Our Sponsor Sideshow Send us News
Lord of the Rings Tolkien
Search Tolkien
Lord of The RingsTheOneRing.net - Forged By And For Fans Of JRR Tolkien
Lord of The Rings Serving Middle-Earth Since The First Age

Lord of the Rings Movie News - J.R.R. Tolkien

  Main Index   Search Posts   Who's Online   Log in
The One Ring Forums: Tolkien Topics: Reading Room:
*** 'The Fellowship of the Ring' ch. 9-3, 'At the Sign of the Prancing Pony': The Innocents Abroad

sador
Half-elven


Feb 12 2015, 4:24pm

Post #1 of 17 (1548 views)
Shortcut
*** 'The Fellowship of the Ring' ch. 9-3, 'At the Sign of the Prancing Pony': The Innocents Abroad Can't Post


Quote
You said you'd never compromise
With the mystery tramp
But now you realize
He's not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And say: "Do you want to make a deal?"

How does it feel, how does it feel?
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

- Bob Dylan



This will be the last post of this week's discussion, in which I would like to raise for open discussion a few points of general interest that I found in this chapter.
I must begin with an apology – I am unlikely to be able to respond to any of the excellent posts you've made so far (and will probably continue making) until Sunday. G-d willing, I will try to answer then.

Bree – Men and Hobbits

Quote

The Big Folk and the Little Folk (as they called each other) were on friendly terms, minding each their own affairs in their own ways, but both rightly regarding themselves as necessary parts of the Bree-folk. Nowhere else in the world was this peculiar (but excellent) arrangement to be found.

This is a very neat description, and Tolkien seems to very much approve of this arrangement, my underhand suggestions against Butterbur notwithstanding – just as in the Shire, no two groups can co-exist in near vicinity without having some ethnocentric feeling, and prejudices against each other (often relatively true, being based on experience). It seems that as long as they keep on friendly terms, and respect each other, Tolkien approves of this segregation.
Darkstone did not; or at least, he pointed out the darker side of the "excellent arrangement".
Apart of wicked satire – is there an in-story basis for Darkstone's criticism?
Or perhaps this is a case of different world-views? Is Tolkien's portrait relevant to the world's present conditions? How does this relate to the multi-cultural experiment? Are you inclined to accept Tolkien's Bree as an ideal model?
If Bree society is so tolerant – why don't the Bree-landers approve of the would-be emigrants from the south? Can a society include two radically different groups in harmony, and still be isolationist?

Inns
Bree is an inn on (or near) a Cross-roads: the Great East-West Road, and the Greenway, coming up for the southeast to the northwest. It is the source of most of the news of the Outside world which come to the Shire; "Strange as news from Bree" is a common saying, and also (as Sam will add in The Black Gate is Closed) "Not as sure as Shire-talk".
Compare the talk at The Prancing Pony to that at The Green Dragon, and comment on Sam’s provincialism, if you will.

In general, it appears that while inns feature prominently in the Shire (four are named in The Lord of the Rings – all of them in the Eastfarthing), they are missing out of it. We have the Pony, of course, and Strider will mention later The Forsaken Inn (which must have been deserted for some time to acquire that name). And after the Last Homely House (which isn’t one) – there is nothing. Frodo does ask Sam if he had made inquiries (The Land of Shadow), but presumably there are no inns in Mordor.
What does this mean? Are inns such a symbol of civilization?

It is interesting, though, that the concept of ‘inns’ is understood by people who supposedly have no experience of them. Beregond understands Pippin’s questions about inns, and even Uglúk seems to get Merry’s question about bed and breakfast!
Did he get the reference, or just answered the “bed and breakfast” part? And where did Beregond know inns from? In short, did the South boast of several inns which Tolkien simply didn’t tell us about?

Bilbo’s Song
After three chapters, in which Bilbo isn’t mentioned, Frodo recalls him – or to be more exact, his poetry.
This seems to be a pattern: throughout Book I, Bilbo is referred to as a poet, more than anything else. In Three is Company, A Conspiracy Unmasked and A Knife in the Dark his poems are recited (and also in Strider, but unattributed), while his adventures are mentioned only in A Short Cut to Mushrooms and Flight to the Ford (the Dwarves’ song at Bilbo’s house is also mentioned. In the other books, there is less of poetry, and Bilbo is hardly mentioned – in Book IV, for instance, his encounter with Gollum is mentioned twice, and in the Mordor chapters only his songs are mentioned.
This is interesting, considering that in The Hobbit Bilbo is not a poet – or isn’t he? Three of his riddles are in poetic form, he makes up two impromptu ditties to taunt the spiders, and improvises a quite impressive poem at the end (see here). But Gandalf looks at him with surprise, and says that he is not the hobbit he used to be.
Does this image of Bilbo, as the poet laureate of the Shire, reflect on your reading of The Hobbit?

I want to focus on the rôle of Bilbo’s songs in the Tower of Cirith Ungol: at first Sam sings “old childish tunes out of the Shire”, then “snatches of Mr. Bilbo's rhymes”, after which he is inspired to begin his own song of defiance and hope.
It appears that Bilbo’s rhymes serve as mediators between the childish songs of the Shire, and the grandeur of Sam’s own song in the tower. Do the save the same function in Book I? Is the same true of Bilbo’s adventure as a whole?

Regarding the poem itself – it deserves a full analysis in itself, but I will spare you my treatment of it (I admit the lameness of the excuse; the truth is that I did not have enough time to prepare one). I’ll just mention two points:
1. Regarding the footnote, in which Tolkien assumes the mantle of a redactor of an old manuscript – see squire’s excellent analysis of the use of gender-specific terms for the Sun in Tolkien’s books.
This is the second occasion in this chapter, in which the Red Book Conceit appears (the first is in the comment that “Only a few words of it are now, as a rule, remembered”) – and it arguably appears, too, in the overview of Bree at the beginning of the chapter. Do you like it, or does it interfere with the story?

2. Another interesting character in the poem is the landlord’s cat. We have discussed already the absence of animals (except horses and ponies) in The Lord of the Rings, but it is interesting that while no cats are mentioned in the text itself, three of four times a metaphorical cat appears – a poetical one here, Gandalf is compared to the fabled cats of Queen Berúthiel, Shelob is compared to Sauron’s cat, and even Sauron himself is said to have “had a mind first to play these mice cruelly before he struck to kill” – quite a feline image!
What is it with Tolkien and cats?
(For further discussion: read, and enjoy!)
As a matter of fact, from the Bree-folk reaction to Frodo’s performance, it seems that Bob did have a cat, and it was quite popular among the local hobbits.
Does this reflect on the Bob-as-a-Man-or-hobbit debate?

And of course, the fact that I did not attempt to analyze the poem should not keep you from making any comments you want on it.

The Ring
Well, this is an obvious question, and it should be raised soimewhere:

Quote

Frodo felt a fool… How it came to be on his finger he could not tell. He could only suppose that he had been handling it in his pocket while he sang, and that somehow it had slipped on when he stuck out his hand with a jerk to save his fall. For a moment he wondered if the Ring itself had not played him a trick; perhaps it had tried to reveal itself in response to some wish or command that was felt in the room.

At first, Frodo comes to the logical conclusion. Then he wonders whether the Ring itself was responsible. Is he trying to make an alibi for himself, based on Gandalf’s words about the Ring and its effect on Bilbo? Or is there anything in his guess? He was not described as feeling anything of the sort when the fall was described – so was it nothing? Or was there some command he felt before, but did not notice until after the fall? Or did he stick his hand in the Ring because of embarrassment and a subconscious wish to disappear?

The Edge of the Wild
After publishing The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien made an interesting edit to the text of the second chapter of The Hobbit (Roast Mutton).
In the first edition of 1937, the text ran (cited by Douglas Anderson, The Annotated Hobbit, p. 65, note 5):

Quote

Things went on like this for quite a long while. There was a good deal of wide respectable country to pass through, inhabited by decent respectable folk, men or hobbits or elves or what not, with good roads, an inn or two, and every now and then a dwarf, or a tinker, or a farmer ambling by on business. But after a time they came to places where people spoke strangely…

The present edition, based on Tolkien’s amendments of 1966, runs:

Quote

At first they passed through hobbit-lands, a wide respectable country [/] inhabited by decent [/] folk, men or hobbits or elves or what not, with good roads, an inn or two, and every now and then a dwarf [/] or a farmer ambling by on business. Then they came to places where people spoke strangely…

(Additions or changes are in bold letters; [/] marks a deletion of words from the original text)
The way I read the two texts, I guess that at first the “respectable country” was supposed to extend at least as far as Bree – but following the publishing of , JRRT felt it would be more appropriate to end the “respectable country” at the Brandywine Bridge – the east end of the hobbit-lands.
In the map in The Hobbit, it appears that the Wild begins east of Rivendell; and at the end of The Great River it is said, upon reaching the northern borders of Gondor “Wilderland was behind them”. But does this change indicate that the frontier was pushed west, and it actually begins once the hobbits leave the Shire? To put it provocatively, are movie-Aragorn’s words about leading the hobbits into the Wild a deviation from Tolkien’ or not?

I would say that this connects all the above-mentioned points: Bree is the last sheltered place in which the hobbits reside – in fact, they had spent only one night without protection before, and that was in a wood near enough to home for Sam Gamgee to know. On the other hand, they are Outside; this is their first encounter with Men, and with an unknown crowd. They have moved out of their comfort zone, but not yet too far. They have managed to get to Bree; but from now on, they are the Innocents Abroad, as phathetically helpless as the Babes in the Wood; luckily, in Bree they will find a guide.
Bree is a transitory place: the west-gate faces the Shire, and the eastern the Great Unknown. This is reflected in the many, everchanging drafts Tolkien wrote to this chapter – he had to get the pitch right, and it took him several attempts to do so.
In a way, this is also reflected in Book VI – all the way from Minas Tirith to Rivendell is encompassed in one chapter, Many Partings; but Bree is the Hall of Doors, or the Rain Curtain, through which one passes from the outside world back to the Shire, and a whole chapter is devoted to passing through it on the way back – and it is named Homeward Bound, as only in Bree a hobbit can truly feel near home. Not there yet, but on the way.

Quote

How does it feel, how does it feel?
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

Any more comments?

Thanks to all those who have participated, lurked, or just gaped in disbelief!
And good luck to arithmancer, who will be leading us next week for Strider.


(This post was edited by sador on Feb 12 2015, 4:26pm)


Brethil
Half-elven


Feb 12 2015, 11:58pm

Post #2 of 17 (1421 views)
Shortcut
More cat intonations [In reply to] Can't Post


In Reply To

Quote

If Bree society is so tolerant – why don't the Bree-landers approve of the would-be emigrants from the south? Can a society include two radically different groups in harmony, and still be isolationist?



Its a very catlike arrangement. Oddly enough. Domesticated feline society will admit 'new' members, after the necessary scuffling and snarling, and then will defend the commonly held territory from other feline 'interlopers' though of course the interlopers are as like to the defending cats as they are to themselves.

Hmmm.








a.s.
Valinor


Feb 13 2015, 3:17am

Post #3 of 17 (1408 views)
Shortcut
Can I just say one more thing about Bree? [In reply to] Can't Post

I love Bree. I've said this before, and I just went back to re-read it, and you know what? I haven't changed my mind in the intervening years!! So, sorry for the few of you who can remember, but I'm going to repeat myself. I'm old now. I do that.


LOL



Quote
I've always loved Bree, simply because it's the place where humans and hobbits live side by side, run into each other in the shops, visit the same Inn for a pint (or half-pint), etc. I can envision hobbit tailors with dress forms in six sizes: hobbit male/female/child and human male/female/child. Furniture makers with different price lists depending on size ordered. Schools with two standard desk sizes. Human and hobbit children playing hide and seek. Country doctor with VERY VERY interesting hand-written texts "concerning hobbits", etc. For instance: "For loss of foot hair, bathe foot in mineral water and apply salve of treeroot oil".

I know it's right in keeping with the flow of LOTR: danger, rescue, respite, danger, rescue, respite...etc. Yet it feels so wonderful, this place where humans and hobbits live together in relative harmony. I think of all the places in LOTR I'd like to live (in peacetime, of course...after the fall of Baradur and the Return of the King) it's Bree.

I'd love to do some public health nursing out in those hobbit holes around town....I'd love to see a newborn hobbit. I really would.



"an seileachan"


"A safe fairyland is untrue to all worlds." JRR Tolkien, Letters.



Riven Delve
Tol Eressea


Feb 13 2015, 3:28am

Post #4 of 17 (1393 views)
Shortcut
Awww [In reply to] Can't Post


In Reply To
I'd love to see a newborn hobbit. I really would.





Me too, a.s.! SmileHeart


“Tollers,” Lewis said to Tolkien, “there is too little of what we really like in stories. I am afraid we shall have to try and write some ourselves.”



Bracegirdle
Valinor


Feb 13 2015, 3:50am

Post #5 of 17 (1398 views)
Shortcut
Do I misinterpret …? [In reply to] Can't Post


In Reply To
Bree is an inn on (or near) a Cross-roads:

Bree is not an inn, it is a land (Bree-land) of four villages: Bree, Staddle, Combe, and Archet.


In Reply To
In general, it appears that while inns feature prominently in the Shire (four are named in The Lord of the Rings– all of them in the Eastfarthing), they are missing out of it -(my emphasis)

Hmm, The Green Dragon, The Ivy Bush - Westfarthing...

In kindness. (Nail me in a couple weeks!) Wink
BG




Otaku-sempai
Immortal


Feb 13 2015, 5:14am

Post #6 of 17 (1394 views)
Shortcut
Bree in Bree-land [In reply to] Can't Post


In Reply To

In Reply To
Bree is an inn on (or near) a Cross-roads:

Bree is not an inn, it is a land (Bree-land) of four villages: Bree, Staddle, Combe, and Archet.



The region is Bree-land, where the Great East Road and the North Road intersect. You correctly note that Bree is one of the four villages found in the area (in addition to Archet, Staddle and Combe). Bree was built against Bree Hill. The inn, of course, is the famous Prancing Pony.

"The Great Scaly One protects us from alien invaders and ourselves with his fiery atomic love. It can be a tough love - the “folly of man” and all that - but Godzilla is a fair god.

"Godzilla is totally accepting of all people and faiths. For it is written that liberal or conservative, Christian or Muslim or Jew, straight or gay, all people sound pretty much the identical as they are crushed beneath his mighty feet."
- Tony Isabella, The First Church of Godzilla (Reform)


sador
Half-elven


Feb 13 2015, 6:22am

Post #7 of 17 (1391 views)
Shortcut
Oops [In reply to] Can't Post

That's what happens when adding details or rephrasing a post in a hurry!
I was in a rush to get it done yesterday, as I won't be near a proper computer until Sunday, and this is what happens...
So just take care when it's your turn, to read carefully before you post. Smile


Thank you Bracegirdle!


Riven Delve
Tol Eressea


Feb 13 2015, 1:51pm

Post #8 of 17 (1392 views)
Shortcut
Innocents A-Bree [In reply to] Can't Post

If Bree society is so tolerant – why don't the Bree-landers approve of the would-be emigrants from the south? Can a society include two radically different groups in harmony, and still be isolationist?

There is a pretty big difference between, "May we come and live among you in your community?" and "Better make room or we'll take it!"
I'm not sure about the social theory. It seems to have worked in Bree!


In general, it appears that while inns feature prominently in the Shire (four are named in The Lord of the Rings – all of them in the Eastfarthing), they are missing out of it. We have the Pony, of course, and Strider will mention later The Forsaken Inn (which must have been deserted for some time to acquire that name). And after the Last Homely House (which isn’t one) – there is nothing. Frodo does ask Sam if he had made inquiries (The Land of Shadow), but presumably there are no inns in Mordor. ... And where did Beregond know inns from? In short, did the South boast of several inns which Tolkien simply didn’t tell us about?

What does this mean? Are inns such a symbol of civilization?


I think it means Hobbits are ahead of their time. Wink Really, I do think inns are a symbol of settled civilization. I would bet there are, or at least once were, inns in Gondor. Perhaps the encroaching Shadow made not only the inns themselves unsafe but traveling to and from them dangerous too, unless accompanied by an armed escort too big for an inn to accommodate.


Does this image of Bilbo, as the poet laureate of the Shire, reflect on your reading of The Hobbit?

Well, yes--the Bilbo at the end of TH.
BTW, I quite like Bofur/James Nesbitt's version of this song in the AUJ EE.


It appears that Bilbo’s rhymes serve as mediators between the childish songs of the Shire, and the grandeur of Sam’s own song in the tower. Do the save the same function in Book I? Is the same true of Bilbo’s adventure as a whole?

Yes and no. (Feeling Elvish today.) I don't think of the Hobbits as childish...but they do have childlike qualities, such as enjoying the simple things of life to their fullest. For example, I can picture Farmer Maggot singing a silly drinking song down at the inn when the harvest is over, but I would never call him childish. Yet as we know, many a Hobbit deep down is made of very stern stuff, but my impression is that they choose not to acknowledge that sternness, because generally having to do so means there is Trouble of some kind brewing, and Hobbits have an aversion to Trouble. (Except Tooks.) So yes, in many ways Bilbo's rhymes are a bridge between the silly songs of the Shire and the collections of great history and legend from the outside world...and yet no, because Hobbits, even our "plebian" Sam, have grandeur in them--it's just buried fairly deep.


Any more comments?


Quote

His legs were stretched out before him, showing high boots of supple leather that fitted him well, but had seen much wear and were now caked with mud.


Tsk tsk. This is what happens when your mother sends you out into the world too soon. Tracking mud in all over the house!? Wasn't there a glory box or something he could use to get some of that off? Tongue




Thanks for spurring our conversation on this week, sador!


P.S.


Quote

I have been a stone doomed to rolling.


That was Gandalf, you know. Wink


I live with a Bob Dylan enthusiast...and thanks to you, I have now exceeded my Recommended Daily Allowance of Dylan. LaughWink


“Tollers,” Lewis said to Tolkien, “there is too little of what we really like in stories. I am afraid we shall have to try and write some ourselves.”



Kim
Valinor


Feb 13 2015, 7:52pm

Post #9 of 17 (1382 views)
Shortcut
Poem [In reply to] Can't Post


Quote
Does this image of Bilbo, as the poet laureate of the Shire, reflect on your reading of The Hobbit?

Well, yes--the Bilbo at the end of TH.
BTW, I quite like Bofur/James Nesbitt's version of this song in the AUJ EE.



It was fun to have this tune in my head while reading the poem. Smile



#OneLastTime


noWizardme
Half-elven


Feb 15 2015, 10:13pm

Post #10 of 17 (1364 views)
Shortcut
inns and outs [In reply to] Can't Post

Interesting question about inns. An inn ought properly to be a place offering overnight accommodation, as opposed to just food, drink, and entertainment. So they can only widely thrive when there are enough travellers to make them work as a business. There certainly seems to be a lack of travellers in the roads of Eriador, and those who are on the move are hardy enough to camp.

~~~~~~

"nowimë I am in the West, Furincurunir to the Dwarves (or at least, to their best friend) and by other names in other lands. Mostly they just say 'Oh no it's him - look busy!' "
Or "Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!"

This year LOTR turns 60. The following image is my LOTR 60th anniversary party footer! You can get yours here: http://newboards.theonering.net/...i?post=762154#762154


Maciliel
Valinor


Feb 15 2015, 11:25pm

Post #11 of 17 (1368 views)
Shortcut
the crossroads [In reply to] Can't Post

 
i find it interesting (and a little dubious) that bree, being at the crossroads of the greeenway and the east-west road would not be much, much larger.

even if neither road accommodated the height of traffic of olden days, it seems to me that bree would be much larger, 'tho perhaps many of its buildings and infrastructure in decay, disuse, and abandonment, because road traffic has gone from a spout to a trickle.

i don't find it curious at all that someone from gondor would be familiar with inns. not everyone lived in minas tirith, and the concept of inns would be probably middle-earth wide, even if they might not be as common as in the shire.

cheers --

.


aka. fili orc-enshield
+++++++++++++++++++
the scene, as i understand it, is exceptionally well-written. fili (in sort of a callback to the scene with the eagles), calls out "thorRIIIIIIN!!!" just as he sees the pale orc veer in for the kill. he picks up the severed arm of an orc which is lying on the ground, swings it up in desperation, effectively blocking the pale orc's blow. and thus, forever after, fili is known as "fili orc-enshield."

this earns him deep respect from his hard-to-please uncle. as well as a hug. kili wipes his boots on the pale orc's glory box. -- maciliel telpemairo


squire
Half-elven


Feb 15 2015, 11:52pm

Post #12 of 17 (1365 views)
Shortcut
Yes, where are the ruins? [In reply to] Can't Post

I've thought that too. Bree would certainly be small today, but the crossroads was the traffic roundabout of a Dunedain Empire for a thousand years. The equivalent place in Gondor is Osgiliath, roughly speaking, and its ruins are mentioned several times.

I think Tolkien wrote the Bree chapter long before he'd conceived of just how ancient his Third Age was. If I remember, when the 'Return of the King' story line began to take shape in his drafts, Isildur had lost the Ring just a few hundred years earlier, and the North and South Kingdoms had not yet gelled as a concept.

Should he have gone back, and revised? Well, he did with the Bombadil chapters, where Aragorn strides into the hobbits' visions of the Barrows' past. But I think he decided that Bree had to be half Hobbit, half Man because of the transition it represents for our Shire adventurers. A bunch of magnificent ruins lurking in the background would seem incongruous and weight the place too heavily towards Men.

It's no more of a problem than the idea that the Shire had evaded all knowledge of the Wise and the Great, including Sauron, even though it occupied a substantial chunk of the Great East-West Road, the lifeline of the North's remaining commerce and culture.



squire online:
RR Discussions: The Valaquenta, A Shortcut to Mushrooms, and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
Lights! Action! Discuss on the Movie board!: 'A Journey in the Dark'. and 'Designing The Two Towers'.
Footeramas: The 3rd & 4th TORn Reading Room LotR Discussion and NOW the 1st BotR Discussion too! and "Tolkien would have LOVED it!"
squiretalk introduces the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: A Reader's Diary


= Forum has no new posts. Forum needs no new posts.


Otaku-sempai
Immortal


Feb 16 2015, 3:06pm

Post #13 of 17 (1373 views)
Shortcut
Bree and Bree-land [In reply to] Can't Post

I've just assumed that Bree-land is not fertile enough to support a larger community and so never became a major trading center. I also don't see a major source of water closer than the Brandywine River. But, you are right to point out that its location suggests that it should have been one.

"At the end of the journey, all men think that their youth was Arcadia..." - Phantom F. Harlock


sador
Half-elven


Feb 23 2015, 4:03pm

Post #14 of 17 (1324 views)
Shortcut
Thank you for repeating! // [In reply to] Can't Post

 


sador
Half-elven


Feb 23 2015, 4:19pm

Post #15 of 17 (1326 views)
Shortcut
Thank you! [In reply to] Can't Post


In Reply To
There is a pretty big difference between, "May we come and live among you in your community?" and "Better make room or we'll take it!"

Do you think that if the dwarves wanted to join, and asked politely, they would be accepted?



In Reply To
Perhaps the encroaching Shadow made not only the inns themselves unsafe but traveling to and from them dangerous too, unless accompanied by an armed escort too big for an inn to accommodate.


I get that. But none in Rohan?
Just think of Boromir on his way to Imladris. How and where did he get sustenance from?




In Reply To

I quite like Bofur/James Nesbitt's version of this song in the AUJ EE.

Oh, I didn't know there was such a version. Thank you!



In Reply To
Tracking mud in all over the house!? Wasn't there a glory box or something he could use to get some of that off?


Worse than that - if indeed it was Strider who climbed the gate, how come Harry never noticed the mud on the bars?
Or was this mud freshly-applied, to provide Strider with an alibi?



Darkstone
Immortal


Feb 23 2015, 5:10pm

Post #16 of 17 (1339 views)
Shortcut
Post inns in Middle-earth [In reply to] Can't Post

Apart of wicked satire – is there an in-story basis for Darkstone's criticism?

Doubtful. He’s usually merely being provocative, contrarian, or just plain goofy.


Or perhaps this is a case of different world-views? Is Tolkien's portrait relevant to the world's present conditions?

I can’t help thinking of the Big Folk Hutu living side-by-side with the Small Folk Twa. About 30% of the Small Folk died in the Rwandan genocide of 1994


How does this relate to the multi-cultural experiment?

There’s always chunks in the melting pot.


Are you inclined to accept Tolkien's Bree as an ideal model?

I find it hard to believe that a professional philologist, knowing of how different populations often quite brutally meet, intermingle, dominate, and assimilate, would look at the ideal of Bree as anything other than an impossible fantasy.


If Bree society is so tolerant – why don't the Bree-landers approve of the would-be emigrants from the south?

"The Bree hobbits may be lazy dissolute low-class scum, but they’re *our* lazy dissolute low-class scum!"


Can a society include two radically different groups in harmony, and still be isolationist?

Switzerland has four and has been isolationist since 1815.


Bree is an inn on (or near) a Cross-roads: the Great East-West Road, and the Greenway, coming up for the southeast to the northwest. It is the source of most of the news of the Outside world which come to the Shire; "Strange as news from Bree" is a common saying, and also (as Sam will add in The Black Gate is Closed) "Not as sure as Shire-talk".
Compare the talk at The Prancing Pony to that at The Green Dragon,…


MNBC versus Fox News.


…and comment on Sam’s provincialism, if you will.

Sam the Dittohead.


In general, it appears that while inns feature prominently in the Shire (four are named in The Lord of the Rings – all of them in the Eastfarthing), they are missing out of it. We have the Pony, of course, and Strider will mention later The Forsaken Inn (which must have been deserted for some time to acquire that name). And after the Last Homely House (which isn’t one) – there is nothing. Frodo does ask Sam if he had made inquiries (The Land of Shadow), but presumably there are no inns in Mordor.
What does this mean? Are inns such a symbol of civilization?


Originally inns were community centers, where the people met for feasts and drinking. The floors were used to bed down families who couldn’t make it back to their outlying farms before dark or the occasional visitor. Indeed, in The Hobbit we see the “raft men of the elves” staying the night and feasting at Lake-town’s hall before unloading the rafts the next morning and going back to Mirkwood. There seems to be no real inn, as the Dwarves were eventually put up in a large private house.

However, Long Lake was a trade hub between the south and the Dwarven and Elven kingdoms of the north, so surely in the past the towns there had actual inns.

Similarly the Anduin was a vital trade route and strategic asset. One might expect inns at the crossing at The Old Forest Road near Beorn’s Halls, at the fringes of Lothlorien as trade poured south from Moria, possibly at the Brown Lands if they were indeed home to the gardens of the Ent-wives, at each of the fertile Vales of the Anduin (the old Northmen’s capital of Framsberg, the Stoor settlements of the Gladden Fields, and Rhosgobel if it was indeed a Woodman settlement as some think.), at both ends of the portage around Sarn Gebir, and one at the terminus at Parth Galen before the Falls of Rauros.

The Crossroads in Ithilien might well have had an inn and village before the fall of Minas Ithil.

Interestingly there well might have been way stations at the foot of each of Gondor’s beacons, providing food and a bed for wagoneers keeping the beacons supplied, the occasional messenger between Gondor and Rohan, and the odd traveler. If indeed they were there they seem to have been abandoned and sacked by the time of the Ride of the Rohirrim.

Speaking of Rohan, doubtless Meduseld was used to house visiting Rohirrim during weapontakes, musterings, festivals, and fairs.


It is interesting, though, that the concept of ‘inns’ is understood by people who supposedly have no experience of them. Beregond understands Pippin’s questions about inns, and even Uglúk seems to get Merry’s question about bed and breakfast!
Did he get the reference, or just answered the “bed and breakfast” part?


I’m sure the various towers, gates, and other stations in Mordor and beyond provided “bread and breakfast” to messengers passing through.


And where did Beregond know inns from?

If not Minas Tirith there surely were inns once at Osgiliath and recently at Harlond (Gondor).


In short, did the South boast of several inns which Tolkien simply didn’t tell us about?

One would well imagine most inns in the South and East had been closed due to the disruption of trade during the long lead up to The War of the Ring.


Does this image of Bilbo, as the poet laureate of the Shire, reflect on your reading of The Hobbit?

“That is the heavenly justice of it—they warn’t rewarded according to their deserts, on earth, but here they get their rightful rank. That tailor Billings, from Tennessee, wrote poetry that Homer and Shakespeare couldn’t begin to come up to; but nobody would print it, nobody read it but his neighbors, an ignorant lot, and they laughed at it. Whenever the village had a drunken frolic and a dance, they would drag him in and crown him with cabbage leaves, and pretend to bow down to him; and one night when he was sick and nearly starved to death, they had him out and crowned him, and then they rode him on a rail about the village, and everybody followed along, beating tin pans and yelling. Well, he died before morning. He wasn’t ever expecting to go to heaven, much less that there was going to be any fuss made over him, so I reckon he was a good deal surprised when the reception broke on him.”
-Mark Twain, Extract from Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven, 1909

And Bilbo got his “heavenly justice” as a poet in Rivendell.


I want to focus on the rôle of Bilbo’s songs in the Tower of Cirith Ungol: at first Sam sings “old childish tunes out of the Shire”, then “snatches of Mr. Bilbo's rhymes”, after which he is inspired to begin his own song of defiance and hope.

“Childish” spoken stories, songs, and poems have long been used to educate, instruct, and entertain not just children but adults as well. (Just watch some industrial training videos.)


It appears that Bilbo’s rhymes serve as mediators between the childish songs of the Shire, and the grandeur of Sam’s own song in the tower.

Bilbo is a teacher, a bard, as much a maker and shaper as Bombadil, at least amongst the exceptional of the Shire.


Do the save the same function in Book I?

Frodo and his friends learn many lessons during Book I. And survive them thanks to Bilbo’s “shaping”.


Is the same true of Bilbo’s adventure as a whole?

The Lord of the Rings is The Hobbit writ large.


This is the second occasion in this chapter, in which the Red Book Conceit appears (the first is in the comment that “Only a few words of it are now, as a rule, remembered”) – and it arguably appears, too, in the overview of Bree at the beginning of the chapter. Do you like it, or does it interfere with the story?

It is the story!


What is it with Tolkien and cats?

[A Cambridge cat breeder had asked if she could register a litter of Siamese kittens under names taken from The Lord of the Rings.]
My only comment is that of Puck upon mortals. I fear that to me Siamese cats belong to the fauna of Mordor, but you need not tell the cat breeder that.

-Letter #219


(For further discussion: read, and enjoy!)

Gaaah! I had thought those sins long forgotten!!


As a matter of fact, from the Bree-folk reaction to Frodo’s performance, it seems that Bob did have a cat, and it was quite popular among the local hobbits.
Does this reflect on the Bob-as-a-Man-or-hobbit debate?


Bree hobbits are weird folk.


And of course, the fact that I did not attempt to analyze the poem should not keep you from making any comments you want on it.

I like it.


At first, Frodo comes to the logical conclusion. Then he wonders whether the Ring itself was responsible. Is he trying to make an alibi for himself, based on Gandalf’s words about the Ring and its effect on Bilbo?

This is more Tolkien playing with the reader.

Like a cat.


Or is there anything in his guess?

We are introduced to the possible *capabilities* of the Ring.


He was not described as feeling anything of the sort when the fall was described – so was it nothing?

During my times in experiencing extended falls my mind was always occupied on the external rather than the internal. Might have been just me, though.


Or was there some command he felt before, but did not notice until after the fall?

Afterwards is when your imagination starts filling in the blanks,


Or did he stick his hand in the Ring because of embarrassment and a subconscious wish to disappear?

It would seem odd since he has resisted the temptation under other more serious circumstances. Then again, maybe that’s exactly why the Ring felt this was the perfect opportunity to influence him.


The way I read the two texts, I guess that at first the “respectable country” was supposed to extend at least as far as Bree – but following the publishing of , JRRT felt it would be more appropriate to end the “respectable country” at the Brandywine Bridge – the east end of the hobbit-lands.

I recall once I was on my way to an EPA workshop in Little Rock, Arkansas. Driving on Interstate Highway 30, just as I crossed the Texas/Arkansas state border, the car began shaking rather alarmingly. Both Wifey and I thought we’d had a blowout. I carefully pulled to the side of the highway. But the tire was fine. It’s just that the highway was very noticeably rougher in Arkansas.

Similarly:

About this time legend among the Hobbits first becomes history with a reckoning of years. For it was in the one thousand six hundred and first year of the Third Age that the Fallohide brothers, Marcho and Blanco, set out from Bree; and having obtained permission from the high king at Fornost, they crossed the brown river Baranduin with a great following of Hobbits. They passed over the Bridge of Stonebows, that had been built in the days of the power of the North Kingdom, and they took ail the land beyond to dwell in, between the river and the Far Downs. All that was demanded of them was that they should keep the Great Bridge in repair, and all other bridges and roads, speed the king's messengers, and acknowledge his lordship.
-Prologue

One can only imagine the road conditions after the Bridge of Stonebows, aka The Brandywine Bridge.

Possibly worse than Arkansas. Possibly.


In the map in The Hobbit, it appears that the Wild begins east of Rivendell; and at the end of The Great River it is said, upon reaching the northern borders of Gondor “Wilderland was behind them”. But does this change indicate that the frontier was pushed west, and it actually begins once the hobbits leave the Shire?

Probably would seem so to Shire-hobbits. I know Arkansas seemed like the Wild. At least until we got to Little Rock. The streets of the home of former Governor Clinton were much better.

I could say something political here, but I won’t.


To put it provocatively, are movie-Aragorn’s words about leading the hobbits into the Wild a deviation from Tolkien’ or not?

Depends whether he was talking about the Wild or the wild.


Abroad, as phathetically helpless as the Babes in the Wood; luckily, in Bree they will find a guide.

Seems they were already finding upon their way when they least looked for it even before Elrond foretold it at Rivendell.

Think the "prophet" is just really good at cold reading?


________________________________________ Quote ________________________________________

How does it feel, how does it feel?
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
________________________________________
Any more comments?


“It’s an invasion from Mars! Let’s turn on. What better time? The little green men have landed.”
-Bob Dylan at the beginning of the Great Blackout of 1965.

With that Bob Dylan, Bobby Neuwirth, Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, and Robbie Roberston of The Band had an acoustic, candlelight jam at the Lincoln Square Motor Inn.

Too bad no recording exists of the impromptu session by the four most famousest of hobbits, er, that is, 60s rock musicians. Power blackout.

******************************************
No Orc, No Orc!!
It's a wonderful town!!!
Mount Doom blew up,
And the Black Tower's down!!
The orcs all fell in a hole in the ground!
No Orc, No Orc!!
It's a heckuva town!!!

-Lord of the Rings: The Musical, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green


sador
Half-elven


Feb 24 2015, 3:30pm

Post #17 of 17 (1323 views)
Shortcut
It's curtains time, isn't it? [In reply to] Can't Post


In Reply To
He’s usually merely being provocative, contrarian, or just plain goofy.

But always delightful!



In Reply To

I find it hard to believe that a professional philologist, knowing of how different populations often quite brutally meet, intermingle, dominate, and assimilate, would look at the ideal of Bree as anything other than an impossible fantasy.

Well, he did write that the excellent arrangement was to be found nowhere else in the world.



In Reply To

Switzerland has four and has been isolationist since 1815.

But unlike Bree, the Powers found that it was easier to go around Switzerland than through it, so they didn't bother.
The same cannot be said of Bree.



In Reply To
MNBC versus Fox News.


I assume the fox was from Bree, considering that he thought something queer was going on in the Shire.
But I also note JRRT said he was right.



In Reply To
Indeed, in The Hobbit we see the “raft men of the elves” staying the night and feasting at Lake-town’s hall before unloading the rafts the next morning and going back to Mirkwood. There seems to be no real inn, as the Dwarves were eventually put up in a large private house.


Thorin was royalty. And supposed to be able to pay well (at least at first)



In Reply To

Similarly the Anduin was a vital trade route and strategic asset. One might expect inns at the crossing at The Old Forest Road near Beorn’s Halls

Is that your take on the dwarves err, disrobed bathing in the River? A couple of pints too many?



In Reply To
possibly at the Brown Lands


"And there they brew a beer so brown"



In Reply To

the Stoor settlements of the Gladden Fields

I guess Smeagol and Deagol at first thought they found a trinket one of the guests lost. Finders keepers, as the saying goes.



In Reply To

and Rhosgobel if it was indeed a Woodman settlement

They probably served something stronger there.
You know, the master of shifting shapes and hues...



In Reply To
at both ends of the portage around Sarn Gebir


So was the Argonath originally the sign of an inn?



In Reply To

one at the terminus at Parth Galen before the Falls of Rauros.

That is a wonderful site for muggers!



In Reply To
The Crossroads in Ithilien might well have had an inn and village before the fall of Minas Ithil.


That's where the Tales from the South came.



In Reply To
Interestingly there well might have been way stations at the foot of each of Gondor’s beacons, providing food and a bed for wagoneers keeping the beacons supplied, the occasional messenger between Gondor and Rohan, and the odd traveler. If indeed they were there they seem to have been abandoned and sacked by the time of the Ride of the Rohirrim.


As a matter of fact - they must have been manned still. Elfhelm says that Hirgon and the other, unnamed messenger probably changed horses on the way.




In Reply To
Speaking of Rohan, doubtless Meduseld was used to house visiting Rohirrim during weapontakes, musterings, festivals, and fairs.


Just like the town-hall in Esgaroth you've mentioned before.




In Reply To

I’m sure the various towers, gates, and other stations in Mordor and beyond provided “bread and breakfast” to messengers passing through.

Probably made of rebels, as Shagrat threatened Gorbag.



In Reply To
Just watch some industrial training videos.


It's elections time over here. Childish is the word.



In Reply To
Frodo and his friends learn many lessons during Book I. And survive them thanks to Bilbo’s “shaping”.


That's a good point.



In Reply To
Gaaah! I had thought those sins long forgotten!!


Less than a fortnight ago, you were complaining I listen to Curious rather than you!
Damned if I do and damned if I don't, I guess.



In Reply To
It would seem odd since he has resisted the temptation under other more serious circumstances. Then again, maybe that’s exactly why the Ring felt this was the perfect opportunity to influence him.


More serious than public embarrassment?



In Reply To

One can only imagine the road conditions after the Bridge of Stonebows, aka The Brandywine Bridge.
Possibly worse than Arkansas. Possibly.


Ah - so that's where Master Ferny got his name from!
It's isn't a shortned form of William - that's a troll's name.
His full name was "hillbilly".



In Reply To

I could say something political here, but I won’t.

PM?



In Reply To

Seems they were already finding upon their way when they least looked for it even before Elrond foretold it at Rivendell.
Think the "prophet" is just really good at cold reading?

That's a good one!



Quote
“It’s an invasion from Mars! Let’s turn on. What better time? The little green men have landed.”


Seven years before the spiders did!
I'm impressed.



In Reply To
Too bad no recording exists of the impromptu session by the four most famousest of hobbits, er, that is, 60s rock musicians. Power blackout.


I blame the Nazgul. Or the establishment.



Thank you, Darkstone, for taking the effort to answer all those interminable posts!



 
 

Search for (options) Powered by Gossamer Forum v.1.2.3

home | advertising | contact us | back to top | search news | join list | Content Rating

This site is maintained and updated by fans of The Lord of the Rings, and is in no way affiliated with Tolkien Enterprises or the Tolkien Estate. We in no way claim the artwork displayed to be our own. Copyrights and trademarks for the books, films, articles, and other promotional materials are held by their respective owners and their use is allowed under the fair use clause of the Copyright Law. Design and original photography however are copyright © 1999-2012 TheOneRing.net. Binary hosting provided by Nexcess.net

Do not follow this link, or your host will be blocked from this site. This is a spider trap.