Chapter 3: Three is Company
I’m finally on the road with Frodo and Sam and Pippin, and this adventure is starting to acquire some stakes and more immediate dangers than it’s had so far in a couple of fairly sleepy Bag End chapters -- Lobelia Sackville-Baggins was formidable, I’m sure, but she doesn’t have anything on a Ringwraith, though I’m really ahead of myself. For now, all these shadowy, ominous figures are to us are “Black Riders”, and that’s spooky enough.
Before we get to the later stages of the chapter, though, I’d like to pick up a detail from early on just because it’s my favorite moment in The Lord of the Rings. I probably need to choose my words carefully here -- it’s not the most emotionally resonant moment, or the one I quote most often to other people, or the “best” thing that happens in the novel in any kind of objective sense. It’s just the thing in the story that feels most like it was meant for me as a reader. Some of you have heard this from me before, but for the rest of you, it’s the fox. And most of you are saying, “uh, James, what fox?”
It’s the first night of the journey, and Frodo, Sam, and Pippin have stopped slightly after midnight in a stand of fir trees up in the Green Hill Country on the Woodhall road. They’ve curled up and gone to sleep when the magical moment happens: “A fox passing through the wood on business of his own stopped several minutes and sniffed. ‘Hobbits!’ he thought. ‘Well, what next? I have heard of strange doings in this land, but I have seldom heard of a hobbit sleeping out of doors under a tree. Three of them! There’s something mighty queer behind this.’ He was quite right, but he never found out any more about it.”
Every inch of this passage is a sheer delight to me and I am going to unpack it for you out of all proportion to its actual significance. First of all, “on business of his own.” On business of his OWN. This fox is having an adventure right under our very noses, maybe small and maybe great, but regardless there he and the rest of the world goes on with living. I could sit and think a long while about his business. And then “I have heard of strange doings in this land” -- what strange doings? Who has been talking with this fox and what have they been saying? The mind boggles. And then the narrator’s voice descending to us with that most perfect of sentences, “he was quite right, but he never found out any more about it”. My GOODNESS. Would you look at this? The narrator is addressing us in a fashion that will hardly ever occur again in The Lord of the Rings, just that last faint voice of The Hobbit’s narration lingering here to let us know “oh, things are about to get WILD” by assuring us that the fox’s suppositions are entirely well-founded. And then to tell us so serenely that the fox never learned anything else about it? The whole of Middle-earth will be transformed by the next couple of years of cataclysm, leaving the world a changed place, and this fox without knowing it trotted past the Ringbearer on the first night of his journey and will never know it. How many adventures have you and I trotted past, maybe even stopping to note “ah, there’s something behind all this, I’ll wager -- but what it is, I cannot tell”, and then continued on with business of our own, never to know any more about it?
I think about this fox, I am not joking, an average of once a month, and have since my childhood. I get that I am basically alone here on Fox Island, the sole Devotee of the Fox, but there’s a comfort in that. The Lord of the Rings has been fully assimilated into popular culture -- it might once have been something a little bit indie, and even in my youth it was at least generally nerdy, but in the post-Peter-Jackson-films era it has effectively achieved universal adulation. So it’s pleasant for any Tolkien reader, I think, to mark out a line, a moment, a minor character (in this case, a character could hardly be any more minor than my beloved little fox) and feel that it is specially theirs in a way that most of this story can’t be (it would be impossible to feel as possessive of, say, Gandalf, as I feel of this woodland creature). I hope in gushing about this excessively, I have won over at least a few Fans of the Fox. But if none of you really catch fire in this moment as I do, I am cool with it. I think maybe my man J.R.R. left that fox here for me.
Oh, why does the fox matter besides “James is weirdly delusional about how perfect every single thing about it is”? I think my comment above about The Hobbit’s narrative voice is the key -- this is the last moment in which we are still in The Shire really. We’ll stay there geographically for several more chapters, but in the morning a Black Rider will clop down the deserted road to the Woody End, and it will not be possible to be at ease again. There will be moments of ease down the line, of course -- very few, and purchased generally at great cost -- but I think the Shadow lies on every moment in the Shire from here on out, and the fox is our farewell to the world Frodo loves, even if Frodo himself never sees him. (A completely different reason the fox's appearance is notable is explored thoughtfully and at length by M. A. Belcher on his blog: I think it's well worth reading.) Okay, now I really am done with the fox.
The Black Rider scenes are evocative, but I know I’ll get time with the Nazgul down the line here, so I’d like to spend a little time with Gildor Inglorion, who only really gets this chapter to shine. I’ll drop in some art here -- back to Alan Lee, whose lovely Rivendell painting is my book’s cover, and his depiction of Frodo and Gildor in conversation: http://tolkiengateway.net/w/images/e/e7/Alan_Lee_-_Feasting_with_the_Elves.jpg I’m struck at how Tolkien manages to pair up these moments -- as I’ve said, the arrival of these Black Riders drives away the cozy ease of the Shire, and I think it’s great that he balances that tone out with the light-hearted joy of these elves wandering in the woods at just the right time. The hand of Fate that steered the One Ring into Bilbo’s hands instead of an orc’s is clearly here again with perfect timing. We don’t know enough yet to be struck by the Black Rider’s withdrawing at the approach of elves, but that is strange, isn’t it? Later, we know, the Riders (emboldened by greater numbers, sure) will not flinch in facing off against some pretty tough individuals. Who is this Gildor, then?
Alas, Tolkien horses around with the genealogy of elves enough that Gildor’s ancestry (and therefore identity) is going to be perpetually mysterious to us, but I can add at least a little insight into how incredible it is that Frodo happens to run into this fellow. Gildor identifies himself as being an Exile, and of the House of Finrod. That means that Frodo is almost certainly sitting there eating sandwiches with an elf who is more than six thousand years of age -- an elf who remembers not just Sauron’s previous rise and fall, but virtually all of the conflicts in the history of Middle Earth. Finrod is an elf you have connections to even if you’ve never read beyond LOTR -- he is brother to (among others) a lady named Galadriel, and when a mortal man named Barahir saved his life, Finrod swore an oath to repay the debt, and gave Barahir his ring. That ring, which came to be known as the Ring of Barahir, is the ring that you’ll probably remember on the hand of Barahir’s distant, distant descendant, a ranger by the name of Aragorn. Warner Brothers would be happy to sell you a replica - it is a sweet-looking ring, and perhaps that sweetness will be just a touch greater if we remember that Aragorn, in wearing it, is wearing an heirloom that is literally 5,000+ years old, which his ancestor earned by saving the life of Elrond’s uncle-in-law. This has walked a little ways from Gildor, though -- so, he’s of the House of this powerful and ancient elf from basically the most important family among elves, and in describing himself as an “Exile” he’s making it fairly clear that he was born prior to the family’s departure from Aman. Gildor remembers a time before the Sun and Moon existed, y’all. He walked in the light of the Two Trees of Valinor. If he’s old enough to be among Finrod’s kindred who left Aman as exiles, he literally fought in the battle of Dagor-nuin-Giliath, which means “Battle-under-Stars” because, once again, cannot emphasize this enough, Gildor is older than the Sun. And that may not make him especially unusual as an elf -- Galadriel, who we will get to in good time, has the same distinction, and so do many others -- but it sure makes him remarkable for our purposes. Frodo is getting to talk through his problems and get a little advice from probably one of the oldest creatures still roaming Middle-earth, just by total accident of having run into each other on the road to Woodhall. That’s kind of amazing.
Okay, but let’s deal with the story on its own terms, since me flying off to the Silmarillion may be a fun trip into Tolkien’s head but there’s not much of it on the actual page in front of us. Given Gildor’s evident power and wisdom -- his presence was more than enough to chase off one of Sauron’s hand-picked servants, after all -- I marvel at his restraint here in talking with Frodo, since he could definitely give him a lot of advice, but he’s reluctant to overstep his bounds. His perspective really comes across as alien in a lot of ways -- I love the line where Frodo has gotten a little indignant as a hobbit at these Riders disturbing the peace of the Shire, and Gildor has to remind him “it is not your own Shire. . . . Others dwelt here before hobbits were; and others will dwell here again when hobbits are no more.” (Is it me, or does Gildor want to add “Others dwelt here, and I personally remember them, because I am OLDER THAN THE SUN”?) There is a calm to the elves, and to Gildor in particular, that I think echoes what Gandalf said to Frodo in the last chapter -- you have a time and it is yours to meet as well as you can, but don’t get too caught up in thinking about yourself as the Last Hero, etc. The world is a big place and you are a small person -- and remembering that isn’t intended to make you feel unimportant, but just to remember how little of the picture you generally get to see or understand. Like, for all my joking about it, Gildor understands that even his millennia of experience and adventure (almost all of which we know nothing more about than that fox does) aren’t enough to make him some kind of all-knowing sage, and certainly doesn’t give him special insight into “how a hobbit should deal with the Nazgul”. His restraint in giving out advice is his recognition that it is generally for each person to see themselves and their purpose as clearly as they can, and then to act accordingly -- as he tells Frodo, “you have not told me all concerning yourself; how then shall I choose better than you?” As much as part of me wants him to say “look, here’s who these Black Riders are”, I think I see Gildor’s point -- however much Frodo might need some information about these things, he needs much more than that to develop his judgment and agency to the point that he can handle decisions on the road with confidence even in the absence of Gandalf (or Gildor).
This is the chapter that reminded me about what it’s really like to read Tolkien -- three rhyming songs (two of them of reasonable length) and a whole lot of landscape detail. These are the things that most bother people who struggle with Tolkien’s style, and I think I should note at the outset that I am sympathetic on one of the two counts….I am not the biggest fan of Tolkien’s poetry. :-) I know, I know, it’s sacrilege -- and I am not saying I think it should all be cut, by any means! But I do feel a bit of impatience with his songs. In part because it’s hard to appreciate them without a melody, I think - this traveling song that the hobbits song, for instance, never worked all that well for me, until I heard Peter Jackson use it. Now, he uses it in a totally different context - this is the song that, with a little editing, Pippin sings for Denethor as he re-enacts Goya's "Saturn Devouring His Son" painting and Faramir leads the LOTR version of the Charge of the Light Brigade: https://youtu.be/zmj25u5mVvg But still, I can grab that melody, work it into something a little more cheerful, and sing it as I read - and thanks to Jackson I can now imagine Pippin singing it later when it is a sweet and bitter reminder of better times. Even melody isn't always enough, though, because his poetry can get pretty silly with rhyme at times -- he’s a much better writer of prose, in my opinion.
For that reason, though, I am totally UNsympathetic to the other charge -- that Tolkien spends too much time on the tedious details of the journey, describing every leaf and change of wind and tiny slope that is encountered. I think he’s really gifted with this kind of detail -- he arranges things so that it’s incredibly easy to visualize the places they are walking and what it’s like to take a journey this long on foot. To the extent that it feels prolonged, that’s because traveling like this is not a breezy experience. I mean, you like what you like, but I can’t read a passage like “away high in the East swung Remmirath, the Netted Stars, and slowly above the mists red Borgil rose, glowing like a jewel of fire. Then by some shift of airs all the mist was drawn away like a veil, and there leaned up, as he climbed over the rim of the world, the Swordsman of the Sky, Menelvagor with his shining belt.” and not be really captivated. I get that he doesn’t really need to describe the stars in this moment at all, and that to the extent that he “needs” to, he could easily accomplish it in half the words or less. But I am glad he gives it exactly as much time as he does.
I am going to mostly leave this alone, since I know I am out of my depth here, but I do want to note that there’s a layer of class -- economic class and social class -- here that I want to unpack but don’t think I’m able to. Sam and Pippin are not equals, and I always wince on that first morning when Pippin shouts from under his blanket that Sam needs to have breakfast ready at a certain time. I do appreciate that this is not the only way they interact -- most of the time the hobbits do seem to treat each other as peers sharing the work together. And certainly over time there will be less and less of this kind of treatment of Sam. But I think it never really disappears, especially in Sam’s relationship to Frodo -- I want to be watchful for that, since I think it’s a bit of a blind spot for Tolkien, but again, I’m not sure how much I can say that analyzes this in the right way. I’d love to hear about this from other readers, if you have thoughts!
Okay, the next two chapters are a bit short, so I’m hoping to tackle both together, taking Chapter 4’s Short Cut to Mushrooms straight through those fungi and into the Unmasking of a Conspiracy that is promised by the name of Chapter 5. See you for 4 & 5 tomorrow night!