Pipe Weed, Good or Bad

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

It would'nt be as bad.......more like smokeing...mint or some other herb

Oh, smoking pure tobacco gives you a nasty cough and inevitably leads to all sorts of health problems too. The only difference is that cigarette manufacturers add things like bleach and plastic, which may or may not make matters worse. The tar is quite natural, I assure you. As has been most ably pointed out by others, however, Tolkien didn't know about the dangers of smoking, and I suspect that he wouldn't have paid much attention to them if he had.

Thanks, Child. Tolkien was looking beyond the petty fads of everyday life towards something more fundamental to the human condition. If we try to shoe-horn our own society's transient values into his work we will either make ourselves or the fiction look foolish. I don't think that we want to do that.

Gandalf: *Deftly fields the three pouches, each of which disappears in turn into his voluminous pockets*

On the contrary, I am entirely at yours. Bis das si cito das, as they say.

[ October 15, 2002: Message edited by: Squatter of Amon Rudh ]

[ October 15, 2002: Message edited by: Squatter of Amon Rudh ]