Episode 26 Summary

[Tony Meade]

SESSION 26

Comment on Sam’s skepticism of Old Man Willow:

• Does Sam not yet believe that a tree would be so actively malevolent as to try to drown Frodo?
• Sam is clearly aware that something uncanny is happening, especially in the singing and the sleepiness, but may not be willing to accept the active malice of the willow tree.
• Sam might not have left Frodo to collect the ponies if he thought the tree was dangerous. He may mistrust the tree, but he might not believe that the tree is actually trying to kill them.
• He might also not be willing to go so far as to have something as truly magical like a moving, malicious tree actually happening in front of him, so be blames Frodo for falling in the water.
• This is similar to Merry’s skepticism of the moving trees earlier, which he is later forced to accept. Merry was willing to accept the sentience of the trees, but not their movements.
• Is Sam’s role as gardener playing a role? Would he have more of an affinity with plants? Would he be less willing to accept a plant’s malevolence due to his own bias?
• Sam would live in a naturally antagonistic relationship with some plants. Just as farmers and forests are natural competitors, weeds and grass would be the enemy of a gardener.
• He would know plants well enough to know that they don’t usually move their roots, however.
• Sam does have affection for many trees in the Shire, especially the Party Tree.
• Sam would be willing to accept the attack of the trees on the High Hay as fighting back the encroachment of the forest is a normal occurrence. Trees that move are not.

Comment on Old Man Willow’s plans for the hobbits:

• What is Old Man Willow’s plan to do with the hobbits once he’s captured them? Is he going to consume them in some way? Does he want to imprison them as punishment?
• The laughter in scorn at Frodo when Frodo demands that he let Merry and Pippin go does not speak well of Old Man Willow’s character.
• The whole chapter has set up the conflict between the hobbits and the trees all along. There is an antagonistic relationship, including the song battle and their attacks earlier.
• Old Man Willow would not mistake the hobbits for anything other than two-legged enemies, given the history of the hobbits and the other trees’ behavior.
• Old Man Willow does not live in a blight, unlike many lands which surround other evil creatures.
• It’s important to take the time to see the world of the forest from a tree-ish perspective.
• Nature can be dangerous to mortal creatures without being magical or necessarily evil. The Old Forest takes this natural behavior and makes it more active and deliberate.
• Once they cross into the Old Forest, they’ve entered Faerie, which is perilous and uncanny.

Sam’s resourcefulness and resolve:

• Though Sam’s loyalty and determination towards Frodo is highlighted in The Two Towers and The Return of the King, he shows here that this is just his character and extends to everyone.
• Sam finally acknowledges that the tree is sentient, and once he realizes that he cannot reason with the tree, he assumes that frightening it will affect the tree.
• Sam does not treat the problem as mechanical and try to extract the hobbits using tools.
• There is a fierceness in Sam’s determination to save his friends, extending to killing the tree if necessary. This might seem at first go against his affinity with plants as a gardener.
• This is parallel to acts in animal husbandry, which may require killing an animal when necessary.
• Being a gardener is about exerting control over plants, not letting them run wild.
• Note: It’s once again important the remember that Hobbits are farmers, and while farming is all about a relationship with the earth, it is one about control and domesticity.
• Sam is interacting with the tree the way that he might take on a bully picking on his friends.
• Sam knows that he can’t hurt a tree the way he might with a hobbit giving him “sauce”, but he knows what he can do to fight back against a tree.

Sam gets a reaction from the tree:

• The small fire they create has only scorched the bark of the tree. Sam can’t destroy the tree, but he can cause it pain.
• The tree’s response is once again with natural tree sounds, but they sense the anger in them.
• The first reaction of the tree is to cause the hobbit prisoners pain, which highlights that the tree understands what he has captured and what he can to do hurt them.
• It’s clear that the trees remember the bonfire, and this may be a reaction to that memory.
• Fire is a distinctly human tool of control and conflict with nature.

Frodo finally understands the nature of the tree:

• Merry exclamations of what the tree will do to him if the fire isn’t put out shows that the tree can communicate in a way that hobbits can understand.
• The use of the pronoun “he” is what seems to throw Frodo. He can’t hear the tree speaking and assumes a “he” must be another person. He did not hear the tree’s song earlier.
• Perhaps Frodo thinks that the tree is the instrument of another creature, not acting on its own.
• We don’t know if Pippin can hear the tree’s speaking, but Merry is the one near the opening.
• Why doesn’t Old Man Willow speak directly to Sam and Frodo, rather than through Merry?
• It may be because Merry is inside the tree, which allows him to communicate directly somehow.
• The means of this communication is mysterious and tantalizing, since we don’t actually hear it.
• The response of the tree is a direct retaliation against the fire. Sam wanted to hurt or frighten the tree with fire, so it responds by hurting and frightening Merry.
• Note: The exact nature of Old Man Willow and his origins are not clear in this chapter.

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[Tony Meade]

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Frodo’s final verbal conflict with the trees:

• When Frodo shouts for help, the words are drowned out by Old Man Willow. This fits the pattern of the trees’ oppression of his words, just as during his song earlier.
• Why does Frodo call for help if he knows there is no help at hand?
• This seems to be an impulse with no plan or rationale. It is an act of desperation or faith.
• Frodo runs off in the general direction of the end of the forest, being eastwards.

Help arrives in a strange form:

• This is the third party to arrive in the forest singing, which is significant.
• The voice he hears is coming from deeper within the forest, and Frodo has already had verbal conflicts with creatures in this forest, so this is potentially dangerous.
• While he knows that anyone in this forest might be perilous, Frodo has to accept that someone at least came when he called.
• The happiness and carelessness of the voice is the most striking feature of the song in the midst of this scene of fear and threat.

Tom Bombadil’s first song:

• The ridiculousness of the words of the song are even more so than the “Tra-la-la-lally” song of the Elves in Rivendell in The Hobbit. At least there, all the words were comprehensible.
• The rhythm of this song is associated with timekeeping, but in different way from the hobbit walking songs earlier. This is not in iambic tetrameter. This is a dancing/skipping song.
• In the first two lines, most of the words are actually not nonsense. There are only four nonsense words there: “dol”, “dillo”, and “fal lal”.
• Note: Tom Bombadil was inspired by a doll owned by Tolkien’s daughter Priscilla, much like “Roverandom” was inspired by his son Michael’s toy dog.
• The “dol” syllable is more likely a reference to the Sindarin word for “hill”.
• The use of “Hey” at the beginning is reminiscent of the Anglo-Saxon expression “Hwæt!”.
• The third word of the song is “merry”, which means that not only is the song merry, it is about merriment itself.
• The “ring a dong” is an onomatopoetic invocation of the sound of bells.
• His talk of hopping and the willow is invoking the current scene.
• The use of the word “willow” does not mean that he knows what is currently happening with Old Man Willow. This path was made by Tom, presumably, and it runs right by the willow trees.
• “Fal lal” syntactically seems to point to Tom’s attitude toward the willow tree. It’s not clear that this is an action or a statement towards the willow, but he seems to address the willow.
• It may be a statement of dismissal of the self-importance of Old Man Willow.
• This is ultimately a song about itself, and only partly what he’s doing while singing it. While he is hopping along, he does not have any bells to ring.
• He may be poking fun at Old Man Willow by merely using “willow” to rhyme with his own name.
• Is Tom wearing bells? Unlikely, as it’s not referenced, and jingle bells don’t make “dong” sound.
• Did Tom teach the Rivendell Elves their technique? No, though while the elves’ song is silly, making obvious observations, it contains no nonsense aside from the chorus “Tra-la-la-lally”.
• Tom Bombadil’s song not only uses nonsense words but is also syntactically nonsense.
• It’s possible that the ringing may refer to a voice, but the “dong” clearly invokes a bell.

Tom Bombadil’s relationship with his name:

• The whole last line is Tom stating his own name. This is not an accident.
• Is Tom introducing himself? Possibly, but to whom? He says later that he did not know that the hobbits were there up ahead. He does know that Old Man Willow is up ahead, however.
• Note: Names are important in Tolkien’s writings, and Tom will emphasize this later.
• Tom seems to be asserting himself and his authority over Old Man Willow.
• Note: In the poem, “The Adventures of Tom Bombadil”, Old Man Willow captures Tom, and Tom uses similar words as he will use here to free himself.
• Why would he have such a common name like “Tom”? He’s such a powerful character.
• This is not his only name, as the Elves and others have given him different ones.
• “Tom Bombadil” was the name likely given to him by hobbits, but he is happy to use it.
• Does the use of his hobbitish name here mean that Tom knew that the hobbits were listening?
• We will learn much about Tom Bombadil from this song, much like we did have with songs from Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs before in The Hobbit about the races that sang them.

END OF SESSION