A hundredth re-read of the LotR

[CSteefel]

Probably less to say about this chapter than some, but a few things strike me.

One was the story from Merry about how he found out about the Ring, seeing Bilbo disappear off the road as the Sackville-Baggins were approaching.

And then the short poem along the model of a dwarf-song when they decide they will all set forth together, with one verse:

To Rivendell, where Elves yet dwell
In glades beneath the misty fell,
Through moor and waste we ride in haste,
And whither then we cannot tell.

And then I think we get the first of Frodo's dreams (more later in Bombadil's house), where he begins overlooking a dark forest from a high window (the Old Forest?), but then he hears a sound he takes initially as the wind coming through the trees, then realizing it is the sound of the Sea:

Then he knew that it was not leaves, but the sound of the Sea far-off; a sound he had never heard in waking life, though it had often troubled his dreams. Suddenly he found he was out in the open. There were no trees after all. He was on a dark heath, and there was a strange salt smell in the air. 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 noise of thunder.

The tower is clearly one of those in the Tower Hills, perhaps the one that had traditionally held the Elendil Stone. Less clear is the sudden appearance of the light and thunder. Otherwise, one of the first of Frodo's premonitions of his passing in to the West...