Latest / Mythmakers / Something Hot Out of the Pot - LOTR: An Author's Journey, Bk 4 Ch 4
Transcript
- 0:00Hello and welcome to MythMakers.
- 0:08MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives brought to you by the
- 0:13Oxford Centre for Fantasy.
- 0:15My name is Julia Golding and today we are returning to our series on The Lord of the Rings,
- 0:24reading our way through.
- 0:25I call this a side card because it's a bit separate from what I do when I'm talking
- 0:29to other authors for example.
- 0:32Anyway, we have reached in the two towers book 4, chapter 4 of Herbs and Stude Rabbit.
- 0:44Now it is one of those titles where most of you will immediately know exactly what's
- 0:48going on in this chapter because it's one of those stand out chapters.
- 0:54It's one of my favourites, even though in some ways some important things happen but
- 1:01it's not the big chapter, like the Palenos Fields or Mount Doom, but there's something
- 1:07absolutely delightful about this chapter and I have divided it up into four.
- 1:15So the first part is where Frodo and Sam and Gollum are leaving behind the attempt to
- 1:23go through the Black Gates and they have a journey out of that ruined landscape through
- 1:29Athelian.
- 1:30Then they stop for a while and they have a sort of time of refreshment and the aforesaid
- 1:36Herbs and Stude Rabbit, their feast.
- 1:39Then they meet Pharameer and the Med of Gondor and then it ends with the skirmish and the
- 1:46arrival of the Olifort who already was mentioned in the previous chapter in that little song
- 1:52that Sam introduced so the ground was laid then it gets the payoff in this chapter.
- 2:00I would say the thing about this particular episode is it blends both a deeply poetic register
- 2:09that Tolkien has but also it brings in his comic one and you'll see that in the interactions
- 2:16between Sam and Gollum in particular and thinking about what you may have been taught when
- 2:25you were doing Shakespeare plays, they have the idea of the comic relief, you have the
- 2:30high drama and then you have the comedy sections.
- 2:35That is the kind of thing that Tolkien is bringing in here that while there is this high drama,
- 2:40we have this time of relief, a break from all of that from the unrelenting awfulness
- 2:47of the Black Gates.
- 2:50So let's start with the decision to carry on the journey that twists away from the Black
- 2:57Gates to enter this land of Athelian and that journey twist is also a plot twist.
- 3:04Tolkien in his letters and we'll come to those a bit later is in this case a writer who
- 3:12does like discovery writing, he doesn't know what's going to happen either and you get the sense
- 3:18that he reached the gates, he was thinking he was approaching the end of the book and in some way
- 3:24his story instincts and his logic were saying if they get through now and go straight to Mount
- 3:31is been to it too easy. I can't do that, that doesn't make sense in this world.
- 3:37The Dark Lord will have defended himself better, there's got to be something else.
- 3:42So in a way he's diverting himself whilst he works out what the rest of his plot is going to be.
- 3:51And as we set out on this road it is Gollum who is now acting as the guide
- 3:57and he is also the one who gives us a full taste, literally a full taste of what Athelian is going
- 4:03to be like and he talks about how it's a place of clean water and he also talks about his appetite,
- 4:10how hungry and famished he is, as a sort of drug addict figure which is what Gollum is in a way.
- 4:19He is full of these sort of desperate desires for things, here his desire is mainly for food
- 4:29but we have been going through the brackish water of the dead marshes and now we've got this
- 4:35image ahead of us is like an oasis in a sense, we're going towards clean water.
- 4:43As they walk away I just wanted to mention that they talk about the red eye
- 4:48that they feel is watching them. I don't think this is meant to be the eye
- 4:52but it's an eye on top of the watch tower at the gates and it feels like it's looking for them
- 5:00searching for them and I think the image here that is perhaps more relevant is the idea of how it
- 5:07was at the time of trying to go across something like the I don't know the iron curtain
- 5:16countries that kind of thing where you felt invigilated and you couldn't get through,
- 5:21no matter how many attempts and tries you make it felt that you couldn't pass from one place to
- 5:27another so it's that sense of big brother watching you you're under the the invigilation though
- 5:34of course it links back to the great eye on top of Baradur. There is some discussion here about
- 5:41distances and how far Golem wants to go and how far the hobbits are able to manage.
- 5:49One thing I've just point out here is the way that Tolkien's fantasy feels real is that he keeps
- 5:58grounding it in our physical capacities. What it really feels like to do a very very long walk,
- 6:04a route march in their case and it and the fact that they can only go so many leagues before they
- 6:10have to stop makes and that counting off of how far is exactly the kind of experience anyone who's
- 6:17done a long walk or no you'll keep checking how many miles have we done how many and so that's why
- 6:23I think it adds to the feeling of very similitude. Now we get to the refreshment phase because
- 6:30the nightmare landscape of the Moranon the Black Gates area is fading and vegetation returns and
- 6:40we're given this rather poignant sentence about how the hearts of the hobbits rose again a little
- 6:46in spite of weariness. The air was fresh and fragrant and it reminded them of the uplands of the
- 6:53north far thing far away. The hobbits are always bringing things back to what is like and unlike
- 6:59the shire so here we have the north farming. There is a useful gloss if you're looking for it for
- 7:08the actual vegetation you can look it up online of course. The companion to the Lord of the Rings
- 7:18tells you what everything is as well and so does anyone who does gardening they can tell you.
- 7:25Cornel is dogwood now I've got dogwood in my garden dogwood is great in winter because it stems are
- 7:31usually red or yellow a strong color so they make good sort of structural plants.
- 7:39Ling is a word for heather broom that's a kind of vegetation you'll see on moorlands that kind of
- 7:46place it's got fins green leaves with usually masses of yellow flowers and blossom.
- 7:53End the sentence the passage goes on to say it seemed good to be reprieved to walk in a land
- 8:01that had only been for a few years under the dominion of the dark lord and was not yet fallen
- 8:08wholly into decay. Lots of qualifications in there so yes we are reprieved as well as the
- 8:16characters themselves but it's clear that it's not yet fallen wholly that it seems as though
- 8:24the path for this place unless they succeed in their quest is it will fall wholly into decay and I
- 8:32think this I see in this Tolkien's hatred dislike of the industrialization of areas that he knew
- 8:44where he grew up that had begun to fall into decay with the industrial damage that was happening
- 8:54the suburbanization of Birmingham for example and so it was like like what happened at seahull where
- 9:01he came from and so there is a morning of loss landscape here but of course his message is about
- 9:11hope of restoration which is the the biggest story here. So we've had Gollum's appetite
- 9:19sort of triggered as he thinks about Ethylian and now it sounds turn he is desperate for something
- 9:28hot out of the pot. He also gets hungry up to this point they've been sort of just hanging on
- 9:37and there is something about relaxing where he he feels as though yeah I could eat something now
- 9:43and what this what this sort of makes me think about when I'm writing is how not to always
- 9:50completely stress out your characters you have to also let go let them have these times as well
- 9:59just in order to make it bearable to read them I don't know if you read a book where it's
- 10:04or watched a film where it always seems event after event after event and you never take a breath
- 10:09like a very intense it feels like a very intense computer game. Tolkien's much cleverer here
- 10:15because he's giving us a rhythm of tension then relaxing it and back comes Sam's appetite
- 10:23and way they're walking is through another of these ruins in the landscape of Middle Earth
- 10:27which we've seen a number of times on this journey and what the ruins in the landscape
- 10:37gives us a sense of the length of time in this world and also the depth he knows the cultures
- 10:44that have built these roads how they've fallen into decay and we keep meeting them again and again
- 10:50we get it I suppose it's a bit like if you go to Egypt and you see the great relics of the past
- 10:59there is that sense of the greatness was in the past and we are now in a lesser poorer and half
- 11:07destroyed present an Athelian is a landscape that's on this seesaw point where it could go either
- 11:16way into complete destruction or perhaps maybe hopefully there is some way out of it for Athelian
- 11:25so I've mentioned that this is an example of Tolkien at his most poetic it is a
- 11:33certain outpouring of his love of flora i plants trees bushes flowers and he knows his stuff he's
- 11:46a king gardener he had a very big garden at his house in Northmore Road and during the war he
- 11:53was tending it to grow fruit and veg but he loved gardening in a way Sam is one of the characters
- 12:00most like him sharing that passion and he has this poetic vein that he really strikes when he gets
- 12:10with Thelian it's not as high for Lutin and otherworldly I say lorian is it's something which it
- 12:18feels rooted and familiar he talks about Athelian as a fair country of climbing woods and swift
- 12:27falling streams I love their cadence on that you climb up with the woods and you fall with the
- 12:33streams and they reach a point where they stand and look out upon what's left of Athelian this is a
- 12:42very Tolkienian technique I've pointed it out in several times as we've gone through this he will
- 12:48stand his characters on a high point and they will look out and it sketches out the terrain
- 12:54like a map for the reader it's something I've actually started adopting in my own writing I love
- 13:00it as a technique and this lookout point you get an outpouring of names in fact we are overwhelmed
- 13:09with the names of trees and bushes it's after the sensory privation of the dust heaps in front
- 13:17of the black gates we are suddenly deluged in green like marvell's green thought in a green
- 13:25shape it's suddenly in the middle of this amazing landscape of hope and green and shoots and spring
- 13:33and it does remind me of what the same kind of release and the feeling of hope that
- 13:40it appears in the line in the which in the wardrobe when spring returns to Narnia less obvious less
- 13:49less clearly triggered by in that case it's the return of Athel here but still we've got that
- 13:56sense of hope that spring always brings and he has this phrase which is one of my favourite
- 14:05ethylion the garden of gondor now desolate kept still a disheveled dryad
- 14:14loveliness so the words that he talks about the trees the resinous conifers and others these are
- 14:24Mediterranean flora as opposed to Oxfordshire flora he apparently I don't think he went
- 14:33but he did have the botanical gardens near his college so he knew for well
- 14:42what these trees were and would have read about it as well and he does evoke them very well
- 14:48and he's enjoying himself hugely that word dryad well the shovel let's do the shovel first the
- 14:55shovel is a lovely sense of its untidy this is an untidy spring gardens are untidy but this
- 15:04is particularly because it's partly wrecked dryad now dryad obviously appeals to a Greek
- 15:12mythology and it is a word that seems to be imported from most of outside the middle earth context
- 15:18unless you connect it back to the Naird we met earlier who is Goldbury the spirit of the river
- 15:25so perhaps it is allowed it certainly conveys a lot to me the idea of the trees having a presence
- 15:35and this spell that he weaves with this long long passage it is I do go back and read it
- 15:42there is no other passage like this where lots and lots of names of bushes trees and so on
- 15:52are listed and it goes on and on it's it's a whole page over a page where he really wants you to
- 15:59know each of these individual presences in the landscape and I think we're a lot of the time here
- 16:07we're in a kind of Sam point of view because here's the one who knows what these things are called
- 16:10and when he doesn't know a name it's him it's his lack of knowledge that's referred to and so we
- 16:15get suddenly Sam laughed for hearts ease not for jest so we're getting it's a lovely pick me up
- 16:25this chapter if you're feeling down this is one of the ones to go to it really does have that
- 16:32sense of deep joy we're the borough phrase from CS Lewis we're surprised by joy in this
- 16:40particular chapter but if you're going to do this and have your release and your
- 16:49refreshment you don't want to completely lose all your attention
- 16:55people will start to put the book down and know how Tolkien carries on just reminding us
- 17:03that there is the enemy nearby and Sam for example comes across the remains of what looks like a slaughter
- 17:13where climates and other sort of climbing plants are growing over it hiding it but it didn't happen
- 17:18that long ago so we got the idea of Sam's tact not telling anyone else what he saw but he sort of
- 17:26diverts them up the hill but also if that's happened it could happen again so they're not safe
- 17:34it's an illusion of safety because of the beauty of the landscape but they are not safe
- 17:41and then we come into the most comical part of this which is Sam's optimism that maybe they'll
- 17:50still make it back to time they had a good cook meal and Sam here does what he I think is the
- 17:59price where he does it the most when he's talking to Golem he spends a lot of the time
- 18:07and when he talks of Frodo kind of mimicking Golem's web speaking he's picking up on the language
- 18:15and his way of coping with this unwanted extra on the journey is to sort of have a kind of banter
- 18:24but it's a banter with edge so for example he says I begs I begs on my beg and he does it again later
- 18:36so he's tuned in I think that's what it is he's tuned into Golem's web thinking and he easily slips into it
- 18:43so as Golem goes off to do some hunting for them we have this very poignant moment where
- 18:52Sam just looks at Frodo and sees his no warness and he makes a very he talking describes him having
- 19:04complex emotions there but he has a simple way of summing it up a declaration of I love him
- 19:11this isn't obviously cupid love this is comrade love but with a spiritual element to it
- 19:21because of the nobility and the sacrifice that Frodo is showing he is really a scapegoat
- 19:29using that sort of biblical image he's a scapegoat carrying the weight of the sins of the world
- 19:34you know in the ring for everybody into mortal and one of the ways I understand Sam's relationship
- 19:42to him is that he's a bit like a disciple of the master that kind of love intensely loyal
- 19:52brotherly love so then we have the section where the cone is the rabbits are cooked rabbits by the way
- 20:00possibly aren't native to the UK but I guess if Tolkien did know that that they arrived in medieval
- 20:11periods he is quite far south so he could argue actually he would have been native to this part of
- 20:17the sort of Mediterranean latitude that he's reached anyway we have an insight here to
- 20:27Hobbit culture that this is really a clash of cultures it's Gollum's culture versus the Hobbits
- 20:33they don't appreciate each other's experience tastes all that kind of stuff we get to learn
- 20:41here that Hobbits cook before they learn their letters and then there's that little aside that
- 20:45they don't often get to their letters you can you can feel Tolkien chuckling away as he votes that
- 20:52but we also hear get details of what Sam has been carrying in that enormous pack of his his
- 21:00pronged fork his little pans that he looks after and turns really carefully not a great big huge
- 21:07frying pan like they have in the film it's been very heavy to carry that for miles but he has
- 21:13what Tolkien would have known from his kit bag in the first world war were like the army russian
- 21:19pans that's what's going on here the small pans fit inside each other one of the writing exercises
- 21:27I often use with young people and I'm sort of doing creative writing in a school or whatever is
- 21:33to say what does this person have that is special to them what's in their bag if they're on a
- 21:40journey what's in their bedroom with this about them at home is these things which are a clue to
- 21:45their characters what is the most important thing to them and Sam's pans and his pronged forks
- 21:52mean the shire his brought the shire all the way his aspiration to cook the homie's skill that he's
- 21:58good at and we're in a very Sam is really enjoying himself in this section because he has finally
- 22:06got a chance to exercise his you know his best his best skill he knows what he's doing here and he's
- 22:13in command of himself and he's commanding golem too the whole thing you know he's trying to get
- 22:21golem to be his sous chef doesn't work out there obviously golem is right to fear the danger of
- 22:27fire as we will rapidly find out but Sam is determined on this course and he says each to his own
- 22:34fashion and frankly golem goes off in a very amusing sock some of these lines are lifted straight
- 22:40into the film and they work very well in the film because they produce a laugh I've just been at
- 22:48a orchestral performance of the three Lord of the Rings films where they play an orchestra and
- 22:53they've got the films playing this entire scene which is much shortened but got some key lines
- 23:01reliably makes an audience laugh even if they've already seen it you know 10 times 20 times before
- 23:11and we get the potato lines within that I won't stress you out by doing a poor Sam impression here
- 23:21and Sam's offer to golem it's there's generosity in this chapter so this is golem at his best
- 23:30in some sense there he is leading them into a trap so it's not that good but golem provides
- 23:38the rabbits and Sam reciprocates by saying I will cook you fish and chips there's a sense of
- 23:45it could have been moment it could have gone in that direction talking talks about how there is
- 23:51a pivotal point it happened I think in the last chapter which where golem could have chosen
- 24:00another path and he doesn't he's not irredeemable he had a choice and in a way this is another moment
- 24:09where the surrounded by olive trees there is an olive branch being extended but it doesn't take
- 24:17because there is no meeting place for between them you know golem doesn't want any cooked fish
- 24:24thanks so much and that means that Sam says oh you're hopeless so they both sort of retreat back
- 24:30into their entrenched positions so Frodo's been asleep during all of this and we get a lovely moment
- 24:40where they get to eat the feast in the film it always annoys me they don't get to eat the feast
- 24:45they ask they always after all that cooking gets thrown away anyway that's for pacing issues
- 24:52but it seemed a feast is the description here of course it does because they've been living on
- 24:59hard tack even if it is lembas for days Sam's description of golem here is interesting because
- 25:08he's the one who calls golem stinker and smegel slinker and that is interesting because in fact
- 25:17smegel has turned into slinker now there is a later on there's the sneaking thing that comes up
- 25:25but he is complicit now the nicer side of smegel is complicit with the plot
- 25:34that the sort of tougher golem side it has cooked up so Sam is right he's you know he is a slinker
- 25:44he is a sneak even if he did at one stage have more of a loyalty to Frodo which has puzzled
- 25:55and then poiled Sam Sam you forgot to put out the cooking fire it turns out to be a euked
- 26:03astrofe in it is a happy accident because it means that they meet farmy and his men
- 26:09and they don't walk straight into the ambush that's about to happen
- 26:12but we get this we don't know that yet we get the whistle which we don't know
- 26:18who it is it reminds me a bit of the bells on the road earlier on right back in the shower where they
- 26:26don't know if it's going to be a black rider actually not in the shower it's on the bridge
- 26:33on the way to Rivendale sorry they don't know who's going to come around the corner
- 26:37the whistle seems not like the sound one of the sort of sour on supporters would make
- 26:48so perhaps we aren't expecting that it to be some bad guys coming around the corner but we
- 26:55have heard there are signs that the auks are abroad in this wood so we've had the attack
- 27:02on when the fellowship broke up so we know that auks might appear at any moment
- 27:11and then you get the irony that when the four men walk into the glade that they refer to the
- 27:16hobbits as the konis atherrabbits they've been caught in the trap there is mutual astonishment
- 27:22on both sides i think this recalls in the woodland setting them carrying bows and arrows
- 27:29dressed in colors of the forest it recalls the sort of ballads of robin hood and his men and the way
- 27:38they fight is very similar to the sort of classical medieval not classical the medieval ballads
- 27:45of robin hood and his men so we're in our robin hood phase of this story and we've switched
- 27:51away here notice moving from sam to because whereas in the earlier bit with the cooking and the
- 28:00landscape sam had the privileged better knowledge proto here is now relevant because it's
- 28:09him thinking that they remind him of Boromir so he's the one who's on track
- 28:14and the tension between the standoff with the hobbit sunny back to back and the men surrounding
- 28:22them is similar in a way to the encounter that arrogant legolas and gimli have with the riders of
- 28:29Rohan it's a surprise which where is this going to go and i thought it was worth quoting the
- 28:37letter here because Tolkien didn't know exactly which way this was going to go we know this
- 28:44passage was written on the 6th of May 1944 because Tolkien wrote his son Christopher a new character
- 28:53has come on the scene i am sure i did not invent him i did not even want him though i like him
- 28:59and there he was but there he came walking into the woods of Athelian
- 29:05pharameer the brother of Boromir so we get here because we know what the letters are going on
- 29:16about at this point the author surprising himself surprising us and surprising his characters so
- 29:23that sense of how is this going to unfold is both an element of tension in the story plot but
- 29:31attention for the writer it's quite fun to reach these moments i think where does the plot go
- 29:36in fact it's for me i love those moments when i'm writing in a non if i'm writing a book like
- 29:41i am at the moment which hasn't had a synopsis sent off to an editor or something beforehand
- 29:48and i really don't know where it's going to go it's this wonderful moment where you just walk out
- 29:52and think what's going to happen this is what's happening here maybe that's why i like it so much
- 29:57because i feel the freedom of the author here saying what can i do with this character who is he
- 30:03what's he going to be how's he going to line up on my scale of good good guys and bad guys
- 30:12and the shades of gray in between Frodo here doesn't deny that golem is with them unlike the film
- 30:22version where the Frodo there lies he's asked for pity for the wretched gangrel creature that
- 30:28they have fallen in with on the journey and Frodo also tells the truth he gives a neat summary
- 30:36of how they came to be here the fact that they came out of him ledris he mentions who the
- 30:41companions were and he mentions Boramir but of course is immediately a lot of those details are
- 30:51cause of reasons to believe Frodo because he knows things that faramir also knows but
- 30:59he faramir at this stage is in possession of more information about Boramir so faramir shows
- 31:07he is most decisive and cautious he has this phrase which sounds like a an old saw a kind of an old
- 31:15saying wise man trust not to chance meeting on the road in this land what's interesting here it's
- 31:24that idea of by what people do you shall know them and Frodo here does what Mary and Pipin both
- 31:31instinctively do when put in not quite similar situations he says if I could be of any help we
- 31:39would help you fight at this point is that bravery of a small person and this illicit from faramir
- 31:49in the response the halflings are courteous folk whatever else they be so his you know judgment is
- 31:56not yet been given in their case but you can see that he is warming to both Frodo and Sam
- 32:05and now we enter the last section of this chapter which is the skirmish it's quite a short
- 32:11section but it has an interesting preface which which is that Frodo and Sam are left under guard
- 32:17they have two guards mablung and damrod and here we get talking adding yet more worldbuilding
- 32:23because they lapse into their own language which is similar to Elvish and Frodo quickly finds out
- 32:30that they are the dunadine of the south we know that arrogant is a ranger from the north
- 32:37these are the rangers of a thillian and there's a so we are connected to the north and south kingdom
- 32:44of the past very pleasant little detail little easter egg for those of us who have you know
- 32:50dived into the law and in fact these two tell us a lot about the history in this short section
- 32:59they tell us how harrid where the south rons come from has turned on gondor it's quite a fascinating
- 33:07sort of post-colonial story between the arrival of the men of westerness and how they are accepted
- 33:15by the corsets of umbar and all of that if you want to look at both the silmarillion but
- 33:22particularly the unfinished tales have quite a lot about this so it's an interesting story that
- 33:27and they go on to say to the hobbits that they know they're unlikely in the bigger picture
- 33:36to lose the battle against sarron they can't imagine how they would survive but they're not going
- 33:40to give up easily that's a sort of fighting spirit that gondor is in at this present time
- 33:46and they've come here to teach them another lesson they're not going to just surrender the words
- 33:51of a thillian without a fight so we have there were hobbits on the edge of the skirmish
- 33:59rather than in the thick of battle and it's quite effectively done that it's heard in a distance
- 34:05and sound has some very down to earth uh comparison of it being like a load of blacksmiths
- 34:12going hammer and tongs and then suddenly they are the battle comes to them
- 34:22and we move into sam's point of view and it's a fabulous piece of observation
- 34:30this is sam's first view of a battle of men against men and he did not like it much down to earth
- 34:37not having it don't like it and we get the one of the finest passages in Tolkien which
- 34:46are given to sam here it's transposed in the extended edition of the film to pharomia it does
- 34:51suit pharomia but it's actually a sam thought and i'm just turning to it it's page 269 if you've
- 34:59got the three volume version and sam goes on he wondered what the man's name was and where he came
- 35:07from and if he was really evil of heart or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his
- 35:14home and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace all in a flash of thought that
- 35:21was quickly driven from his mind that humanizing of the enemy ways against because when it's all
- 35:31switched seem the ruined elves though they do feel like the like targets that just sort of die
- 35:42without any sense of grief or loss for them and that you can be critical perhaps of that sense of
- 35:49not valuing all lives equally but this is where Tolkien pushes back having passed through two
- 35:57wars himself he's saying well what about the enemy and of course we know as well that there are
- 36:02shades of courage of cowardice amongst amongst men there's denathor there's gremia and so on so
- 36:13that you get a whole range of people he's not whilst it does feel quite black and white dark lord
- 36:20against you know the good forces still within the armies Tolkien's trying to give this level of
- 36:30complexity which i really appreciate the thought is any brief though because we're about to have
- 36:37the arrival of the olive font who was trailed in the previous chapter and now he literally
- 36:42charges towards us or maybe it's a she i'm not sure how one would tell and damrod one of the two guards
- 36:52is one of the he gives this exclamation may the valar turn him aside it's one of the very very few
- 37:00religious appeals in this book Tolkien took out as much as he could
- 37:08referred to religion but it's with the men in Athelian that we get a couple of really interesting ones
- 37:14that stay stay there so he's appealing to the valar to turn aside this charging olive font
- 37:23and Sam gets his heart's desire to see the olive font and so of course we follow him
- 37:30and Sam's thought follows the olive font we also get that this is a matter of lasting delight so
- 37:42as a hint here that Sam may actually survive this adventure but i thought i'd read it in full
- 37:48because it is a masterpiece of writing to his astonishment and terror and lasting delight
- 37:55Sam's sort of vast shape crash out of the trees and come careering down the slope
- 38:00bigger's a house much bigger than a house it looked him a grey clad moving hill
- 38:06bigger's a house that refers back to the little poem and the reality he has to change his ideas
- 38:15the poem got it wrong fear and wonder may be enlarged him in the hobbit's eyes but the
- 38:20movement of Harad was indeed a beast of vast bulk and the light of him does not walk now in
- 38:26middle earth his kin that lived still in that a days are but memories of his girth and majesty
- 38:33so we've got a bit of sort of editorial foot footnote there anyway now we get to the the charge
- 38:39when he came straight towards the watchers and then swerved aside in the nick of time
- 38:44passing only a few yards away rocking the ground beneath their feet his great legs like trees
- 38:50enormous cell like ears spread out long snout up raised like a huge serpent about to strike
- 38:57his small red eyes raging his upturned horn-like tusks were bound with bands of gold
- 39:03and dripped with blood his trappings of scarlet and gold flapped about him in wild tatters
- 39:09the ruin of what seemed a very wart hour lay upon his heaving back smashed in his furious
- 39:15pastures through the woods and higher upon his neck still desperately clung a tiny figure
- 39:22the body of a mighty warrior a giant among the swertings so here we've got reference to scale
- 39:30this passage you'll see was picked up by what Peter Jackson did in the planar field so you can
- 39:37see how the idea of the figure hanging off the ruined water he thought oh I use that in a
- 39:46to visualize how the olive once might be cut down on the great beast thundered blundering and
- 39:54blind wroth through pool and thicket arrows skipped and snapped humbly about the triple hide of
- 40:01his flanks men of both sides fled before him but many he overtook and crushed the ground soon
- 40:07he was lost of use still trumpeting and stamping far away what became of him Sam never heard
- 40:13whether he escaped to roam the wild for a time until he perished far from his home or was trapped
- 40:18in some deep pit or whether he raged on until he plunged in the great river and was swallowed up
- 40:25so there he goes charging off and it Sam's imagination were following and that sense of we're
- 40:30not going to know the answer to all the questions in this story which of course is great because it
- 40:35gives us a sense of the depth and the extent and the vistas of this world building very last
- 40:43tiny section here is once the olive or goes Sam has the nautilance to say don't wake me up if you leave
- 40:52whether or not this is just bravado or he really does feel at ease with the men at ease and
- 40:59after fall asleep and he also hasn't slept yet remember he was cooking but we end this chapter
- 41:05with him falling asleep and so that's where we will pause and we will come back in chapter five to
- 41:14the window on the west another of my favorite chapters where we really get to meet far from it and
- 41:19learn just what kind of man he is when he walked out of that forest thank you very much for listening
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