The Lord of the Rings: Three's Company

The Tale

Despite what might seem the urgency of the matter, Gandalf believes that if Frodo just disappeared it would cause too many tongues to wag and increase the danger. Frodo decides that he will sell the Sackville-Baggins’s Bag End at last and say that he is moving to Crickhollow, a little house in Buckland on the borders of the Shire, and from there leave quietly for Rivendell to seek counsel and perhaps even see Bilbo again. He decides to leave on his and Bilbo’s birthday in September, as the autumn weather always makes him feel like travelling anyway.

Towards the end of June Gandalf receives a message that makes him feel restless, so he rides out to beat the bounds. He promises that he will return soon, by the Birthday at the latest, and then he promptly disappears. Frodo has his friends Folco Boffin, Fredegar (Fatty) Bolger, Meriadoc (Merry) Brandybuck, and Peregrin (Pippin) Took clean out the hobbit hole and move stuff to Crickhollow.

The day of the Birthday arrives, but still no Gandalf. The next day the grasping Lobelia and her son Lotho came at noon to get a key and take inventory before assuming ownership. Frodo and Pippin and Sam prepare to leave at sundown, with Merry driving a last load of furniture ahead. Before they leave, Frodo hears someone making inquiries at the Gaffer’s close by but dismisses it as mere poking and prying. The three head out and walk late into the night, then camp. The next day they’re off again.

Towards evening Sam hears a horse coming up the road behind them, and Frodo decides they should hide, as he’d rather not anyone see them on the road. It’s well that he did, because it turns out to be the menacing figure of a tall, black-cloaked man on a black horse. His face is hidden, but as he draws near, he can be heard sniffing, as if to catch a scent. Frodo feels tempted to put on the Ring and disappear. After a tense moment the Black Rider rides on.

It is now that Sam recalls that just such a figure had appeared to his Gaffer yesterday on Bagshot Row (which is what Frodo heard), asking after Baggins. It gave him the shudders. It seems that Frodo is being hunted.

They proceed more cautiously at first, then grow careless and start singing a walking song as twilight draws on.  Suddenly they hear hoofbeats again and they try to hide. The sound of hoofs stop, and a black horse appears, led by a crouched and searching black figure. It pauses just where the hobbits left the road and seems about to follow them, when a sudden burst of song and laughter makes it mount and ride away. A band of wandering Elves is approaching. 

The hobbits watch in wonder as they pass by, and then the last turns and greets Frodo. He is Gildor Inglorion, and his folk are a band of High Elves, who have been on a pilgrimage between Rivendell and the Tower Hills on the western sea. He is disturbed when Pippin asks them about Black Riders and declares the hobbits should stay with them in their camp above Woodhall for the night.

They march a while into the night, and when they reach their destination, the Elves treat them to their ‘poor fare’ for supper, which Frodo declares good enough for a birthday party. Sam is in seventh heaven to finally see (and hear!) Elves. After the feast Pippin falls asleep and is taken off to bed while Sam curls up and closes his eyes at Frodo’s feet. Frodo stays awake and talks to Gildor, asking his advice.

The Elf is cagey about telling him about the Black Riders, saying only that they are in the service of Sauron and best avoided. He looks grave at the news of Gandalf’s absence. But when Frodo asks him where he shall find courage on his journey, Gildor tells him courage is found in unlikely places. He blesses Frodo with the name of Elf-friend. Frodo, weary with the day’s events, goes to bed and falls into a dreamless sleep.

Bits and Bobs

The chapter title is a play on the old phrase, “two’s company and three’s a crowd”, not a reference to an old janky sitcom from the Seventies. This section of the journey is one that tends to get greatly abbreviated or left out altogether in most adaptations.

Frodo’s move to Buckland seems all the more likely because that’s where his mother Primula was born, and his earliest years were spent in Brandybuck Hall.

I love the fact that after the last meal in Bag End, Frodo leaves the washing up to Lobelia, and Sam has a last ‘goodbye’ with the beer-barrel. I also like Sam’s hat, ‘a tall, shapeless felt bag’ that makes him look like a dwarf in the gloom. I’d like to see a picture of that! I wonder if he’s supposed to wear it all through the books, at least until he gets a hooded cloak in Rivendell or Lothlorien.

Also of interest is the strange case of the thinking fox in the night, astonished to see three hobbits sleeping out. Of course, describing his 'thoughts' might just be a manner of speaking. And, if the Red Book of Westmarch is the record of what happened to the hobbits, and they were sleeping, who observed this?

In the first draft of this chapter, the mounted, sniffing figure turned out to be Gandalf! This was soon changed but goes to show that the Black Riders were completely unmeditated at the time.

Pippin comes across as shrewder that he is portrayed in most adaptations, and certainly willing to needle Frodo in a good-natured way. He asks a load of pertinent questions, to some of which he seems already to guess the answers.

We also get a good first look of Tolkien’s more noble conception of the Elves, a serious advancement on what we are told in The Hobbit and closer to what he’d written in The Silmarillion. This is conveyed mostly by how the hobbits react to them; their thoughts and opinions guide ours more than a mere description could.