Favourite Chapter?

[Snowdog]

Favourite Chapter... That is tough. I like Lush's approach.

I'll pull one or two out of each book:


The Fellowship of the Ring ~ Book I
- At the Sign of The Prancing Pony

The Fellowship of the Ring ~ Book II
- The Council of Elrond

The Two Towers ~ Book III
- The Departure of Boromir

The Two Towers ~ Book IV
- The Window On the West

Return of the King ~ Book V
- The Passing of the Grey Company
- The Battle of the Pelennor Fields

Return of the King ~ Book VI
- The Steward and the King
- Many Partings

[Tuor in Gondolin]

A tie among seeveral:
For background and getting you hooked:
1) The Shadow of the Past
2) The Council of Elrond

For making me realize Tolkien's elves weren't those
irritating lephrechauns or Keebler Elfs
3) A Flight to the Ford
Since I realized that since hobbits are half the size of men
and Glorfindel's horse's stirrups had to be shortened for
Frodo to ride...elves must be more or less human size.

4) As a kind of "chapter" all of the appendices

but especially
5)

At that sound the bent shape of the king sprang suddenly erect.
Tall and proud he seemed again; and rising in his stirrups he cried in a loud
voice, more clear than any there had ever heard a mortal man achieve before:
Arise, arise, Riders of Theoden!
Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter!
spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,
a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!
Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!

With that he seized a great horn from Guthlaf his banner-bearer, and he blew
such a blast upon it that it burst asunder. And straighaway all the horns in the
host were lifted up in music.....
Theoden could not be overtaken. Fey he seemed, or the battle-fury of his
fathers ran like new fire in his veins, and he was borne up on Snowmane like
a god of old, even as Orome the Great in the battle of the Valar when the
world was young. His golden shield was uncovered, and lo! it shone like an image of the Sun, and the grass flamed into green about the white feet of his steed. For
morning came, mor4ning and a wind from the sea; and darkness was removed,
and the hosts of Mordor wailed, and terror took them, and they fled, and died, and the hoofs of wrath rode over them. And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City.