A
Farewell we call to hearth and hall!
Though wind may blow and rain may fall,
We must away ere break of day
Far over wood and mountain tall.
One would be forgiven for thinking based on the title of this chapter that Tolkien is finally going to get to the bottom of it all. Who are the Black Riders? What ever happened to Gandalf? And just what is Sauron up to with his wicked ways? But these are not the conspiracies to which the title refers.
No, the big news in this chapter is that Frodo’s efforts to keep his plan secret have failed dismally. That much we might have guessed. After all, this is a hobbit who heard that the most evil being in the world knows he has the One Ring of power, and then sat around for a few months before running away. Frodo’s deliberateness and desire to take his time leaving the home he loves are admirable, but they are certainly not practical. He has fooled the witless masses of hobbits, but those who know him best have long been on to him.
We rejoin the hobbits at the beginning of this chapter just after Merry meets them at Bucklebury Ferry. He leads Frodo, Sam, and Pippin across the Brandywine River into Buckland, a territorial oddity whose history is described. We are told that it is “virtually a small independent country,” “a thickly inhabited strip between the river and the Old Forest, a sort of colony from the Shire.”[1] So is it a colony or an independent country? Perhaps it is like one of the small Commonwealth nations.
We get a sense that the hobbits of Buckland live with a fortress mentality. Their proximity to the Old Forest and the wilderness beyond leaves them rather exposed, but they have built a hedge known as the High Hay to protect themselves from danger. Exactly what danger the original inhabitants of Buckland imagined might overtake them is less clear, but we are given another brief glimpse of what is haunting Frodo when the hobbits look back toward the western bank of the river from which they had come.
On the far stage, under the distant lamps, they could just make out a figure: it looked like a dark black bundle left behind. But as they looked it seemed to move and sway this way and that, as if searching the ground. It then crawled, or went crouching, back into the gloom behind the lamps.[2]
That is the closest to danger that the hobbits seem to come in this chapter, for the Black Riders are forced to travel twenty miles north to the nearest bridge. Twenty miles may not seem like much to us today, but in times when people traveled by horse it was a half day’s ride. A messenger going at full speed might travel fifty miles or so in a day, depending very much on the type of terrain and whether there is an opportunity to switch horses. (The army of Genghis Khan apparently moved faster over the Eurasian Steppe.) The Black Riders would likely take at least this long to cover the nearly forty miles between them and Frodo’s new home of Crickhollow, given that they will have to seek direction along the way.
The travelers arrive at Crickhollow and are met by another of Frodo’s friends, Fredegar (Fatty) Bolger. After an extended bathing session for the new arrivals, the hobbits all sit down for a hearty supper, and it is there that Frodo discovers his friends have known all about his departure and the mysterious Ring for some time. But that is not the most surprising revelation: they are prepared to go with him on his quest into danger. At this point, Frodo objects.
‘My dear and most beloved hobbits!’ said Frodo deeply moved. ‘But I could not allow it. I decided that long ago, too. You speak of danger, but you do not understand. This is no treasure-hunt, no there-and-back journey. I am flying from deadly peril into deadly peril.’[3]
How often we seek to protect our loved ones from sharing in our burdens and bearing our sorrows! We attempt to take on the sacrifice ourselves, perhaps even adopting a martyr mentality rather than requiring of friends the dues of friendship. While some have noble motives for this, others do so because they know that to reap the reward of love will force us to eventually pay the price. But for Frodo Baggins, the concern seems entirely genuine. His desire is simply to protect.
Such a view of life will not do. It is a commonly understood fact that two persons can have more success than one, and three persons more success than two if they work together in harmony. For as much as Frodo sees the Ring as his problem and his burden, it affects everyone around him. Bilbo brought the Ring to the Shire, not realizing the danger. Despite his best intentions, danger arrived at the doorstep. And if the Ring had not come to Bilbo, it might have ended up in the hands of the Dark Lord, in which case the Shire would have been in even greater danger.
No, we do not always choose our burdens or crosses to bear, nor do we always choose our friends. Our common hopes and fears unite us. We have a duty to one another, and when we are prepared to pay the price of friendship, we might just reap the rewards. If the day ever comes when no one will pay the price, society will collapse.
Sam Gamgee may not think in such philosophical terms, but he knows the duty he owes to Frodo Baggins and the common threat they both must fight.
You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin—to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours—closer than you keep it yourself. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo.[4]
Many people promise to stick with someone to the bitter end, but how many actually do it? If promises ever meant something, they have been largely emptied of meaning now. Is it not strange that despite our differing standards of morality, we all feel that keeping a promise is honorable, and that traitors are worthy of revulsion? We may differ on our interpretation of certain circumstances, but we are largely united in our endorsement of the principle that a person should keep his or her word. How quickly we abandon this principle that is nearly universal!
One of the things that marks the heroes of The Lord of the Rings out is that they are faithful, by and large. They do their utmost to keep their promises. They sacrifice rather than taking personal advantage. Oh, how we long for such heroes today!
Frodo decides they must set out at dawn, and that it would be better to travel through the Old Forest than to risk a trip on the road. Although the forest is said to contain things worthy of terror, his fear of the Black Riders has taken precedence. We therefore leave the hobbits as they take one last sleep in comfortable beds, but the chapter does not end before relating Frodo’s fitful dream.
He sees visions of the depths of the forest, with creatures crawling on the ground, attempting to sniff him out. This clearly represents the Black Riders. He then smells the sea air—something he has never experienced in life—and the dream changes.
Looking up he saw before him a tall white tower, standing alone on a high ridge. A great desire came over him to climb the tower and see the Sea. He started to struggle up the ridge towards the tower: but suddenly a light came in the sky, and there was a noise of thunder.[5]
What do our dreams reveal about us? Both our hopes and fears, as well as a good deal of nonsense. I believe Frodo’s dream represents a deep longing in his heart that is somewhere between hope and fear: the ultimate form of sehnsucht, which is to say blessed longing. The location in his dream will later be revealed, but suffice it to say that the longing for the sea in The Lord of the Rings is a longing for the land beyond: an urge to leave the cares of the world behind and enter into a higher, more perfect state of being.
But all that is for a later
date. For now, it is off into the Old Forest!
A FEW NOTES ABOUT SOURCES:
- The articles in this series freely include references to material in other books by J.R.R. Tolkien that are part of the same narrative, particularly The Hobbit and The Silmarillion. Citations will only be provided in the case of direct quotations.
- Any citations that include merely a number are from J.R.R. Tolkien’s
The Lord of the Rings, Single volume movie tie-in edition (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994). - All biblical quotations are taken from The New American Standard Bible (1995 edition), copyright The Lockman Foundation.
[1] 96
[2] 97
[3] 102
[4] 103
[5] 106