Hrothjar
New Member
I've finally caught up with all the previous classes and I'm enjoying the languorous trip through Middle-earth. I read Chapter VIII last night and reached the part when the fog rolls over the hobbits after they awaken from their nap against the stone on the hilltop. I couldn't help but compare that event to another one that occurred previously in the story.
The fog forms a "hall of mist whose central pillar was the standing stone." My mind immediately recalled the description of Woodhall in Chapter III. There, the hobbits find themselves in a "wide space like a hall, roofed by the boughs of trees. Their great trunks ran like pillars down each side. In the middle there was a wood-fire blazing, and upon the tree-pillars torches with lights of gold and silver were burning steadily."
The "hall of mist" is a negative inversion of Woodhall. One is warm and living, while the other is cold and dead. Light fills the elf glade, while "pale shadows" gather in the Downs. Even the sequence of events surrounding the hobbits' encounter with the halls are reversals of one another. In Chapter III, the hobbits encounter the elves, creatures not entirely of the mortal realm, then travel to Woodhall, where they fall eventually fall asleep. In the Barrow Downs, Frodo and company first sleep, then awaken to watch the hall encompass them, and finally depart to encounter the Barrow wights, creatures also not entirely of the mortal realm.
We've noticed how the events of the Old Forest and the Barrow Downs bracket the time in Tom Bombadil's house. These two halls, each the mirror reflection of the other, seem intentional. Perhaps Tolkien is using them as counterpoints to the first leg of the hobbits' journey, waymarkers near the beginning and the ending of their trip from the Shire and into the larger world?
The fog forms a "hall of mist whose central pillar was the standing stone." My mind immediately recalled the description of Woodhall in Chapter III. There, the hobbits find themselves in a "wide space like a hall, roofed by the boughs of trees. Their great trunks ran like pillars down each side. In the middle there was a wood-fire blazing, and upon the tree-pillars torches with lights of gold and silver were burning steadily."
The "hall of mist" is a negative inversion of Woodhall. One is warm and living, while the other is cold and dead. Light fills the elf glade, while "pale shadows" gather in the Downs. Even the sequence of events surrounding the hobbits' encounter with the halls are reversals of one another. In Chapter III, the hobbits encounter the elves, creatures not entirely of the mortal realm, then travel to Woodhall, where they fall eventually fall asleep. In the Barrow Downs, Frodo and company first sleep, then awaken to watch the hall encompass them, and finally depart to encounter the Barrow wights, creatures also not entirely of the mortal realm.
We've noticed how the events of the Old Forest and the Barrow Downs bracket the time in Tom Bombadil's house. These two halls, each the mirror reflection of the other, seem intentional. Perhaps Tolkien is using them as counterpoints to the first leg of the hobbits' journey, waymarkers near the beginning and the ending of their trip from the Shire and into the larger world?