With his friends all gone, Frodo stays in the Hall of Fire listening to the minstrels of Rivendell. The Elvish singing speaks to him in sweet accustomed ways, and he wanders enchanted for longer than time can remember… returning only when he hears a familiar voice chanting. We give Bilbo’s Song of Eärendil the full Prancing Pony Podcast treatment, explore its origins in an earlier Tolkien poem, and start assembling our best playlist as the starship mariner goes sailing on by. But first, Shawn takes the helm in an intro segment that he’s way too excited about.
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Recommended Reading:
Tolkien, J. R. R. The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings (Mariner Books, paperback) pp. 226-232, “Many Meetings”
Tolkien, J. R. R. (Christopher Tolkien, ed.) The Silmarillion (Mariner Books, paperback)
Tolkien, J. R. R. Tales from the Perilous Realm (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, hardcover)
Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (Mariner Books, paperback)
I should say that ‘Errantry’ gives at least a nod to Drayton’s ‘Nymphidia’ (1627), another fairy-poem with insect imagery. E.g.
His helmet was a beetle´s head,
Most horrible and full of dread,
That able was to strike one dead,
Yet did it well become him
– ´Nymphidia´ 506-9.
He wove a tissue airy-thin
to snare her in; to follow her
he made him beetle-leather wing
and feather wing of swallow-hair
– ´Errantry´ 29-32
Seemingly oblivious, in ‘On Fairy-stories’ Tolkien thunders:
“Drayton’s Nymphidia is, considered as a fairy-story (a story about fairies) one of the worst ever written”
– OFS 8
There is also a hint of ‘Muiopotmos’, Spenser’s poem about an adventurous butterfly:
Vpon his head his glistering Burganet,
The which was wrought by wonderous deuice,
And curiously engrauen, he did set:
The mettall was of rare and passing price;
Not Bilbo steele, nor brasse from Corinth fet,
Nor costly Oricalche from strange Phoenice;
But such as could both Phoebus arrowes ward,
And th’ hayling darts of heauen beating hard.
– ‘Muiopotmos 73-80
“Bilbo” is Bilbao in Spain (presumably). The villain (a spider) is called Aragnoll. Did the burganet (helmet) become Elwing’s carcanet (necklace)?