That machine in the session 193 field trip

[Bruce N H]

Hi all,

I was listening to the podcast version of last week's Exploring, session 193. I usually skip the field trip when I'm listening since so much is about the visual, but I was driving and so just left it going through the field trip. At about the 1:30 mark you guys were discussing a machine with a hand crank found on the porch of a house, and from your discussion I was pretty sure I knew what it was. I had to rush home and watch the video to be sure ... drumroll please ...

It's a rope making machine! I made one of these back when I was in the Boys Scouts. There are supposed to be metal hooks on those three smaller circles (probably too small for the graphics). When you turn the main crank it spins those three smaller circles with the hooks (presumably that rope goes around, turning those wheels by a gearing action). You take several long stretches of twine and attach to each hook - with the other end hooked to a ring or stick being held by someone across the yard. As the hooks spin the threads of twine twist together and the three main cords twist around each other, making the rope.

Here's a web page showing how to make your own and saying how it works:

making a rope maker – SCOUT PIONEERING

Posts about making a rope maker written by Scout Pioneering

scoutpioneering.com

Here's a youtube video from a ren fair showing one in use:

BTW, Sam would especially appreciate this. Remember: "I do know something about rope and about knots. It's in the family, as you might say. Why, my grand-dad, and my uncle Andy after him, him that was the Gaffer's eldest brother he had a rope-walk over by Tighfield many a year." (A rope-walk is a rope-making facility using machines like this one.)

The in-game image:



A home made one (similar to the one I made in Scouts, though mine didn't have a drill connected)


A more professionally made one - my Scout troop borrowed one like this and made several long fairly high quality ropes on a campout.

 

[Jim Deutch]

I think it was no more than twenty years ago - twenty-five years, roughly, after I first read the book - that I found out what a rope-walk really was. Before that, I'd had a vague picture of something made of rope that you walked on, maybe like a long rug down a hall. And just here and now is the first time I've ever seen details about how it works. Thanks, Bruce!

 

[Bruce N H]

When I first read that line about Sam's uncle Andy having a rope-walk I didn't know the term, so I thought his uncle was a tight-rope walker, which seems very un-hobbitish behavior. Or maybe his uncle had a rope bridge across a stream, like when they enter Lorien, but that's even more un-hobbitish. But of course that can't be true, because when they do cross into Lorien Sam says "Live and learn! as my gaffer used to say. Though he was thinking of gardening, not of roosting like a bird, nor of trying to walk like a spider. Not even my uncle Andy every did a trick like that!" - Which is actually pretty funny, because the line where he talks about his uncle Andy having a rope walk is much later, in the Emyn Muil. I just checked and there is no mention of any Andy prior to Lorien.

--
Later edit:

I just did scans through Two Towers and Return of the King and those are the only two mentions in-text of Sam's uncle Any. In the family trees, though, we get the Gaffer's older brother "Andwise Roper of Tighfield ('Andy') 1323". Their dad, Sam's grandad, was "Hobson (Roper Gamgee) 1285-1384", and Hobson's dad, Sam's great-grandfather was "Hob Gammidge the Roper ('Old Gammidgy') 1246". And before that his dad, Sam's great-great-grandfather, was "Wiseman Gamwich 1200 (removed to Tighfield)."

On the town of Tighfield, I find no other references in the text aside from what Sam said about his uncle and the notes in the family trees; I also pored over the map of the Shire and couldn't find it. Karen Wynn Fonstad in the Atlas of Middle Earth gives some educated guesses saying "The Gamgees may have originally come from West Farthing. Their hometown of Gamwich was probably close to Tighfield, for there was much migration between the two.* Two things suggested placement of Tighfield in West Farthing: From Tighfield one cousin moved to Northfarthing, and sam said his uncle ran a "ropewalk over by Tighfield." *I think she gets this migration back and forth between Gamwich and Tighfield wholly from notes in Sam's family tree. On her detailed map of the Shire she puts Tighfield and Gamwich on a road leading northwest of Little Delving, but these towns don't show up on the in-text map (that map cuts off much of the Shire - at the edge there are arrows saying "to Michel Delving" and "to Little Delving".

Okay, that's all I can find about Sam's uncle Andy and his home in Tighfield. I suppose there might be something in the HOME books or in one of JRRT's Letters, but I'm ending my goose chase there.

Bruce / Bricktales

 

[Rachel Port]

Where do Sam's older brothers live? Given how little traveling hobbits do, that might be where they could be near family. And Sam does tell the elves as they are leaving Lorien that ropemaking is in his family.

 

[Bruce N H]

Rachel - good catch on Sam's remarks on ropemaking to the elves. In my head I had combined that with the quote from the Emyn Muil. Here's the passage from Farewell to Lorien:

"‘You don’t need to tell me that [rope is useful]!’ said Sam. ‘I came without any, and I’ve been worried ever since. But I was wondering what these were made of, knowing a bit about rope-making: it’s in the family as you might say.’
‘They are made of hithlain, ’ said the Elf, ‘but there is no time now to instruct you in the art of their making. Had we known that this craft delighted you, we could have taught you much. But now alas! unless you should at some time return hither, you must be content with our gift. May it serve you well!’ "

On "hithlain" - the word doesn't show up anywhere else in the main text, but according the Tolkien Gateway there is a passage in Treason of Isengard (which I'm too lazy to go downstairs to look up) that says hithlain was a strong fibre made from the inner bark of mallorn trees. The One Wiki to Rule Them All says the word comes from the Sindarin Hith (mist) + lain (thread) - I really know very little about elvish languages aside from the obvious, so I'll believe they have some basis for this, but don't know where they got it. Probably the same root is in Hithlum.

On your other question: I was looking at Sam's family tree, but only paid attention to the older generations. Sam has two brothers. Hanson is 15 years older and the family tree notes he "joined his uncle, the roper" - so presumably he lives in or near Tighfield. His brother Halfred is 11 years older and it notes he "removed to Northfarthing". Two older sisters - Daisy, 8 years older, and May, 4 years older - with no other details given. His younger sister Marigold, 3 years younger, marries Tolman (Tom) Cotton - Rosie's older brother. She presumably lives somewhere around Bywater. According to A Long-Expected Party, the Gaffer "spoke with some authority, for he had tended the garden at Bag End for forty years, and had helped old Holman in the same job before that." That's 1401 SR. So the Gaffer has been the chief gardener at Bag End since around 1361 and worked there even before that. All of the Gaffer's children were born in Hobbiton (the oldest was born in 1365), even if the Gaffer himself was born around Gamwich or Tighfield (his great great grandfather was "of Gamwich" but then his great grandfather "removed to Tighfield") and moved to the Hobbiton/Bywater era when he heard there was work with old Holman. Hmm - was that Holman Cotton, Rosie's grandfather? The ages sort of work out - Holman Cotton was 24 years older than the Gaffer and would have been around 59 when the Gaffer became chief gardener. That would seem a little young to totally retire and turn over Bag End to his apprentice Note that at the time of the Party the Gaffer was 75 and this was the point where "Now that he [the Gaffer] was himself growing old and stiff in the joints, the job was mainly carried on by his youngest son, Sam Gamgee." Perhaps Holman had raised enough money (or maybe even gotten a loan from the generous Mr. Bilbo) to purchase his own farm in the Bywater area and by that point his sons would have been old enough to help out, being in their late teens/early tweens, with oldest son Tom later taking over the farm.

BTW, looking at the family tree, Sam's great grandmother was Rose's great grandmother's older sister. So Sam and Rose are third cousins. I always get confused over the second cousin, third cousin, once removed, twice removed thing, but the charts on this page make it clear:

Cousin Chart—Family Relationships Explained • FamilySearch

What is a second cousin? What does it mean to be once removed? Use this cousin chart and our simple explanations to answer all your cousin questions.

www.familysearch.org

Very helpful for confusing interlocked hobbit families.
It does make sense, though, assuming the "old Holman" that the Gaffer worked for when he first started at Bag End was Holman Cotton (btw, he was named for his maternal grandfather "Holman, the greenhanded, of Hobbiton", so presumably also a gardener or farmer) as Holman Cotton would have been his first cousin, once removed. It would make a ton of sense if Old Holman wanted to hire someone, and his sons weren't quite old enough yet, that he'd reach out to a young relation. These jobs definitely seem to run in families.

- later edit - Oh, I was blind, (I blame this on looking at the family tree on a pdf so it's sideways) - the family tree explicitly notes that Hamfast (Ham Gamgee) the Gaffer "took up with his 'Cousin Holman' in Hobbiton as a gardener", suggesting he did not live in the Hobbiton/Bywater era before this.
-even later edit - alternative possibility - There is a third Holman in Sam's family tree, Holman Greenhand, also first-cousin once removed to the Gaffer. This Holman was the son of Halfred Greenhand (gardener), son of Homan the greenhanded of Hobbiton, so presumably a father-to-son line of gardeners. He was ten years older than the other Holman, so the ages work out better for him to be retirement age (around 69) when the Gaffer took over as head gardener. Yeah, I'm convincing myself now that this is more likely to be the Holman that the Gaffer worked for, not the Holman that was Tom Cotton's dad. If this is the right interpretation we have three interlocking families - the descendants of Hamfast living around Gamwich/Tighfield including many ropers; the descendants of Holman in Hobbiton who were gardeners; and the descendants of Cottar around Bywater who were farmers. At various points people from one line go to work for people from other lines. These lines connect in marriage at least four times. Two daughters of Homan of Hobbiton married into the Gamgee and Cotton lines, with no other descendants of Holman the greenhanded past the Gaffer's father's generation. Of course Sam married Rosie Cotton, and his little sister Marigold married Rosie's older brother Tom (Jr).

Oh, in scanning through a pdf of RotK I found a couple of passages I don't think I'd ever thought about before - Rosie first comes up when Sam and Frodo are in Mordor. Sam thinks "But I would dearly like to see Bywater again, and Rosie Cotton and her brothers, and the Gaffer and Marigold and all." Later, after he gives Frodo one of the last mouthful of waters and goes without himself, Sam remembers "every brook or stream or fount that he had ever seen, under green willow-shades or twinkling in the sun, danced and rippled for his torment behind the blindness of his eyes. He felt the cool mud about his toes as he paddled in the Pool at Bywater with Jolly Cotton and Tom and Nibs, and their sister Rosie. ‘But that was years ago, ’ he sighed, ‘and far away. The way back, if there is one, goes past the Mountain.’ " Tom, Jolly, and Nibs are three of Rosie's four brothers. Those are the only references to the Cottons until we get back to the Scouring.

Sorry for going on long rambling tangents, and multiple re-edits of this post as I've added new data. I thought about chopping out my initial speculation that the Gaffer worked for Farmer Cotton's dad, but fitured it was useful to include all of the Holman data in case others wanted to build on it. It's really fascinating to dig into the world-building you can find just by looking at Sam's family tree and a few other stray references. Are there any other references out there to Sam's ropemaking pedigree (given that after all this was the origin of this thread) that I missed?

Bruce