“The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them…But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually— their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on— and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end.… I wonder what sort of tale we’ve fallen into?”
“I wonder,” said Frodo. “But I don’t know. And that’s the way of a real tale. Take any one that you’re fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of a tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don’t know. And you don’t want them to.”
“No sir, of course not.… All the big important plans are not for my sort. Still, I wonder if we shall ever be put into songs or tales. We’re in one, of course; but I mean: put into words, you know, told by the fireside, or read out of a great big book with red and black letters, years and years afterwards. And people will say: ‘Let’s hear about Frodo and the Ring!’ And they’ll say: ‘Yes, that’s one of my favourite stories. Frodo was very brave, wasn’t he, dad?’ ‘Yes, my boy, the famousest of the hobbits, and that’s saying a lot.’”
“It’s saying a lot too much,” said Frodo, and he laughed, a long clear laugh from his heart. Such a sound had not been heard in those places since Sauron came to Middle-earth. To Sam suddenly it seemed as if all the stones were listening and the tall rocks leaning over them. But Frodo did not heed them; he laughed again. “Why, Sam,” he said, “to hear you somehow makes me as merry as if the story was already written. But you’ve left out one of the chief characters: Samwise the stouthearted. ‘I want to hear more about Sam, dad. Why didn’t they put in more of his talk, dad? That’s what I like, it makes me laugh. And Frodo wouldn’t have got far without Sam, would he, dad?’”
“Now, Mr. Frodo,” said Sam, “you shouldn’t make fun. I was serious.”
“So was I,” said Frodo, “and so I am. We’re going on a bit too fast. You and I, Sam, are still stuck in the worst places of the story, and it is all too likely that some will say at this point, ‘Shut the book now, dad; we don’t want to read any more.’”
“Maybe,” said Sam. “But I wouldn’t be one to say that.”
Many people I’ve talked to say that they hate Book IV in The Two Towers because it seems to drag. However, even as a kid, Frodo and Sam’s journey to Mordor was my favorite part of the story. This was mostly due to my overwhelming joy at hearing about Sam again. I knew I wanted to be like Sam, wanted to be that faithful, wanted to be that hopeful even when everything looked dark.
My dad read Lord of the Rings to my three siblings and me three times over the course of our childhood. I have no idea how old I was when I first really understood this passage, but I remember the experience vividly. The six of us gathered in the living-room— Mom and us four kids squeezed onto the sagging burgundy couch, Dad in his matching armchair. He put on his black-framed reading glasses, picked up the paperback, and started reading from where he had left off last night. We all listened quietly, and even Christian, who didn’t seem capable of sitting still for a second, didn’t move.
When Dad got to this passage, he narrated it in the voices that he maintained through the trilogy, a higher English accent for Frodo and a thick Cockney for Sam. By this time I had forgotten all about the couch and my siblings crowding me or even Dad reading— I was hovering as a phantom listener beside Frodo and Sam as they huddled among the stones on the borders of Mordor. I felt their aching legs, their dry mouths, and their forgetfulness of it all as they enjoyed a conversation between friends.
“We’re in one, of course;” Sam said, “but I mean: put into words, you know, told by the fireside, or read out of a great big book with red and black letters, years and years afterwards. And people will say: ‘Let’s hear about Frodo and the Ring!’”
In that moment, a holy sense of awe overtook me. The vastness of time and history opened up like a rent in the cosmos, and all at once I was aware of the room again, and Christian crushed up on one side of me and Mom on the other, and aware of the worn paperback Dad held in his hands as he read the words that I imagined Sam had spoken eons ago in a different world. Chills crawled all through my skin as I thought to myself, His wish came true.
I of course consider the Bible to be the most influential book of my entire life, but I also admit that it was Lord of the Rings that first fired my imagination to both the breathtaking scope of history and the spiritual significance of my own story. I’ll always remember the moment the idea came home, that what I was doing right now might be important to someone centuries later. It’s a perspective I hope I never forget.
~Lisa Shafter
