Latest / Mythmakers / Sidecast - LOTR: An Author's Journey, Book 1 Chapter 9

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Sidecast - LOTR: An Author's Journey, Book 1 Chapter 9 · Mythmakers

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to Mythbakers. This is a Mythbaker's site cast and author's journey through
• 0:12
  Lord of the Rings and I'm guiding you my name's Julia Golding. Now I'm an author and I've
• 0:18
  always admired Tolkien's artistry as a novelist and so doing this I'm really looking at it
• 0:25
  from the point of view of him as he writes it and we've reached in our adventure in our quest
• 0:32
  chapter 9 in Fellowship of the Ring which is called At the Sign of the Prancing Pony and this
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  is one of the shorter chapters in Fellowship of the Ring and the structure is that we have an
• 0:45
  introduction which I'm going to talk about in a second then we have the Hobbit's Meeting
• 0:51
  Harry the Gatekeeper at the Gate then they go to the Prancing Pony and they have
• 0:57
  supper in a room on their own and then they take the disastrous decision to go into the main
• 1:03
  public bar into the tap room of the inn and yeah a lot of a lot of things happen in that last phase
• 1:11
  in this chapter but I want to pause here on how this starts it's quite an unusual start to a
• 1:19
  chapter because Tolkien spends a long time telling us about where Brie and the associated
• 1:26
  villages of Staddle, Kuhm and Archit are so much so that you can actually draw a map as a result of
• 1:34
  this it's it's very complete I think it's almost the most complete description of a location
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  until we get to possibly Ministerus which has another moment of pausing when we get a sense of
• 1:49
  the wider area around Ministerus and this place Brie we find out from the appendices is actually
• 1:58
  based on a Buckinghamshire village called Brill which is a short drive from Oxford and that is a
• 2:07
  village on a small hill with a windmill and it is surrounded by associated villages and it's also
• 2:14
  got lots of woods around there I drove out there during the pandemic during lockdown it was one of
• 2:20
  the areas where we could go within our sort of allowed area and had a good old ramble around it
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  but one of the things that made it a source for Tolkien was the name he actually took quite a few
• 2:36
  hues from the villages around that part it's if you're thinking of where Oxford is it's the area
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  to the east of Oxford to the west you've got the beautiful area called the Cotswolds and over
• 2:50
  in the east it's it's less famous less visited much more of a a place known to locals so it has
• 2:57
  that yeah I don't think it beyond most itineraries are people investigating the roots of Tolkien but
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  it's a pretty little village well worth a detour from the M40 but the thing that
• 3:12
  brought Tolkien to that area is it got some interesting names so even the name of Brill
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  and Brie they're connected to the word for hill and its name is meant to sound Celtic
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  or other to the names in the Shire so if we think of the Shire names as being sort of more of a
• 3:31
  contemporary English it's meant to sound as though it's from a different tradition
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  and I don't know if you ever realise this but in the appendices if you've read that far
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  there's actually quite a long discussion that Tolkien has about how the Hobbit language that he
• 3:49
  uses is a translation from another language which looks quite exotic and strange if you actually
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  see the words he puts down for the Hobbit language so the idea is he's translated it from Hobbit
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  if you see what I mean into English and other languages are then referenced against that
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  so there's another thing that might be worth knowing about Brie and Brill is that Brill is about
• 4:20
  the same distance more or less as a good walk a good long walk from Oxford several days walk so it
• 4:28
  feels about the right distance from Oxford as the Hobbits have come from the Shire with all their
• 4:35
  many delays on that journey in the Old Forest and with Tom Bombardiel so it feels like a good place
• 4:43
  for him to think well what's that distance from where I'm sitting writing this so you can see how
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  it may have all gone into that sort of stupor of his mind and out he outpops Brie and he describes
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  it with such a accuracy this is there that's there arch it's in the woodland that you really feel
• 5:03
  he believes in its existence which means you as a reader do too and if you're wondering if you
• 5:08
  found it a bit confusing when I was thinking about this I I have a book of Tolkien maps but I also
• 5:15
  found much more easily accessible is if you just go on the Wikipedia page for Brie you'll see a
• 5:21
  really excellent map which describes how the roads and the villages all interrelate so do check
• 5:27
  that out when you're reading this chapter the other thing this introductory piece emphasizes is how
• 5:34
  Brie is an island in a wilderness and this makes you realise how the Shire is such an exceptional
• 5:41
  country it's got it postal services and it's far things and you know it's sort of petty bourgeois
• 5:49
  hobbit life of pubs and parties Brie seems to be a very different place even just on that
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  level it's much more isolated much lower population compared to the Shire and there is a feeling
• 6:04
  that we have passed the golden age that the landscape is empty the roads are abandoned and we are
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  entering into much almost stepping back in time in a way by leaving the Shire he says that
• 6:19
  the Brie men belong to nobody but themselves talking in his letters described himself as having
• 6:26
  anarchistic leanings that's for his ideal sort of I he wants to get rid of big government and
• 6:32
  interference and he has a liking for small self governing communities which of course the Shire
• 6:38
  itself is is that he's both sort of extended idea about that but you get a version of that in
• 6:46
  Brie as well and this gives the theme that keeps coming up in Tolkien have you noticed it the
• 6:52
  theme of the survival of small people as great waves of history come and go I mean they're also
• 6:59
  literally small you've got the Druidan who we meet in the forest much later when Theodan rides
• 7:07
  to ministerial we've got the hobbits themselves and now the Brie men are also described as being
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  short of stature in contrast to these smaller people who don't get so cool you know they're not
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  the tall poppies cut down by history we get a glimpse of the Rangers and this picks up on the
• 7:29
  vision of the last chapter which Tom Bombadil prompts and of course stretches forward to the main
• 7:38
  encounter in this chapter which is with Aragon known at this stage as Strider but let's have
• 7:44
  think what is happening in this intro there's been quite a few quite a long moment now where we're
• 7:51
  basically getting a geography and history lesson about a place that we're not going to spend an
• 7:56
  awful long time who is telling us this what is going on so looking at it from an author's point of
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  view people often describe the Lord the Rings as a omniscient narrator but it's not really
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  because it's explained that the book is written by Frodo with supplemented by the stories and
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  recollections of his friends so if we're going to go with that conceit what's happening here is Frodo
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  way after the events of the tale is writing this for the public record of his adventure which
• 8:34
  he's going to hand on to Sam and he feels that the reader I imagined his thinking hobbits
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  reader needs to know these things about the place that's outside their borders so the narrator
• 8:49
  let's assume it's Frodo is stopping to tell us about that that is obviously a game that Tolkien's
• 8:56
  playing and he doesn't always keep for those rules but that's how I understand this let's think
• 9:02
  about it otherwise it's he's breaking the rules generation by zipping around and doing different
• 9:09
  things I think it all becomes a unity if you let that conceit run all the way through that this is
• 9:15
  Frodo using the recollections of his friends to dramatize them and provide the information that we
• 9:21
  know because he's very good at writing books and one of the things that's emphasised in this
• 9:28
  introduction is that there is hobbits outside the shire more than shire folk know as said for
• 9:36
  fascinating idea that they may be living like tramps as well as the population in Bri but the
• 9:44
  thing that challenges the hobbit expectations in Bri is they are here the hobbits from the shire
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  the hobbits in Bri are able to coexist with the big people which is described as like a unique
• 9:59
  experiment and it does influence our concept of the shire and its limitation and its
• 10:06
  insularity they they feel that they are not part of everything else and that will come up again in a
• 10:14
  minute in when we get to the scenes in the inn and it does pick up on something which is very true
• 10:20
  of village life in England but I admit it in Italy and elsewhere I imagine if you think of your
• 10:28
  equivalent villages or regions in the country you're from that you can have this sense of we are
• 10:35
  different from those people over there even if there's only a field separating you or a short
• 10:41
  stretch of road in this case another little thing before we move on to back to the story as it were
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  is the glimpse of old roads we've got two intersecting roads here which is why Bri is at its
• 10:55
  this particular point one called the greenway which suggests it's been overgrown
• 11:02
  and become green either grass is growing up through the tracks this for me is reminiscent of the
• 11:09
  fate of Roman roads in the history of England which sometimes underlie our main roads now
• 11:17
  but sometimes get lost in the surrounds when they no longer connect points in the way that we
• 11:24
  we do the traveling and there was one or is one I should say very close to Tolkien on Opmore
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  which is the place where he sets former jars of ham and it would be a place that he could easily
• 11:39
  motor to or walk to from Oxford it's a great place to go bird watching as a as a wonderful
• 11:46
  bird sanctuary there but running right across the center of it is a green road which is an old
• 11:51
  Roman road which he can still walk along and I always think of the greenway when I'm walking along that
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  and another thing you might want to because we are now heading past these roads to the in itself to
• 12:04
  the prancing pony and when you sort of look online to see what people think about the prancing
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  pony there are those who attempt to identify it with a particular pub that has inspired Tolkien
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  there is actually a pub in Oxford a well known pub called the White Horse right by Blackwells so
• 12:25
  if you're looking for a place with a White Horse quite a plump White Horse on the on the side you
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  don't have to go very far but I think that would probably not be fair to Tolkien I think he's
• 12:37
  thinking about all the pubs he knows and by George he knew his pubs because in a way it's an
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  amalgam of a very common part of village life certainly in his day many pubs
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  what well many villages had more than one pub so it's it's capturing I think a cultural moment
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  there are less pubs down there used to be but still there are still if you come to the UK
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  or if you live here you know that you can go and visit pubs very much like this without much effort
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  anyway back to the story the first person that the Hobbits meet after having said goodbye Tom Bombadil
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  is is Harry the Gatekeeper who I think is the first man they meet if we think of Tom and Gandalf
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  as not being men and it's interesting that there is clearly mutual suspicion between them
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  and you get the sense that the Hobbits hackles are up they feel something's not right
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  and Tolkien is giving us signals he's shading that character to be on the villainous side because
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  Harry is stared at them darkly so we're getting the signals here that this is not a person to be
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  trusted and we get an insight into Frodo's point of view so we're at this stage in the narration
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  more often in Frodo's head than anyone else and that's where we stay for most of this
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  and for all of this chapter and we see that he's still hoping for Gandalf to turn up
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  it's one little odd moment here where when they go off to into the village itself the narrator
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  future Frodo adds a little line about someone climbing the gate unseen by Harry unseen by the Hobbits
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  and it's a dark figure we're not told who it is we later find out who it is but because we don't know
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  it could be ominous it could be bad it could be a threat so you never want in a narration to let
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  everything just be this happened this happened this happened it has to be shaded by some sort of
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  tension or problem or ticking clock or something to keep you reading and these suggestions that
• 14:57
  something is following them hounding them is one way of doing it and when they reach the
• 15:04
  prancing pony is it's fun here that Sam is very unnerved by his first side of all these stone
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  houses that big to him that the men build whereas Frodo is ready to accept Tom's recommendation that
• 15:21
  all is well in this particular case the there's an odd description here which I just wanted to
• 15:28
  pause over which is the sign when that's mentioned it's the prancing pony by Barlim and Butterburne
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  I wondered I'll have to look this up I wasn't sure if if that means that the landlord it was
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  that a common word describing pubs that they're by the name of the landlord doesn't seem quite
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  right I've never heard it in any other context the other possibility which I'd rather like and
• 15:57
  would be rather fun is maybe he painted the sign I would love to think of Barlim and Butterburne
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  having a sideline where he goes away in paints he's so proud of his pub he actually makes his
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  own sign because that would make sense of the sign being by him but I suspect it's just meant
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  to say that this is the name of the landlord okay and then brace yourself because this is where
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  Tolkien shows his powers of dramatising a scene through well through speech we've that's how we
• 16:30
  do get a brief description of him but really what we know most about Barlim and Butterburne is his
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  breathless way of talking it's short sentences abrupt moving on always running after to somebody
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  else's call call brilliantly written here very economically he's a friendly man and we very clear
• 16:51
  that his agenda isn't the same as the Hobbits it puts the question perspective and we get that again
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  when we circle background to breathe out at the end of the journey where he's just thinking about
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  the fact that his custom has been down and things aren't looking at it so Tolkien's always keeping
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  the perspective of the common man in this bigger magical quest he is one of Tolkien's originals
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  the the unheroic but rather fine people lawy farmer maggot and later in minister if we meet
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  yours the lequacious lady in the houses of healing he's clearly good-hearted but probably a bit
• 17:34
  annoying because we're thinking why didn't you know get to the point these are important you know
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  why didn't you send the letter all these things so he can be a bit annoying but the energy of his
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  speech shows that he is a man of his community and that particularly signalled not by him saying
• 17:53
  I am a man of my community but by him coming up with sayings and common wisdom that's how he
• 18:02
  he's very networked we would call it now in his community and he reminds me of in this case
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  Jane Austen so one of the funniest characters in Emma Jane Austen's wonderful novel
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  is Miss Bates who is another powerhouse of language and most people find her tedious including Emma
• 18:28
  the main character but she is used with great verb and fun by Jane Austen as a way of seeing into
• 18:37
  scenes because she will enter into a assembly room for example and describe everything from
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  the decorations to the food on the table so the author doesn't need to describe it they've got a
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  character who's doing it in a funny and amusing way it reveals the character it reveals the scene
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  it reveals the reactions of the other characters to her but if you're reading carefully you pick up
• 19:01
  clues because she is giving little signals that you need to pay attention to and you get this with
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  Barleyman Butterbur him saying about who's come up that they have a party that's just come up
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  the green way we know who's in the tap room from him so when they actually do go into the tap room
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  we don't need that to be reiterated you already know there's some strangers there there's the local
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  hobbits and there's the local men and it's all been done by that outpouring of conversation of
• 19:35
  Butterbur wanted to tell you everything that's on his mind he doesn't have much of a filter I think
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  what he would say then we get when there's finally sitting down after having been through the scary
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  time in the barrow white and what and all of that loneliness of the road the suspicion at the gate
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  we now get one of those golden moments where they get a lovely feast a very plain and simple food
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  including a black-breed tart which I quite like the sound of and it reminds me that this was written
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  in the tradition of still holding on to some of the children's fiction idea that sort of
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  a hobbit feel as in from the hobbit which is it could also be described as a series of memorable
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  meals and it has that air about it it seems innocent it seems comforting so then why
• 20:30
  as a reader you're thinking you say stay there don't do anything didn't you didn't you get the vibe
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  from Harry didn't you get a vibe that some were climbed over the wall but no whilst telling each
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  other to be careful they take the decision to leave that little haven most of them go into the
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  tap room and Mary says I'm gonna go and wander around outside it's equivalent of the you know the
• 20:57
  person going into the haunted house don't do it you know you can see there's gonna be disaster
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  but that is the fun of narrative you're winding up the reader because they know that something is
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  going to happen so once you get into the tap room that's Frodo Sam and Pippin they get a rush of names
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  which has a bit like it reminds echoes the party right at the very beginning so this is the
• 21:28
  brief version and these names because names are vital in way talking things about his world gives
• 21:34
  you a sense of the slightly different culture and the hobbits register that the way people name
• 21:44
  themselves there is unfamiliar there are some familiar but they find it odd that the men of
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  Bri have botanical names for example and so botanical names also tell you what the local
• 21:58
  environment is and it's very English they're still within familiar climbs they haven't got any of
• 22:03
  the new flowers that you'll get later in La Florian and elsewhere we also have a little insight
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  here to something which has a very modern feel to it which is the tension between the people
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  who are coming up the road the strangers and the men themselves the local people themselves
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  they're basically a kind of economic migrant asylum seeker and it's the reactions are fascinating
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  so the local people are saying oh yeah sorry about it but no room here is there sort of vibe
• 22:44
  that they're giving and as the hobbits don't think it affects them at all which of course turns out
• 22:49
  to be disastrously wrong because whilst they're away Saruman moves in takes over
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  builds sheds to house the men in the shire so it's a warning that these problems don't stay confined
• 23:03
  within borders and I think if you remember this is all being written during the Second World War
• 23:09
  of which massive displacements of people in Europe lots of refugees you can see that this also had
• 23:16
  a echo of the situation that Tolkien was in at the time of writing then we move into the next
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  section prior to the disaster we get Pippin who's having the time of his life telling stories
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  and Pippin is regaling the locals with little funny anecdotes from the shire and whilst he's doing
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  that holding the attention Frodo is intrigued by a stranger who's sitting in the corner
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  and this is of course going to be arrogant but we don't know that yet
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  and as he's wonderfully introduced it's just very economic and note how many details of where
• 23:57
  he's come from and what he's doing are given by this brief description suddenly Frodo
• 24:04
  noticed that a strange looking weather beaten man sitting in the shadows near the wall was also
• 24:10
  listening intently to the hobbit talk he had a tall tanker in front of him and was smoking a long
• 24:16
  stemmed pipe curiously carved his legs were stretched out before him showing high boots of
• 24:22
  supple leather that fitted him well but had seen much wear and were now caked with mud a
• 24:29
  travel stained cloak of heavy dark green cloth was drawn close about him and in spite of the heat
• 24:35
  of the room he wore a hood that overshadowed his face but the gleam of his eyes could be seen
• 24:41
  as he watched the hobbits that is actually my favorite shot in the Peter Jackson film where
• 24:48
  the glow of the pipe flares and catches in arrogant or vego mortisens eyes which is straight from this
• 24:57
  passage so we get that he is a long lean well-traveled person who's set apart who's not joining in
• 25:06
  who's watching who's listening and if we've been paying attention we might start to think
• 25:12
  oh yes what about those ranges that sounds like a person who ranges about the place
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  and obviously on a second reading you're already making the links
• 25:21
  Frodo goes to talk to him his waived over which i think is it's an interesting choice by Frodo
• 25:30
  maybe he knows he couldn't be it's maybe banners because he's asked about him and then gets the
• 25:36
  backing to go over but he does take the risk to go over and just sound out this person who's
• 25:41
  watching him and what he hears is very disturbing because there's some very heavy hints dropped
• 25:47
  here by Strider that he might know who he is he says master under hill if old Butterberg got
• 25:58
  your name right so still on a first reading we're not sure if this is a friend or a foe
• 26:03
  but he does point out that Pippin is going too far so Pippin is moved into the story of
• 26:10
  Bilbo's farewell speech which is obviously where this whole book begins and Frodo takes the alarm
• 26:17
  that he might even go as far to mention the ring and Strider urges him on to make an intervention
• 26:26
  and this is where we get evidence that Frodo 2 is someone who is a bit of a performer because after
• 26:33
  a slow start he sings the song about the man in the moon now let's have a little pause here to think
• 26:41
  about Tolkien as a poet there's a wonderful new three volume edition of his collected poems
• 26:50
  and reading through the introduction to that i was reminded that this poem was actually written
• 26:57
  for a context outside of the book it was started way back a version of it was started way
• 27:02
  back in 1919 where he was having fun with the idea of tracing the roots of nursery rhymes because
• 27:11
  this is based on a well-known nursery rhyme expanding it and giving it a sort of another lineage
• 27:18
  so he'd already written this poem and when he was thinking of for a song that Frodo could sing
• 27:24
  he thought oh well this fits because this is the time um it could be the time when
• 27:31
  nursery before the nursery rhyme was shortened he's almost inventing the history by putting it
• 27:35
  into middle earth um so he's continuing this joke that he began in 1919 in this book several decades
• 27:44
  later i actually think it's quite a good fun piece of nonsense verse if you want to hear it
• 27:52
  sung Andy Serkis has a go in the audio version but i personally rather like the
• 27:59
  version in the BBC radio drama which was done by Brian Sibley back in the 80s it's actually really good
• 28:08
  so i would an Ian Holm is singing it as Frodo so i would recommend going and having a listen to that
• 28:16
  what's particularly good about it is the way it builds so that you can see it would give a cheer
• 28:24
  at the end um if you were listening to it in a pub and they want to join in i didn't like the
• 28:30
  version that was done it was borrowed for the hobbit and the dual sing it as part of their sort
• 28:37
  of disruption yeah i think in Rivendell i didn't like that it's much better in this context so
• 28:44
  don't bother to go watch that version and then here we get a sense of the power of the ring because
• 28:50
  Frodo isn't in his nervous the ring knows that he's he's got this nervous habit of playing with
• 28:57
  the ring and it slips on his finger in an unguarded moment and betrays him and i think it's
• 29:05
  really strongly felt here that Frodo feels an utter fool shame and feeling foolish is actually a
• 29:12
  really powerful emotion to put in a story because we all know that we probably agonise over things
• 29:20
  we do far longer than anybody else would remember them and that's how Frodo feels i think he's not
• 29:27
  even aware of the danger he's put himself in arrogant is but Frodo is just thinking i have been
• 29:33
  utter idiot his reaction is very relatable and also the embarrassment of how do i come back from
• 29:39
  that strido is quite unsympathetic here he just basically a bit like Gandalf telling
• 29:47
  Pippin that he's a fool of a took there's a kind of strider asperity here but he does mean
• 29:54
  that Frodo in his sort of embarrassment does agree to an interview with strider to kind of
• 30:02
  have it out with him in private and Frodo tries to do what is the equivalent of clean up on aisle
• 30:10
  five by saying of course he isn't a magician he just crawled away under the table no one buys it
• 30:15
  and poor mr. Butterbirds are coming and try and you know make peace with his regulars
• 30:22
  and then we find it ending on a dark note so how you begin and how you end a factor so
• 30:30
  is importance of people read on and this has got a very good end in that butterbird who's been
• 30:36
  the friendly one he goes back to that note of suspicion rousing suspicion in the hobbits
• 30:44
  that we had with Harry by saying i hope you don't mind there's something i should have told you
• 30:48
  so we go back to this sense of being unnerved and the reminder that something dangerous
• 30:55
  is hovering that even old butterbird has something that he needs to confess and admit
• 31:01
  so of course you're going to turn the page and find out what both strider and butterbird
• 31:05
  want to say to the hobbits but we are going to leave it there notice that Mary is not mentioned
• 31:12
  so the attentive reader will have ticking away in their mind that where's Mary
• 31:18
  and again we're going to have to wait to find out in the next chapter
• 31:27
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