A hundredth re-read of the LotR

[Ibrîniðilpathânezel]

Lalwendë, your mention of Vaughn Williams' music (are you familiar with his song "The Twilight People"? I sang it back in college, and it has always made me think of the Elves and Men of ME) made me think of something else about this chapter. Being a musician, I always paid a lot of attention to the various songs and poems (sang Donald Swann's "The Road Goes Ever On" cycle back in college, too, and wrote settings for just about every other song in the book quite some time ago). In the song "Upon the Hearth," I always found one part in particular quite curious:

But not yet weary are our feet,
Still round the corner we may meet
A sudden tree or standing stone
That none have seen but we alone.

The curious part, to me, is the "standing stone." Other than this mention in the song, the Three Farthing Stone is the only other mention of such a thing in the Shire, and that seems to be more of a mile marker than a megalith, such as those that are found in the "real" world. It just always struck me as an odd thing to find in a Hobbit walking song, since (given size and culture) they seem to me to be the least likely people to be raising such things. Then again, the reference may be to finding a surprise of something that was NOT raised by Hobbits, especially since Bilbo wrote the song. I can't imagine any proper adventure-adverse Hobbit wanting to sing about taking "the hidden paths that run toward the Moon and to the Sun."