Mechtild's

Happy 118th birthday, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien...

2010-01-03T23:20:16Z

~*~

Happy Birthday!

How you have enriched my life!

Love,

Mechtild

Merry Christmas ~ 2009 (featuring Father Christmas illustrations by Tolkien).

2009-12-21T21:34:08Z

~*~

Hi! I'm back both from the two-week trip to my mother's and from my recent overnighter to see the Trilogy (no symphony, just the films). I'm trying to catch up on mail and house stuff, still have loads to do for Christmas , and have not even touched the Frodo project I started last month, something to go with a jan-u-wine poem. Still, I thought I'd say "Merry Christmas" before the day slipped by.

To celebrate, here are some scans from a book I bought recently, J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator. I knew Tolkien could paint and draw, but I didn't realise how good he was. His human figures lack finesse, but he was very good at rendering structures and natural settings. If I have time, I will post some scans of his work in honour of his birthday coming up. Maybe this sort of "eye" is what makes his descriptive passages so strong.

In this post are a few images of the sort of things Tolkien made for his own children. For several years, he sent them illustrated letters, purportedly from Father Christmas (or his staff: Karhu the Polar Bear or Ilbereth the secretary elf), full of details of life--hum-drum, comical or alarming--at the North Pole. What fun it had to have been for him to write the letters and illustrate them each year, and what fun for his children to receive them. I'm sure the Tolkien household had its hard times, its unhappy times, but it had to be a delight, too, living with such an imaginative parent who took such pleasure in providing entertainment for his children.

1. Father Christmas (top) and his house (bottom), as if painted by Father Christmas, sent to John in 1920. This is from the first letter Tolkien made. It shows a very cold Father Christmas (blowing beard and coat, red cheeks and nose, ice-crusted boots) tramping through the snow with a bundle, with a second picture underneath showing Father Christmas' igloo-like snowy round house, hushed and radiant under a night sky lit by stars and a full moon. Pencil, black ink, watercolour and silver powder.

2. Envelope, addressed as if by Father Christmas, to John, 1924, with hand-done North Pole stamp and stamp cancel lines. Tolkien developed characteristic handwritings for his letter-writers. Father Christmas has a shaky, but, here, decorative hand.

3. Self-portrait by N.P.B.(North Polar Bear) Karhu, one of Father Christmas' valued associate. The shaky writing at the bottom was written by Father Christmas. Karhu wrote in "fat paw" but later, more proficient, began to write in "Arktik", with angular, rune-like characters. Note the sort of dots-and-dash style, seen again in illustrations for The Hobbit. Additional note: "Paksu" and Valkotukka" are nephews of Karhu. Pencil, black, red and green ink, 1931.

A very happy holiday to you all!

~ Mechtild

ETA:

Here are links to editions of Letters From Father Christmas Amazon has for sale:

http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Father-Christmas-Revised-Tolkien/dp/061800937X

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0618512659/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=061800937X&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1B01X9BVGFB99JAPGEGV
Here's the cover of the 1st edition (1976):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:FatherChristmasLetters.JPG

I'm off again....

2009-11-16T21:01:43Z

~*~

Early tomorrow, I will be flying out east for my biannual visit to me dear old mum. She doesn't have internet access, so goodbye for two weeks.

Have a lovely, scrumptious Thanksgiving, you who celebrate it!

~ Mechtild

New Frodo Art Travesty: Brown's "The Hayfield", plus jan-u-wine's 'A Fairer Than Most Birth-day'.

2009-10-30T15:00:32Z

~*~

This manip was created to complement jan-u-wine's new poem, A Fairer Than Most Birth-day. She wrote it as this year's birthday mathom, but, since I already had prepared a Baggins Birthday post, showcasing a poem written several years ago from Bilbo's point of view--with a Frodo Art Travesty to go with it--I didn't post it. I promised myself, however, that I'd make a post for the new poem, complete with its own illustration.

The featured poem, which celebrates the renewed post-war Shire as seen through Frodo's eyes, cried out for Shire imagery. Since I'd already screencapped every trilogy scene set in the Shire, I decided a new Frodo Art Travesty was called for. The resulting image, Frodo in Ford Madox Brown's "The Hayfield", captures well for me the mood of subdued but intense reverie in Jan's poem, especially at the poem's end, when the time has become dusk and the moon has risen.

~*~

Source for Frodo figure:

The source for Frodo's image is a well-known publicity shot for FotR. I believe it was taken by Pierre Vinet, the photographer who did most of the gorgeous production stills for the trilogy. I love this image. Frodo looks young, yet wise, fresh-faced and bonny-cheeked, yet worn and grubby, warm, yet reserved, keenly observing, yet reflective.

Here is a reduced version of the shot:

Source for background:

Ford Madox Brown was a Victorian-era painter often associated with the Pre-Raphaelites. Although never a formal member, Brown was from the Brotherhood's beginnings an important associate and acted as a mentor to its members. He gave lessons in oil painting to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, at the younger artist's request (who soon quit, a lax student), and produced an essay on historical painting for the group's magazine The Germ (1850). He kept an unvarnished and detailed diary which offers many insights into the life and work of the Pre-Raphaelite circle. Nevertheless, Brown had his own style and approach to art, although he used the detail and rich colours admired by the Pre-Raphaelites, as well as being drawn to dramatic and illustrative subject matter.

Born in Calais of British parents in 1821, he was shifted about between England and France as a child. A talent for drawing was noted and he began studying painting and drawing seriously from an early age. Although he was a proficient artist, his work much appreciated after his death, he was mostly ignored by the art establishment of his day, who saw him as an outsider, unwilling to compromise. He never made much money from his work. As principled and passionate in life as in art, he could be perceived as prickly in temperament, although he was considered a self-sacrificing and loyalfriend. He died in 1890. To see more of his work, browse ArtMagick's online collection here.

The painting was acquired by the Tate Gallery in 1974. A writer for their online site says of it,

Brown painted "The Hayfield" (oil on mahogany) directly from nature. The setting is the Tenterden estate at Hendon, in north London, looking east at twilight. He worked on the picture regularly from July until October 1855, finishing the details of the foreground in his studio, including the self-portrait of an artist relaxing in the lower left corner. The effect he particularly sought to capture was the way in which the brown hay was made to appear almost pink by contrast with the dense green grass. After it was finished his dealer rejected it on the grounds that he had never seen hay of this colour. Brown later retouched the painting before selling it to his friend and fellow artist William Morris.
Brown, like a certain manip-maker and LJ user, was apparently a noted maniac for continually tweaking his work, fiddling and re-touching paintings even after they had been sold. To see the Tate's online image of the painting, which although small and indistinct gives a hint of the "pink hay", click here.

Ford Madox Brown's The Hayfield, 1855:

The Final Manip (skip this if how-to's bore you):

Starting out, I thought it would be a lot easier to import an entire figure into a painting than just a face or head. As it turned out, trying to nuance Frodo's head into a painting is a lot easier than insinuate an entire figure of Frodo. The main problem is matching textures. "The Hayfield", which is not in good condition, presented a challenge. The large scan I worked from was much better than the tiny files I found on the internet, but it showed clearly the network of small to large surface cracks that covered the painting's surface, especially noticeable in its lower left hand corner. How could I make the perfect Pierre Vinet photograph look more a part of the original painting?

I did a lot of experimenting, but ended up first smoothing the painting. After I had diminished the obviousness of the surface cracking, I carefully cut Frodo out of the publicity still (I worked from a high-resolution file), slapped him provisionally onto the painting, and fiddled until I got the size and position I thought looked best. Then I darkened and tinted the source scene (increasing the blue), to bring out the soft glow of the moon and deepen the dusk, adjusting the figure of Frodo to match. Then I worked a bit at trying to texture the Frodo image. I added filters in fairly translucent layers: "eggshell crackle", "film grain-rough", and "crayon-faded rub". These added character and broke up the photographic surface a bit, but did not add the crackled surface that matched the painting, a crackle pattern that nothing in my standard tools could produce. Discouraged, I decided what I had would have to do.

I saved the image as a jpg file (in which the layers can no longer be worked with separately) and, with the clone tool set at various transparencies, worked at nuancing the edges of the imported image, bringing background colour in and Frodo's colours out, painting in strands of hair, bringing strands out. Once he was well-integrated into the background, I could see that he still stood out from the painting, his texture too photographic. With a selection tool, I isolated his image and played around some more, further adjusting the colour and lighting, trying different filters to see if another combination would work, but the improvement was minor. Then it occurred to me to take a peek into the effects/filters available in Paint Shop Pro, a program I've only started to work with. Happily, after a lot of trial and error, I tried a texturing effect called "tinfoil". Adjusted, it produced the best semblance of the painting's crackle by far. I applied it, deemed the crackle it produced good, but too harsh. Thin layers of "watercolur-rain" and " watercolur-traditional" blended everything better. With a last, very light layer of "eggshell crackle" over the whole thing, I felt satisfied. Yet, like Brown himself, I still itch to tweak it. Every time I look at it I see room for improvement. With effort, I am forcing myself to let the "final draft" be final.

~*~

Frodo, in Ford Madox Brown's 'The Hayfield' (reduced approximately fifty per cent):

A Fairer Than Most Birth-day

It is my
birth-day.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

True-silver,
the dawn,

light-leaf
shimmering

in the grey,
sky-lake
clouds,

tattered pink
drifting

and giving way
to a brass'd

and
fleeted summer
Sun.

Later,

fog-wisps
yet lying

chill
in dips and

hollows,

my feet find
the narrow

curve
of the road,

its face dark with
the wet cling

of frost,

crystal dew-gems,
(like a drift of autumn snow-arrows)
lying upon lace-puzzle spider webs.

I shall walk
very far

this day;

so far, I imagine,

that the stars
shall rise

and sing
within the velvet catch-bowl
of the sky

before ever
I turn towards

Home.

The night air
will be sweet and heavy
with Harvest,

the wind warm
with the slightest

salt of the Sea,

the sharpness of it
like a secret

unfolding in
the midnight

strike of a clock.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

At the last, I stand
upon the crown of

the Hill,

the jewel'd finery of night
winking and

captured above me,

the soft amber-gold
of tallow-fat candles

beckoning below....

Like a friendly hand upon
a wanderer's strayed arm,

these kindly lights,

like Spring days and Summer nights,
like safe-within-Winter.

And I turn to Home,
my feet finding the familiar way,

road-dust rising fine
and autumn-leaf scented
about me,

smooth-limbed trees
unmoving

beneath my touch,
.
yellow-yolked Moon
pulling

sleep-cloaked song
from hidden thistle-birds.

The round door closes behind me,
hinges

lightly heralding the season's change.

I smile and touch it,

as if it were a beloved face
I should not like to forget.

So many things to touch,

to love,
to remember,

on this,
my birth-day.

September 22, 1420, S.R.**

____________________________

**this extraordinary year, in which the devastated Shire was renewed, was called "The Great Year of Plenty". It was also the last year Frodo celebrated his birthday at Bag End.

Detail of Frodo's side of the painting, slightly reduced:

Frodo's face, detail, from full-size image:

Tables of Links:

~ Frodo Art Travesty LJ entries (entries that present selected manips, which may feature notes on the paintings and manip techniques, as well as essays or poems).

~ Album of all Frodo Art Travesties (a gallery of images only—be sure to enlarge images after opening).

~ All entries featuring jan-u-wine's poems.

~ Mechtild

Goodbye for a couple of weeks....

2009-09-25T19:22:08Z

~*~

"This way to California, hobbitses! Follow Sméagol!"

Early tomorrow my husband and I will be flying to the Bay area to visit our daughter and my sister. I don't expect to have regular Internet access, so I'll say goodbye for now. See you in two weeks!

~ Mechtild

New Frodo Manip: Ferdinand Heilbuth's "The Reader", plus jan-u-wine's 'Heir to the Dreamer'.

2009-09-22T13:15:20Z

~*~

Happy Birthday, Bilbo and Frodo!

Note: This is the second of this year's two birthday posts. For Jan's birthday poem from Primula's pov, click HERE.

I have long wanted to post jan-u-wine's Heir to the Dreamer, a poem in which Bilbo reaches his decision to adopt the younger Baggins. I know I keep saying, "this is one of my favourites", but this is one of my favourites. What better way to celebrate their birthdays than with a poem, one that holds up facets of both these beloved characters so beautifully?

There are no film scenes of Frodo as a child, and I've already presented all the early FotR scenes set in the Shire. Consequently, for the purposes of illustrating this poem, I felt compelled to make a new Frodo manip. My file of Frodo Art Travesty "possibles" has got very small, but there was one piece I thought might do. Although the picture was painted in the middle of the nineteenth century, it recalls art from an earlier era. It reminds me of Frodo manips I've already made from portraits of young men with books, such as those by Bronzino, Lotto and Metsu, but these were painted in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Heilbuth's chiaroscuro and rich but judicious use of colour give the painting a more venerable heritage, one worthy of film-Frodo's classic looks. I think the resulting image complements jan-u-wine's poem well.

~*~

The source painting:

I could not find that much about the painter, Ferdinand Heilbuth. He was born in Hamburg in 1826, where he lived until he left his studies to become a Rabbi and travelled to Dusseldorf, Rome and Paris with one of France’s most important artists, Gleyre. He stayed in France, becoming a citizen in 1876. He died in 1889.

His exhibited at the Royal Academy in London twice, and at the Grosvenor Gallery many times. He was voted and decorated into the Legion of Honor. Vincent Van Gogh admired his ability and wanted to join Heilbuth and another artist friend, Anthon Van Rappard, in Paris to paint together. (It isn't clear that this ever happened.) The few short entries I found said that Heilbuth was admired for his expressiveness and use of colour, and that he excelled as a portrait painter. He certainly knew how to paint Frodo!

The Reader, 1856, by Ferdinand Heilbuth:

The face:

The other element for the manip is, of course, film-Frodo's face. After a good deal of experimentation I chose the screencap below, which comes from the scene in Bree in FotR:

The Final Manip:

Below are two sizes of the manip, since people's computer screens are so varied in size. I really love the way it turned out. The colours and rendering and mood of the original painting are superb, but changing the faces dramatically changes the painting. In the original piece, a sweet-faced young man is pleasantly absorbed in what looks like interesting reading. Frodo is absorbed, but it's not clear if he's absorbed in what he's reading or merely staring at the page, thinking of something else. Perhaps it's the passage he just read, but maybe his thoughts have been prompted by the smell of leaves drifting in or the sound of a change in the wind.

As for me, I suppose as a film-fan, knowledge of the scene from which the face comes strongly influences the way I view the manip. Because I know that Frodo, in that moment, has just learned that Gandalf has not arrived in Bree, I can't help the roil of emotions Frodo is experiencing from crossing over into my impression of the final image. Other viewers will see other things. But I love how Frodo's face in the painting evokes so many possibilities.

Original size:

Enlarged:

Cropped, enlarged:

Heir to the Dreamer

~ by jan-u-wine

It cannot be nine years they are gone.

It cannot be the lad grows,
yet
grows no better.

It was Yule
when last I chanced
to see him,

Yule,
and the great Hall filled
with warmth and light...

chock-a-block
with feasting
and couples a-courting
in sweet-shadowed corners.

Bright brown brew,
and fresh-pressed cider,
mulled spicy-hot
from cook's vast black kettle,
wended pleasant down many
a throat.

I admit,

I had sampled more than a pint
or two
of honey-tipped ale
when I spied him.

If laughter were a Sea,
it were a Sea broken
and ended
by the silence of that shore.

I could not help but see
the quiet of my cousin's eyes,
mirrored in his own,
nor the grace
that bespoke the 'faerie wife'
in that odd-slender form.

It was that night I gave him his father's pipe.

From the hollowed tusk of a mighty
oliphaunt,
it was,
bound in Elven-flowered silver

And the lad took it,
and became more quiet, still.

A nail-bitten thumb
followed the curve of the stem,

touched the bowl as if to tamp down
what was there only in imagination.

He turned from me then,
looked past diamond windows,
blazened with warmth and light,
to that which lay beyond.

The River.

Silenced by winter's breath, it was,
grey and stone-still,
cold as…….

This will not do.

No, this assuredly will not do.

He will not know another winter here,
I promise myself,

he will not know another season of despair.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Spring 1389.

Beyond the window of my study,
old Hamfast and his youngest,
(too small as yet to work the garden,
but not to be denied)
turn soil beneath the cloud-milked Sun.

The boy's feet carry him, in their excitement,
to my door.

A small hand enfolds two grey spheres,
round as marbles,
delicate-veined and shining against dirt-smeared fist.

He is not so old yet as to know what these might be,
but his eyes, green as old-willow bark,
round with wonder
as the creatures unfold upon his palm.

This lad.

And the other.

They have decided me.

In the fall of this year,
when the harvest is called home
(and before ever the river falls to chill'd sleep)

I shall call Home a harvest of a different sort….

a harvest of youth-awkward limbs and lonely heart,
a harvest of sea-dreams and eyes bemused by stars….

He shall be my heir,
this Elf-strange lad who shares the day of my birth.

And I will teach him what he must needs know:

which crop is sown in spring,
and which must wait for summer's heat…

what river feeds which farmer's land….

the proper tang of proper leaf…..
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~

The gold nib of my pen meets parchment,
twines words of salutation to those of invitation.

He will come, I know it.

He will come,
and live beneath the green of the Hill,
and dream of the moon-silvered Sea
in the room that was his father's.

He will come.

I have decided.

~ First 2009 Birthday post: "Birth Day" by jan-u-wine, with detail from Bouguereau's 'The Young Gypsies'.

Other Tables of Links:

~ Frodo Art Travesty LJ entries (entries that present selected manips, which may feature notes on the paintings and manip techniques, as well as essays or poems).

~ Album of all Frodo Art Travesties (a gallery of images only—be sure to enlarge images after opening).

~ All entries featuring jan-u-wine's poems.

~ Mechtild

Happy Birthday, Frodo: 'Birth Day', a poem by jan-u-wine.

2009-09-22T03:38:21Z

~*~

This year I have two splendid poems by jan-u-wine to celebrate September 22. On this, the Eve of the Birthday, I am posting a poem she wrote from the point of view of Primula Baggins, newly the mother of little Frodo. It is simply exquisite. (Tomorrow, on the day itself, I will post another gorgeous poem, written from the point of view of Bilbo.)

To illustrate this poem, I have used a detail from William-Adolphe Bouguereau's "The Young Gypsies" (painted 1879). I think it makes an evocative picture of Frodo and his mother, the young woman's face so lovely but melancholy, as if she already intuits what's ahead for her son, the child rosy-cheeked and cherubic, yet gazing directly at the viewer as if an older child were looking out of those eyes -- observant, self-possessed, wise beyond his years and, as yet, fearing nothing.

Birth Day

It rained that day:

Sweet,
gentle grey
misted soft
outside the Great Hall.

I remember.

I walked by the river,
while the clouds
ran,
skirring,
tumbling black
against the sky.

You stirred within me.

Even then, we loved
the depthless
green
shadow of the water's face,
even then, loved
the silvery willow's
bent
arms at rest
upon her brow.

Even then,
before you knew the light,
The Light
knew
you.

It danced
and played
upon the hills
that day….

it wove bands
of blue
and green
and soft-spun red
through the sky.

I suppose you must
have wanted
to touch
those pretty things,
for you turned again,
there,
in the dark inside me,

turned,

as one who longs for home,
and yet must leave it behind…

turned, and struggled
in the warm dark.

It was night,
deep,
black-drowned
night
when I held you
at last.

My child.

My son.

Yes,
I count
your fingers
and touch
each toe
in turn.

There are ten

and

ten.

The soft crown
of your head,
wisp'd by wet
darkness,
smells
of warmth
and spiced sweetness,
your ears
lie like delicate leaves
against the pink-and-white
of your face.

My thumb
traces
the bow of your brow:

even then,
it was serious,
even then,
raised questioningly
above bright, birth-blinded eyes.

The small, swift song
of your heart
beats
against my hand.

I must laugh
at the sweet roundness
of your belly,
at the soft
rose of your mouth
opening in protested hunger….

I must cry with my love for you.

I sit by the eastern window
and cradle you to my breast.

How many stars there are tonight,
my son.

How bright they are,
all entwined,
lying upon the blessed bridge
of the sky.

Somehow,
I know that you
will love them,
as I do.

With the moon
glancing,
sharp
through the window's
casement,
I sing you a song
of Eärendil.

He was a sailor of a far-off Sea,
my son,

a mariner,
whose bark now voyages
within azurite night
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You sleep,
safe
within
the circle of my arms.

I am glad you are here,
at last,

at last,

my little one.

~ Second 2009 Birthday post: jan-u-wine's "Heir to the Dreamer" plus new Frodo manip.

Other Links :
Mechtild's LJ entries featuring poems by jan-u-wine HERE.

All of jan-u-wine's Middle-earth poetry, featured at LOTR Scrapbook, HERE.

This darkness will not endure: The Houses of Healing Pt. 2, plus new poem by jan-u-wine.

2009-09-08T01:10:11Z

~*~

This is another beautiful EE scene. The way it's filmed, lit, scored, acted, it's gorgeous. Best of all for me, the scene restores the character of Faramir. It makes it seem as though the anti-Faramir, anti-Tolkien things he was made to do in TTT and earlier in RotK were just a dream -- or as if he'd been on drugs before -- or gone off the meds he was supposed to be taking. Here Tolkien's Faramir returns: strong and steady and utterly dependable, plain-spoken yet poetic, contemplative and tender. Here with Éowyn, in this short scene, is depicted the bright spirit, depth of perception, beauty of character and core decency that explains why, in the book, Faramir is so admired, loved and respected. This one little scene is enough to make Éowyn's shift in affections from Aragorn to Faramir convincing. And all because David Wenham was permitted at last to let book Faramir shine.

For this entry, Faramir's voice is added to Éowyn's in the conclusion of Jan-u-wine's two-part piece. See for yourself how beautifully their words and the film's images inter-relate.

Note: the sets of screencaps are separated by blocks of text. The first images come from the end of the scene in which Éowyn is healed, the remainder show Faramir and Éowyn on the terrace in a subsequent EE scene.

~*~

Book scene: The Steward and the King.

The Lord Faramir was walking alone in the garden of the Houses of Healing, and the sunlight warmed him, and he felt life run new in his veins; but his heart was heavy, and he looked out over the walls eastward. And coming, the Warden spoke his name, and he turned and saw the Lady Éowyn of Rohan; and he was moved with pity, for he saw that she was hurt, and his clear sight perceived her sorrow and unrest.

'My lord', said the Warden, 'here is the Lady Éowyn of Rohan. She rode with the king and was sorely hurt, and dwells now in my keeping. But she is not content, and she wishes to speak to the Steward of the City.'

'Do not misunderstand him, lord,' said Éowyn. 'It is not lack of care that grieves me. No houses could be fairer, for those who desire to be healed. But I cannot lie in sloth, idle, caged. I looked for death in battle. But I have not died, and battle still goes on.'

At a sign from Faramir, the Warden bowed and departed. 'What would you have me do, lady?' said Faramir. 'I also am a prisoner of the healers.' He looked at her, and being a man whom pity deeply stirred, it seemed to him that her loveliness amid her grief would pierce his heart. And she looked at him and saw the grave tenderness in his eyes, and yet knew, for she was bred among men of war, that here was one whom no Rider of the Mark would outmatch in battle.

'What do you wish?' he said again. 'If it lies in my power, I will do it.'

'I would have you command this Warden, and bid him let me go,' she said; but though her words were still proud, her heart faltered, and for the first time she doubted herself. She guessed that this tall man, both stern and gentle, might think her merely wayward, like a child that has not the firmness of mind to go on with a dull task to the end.

'I myself am in the Warden's keeping,' answered Faramir. 'Nor have I yet taken up my authority in the City. But had I done so I should still listen to his counsel, and should not cross his will in matters of his craft, unless in some great need.'

'But I do not desire healing,' she said. 'I wish to ride to war like my brother Éomer, or better like Théoden the king, for he died and has both honour and peace.'

'It is too late, lady, to follow the Captains, even if you had the strength,' said Faramir. 'But death in battle may come to us all yet, willing or unwilling. You will be better prepared to face it in your own manner, if while there is still time you do as the Healer commanded. You and I, we must endure with patience the hours of waiting.'

She did not answer, but as he looked at her it seemed to him that something in her softened, as though a bitter frost were yielding at the first faint presage of Spring.
Éowyn says she can't bear to stay longer abed, especially with no window looking east. Faramir, pitying her, promises to amend her view and invites her to spend time in the gardens where they might walk and look east together, "where all our hopes have gone". It would ease his care.
'How should I ease your care, my lord?' she said....

'Would you have my plain answer?' he said.

'I would.'

'Then, Éowyn of Rohan, I say to you that you are beautiful. In the valleys of our hills there are flowers fair and bright, and maidens fairer still; but neither flower nor lady have I seen till now in Gondor so lovely, and so sorrowful. It may be that only a few days are left ere darkness falls upon our world, and when it comes I hope to face it steadily; but it would ease my heart, if while the Sun yet shines, I could see you still. For you and I have both passed under the wings of the Shadow, and the same hand drew us back.'

'Alas, not me, lord!' she said. 'Shadow lies on me still. Look not to me for healing! I am a shieldmaiden and my hand is ungentle. But I thank you for this at least, that I need not keep to my chamber. I will walk abroad by the grace of the Steward of the City.' And she did him a courtesy and walked back to the house. But Faramir for a long while walked alone in the garden, and his glance now strayed rather to the house than to the eastward walls.

When he returned to his chamber he called for the Warden, and heard all that he could tell of the Lady of Rohan.

'But I doubt not, lord,' said the Warden, 'that you would learn more from the Halfling that is with us; for he was in the riding of the king, and with the Lady at the end, they say.'

And so Merry was sent to Faramir, and while that day lasted they talked long together, and Faramir learned much, more even than Merry put into words; and he thought that he understood now something of the grief and unrest of Éowyn of Rohan. And in the fair evening Faramir and Merry walked in the garden, but she did not come.

~*~

Transitional film scene following Éowyn's healing:

Book Scene, cont'd:

And so the fifth day came since the Lady Éowyn went first to Faramir; and they stood now together once more upon the walls of the City and looked out. No tidings had yet come, and all hearts were darkened. The weather, too, was bright no longer. It was cold. A wind that had sprung up in the night was blowing now keenly from the North, and it was rising; but the lands about looked grey and drear.
Faramir has wrapped the dark blue mantle of his mother, Finduilas of Amroth, about Éowyn to keep her warm. She shivers nonetheless, looking north.
'What do you look for, Éowyn?' said Faramir.

'Does not the Black Gate lie yonder?' said she. 'And must he not now be come thither? It is seven days since he rode away.'

'Seven days,' said Faramir. 'But think not ill of me, if I say to you: they have brought me both joy and pain that I never thought to know. Joy to see you; but pain, because now the fear and doubt of this evil time are grown dark indeed. Éowyn, I would not have this world end now, or lose so soon what I have found.'

'Lose what you have found, lord?' she answered; but she looked at him gravely and her eyes were kind. 'I know not what in these days you have found that you could lose. But come, my friend, let us not speak of it! Let us not speak at all! I stand upon some dreadful brink, and it is utterly dark in the abyss before my feet, but whether there is any light behind me I cannot tell. For I cannot turn yet. I wait for some stroke of doom.'

'Yes, we wait for the stroke of doom,' said Faramir. And they said no more; and it seemed to them as they stood upon the wall that the wind died, and the light failed, and the Sun was bleared, and all sounds in the City or in the lands about were hushed: neither wind, nor voice, nor bird-call, nor rustle of leaf, nor their own breath could be heard; the very beating of their hearts was stilled. Time halted.

And as they stood so, their hands met and clasped, though they did not know it. And still they waited for they knew not what. Then presently it seemed to them that above the ridges of the distant mountains another vast mountain of darkness rose, towering up like a wave that should engulf the world, and about it lightnings flickered; and then a tremor ran through the earth, and they felt the walls of the City quiver. A sound like a sigh went up from all the lands about them; and their hearts beat suddenly again.

'It reminds me of Númenor,' said Faramir, and wondered to hear himself speak.

'Of Númenor?' said Éowyn.

'Yes,' said Faramir, 'of the land of Westernesse that foundered, and of the great dark wave climbing over the green lands and above the hills, and coming on, darkness unescapable. I often dream of it.'

'Then you think that the Darkness is coming? ' said Éowyn. 'Darkness Unescapable?' And suddenly she drew close to him.

'No,' said Faramir, looking into her face. 'It was but a picture in the mind. I do not know what is happening. The reason of my waking mind tells me that great evil has befallen and we stand at the end of days. But my heart says nay; and all my limbs are light, and a hope and joy are come to me that no reason can deny. Éowyn, Éowyn, White Lady of Rohan, in this hour I do not believe that any darkness will endure!' And he stooped and kissed her brow.

And so they stood on the walls of the City of Gondor, and a great wind rose and blew, and their hair, raven and golden, streamed out, mingling in the air. And the Shadow departed, and the Sun was unveiled, and light leaped forth; and the waters of Anduin shone like silver, and in all the houses of the City men sang for the joy that welled up in their hearts from what source they could not tell.

~*~

Film scene:

High up in a courtyard of Minas Tirith, Éowyn looks east.

Éowyn: The city has fallen silent. There is no warmth left in the sun. It grows so cold.

Faramir: It’s just the damp of the first spring rain. I do not believe this darkness will endure.

Faramir takes her hand and she rests her head upon his shoulder.

The Houses of Healing

2

Eowyn:

Grey is the dawn this day,

grey the tattered cloud-heads
pressed

like an ancient,

angered sea
against mountain-scarred

eastern sky.

That is where

he
has gone.

That is where our hope....

*my* hope,
has departed.

As grey as the day,

quiet and sorrowful
as the distant veil

of fog-shroud,

a morning dove
keens.

This

mourning,
I fear,

shall not pass.

At last,
I know,

I
know

what it is
that has beat

like a heart
within me

all my maiden's years:

*not* a warrior-song,
not

the rejoicing at the sweet music
of a blade,

passing
through light air
or

marrow'd body,

or the swift pound
of unshod hooves,

tinctured red
from that upon which

they have trod.

Oh,

small
and

silenced
heart.

A maid-child's
heart,

dreaming ever
upon death,

quiet'd ever
by the constancy

of despair.

These are all I know.

These are my

kin,

my dwelling,

my
beloved.

These,
the cage of
unreason'd pride,

the winter-thorn'd
home

of a heart
overthrown,

at the last,
by fearsome
Shadow.

To the East,
it waits,

wraith-fingers
stopping the breath

of all who
must

march beneath it....

into it.

I desire naught
but to flee from it.....

I desire
naught

but to flee
to it.

At last,

then,
I should know

peace:

a shield-maiden
ending

in the way
of all warriors,

unremarked
and

gladdened
to find rest

beneath the
bloodied Sun.

To the East,
my hope has gone.

To the East
stays

the only healing I might

desire.
______________________________________________

Faramir:

My father should have called it
folly

to dream upon the Moon,

to await,
with sweet

unspent breath,
the dawning Sun.

Of no consequence
the leaden

clouds
which veil Her.

Of small matter,
the crow-wing,
shadow'd East.

Spring,
hidden beneath Winter's
guise,

has come
to The City.

And my heart grows
quiet

with the gentle beauty of her,
the soft,

spreading
light of moon upon snow-fall

pale-painting her brow,

the depthless enfoldment
of the unending Sea

mirror'd in solemn eyes.

Like unto that enfoldment,
I cloak her in a queen's
garb.

The gold of her hair

rides
upon the back

of the rain-wind.

A hand,
fearless til now,

rests,
like a fright'd bird,

within the cage of mine.

Oh, secret Lady.

Lady of sorrow.

Does not your heart

speak
to you,

White Lady?

Does it not
whisper

and
warm you

with joy
unlooked for,

with hope
remade?

My Lady:

in this moment,
you are no warrior,

sworn to sword
and deeds

and death.

You are a maid.

You are
beloved.

Oh, Lady,

White Lady,
put away your warrior's helm.

Stay.

Within the circle of my city,

within
the circle

of my arms,

stay.

Previous entry:

~ Houses of Healing 1: 'The Hands of a Healer', plus new poem by jan-u-wine.

Other Links:

~ Entries with jan-u-wine's poems.

~ Main table for all entries

~ Mechtild

The Hands of a Healer: Houses of Healing Pt. 1, plus new poem by jan-u-wine.

2009-09-05T21:44:51Z

~*~

The Houses of Healing scenes are some of my favourites in ROTK, in fact, in the trilogy. They aren't the book scenes, which are some of Tolkien's best, but they're beautifully done. Almost no dialogue is used, yet they convey the sense and feel of Tolkien's scenes powerfully, with a superb sense of mood, thanks to perfectly conceived shots, judicious editing, good acting and a gorgeously evocative score.

Making the caps for this scene, I realised that even though it never made it into the dialogue that "the hands of the king are the hands of a healer", it is stamped into the scene visually. Aragorn's face is seen mostly in glimpses, but his hands are the stars of the scene. The gleaming hands, stark against the dark background, perform their tasks with eloquent simplicity: a bruised, wounded arm is thoughtfully held and turned. A hand rises, a cloth squeezed, water falls like nectar. A brow is wiped, a face cupped and touched as if the hurts under flesh and bone could be drawn from it, soothed from it, and, lo, a breast rises and falls and the eyes of the injured open and rise like birds to the face of the healer. And all the while the music also rises and falls, clear and cool and translucent as water. So simple, so powerful, so well-done.

Happily, jan-u-wine has written a multi-voiced, two-part poem for the Houses of Healing scenes. In them, Jan displays her gifts for enlarging and deepening a scene, bringing the reader within whispering distance from the characters with words, the way a camera brings viewers near with close-ups.

~*~

Book scene: The Houses of Healing.

So at last Faramir and Éowyn and Meriadoc were laid in beds in the Houses of Healing; and there they were tended well. (...) But now their art and knowledge were baffled; for there were many sick of a malady that would not be healed; and they called it the Black Shadow, for it came from the Nazgûl. And those who were stricken with it fell slowly into an ever deeper dream, and then passed to silence and a deadly cold, and so died. And it seemed to the tenders of the sick that on the Halfling and on the Lady of Rohan this malady lay heavily. Still at whiles as the morning wore away they would speak, murmuring in their dreams and the watchers listened to all that they said, hoping perhaps to learn something that would help them to understand their hurts. But soon they began to fall down into the darkness, and as the sun turned west a grey shadow crept over their faces. But Faramir burned with a fever that would not abate.

Gandalf went from one to the other full of care, and he was told all that the watchers could hear. And so the day passed, while the great battle outside went on with shifting hopes and strange tidings; and still Gandalf waited and watched and did not go forth; till at last the red sunset filled all the sky, and the light through the windows fell on the grey faces of the sick. Then it seemed to those who stood by that in the glow the faces flushed softly as with health returning, but it was only a mockery of hope.

Than an old wife, Ioreth, the eldest of the women who served that house, looking on the fair face of Faramir, wept, for all the people loved him. And she said: 'Alas! if he should die. Would that there were kings in Gondor, as there were once upon a time, they say! For it is said in old lore: The hands of the king are the hands of a healer. And so the rightful king could ever be known.'

And Gandalf, who stood by, said: 'Men may long remember your words, Ioreth! For there is hope in them. Maybe a king has indeed returned to Gondor....'
Aragorn sends Éomer and Imrahil into the Citadel to ask the Steward permission to come into the City. They learn that Denethor is dead and Faramir dying. Aragorn, cloaked, then enters. Gandalf urges him to come to tend the sick that lie in the Houses of Healing. At the door he sees Pippin, a guard of the Citadel now. Pippin still greets him as "Strider". Inside Aragorn calls for athelas. A few dried leaves are found and he breathes on them, crushes them, and "living freshness" fills the room. He then casts them into bowls of steaming water. Faramir wakes and asks what the king commands. "King!" Ioreth exclaims. "What did I say? The hands of a healer, I said." News of the king returned runs through the City.
But Aragorn came to Éowyn, and he said: 'Here there is a grievous hurt and a heavy blow. The arm that was broken has been tended with due skill, and it will mend in time, if she has the strength to live. It is the shield-arm that is maimed; but the chief evil comes through the sword-arm. In that there now seems no life, although it is unbroken.

'Alas! For she was pitted against a foe beyond the strength of her mind or body.'

Aragorn speaks with Gandalf and Éomer of Éowyn's beauty and valour, unhappy lot and hard fate. He reveals he has perceived her feelings for him.
'Few other griefs amid the ill chances of this world have more bitterness and shame for a man's heart than to behold the love of a lady so fair and brave that cannot be returned.... And yet, Éomer, I say to you that she loves you more truly than me; for you she loves and knows; but in me she loves only a shadow and a thought: a hope of glory and great deeds, and lands far from the fields of Rohan.

'I have, maybe, the power to heal her body, and to recall her from the dark valley. But to what she will awake: hope, or forgetfulness, or despair, I do not know. And if to despair, then she will die, unless other healing comes which I cannot bring. Alas! for her deeds have set her among the queens of great renown.'

Then Aragorn stooped and looked in her face, and it was indeed white as a lily, cold as frost, and hard as graven stone. But he bent and kissed her on the brow, and called her softly, saying:

'Éowyn Éomund's daughter, awake! For your enemy has passed away!'

She did not stir, but now she began to breathe deeply, so that her breast rose and fell beneath the white linen of the sheet. Once more Aragorn bruised two leaves of athelas and cast them into steaming water; and he laved her brow with it, and her right arm lying cold and nerveless on the coverlet.

Then, whether Aragorn had indeed some forgotten power of Westernesse, or whether it was but his words of the Lady Éowyn that wrought on them, as the sweet influence of the herb stole about the chamber it seemed to those who stood by that a keen wind blew through the window, and it bore no scent, but was an air wholly fresh and clean and young, as if it had not before been breathed by any living thing and came new-made from snowy mountains high beneath a dome of stars, or from shores of silver far away washed by seas of foam.

'Awake, Éowyn, Lady of Rohan!' said Aragorn again, and he took her right hand in his and felt it warm with life returning. 'Awake! The shadow is gone and all darkness is washed clean!' Then he laid her hand in Éomer's and stepped away. 'Call her!' he said, and he passed silently from the chamber.

The Houses of Healing

1

Ioreth:

The hands of the king
are
the hands

of the healer......

Much in need are we
of healing,

king-handed or no.

And this maid,
this bright-haired

child
of horse-masters,

in need most of all.

Like unto the perian,
her wounding,

the breaking of her limbs
naught

to the breaking
of that which is within.

In night they wander.

Only the hands
of a king

might
reclaim them.

Only the hands of a healer
may

bring them

back
to us.
__________________________

Éomer:

Did I not speak to you,
sister,

did I not say
war

does not abide
women?

Before me
stays

the grievous
proof.

In sorrowful
twilight

did I find you,

the golden curtain
of your hair

secreted no longer
beneath a soldier's

helm*,

the fair shield of it
flowing,

like bright water,
upon the still'd breast

of the fallen.

It was a great deed,
my sister,

a deed

no man
should have accomplished.

A brave deed,

as noble
and shining

and worthy

of remembrance
as any done

beneath bright sun
or cloud-caged moon.

But....
oh, my sister,

*still*
you are

before me,

breath
dim'd mist upon a mirror's

silver'd face,
the small curve of your

hand
growing cold

within my own.

In lands I cannot see,
lands

beyond night,

you wander.

Beneath the weight
of this darkness

I fear you shall,

at last,

fall.

Tell me.

Tell me

what purpose shall I have, then,
sister,

what road might I ride

if you,
too,

depart away?

Stay.

O my sister,
fair maid of Rohan,

soldier of heart and helm,

stay.
_______________________

Aragorn:

Many years have I seen,
tethered by time's hard wheel,

many the battle,
endured,

caught by hot yellow sun
or moon made

red

with blood.

No deed has held my heart
*thus*,

no fair act,

wrought by fairer hand,

brought me such
knowing grief.

Born of grief,
this deed,

despair
over-throwing a heart

burdened beyond
bearing.

But not beyond recall.

What lies within a warrior's heart,

these
things I know.

That which lives within
*this*

brave heart,
the misplaced love

of proud maid,

this,
too,

I know.

The pledge
of her desire,

I cannot give
her.

Only the quiet
sweep

of her life,
the beat of blood

within veins,
the sweet in-and-out

of breath
might I restore.

This deed,
fair maid,

the soldier
that I am,

the King
I shall be,

promises.

Return
to those

of whom
you are

beloved.

Return to find the world
renewed.

___________________

*the name Éowyn took as a Rider of Rohan, Dernhelm, means "helmet of secrecy" (The Thain's Book)

Next entry:

~ Houses of Healing 2: 'This darkness will not endure', plus new poem by jan-u-wine.

Other links:

~ Entries with jan-u-wine's poems.

~ Main table for all entries

~ Mechtild

I heard the news....

2009-08-09T00:00:03Z

Julchen, I'll be sending you a note via snail mail.

~ Mechtild

"Frodo of the Shire": poem by jan-u-wine, painting by Taerie.

2009-07-20T12:16:44Z

~*~

~ Detail from Taerie's "Frodo of the Shire".

Jan-u-wine wrote a poem a few months ago that I knew I wanted to present, but it did not go with the screencaps I was then doing. It had to wait, but no more. Jan-u-wine's poem is an ode to this beloved character, an appreciation both perceptive and beautiful. It came to Jan when she was browsing my LJ for Frodo images. She came across a work by taerie, a gifted LotR fan artist I met on the K-D messageboard.

Taerie's Frodo of the Shire is my favourite film-based Frodo illustration. I had seen a snip of it in Taerie's LJ icon at the time. I was so intrigued I asked to see the whole image. She told me it was posted at Elfwood, a sci-fi/fantasy fan art site, and sent me a link. I opened it. I was in love. I gushed over the piece so much, Taerie actually let me have it. It now hangs in an oak frame in my home.

Frodo is still a youth in Taerie's painting; not a little boy in Buckland, but an older lad living with Bilbo. But it is before the Ring, before the Quest, before Mt. Doom. He is seated against a tree amid carefully chosen plants and objects, all as faithfully and lovingly rendered as Frodo himself.

Where it's posted at Elfwood, Taerie noted this about a wild flower in the painting:

The plant behind [Frodo] is Yarrow. This grows wild in the English countryside, and I learned that its Irish Gaelic name is Athair thalun. This is so similar to [Athelas] (also known as Kingsfoil, and the plant Aragorn used to heal Frodo), that I wonder if it is the inspiration for it. On top of that, it has not only been used to treat wounds but also exactly as Aragorn used it, broken in hot water for its aroma.
Now that's attention to detail.

Taerie's Frodo of the Shire (actual size: 11 x 14, opaque watercolour on clayboard):

Sitting among these lovely details, Frodo seems to be have been musing, thinking. He's long since closed the book: a frog has come to sit upon it. The apple, one bite missing, appears to be forgotten. But he looks up and meets the eyes of the viewer, his gaze relaxed but penetrating, as if he is looking at someone he knows. Perhaps he is about to ask them to sit, or maybe he will get up, brush off his trousers, and head deeper into the woods.

Each person will imagine her own scenario (or scenarios), and each person will have her own idea as to the identity of the viewer. That is a mark of good art: it leaves room for the beholder's imagination. But when I look at this painting, the viewer is me. It is as if I had walked into the scene myself, crossing worlds, coming to this spot as if I had known it all my life. That's how real Tolkien's world is for me, or can be, when an artist helps me enter it more deeply through her work. And just as Taerie's painting lets me get closer to Frodo and his world through her visual art, jan-u-wine's poem brings me nearer through her literary art. I thank them both for sharing their considerable gifts.

Speaking of thanks, many of you thanked me for the Frodo screencap series. Think of this as a thank you to Frodo, without whom none of it would have come to be.

~*~

Larger detail:

</a>

Frodo of the Shire

~ jan-u-wine

Frodo of the Shire.

Oh,

the smallness of those words,
just the four them,

sombre-ink'd and solitary

upon the snow
of the page.

He is within them,
you know.

All
that he

was,

all that he
is,

all that ever he might be,
captured,

distilled,
radiant.

And we see him,

*there*,
within the frame of those

plain words,

the young Master
Under-the-Hill,

the round of his face
burdened

with naught more than the
rich blush of a harvest Sun,

sweet-toned laughter
rising

to meet a lemon-rind Moon,

word-eager eyes
drinking a scholar's Elvish wine.

We see him,
*thus*,

upon a road
where night

finds no

ending
in pale-rose day,

where the candle-breath
of hope

flickers
and is extinguished

by despair's hard hand,

where mere death
should be

a kindness
beyond

measure.

We see him,

ever, now,

within the mirror
of our dreams,

the simple beauty
catching our hearts

like
the memory of distanc'd
music,

like the tattered silk of fragile
melody,

twining the tapestry of his
story

to ours.

We have but three words in answer to your four,
Frodo of the Shire:

Lye mela lle*.

We love you.

*Sindarin.

Links:

~ Entries with jan-u-wine's poems.

~ Main table for all entries

~ Mechtild

End of the Main Screencaps Project

2009-07-07T14:01:54Z

~*~

As you who looked at last week's Galadriel's Glade post know, Pt. 5 was the last entry in the ongoing Frodo screencapping project I've been working on since 2005. I started out just sharing images I'd made to use for Frodo manips ("Frodo Art Travesties"), but the entries became the impetus for thinking further about the scenes, book and film, and, eventually, showcasing poems by jan-u-wine. It's been informative and has increased my appreciation of both book and film. Thanks again to all of you who have visited over the years of the project.

I still will make screencaps, but just to illustrate Jan's poems or my reflections. I won't be doing any more full-blown scenes. The one exception is the EE scene between Eowyn and Faramir in RotK. I screencapped that a year ago, for the sheer beauty of the scene, but never posted it because the scene didn't feature Frodo. I'll post the caps, hopefully with a new poem by Jan, in the next month or so.

~*~

Addendum:

After I made the Lórien screencaps, I came upon this photoshopped version of Galadriel in the Glade scene on Google. I think it's stunning. Instead of the film's blues, the maker has transformed the image using fire colours. Stars are the backdrop, or perhaps they are sparks, or both. I think it makes a superb illustration of Galadriel's temptation -- as if she's walking through fire -- strong and beautiful and eerie, a sight Frodo really might find terrible and worshipful.

The image I found is connected to i_luv_angst. I'm not registered at i_luv_angst's blog (fanpop), and unregistered people can't comment there. Thus I didn't praise him/her or ask permission to post this. However, I am hoping i_luv_angst, seeing I am lifting up the image for praise, won't mind.

i_luv_angst's Galadriel wallpaper:

~*~

Since this my "End of the Screencaps" post, I thought I'd point newer readers to pages of links I've provided to access all the screencap entries. On each page are more links, titled and provided with thumbnail images to indicate which caps are in the post. Links to these pages are kept in the sidebar, too.

Screencap tables of links:

~ FOTR screencap presentations.

~ TTT screencap presentations.

~ ROTK screencap presentations.

~ Behind-the-scenes and DVD Extras.

~ Other Frodo photos and publicity stills.

~ Flipper screencaps.

~ Ridiculous Thoughts screencaps.

~ Mechtild

Galadriel’s Glade 5 (last part) ~ ‘Even the smallest person’, plus end of jan-u-wine's Lórien Suite.

2009-07-02T16:33:44Z

~*~

Notes: Very long essay ahead, wrapping up the final part of my last Frodo screencap series. I don't plan to do any other large-scale capping projects. I'll still make new caps to illustrate reflections or poems, but the ongoing project I've been working on since 2005 is at an end. I'll post a brief entry providing links for browsing the full collection in the coming days. But feel free to skip the essay and go straight to the caps and poem. As with the previous entry, in addition to my caps there are several spectacular caps by Blossom. Don't miss them. And visit Blossom's gorgeous Frodo website, In Dreams. Also featured is the brilliant conclusion to jan-u-wine's Lórien Suite. It appears below the fullscreen caps.

As was the case with much of the screenplay for the previous post, there is no book equivalent to this scene about being a ring-bearer. Frodo never says he knows what he must do but is afraid to do it, and Galadriel never tells him even the smallest person can change the course of the future. Yet the dialogue sounds the sort of thing they'd say in the book. What's different are a couple of themes that run through the rest of the scene.

First, there is the greatly emphasized element of warning and impending doom. Particular to the film version of Galadriel's Mirror, Galadriel warns Frodo that, because of the Ring, the Fellowship is breaking. "Already it has begun", she says. She speaks pointedly about Boromir: "he will try to take the Ring. You know of whom I speak." Even worse, she says, "one by one, it will destroy them all". This addition not only "ups the ante" generally, it heightens the potential for fear and angst for Frodo in particular, interjecting a sense of personal danger that isn't there in the book. Besides the heightened sense of danger to Frodo from members of the Fellowship, the filmmakers go on to portray Galadriel herself as a danger. She is decidedly hostile to him at the eaves of the wood, bringing him up sharp with her whispered, "Frodo, your coming to us is as the footsteps of doom; you bring great evil here, Ring-bearer". Not the friendliest of welcomes. Little flashes of warmth do occur between them as the Lórien scene progresses, but they are interspersed through exchanges more often sinister in mood. In her "Scary Lady" temptation scene, Galadriel's tone goes beyond vaguely malevolent to monstrous, terrifying, even berserk. Galadriel, and her realm, is very Perilous indeed. (See jan-u-wine's persuasive divergence below.)

Second, in this scene, the filmmakers establish Frodo as radically alone as Ring-bearer. In any great tale or myth, the hero's helpers and mentors are stripped away so that he goes to his final contest alone. This happens in Lord of the Rings. Frodo ends up alone because of unforeseen circumstances (e.g. Gandalf falls in Moria; Aragorn and the rest are scattered by the orc attack--even though Frodo doesn't know about this in the book; Sam is detained by Gollum's attack in Shelob's Lair and before the entrance to the Sammath Naur), but also because of active evil.

At Amon Hen, desire for the Ring acts upon Boromir until he tries to take the Ring by force. This assault, combined with his subsequent harrowing experience on the Seat of Seeing, precipitates Frodo's decision to leave the Fellowship and go on alone. Seeing what has happened to Boromir, book Frodo fears the same thing will happen to the rest of the company, some of whom are very dear to him. Alone at the top of Amon Hen, Frodo perceives,

'This at least is plain: the evil of the Ring is already at work even in the Company, and the Ring must leave them before it does more harm. I will go alone. Some I cannot trust, and those I can trust are too dear to me: poor old Sam, and Merry and Pippin. Strider, too: his heart yearns for Minas Tirith, and he will be needed there, now Boromir has fallen into evil. I will go alone. At once.'

In the film's account of what happens at the breaking of the Fellowship (which is different from the book's in most respects), Frodo seems to decide to go it alone in order to save the Ring and thus the mission. That he must get away at once to salvage the Quest is reinforced by Aragorn. The two are suddenly set upon by a swarm of orcs. Aragorn, like Gandalf at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, urges Frodo to run. Frodo has drawn his sword but complies, running until he comes upon Merry and Pippin, who urge him to hide with them. Frodo refuses and goes on, leaving the cousins to create a diversion for the pursuing orcs (the brave lads! it resembles the way they try to stand between Frodo and the wraiths on Weathertop). On the banks of the Anduin Frodo stops, as if again undecided. "I wish the ring had never come to me!" he laments, "I wish none of this had happened!" Gandalf's remembered voice comes back to him, saying, "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide; all you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you." Or, "Just get on with it, dear boy; do now what needs to be done". Frodo's resolve stiffens: the Quest comes first: he tucks the Ring away, marches down to the river, leaps into a boat and pushes off.

Book Frodo performs similar outward actions: he, too, is assaulted by Boromir, has a harrowing (but different) experience at the top of Amon Hen, and, resolving to go alone to Mordor, leaps into a boat and pushes off into the Anduin. But he does it for a different primary reason. He would not have thought going off alone at this point a desirable strategy, still so far from Mordor and Mt. Doom as he was, knowing himself to be inexpert at wilderness survival, and without map or guide. He leaves because he is pressed by a desire to spare his friends bodily harm and spiritual corruption. He chooses the "least-worst" option of going off in secret, leaving them behind (except Sam, of course, who won't be left), because he cannot bear to endanger them further.

However, in the book account, Frodo is not attacked by orcs. He is not even aware the others are under siege. This makes things very different for film Frodo. He goes off alone in the midst of an attack not to spare his friends but in order to accomplish his mission. When Aragorn tells him to run, his command means not only "save yourself", but "save the Quest". If all else is lost, the Ring-bearer must be saved. Even if Frodo has reason to believe that the supremely capable champions of the company will be able to vanquish the party of orcs (Aragorn dispersed five Ringwraiths with a sword and a flaming brand, after all), he knows there's a chance he could be killed and the Ring taken. Apart from the immediate danger, Frodo further believes that one by one his companions will try to take the Ring: Gandalf has suggested it and Galadriel has stated it. If this were to happen the Ring will not be destroyed and the Quest would fail.

Perhaps, since the filmmakers chose not to use Frodo's book motive of sparing his friends, they wrote the scene the way they did in order to make it crystal clear why Frodo still felt compelled to go at once and alone to Mordor. The attack made getting the Ring away from enemy hands seem crucial. But even then, it would have been reasonable for Frodo to lay low and wait to see if any of the company survived, companions who still could help him get closer to his goal. But the fear that the Ring would be taken from him, by these same people--a fear carefully developed in preceding scenes--made his decision to leave alone at once sure. This fear not only precipitated his departure, it ate away at his relationships, amplifying his sense of being inescapably alone.

But Frodo's aloneness in the films has a secondary aspect to it. His isolation is not only the result of fanned paranoia and distrust, it is the result of being the Ring-bearer as such. This aloneness he shares with Galadriel. "To wear a Ring of power is to be alone," she tells him in one of lines peculiar to this scene. Experiencing aloneness, as ring-bearers, is basic to their on-screen connection.

Frodo and Galadriel do share a special connection in the book that is based on wearing and bearing such rings, but it is based more on the unique way of perceiving that results from it, not isolation, especially not paranoid isolation. Book Galadriel notes that Frodo can see Nenya on her hand, whereas Sam cannot. He has a new keenness of sight on account of the Ring. Because he has worn and bears a ring of power, she says, he can perceive her thoughts, "more clearly than many that are accounted wise". (The film scene, I think, means to show this heightened perception by the way they exchange mind-speech, but, since it amounts to saying silently what they would say out loud, and they are alone in the Glade, it seems rather pointless.)

Even before Galadriel puts this aloneness into words, their isolation is established visually. Sam is cut from the scene, and Frodo goes to the Glade alone. The impression given viewers is that Galadriel has summoned Frodo and only Frodo. He is the one to whom she reveals dark things, he is the one with whom she shares private burdens—because they are ring-bearers. And bearing such rings they must ever be on their guard, trusting no one. Alas, persons who can trust no one must always be alone. This idea [that no one can be trusted] is quite a departure from the book's story line, in which Frodo is, from the first, urged to trust and depend on close companions. He is precisely not to try and go it alone. Frodo is alone at the climax in the Sammath Naur, as all mythic heroes must when they meet their arch-adversaries, but not until then.

Film-Frodo shows book sense in the Glade scene when he tells Galadriel, "I can't do this alone". But Galadriel is working for the screenwriters, not Tolkien. "Sorry, but you'll have to," is her response. (She actually says, "you are a ring-bearer, Frodo; to bear a ring of power is to be alone", but it amounts to the same thing.) Her response was probably written to show that Frodo now must gird his loins and be self-reliant. But as Frodo fans know, following this advice—trusting no one but other ring-bearers does not serve Frodo well. With Gandalf apparently dead and Galadriel far away, Frodo ends up trusting Gollum. By cutting himself off and refusing the help and advice of companions he should trust—his judgement increasingly skewed by the Ring—he makes worse and worse decisions. Poor film Frodo, sending Sam home, of all people. This "aloneness" was nearly fatal.

There is a positive effect of psychologically severing Frodo from his friends to establish the bond between Frodo and Galadriel. When he is near to despairing in the Pass of Cirith Ungol and is given a vision of Galadriel, it is extremely powerful. I think it is so powerful because of the scene in the Glade, which makes so much of their mutual, radical aloneness. It sets her up as the person who understands more than any other what Frodo has been going through. Thus her empathy arises out of unique shared experience, as bearers of rings of power. I don't think this benefit outweighs the detriments of the Glade scene, but it is a strength that results from the way the scene was written.

When I sent a draft of this intro. to jan-u-wine, she was moved to say perceptive things on the matter of film Frodo's accentuated aloneness, and film Galadriel's pronounced hostility to Frodo. For those who'd like to read more on the topic, read on.

1. On film Galadriel's hostility: Jan offers the best, most gracious interpretation for what I have always seen as inexplicable hostility to Frodo. Although I don't believe the filmmakers had her interpretation in mind when they wrote the script, this is the way I will view the scene from now on.

I want to talk a little about what you've said about Galadriel and her uh....mood....in the first part. I agree that she seems and feels hostile, and that her words to Frodo before he enters Lorien are spoken to him. However.....I want to add something: I believe that, although it is to Frodo she speaks, her hostility is not directed at him. It is the Ring she fears, both for itself and, I imagine, because she desires it. [It occurs to me that] after her temptation and choice, she does not act like that to him again (we are talking film here). It seems to me that, thereafter, she becomes that wise and kind elf lady that Tolkien described. She is stern, but certainly not hostile. So, perhaps what PJ is saying is that it is the Ring, all along.

I say [below] (quoting the book)...the only ones that need fear Lorien are those who bring some evil with them. ......Of course, Frodo DID bring some evil with him, but not in the sense that Aragorn meant (or else he'd not have been welcomed in the manner he was; had he been perceived as a threat to Lórien by dint of what he bore, Frodo would not have entered, or his entry would have been much different). My feeling is that the Lady had such a fine 'feel' for reading what lay within [the hearts of others] that she would know it was safe to let Frodo, with his burden of evil, enter, for that evil had not stricken his heart, not made HIM evil. The peril, I deem, in this case, was to the Lady herself.

2. On film Frodo's aloneness: Jan lifts up places where this is established, book and film:

I wanted to say (after reading what you have) that, to me, the "alone" thing started long before Lórien. As far back as Prancing Pony (maybe before), there were slender feelers that Frodo really couldn't trust anyone (not even himself). Now, granted, Prancing Pony played the way it ought, with book Aragorn and film Aragorn being presented as a seemingly untrustworthy person (and then proving trustworthy). But in light of latter events, the chink in the armour of Frodo's trust was already made. Even the comment of Frodo to Merry upon the road to Rivendell holds some paranoia (as does Frodo's wary stance in delivering the line): "I think an enemy would look fairer and seem fouler".

I think that Tolkien must have intended for there to be some "chinks"...after all, the story and characters wouldn't have been very interesting without them. But he didn't intend for the Fellowship to be portrayed as it was in the film: as a group of people who really needed leaving.

Then we have Weathertop, where the other hobbits are shown to be incapable of protecting Frodo (and ninnies to boot, as was Aragorn: why would he leave them in such a place, go off long enough for those events to happen? He wasn't just taking a piss, he was gone a LONG time, leaving four people he knew to not be savvy in grave danger. What might Frodo have thought of that? In the book, Strider does not leave them.

And what of Gandalf, NOT showing up at the Prancing Pony (although one admits that being held prisoner is a Very Good Excuse)? And when he falls in Moria, what, then, did Frodo think/feel? Here he is, 'abandoned' by his foremost counsellor, someone who'd promised to help him bear the Ring 'as long as it it is yours to bear'. Worse, film-Frodo doesn't even, apparently, know the way to Mordor — "Which way is it, Gandalf, left or right?" — without Gandalf . (What a disservice, PJ!) (...)

[Back to Lórien]: in the book, when the hobbits are passing into its woods, there is a conversation between Aragorn and Boromir wherein Aragorn says that the only ones that need fear Lórien are those that bring evil with them. Haldir (in the book) never says that Frodo cannot enter, that he brings great evil with him. It is GIMLI he says cannot enter (due to the ancient feud). Frodo is treated with great respect, being invited, with Legolas, to climb up onto the flet. What a contrast to the film scene, where Frodo is plainly told that he is tainted by that which he carries. He's treated as if he is carrying the plague, and should be eradicated before he might infect the world around him. The rest of the Fellowship draws away from him, leaving him with his obviously dark thoughts (grief for Gandalf, and what else ... a growing paranoia?). It does not make sense that Sam, of all people, would leave Frodo alone in such a moment, and the look that we see Sam giving him (reprised in the Mirror scene) is entirely out of character for Sam. Sam, looking at Frodo in an accusatory way? Nonsense. Sam would have been by Frodo's side, and Boromir would never have gotten his two farthings in (film-Boromir's consolation lines to Frodo).

Frodo is also shown apart from the others in the scene where Sam recites his poem about Gandalf. Only Frodo is shown as isolated from the rest. Although he is within ear shot, he is also definitely NOT 'with the Fellowship' in that moment.

~*~

Below the screencaps is jan-u-wine's fifth entry in her poem cycle, Lórien Suite. In this poem she returns to Frodo's point of view and brings the series to a brilliant conclusion.

Film scene:

[Galadriel listens gravely as Frodo continues, who still holds the Ring on his open palm. “I know what I must do,” he tells her, hesitantly.]

Frodo: It's just... I'm afraid to do it.

[Galadriel bends to meet Frodo at eye level.]

Galadriel: Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.

[Frodo closes the Ring in his hand.]

5

My Lady's form

is peaceful
once again,

graven with timeless purity,
limned by blessed grace.

For all the ages she has known
which I have not,

still,
I pity her.

As if we were of one mind,
one

fragile
and resolute heart,

I
understand
her.

Within the hard tide
of the hard world,

she has made her choice,

reclaiming herself
with a gentl'd smile.

In her eyes,
in the echoing

rooms

of her thought,
I see my own choice
made clear:

never could there be
another way,

never another
ending.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Even in this blessed realm,

soft-eyed stars

shining
in the burnt-blue velvet
of night,

I know fear.

Fear of the time that passes
outside autumn-held

borders,

fear of where my own choice,
perforce,

now must lead,

fear of that which
would take those
whom I love

within the folly
of their own

taking.

Inside the prison of
that knowledge,

I feel smaller, still,

as if I were but a single light
in a vast fortress of unending

darkness.

It is, yet
*ever*,
my burden,

my choice

to be that solitary
light.

I am determined:

by small hope
shall Shadow

be undone.

~*~

Supplementary widescreen caps by Blossom:

Previous entry:

~ Galadriel's Glade Pt. 4b - "I know what I must do..." plus jan-u-wine's 'Lórien Suite 4'.

Other Links:

~ Blossom's 'In Dreams': a Frodo website.

~ Entries with jan-u-wine's poems.

~ Main table for all entries

~ Mechtild

Galadriel’s Glade Pt. 4a ~ 'You offer it to me freely'.....

2009-06-24T15:49:26Z

~*~

Note: There were so many caps for this scene I had to divide it into two parts. The first half of this post contains the introductory comments, the book scene, the film text and half the screencaps. The second half, Galadriel's Glade Pt. 4b, contains the rest of the screencaps and the poem jan-u-wine has written inspired by both sections. At the bottom of this half's screencaps is a link to the second part.

In my opinion, Galadriel’s big transformation scene ("In place of a dark lord, you will have a queen") does not do well by Tolkien, nor by the films.

In fact, every time I watch it I wince. Not just because of what it does to Tolkien, but because it reminds me embarrassingly of Disney cartoons. I saw a lot of them while our daughter was growing up, some of them many times. I can't watch Galadriel's transformation without thinking first and foremost of the climax of The Little Mermaid, when Ursula the Sea Witch becomes monstrously enlarged, Ariel gaping up in horror. Ursula swells and soars out of the sea to loom over the little heroine, the wind swirling around them, her voice artifically magnified and lowered in pitch until it booms over the scene like rolls of basso-profundo thunder. The same formula is used in the climactic confrontations in Aladdin and Hercules. (I'm sure there are more.) The prototype probably is the transformation of Maleficent the evil fairy into a huge dragon in the 1959 Sleeping Beauty, recently spoofed by Disney in Enchanted. I concede it was a great moment in film animation, but I don't think I should be thinking of Disney cartoons while watching The Lord of the Rings.

Not everyone is reminded of Disney movies—I'm thinking of popular references to "Nuclear Gladys", or, "when Galadriel goes nuclear"—but many fans think what PJ did is unsatisfactory. Even if they are not grieved by the way the character is distorted by her film treatment, they don't find PJ's Scary Galadriel effective even as cinema. I laughed out loud when I read fellow Tolkien-fan maeglian's recent comment, "I wish they'd found another way than the green floating toilet paper in the lightning storm to visualize Galadriel's temptation". Whatever the filmmakers were going for, surely it wasn't that.

If the scene works for me at all (and it does, barely), it is because of the acting of Elijah Wood. His face, as Frodo, is wonderful as he watches her, his hair streaming back like a figurehead's on the prow of a ship heading into a gale. I've only included a few caps of the precise moment: there's fear, dread, alarm, even grief—in succession and sometimes mixed together—but also awe. I don't know what they told Eljiah Wood he was supposed to be seeing when they filmed his side of the scene, but, from the narrative rightness of his response, I think he must have seen what Tolkien described: a Galadriel become, “tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful”.

It’s too bad for Cate Blanchet, so excellent when allowed to be, to have had her big moment spoiled by PJ’s love of horror movies and tinkering with special effects. She could have conveyed the transformation with just acting—no electrification, no basso-profundo voice. Shore's scoring and the *right* lighting effects could have done the rest. As it is, even Howard Shore’s brilliant efforts cannot lift Galadriel's transformation out of the realm of cheesy fantasy and schlock scary movies. Only Frodo's side of the scene transports the viewer into the Perilous Realm.

~*~

Book scene: The Mirror of Galadriel.

‘You are wise and fearless and fair, Lady Galadriel,’ said Frodo. ‘I will give you the One Ring, if you ask for it. It is too great a matter for me.’

Galadriel laughed with a sudden clear laugh. ‘Wise the Lady Galadriel may be,’ she said, ‘yet here she has met her match in courtesy. Gently are you revenged for my testing of your heart at our first meeting. You begin to see with a keen eye. I do not deny that my heart has greatly desired to ask what you offer. For many long years I had pondered what I might do, should the Great Ring come into my hands, and behold! it was brought within my grasp. The evil that was devised long ago works in many ways, whether Sauron himself stands or falls. Would not that have been a noble deed to set to the credit of the Ring, if I had taken it by force or fear from my guest?

‘And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!’

She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illumined her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.

‘I pass the test,’ she said. ‘I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.’

They stood for a long while in silence. At length the Lady spoke again. ‘Let us return!’ she said. ‘In the morning you must depart, for now we have chosen, and the tides of fate are flowing.’

‘I would ask one thing before we go,’ said Frodo, ‘a thing which I often meant to ask Gandalf in Rivendell. I am permitted to wear the One Ring: why cannot I see all the others and know the thoughts of those that wear them?’

‘You have not tried,’ she said. ‘Only thrice have you set the Ring upon your finger since you knew what you possessed. Do not try! It would destroy you. Did not Gandalf tell you that the rings give power according to the measure of each possessor? Before you could use that power you would need to become far stronger, and to train your will to the domination of others. Yet even so, as Ring-bearer and as one that has borne it on finger and seen that which is hidden, your sight is grown keener. You have perceived my thought more clearly than many that are accounted wise. You saw the Eye of him that holds the Seven and the Nine. And did you not see and recognize the ring upon my finger? Did you see my ring?’ she asked turning again to Sam.

‘No, Lady,’ he answered. ‘To tell the truth, I wondered what you were talking about. I saw a star through your finger. But if you’ll pardon my speaking out, I think my master was right. I wish you’d take his Ring. You’d put things to rights. You’d stop them digging up the gaffer and turning him adrift. [Sam’s thoughts still dwelling on his vision] You’d make some folk pay for their dirty work.’

‘I would,’ she said. ‘That is how it would begin. But it would not stop with that, alas! We will not speak more of it. Let us go!’

~*~

Film scene:

[Galadriel lowers her voice, speaking darkly.]

Galadriel: He will try to take the Ring. You know of whom I speak. One by one it will destroy them all.

[Frodo’s face fills with even greater concern. He answers her telepathically:]

Frodo: If you ask it of me, I will give you the One Ring.

[He lifts his hand and opens his palm, revealing the Ring.]

Galadriel: You offer it to me freely.

[Galadriel moves towards him as she speaks, her hand extended tremulously.]

Galadriel: I do not deny that my heart has greatly desired this….

[As she comes closer, continuing to speak, she becomes transformed into a darkly divinized version of herself, tall and terrible, surrounded by an aura of nearly blinding radiance.]

Galadriel: In place of a dark lord, you will have a queen. Not dark, but beautiful, and terrible as the dawn, treacherous as the Sea, stronger than the foundations of the earth! All shall love me and despair!

[Frodo gazes at her with a mix of awe and fear, but he does not shrink back. As he looks on, Galadriel recovers herself.]

CONTINUED HERE.

Previous entry:
~ Galadriel’s Glade 3: "I know what it is you saw", plus jan-u-wine's 'Lórien Suite 3'.

Other Links:

~ Entries with jan-u-wine's poems.

~ Main table for all entries

~ Mechtild

Galadriel’s Mirror Pt. 4b ~ ‘I know what I must do’, plus Pt. 4 of jan-u-wine's Lórien Suite....

2009-06-24T15:47:33Z

~*~

Here is the second half of the post, which includes more film text with accompanying caps, and the 4th entry in jan-u-wine's Lórien Suite. Written from Galadriel's point of view, it allows the reader deeply and thoughtfully into her experience of the encounter in the Glade.

Also featured are seven screencaps by Blossom. If you don't know her work from her gorgeous Frodo website, In Dreams, Blossom's screencaps are like no others. Each is a jewel, a little work of art. The caps below are from the EE edition of FOTR (in widescreen); mine, as usual, come from the theatrical version in fullscreen format.

~*~

Film scene (theatrical edition):

[Galadriel recovers herself. Softly, as if to herself, she speaks.]

Galadriel: I pass the test. I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.

Frodo: I cannot do this alone.

Galadriel: You are a ring-bearer, Frodo. To bear a ring of power is to be alone.

EE addition (caps by Blossom):

Galadriel: This is Nenya, the Ring of Adamant. And I am its keeper.

Theatrical edition resumes:

Galadriel: This task was appointed to you, and if you do not find a way, no one will.

Frodo: Then I know what I must do.

4

How *should* he go on,

this....
small being from under-hill?

How should
*I* go on,

with the final
night,

like the blooded
feet of winter-wolves,

waiting at my door?

And......
this odd creature,

with the light
growing within him

(ever joined and

*enjoined*
by the dark twin

of desire),

is he to be our
ending hope?

He can not
know

that this
is but a tattered corner

of the tapestry
of this Age-long tale.

He can not know
that his simple

despair
is but a single lace'd wave
upon a storm-riven Sea.

He can not know

what
my own despair

might yet
force upon me.

It is not only
his companions

whose needful
gaze

seeks out
the golden song

of this fell
*thing*.

In all the hours
of the day

(and all the days of the Ages,
before,

even,
there *were* Ages),

I have fought against this Darkness,

watched
as the black tide

of it
retreated

and
returned,

bound myself,
even

to the starless
night

of *his* thoughts
that I might

confuse
the workings

of dread intent.

I am of the Eldar.

The People of the Stars,
we are,

strong in will
and wisdom,

holding
The Great Music

close to heart.

Evil
has no place
with us.

It has no place with
me.

In all the tireless
watches

of endless days,

It has had no place
with me.

Now,

at last,

a question,
an offer,

a *gift*
to leaven

the gathering dark.

Ah,

beautiful beyond all thought
would I be then,

restorer
of all that has faded,

renewer
of kingdoms forgotten,

rebuilder,
even,

of that which sleeps
beneath the wave.

Men would shield
their eyes

before the golden
radiance

of my deeds.

The Netted Jewels
would dim before my Light.

Sundered indeed,
then,

should I be,

and all the world,
withal,

broken about me,

consigned
*by* me

to silence
eternal.

Never
should my ear

hear the Sea-song,

never
should my fugitive eyes

behold the rain-grey'd curtain,

never
should my feet

run with joy
to greet my kin.

I know now,

who I am,

who,
always,

I was meant to be:

Galadriel,
Elf-maid,

servant
to the Undying West.

After all is done,
perhaps yet

it may be granted
me to find it.

When all
is

done,
Ring-bearer,

*we*
shall find it.*

I shall not then be diminished.

Nor you,
ever again

alone.

_____________________________

Author's Notes: the story of Galadriel is a complex one, spanning literally thousands of years. I have tried to touch upon events in her life that formed the *crux* of her terrible choice in the Glade, but interested readers may delve further into her story at The Thain's Book:

http://www.tuckborough.net/galadriel.html

I think you will see that her choice diminished her not at all, but rendered her *simply* and purely a complete being of beauty, NOT 'terrible' beauty.

*in order to work around events that the movies placed out of context with the books (and also to include a work of wondrous value and beauty), I have done some event flipping myself. In the book, Galadriel, upon the departure of the Fellowship from Lorien, and knowing that it was unlikely that Frodo would escape permanent damage from bearing the Ring, expresses, in song, her wish that he might find peace in Valimar (a city of the Valar in Valinor). I have 'flipped' that time line to the Mirror scene, her perceiving that, should he win through, not only would she have the choice to go over Sea, but Frodo, as well.

Here is a wonderful reading of "Galadriel's Lament" by Tolkien. You may not understand the words, but he reads them with so much power and feeling that your heart will *hear* them easily.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6de_SbVUVfA&NR=1

By way of contrast, a sung version, full of yearning:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmtBleOQSz0

It is rumoured that Galadriel was instrumental in the healing of Frodo, over Sea.

http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Galadriel

No doubt the reason behind the knowing smile she gave him at the Grey Havens.

BACK to Galadriel's Glade Pt. 4a.

FORWARD to Galadriel's Glade Pt. 5.

Other Links:

~ Mechtild's LJ entry introducing Blossom's 'In Dreams' site.

~ Entries with jan-u-wine's poems.

~ Main table for all entries

~ Mechtild

Galadriel’s Glade 3 ~ ‘I know what it is you saw’, plus jan-u-wine's 'Lórien Suite 3'.

2009-06-12T13:02:05Z

~*~

The following quote from "The Mirror of Galadriel" (fuller excerpt below), is a passage etched indelibly on my mind's eye:

She lifted up her white arms, and spread out her hands towards the East in a gesture of rejection and denial. Eärendil, the Evening Star, most beloved of the Elves, shone clear above. So bright was it that the figure of the Elven-lady cast a dim shadow on the ground. Its rays glanced upon a ring about her finger; it glittered like polished gold overlaid with silver light, and a white stone in it twinkled as if the Elven-star had come down to rest upon her hand. Frodo gazed at the ring with awe; for suddenly it seemed to him that he understood.

None of my favourite Tolkien illustrators have been able to capture this moment for me in visual art. I wondered what the filmmakers would do with it, considering the iconic nature of the vision invoked. As it turned out, they didn't do anything with it. It wasn't there. Nenya makes it into the EE version of the scene (thanks, commenters, for pointing it out), but in the theatrical release Nenya is neither referred to or shown.

I loved the book moment because of its visual imagery, but also because it explained more fully why the light in Galadriel's parting gift to Frodo—the star-glass—was so special and so powerful. Ah, well. That's the way of even the best film adaptations: some things you love will be lost, others will be changed beyond recognition. Still, I think the scene is awfully good up to this point. I certainly do not fault the actors.

Jan-u-wine has written a third part to her Lórien Suite. It appears below the screencaps. This poem, inspired by the film's images, shows Frodo as he breaks away from the vision in the Mirror. Jan brings the reader right into the Ring-bearer's thoughts.

~*~

Book scene: The Mirror of Galadriel.

‘I know what it was that you last saw,’ she said; ‘for that is also in my mind. Do not be afraid! But do not think that only by singing amid the trees, nor even by the slender arrows of elven-bows, is this land of Lothlórien maintained and defended against its Enemy. I say to you, Frodo, that even as I speak to you, I perceive the Dark Lord and know his mind, or all of his mind that concerns the Elves. And he gropes ever to see me and my thought. But still the door is closed!’

She lifted up her white arms, and spread out her hands towards the East in a gesture of rejection and denial. Eärendil, the Evening Star, most beloved of the Elves, shone clear above. So bright was it that the figure of the Elven-lady cast a dim shadow on the ground. Its rays glanced upon a ring about her finger; it glittered like polished gold overlaid with silver light, and a white stone in it twinkled as if the Elven-star had come down to rest upon her hand. Frodo gazed at the ring with awe; for suddenly it seemed to him that he understood.

‘Yes,’ she said, divining his thought, ‘it is not permitted to speak of it, and Elrond could not do so. But it cannot be hidden from the Ring-bearer, and one who has seen the Eye. Verily it is in the land of Lórien upon the finger of Galadriel that one of the Three remains. This is Nenya, the Ring of Adamant, and I am its keeper.

‘He suspects, but he does no know—not yet. Do you not see now wherefore your coming is to us as the footstep of Doom? For if you fail, then we are laid bare to the Enemy. Yet if you succeed, then our power is diminished, and Lothlórien will fade, and the tides of Time will sweep it away. We must depart into the West, or dwindle to a rustic folk of dell and cave, slowly to forget and to be forgotten.’

Frodo bent his head. ‘And what do you wish?’ he said at last.

‘That what should be shall be,’ she answered. ‘The love of the Elves for their land and their works is deeper than the deeps of the Sea, and their regret is undying and cannot ever wholly be assuaged. Yet they will cast all away rather than submit to Sauron: for they know him now. For the fate of Lothlórien you are not answerable, but only for the doing of your own task. Yet I could wish, were it of any avail, that the One Rig had never been wrought, or had remained for ever lost.’

~*~

Film scene:

[Galadriel watches as the Ring, hanging from Frodo’s neck, pulls him closer to the water. Steam curls up from the basin and Sauron speaks to Frodo in Black Speech. Terrified, he grabs the Ring and jerks back, throwing himself off the step and landing on his back on the floor of the glade.]

Galadriel: I know what it is you saw, for it is also in my mind.

[Telepathically, Galadriel speaks to Frodo, who listens intently.]

Galadriel: It is what will come to pass if you should fail. The Fellowship is breaking. It has already begun.

3

He has found me.

At last,

he
has,

the evil-tatter'd
ribbon

of dark mouthings
touching

my mind
with foul purpose.

I do not
understand

these words.

No matter:
the black

meaning of them
closes my throat,

as if dead fingers
held me fast.

I cannot look away,
cannot

stop
the words

which pull me to him.

In a moment,
he shall have me,

entire.

From outside myself,
there is light,

Like the wings of some
great Sea-bird of the West,

it is,
assailing with ancient purpose
our fearsome enemy.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Ghostly vapor

rises
yet upon the sudden-still air.

In the end,
I did

not
touch the water.

Nor he,
me.

The grace of light
still falls

about the lady.

Sweetly it flows
from her outstretched hand,

crowns with silver'd gold
the cloak of her hair.

Within my mind,

she, too,
speaks,

her words
as fearful

as those which
I have but late

escaped.

With dark truth
she speaks.

Oh, my Lady.

How shall I go on?

Previous entry:

~ Galadriel’s Glade 2: ‘Frodo looks into the mirror, plus jan-u-wine's 'Lórien Suite 2'.

Other Links:

~ Entries with jan-u-wine's poems.

~ Main table for all entries

~ Mechtild

Galadriel’s Glade 2 ~ Frodo looks into the mirror, plus jan-u-wine's Lórien Suite 3.

2009-06-03T12:14:30Z

~*~

As mentioned in Pt. 1 of this series, the film scene is very different from the book scene it is based on. The most obvious difference is that there is no Sam in the film scene. But the main change is in the portrayal of Galadriel. At Henneth Annún, Sam tries to describe her to Faramir. "It ought to be song", he says, but makes do pulling together pairs of contrasting images. She's beautiful, lovely, "like a great tree in flower, sometimes a white daffadowndilly, small and slender like"; "hard as di'monds, soft as moonlight"; "warm as sunlight, cold as frost in the stars"; "proud and far-off as a snow-mountain, and as merry as any lass I ever saw with daisies in her hair". "Then she must be lovely indeed", says Faramir, "perilously fair."

"'I don't know about perilous,' said Sam. 'It strikes me that folk takes their peril with them into Lórien, and finds it there because they've brought it. But perhaps you could call her perilous, because she's so strong in herself. You, you could dash yourself to pieces on her, like a ship on a rock; or drownd yourself, like a hobbit in a river. But neither rock nor river would be to blame.'"

The film seems to show the opposite: folk do find peril in Lórien, peril they did not bring with them, centered in the character of Galadriel. It is as though the filmmakers took Sam's diverse remarks and heavily underscored the "perilously fair" side of her at the expense of her warm, approachable side. In fact, only viewers of the EE version of FotR really get to see the Galadriel Sam and the Fellowship find charming and a font of consolation and encouragement. Film Galadriel does show concern and empathy for Frodo in the Mirror scene, but only fleeting glimpses. Mostly she is remote and mysterious, even inscrutable -- when she is not openly frightening.

The Mirror scene, for Frodo, is almost like a mythic trial. Like the hero who must answer the Sphinx's riddle or die, Frodo's encounter with Galadriel seems like an ordeal out of myth, a test he must pass in order to go on. Watching the EE gift-giving scene and lyrical farewell to Lórien, the only scene in which Galadriel really gets to display her gracious, beneficent side, it seems as though Frodo and the company are there only because they have won through the night's ordeal. "Bipolar": that's what film Galadriel has been humorously called, "either giving gifts or scaring the shit out of people". But, writing these posts, I wonder if her portrayal isn't part of the filmmakers' transformation of book Lórien, a mystical haven of refreshment and restoration, into the Perilous Realm: a world of great beauty but one fraught with danger. In such a place, the land of Faerie, the land of myth, goddesses rescue from death but also kill, and powerful, seductive female characters, like Homer's Circe and Calypso, give gifts to heroes, but only to those who pass their tests.

Further remarks:

A new poem by jan-u-wine, written from Galadriel's point of view, appears below the caps. It is the second in her series, Lórien Suite. It is written to the film scene yet is imbued with a book-reader's sense of Galadriel's empathy and understanding.

I wanted to note, too, the way the book scene reminds us that Sam, not only Frodo, looks into the Mirror. He sees Frodo lying in the Pass (although he doesn't know that's what he sees), and he sees a ravaged Hobbiton: a test for Sam that makes plain to him, with Galadriel's help, that he has thrown in his lot with Frodo, no matter what is happening in his beloved Shire. Frodo sees visions, too, culminating in his vision of the Eye. No film scene, I am afraid, can convey for me the book's sense of the Eye, with its "black slit of a pupil that opens on a pit, a window into nothing". It makes me shiver.

~*~

Book scene: The Mirror of Galadriel.

‘And you?’ she said, turning to Sam. ‘For this is what your folk would call magic, I believe; though I do not understand clearly what they mean; and they seem also to use the same word of deceits of the Enemy. But this, if you will, is the magic of Galadriel. Did you not say that you wished to see Elf-magic?’

‘I did,’ said Sam, trembling a little between fear and curiosity. ‘I’ll have a peep, Lady, if you’re willing.’

‘And I’d not mind a glimpse of what’s going on at home,’ he said in an aside to Frodo. ‘It seems a terrible long time that I’ve been away. But there, like as not I’ll only see the stars, or something that I won’t understand.’

‘Like as not,’ said the Lady with a gentle laugh. ‘But come, you shall look and see what you may. Do not touch the water!’

Sam climbed up on the foot of the pedestal and leaned over the basin. The water looked hard and dark. Stars were reflected in it.

‘There’s only stars, as I thought,’ he said. Then he gave a low gasp, for the stars went out. As if a dark veil had been withdrawn, the Mirror grew grey, and then clear. There was shining sun, and the branches of trees were waving and tossing in the wind. But before Sam could make up his mind what it was that he saw, the light faded; and now he thought he saw Frodo with a pale face lying fast asleep under a great dark cliff. Then he seemed to see himself going along a dim passage, and climbing an endless winding stair. It came to him suddenly that he was looking urgently for something, but what it was he did not know. Like a dream the vision shifted and went back, and he saw the trees again. But this time they were not so close, and he could see what was going on: they were not waving in the wind, they were falling, crashing to the ground.

‘Hi!’ cried Sam, in an outraged voice. ‘There’s that Ted Sandyman a-cutting down trees as he shouldn’t. They didn’t ought to be felled: it’s that avenue beyond the mill that shades the road to Bywater. I wish I could get at Ted, and I’d fell him!’

But now Sam noticed that the Old Mill had vanished, and a large red-brick building was being put up where it had stood. Lots of folk were busily at work. There was a tall red chimney nearby. Black smoke seemed to cloud the surface of the Mirror.

‘There’s some devilry at work in the Shire,’ he said. ‘Elrond knew what he was about when he wanted to send Mr. Merry back.’ Then suddenly Sam gave a cry and sprang away. ‘I can’t stay here,’ he said wildly. ‘I must go home. They’ve dug up Bagshot Row, and there’s the poor old gaffer going down the Hill with his bits of things on a barrow. I must go home!’

‘You cannot go home alone,’ said the Lady. ‘You did not wish to go home without your master before you looked in the Mirror, and yet you knew that evil things might well be happening in the Shire. Remember that the Mirror shows many things, and not all have yet come to pass. Some never come to be, unless those that behold the visions turn aside from their path to prevent them. The Mirror is dangerous as a guide of deeds.’

Sam sat on the ground and put his head in his hands. ‘I wish I had never come here, and I don’t want to see no more magic,’ he said and fell silent. After a moment he spoke again thickly, as if struggling with tears. ‘No, I’ll go home by the long road with Mr. Frodo, or not at all,’ he said. ‘But I hope I do get back some day. If what I’ve seen turns out true, somebody’s going to catch it hot!’

‘Do you now wish to look, Frodo?’ said the Lady Galadriel. ‘You did not wish to see Elf-magic and were content.’

‘Do you advise me to look?’ asked Frodo.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I do not counsel you one way or the other. I am not a counsellor. You may learn something, and whether what you see be fair or evil, that may be profitable, and yet it may not. Seeing is both good and perilous. Yet I think, Frodo, that you have courage and wisdom enough for the venture, or I would not have brought you here. Do as you will!’

‘I will look,’ said Frodo, and he climbed on the pedestal and bent over the dark water. At once the Mirror cleared and he saw a twilit land. Mountains loomed dark in the distance against a pale sky. A long grey road wound back out of sight. Far away a figure came slowly down the road, faint and small at first, but growing larger and clearer as it approached. Suddenly Frodo realized that it reminded him of Gandalf. He almost called aloud the wizard’s name, and then he saw that the figure was clothed not in grey but in white, in a white that shone faintly in the dusk, and in its hand there was a white staff. The head was so bowed that he could see no face, and presently the figure turned aside round a bend in the road and went out of the Mirror’s view. Doubt came into Frodo’s mind: was this a vision of Gandalf on one of his many lonely journeys long ago, or was it Saruman?

The vision now changed. Brief and small but very vivid he caught a glimpse of Bilbo walking restlessly about his room. The table was littered with disordered papers; rain was beating on the windows.

Then there was a pause, and after it many swift scenes followed that Frodo in some way knew to be parts of a great history in which he had become involved. The mist cleared and he saw a sight which he had never seen before but knew at once: the Sea. Darkness fell. The sea rose and raged in a great storm. Then he saw against the Sun, sinking blood-red into a wrack of clouds, the black outline of a tall ship with torn sails riding up out of the West. Then a wide river flowing through a populous city. Then a white fortress with seven towers. And then again a ship with black sails, but now it was morning again, and the water rippled with light, and a banner bearing the emblem of a white tree shone in the sun. A smoke as of fire and battle arose; and into the mist a small ship passed away, twinkling with lights. It vanished, and Frodo sighed and prepared to draw away.

But suddenly the Mirror went altogether dark, as dark as if a hole had opened in the world of sight, and Frodo looked into emptiness. In the black abyss there appeared a single Eye that slowly grew, until it filled nearly all the Mirror. So terrible was it that Frodo stood rooted, unable to cry out or to withdraw his gaze. The Eye was rimmed with fire, but was itself glazed, yellow as a cat’s, watchful and intent, and the black slit of its pupil opened on a pit, a window into nothing.

Then the Eye began to rove, searching this way and that; and Frodo knew with certainty and horror that among the many things that it sought he himself was one. But he also knew that it could not see him—not yet, not unless he willed it. The Ring that hung upon its chain about his neck grew heavy, heavier than a great stone, and his head was dragged downwards. The Mirror seemed to be growing hot and curls of steam were rising from the water. He was slipping forward.

‘Do not touch the water!’ said the Lady Galadriel softly. The vision faded, and Frodo found that he was looking at the cool stars twinkling in the silver basin. He stepped back shaking all over and looked at the Lady.

~*~

Film scene:

Frodo steps up to the basin to look inside. Peering down, he sees nothing at first but his reflection in the dark water. Suddenly, the surface of the water moves and he sees a vision of Legolas, Merry and Pippin, then Sam, all looking at him with troubled expressions. He sees Bag End. Looking on in horror, he watches Hobbiton burn, the neighbors and friends he has known all his life enslaved. Sam appears, chained, and struck by an Orc. The Shire is a desolate wasteland.

A vision of the burning Eye fills the mirror

2

What shall I look for?

What shall I see?

* * * * *

Like the unwilling
touch

of your foot
upon my stair,

this question,

like the hesitant
light

that falls
from the fading stars.

In another time,
another

place,

your Lady
should have answered you.

With great words,

bound equal

with beauty
and perilous pride,

she should
have answered you.

A different Age
that was,

an Age
when the World
was not yet worn

by evil,
an Age echoing yet
with Song.

Within this glade,
there is no Song,

no gentle resonance
of the tender crafting of a world,

no answer
to the darkness

waiting, with surety,

beyond
time-slowed borders.

There is only this moment,
sharp and fine

as adamant,

*this* moment,
and

you,

*you*,
undone
upon the knife-point
of your fear,

your desire.

You *will* look.

Without words passing between us,
I feel your frightened thought:

you
*must*.

I know what you will see.

And the glade becomes dark,

midnight'd and cold
with your seeing.

Your fear
beats

like a hammer
upon me,

grief twisting
and spilling

like Sea waves
on a winter-deep day.

It is *your* heart
I feel in my throat,

your tears that
close my eyes,

your.....

terror
that opens them, at the last.

He

has found
you.

Previous entry:

~ Galadriel’s Glade 1: ‘What will I see?’ plus jan-u-wine's 'Lórien Suite 1'.

Next entry:
~ Galadriel's Glade 3: 'I know what it is you saw', plus jan-u-wine's 'Lórien Suite 3'.

Other Links:

~ Entries with jan-u-wine's poems.

~ Main table for all entries

~ Mechtild

Galadriel’s Glade 1 ~ ‘What will I see?’ plus a new poem by jan-u-wine....

2009-05-26T12:31:53Z

~*~

I love the caps for this scene. Except for "Nuclear Gladys" (as it was called on the messageboard I frequented while the films were coming out), the scene is uninterrupted cinematic gorgeousness. It's a different animal from the book's Lothlórien scenes, but as cinema it really works. The book's Lórien, with its images of jewel-fresh nature sparkling with "poignant freshness" under a golden sun, becomes a world of shadows , cold and luminous as if lit by a winter moon. Instead of a sense of safe haven, the Fellowship enters a realm pulsing with a feeling of foreboding and danger. Their Elven hosts warn rather than welcome. My book-reading self says, "this is wrong, wrong, wrong!" but my film-going self is mesmerised. Why does it work, and why does it seem faithful, even though it is so wide of the original? I think it's because it strongly evokes what Tolkien elsewhere said about Faerie.

Tolkien, in his fiction and poetry, and in his important essay on the subject, stressed that real Faerie isn't for children. It isn't sweet and safe, it is the Perilous Realm. In film-Lothlórien the tales of Rohan and Gondor are right: if you go in you might not come out -- or, if you do, you won't come out unchanged. The film's Galadriel is not the Elbereth-like Lady of the book, who, while she is strong in wisdom and unflinching in her truthfulness, abounds with consolation for the anguished and grieving, the restorer of flagging spirits and weary bodies. Film-Galadriel is more like the powerful female characters from Homer to D. G. Rossetti, goddesses, spell-weavers, sirens and other supernatural women who lure mortals into thraldom, even death. Even before the companions enter the Wood, when Galadriel speaks words in Frodo's mind the menace is so intense he feels them like a blow. And after Galadriel has met and welcomed the Fellowship, until the time that she sends them off with gifts and benedictions, the Lothlórien scenes are permeated with a sense of danger and deep enchantment.

Cate Blanchet's Galadriel and Elijah Wood's Frodo are superb vehicles for this dark, brooding enchantment, so beautifully lit, scored and filmed. If Wood's character has stepped out of a Caravaggio, Blanchet's is like a Pre-Raphaelite painting come to life. The LOTR films overall are steeped in imagery from great art, but in this scene even the individual frames look like paintings. The close-ups of Frodo are like animated pastels. No wonder so many fans have drawn portraits of him working from screencaps of this scene.

Happily, jan-u-wine has been inspired by this series to write a new Lothlórien poem cycle. The first part appears below the images. Reading it is like entering into the subtext of the scene, a powerful and evocative experience. I hope she will write more for the series.

~*~

Book scene: The Mirror of Galadriel.

The remaining Fellowship has been staying in Lothlórien for a while. Frodo and Sam are walking, talking about the Elves, Elvish magic, and the loveliness of the place. Sam says,

‘All the same, I’m beginning to feel that if we’ve got to go on, then we’d best get it over.

‘It’s the job that’s never started as takes longest to finish, as my old gaffer used to say. And I don’t reckon that these folk can do much more to help us, magic or no. It’s when we leave this land that we shall miss Gandalf worse, I’m thinking.’

‘I am afraid that’s only too true, Sam,’ said Frodo. ‘Yet I hope very much that before we leave we shall see the Lady of the Elves again.’

Even as he spoke, they saw, as if she came in answer to their words, the Lady Galadriel approaching. Tall and white and fair she walked beneath the trees. She spoke no word, but beckoned to them.

Turning aside, she led them toward the southern slopes of the hill of Caras Galadhon, and passing through a high green hedge they came into an enclosed garden. No trees grew there, and it lay open to the sky. The evening star had risen and was shining with white fire above the western woods. Down a long flight of steps the Lady went into a deep green hollow, through which ran murmuring the silver stream that issued from the fountain on the hill. At the bottom, upon a low pedestal carved like a branching tree, stood a basin of silver, wide and shallow, and beside it stood a silver ewer.

With water from the stream Galadriel filled the basin to the brim, and breathed on it, and when the water was still again she spoke. ‘Here is the Mirror of Galadriel,’ she said. ‘I have brought you here so that you may look in it, if you will.’

The air was very still, and the dell was dark, and the Elf-lady beside him was tall and pale. ‘What shall we look for, and what shall we see?’ asked Frodo, filled with awe.

‘Many things I can command the Mirror to reveal,’ she answered, ‘and to some I can show what they desire to see. But the Mirror will also show things unbidden, and those are often stranger and more profitable than things which we wish to behold. What you will see, if you leave the Mirror free to work, I cannot tell. For it shows things that were, and things that are, and things that yet may be. But which it is that he sees, even the wisest cannot always tell. Do you wish to look?’

Frodo did not answer.

~*~

Film scene:

It is night and the Fellowship is asleep as Galadriel glides by. Frodo wakes up with a start, and, as if summoned, follows her. Galadriel descends a flight of mossy steps into a sunken garden. She fills a gleaming ewer with water from a spring-fed pool. As if she expected to see him there, she turns to Frodo and speaks.

Galadriel: Will you look into the mirror?

[As he answers,Frodo slowly descends the steps, never taking his eyes of Galadriel.]

Frodo: What will I see?

Galadriel: Even the wisest cannot tell. For the mirror shows many things.

[As she speaks, she pours the water into a silver basin on a carved stone pedestal.]

Galadriel: Things that were, things that are… As she empties the ewer: and some things that have not yet come to pass.

1

It is peaceful within this land,

peaceful
to be held

safe
beneath trees
that fairly sing

with the knowing of the Lady's voice,

peaceful,
the time-tide

slowing
to all but nothing

'midst the silver web
of her devising,

tender time-fleece
of bronze day

spilling
to blue-grey night,

Moon-fingers

playing
soft upon

jetted crystal fountains,
fine-gold

mallorn,

night-diadem'd elanor.

Within these borders,
close-held by the fair thrall
of her spell,

it is

peaceful.

It is..........

perilous.

Overthrown by peril,

the dremes which
visit

me,

dremes of nothing....

dremes of

every thing:

of
dread

and dark
and shadow unnameable....

I may not rest,
finally,

beneath the weight of them.

Of more peril this waking
than

any dreme,

for the Lady calls me.

Without words,
arms adrift upon the winds of night,

feet bare and pale as any maids',
she ......

calls...

me.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It is cold within the encirclement of her glade,

cold,

the winter-water moon all but spent,
small stars

arrayed upon the dark cloak
of the sky.

Fair crowned with them she is,
the gold-silver of her hair

shining like cold-spun fire
in their light.

Beyond wonder,
her beauty,

beyond all thought,
the peril of her eye,

the magik of her slender hand.

Fine-wrought silver,
her voice, then,

like strings upon a lyre,

like

the far-off sound of wind-combed
leaves.

More love than I have ever known blossoms like a wound inside of me.

Hard behind it rides a fear even greater.

Will I look into the Mirror?

Oh, my Lady of Beauty,

my Lady of Wisdom and Light:

What shall I look for?

Tell me,

my Lady of Peril,

What shall I See?

Next Entry:

~ Galadriel’s Glade 2: Frodo looks in the mirror, plus jan-u-wine's 'Lórien Suite 2'.

Other Links:

~ Entries with jan-u-wine's poems.

~ Main table for all entries

~ Mechtild

Spring has arrived at last (pic spam)....

2009-05-25T13:38:26Z

~*~

Spring is here, pretty much. It's about time. For the seasonal image fans, here's a brief visual update on how things are progressing.

Some of you know that I went to visit my family back east for a couple of weeks at the beginning of the month. My mother and brother live in the Washington D.C. suburbs. When I flew out of Duluth on April 30, the grass was greening up but there were no buds out on the trees.

Spring in VA:

What a difference when I arrived in Virginia. It rained most of the twelve days I was there, but it was mild, green and so lush! The two photos below were taken near my mother's house more than two weeks ago. What a contrast to northern Minnesota, the trees then still bare.

May 7th ~ a street a few blocks from my mother's in VA, trees in full leaf and flowers all over the place:

May 7th ~ a tree-lined avenue through a wooded VA park near my mom's:

Spring in MN:

Returning to Minnesota, it was clear there had been some nice days while I had been gone. The buds on the trees were beginning to unfurl.

May 15th ~ MN. This is a view across the front yard, taken a week after the photos in VA. It's clear that the trees are coming along, but they're still fairly bare:

Seasonal comparisons: photos showing spring, winter and fall:

I took photos Saturday and Sunday of the front yard and my favourite nearby park (the one that runs along a creek in a narrow ravine; I've posted photos of it before). I have posted the new photos with shots of the same places taken in winter and fall.

By the middle of June, it will finally begin to look like summer. Maybe I'll take some summer photos down in the park to make it a four-season set.

Side view across the front yard ~ 5/24/2009, 4/03/2007, 10/14/2008:

Tischer Creek Park:

First foot bridge ~ 5/23/2009, 12/24/2008, 10/04/2008:

Path where the creek widens out ~ 5/23/2008, 1/29/2009, 10/04/2008:

Second foot bridge ~ 5/23/2009, 12/24/2008, 10/04/2008:

Third foot bridge ~ 5/23/2009, 1/29/2009, 10/25/2008:

COMING UP: Pt. 1 of "The Glade of Galadriel" screencaps.

~ Mechtild

Just returned from trip....

2009-05-13T13:01:15Z

Hi, folks!

This is to say that I just got back last night from a two-week trip to see family.

It was a good visit, but it's good to be back, not only because of my husband and kitties but because of the computer. Normally when I'm there, since my mother has no computer, I have gone every few days to the public library to use a computer for half an hour, but this time we were all came down with colds and I never had the energy to go there.

This morning, though, I opened my email. I see several notifications of comments from readers, plus notices of new entries. It's going to take a while, but I am looking forward to catching up.

Because I can't bear to make a post with no image, here's a painting I think makes a good illustration of an Elven residence overlooking the Sea on Tol Eressëa. As soon as I saw it I imagined Frodo walking there, strolling or reading or just looking out to Sea, in case a ship might be arriving from Middle-earth.

Amalfi in Summer by Carl Frederic Aagaard:

~ Mechtild

New Poem: Jan-u-wine's 'Frodo's Dreme of Fimbrethil & Undómiel'.

2009-04-25T01:27:22Z

~*~

~ Ent-wives dancing.

This represents a hiatus in the screencap posts (Galadriel's Mirror in six parts is still being worked on, slowly). But I so admired and was so moved by a poem jan-u-wine recently wrote, I asked if I could post it here now.

The poem begins in the Undying Lands, Frodo dreaming speculatively of things that may or may not have occurred in Middle-earth. First he's thinking of the Entwife Fimbrethil, or Wandlimb, which was her Westron name. She was the Ent-wife Treebeard loved. She and her sisters, Treebeard told Merry and Pippin in TTT, strode off looking for lands of their own to tend, ages before. The Ent-wives had last been seen in what became the barren Brown Lands, across the great river and south of Lórien. Frodo next thinks/dreams of Undómiel (Quenya for "evening-maiden"), Arwen Evenstar.

What if Fimbrethil, with her surviving sisters, had come at last to Lórien? And what if Fimbrethil had been there when Arwen, after the death of Aragorn, had laid down to die upon Cerin Amroth?

~*~

There are no film scenes that illustrate this poem in a literal way. Still, I wanted to use some images from the films for the dreaming Frodo. There are several film scenes in which Frodo is shown sleeping. After much experimenting, I settled upon a series of images from his blissful rescue from Mt. Doom by the Eagles. I felt the series (with some ph0to-shopping)gave a sense of Frodo falling asleep and being borne off to other lands and other times, on the wings of dreams.

For the other images, I had to look beyond the films. There are no Ent-wives in LotR, and no scenes from the life of Arwen after the crowning of Aragorn. So, I used artworks that felt right, even if they did not literally depict my subjects.

These images appear further down.

I hope you enjoy this enchanted journey into Frodo's dreams as much as I did.

~*~

Frodo's Dreme of Fimbrethil & Undómiel

A/N: It has been a sadness to me that there is no mention of a meeting between Frodo and Treebeard, even though they certainly would have met when the hobbits (and company) passed through Isengard on their journey Home. Just as certainly, Merry and Pippin would have told Frodo the tale of their adventure with the Ents, and of the Ents' longing for their lost wives. Would Frodo not have been, at the very least, curious? Would he not have given much thought to these seeming-strange creatures, who played such a large role in the downfall of Isengard?

In this poem, Frodo, having sailed Over-Sea, dremes of the lands he has left behind forever, fancifully envisioning what might have become of not only the Ent-wives, but of another being as ageless (and bereft of husband) as they: the Evenstar, Arwen. Might these two destinies have been intertwined?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Upon the Tol: Frodo

Sun-tumbled,
wind-breathed,

the autumn

remembrance
of home-fires

waits

along the fine-dusted

wide
track of the road.

So far have I
walked

without thought
(or perhaps

in thought too
deep),

that the sweet,
smooth

limbs
of familiar trees,

(my trees),
give way

to saplings,

their slim,

pearl
fingers

upthrust,
shimmering

like harp strings
beneath a bronz'd Sun.

Silent,

this young grove,
as if all of time

rests
here,

waiting upon
magik,

resting upon the
cloak

of dreme.

It would not be amiss,
I think,

to rest,

myself,
in this place,

within
this magik

circle,
where the grass

bends

and whispers
greenly,

where the Sun winks
and

hides

beneath
the wide white of clouds.

And so I do:

rest,

feeling
strangely

*taken*,
feeling

oddly
at peace.

Between the music

of slender tree-strings
and the friendly whisper-touch of a small wind,

I dreme.

I dreme of places I have known,

of people I have loved,

of times and beings
I may never

touch.

Here,
in this place,

parted
from what I called "Home",

I dreme upon those who are lost.

Cradled in the gentle shade of her
hand-maidens,

I dreme
upon

Her.

Cerin Amroth: Fimbrethil

How should they know me now?

How might

they
have known me

at all?

Ever my thoughts
were different from theirs,

lighter,
like the bright

dance
of the Netted Stars.

But now.....

too long to count in years
the time I have stood here,

I, and my sisters,
voices stilling,

dropping

down
into silence

until
they sleep

(if sleep this could be named).

They sleep,

and I can no more
awaken them.

About me they stay,
their circling arms

bejeweled with leaves of green,
of gold,

(of sun-blooded red,
even),

lifted in gentle greeting
(or tender farewell).

They do not feel
the solitary

step

that enters our silent grove.

This one.

Oh,
this one

we have known before.

We have known her before,
when there *was* a "we".

We have known her
when her woven step,

as light as the cool winds
that ride above the world,

was not alone.

They were fair,
she and he,

fair
for those who must needs be

dressed
in flesh-skin.

She is alone now,
this fair one,

the moon-pearl of her all but hidden
beneath a curtain'd tangle of midnight hair.

Before,
the lilt of her voice,

like pour'd music,
touched us,
gilding the day with song.

Now
she speaks not,

only her hand touching those who sleep,

touching
and letting go

with a grief that I might feel
even through bark-skin.

She stays thus,

and the water that
those who are of flesh

call 'tears'
makes rain-tracks
upon her face.

I do not know what it might mean
when she stoops to the ground.

She lies upon the good earth,
the rich brown of it,

the cool embrace of it.

Her head,

weighted now
by mortal years,

sable
garlanded with white,

falls at last
upon my knee.

It may be long,
this length of......

time
in which she moves not.

It is less than a moment to me,
for I dreme upon the wind

and the water which touches
and tickles the roots of me,

until almost I should become as
my sisters

and wake no more.

When next I heed the song of
other-earth,

a coverlet of sweet grass

cradles
her gently,

fallen leaves

golden
against raven hair,

fragile
elanor growing about her feet.

We will stay here.

She and I,
and my sisters.

Forever divided from those we love,
from those who

came to understanding
too late,

from those who sleep
and dreme no more.

I
shall sleep now,

too,
and

dreme still.

I shall sleep

and dreme

and guard her
well.

The Tol: Frodo

How pleased the Eldest
should have been

by the

slow
thoroughness

of my waking,

the filtered prism
of autumn light

giving way

to engraven'd darkness,
Eärendil's solitary sail

holding its customary
watch,

gem'd prow

rising upon the sky-seas
of night.

Well do I remember
who Eärendil

might be,

well
do I remember

where
I have journeyed this day,

if only in dreme.

I cannot move for the wonder of it all.

I can not
move

for my sorrow.

And I *feel* the young trees about me:

how
they are a part of this earth,

a part of this
story,

a part
of

me.

Their breath
becomes

mine,

the long slow
breath

of beings

whose roots
know all,

touch
all,

*are* all.

And so it is
that here,

in this sundered place,

with the small greyness of
fog

curving about me,
and crystal water-jewels

dripping from tree-fingers,

*here*,

in my waking that is yet
a dreme,

*here*,

I say my farewells.

Undómiel.

Evenstar.

My lady.

Sleep well
within your mortal veil.

Fimbrethil.

Gentle queen
of

gentle
earth.

Let not your arms grow weary,
let not

your
thoughts fall

away.

Companion her in this great silence,
keep station

about the very
*idea*

of her.

Stay
until those lands

which were taken
in the Sea's anger

arise again.

Beyond that ending,
beyond

that beginning,

perhaps
even we

may yet meet.

Farewell.

Namarie.

Fare well.

~*~

Image sources:

Frodo's images are made from screencaps of the Eagles scene. The filter used is called "glowing edges".

Fimbrethil's sleeping image was made from a photograph of the "Mud Maid" by Sue and Pete Hill, a live plant installation at Heligan Gardens in Cornwall. Photoshopping it (using "dauber"), I tried to show Fimbrethil sleeping through the seasons into winter.

Arwen upon the hill of Cerin Amroth was created from Thomas Dodd's "Ophelia's Demise". The Dodd painting has a very dreamy, enchanted quality in its original state, which made me prefer it. Photoshopping it, I thought of it as an image not only of her losing her life but of being transformed: whatever it is that happens to mortals in Tolkien, which, though mysterious, is not bad. I am hoping the visual dissolution from image to image looks like Arwen becoming more and more immersed in, or filled with, light or flowers or stars or all of these. Although in the tale Arwen goes to Lórien to die, I feel that the images, like Jan's poem from Fimbrethil's point of view, show the larger reality. Even if her flesh decays like the ripe fruit that falls to earth, out of the exposed nut, her soul, new life will twine and grow, even if life in another world.

Other paintings that might have worked for Arwen were also of the death of Ophelia, a subject that suited my needs well. For those interested, I have linked them, according to artist:

~ Odilion Redon

~ Frances MacNair

~ John William Waterhouse

~ John Everett Millais

~ Steven Graber

~ Geroges Jules Victor Clairin

~ Oleg Timchenko

~ Mechtild

Previous Frodo-related entry:

~ For March 25, 2009: Misc. widescreen caps from the destruction of the Ring, plus jan-u-wine's "Perhaps".

Other Links:

~ Entries with jan-u-wine's poems.

~ Main table for all entries

MORE snow......

2009-04-19T18:31:26Z

~*~

The snow finally melted. On Friday, it actualy made it to 72 degrees. I got so hot I put on a short-sleeved shirt for the first time. Now, two days later, it's 32 and it's snowing.

Less than forty-five minutes ago, I took these photos:

WHAAAAAAH!

~ Mechtild

Link to post about our daughter's graduation from boot camp.

2009-04-15T19:50:35Z

~*~

This post just provides a link to another LJ, one in which I post entries meant to be seen by family and friends who have nothing to do with my fan life. There is not a mention of Mechtild in it. I like to keep my two worlds separate.

A comparison of the number of entries in the two gives a reality check on my interests. My fandom journal, "Mechtild's", was started in 2005 and has 400 entries. My "real life" LJ was started in 2007 and has 10 entries (most of which are copied from this one, lol).

It's true that I've posted entries about our cats in this journal, although they've nothing to do with Tolkien or Frodo. But I figured enough people cared about pets to find such posts worth reading. I've posted a couple about our trips to HI and MT a few years back, because of the scenic photos, which many people enjoy seeing. I've featured our garden and seasonal pictures of this area, also because there are a number of people who like such things. But, as a rule, I don't post about my family and my personal life. But there's no reason I can't provide a link.

Since there are a few of you who read this journal I've talked to more personally--on LJ or in emails--I'm including a link to an entry I posted today about our trip to see our daughter graduate from the US Coast Guard's boot camp. I haven't f-locked the post because the people it's meant to be read by are unfamiliar with LJ. They are not registered users and thus cannot friend the journal.

http://linduluth.livejournal.com/3033.html

Our fall months were consumed by our daughter's preparation to go through the enlistment process. She was constantly practicing for the battery of tests, written and physical, and we were taking her back and forth to the Cities for testing and interviews. In the middle of February, off she went to begin her eight weeks at boot camp. During that time she was practically incommunicado: no telephoning, no emailing, no nothing except snail mail letters--which they were only allowed to read and answer on Sunday mornings. As you may imagine, we were thrilled not only to see her graduate, but to see her, period.

Just because it makes me smile, here's a photo taken nearly twenty years ago of our daughter being cantankerous in my husband's arms.

She still hates posing for pictures, although she has learned to be more cooperative. ;)

~ Mechtild

April 1 Brings More Cold and Snow (but warm and toasty kitties).

2009-04-02T21:54:05Z

~*~

The air has been getting a bit milder and people have been getting a bounce in their step. Not only have they thinking of spring, the sidewalks haven't been all covered with frozen slush and ice. The dirty mounds of accumulated snow had almost melted, revealing the detritus of the winter -- piles of sanding grit, lost gloves, abandoned toys, and plenty of litter. But the grass, although sodden and matted, flattened by months of snow, was just beginning to show some signs of life. So when the forecast came for yet another bout of snow, "Winter storm warning in effect: high winds, snow, freezing rain, hazardous conditions", we hoped it would turn out to be an April Fool's joke. But, no. It was yet another dumping of snow, slippery and wet and heavy to shovel. A lot of us got depressed.

Here's the view out our front window yesterday morning, April 1st:

Not that it looked dismal and bleak all winter. To be fair, it can be pretty here.

Below are some shots of Tischer Creek park, the park I featured in posts this fall. The snowy shots were taken around Christmas and New Year's, after fresh snowfalls, on frigid clear days. My daughter, who was still here then, helped me not fall down the snow-clogged steps and trails. I have paired the winter shots with photos of the same places from the early fall, to show the difference a season makes.

We have had some sunshine and delight this winter, but it's from cats, not the weather. The cat fan readers of this journal will remember that we finally got our two new kittens on Christmas Day, just after they'd turned five months old. (Look here if you want to see that post.) In the meantime, they've grown to be almost eight months old.

Charles is still sneezy, though nothing like when he got here. In fact it may be a permanent condition, either from a herpes-like virus that keeps recurring, like cold sores in humans, or because of some unidentified allergy. But he's our happy little snuffle-nosed thug, always wanting to wrestle and leap out at anyone passing, be head-butted, dive into his food and have a cuddle-thon after. In for his rabies shot, the vet said he might grow out of it, but he might not. Otherwise, the vet called him a healthy cat in great shape.

Elsa went in for her pre-op check-up to be spayed in February, where we found out she had terrible gingivitis -- on her brand new gums and teeth! -- so we've been squirting a rinse on them three times a day and she seems almost completely over it. The vet said she didn't have Bartonella, a contagious cat disease of which gingivitis and mouth inflammation is a symptom, and she's way too young to have dirty teeth, so she thought Elsa might have an immune system that simply goes into overdrive in the presence of normal food debris and tartar. "Weak genes", my husband said, smiling, burrowing his face in ecstatically purring Elsa-belly. But it may be true; we've had so many health issues with our cats over the years. Perhaps Siamese cats are a weak breed. But they're so cute, so funny, and such lovable, noisy characters, we just can't resist them.

Angelo, our eight-year old, for whom we got the kittens so he wouldn't be so lonely after the deaths of his companions this summer, Pixie and Raoul, still is trying to bite their necks and pin them down every day, but not as much. He does love watching them, and sleeping with them, once they settle down. If one of them is stuck in a closet or out in the garage, he'll stand by the door and cry until someone comes to their rescue. It's a love-hate relationship, but more love than hate, we think.

Below are some photos of Elsa in her "post-surgical collar", to keep her from pulling out her sutures from the spaying. I thought it looked more like a cape, or a ballet skirt, as she trotted around the house in her tippy-toe way, the skirt-like collar bouncing like a dancer's tu-tu. But although she may have looked dainty, as can be seen from the second shot, it didn't keep her from launching into Charles.

Elsa in her "Eliza-soft" collar:

Elsa takes Charles down:

Just to show how they've grown, their bodies bigger and their points darker, below is a series of photos of the cats in their favourite basket. They were taken a little more than a week ago, March 23rd. They've grown quite a lot, Charles much bigger and beefier than tiny little Elsa. Still, they are little compared to Angelo, our former baby. Now Angelo seems like a huge cat to us, because of the comparison. He's still our darling boy, even if the coming of the kittens has changed him. I think he's happier than he was in his loneliness, but there is no doubt that they get on his nerves, with all their running around, pouncing on him and biting his ears and tail. He's becoming a very good sport, though, taking over the role of our previous "old guy" cat, Raoul.

Kitties in their basket: Angelo, Charles and Elsa, March 23, 2009:

~ Mechtild

March 25: The fall of Barad-dûr, featuring jan-u-wine's "Perhaps", with screencaps.

2009-03-25T12:41:21Z

~*~

To go with jan-u-wine's poem are screencaps, and passages from The Return of the King. They include Frodo and Sam's scenes, from the entry into the Sammath Naur to their rescue by the Eagles. A selection of caps made from the widescreen version of RotK is followed by the featured poem.

Jan-u-wine actually wrote "Perhaps" last year, for the 2008 anniversary of March 25. But real life intervened and she wasn't able to finish it in time to be posted on that date. Instead, I posted Jan's brilliant "They All Imagine" (see link below), written after the Quest, from Sam's point of view. "Perhaps" is a completely different sort of poem, going inside Frodo's experience during the claiming and after. When I first read the poem last year, I thought it was a shame I'd already posted all the caps in my Sammath Naur series. It went so well with those images. I hope the brief selection I made will do it justice.

At last, then, here is jan-u-wine's "Perhaps", in honour of the ordeal of the Ring-bearer on the day the Dark Tower fell.

~ A "Frodo Lives" button from the sixties, made by Ned Brooks,
using a design drawn by Nancy Lebovitz.
~*~

Book scenes.

From Mount Doom:

The path climbed on. Soon it bent again and with a last eastward course passed in a cutting along the face of the cone and came to the dark door in the Mountain’s side, the door of the Sammath Naur. Far away now rising towards the South the sun, piercing the smokes and haze, burned ominous, a dull bleared disc of red; but all Mordor lay about the Mountain like a dead land, silent, shadow-folded, waiting for some dreadful stroke.

Sam came to the gaping mouth and peered in. It was dark and hot, and a deep rumbling shook the air. ‘Frodo! Master!’ he called. There was no answer. For a moment he stood, his heart beating with wild fears, and then he plunged in. A shadow followed him.

At first he could see nothing. In his great need he drew out once more the phial of Galadriel, but it was pale and cold in his trembling hand and threw no light into that stifling dark. He was come to the heart of the realm of Sauron and the forges of his ancient might, greatest in Middle-earth; all other powers were here subdued. Fearfully he took a few uncertain steps in the dark, and then all at once there came a flash of red that leaped upward, and smote the high black roof. Then Sam saw that he was in a long cave or tunnel that bored into the Mountain’s smoking cone. But only a short way ahead its floor and the walls on either side were cloven by a great fissure, out of which the red glare came, now leaping up, now dying down into darkness; and all the while far below there was a rumour and a trouble as of great engines throbbing and labouring.

The light sprang up again, and there on the brink of the chasm, the very Crack of Doom, stood Frodo, black against the glare, tense, erect, but still as if he had been turned to stone.

‘Master!’ cried Sam.

Then Frodo stirred and spoke with a clear voice, indeed with a voice clearer and more powerful than Sam had ever heard him use, and it rose above the throb and turmoil of Mount Doom, ringing in the roof and walls.

‘I have come,’ he said. ‘But I do not choose now to do what I came to do. I will not do this deed. The Ring is mine!’ And suddenly, as he set it on his finger, he vanished from Sam’s sight. Sam gasped, but he had no chance to cry out, for at that moment many things happened.

Something struck Sam violently in the back, his legs were knocked from under him and he was flung aside, striking his head against the stony floor, as a dark shape sprang over him. He lay still and for a moment all went black.

And far away, as Frodo put on the Ring and claimed it for his own, even in Sammath Naur the very heart of his realm, the Power in Barad-dûr was shaken, and the Tower trembled from its foundations to its proud and bitter crown. The Dark Lord was suddenly aware of him, and his Eye piercing all shadows looked across the plain to the door that he had made; and the magnitude of his own folly was revealed to him in a blinding flash, and all the devices of his enemies were at last laid bare. Then his wrath blazed in consuming flame, but his fear rose like a vast black smoke to choke him. For he knew his deadly peril and the thread upon which his doom now hung.

From all his policies and webs of fear and treachery, from all his stratagems and wars his mind shook free; and throughout his realm a tremor ran, his slaves quailed, and his armies halted, and his captains suddenly steerless, bereft of will, wavered and despaired. For they were forgotten. The whole mind and purpose of the Power that wielded them was now bent with overwhelming force upon the Mountain. At his summons, wheeling with a rending cry, in a last desperate race there flew, faster than the winds, the Nazgûl, the Ringwraiths, and with a storm of wings they hurtled southwards to Mount Doom.

Sam got up. He was dazed, and blood streaming from his head dripped in his eyes. He groped forward, and then he saw a strange and terrible thing. Gollum on the edge of the abyss was fighting like a mad thing with an unseen foe. To and fro he swayed, now so near the brink that almost he tumbled in, now dragging back, falling to the ground, rising, and falling again. And all the while he hissed but spoke no words.

The fires below awoke in anger, the red light blazed, and all the cavern was filled with a great glare and heat. Suddenly Sam saw Gollum’s long hands draw upwards to his mouth; his white fangs gleamed and then snapped as they bit. Frodo gave a cry, and there he was, fallen upon his knees at the chasm’s edge. But Gollum, dancing like a mad thing, held aloft the ring, a finger still thrust within its circle. It shone now as if verily it was wrought of living fire.

‘Precious, precious, precious!’ Gollum cried. ‘My Precious! O my Precious!’ And with that, even as his eyes were lifted up to gloat on his prize, he stepped too far, toppled, wavered for a moment on the brink, and then with a shriek he fell. Out of the depths came his last wail Precious, and he was gone.

There was a roar and a great confusion of noise. Fires leaped up and licked the roof. The throbbing grew to a great tumult, and the Mountain shook. Sam ran to Frodo and picked him up and carried him out to the door. And there upon the dark threshold of the Sammath Naur, high above the plains of Mordor, such wonder and terror came on him that he stood still forgetting all else, and gazed as one turned to stone.

A brief vision he had of swirling cloud, and in the midst of it towers and battlements, tall as hills, founded upon a mighty mountain-throne above immeasurable pits; great courts and dungeons, eyeless prisons sheer as cliffs, and gaping gates of steel and adamant: and then all passed. Towers fell and mountains slid; walls crumbled and melted, crashing down; vast spires of smoke and spouting steams went billowing up, up, until they toppled like an overwhelming wave, and its wild crest curled and came foaming down upon the land. And then at last over the miles between there came a rumble, rising to a deafening crash and roar; the earth shook, the plain heaved and cracked, and Orodruin reeled. Fire belched from its riven summit. The skies burst into thunder seared with lightning. Down like lashing whips fell a torrent of black rain. And into the heart of the storm, with a cry that pierced all other sounds, tearing the clouds asunder, the Nazgûl came, shooting like flaming bolts, as caught in the fiery ruin of hill and sky they crackled, withered, and went out.

‘Well, this is the end, Sam Gamgee,’ said a voice by his side. And there was Frodo, pale and worn, and yet himself again; and in his eyes there was peace now, neither strain of will, nor madness, nor any fear. His burden was taken away. There was the dear master of the sweet days in the Shire.

‘Master!’ cried Sam, and fell upon his knees. In all that ruin of the world for the moment he felt only joy, great joy. The burden was gone. His master had been saved; he was himself again, he was free. And then Sam caught sight of the maimed and bleeding hand.

‘Your poor hand!’ he said. ‘And I have nothing to bind it with, to comfort it. I would have spared him a whole hand of mine rather. But he’s gone now beyond recall, gone for ever.’

‘Yes,’ said Frodo. ‘But do you remember Gandalf’s words: Even Gollum may have something yet to do? But for him, Sam, I could not have destroyed the Ring. The Quest would have been in vain, even at the bitter end. So let us forgive him! For the Quest is achieved, and now all is over. I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things, Sam.’

From The Field of Cormallen:

And even as [Aragorn] spoke the earth rocked beneath their feet. Then rising swiftly up, far above the Towers of the Black Gate, high above the mountains, a vast soaring darkness sprang into the sky, flickering with fire. The earth groaned and quaked. The Towers of the Teeth swayed, tottered, and fell down; the mighty rampart crumbled; the Black Gate was hurled in ruin; and from far away, now dim, now growing, now mounting to the clouds, there came a drumming rumble, a roar, a long echoing roll of ruinous noise.

‘The realm of Sauron is ended!’ said Gandalf. ‘The Ring-bearer has fulfilled his Quest.’ And as the Captains gazed south to the Land of Mordor, it seemed to them that, black against the pall of cloud, there rose a huge shape of shadow, impenetrable, lighting-crowned, filling all the sky. Enormous it reared above the world, and stretched out towards them a vast threatening hand, terrible but impotent: for even as it leaned over them, a great wind took it, and it was all blown away, and passed; and then a hush fell.

The Captains bowed their heads; and when they looked up again, behold! their enemies were flying and the power of Mordor was scattering like dust in the wind.

(...)

Then Gandalf, leaving all such matters of battle and command to Aragorn and the other lords, stood upon the hill-top and called; and down to him came the great eagle, Gwaihir the Windlord, and stood before him.

‘Twice you have borne me, Gwaihir my friend,’ said Gandalf. ‘Thrice shall pay for all, if you are willing. You will not find me a burden much greater than when you bore me from Zirak-zigil, where my old life burned away.’

‘I would bear you,’ answered Gwaihir, ‘whither you will, even were you made of stone.’

‘Then come, and let your brother go with us, and some other of your folk who is most swift! For we have need of speed greater than any wind, outmatching the wings of the Nazgûl.’

‘The North Wind blows, but we shall outfly it,’ said Gwaihir. And he lifted up Gandalf and sped away south, and with him went Landroval, and Meneldor young and swift. And they passed over Udûn and Gorgoroth and saw all the land in ruin and tumult beneath them, and before them Mount Doom blazing, pouring out all its fire.

‘I am glad that you are here with me,’ said Frodo. ‘Here at the end of all things, Sam.’

‘Yes, I am with you, Master,’ said Sam, laying Frodo’s wounded hand gently to his breast. ‘And you’re with me. And the journey’s finished. But after coming all that way I don’t want to give up yet. It’s not like me, somehow, if you understand.’

‘Maybe not, Sam,’ said Frodo; ‘but it’s like things are in the world. Hopes fail. An end comes. We have only a little time to wait now. We are lost in ruin and downfall, and there is no escape.’

‘Well, Master, we could at least go further from this dangerous place here, from this Crack of Doom, if that’s its name. Now couldn’t we? Come, Mr. Frodo, let’s go down the path at any rate!’

‘Very well, Sam. If you wish to go, I’ll come,’ said Frodo’ and they rose and went slowly down the winding road; and even as they passed towards the Mountain’s quaking feet, a great smoke and steam belched from the Sammath Naur, and the wide of the cone was riven open, and a huge fiery vomit rolled in slow thunderous cascade down the eastern mountain-side.

Frodo and Sam could go no further. Their last strength of mind and body was swiftly ebbing. They had reached a low ashen hill piled at the Mountain’s foot; but from it there was no more escape. It was an island now, not long to endure, amid the torment of Orodruin. All about it the earth gaped, and from deep rifts and pits smoke and fumes leaped up. Behind them the Mountain was convulsed. Great rents opened in its side. Slow rivers of fire came down the long slopes towards them. Soon they would be engulfed. A rain of hot ash was falling.

They stood now; and Sam still holding his master’s hand caressed it. He sighed. ‘What a tale we have been in, Mr. Frodo, haven’t we?’ he said. ‘I wish I could hear it told! Do you think they’ll say: Now comes the story of Nine-fingered Frodo and the Ring of Doom? And then everyone will hush, like we did, when in Rivendell they told us the tale of Beren One-hand and the Great Jewel. I wish I could hear it! And I wonder how it will go on after our part.’

But even while he spoke so, to keep fear away until the very last, the sky far off was clear, as the cold blast, rising to a gale, drove back the darkness and the ruin of the clouds.

And so it was that Gwaihir saw them with his keen far-seeing eyes, as down the wild wind he came, and daring the great peril of the skies he circled in the air: two small dark figures, forlorn, hand in hand upon a little hill, while the world shook under them, and gasped, and rivers of fire drew near. And even as he espied them and came swooping down, he saw them fall, worn out, or choked with fumes and heat, or stricken down by despair at last, hiding their eyes from death.

Side by side they lay; and down swept Gwaihir, and down came Landroval and Meneldor the swift; and in a dream, not knowing what fate had befallen them, the wanderers were lifted up and borne far away out of the darkness and the fire.

~*~

Perhaps

~ by jan-u-wine

Perhaps

you imagine

it was dark
within

the Chamber,

dark
and filled with more

horror
than ever

anyone might have thought.

Perhaps
you

imagine wrongly.

Even now
I recall

that over-balanced moment
of terror

giving way to sweated bliss,

the heat
and tumult

of the place
replacing the stilling murmur of my heart,

the hot bite of sulphur in my nostrils
become

sweeter than any honey-laden Spring.

No one can know the fury of my joy then,

my desire,
my...........

love.

My......love,

taken and taking,

there,
upon the very edge of forever.

And I left myself,

became this
*thing*

of ancient beauty,
{of untellable evil},

all the clamouring voices

that ever were
speaking within me,

the great golden river
of them carrying me away.

The wonder
ends

almost before it has rightly begun,

the very air like liquid fire within my lungs,
the pain of my hand

nothing
in compare to this other loss.

And my blood sprays up
upon the walls,

drying even as it touches them,

jagged finger-bone
glistening white in the sullen red light.

I am cold now,
cold by compare,

trembling
still

with need,

already desiring
the foul sanctuary

I shall never know again,

already
finding the world lessened

by Its leaving.

Some part of me wakes:

Sam is here,

dear
to me still,

(or perhaps,
again).

There is a certain
comfort

in the touch of his hand,
a certain grim

surety
in the pain'd contact between
flesh and flesh:

we live.

We live,
still.

Sam,

being Sam,
is not content

to
await here

our certain (and momentary) ending.

At least he might see

the sun and sky
one last time,

at least,
a wind,

freshened by
evil's departure,

might softly touch
his face.

It is a small thing to step through the door.

A small thing,
to leave behind the echoes of a golden call

and the warm resonance of It taking me
beyond myself.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Perhaps you imagine it was dark within the Chamber.

Never so dark as that which
remains

within *me*.

Previous entries for March 25:

~ Riv. 1 – Frodo recovered in Rivendell, with jan-u-wine’s “They All Imagine”, for 2008.

~ The Fall of Barad-dûr, with jan-u-wine's "Frodo's Journal", for 2007.

Previous Mt. Doom screencap entries:

~ Sammath Naur 1: ‘I’m here, Sam.’

~ Sammath Naur 2: ‘Throw It in the fire!’

~ Sammath Naur 3: ‘Just let It go!’, plus three poems by jan-u-wine.

~ Sammath Naur 4: ‘The Ring is mine’, plus jan-u-wine’s “That Which Is My Own”.

~ Sammath Naur 5: Gollum Bites, plus jan-u-wine’s “Frodo’s Remembrance of Gollum.

~ Sammath Naur 6: Gollum Falls, plus essay on Gollum’s oath.

~ Sammath Naur 7: ‘Give Me Your Hand’, plus jan-u-wine’s “Within the Chamber”.

~ Sammath Naur 8: ‘Take my hand’, plus jan-u-wine’s “The Claiming".

~ Sammath Naur 9: ‘Don't you let go’, plus jan-u-wine’s “In the Garden of the Mind".

~ Sammath Naur 10: ‘Reach’, plus jan-u-wine’s “And I Don’t Mean To".

~ Sammath Naur Escape Pt 1: Leap over the lava, plus jan-u-wine’s “They Are Here".

~ Sammath Naur Escape Pt 2: ‘It’s done.’

~ ‘I can see the Shire’ in widescreen, plus jan-u-wine's “March 25”.

~ The End of All Things Pt. I: "It's Done..."

~ The End of All Things Pt. II: "I can see the Shire..."

~ The End of All Things Pt. III: "Rosie Cotton, dancing..."

~ The End of All Things Pt. IV: "If ever I was to marry someone..."

~ The End of All Things Pt. V: "I'm glad to be with you..."

~ Frodo borne by the eagle, plus jan-u-wine’s "There and Back Again".

Other Links:

~ Entries with jan-u-wine's poems.

~ Tables for all screencap entries

~ Mechtild