Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli follow the trail of the missing hobbits, gradually drawing closer to the forbidding fringes of Fangorn Forest. They find new signs that give them hope, but the Dwarf can’t forget about the mysterious old man, and the trees don’t seem to be taking too kindly to his axe. Soon the old man appears again, leading to a surprisingly nimble confrontation. We revisit The Silmarillion for a look at Sauron’s phantom-conjuring skills, wonder if the Eagles are Gandalf’s personal charter bus, and ask the improbable question: do Hobbits have wings?
For streaming audio and a transcript of the Tom Shippey lecture “Tolkien Book to Jackson Script: The Medium and the Message”, see the Swarthmore College website at http://www.swarthmore.edu/news-events/tolkien-book-to-jackson-script-medium-and-message. (Audio highly recommended!)
Recommended Reading:
Tolkien, J. R. R. The Two Towers: Being the Second Part of The Lord of the Rings (Mariner Books, paperback) “The White Rider”, pp. 477-83
Tolkien, J. R. R. The Hobbit (Mariner Books, paperback)
Tolkien, J. R. R. (Christopher Tolkien, ed.) The Silmarillion (Mariner Books, paperback)
About the knife handle, I don’t see any reason why a random orc wouldn’t experience boredom (in a long encampment, for instance) and just do some idle whittling to pass the time.
I was twelve in 1976 when I discovered Tolkien and became an instant fan, reading TH&LOTR twice in quick succession. In 1977, I read and enjoyed a brand new Tolkien book called The Silmarillion, and I saw Star Wars in the theater at least six times. I loved the Hildebrandt’s Star Wars poster and late in that year I bought their 1978 Tolkien Calendar.
My imagination provided my first glimpses of Middle-earth, after that The Professor’s own work and those of The Brothers Hildebrandt have always been my favorite artist depictions of Middle-earth. All the artwork produced since, as great as some of it is, have not had as great an impact. And my imagination remains my most preferred recorder of characters and landscapes.
Still, that iconic moment when Gandalf the White was revealed somehow always looks like this in my head (I just happened to find this link, this is not an endorsement for the “renegadetribune” :
http://www.renegadetribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/The-Return-of-Gandalf-by-Brothers-Hildebrandt-2.jpg