A gardener's daughter stopped me on my way, on the day I was to wed
It is you who I wish to share my body with she said
We'll find a dry place under the sky with the flowers for a bed
And for my joy I will give you a boy with a moon and star on his head.

Her silver hair flowed in the air laying waves across the sun
Her hands were like the white sands, and her eyes had diamonds on.
We left the road and headed up to the top of the Whisper Wood
And we walked 'till we came to where the holy magnolia stood.

And there we laid cool in the shade singing songs and making love...
With the naked earth beneath us and the universe above.
The time was late my wedding wouldn't wait I was sad but I had to go,
So while she was asleep I kissed her cheek for cheerio.

The wedding took place and people came from many miles around
There was plenty merriment, cider and wine abound
But out of all that I recall I remembered the girl I met
'Cause she had given me something that my heart could not forget.

A year had passed and everything was just as it was a year before...
(As it was a year before...)
Until the gift that someone left, a basket by my door.
And in there lay the fairest little baby crying to be fed,
I got down on my knees and kissed the moon and star on his head.

As years went by the boy grew high and the village looked on in awe
They'd never seen anything like the boy with the moon and star before.
And people would ride from far and wide just to seek the word he spread
I'll tell you everything I've learned, and Love is all...he said.

-- from Catch Bull at Four, by Cat Stevens, 1972, A&M Records

I’ve had this song on a CD in the car for the past few days, and more than ever I think of Tolkien when I hear it. Do you?

Tolkieny things:

• I think of Sam and the Gaffer when I hear “gardener’s daughter”
  Her description, the hair, hands and eyes, make me think of Goldberry.


• They leave the road and go to the top of a hill where a sacred tree is. Very Shire-like, see chapters 3-6 in FotR Book I.


• The wedding party reminds me of Bilbo’s birthday party (here it helps if you know the music – the lyrics are only part of the power of this song).


• The idea of something that the heart cannot forget has that Tolkienian folk-wisdom.


• The passage of time, when everything changes and nothing changes, reminds me of Legolas’s musing on how Elves perceive time.


• The repeated and overlapping lyrics and music in the fifth stanza (again, you have to hear it to get this) demonstrate how nothing has changed in a year. This is how Tolkien would have done it if Tolkien had been a hippie folk-rock singer in 1972.


• The moon and the star on the baby’s head reminds me of Smith of Wootton Major, though I can’t say why. I haven’t read that story in decades.


• The clever internal rhyming.


• The wife is totally, conspicuously absent from the story. This is probably the most bizarre aspect of the song, but surely is what makes it feel totally right. And in an odd way, totally Tolkien. Like Frodo never marrying, somehow.

Non-Tolkieny things:

• The girl totally comes on to the guy out of nowhere. Talk about your 1970’s male adolescent fantasies.


• They get naked and have great sex outdoors.


• There is a baby born out of wedlock.


• The lesson is that “Love is all”. That’s not a Tolkien lesson, it’s a Tommy/Christ lesson.

My conclusion? This is kind of the story of how that Took hobbit-ancestor married that Fairy (Elf) and introduced elven blood into the Baggins family. I bet the Cat was thinking of this the whole time.

And your conclusion?