📖👀 Chapter 6: The Old Forest

I've often talked to the trees as I hike or walk through the woods. Telling them that I am a friend and not a threat to them. Perhaps Tolkien and Lewis have shaped my behavior more than I realized. 😊

Ynjustice said:

I've often talked to the trees as I hike or walk through the woods. Telling them that I am a friend and not a threat to them. Perhaps Tolkien and Lewis have shaped my behavior more than I realized. 😊

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Yes, me too! One of the wonders of my life was when I backpacked through the Alpine Lakes Wilderness in Washington State, and the quietness of the land with the wind in the boughs of the great Douglas Firs reminded me of Ents and how they were alive and watching me and whispering in treeish about me. The intensity seemed surreal.

And I never found an aged Willow, but there was an area near where I lived that had this really old Maple tree and it was one of the places I would go with my paperback to read Lord of the Rings. I believe I read The Old Forest while lounging in the branches of that tree. Sadly, the whole hillside was assaulted by Saruman and Orcs and it was leveled and houses were built there.

The first of three chapters which seems to be a diversion from the main plot. PJ, as we know, passes straight from Bucklebury Ferry to the gate of Bree. However, this chapter is not without interest. Hammond and Scull in their Reader's Companion, quoting Verlyn Flieger, make the interesting point that it is a tree that is the first to attack Frodo and his companions even though Tolkien was a lover of trees. Yes it is clear that the Black Riders are sinister but at this stage they haven't as far as we know attacked anyone.

The tale Merry tells of the trees of the Old Forest apparently attacking the Hay was very similar to incidents in Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids published in 1951 i.e. before the LOTR was published but maybe after this chapter was written. Were they independent of each other or not?

For me the message of this chapter is that on the very borders of the idyllic Shire there are sinister threats.

Vignettes: The Bonfire Glade, lunch on the high hill, being led Southward, the Withywindle. I reread the Fellowship more than the other “books.”

Rivendell_librarian said:

The first of three chapters which seems to be a diversion from the main plot. PJ, as we know, passes straight from Bucklebury Ferry to the gate of Bree. However, this chapter is not without interest. Hammond and Scull in their Reader's Companion, quoting Verlyn Flieger, make the interesting point that it is a tree that is the first to attack Frodo and his companions even though Tolkien was a lover of trees. Yes it is clear that the Black Riders are sinister but at this stage they haven't as far as we know attacked anyone.

The tale Merry tells of the trees of the Old Forest apparently attacking the Hay was very similar to incidents in Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids published in 1951 i.e. before the LOTR was published but maybe after this chapter was written. Were they independent of each other or not?

For me the message of this chapter is that on the very borders of the idyllic Shire there are sinister threats.

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For me this chapter has always basically meant one thing - the arrival of Bombadil, the most baffling (and to me personally infuriating) character Tolkien ever wrote.
I've never understood the character in all the times I've read the books, and I doubt that I ever will (which would,perhaps, cause Tolkien no amount of amusement): the doggerel versification, the referring to himself in the third person, even his description (what's going on with the great yellow boots?) all conspire to make this a really weird character entrance.
It's true that he saves the Hobbits from Old Man Willow, so we know from the start that he is a sympathetic character, but almost immediately after he basically abandons them - 'you follow after me as quick as you are able!' which is quite a strange thing to do, considering the shock they had just had. Maybe this is deliberate on Tolkien's part, to illustrate just how different Bombadil is going to be?