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The One Ring Forums:
Tolkien Topics: Main:
TIME - September 21:
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grammaboodawg
Immortal
Sep 21 2024, 1:50pm
Views: 49890
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TIME - September 21
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Today in Middle-earth
September 21, 2941 (S.R. 1341)
1. Bilbo makes a discovery.
(determined from text - referencing Karen Wynn Fonstad, The Atlas of Middle-earth)
..."One day, nosing and wandering about, Bilbo discovered a very interesting thing: the great gates were not the only entrance to the caves. A stream flowed under part of the lowest regions of the palace, and joined the Forest River some way further to the east, beyond the steep slope out of which the main mouth opened....
......When the barrels were empty the elves cast them through the trapdoors, opened the water-gate, and out the barrels floated on the stream…"
......For some time Bilbo sat and thought about this water-gate, and wondered if it could be used for the escape of his friends, and at last he had the desperate beginnings of a plan…."
2. Bilbo and the Dwarves escape in the afternoon.
(determined from text – referencing Karen Wynn Fonstad, The Atlas of Middle-earth)
..."…Bilbo heard the king's butler bidding the chief of the guards good-night.
..."Now come with me," he said, "and taste the new wine that has just come in. I shall be hard at work tonight clearing the cellars of the empty wood, so let us have a drink first to help the labour..."
...…When he heard this Bilbo was all in a flutter, for he saw that luck was with him and he had a chance at once to try his desperate plan. He followed the two elves, until they entered a small cellar and sat down at a table on which two large flagons were set. Soon they began to drink and laugh merrily…. …Then in crept the hobbit. Very soon the chief guard had no keys…
......First he unlocked Balin's door… "You must follow me! We must all keep together and not risk getting separated. All of us must escape or none, and this is our last chance. If this is found out, goodness knows where the king will put you next, with chains on your hands and feet too, I expect. Don't argue, there's a good fellow!"
...Then off he went from door to door, until his following had grown to twelve… … At last after much blundering they came to Thorin's dungeon, far down in a deep place and fortunately not far from the cellars.
..."Upon my word!" said Thorin, when Bilbo whispered to him to come out and join his friends, "Gandalf spoke true, as usual. A pretty fine burglar you make, it seems, when the time comes. I am sure we are all for ever at your service, whatever happens after this. But what comes next?"
...Bilbo saw that the time had come to explain his idea, as far as he could...
..."...We shall be bruised and battered to pieces, and drowned too, for certain!" they muttered. "We thought you had got some sensible notion, when you managed to get hold of the keys. This is a mad idea!"
..."Very well!" said Bilbo very downcast, and also rather annoyed. "Come along back to your nice cells, and I will lock you all in again, and you can sit there comfortably and think of a better plan—but I don't suppose I shall ever get hold of the keys again, even if I feel inclined to try."
...That was too much for them, and they calmed down. In the end, of course, they had to do just what Bilbo suggested…
...…They soon found thirteen [casks] with room enough for a dwarf in each. In fact some were too roomy, and as they climbed in the dwarves thought anxiously of the shaking and the bumping they would get inside, though Bilbo did his best to find straw and other stuff to pack them in as cosily as could be managed in a short time....
......Bilbo suddenly discovered the weak point in his plan... ...he was not in a barrel himself...
......Now the very last barrel was being rolled to the doors! In despair and not knowing what else to do, poor little Bilbo caught hold of it and was pushed over the edge with it. Down into the water he fell, splash! into the cold dark water with the barrel on top of him.
...He came up again spluttering and clinging to the wood like a rat, and lay on the top spread out to keep the balance as best he could."
3. At dusk Bilbo and the barrel-packed Dwarves reach the huts of the Raft-men.
(determined from text – referencing Karen Wynn Fonstad, The Atlas of Middle-earth)
... "...the hurrying water of the Forest River swept all the company of casks and tubs away to the north bank... ...On the shallow shore most of the barrels ran aground, though a few went on to bump against the stony pier.
...There were people on the look-out on the banks. They quickly poled and pushed all the barrels together into the shallows… …counted them… …roped them together and left them till the morning. Poor dwarves! Bilbo… …slipped from his barrel and waded ashore, and then sneaked along to some huts that he could see near the water's edge. He no longer thought twice about picking up a supper uninvited if he got the chance… …and he knew only too well what it was to be really hungry… …Also he had caught a glimpse of a fire through the trees, and that appealed to him with his dripping and ragged clothes clinging to him cold and clammy."
September 21, 3001 (S.R. 1401)
1. Party preparations are in full swing.
(not from the appendices)
..."The tents began to go up. There was a specially large pavilion, so big that the tree that grew in the field was right inside it, and stood proudly near one end, at the head of the chief table. Lanterns were hung on all its branches. More promising still (to the hobbits' mind): an enormous open-air kitchen was erected in the north corner of the field. A draught of cooks, from every inn and eating-house for miles around, arrived to supplement the dwarves and other odd folk that were quartered at Bag End. Excitement rose to its height.
...Then the weather clouded over. That was on Wednesday the eve of the Party. Anxiety was intense..."
September 21, 3018 (S.R. 1418)
1. Gandalf meets Shadowfax.
(from the appendices)
..."'There is one among them that might have been foaled in the morning of the world. The horses of the Nine cannot vie with him... ...swift as the flowing wind. Shadowfax they called him. By day his coat glistened like silver; and by night it is like a shade, and he passes unseen. Light is his footfall! Never before had any man mounted him...'"
2. Frodo continues to anticipate Gandalf's return.
(not from the appendices)
..."Frodo became really anxious, and kept a constant look-out for Gandalf."
September 21, 3019 (S.R. 1419)
1. They return to Rivendell.
(from the appendices)
..."At last one evening they came over the high moors, suddenly as to the travellers it always seemed, to the brink of the deep valley of Rivendell and saw far below the lamps shining in Elrond's [home]... ...filled with light and song for joy at Elrond's homecoming.
...First of all, before they had eaten or washed or even shed their cloaks, the hobbits went in search of Bilbo. They found him all alone in his little room. It was littered with papers and pens and pencils; but Bilbo was sitting in a chair before a small bright fire. He looked very old, but peaceful, and sleepy.
...He opened his eyes and looked up as they came in. 'Hullo, hullo! ...So you've come back? And tomorrow's my birthday, too. How clever of you! Do you know, I shall be one hundred and twenty-nine? And in one year more, if I am spared, I shall equal the Old Took. I should like to beat him; but we shall see.'"
2. Saruman comes to the Shire.
(from the appendices)
..."You made me laugh, you hobbit-lordlings, riding along with all those great people, so secure and so pleased with your little selves. You thought you had done very well out of it all, and could now just amble back and have a nice quiet time in the country.... ...but you must go dangling after him, dawdling and talking, and riding round twice as far as you needed. "Well," thought I, "if they're such fools, I will get ahead of them and teach them a lesson. One ill turn deserves another."
September 21, 3021 (S.R. 1421)
1. Frodo and Samwise set out from Hobbiton.
(from the appendices)
..."...they set out together, Frodo on the pony that had borne him all the way from Minas Tirith, and was now called Strider: and Sam on his beloved Bill. It was a fair golden morning, and Sam did not ask where they were going: he thought he could guess."
September 21, 1937
1. The Hobbit is published.
..."In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."
...In the early 1930's, J.R.R. Tolkien found a blank page on one of his students' school papers he was correcting and wrote this first line of what would become one of the greatest fantasy stories written. Once a bedtime story for his young children, the Professor eventually penned his tale of the adventures of a Hobbit, Dwarves, Elves and a Dragon into a book.
...The first edition of The Hobbit was published by George Allen & Unwin, Ltd. of London in 1937 with 1,500 prints. To date, it has been published in 40 different languages. Tolkien's world of Middle-earth eventually expanded into The Lord of the Rings.
We have been there and back again.
TIME Google Calendar
(This post was edited by grammaboodawg on Sep 21 2024, 1:53pm)
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Edit Log:
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Post edited by grammaboodawg
(Immortal) on Sep 21 2024, 1:51pm
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Post edited by grammaboodawg
(Immortal) on Sep 21 2024, 1:52pm
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Post edited by grammaboodawg
(Immortal) on Sep 21 2024, 1:53pm
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