LotR -- Book 1 - Chapter 06 – The Old Forest

Firefoot wrote:

Hi, Fimbrethil, welcome to our discussion and the Downs!

Thanks ! It's a very interesting and mind-stimulating discussion

The Saucepan Man wrote:

I think that there is sufficient evidence in this chapter that the forest itself is actively hostile towards them. Merry notes that the path to the Bonfire Glade has moved and concludes that the "trees do shift". A branch falls from an overhanging tree as if to express its distaste at Frodo's song. And, perhaps most convincingly, the Hobbits are maneuvred against their will towards the Withywindle valley by the trees, undergrowth and terrain. Each of these events by itself might be dismissed as mere coincidence or the Hobbits' overactive imagination. But their combined effect seems to me to make it clear that there is something more at work here.

I guess that both our views can stand up on their own , but given your further comments about how strange it is to see "evil" trees, considering Tolkien's attitude towards them, I think you might at least partially come my way: maybe the trees did not "shift" - paths are made by people and/or animals and can be overgrown by grass if not used, so other animals may create slightly different paths that take in the same direction; branches also fall on their own; terrains might be difficult and force you to take long detours ...
I'm thinking here of the often heard warning for heroes involved in a quest that <You will find nothing here that you don't bring yourself> (it echoes what my father used to say to me when I was a small child, afraid of the dark "there is nothing here that is not also here when it's light"): maybe the hobbits were simply adding their fears of the unknown into a difficult situation, making it worse.
(Old Man Willow, is, of course, another matter ....)

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Admission time: I have advised several people who were trying to read LotR and finding it difficult to “get into it” to skip over Tom Bombadil entirely. It has worked in almost every case, and I am delighted to say that these readers came back later to read these chapters. But still, as several people have already indicated, there is a sense in which these chapters are dispensable – they just don’t “fit” was I believe the word.

Clinging to the idea that anything that’s in a text must, be definition, have a place in it, and placing my faith in the artistry of Tolkien, I will now elaborate why I think this chapter is indispensable to the fabric of the whole.

I think that this interlude is an important and necessary reminder to the reader that while the story to come is going to be all about the War of the Ring, that this is not the whole story of Middle-Earth. The war between Elves and Melkor/Sauron has taken place within much of the historical time of Middle-Earth, but that conflict does not in and of itself define the nature of the world that is going to be created for us in the tale to come. History is the story of the people on the land, not the land itself, and with Old Man Willow and Tom Bombadil we are given mythic, almost allegorical, representations of that natural realm over and upon which history takes place, but over which, ultimately, history has no power. Sauron can enslave the land, the Elves can work within it and attempt to preserve it, but neither side can change its nature, nor can they make or unmake it.

The fact that these three chapters around Tom take place so much and so obviously ‘outside’ the rest of the story is very much the point. It’s a demonstration that for all the dangers and import of their quest, the hobbits are just taking part in a passing tale being acted out on the stage-of-reality offered by the natural realm.

The characterisation of this natural realm in Old Man Willow and Tom/Goldberry is tremendous, and – like I said – near allegorical. Take the description of the hobbits’ succumbing to OMW:

They shut their eyes, and then it seemed that they could almost hear words, cool words, saying something about water and sleep. They gave themselves up to the spell and fell fast asleep at the foot of the great grey willow.

When we put this beside the description of Goldberry and Tom’s house there’s an awful lot that we can see in common with OMW (and I realise I’m looking ahead, but I think these three chapters of Tom are a united suite in ways that other chapter-chunks in the book are not). The “singing” of OMW is “about water and sleep” – this is precisely the kind of song that will lull them in Bombadil’s house. Just as they give “themselves up to the spell” here they will do so again with Tom. The relation between Tom/Goldberry (who must always be considered as a conjoined pair, I think) and OMW is not one of good versus evil – that kind of dichotomous relation is staged (in history) by the Elves and Sauron, and in this chapter is revealed to be a limited and limiting kind of understanding. The relation of T/GB and OMW is more complementary and perhaps even dependent (the wholly trite image of yin-yang comes to mind). Both powers work in the same way (through song) to the same end (sleep and rest) using the same medium (nature, particularly water) in the same place (the Old Forest just beyond the borders of the real and dissociated from historical time and its struggles).

This natural realm is a truly magic place. There is surprisingly little magic in the book: the Elves speak of their “art” and “crafting” and Sauron is all about “deceptions,” “lies” and “domination.” But here, just over the edge of the known, is a realm that casts a “spell” upon the hobbits. The historical conflict between “deceptions” and “art” that we characterise in terms of “evil” versus “good” is just not apparent or even relevant here. In this place is true magic – the power that springs from nature but moves beyond the natural. An unhistorical and wild force that escapes all attempts to categorise, anatomise or understand. Tom Bombadil is nonsensical, yes, because that is the nature of, well, nature – it is non-rational, utterly mysterious, and wholly alien and other.

Finally, I think that these chapters give us a glimpse into a realm that is like the Shire in its disconnect from the ‘great’ matters of the world at large, but in a different way. Whereas the hobbits are (wilfully) ignorant of the darkness and light of the wide world, Old Man Willow and Tom are fully aware of both, they just do not care for such matters – they are unimportant and irrelevant, in the long run. In this way, they ‘surpass’ the gazes of every other being in the book: even Gandalf and Treebeard are trapped in their historical view of the struggle between good and evil. I think that in the end, this interlude in the Old Forest allows us to see how Gildor is as limited in his view as he condemned the hobbits as being. Just as the Elf is this figure from the wide world who opens the hobbits’ eyes, Tom and OMW are figures from an unhistorical plane of existence (nature) that surpasses the historical combat between Gildor’s people and the Enemy.

[Tuor of Gondolin]

Originally posted by Lathriel
"I think that this interlude is an important and necessary reminder to the reader that while the story to come is going to be all about the War of the Ring, that this is not the whole story of Middle-Earth."
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It is part of the artistry of giving Middle-earth depth and making it feel more "real." Among other examples, Gildor's earlier comments to Frodo:
"The Elves have their own labours and their own sorrows, and they are little concerned with the ways of hobbits, or of any other creatures upon earth."

and Sam's vision about them being part of a story that has been going on and will continue long after them.

and Caradhras acting as an autonomous evil force.

[Lalwendë]

Saucepan Man raised the question of:

Tolkien's seemingly ambivalent attitude toward trees in this chapter

Perhaps the behaviour of the hobbits in this chapter - the story about clearing trees, Frodo and Sam lighting the fire - displays something of hobbit character. I see The Shire as an agrarian society, and while hobbits are most definitely nature-lovers, they are also farmers, and are quite prepared to 'tame' nature when necessary, as davem says. Evidence of this might include the presence of a mill on The Water, the High Hay at Buckland, enclosing the tree within the party tent at Bilbo's party and the tree clearance itself. Contrasting with this is how the elves of Lothlorien instead work with nature by building their homes in the trees, rather than of the trees. If this is intentional or not, who can say, but it does not, I think, conflict with Tolkien's own responses to the rural landscape he valued so highly, as this itself is a 'tamed' landscape.

Moving towards the idea of nature as a force unto itself, the contrast of the 'evil' Old Forest with the 'good' Fangorn (or is it?) is interesting, as the former is a woodland which has been under attack from the people who have moved to live on the borders, while Fangorn had apparently remained until then relatively undamaged. And Treebeard himself is moved by this destruction to act, so why should Old Man Willow not also act, after all he does not know the nature of the hobbits and their quest. This does show that there is indeed something deeper in Middle Earth than the events which happen upon it.

The inscrutable forces of nature and man's attempts to make sense of these are a feature of myth, legend and ancient history, and it's clear that Tolkien has incorporated this into his work. Far from being 'sidelines' to the story, I see the Old Forest chapters as essential in making the story deeper and richer. I argued with someone the other day about these chapters being extraneous. Part of my argument being that Lord of the Rings was not merely a project to be finished up efficiently, but a novel set in a place which needed bringing to life and making as vivid as possible. Yes, you could easily read LOTR without reading chapters 6 to 8, but you would also miss out on much of what makes the tale so unique. I've said to people that they could skip some of the poetry if they wish, but I hated having to say this as to me it misses the point to 'skip' things.

[Lathriel]

Actually Tuor I think it was Fordim who said that

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Originally Posted by Lathriel

Actually Tuor I think it was Fordim who said that

Sadly, no, it was SaucepanMan.

But I was going to say it, SpM just beat me to it. Yeah, that's it. . .

[Boromir88]

lol, Fordhim Hedgethistle unless by some meaning that you are joking by this, but you are the one who wrote that comment lol.