that is what we should be aiming for is for making things with love rather than hatred and fear and servitude. So I love this. It might be my new motto for creativity. 13:38 Moving on, we get Haldir popping back up again. He sort of bookends the arrival and departure from Lorien In a way, because the other elves who have been talking to the company aren't named individually. He stands for the other elves who aren't Celeborn and Galadriel. But he also connects us to events in the outside world because he's been on guard and it reminds us that things. Though time seems to stop almost in Lorien, it hasn't stopped for everywhere else. And there's this little tantalizing detail which I imagine on first read you don't notice he mentions how there are sounds and clouds of vapor in Dimrill Dale, which is back towards Moria, and we later find out. Of course it's Gandalf battling the Balrog, so it all does connect, and these are the kind of clues that you can read with an aha moment on your second time. So one of the things that she's so lovely to watch about Tolkien as a writer is the way that he does put in these things, which mean the book appears differently for further readings, and that's why we don't tire of it. It's not all done and dusted once you've read it once. 14:56 Now here is a detail I had not noticed before until looking at this very carefully for this podcast, and that is Haldir leads them for 10 miles from Galathon to where they get the boats. I really hadn't noticed that. So suddenly Lorien is bigger in my mind than before and he leads them to another lawn and here what's is described as being bounded by rivers. We've got the silver load glittering like silver, and the great river, that's the Anduin, which is described as deep and dark, and the banks on this great river are described as bleak and bare. So can you see how Tolkien continues to ring these lexical sets really about the different worlds. It's the part of this spell of enchantment. So with Lorien, we've got silver, gold, green, bright light glitter. Outside, lorien, you have deep, dark, bleak bare. So that's how you create atmosphere is keep on gently putting it back in and eventually you get this thing that adds up to something much bigger than a single sentence. 16:20 In the boats, which are well packed for them, there is the gift of rope, and this is a bit of a relief moment for Sam and also for the reader as well, because we've been worried mildly along with Sam and he's finally got his rope. So it's a bit of oh, I'm glad he's finally fully equipped. And there's a nice little detail about he could have stayed to learn how to create rope. If he comes back to learn, that's nice, the idea that they're willing to share. They're not keeping the secrets of their creativity, they want to share. 16:52 The boats themselves seem to have personality. Tolkien lived near the Charlwell River. Well, it's not that far from the Thames either, called the Isis in Oxford, and punts themselves are quite hard to fall out of. But he would have seen many a rowing boat go by and no doubt probably fallen in his fair share of rivers. So it's quite sweet here that he talks about these boats being rivers. So it's quite sweet here that he talks about these boats being. They are wayward if mishandled. I like that fact and that goes back to the idea of them being a bit like wild horses. They have a personality and then, before they set off, the company have a practice, and it's good here to notice that we've got a visual check-in of who is where. 17:36 When you have a larger company like this number of characters, to keep everybody's minds on, to arrange them so we can easily understand, is helpful. In the Hobbit, Tolkien did it by giving his dwarves runs of rhyming names, as you probably remember, or alliterating names, but though they never quite emerge in fully separate ways, because there are a lot of dwarves to remember, here I think the numbers are more manageable but also by putting them in boats. It really highlights the relationships you need to focus on. So you've got the company was arrayed in this way. It's quite a strong sentence with a colon. So we really do that. Colon is namely that's the force of that Namely Aragorn Frodo and Sam were in one boat, semicolon Love of Selig, semicolon Boromir, merry and Pippin in another semicolon, and in the third were Legolas and Gimli, who had now become fast friends. 18:58 So can you see how this is really laying out what's going to be happening, going forward, breaking up already and the boats are breaking up the company a bit. I just want to land briefly on this fast friends. Fast here doesn't mean like fast food, it means more like locks or handfast, the idea that they are stuck closely, so it's got that weight of that word. They are fast friends, close, committed friends. I also like the mention here of an actual species of birds. So over this lawn is flying the larks, which they can hear in song. If you live in a country that doesn't have larks, it's the most beautiful outpouring of bird song. I live near lots of larks up and on the Downs and I love hearing. You see the birds but there are like dots in the distance and you hear this pouring of sound like silver. If you want to feel what that's like, have a listen to the piece of classical music called the Lark Ascending by Vaughan Williams, where the violin plays the part of the lark and I suppose that might be my theme tune for Lorien, the Lark Ascending. 20:10 We're moving on from larks to swans, but it's not a real swan Making quite an entrance. They love a good entrance. Kenneborn and Galadriel arrive by boat. I love the detail here of the two paddles that look like the black legs of the swan. So this is such a. From a distance this boat really looks like a swan and the black legs are part of that illusion, but also very practical. And then you obviously see that it's elves arriving. I think our imagination has been rather spoiled by those cheap paddler things that you see at some seaside resort. So chuck that out of your mind and try and imagine what a really beautifully created boat would look like, with the artistry of the elves to look like a swan and also, note, with the idea it was Celeborn's hall. We've got Celeborn sitting and Galadriel standing. It's partly practical because she's about to sing, but also this idea that he is the sort of king in residence and Galadriel is more of the wanderer across Middle-earth. 21:24 So we get the first of the two poems in this chapter, galadriel's Song. It's a beautiful poem. It has an interesting opening which I hadn't thought about until again today. This is why I love doing these podcasts, because it helps me see new things myself. There's a nod to the creation myth here. I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew Of wind. I sang a wind there came and in the branches blew. You'll know that the very original story of by original I mean the origin of the world in the Silmarillion is Iluvatar and the Valar singing the world into creation. You get an echo of this in the creation of Narnia when Aslan sings the world into being, and here we've got Galadriel just nodding to that in this song. 22:26 We also get here the twin themes that go with elves. One is the vistas of places that you aren't expected to understand and know at this stage in the book, places like Tirion, eldamar. They just sound lovely. You're supposed to have a sense of places like mountain ranges that you're not visiting, that you don't know about. That's what they do there. And you also get here the melancholy which comes particularly in the last four lines, which is O Lorien, too long I have dwelt upon this hither shore and in a fading crown have twined the golden Eleanor, so that fading, it's the world that's fading. But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me, what ship would bear me ever back across so wide a sea? 23:43 It's not looked at in this book but there is in the sort of Fianor, and they left Valinor and they included some of the parts of that group killing other elves. So they left in disgrace and there was a curse put upon them and that curse stretches even to Galadriel, and that her situation. This is one version of the law. Her situation is that she needs to regain the right to go back to Valinor because she's under this curse. None of the sons of Fiannaur can because of it, and they all have different sticky ends. Galadriel is someone who is eventually forgiven and this is the moment where she is able to do that because she resists, whereas they were in pursuit of Isilmaril. Now she has resisted the ring, so it lifts the curse eventually on her and she can go back at the end. 24:33 That's my understanding of Galadriel's story, though I did mention in the last podcast that Tolkien had a variety of stories about Galadriel. So I like this one, though it makes sense. It makes sense of the melancholy of this story here. So here we have them singing the song and coming to land and eating together, which surprisingly they haven't done during their stay. The elves keep themselves to themselves, it would seem, but before they land. 25:09 I just want to highlight another beautiful little phrase, which is the changing faces of Galadriel. We are in the mind of Frodo. Remember that his is a good mind to be in at these times when we're thinking of the finer things, the finer sort of history. He's got a hobbit of great perception and Frodo reflects upon how Galadriel has seemed different to him at different stages, when he's met her, and now already she seemed to him as by men of later days, elves still at times are seen present and yet remote, a living vision of that which has already been left far behind by the flowing streams of time. Now, I wanted to pick that up because this theme of time and the river is going to be a theme that plays continually through this section. 26:11 Okay, so we're back now with Kellerborn giving us another geographical sketch. This is part of the decoupling from Lorien, part of moving on, and actually it's interesting here that we get as far as the gates of Mordor in the description that Celeborn gives. Have a look at this, go to the map, work out what he's describing. And it reminds me that Tolkien at this point is not aware how long his story is going to be. He actually thought he might finish it quite soon. He certainly didn't think there was going to be another two whole books worth. So the fact that Celeborn's talking about the gates of Mordor, I think, is a sense of almost Tolkien thinking oh yeah, I'm not so far from the end, am I? But we all know that the gates of Mordor is not where they get as far as they've got to keep on going. 26:59 But he also mentions and something else which later is remembered. He calls Fangorn that's the forest in which Treebeard lives a strange land and is now little known. It's interesting because it's not that far away. I've remarked on this when it came to the fate of the Dwarves of Moria. There is a lack of mobility, not many wanderers like Aragorn in this world, but anyway, let's leave that aside. 27:27 Celeborn, who is obviously wise, the wisest of the elves, apparently, he calls it a strange land and one of the things that I'm amused by looking at it this time is that Boromir takes everything that's said as a challenge to his bravery and manhood. As a way he sort of says oh well, he recaps the voyage to not the voyage, the journey to Rivendell, and how he lost his horse in the fords and all this kind of thing, say I'm going to find my way through. He can't just let somebody say something. He has to come in and say no, no, no, it's going to be fine. I'm a big, bold man, it's going to be fine. 28:09 And Kellebor makes this interesting response, which is do not despise the law that has come down from distant years, for oft it may chance that old wives keep in memory word of things that once were needful for the wise to know. It is needful to know that Fangorn is occupied, but also that comes up again when we have the healing in Minas Tirith about the law of old wives, and Athelas Gandalf is the one who talks about it then. He's obviously not present at this moment, but he would agree with Celeborn that there is a lot of wisdom to be found in so-called old wives' tale. Galadriel is the one who offers the cup of farewell. It did tend to fall to women in the court to offer the cup. I think we see Erwin doing something similar later on, and this is picking up on the sort of medievalism, the chivalry even Anglo-Saxon in fact feeling of the courts in Tolkien world, and she also uses it as an opportunity to give everybody a perspective that you don't have to find sadness in things coming to an end. In fact, things do need to move on. Tolkien criticizes the elders as embalmers trying to hold things still, and Galadriel has wisdom of the ages in that you do have to let things go. 29:40 Now we move to the more personalized gifts. All of them are interesting, so we're just going to go through them quite quickly. But Aragorn gets a sheath for Anduril and then he has this, what seems on first reading cryptic exchange with Galadriel, where you realize that he's talking about Arwen, that she held in her care, something that cannot be given. That's what he wants. He wants Arwen, but he is also given something else which is of talismanic importance. He's given the green stone which gives him the name Alessa, which is described here as being a sort of like winged jewel, and when he puts this on, it's almost a moment when he becomes the king. The others look at him differently. There've been glimpses of his kingliness, but here they see him in the stone. Sort of is the thing that prompts them to see him as the king he's going to be. Of course, when he's back in the wild he will hide that again, but it's one of those glimpses that prepares us for the return of the king. Boromir just gets the belt of gold, mary and Pippin, silver belts, legolas, a bow and quiver, and Sam, of course, gets his box which contains the seed of the mallorn tree which he has with him all the way through. It's a thing he keeps hold of and comes into its own right at the end of this story. Well, I think it is. 31:20 The takeaway here for me is that Galadriel, who also saw what he saw in the mirror, cares. She doesn't say, oh, tough luck, your home's going to be ruined, but that's the price of going on an adventure. She gives him something to repair the hurts of the world. She wants to undo the damage of the evil parties in this story, and so that's her answer, which she's been working on quietly in the background. Then we get Gimli. Well, he isn't given a gift. He's asked a question what do you want? And Gimli just asked for one hair, just a hair from her head, and he says he will treasure it, lady, in memory of your words to me at our first meeting You'll remember, is he looks up and finds a friend when he's expecting a foe. 32:16 There is a story behind this hair, again part of the wider lore on Galadriel, which is that Fianor, the elven smith who made the Silmarils, turns out to be the person who triggers this curse that she's still laboring under. He asked for her hair and she refused it because his wish was to acquisitive. The problem about the Silmarils is he didn't want to share them. He had a version of dragon sickness, silmaril sickness, and it's fitting that she will give the hair to Gimli because she says that he won't have the power over him. If you win, through your hands shall flow with gold, and yet over you, gold shall have no dominion. That is really the consistent message Do not want these things of gold, don't want a ring, don't want power. And you will actually have far more as a result if you don't get sick with this greed which, of course, is one of the deadly sins. 33:23 And then the last gift is Frodo, the file which is filled with waters containing the light of Eärendil with the lovely phrase may it be a light to you in dark places when all other lights go out. Remember that Gimli is thinking about her hair, which has the golden hair that has the light of Valinor in it. Here we've got another different light of Valinor, so the light of Eärendil. Eärendil is Elrond's father and he is one of these mythic characters who's translated to being a star, and he has one of the Silmarils bound in the ship Vingalot which sails across the heavens. So that's the image of the light, of the Silmaril is now a star, and that star, the Silmaril itself, the jewel, contains the light also of Valinor from the trees. And so can you see how Tolkien interweaves through his tale, the older tales, this special light from Valinor which accompanies both Gimli, in the shape of the hair, but also, more importantly, frodo, in the file of Galadriel, which will become an important tool for them to survive Mordor, beautifully interlaced, interwoven. 35:04 As they leave, galadriel stands alone. I find here an echo of the Goldberry farewell, but done sort of a much greater import, because Goldberry is of Middle-earth whereas Galadriel, of course, is of the West. And there's this gorgeous sentence as they leave For so it seemed to them Lorien was slipping backward like a bright ship, masted with enchanted trees, sailing on to forgotten shores, while they sat helpless upon the margin of the grey and leafless world. There's going to be a discussion about time coming up. One of my favourite passages in the book, which is going to pick up on this theme of time being like a river, also connects to that earlier passage about the rivers and time. So it's winding its way like the river through this chapter and it sums up beautifully the feeling of Lorien being its own capsule of time, floating away from them, and they are getting shipwrecked, getting bereft of it. 36:22 We have the second poem in this chapter, again by Galadriel, where she sings in a different form of Elvish Quenya, and Frodo remembers it. He doesn't understand it at this point, but he later gives it a prose translation. What is this doing here, presenting us a poem which is very difficult to read. Well, you can sort of sound it out, have a go and enjoy the beautiful sounds. But Tolkien also showing us his love for language. His world is a world created out of language, but also, by not giving us an easy access to it, also suggests a strangeness the otherness of other creatures in this world, other races, the depths of things you don't understand. And when you do read the translation, it's a song of homesickness, of loss, of trying to find a way home. 37:19 The themes of Galadriel, which chimes nicely with where her story lands. At the end of this book. We also get one of Tolkien little ominous phrases that we had with Aragorn when he was in Cerian Amroth to that fair land, frodo never came again Before we know the full sort of arc of this story. You know, does that mean Frodo dies in the next chapter? You know the jeopardy is raised by seeing he's not coming back. Now. They're on the river, lorien is fading behind them and Gimli cries out from the depths of his heart how much he feels he has lost. He says that he thought that danger would come in other guises, but it turned out to be falling in love with this land and with the Lady Galadriel. 38:10 And Legolas here shows his friendship to Gimli, but also his understanding and his wisdom and the necessity, like Galadriel said, of letting go. For such is the way of it to find and lose, as it seems to those whose boat is on the running stream, got this stream thing again. Living in time means that we move on, that we lose things, we can't keep hold, we can't clutch to things, and you are left with unstained memory of the place. You haven't spoiled it by trying to keep hold of it beyond what is right. And Gimli has an interesting sort of comeback on that. He says well, there are different kinds of memory. To elves memory is more like to the waking world than to a dream. So the idea that for elves, memory is like experiencing it again, whereas us poor mortals, for us memory fades and it's like a dream that's not resolved because they have to then look to the boats. But it's interesting that he that's what he Legolas doesn't say. You're absolutely right, that's what it's like, but it's left out there as a possible way that elves experience the world. And they carry on traveling through the brown lands. 39:35 Now, it's quite easy, after all the gold and the silver of Lorien, to sort of not appreciate the beauty of these plain, bleak landscapes. But I love it. It's like having a something you know plain after a rich meal. It's like having something plain after a rich meal. It's a great contrast. He describes the sun as being like a white pearl. That's what the sun looks like when there's cloud cover or mist. 39:55 Wonderful sentence here. Great trees pass by like ghosts, thrusting their twisted thirsty roots through the mist down into the water. So listen to that alliteration thrusting their twisted thirsty roots. Love that. Tolkien is so brilliant on landscape, weather, atmosphere, and even though he's left behind one of his most beautiful landscapes, there are still beauties, marvels to be seen in the brown lands. And this chapter ends. We've left thinking about Gimli saying the memory of Lorien is like a dream. It's notable that we actually end with Frodo dropping off into an uneasy sleep. It's as though we're all going into a dream about Lorien having left it behind. So that, I'm afraid, is farewell to Lorien, to which we will not return like Frodo. 41:00 - Speaker 2 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. Tell a friend and subscribe wherever you find your favourite podcasts worldwide.