Latest / Mythmakers / Sidecast - LOTR: An Author's Journey, Book 2 Chapter 8

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Sidecast - LOTR: An Author's Journey, Book 2 Chapter 8 · Mythmakers

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  Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
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  creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding.
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  Now this is a sidecast episode on the Lord of the Rings looking at the novel from the
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  point of view of someone who writes for a living. So I've called it the author's journey.
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  And we have reached in book two that's towards the end of the Fellowship of the Ring, chapter
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  eight, a chapter called farewell to Lorian. And indeed it does what it says, it is the
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  chapter where they take their leave of Lorian. Now if you look at this chapter, it falls
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  into I'd say three main parts, two or three main parts. The first is the initial debate
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  about what they're going to do next, how are they going to travel on from Lorian? So that's
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  a discussion with Kellaborn and then a discussion amongst the Fellowship. And then there's an extended
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  rest of the chapter which is about different forms of gift giving. So initially the gift giving
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  is with the ordinary elves. And then the last part of the chapter is when they meet Kellaborn
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  and Galadriel again for the more formal personalised gift giving. So that's like the third part.
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  Now you could argue that the whole chapter is one long series of giving of gifts, but we'll
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  look at that in a moment. I found myself actually making quite a lot of notes on this chapter
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  because I realised there are a lot of really interesting themes that come up and there are things
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  that I had not noticed. The number of times I've read this book and still I am coming across
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  new things. So I hope in this I will be highlighting things that you also haven't noticed so that you
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  can have a new fresh enjoyment of this chapter. The first thing I noticed is that where they meet
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  is to initiate the the leaving mechanism as it were. The detachment of the company from their
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  rest time in Lorien is they meet in a place which is called the Chamber of Kellaborn.
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  Now this is quite an interesting hierarchy here because obviously Galadriel is the senior elf in
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  many ways having come from Valinor. But in terms of who is known as the Lord of Lorien,
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  it seems that Kellaborn is given that name in the same way Thrandwell is given the name
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  of the Lord of the Elves of Merquard. And I hadn't really noticed that until I thought, oh yeah,
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  they're highlighting here, Tolkien's highlighting that it's Kellaborn who is the person associated
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  with the place because Galadriel arrived there or came to Middle Earth later.
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  Kellaborn serves quite a useful function in this chapter aside from his kingly presence.
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  And that is that he is the one who often reiterates the geography of where we have reached in this
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  complicated tale and also reminds us of the stakes. And that is what he does at the beginning of
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  this chapter. He reiterates the stakes both personal and to the wider world saying basically,
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  you can stay here if you want, but that will have effect on people's lives beyond just your own.
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  The Galadriel confirms that they all wish to go on. And note here that
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  Boromir is not, he could have just nodded his head and kept his own thoughts to himself,
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  but he is increasingly more balshi, he is more pushing back, he has been all the way through,
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  but he can't just accept that he's going on. He has to say, well, I was going on anyway,
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  whatever you say. And this is the grit, the place that he actually puts the pressure on the company
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  is always this attitude of my agenda, I know I'm right. And Tolkien is reminding us of that because
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  of course it's going to come to the breaking point in a chapter or so's time.
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  We also hear that they can't make their mind up. It's a problem in writing a book. If you're trying
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  to keep us in suspense as to what decisions people are going to make, how do you do that without
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  it becoming tedious? It's a bit like in Hamlet, how long can you keep us watching a play with about
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  a prince who is thinking about whether or not he should take revenge for the death of his father?
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  They are delaying this decision. It's a genuinely difficult decision for them because
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  Aragorn had thought he was going to go to Ministerus and become king, you know, take on that
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  or try to earn Arwin's hand in marriage and all those stakes for him, but without Gandalf,
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  he has to step into the shoes of leading the company. And so one way of
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  keeping the suspense going so it's not annoying is to do what Kellaborn does. It's used a strategy
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  where they don't have to make the decision yet. It's not come to the absolute crunch moment.
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  And so they are given Elvenboats, which means that they can literally sail between the two,
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  the East Bank and the West Bank. They can keep going without the decision having to be taken.
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  Also, we get a nice little detail here that Mary is quite fond of Boats because he lives near
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  the Brandywine. And he says that, you know, not all hobbits look at Boats like wild horses. We know
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  and it's later made very clear that the person who does regard Boats as wild horses is, of course,
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  you guessed it, Sam. It's helpful the way Kellaborn lays out the way markers down the river.
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  You'll go through this land and then meet these fools and so on because as a writer, if you're
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  creating a fantasy land, and we know that elements of this story Tolkien was inventing as he went
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  along, filling in his map, so to speak, that it gives you sight to write towards. And if you have
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  problem sustaining a story, you might need a little bit of a Kellaborn in your mind and perhaps
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  in your story too, someone who will say, well, after the the word is the castle, you know, that kind
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  of thing. So you know where you're going because that will suggest events on the way to you if
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  you start putting in the geographical markers. So it's very useful to have a Kellaborn.
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  It's a little passage which I may not have noticed after they accept the gift of the Boats
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  with some relief. It's like a company reaction to the Boats where everybody's different response
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  is marked. And there's a joint one, which is a kind of fatalistic one, which is whatever perils
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  lay ahead. It seemed better to float down the broad tide of Anduin to meet them and to
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  plot forward with bent backs. So there is a feeling in this book, no matter how many delays they have,
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  there is a tug like a tide bringing them towards confrontation. And the river in a way stands for
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  that at this point. They are being taken into the adventure even if they wanted to keep out of it.
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  And no, also at the end of this little interview with Kellaborn and Galadriel that we have
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  another of these biblical cagences that we examined in the last podcast where Galadriel says,
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  do not travel your hearts. She's changing her tune here. Do not travel your hearts over much.
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  So actually she's saying you've got to be a little bit worried. But it's going back to the idea
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  that the elves strike this angelic almost cadence. Do not let your hearts be troubled.
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  So it's still a note that's played again and again by talking. So after seeing the Lord and Lady
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  of Lorian, we have another of our fellowship huddles where we see them working out
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  what they're going to do. We had obviously ones before they decided to go up the mountain
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  path and so on. We've been talking about that as we go along. Here is another of these. And of
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  course, their last one happens right at the end of this book. But this is the second or last one,
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  I think. It's like a mini council. And what's most notable about here, because they're reiterating
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  the point that they can't make their mind up. But there is something new here to notice that
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  Boromir betrays himself and Frodo notices. He doesn't know of other people notice. Boromir says,
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  it is folly to go without force into his domain, meaning Mordor. And folly to throw it away.
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  Ah, he self-corrects and makes some other, you know, folly to throw lives away. But Frodo
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  realizes that Boromir is talking about the ring. It's interesting that in the film, this line
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  is moved to the confrontation between Frodo and Boromir in the scene where Boromir's supposedly
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  collecting wood is actually from this section. So the slow burn of Boromir's descent into a sort
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  of greed and madness is threaded in a different way in the actual novel. Okay, so we're now moving
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  into the general gift giving and it starts with Lemmas. It's one of those miracle foods of the
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  L. So we've had the cordial on a couple of occasions. There is an echo here with this, don't eat
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  too much of it. It's like a wafer with the creamy inside. There is a connection here possibly to
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  the bread of communion, which you don't bolt down, but it's supposed to, because it's not a meal
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  in that way. It's a symbolic meal and it's supposed to be soul satisfying. So there is a connection,
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  I think, quite deliberate here between a sort of sense of a spiritual food that Lemmas represents.
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  It's unlike any of the other food. It's unlike cram. It's unlike the food that Faramir later gives
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  Frodo and Sam. It is a special spiritual food. I always imagine it a bit like some kind of macaroni.
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  I don't know what I think people have tried to make recipes for it, but I suppose really the
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  point is it isn't like anything any of us have ever eaten, because it is beyond that. It's
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  elven, so you have to let your imagination think of something even better than anything you can
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  possibly eat. We do get a nice shout out here to be on and the honey cakes, which for the observant
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  reader will take them back to the hobbit where for Bilbo eating the honey cakes was a high point.
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  So moving on from Lembass, and of course Lembass is going to be important for the rest of the
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  story, particularly for Frodo and Sam. We have more gifts and these start out as generalized gifts,
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  so obviously the boats, but we've got gifts of a hood and a cloak, which is naturally a camouflage,
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  and it's pipping this time who raises that question of elven magic and again gets the answer,
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  how we don't quite know what you mean, but there is a lovely detail here, which I think picks up
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  one of the themes of this chapter, which is about making and creativity. And the elves say to
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  Pippin and Mary, leaf and branch, water and stone. They, that's the cloaks, have the hue and beauty
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  of all these things under the twilight of lorian that we love. For we put the thought of all that we
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  love into all that we make. Now this is the difference between the creativity of the good and the bad
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  in middle earth. The rude crude weapons of the orcs are not made with love,
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  often made out of slavery and fear and servitude, whereas the weapons, the cloaks,
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  the leaf broaches, another important gift are all made with love. Even the rope, we assume.
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  And I think this is a really interesting theme in picking up of Lembas being like a spiritual
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  food. These gifts also have their spiritual aspect of protection and comfort and a sense of
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  cleanness later on when Frodo is in really pretty bad situation in Mordor, having the elven cloak
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  next to his skin is a huge comfort. So there's a power of goodness because it's made with love.
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  There's a whole kind of spiritual theological writings about the dignity of work and making,
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  which I'm sure Tolkien is aware of, but also for ourselves creatives. I guess that is what we should
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  be aiming for is for making things with love rather than hatred and fear and servitude. So I love
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  this. It might be my new motto for creativity. Moving on, we get healthier popping back up again.
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  He sort of bookends the arrival and departure from Lorian. In a way, because the other
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  elves who have been talking to the company aren't named individually, he stands for the other
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  elves who aren't Kellaborne and Galadriel. But he also connects us to events in the outside world
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  because he's been on guard. And it reminds us that the things, though times seems to stop
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  almost in Lorian, it hasn't stopped for everywhere else. And there's this little tantalizing
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  detail which I imagine on first read you don't notice. He mentions how there are sounds and clouds
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  of vapor in Dimriel Dale, which is back towards Moria. And we later find out, of course,
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  it's Gandalf battling the Balrog. So it all does connect. And these are the kind of clues that
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  you can read with an aha moment on your second time. So one of the things that she's so lovely
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  to watch about Tolkien as a writer is the way that he does put in these things which mean the book
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  appears differently for us further readings. And that's why we don't tire of it. It's not all
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  done and dusted once you've read it once. Now here is a detail I had not noticed before until
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  looking at this very carefully for this podcast. And that is how do you lead them for 10 miles
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  from Calais Galathon to where they get the boats? I really hadn't noticed that. So suddenly
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  Lorian is bigger in my mind than before. And he leads them to another lawn. And here what's
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  is described as being bounded by rivers. We've got the silver load glittering like silver.
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  And the great river, that's the Anduin, which is described as deep and dark. And the banks
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  on this great river are described as bleak and bare. So can you see how Tolkien continues to ring these
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  oh, lexical sets really about the different worlds. It's the part of this spell of enchantment.
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  So with Lorian, we've got silver, gold, green, bright light, glitter. Outside Lorian, you have
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  deep, dark, bleak, bare. So that's how you create atmosphere. Keep on gently putting it back in.
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  And eventually you get this thing that adds up to something much bigger than a single sentence.
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  In the boats, which are well packed for them, there is the gift of rope. And this is a bit of a
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  relief moment for Sam, and also for the reader as well, because we've been worried mildly,
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  along with Sam, and he's finally got his rope. So it's a bit of, oh, I'm glad he's finally
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  fully equipped. And there's a nice little detail about he could have stayed to learn how to create
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  rope. If he comes back to learn, that's nice. The idea that they're willing to share, they're not
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  keeping the secrets of their creativity, they want to share. The boats themselves seem to have
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  personality. Tolkien lived near the Chalwell River, well, he's not that far from the Thames either,
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  called the Isis in Oxford, and punts themselves are quite hard to fall out of, but he would have seen
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  many a rowing boat go by, and no doubt probably falling in his fair share of rivers.
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  So it's quite sweet here that he talks about these boats being, they are wayward if mishandled.
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  I like that fact. And that goes back to the idea of them being a bit like wild horses,
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  they have a personality. And then before they set off, the company have a practice.
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  And it's good here to notice that we've got a visual check-in of who is where.
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  When you have a larger company like this, number of characters to keep everybody's minds on,
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  to arrange them so we can easily understand is helpful. In the Hobbit, Tolkien did it by giving his
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  dwarves runs of rhyming names, as you probably remember, or alliterating names, but though they
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  never quite emerge in fully separate ways, because there are a lot of dwarves to remember.
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  Here, I think the numbers are more manageable, but also by putting them in boats, it really highlights
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  the relationships you need to focus on, so you've got. The company was arrayed in this way.
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  It's quite a strong sentence with a colon, so we really do that colon is namely, that's the force of
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  that. Namely, Aragorn, Frodo and Sam were in one boat, semi-colon. Love a Selig semi-colon.
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  Boromir, Mary and Pippin in another semi-colon. And in the third were Legolas and Gimli,
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  who had now become fast friends. So can you see how this is really laying out what's going to be
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  happening going forward? Breaking up already in the boats were breaking up the company a bit.
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  I just want to land briefly on this fast friends. Fast here doesn't mean like fast food. It means more
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  like locks or handfast. The idea that they are stuck closely. So it's got that weight of that word.
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  They are fast friends, close, committed friends. I also like the mention here of
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  an actual speeches of birds. So over this lawn is flying the Lax, which they can hear in song.
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  If you live in a country that doesn't have Lax, it's the most beautiful outpouring of birds
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  song. I live near lots of Lax up and on the downs and I love hearing. You see the birds,
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  but there are dots in the distance and you hear this pouring of sound like silver. If you want to
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  feel what that's like, let's have a listen to the piece of classical music called The Lax ascending
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  by Vaughan Williams, where the violin plays a part of the Lax. And I suppose that might be my
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  theme tune for Lauren, the Lax ascending. We're moving on from Lax to swans, but it's not a real swan.
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  Making quite an entrance. They love a good entrance. Canniborne and Galadriel arrive by boat.
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  I love the detail here of the two paddles that look like the black legs of the swan. So this is
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  such a, from a distance, this boat really looks like a swan. And the black legs are part of that
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  illusion, but they're also very practical. And then you obviously see that it's
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  the elves arriving. I think we've, um, imaginations been rather spoiled by those cheap
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  paddler things that you see at some seaside resort. So chuck that out of your mind and try and
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  imagine what a really beautifully created boat would look like with the artistry of the elves
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  to look like a swan. And also note, with the idea it was Canniborne's hall, we've got Canniborne
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  sitting and Galadriel standing. It's partly practical because she's about to sing, but also
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  this idea that he is the, the sort of king in residence and Galadriel is more of the wanderer
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  across middle earth. So we get at the first of the two poems in this chapter, Galadriel's song.
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  Um, it's a beautiful poem. It has an interesting opening, which I hadn't thought about until
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  again today. This is why I love doing these podcasts because it helps me see new things myself.
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  There's a nod to the creation myth here. I sang of leaves of leaves of gold and leaves of gold
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  there grew. Of wind, I sang, a wind there came and in the branches blue. You'll know that the very
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  original story of, by original, I mean the origin of the world in the Sumerillion is
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  Iluvatar and the Valas singing the world into creation. You get an echo of this in the creation
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  of Nania when Aslan sings the world into being. And here we've got Galadriel just nodding to that
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  in this song. We also get here the, the twin themes that go with elves. One is the vistas of places
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  that you aren't expected to understand and know at this stage in the book. Places like Tyrion,
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  Eldomar, they just sound lovely. You're supposed to have a sense of places like mountain ranges that
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  you're not visiting that you don't know about. That's what they do there. And you also get here
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  the melancholy, which comes particularly in the last four lines, which is Olorian, too long I
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  have dwells upon this hither shore. And in a fading crowned have twined the golden Eleanor.
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  So that fading, it's a world that's fading. But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come
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  to me? What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a sea? It's not looked at in this book,
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  but there is in the sort of greater law. The situation that Galadriel finds herself in is that she
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  was amongst the rebels who followed the sons of Feano and they left Valinor and they included
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  some of the parts of that group killing other elves. So they left in disgrace and there was a
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  curse put upon them and that curse stretches even to Galadriel and that her situation, this is
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  one version of the law. It's her situation is that she needs to regain the right to go back to
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  Valinor because she's under this curse. None of the sons of Feano can because of it and they all
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  have different sticky ends. Galadriel is someone who is eventually forgiven and this is the moment
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  where she is able to do that because she resists, whereas they were in pursuit of a Silmarille.
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  Now she has resisted the ring so it lifts the curse eventually on her and she can go back at the end.
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  That's my understanding of Galadriel's story. Though I did mention in the last
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  podcast that Tolkien had a variety of stories about Galadriel. So I like this one that it makes
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  sense. It makes sense of the melancholy of this story here.
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  So here we have them singing the song and coming to land and eating together which surprisingly they
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  haven't done during their stay. The elves keep themselves to themselves it would seem.
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  But before they land I just want to highlight another beautiful little phrase which is
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  the changing faces of Galadriel. We are in the mind of Frodo. Remember that he's a good
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  mind to be in at these times when we're thinking of the finer things, the finer sort of history.
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  He's got a hobby of great perception and Frodo reflects upon how Galadriel has seemed different
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  to him at different stages when he's met her. And now already she seemed to him as by men of
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  later days, elves still at times are seen present and yet remote. A living vision of that which
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  has already been left far behind by the flowing streams of time. Now I wanted to pick that up
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  because this theme of time and the river is going to be a theme that plays continually through this
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  section. Okay so we're back now with Keleborn giving us another geographical sketch. This is part
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  of the decoupling from Laurie and part of moving on. And actually it's interesting here that we get
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  as far as the gates of Mordor in the description that Keleborn gives. Have a look at this, go to the
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  map, work out what he's describing. And it reminds me that Tolkien at this point is not aware how
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  long his story is going to be. He actually thought he might finish it quite soon. He certainly
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  didn't think there was going to be another two whole books worth. And so the fact that Keleborn's
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  talking about the gates of Mordor, I think is a sense of almost talking, thinking, oh yeah,
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  I'm not so far from the end, am I? But we all know that the gates of Mordor is not where
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  they get as far as there and they've got to keep on going. But he also mentions and something else
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  which later is remembered. He calls Fangorn, that's the forest in which Treebeard lives, a strange land
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  and is now little known. It's interesting because it's not that far away how I've remapped on this
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  when it came to the fate of the walls of Mordor. There is a lack of mobility, not many wanderers like
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  Arrogorn in this world, but anyway, let's leave that aside. Keleborn, who is obviously wise,
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  the wisest of the elves apparently, he calls it a strange land. And one of the things that
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  I'm amused by looking at it this time is that Boramir takes everything that's said as a challenge
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  to his bravery in manhood as a way. He sort of says, oh well, he recaps his voyage, the voyage to,
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  not the voyage, the journey to Rivendell and how he lost his horse in the Fords and all this kind of
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  thing. Say, I'm going to find my way through. He can't just let somebody say something. He has to
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  come in and say, no, no, no, it's going to be fine. I'm a big bold man. It's going to be fine.
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  And Keleborn makes this interesting response, which is, do not despise the law that has come down
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  from distant years, for often it may chance that old wives keep in memory word of things that once
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  were needful for the wives to know. It is needful to know that Fangorn is occupied,
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  but also that comes up again when we have the healing in ministerial about the law of old wives
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  and Athelas. Gandalf is the one who talks about it then. He's obviously not present at this
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  moment, but he would agree with Keleborn that there is a lot of wisdom to be found in so-called
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  old wives tale. Galadriel is the one who offers the cup of farewell. It did tend to fall to
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  women in the court to offer the cup. I think we see Erwin doing similar later on, and this is
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  picking up on the sort of medievalism, the chivalry, even Anglo-Saxon, in fact, feeling of the
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  course in Tolkien's world. And she also uses it as an opportunity to give everybody a perspective
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  that you don't have to find sadness in things coming to an end. In fact, things do need to move on.
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  Tolkien criticises the elders as embalmers, trying to hold things still. And Galadriel has
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  wisdom of the ages in that you do have to let things go. Now we move to the more personalised gifts.
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  All of them are interesting, so we're just going to go through them quite quickly, but
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  Aragon gets a sheath for Anduril. And then he has this what seems on first reading cryptic exchange
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  with Galadriel, where you realise that he's talking about Aragon, that she held in her care
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  something that cannot be given. That's what he wants. He wants Aragon. But he's also given
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  something else which is of talismanic importance. He's given the green stone, which gives him the name
• 30:16
  Alessa, which is described here as being a sort of like winged jewel. And it's when he puts this on,
• 30:26
  it's almost a moment when he becomes the king. The others look at him differently. There've been
• 30:31
  glimpses of his kingliness, but here they see him, the stone sort of is the thing that prompts them
• 30:42
  to see him as the king he's going to be. Of course, when he's back in the wild, he will hide that
• 30:46
  again, but it's one of those glimpses that repairs us for the return of the king. Boromir just gets
• 30:52
  the belt of gold, Mary and Pippin, silver belt, belts, legulus, a bow and quiver. And Sam of course gets
• 31:00
  his box, which contains the seed of a malon tree, which we have, he has with him all the way through,
• 31:11
  it's I think he keeps hold of and comes into its own right at the end of this story.
• 31:18
  Well, I think it is the takeaway here for me is that Galadriel who also saw what he saw in the mirror
• 31:26
  cares. She doesn't say, oh, tough luck, your home is going to be ruined, but that's the price of
• 31:32
  going on an adventure. She gives him something to repair the hurts of the world. She wants to undo
• 31:40
  the damage of the evil parties in this story. And so that's her answer, which has been working on
• 31:48
  quietly in the background. Then we get Gimli. Well, he isn't given a gift, he's asked a question,
• 31:56
  what do you want? And Gimli just asked for one hair, so hair from her head. And he says he will
• 32:05
  treasure it lady in memory of your words to me at our first meeting. Your remember is he looks
• 32:11
  up and finds a friend when he's expecting a phone. There is a story behind this hair, again,
• 32:18
  part of the wider law on Galadriel, which is that Fianne or the Elven Smith who made the
• 32:24
  Silmarils turns out to be the person who triggers this curse that she's still laboring under.
• 32:31
  He asked for her hair and she refused it because his wish was to a
• 32:36
  acquisitive. The problem about the Silmarils is he didn't want to share them.
• 32:41
  He had a version of dragon sickness, Silmarils sickness. And it's fitting that she will give the
• 32:49
  hair to Gimli because she says that he won't have the power over him. If you win through your
• 32:56
  hand, shall flow with gold, and yet over you gold shall have no dominion. That is really
• 33:04
  the consistent message. Do not want these things of gold, don't want to ring, don't want power,
• 33:11
  and you will actually have far more as a result. If you don't get sick with this greed, which of course
• 33:20
  is one of the deadly sins. And then the last gift is Frodo the File, which is filled with waters
• 33:29
  containing the light of Erendil. With the lovely phrase, may it be a light to you in dark places
• 33:36
  when all other lights go out? Now remember that Gimli is thinking about, once hair, her hair, which
• 33:48
  has the golden hair, has the light of a Valinor in it. Here we've got another different light of
• 33:55
  Valinor. So the light of Erendil. Erendil is Elrond's father. And he is one of these
• 34:06
  mythic characters who's translated to being a star. And he has one of the Silmarils bound
• 34:13
  in the ship Vingelot, which sells across the heavens. So that's the image of the light of the
• 34:20
  Silmaril is now a star. And that star, the Silmaril itself, the jewel, contains the light also
• 34:32
  of Valinor from the trees. And so can you see how talking into waves through his tail, the older
• 34:41
  tails, this special light from Valinor, which accompanies both Gimli in the shape of the hair,
• 34:51
  but also more importantly Frodo in the file of Galadriel, which will become an important tool
• 34:57
  for them to survive Mordor. Beautifully interlaced into woven. As they leave, Galadriel stands alone.
• 35:07
  I find here an echo of the Goldbrief farewell, but done sort of at much greater
• 35:13
  import, because Goldbrief is of Middle-earth, whereas Galadriel, of course, is of the West.
• 35:21
  And there's this gorgeous sentence as they leave. For so it seemed to them,
• 35:29
  Lorian was slipping backward, like a bright ship mastered within chanted trees,
• 35:35
  sailing on to forgotten shores, while they sat helpless upon the margin of the grey and leafless world.
• 35:44
  It's going to be a discussion about time coming up one of my favourite passages in the book,
• 35:49
  which is going to pick up on this theme of time being like a river, also connects to that earlier
• 35:55
  passage about the rivers and time. So it's winding its way like the river through this chapter.
• 36:04
  And it sums up beautifully the feeling of Lorian being its own capsule of time,
• 36:13
  floating away from them, and they are getting shipwrecked, getting bereft of it.
• 36:19
  We have the second poem in this chapter again by Galadriel, where she sings in a different
• 36:28
  form of Elvish, Quenia, and Frodo remembers it. He doesn't understand it at this point,
• 36:36
  but he later gives it a prose translation. What is this doing here, presenting us the poem,
• 36:42
  which is very difficult to read? Well, you can sort of sound it out, have a go, and enjoy the
• 36:48
  beautiful sounds. But Tolkien's also showing us his love for language, his world is a world created
• 36:54
  out of language, but also by not giving us an easy access to it. Also suggests the strangeness,
• 37:02
  the otherness of other creatures in this world, other races, the depths of things you don't
• 37:09
  understand. And when you do read the translation, it's a song of homesickness, of loss,
• 37:18
  of trying to find a way home, the themes of Galadriel, which chimes nicely with where her story lands
• 37:25
  at the end of this book. We also get one of Tolkien's little ominous phrases that we had with
• 37:32
  Aragorn when he was and Kerin Amroth, to that fair land Frodo never came again. Before we know
• 37:40
  the full sort of arc of this story, you know, it's that mean Frodo dies, and the next chapter,
• 37:47
  you know, the Jeopardy is raised by seeing he's not coming back. Now they're on the river.
• 37:53
  Lorian is fading behind them, and Gimli cries out from the depths of his heart how much he feels he
• 38:00
  has lost. He says that he thought that danger would come in other guises, but it turned out to be
• 38:06
  falling enough with this land and with the Lady Galadriel. And leg of us here comes, shows his
• 38:12
  friendship to Gimli, but also his understanding in his wisdom and the necessity like Galadriel said
• 38:20
  of letting go, for such is the way of it to find and lose, as it seems to those whose boat is on
• 38:27
  the running stream. Got this stream thing again. Living in time means that we move on,
• 38:33
  that we lose things. We can't keep hold. We can't clutch to things. And you are left with
• 38:41
  unstained memory of the place. You haven't spoiled it by trying to keep hold of it beyond what is
• 38:49
  right. And Gimli has an interesting sort of comeback on that. He says, well, there are different
• 38:55
  kinds of memory, to elves' memory is more like to the waking world than to a dream.
• 39:02
  So the idea that for elves' memory is like experiencing it again, whereas us poor mortals,
• 39:08
  we for us memory fades and it's like a dream.
• 39:13
  That's not resolved because they have to then look to the boats. But it's interesting that he,
• 39:17
  that's what he, leg of us doesn't say, you're absolutely right, that's what it's like, but it's
• 39:21
  left out there as a possible way that elves experience the world.
• 39:26
  And they carry on traveling through the brown lands. Now it's quite easy after all the
• 39:33
  gold and the silver of lorien to sort of not appreciate the beauty of these plain bleak landscapes,
• 39:40
  but I love it. It's like carrying a something, you know, plain after a rich meal. It's a great
• 39:47
  contrast. He describes the sun as being like a white pearl. That's what the sun looks like when
• 39:52
  there's cloud cover or mist. Wonderful sentence here. Great trees pass by like ghosts,
• 40:00
  thrusting their twisted thirsty roots through the mist down into the water. So listen to that.
• 40:08
  The litteration thrusting their twisted thirsty roots. Love that. Tolkien is so brilliant on landscape,
• 40:17
  weather, atmosphere, and even though he's left behind one of his most beautiful landscapes,
• 40:23
  there are still beauties marvels to be seen in the brown lands. And this chapter ends
• 40:30
  I've we've left thinking about giving me saying the memory of lorien is like a dream.
• 40:38
  It's notable that we actually end with Frodo dropping off into an uneasy sleep. It's as though
• 40:43
  we're all going into a dream about lorien having left it behind. So that I'm afraid is farewell
• 40:51
  to lorien to which we will not return like Frodo.
• 41:21
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