LotR -- Book 1 - Chapter 04 – A Short Cut to Mushrooms

[The Saucepan Man]

While Maggot could have no way of knowing the true nature of the Black Rider, he nevertheless does show great bravery in light of the facts that he does know.

He is faced with an imposing black-cloaked fellow on horseback. His normally fearsome dogs have just sloped off in terror. It must have been clear to him that this fellow could do him great harm if he chose to. And yet he gives him short shrift, telling him to clear off. And when the Rider asks him to tell him if he sees "Baggins", tempting him with the promise of gold, Maggot makes clear that he will not do so.

It is to Farmer Maggot's great credit that, at great risk to himself, he offers the Hobbits shelter and drives them to the Buckleberry Ferry. Combined with Gaffer Gamgee's similar steadfastness in the previous chapter and Sam's resolve to stick with Frodo whatever the danger, this is real evidence of what we were told in the Prologue about Hobbits being "tough" and "difficult to daunt". We are beginning to get a good idea of the great courage that these small folk are capable of, and which will come to characterise them later on, Sam in particular.

On another subject, has anyone else noticed the recurring theme of nurturing and protective trees? In the previous chapter, they make camp on the first night in a patch of fir wood, within the "deep resin-scented darkness of the trees". The next day, they take a meal inside "the huge hulk" of a hollow but living tree. And they spend the second night with the Elves in a "wide space like a hall, roofed by the boughs of trees". Then, this chapter opens with Frodo having slept in a bower:

... made by a living tree with branches laced and drooping to the ground; his bed was of fern and grass, deep and soft and strangely fragrant. The sun was shining through the fluttering leaves, which were still green upon the tree.

And later, when they take lunch, they shelter from the rain beneath an elm tree. Indeed, the belt of trees provides cover for them from the Black Riders and they feel afraid at first when they leave its shelter.

Not surprising I suppose, given Tolkien's love of trees, but the extent to which they are used as a device to provide the Hobbits with rest, shelter and safety in these two chapters rather struck me (and is a precursor to the safe haven provided by the forest of Lothlorien).

Of course, some of them will find themselves inside another tree in two chapter's time, although one of an altogether different nature ...

Finally, two words that struck me as interesting:

The kitchen was lit with candles and the fire was mended.

and

Mrs. Maggot will be worriting with the night getting thick.

I like the idea of a fire being mended, since it suggests that its natural state is alight and that it is somehow "broken" when extinguished. And "worriting" is just a great word: one which I now intend to make great use of.