The Fellowship pass “some days” in Lórien as guests of Galadriel and Celeborn (though not the kind of guests who actually get to see or speak to their hosts), and get plenty of recovery, escape, and consolation from their travels and their grief. With nothing to do but eat, drink, rest, and walk, they are content — but life in a time bubble can’t last forever, and even Sam knows they’ll have to be leaving soon. Frodo remembers Gandalf in song, Pippin gets awfully protective about his blankets, and your hosts graciously accept corrections offered by actual experts in their fields.
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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. 348-53, “The Mirror of Galadriel”
Tolkien, J. R. R. (Christopher Tolkien, ed.) The Silmarillion (Mariner Books, paperback)
Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (Mariner Books, paperback)
Garth, John. Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth (Mariner Books, hardcover)
Rateliff, John D. The History of the Hobbit (HarperCollins, one-volume hardcover)
Kocher, Paul H. Master of Middle-earth: The Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien (Del Rey, paperback)
When I first saw this episode I figured you had just renamed the podcast.
47:48 the “thorny staff”. It means hawthorn-wood, a material which has folkloric significance and actually is used for walking-sticks. It needn’t have actual thorns, which would be kind of impractical. This staff gets broken in the fight with the Balrog. At Edoras Gandalf has an ash-staff
A fountain next to a mighty tree, “things that were, and things that are, and things that yet may be”. Is this the Voluspa or is it the Voluspa? There are three Norns: the Norse Fates, Urth, Verdandi and Skuld. Their names mean “has-become”, “is-becoming” and “should-be”
19. An ash I know, | Yggdrasil its name,
With water white | is the great tree wet;
Thence come the dews | that fall in the dales,
Green by Urth’s well | does it ever grow.
20. Thence come the maidens | mighty in wisdom,
Three from the dwelling | down ‘neath the tree;
Urth is one named, | Verthandi the next,–
On the wood they scored,– | and Skuld the third.
trans. Henry Adams Bellows, 1936