Gimli gives mad props to Legolas for shooting down the — whatever that thing was — while Frodo (who knows exactly what that thing was) deals with some stuff. Sam’s perplexed at having lost count of days in Lórien, leading to a debate about the nature of time that would make Doc Brown proud, while Boromir is getting creepier by the day. All this, plus a look ahead to The Two Towers with a news report from the Fords of Isen, and a look back into the history of Gondor as the Fellowship pass by everyone’s favorite riverside rocks.
Listen to the episode here, on YouTube, or in the player below:
Subscribe to the podcast via:
Comments or questions for Barliman’s Bag:
- Visit us at Facebook or Twitter
- Join our subreddit
- Comment on this blog post
- Click the green button at right
- Email barliman (at) theprancingponypodcast (dot) com
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. 378-85, “The Great River”
Tolkien, J. R. R. (Christopher Tolkien, ed.) The Silmarillion (Mariner Books, paperback)
About the Argonath – the Rohirrim are descendants of the Northmen but there’s no suggestion they have any particular affinity for axes. Axes carried by Men in the legendarium seem to be more popular with attackers from the East. So I’m not confident about a connection there.
Among “civilised” cultures in our history the axe sometimes features as a symbol of justice and authority – thinking of the axe that featured with the fasces in Rome or the double-headed axe of the Minoans. But that’s admittedly more of a reach than the Northmen.
I wonder if it even comes down to how Tolkien saw the figures in his mind, and whether it seemed more likely that an axe would remain more distinct than a sword after 17 centuries.
Aragorn reminding Boromir of his longer memory reminds me that he was a contemporary in his youth of Denethor. Unfortunately that reminds me *yet again* how annoyed I was that Denethor in the film was turned into a fool with disgusting table manners, and a gibbering coward.
Your mention of cram reminded me. I ran into that word in a completed unrelated book, but used to describe a similar thing. Unfortunately, I didn’t stop reading long enough to note down the book. I do know it was a historical fiction, written after the publication of the LotR. I can’t remember y’all getting into real world equivalents when you talked about cram before. Did y’all look into that?
Also, y’all were doing your Ford of Bruenin (can’t spell) “ad” and then one of the really ads came on, and for a second, I thought y’all had gotten to into it and made an actual ad.
I think you’re being a little hard on Sam. Occam’s Razor here is not “Either the phases of the moon are off, or my math”, but rather “Either the phases of the moon are different in Lórien, or my math is off”, which is not that far from the truth. 🙂