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The One Ring Forums:
Tolkien Topics: Main:
It's time for some more BS!:
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grammaboodawg
Elvenhome
Thu, 1:23pm
Views: 63
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It's time for some more BS!
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Here is part 4 of a 5-part Book Spoiler look at the Hobbits' perception of the Old Forest… for a moment of Tolkien-zen.
From The Old Forest: The Fellowship of the Ring ... "At first their choice seemed to be good: they got along at a fair speed, though whenever they got a glimpse of the sun in an open glade they seemed unaccountably to have veered eastwards. But after a time the trees began to close in again just where they had appeared from a distance to be thinner and less tangled. Then deep folds in the ground were discovered unexpectedly, like the ruts of great giant-wheels or wide moats and sunken roads long disused and choked with brambles. These lay unusually right across their line of march, and cold only be crossed by scrambling down and out again… …Each time they climbed down they found the hollow filled with thick bushes and matted undergrowth, which somehow would not yield to the left, but only gave way when they turned to the right… …they had to go some distance along the bottom before they could find a way up the further bank. Each time they clambered out, the trees seemed deeper and darker; and always to the left and upwards it was most difficult to find a way, and they were forced to the right and downwards.
... After an hour or two they lost all clear sense of direction though they knew well enough that they had long ceased to go northward at all. They were being headed off and were simply following a course chosen for them--eastwards and southwards, into the heart of the Forest and not out of it.
... The afternoon was wearing away when they scrambled and stumbled into the fold that was wider and deeper than any they had yet met. It was so steep and overhung that it proved impossible to climb out of it again, either forwards or backwards, without leaving their ponies and their baggage... ...All they could do was to follow the fold--downwards. The ground grew soft, and in places boggy; springs appeared in the banks, and soon they found themselves following a brook that trickled and babbled through a weedy bed. Then the ground began to fall rapidly... ...the brook growing strong and noisy, flowed and leaped swiftly downhill. They were in a deep dim-lit gully over-arched by trees high above them.
... After stumbling along for some way along the stream, they came quite suddenly out of the gloom. As if through a gate they saw the sunlight before them. Coming to the opening they found that they had made their way down through a cleft in a high steep bank, almost a cliff. At its feet was a wide space of grass and reeds... ...in the distance could be glimpsed another bank almost as steep... ...sunshine lay warm and drowsy upon the hidden land between. In the midst of it there wound lazily a dark river of brown water, bordered with ancient willows, arched over with willows, blocked with fallen willows, and flecked with thousands of faded willow-leaves....
... '...Well, now I have at least some notion of where we are!' said Merry."
We have been there and back again.
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(This post was edited by grammaboodawg on Thu, 1:28pm)
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Edit Log:
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Post edited by grammaboodawg
(Elvenhome) on Thu, 1:28pm
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