there and back again

“The land seemed full of creaking and cracking and sly noises, but there was no sound of voice or of foot. Far above the Ephel Duath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his hear, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”

The Land Of Shadow - J.R.R. Tolkien

Fangorn Forest - Alan Lee

I would love to wander through Fangorn Forest, wade in the cool streams, walk among trees and creatures that have lived since the beginning of time, find places where the sun and fresh air pierce the dense and dim parts of the forest and appreciate light and land once again, perhaps even stumble across an Ent house and drink the End draught;

“The drink was like water, indeed very like taste of the draughts they had drunk from the Entwash near the borders of the forest, and yet there was some scent or savour in it which they could not describe: it was faint, but it reminded them of the smell of a distant wood borne afar by a cool breeze at night. The effect of the draught began at the toes, and rose steadily through every limb, bringing refreshment and vigour as it coursed upwards, right to the tips of their hair.”

Treebeard - J.R.R Tolkien

The same feeling in my chest, even after eleven years.

Frodo and Sam - Ithilien

I absolutely adore Tolkien’s description of Ithilien. After a few chapters with Frodo, Sam and Smeagol journeying through mazes of jagged rocks at Emyn Muil, to the cold and spirit dampening Dead Marshes, to the barren and desolate lands at Morannon, and with Mordor drawing ever closer, Ithilien still warms the heart.

“Here Spring was already busy about them; fronds pierced moss and mould, larches were green-fingered, small flowers were opening in the turf, birds were singing. Ithilien, the garden of Gondor now desolate kept still a disheveled dryad loveliness.”

Tolkien then goes on to describe the plant life, and scents in this land, further:

“Many great trees grew there, planted long ago, falling into untended age amid a riot of careless descendants; and groves and thickets there were of tamarisk and pungent terebinth, of olive and of bay; and there were junipers and myrtles; and thymes that grew in the bushes, or with their woody creeping stems mantled in deep tapestries the hidden stones; sages of many kinds putting forth blue flowers, or red, or pale green; and marjorams and new sprouting parsleys, and many herbs of forms and scents beyond the garden-lore of Sam.”

When reading these words, I feel as though I am in Ithilien, feeling the warm Spring sun against my skin, and breathing deeply so my lungs are filled with all sorts of aromas, appreciating the colours of the plants and flowers that are blooming; and forgetting, if only for a moment, the troubles that are laid behind, and the ones that are ahead. Don’t get me wrong, this is not the first time I feel this way - there are many others, in Rivendell, Lothlorien, Farmer Maggot’s house, Fangorn Forest, the list goes on. But so often, there are chapters such as Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit that are able to ease the heart when reading, and realise that there are beautiful things in the world beneath all of the shadow, no matter how close it may be. 

Frodo seemed to be weary, weary to the point of exhaustion. He said nothing, indeed he hardly spoke at all; and he did not complain, but he walked like one who carries a load, the weight of which is ever increasing; and he dragged along, slower and slower, so that Sam had often to beg Gollum to wait and not to leave their master behind.
In fact with every step towards the gates of Mordor Frodo felt the Ring on its chain about his neck grow more burdensome. He was now beginning to feel it as an actual weight dragging him earthwards. But far more he was troubled by the Eye; so he called it to himself. It was that more than the drag of the Ring that made him cower and stoop as he walked. The Eye; that horrible growing sense of a hostile will that strove with great power to pierce all shadows of cloud, and gaze naked, immovable. So thin, so frail and thin, the veils were become that still warded it off. Frodo knew just where the present habitation and heart of that will now was; as certainly as a man can tell the direction of the sun with his eyes shut. He was facing it, and its potency beat upon his brow. 

When Gandalf arrives at Helm’s Deep at first light on the fifth day. 

That part when Samwise and Frodo witness elves in the forest for the first time. Yeah, THAT PART. 

Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate;
And though I oft have passed them by,
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun 

“Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the Sea comes the end of our fellowship in Middle-Earth. Go in peace! I will not say do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.”