Chapter 8: Fog on the Barrow-downs
There are a lot of ways to sum up this eventful (and terrifying) leg of the journey, but the simplest would be to reach back for Gildor Inglorion’s words from Chapter 3 about the Shire: “Others dwelt here before hobbits were.” The Barrow-downs, and the malevolent spirits who haunt them, represent ties deep back into the Third Age at a minimum, if not earlier, to kingdoms and peoples that predate the granting of The Shire to whatever bold hobbit foreparents negotiated the deed. The hobbits are conscious of a distant past -- Merry, for instance, spots the Road from their vantage point by the Standing Stone due to the line of trees, which he says were allegedly planted there “in the old days”. There’s a temptation for me to dive a little deep here into Cardolan and Arthedain and the slow crumbling of the Kingdom of Arnor, but a) basically none of it is present in the text here, and b) it doesn’t really add much to the story as presented, so I’ll let it pass. :-) If you do wonder, though, who the men of Carn Dum were, or why there are Barrows here, Tolkien would be glad to tell you about it elsewhere. We’ll revisit the question, anyway, when we get to the Tale of Years in the Appendices, a couple months from now.
It’s funny to see how quickly the poor hobbits go wrong -- they are our protagonists and we can admire the heck out of their pluck and courage, but they really are absolutely terrible at open world navigation. You’d think a calamitous misadventure in the Old Forest would be enough to make them exceptionally cautious, but nope -- despite Tom telling them to give a wide western berth to anything Barrowesque and Goldberry’s more cryptic “North with the wind in your left eye” (which suggests to me the importance of not deviating even a little east of that course -- if we presume a steady western wind, as she seems to), the hobbits decide to stop for lunch on the eastern side of the standing stone, where the magic of the Barrow-downs lulls them to sleep. We could, if we liked, complain a little -- this is EXACTLY what happened next to Old Man Willow. But again, I think that’s part of the point: they’re not great at this, they don’t have the sort of savvy that will allow them to learn quickly enough from their mistakes, and therefore by the time they reach Bree at the end of the chapter, they are going to be pretty desperate for someone who can both navigate without a map and handle themselves in the presence of some nasty magical beings: they’re obviously hoping it’s Gandalf, but they’re going to have to be a little flexible.
I’m struck by Frodo’s managing to elude the Barrow-wight a little more successfully -- unlike the others, he’s remained clothed and in command of his possessions, and he’s the one who wakes up in time to confront the wight and call in the cavalry. Here’s a nicely evocative depiction of Frodo confronting the wight, painted by Rob Alexander (who will be familiar to Magic: The Gathering fans, though more as a landscape artist): https://www.robalexander.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/the-spirits-of-the-dead-final-e1505070039617.jpg Frodo’s encounter with the wight is genuinely unsettling -- we have not, as yet, encountered a Ringwraith this close up, and so this is a foretaste of the threat posed by the Nazgul. Although Old Man Willow was a definite (and potentially lethal) problem, there’s nothing remotely this creepy in the Old Forest: I mean, just look at this description of the voice Frodo hears on waking in the barrow. “The night was railing against the morning of which it was bereaved, and the cold was cursing the warmth for which it hungered.” Later, the voice’s chant becomes words he can decode -- among them “in the black wind the stars shall die . . . till the dark lord lifts his hand over dead sea and withered land.” This is dealing in pretty powerful symbolism for Tolkien, who associates a lot of what’s best about the world with starlight (the singing of A Elbereth Gilthoniel is a recurring touchstone of hope in the book), and even the most novice of readers by now knows who the “dark lord” of Middle-earth is and why it is terrifying for Frodo to find himself in the presence of an entity who is, if not allied with that power, certainly rooting for Sauron in the big game.
There’s a lot of symbolism here -- I don’t want to deal too much yet in how the story ends, goodness knows, but I think there’s some definite resonance here tha Frodo, who will eventually lose an appendage in a crucial moment, is hacking off the wight’s hand (as opposed to stabbing it in the heart, etc.). And the fact that Frodo’s blade is shattered/destroyed by the encounter feels closely tied to Weathertop, which we’ll get to soon. Again, I don’t want to dismiss these parts of the story between Bag End and Bree, which have so often been elided (and which Jackson, of course, leaves out of his films almost entirely), but there’s a sense here in which we are seeing rehearsals for what lies ahead. Tolkien is introducing us to the world beyond the Shire -- where trees can move, think, and act; where mysterious and powerful ancient friends lie waiting in unexpected places; where the pull of evil is so strong that it can knit together a being for centuries after its death, allowing it to draw on the magic of artifacts to sustain itself in pursuit of its malicious purpose. But he is not yet ready to explore any of these things to their fullest extent. I think that’s okay, as a reader -- I like the sense of wading through the shallows into the deep, myself. I do understand, though, the folks whose patience is tried a bit by this sort of thing.
Come on, though, you’ve got to love Tom Bombadil, striding in like a figure out of a children’s picture book but also somehow a formidable exorcist: Frodo, luckily, remembers how to call him, and Tom’s “stronger songs” are enough to shatter the barrow and rescue his friends. Again, I love the balance that Tom strikes -- he meanders into the chapter singing about how “his boots are yellow” (Tom, as ever, speaking of himself in the 3rd person) like he doesn’t have a care in the world. But then in addressing the wight, he says “Leave your barrow empty! Lost and forgotten be, darker than the darkness, where gates stand for ever shut, till the world is mended.” Bombadil, however we interpret him, is a creature of immense power, and his presence and voice are enough to basically disintegrate this millennium-old ghoul and banish it to the outer darkness….and he’s the kind of man who names his barrel-shaped old pony “Fatty Lumpkin”. What can I say? I love him.
My sense that a lot of this section of the book has been preparing us for their encounter with Strider in Bree is certainly enhanced by the conversation Tom has with them after everyone’s awake and not naked anymore. Tom talks with them about their blades, all of which are from Westernesse -- one of which, of course, will play a vital and totally unanticipated role in the course of the war -- and, in giving context about Westernesse, talks about the legacy of Numenor, “sons of forgotten kings walking in loneliness, guarding from evil things folk that are heedless.” They then have this strange vision -- conjured by the magic of the blades themselves? by Tom somehow? by the fate that seems to be guiding their steps at this point? -- of this line of tall, grim, sword-bearing men striding across the plain (and yes, in case you missed it, Tolkien literally uses a version of the verb “to stride” in this sentence) followed at the last by one with a star on his brow. Hmmmmmm, I wonder, could there be any foreshadowing here? It seems to me that Tolkien carefully structures a lot about this journey to Bree to both communicate to the reader about the significance of the character we will come to know and develop in the hobbits an openness to (and even longing for) the kind of leadership that character is ready to provide. He has his own journey to make, after all, and he will have to learn to look for a leader within himself almost as much as the hobbits had to learn to look outside themselves for him.
The last thing I want to note here in what is already, I know, a long reflection, is just to reflect again on how close to failure the hobbits have been and remain throughout these chapters. Gandalf, poor fellow, had not anticipated at all any problems in returning to act as their guide, and as a result left really no backup plan in place. Frodo knows only that 1) Sauron is out there and wants the Ring back, 2) these Black Riders are connected with Sauron somehow (this is only thanks to what little Gildor was willing to tell him), and 3) the plan is to make for Rivendell. Had they not run across Bombadil, or heeded his suggestion to stop at a particular inn in Bree, the Prancing Pony (which Gandalf had not mentioned to them), Frodo and his companions would have been setting out through the Midgewater Marshes and the Weather Hills more or less in the direction of Rivendell, but not (as far as I can tell) in possession of maps or any other guidance regarding how to get there, other than a conviction that “the Road” would take them there. But, given his awareness of 1 & 2, Frodo certainly couldn’t have just stopped for a while in Bree (or anywhere else) waiting for information about Gandalf. As much as Frodo and his companions will face some bad luck along the way, the run of extraordinary good luck that lasts from Bag End all the way to Bree is, I think, significant -- significant because it reminds us what an array of good forces (seen and unseen) stand ready to assist the Ringbearer in his quest, and significant because it reminds us how much the quest always stood on a razor’s edge. Had Frodo missed even one of virtually any of his chance encounters so far, from Gildor to Bombadil to Farmer Maggot, I think it’s almost impossible to envision any outcome but capture by the Nazgul. He was that close to disaster the whole way. It reminds me not to lose heart, myself, but to trust to a certain extent in hope. And there’s more hope ahead, of course, including the Hope that is waiting for us in human form At the Sign of the Prancing Pony in Chapter 9 tomorrow.