If the Downs were part of Tom’s land, why would be tolerate the Barrow-wights there?
The same can be said for Old Man Willow and the other trees. Even Treebeard will say that there are sketchy things going on in the Old Forest.
There is no doubt of the evil of Old Man Willow and the Barrow-wights, so that it not the issue.
There is an underlying assumption that if Tom is good, he must have a strong reason not to expel the evil creatures. This assumes that to be good is to be an activist against evil.
Both Tom Bombadil and Treebeard are examples that this assumption is not universal in Tolkien’s world, which removes the need for explanation for lack of intervention.
We must examine the ideas of good within the context of the text, not out own assumptions.
This is illustrated in Merry and Pippin’s questions for Treebeard about which side he falls on. Merry and Pippin, as part of those actively resisting Sauron, make this assumption, too.
Note: Though critics of Tolkien assume that he is taking an oversimplified view of good and evil, though Tolkien goes out of his way to question and push back on this assumption.
The Rohirrim are the good guys from our point of view in the war against Sauron, but there are multiple points of view on this, as Treebeard, or the Dunlendings, see them as enemies, too.
Note: Tolkien wrote about this shifting perspective to Christopher during his service in the RAF, saying that there were “orcs on both sides” of WWII.
There is also an element of a much longer view of the movements of evil by creatures like Treebeard and Tom Bombadil, which is outside our understanding.
Tom understands that the Barrow-wights are themselves victims, having been enslaved and trapped in the barrows. He may not want to cast the spirits out and does so with sadness.
This is another example of the tragic and piteous nature of evil beings.
Note: The temptation is to project external vocabulary onto the text, using either knowledge of the author or our own assumptions about it. Rather, we must first create our vocabulary about the text by examining the text alone and on its own terms.
Gandalf examines this concept himself when he warns Frodo not to be quick to judgement.
A command performance:
It’s important that Frodo is given another drink before the second rendition of the song.
Frodo is not immune to the same temptations as Pippin, having given into his pleasure at the attention and approval of the crowd to continue singing.
This is partly a generational difference with their ancestors, as they’re outliers of hobbit culture.
We’ve already seen the warm response given to Frodo by the Underhills. This follows the trend.
There is a sense among the hobbits that they feel the familiarity and welcome equals safety.
Frodo had already accomplished his goal of distracting from Pippin before anything bad happened, but then he joins in with the jollity, participating in the spirit of the song itself.
As within the song, there is an escalation of merriment leading up the moment he vanishes.
Aragorn’s concern about all of the hobbits, not just Pippin, is justified by Frodo’s behavior.
There is an element of enchantment in the song, and Frodo’s getting carried away with it. This is similar to the dwarf song in chapter 1 of The Hobbit, which was also not explicitly magical.
The description is from the perspective of the crowd, rather than Frodo. This makes the narrator more visible again, and uses the exclamation point to draw attention to it.
This intervention by the narrator also sounds like the narrator of The Hobbit, and the voice is like one of the participants, as if the narrator is getting caught up in the action.
Companions of a traveling magician:
When Frodo is compared to a travelling magician, there is a precedent for this in the minds of the hobbits of Bree, which is Gandalf. Butterbur knows that Gandalf can do magic.
No one really understands Gandalf’s true nature, as he never reveals it, but even those hobbits who know him well don’t really question it. Pippin will reveal this later in Gondor.
Butterbur defends Gandalf to others, in spite of their fear of magic, due to their relationship.
It is possible that they simply fear the unknown, and they probably don’t have much experience.
It may be that most people in Bree don’t even believe that Gandalf is truly a wizard anyway.
The context is also important. This was not an occasion in which a magic trick was expected.
There is a parallel to Bilbo’s joke at the Party, which the hobbits take as in very poor taste, because he did not tell them, and they had no reason to expect it in that context.
The other motivation for doing this as a prank, which would annoy people due to the surprise.
Butterbur does not rebuke Frodo for the magic but for the surprise, though the fact that they are from out of town might make the hobbits think that there is something weird about them.
Their strangeness to Bree makes this extra suspicious, even if there was no magic involved. If Frodo is capable of this, they do not know what his purpose might be in Bree.
Bill Ferny’s knowing look:
What does Bill Ferny know that gives him that expression? It can’t be about the Ring, as neither Saruman, nor the Black Riders would have revealed its importance to underlings.
The Black Riders must have told Ferny that they were looking for hobbits from the Shire.
The presence of magic would not be identifying mark of the hobbits for whom they’re watching.
The name of Baggins would have been made known to Ferny, so Frodo’s interruption of Pippin’s story about a Baggins may have drawn his attention.
They might also have been told to look for hobbits behaving strangely, and this would fit that.
It’s possible that the southerner gave Ferny more information beyond what he was told by the Black Riders. Would Saruman have shared such information with his spy?
It’s not that Ferny has just figured out who they are but is now taking the opportunity to mock them as he leaves with everyone else.
He would probably find it funny that they have made such a grave error, and he also feels as if he now has good information for the Riders and will be rewarded.
The importance of Ferny’s expression is in the paranoia it incites in Frodo and company.
Ferny shows the characteristics of the bully, taking advantage of people when opportunity presents itself, and lording that advantage over others. Even Bill the pony is an example.
Does the Ring want to reveal itself to someone in the room, as Frodo suspects? Not this time.
The narrator does not say what the Ring is thinking; this is what Frodo is thinking in his paranoia.
The only beings who might call the Ring to reveal itself in this way are the Black Riders, and they are not here in the room.
It is important that Frodo begins to distrust the Ring, showing his shifting relationship with it.
It’s a good sign that Frodo is beginning to acknowledge the presence of the influence of the Ring, though he doesn’t understand that it was using his own desires against him.
Was Frodo’s hand in his pocket through the whole performance on the table? If not, that would mean that he was holding the Ring in his hand. If so, that would be awkward and unnatural.
There is a parallel to Bilbo’s being unable to get his hand to let the Ring go in the envelope on the mantlepiece. In this case, Frodo’s hand may have acted involuntarily, too.
The odds that Frodo’s finger slipped in the Ring accidentally are slim. To fall with one’s hand in their pocket, or putting out a hand to break a fall, would normally letting go of the Ring.
Therefore, the Ring getting onto Frodo’s finger is unusually unlikely, which can only mean that the Ring had taken some act to make this happen on its own.
Thought Frodo resisted the initial temptation, the Ring wants him to put it on enough trick him into subconsciously give into the secondary temptation.
Frodo does show a change in that he does not try to escape the room and leave his friends.
Taking shelter with Strider:
Frodo is seeking the corner where he can become visible out of sight of everyone, not necessarily to be next to Strider. He simply cannot leave the room.
The fact that he does not reveal himself right away adds to everyone else’s suspicion.
Strider’s knowledge of the Ring seems to confirm Frodo’s suspicions about Bill Ferny.
Strider knows who Frodo is and exactly what just happened and may be feeling exasperation at the prospect of looking after someone so foolish as to put on the Ring in public.
His question “Why did you do that?” confirms that putting on the Ring accidentally is highly improbable, so he needs to know why he would choose to do it.
Strider may be questioning if Frodo is so foolish as to think that the Ring is a prank. He knows Bilbo, and he may suspect that Frodo is reenacting Bilbo’s disappearance as a joke.
There’s also the possibility for Strider that Frodo may be trying to draw attention to himself.
There is a hint of a rebuke or warning to Frodo in revealing his own knowledge of the Ring.
Strider gets the answer that one might expect of a child, which is that they don’t know why.
Frodo tries to pass off the incident, but Strider won’t let him, as he does not know what Frodo’s intentions are, and is worried about what will happen with the Ring.
From Strider’s point of view, the hobbits’ behavior looks extremely questionable.
Frodo chooses to ignore Strider’s use of his real name rather than question it.
Note: It’s important that at this point in the story, we don’t know who he is. We may project backwards having read the whole story, but at this point, he may be as he looks.
Butterbur does not know where Strider lives or what he does to support himself, and probably is dubious about Strider and his nature, based upon his appearance.
Strider plays up on this image of a rogue by going with statements consistent with that character in order to test Frodo’s responses to his dubious offers.
Even if Frodo is the hobbit he is looking for, Strider doesn’t know Frodo and needs to figure out what kind of person he is.
If Strider is an example of the Rangers, and they see the Rangers as brigands or thieves.
It’s not clear how much Strider understands about how the Ring affects its bearer, though this is not surprising, as even Gandalf only has a little evidence of this himself, from Bilbo and Gollum.
Gandalf must have told Aragorn about the Ring and about Frodo, including his assessment of Frodo, so it would surprise Aragorn to see Frodo acting so foolish.
There is a parallel in Thorin’s assessment of Bilbo’s recommendation from Gandalf, and Aragorn’s assessment of Frodo’s recommendation.
Into thick air:
Why does Butterbur insist that the witnesses have made a mistake? It seems like he is trying to de-escalate the situation and calm the crowd, as might be expected of the inn’s landlord.
The fat joke about Frodo and the banter about what was seen, and unseen is hobbitry.
At this point, Butterbur has remembered Gandalf’s letter, and may feel partly responsible for the trouble that Frodo is having now, especially knowing that Frodo is Gandalf’s friend.
The letter itself admonished Butterbur to help Frodo as much as he could, so he is doing that.
In Butterbur’s personal interest, he would benefit from the business that such a sensation would cause, but he is also circumspect enough to know that it would not help Frodo.
Mugwort emphasizes that this doesn’t seem to merely be a trick, pointing to the vanishing.
Butterbur seems to be planting the idea that this was a successful illusion, not real magic.
Frodo’s bad excuses:
Frodo does himself no favors by associating himself with Strider, as Strider himself is seen as untrustworthy and possibly magical. This makes Frodo seem even more suspicious.
It’s understandable that the Dwarves and Men leave without speaking to Frodo and company.
Butterbur probably does not think that Frodo is a real wizard, and that it must be an acrobatic trick, in spite of knowing Gandalf.
Bree is not welcoming to magic, even the fake kind, in general, though Butterbur seems to think that Frodo’s trick was merely a social faux pas, and nothing sinister.
Frodo tries to return everything to normal as soon as Butterbur provides him with cover by accepting his thin story, and Butterbur goes along with it.
That both Strider and Butterbur have asked for a private word leads Frodo to paranoia that they are all in league against him, though he has a harder time suspecting Butterbur than Strider.
Butterbur seems to be asking for Frodo’s pardon in advance, but from Frodo’s point of view he may be planning something devious, even though Butterbur has taken his side up to this point.
Frodo may suspect that Butterbur is in league with the Black Riders but has only just now figured out that Frodo is the hobbit they were seeking and needs to inform them first.
It’s also possible that Frodo suspects that Butterbur wants to warn Frodo against Strider, as he had hinted earlier that Strider had something to do with Frodo he didn’t explain.
It may seem that Frodo is going to be warned off of whatever Strider will offer.
