Characters paying attention

[Morsul the Dark]

To this day I’m secure in my knowledge I would’ve died in the barrow because how Frodo remembered a whole dang song Bombadil said once is beyond me.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Morsul the Dark

To this day I’m secure in my knowledge I would’ve died in the barrow because how Frodo remembered a whole dang song Bombadil said once is beyond me.

Now THAT is one catch for the topic! Even though the whole episode before it is rather a case of the characters NOT paying attention: Bombadil explicitly told them to avoid the standing stones, and, well...

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

Now THAT is one catch for the topic! Even though the whole episode before it is rather a case of the characters NOT paying attention: Bombadil explicitly told them to avoid the standing stones, and, well...

Thinking about the fact that Frodo seems to pay most attention when a song's involved, I wandered over to his lament for Gandalf, and, er:

From Wilderland to Western shore,
from northern waste to southern hill,
through dragon-lair and hidden door
and darkling woods he walked at will.

I'm pretty sure Gandalf never went anywhere near Erebor when Smaug was alive, and I'm positive he didn't go through the Back Door before it got destroyed. So was Frodo not paying attention to Uncle Bilbo when he rambled on about his adventures?

hS

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

I'm pretty sure Gandalf never went anywhere near Erebor when Smaug was alive, and I'm positive he didn't go through the Back Door before it got destroyed. So was Frodo not paying attention to Uncle Bilbo when he rambled on about his adventures?

I actually always read this as two separate pieces of information: through Dragon-lair (he was at least around) and then some other, completely unrelated hidden door, which, since it was mentioned alongside the dragon lair, ergo perhaps around the same time, I thought it might refer to Gandalf's infiltration of Dol Guldur. (Which would on the contrary prove that Frodo was perhaps paying too much attention.)

Anyway, if the hidden door is separate from the dragon lair, then it could of course refer to anything, the thing Frodo might have freshly in his mind being of course the famous "Mellon door", the Eregion gate to Moria.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

I actually always read this as two separate pieces of information: through Dragon-lair (he was at least around) and then some other, completely unrelated hidden door, which, since it was mentioned alongside the dragon lair, ergo perhaps around the same time, I thought it might refer to Gandalf's infiltration of Dol Guldur. (Which would on the contrary prove that Frodo was perhaps paying too much attention.)

Anyway, if the hidden door is separate from the dragon lair, then it could of course refer to anything, the thing Frodo might have freshly in his mind being of course the famous "Mellon door", the Eregion gate to Moria.

It's certainly possible; but the lack of commas in "through dragon-lair and hidden door /
and darkling woods" suggests that they may well be a single list. 'Dragon-lair' has to be Erebor, and 'darkling woods' sounds like Mirkwood - which would fit very firmly with a Hobbit-theme, and not work at all for LotR (Gandalf wasn't with Frodo for any forests!).

Good point about the Moria-gate, though; given that we're told this is only scraps of the original dream-song, that's probably a good interpretation.

hS

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

It's certainly possible; but the lack of commas in "through dragon-lair and hidden door /
and darkling woods" suggests that they may well be a single list. 'Dragon-lair' has to be Erebor, and 'darkling woods' sounds like Mirkwood - which would fit very firmly with a Hobbit-theme, and not work at all for LotR (Gandalf wasn't with Frodo for any forests!).

Good point about the Moria-gate, though; given that we're told this is only scraps of the original dream-song, that's probably a good interpretation.

hS

Well, but if the dragon lair, hidden door and presumably Mirkwood are meant to be a part of the same journey, then actually it makes MORE sense to assume the hidden door refers to Dol Guldur, as the Moria door passage happened elsewhere and half a century later.

Sidenote: I am also very much suspicious about the "southern hill". If we disregard the easy and boring option that Frodo's grasp of southern geography is too weak and he just had to quickly think of something that rhymes, or the other undoubtedly funny option that he is hinting at Gandalf's unrecorded trips for inferior pipeweed to Southlinch (although that would not make sense time-wise; I doubt Frodo or indeed anyone knew or cared about Breeland pipeweed before the crisis caused by Sharkey); anyway, disregarding those, this seems like yet another bit of insight into the obscure "Incánus in the South" business!

[William Cloud Hicklin]

"Southern hill" might refer to Amon Lanc, the hill in southern Mirkwood upon which Dol Guldur stood. Or just possibly the hill on which Edoras was built. If we need further south, the hill-like Minas Tirith, or even the headland of Dol Amroth.