Deep inside Mirkwood, Thorin Oakenshield and his companions discover something almost impossible to resist: warm lights beneath the trees, Elven voices singing, and the promise of food after days of hunger and exhaustion. Yet whenever the travelers attempt to reach the woodland feast, the lights vanish. The singing stops. Darkness closes around them, leaving the … Read more
On the slopes of Caradhras, the Fellowship of the Ring discovers that snow can defeat a company without a single enemy appearing. Aragorn and Boromir are strong enough to struggle through the drifts. The hobbits, however, are so deeply buried that ordinary walking becomes impossible. That difference changes everything. The Company has set out as … Read more
In Valinor, flowers open at the glance of Vána, and birds answer her coming with song. It is one of the most vivid descriptions of any of the Valar: life seems to awaken simply because the Ever-young has drawn near. That image makes an obvious question surprisingly difficult. If Vána has such an intimate connection … Read more
Sam Gamgee already had a word for the enormous beast he dreamed of seeing: Oliphaunt. It belonged to the Shire’s half-legendary store of knowledge, preserved in a comic rhyme about a creature so immense that Sam himself was unsure whether such things truly existed. Then, in Ithilien, Sam heard another word. As battle approached the … Read more
Gandalf feels almost timeless in Middle-earth. By the time Bilbo meets him, he is already an old wanderer known to Dwarves, Elves, Men, and Hobbits. Saruman has long been counted among the Wise. Radagast has disappeared into his quieter concerns. The Wizards seem woven into the Third Age itself. Yet when Appendix B of The … Read more
When Aragorn stands before the gates of Minas Tirith to be crowned, the object brought to him seems almost impossibly ancient. Faramir has it carried from Rath Dínen, the silent city of tombs where Gondor’s dead kings lie. The crown belongs to a royal tradition stretching back toward Númenor, Elendil, Isildur, and the founding of … Read more
For days, the boats of Lórien seem almost like an answer to the Fellowship’s problems. They carry Frodo and his companions swiftly south on the Anduin, spare them the exhaustion and exposure of travelling on foot, and postpone a decision nobody wants to make: whether the Company will turn toward Minas Tirith or continue toward … Read more
When the Men of Númenor spoke Adûnaic, they were using a language whose roots reached back beyond the destruction of Beleriand, beyond the War of Wrath, and into the migrations of mortal Men before their great houses had fully entered the histories of the Eldar. That ancestry is certain in broad outline. The surviving linguistic … Read more
On the slopes of Caradhras, the Fellowship faces a strangely humiliating problem. They are not trying to conquer the mountain anymore. They are not even trying to go forward. They are trying to get back. Yet the road they climbed only hours earlier has effectively vanished beneath the snow. Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin cannot … Read more
There is something almost absurdly comforting about Sam Gamgee making rabbit stew in Ithilien. Frodo and Sam are creeping toward Mordor on a mission whose survival depends upon secrecy. They travel mostly at night. They avoid the open road. Gollum guides them through country increasingly dominated by the Enemy. Yet when Gollum brings back two … Read more