The Tale
‘A little way back above the
lake they found a deep brown bed of last year’s fern’ and beyond that a thicket
of bay-trees ‘crowned with old cedars.’ Though they feel they could go on
strolling through the pleasant sunlit land of Ithilien, they decide they should
lay up in case Orcs or other watchers are still vigilant. Gollum won’t move
under the sun, anyway.
Sam has been thinking about
how they can stretch out their food supply and feeling hungrier now that they’ve
left the deadly wastes. When he sees Gollum began to sneak off in search of his
own food, he asks if the creature can’t keep an eye out for something the
hobbits could eat.
‘Yes, perhaps, yes,’ said
Gollum . ‘Smeagol always helps, if they asks – if they asks nicely.’
‘Right!’ said Sam. I does
ask. And if that isn’t nice enough, I begs.’
Gollum goes off. After
eating a little lembas Frodo falls asleep. Sam watches him and notices that
Frodo looks like he looked when recovering from his knife wound in Rivendell;
like a light is shining within, but now even clearer. Frodo’s face is peaceful,
but it looks old, ‘old and beautiful.’ Sam can’t quite express it, except to
murmur, ‘I love him. He’s like that, and sometimes it shines through, somehow.
But I love him, whether or no.’ Gollum returns, looking over Sam’s shoulder at
Frodo, then shutting his eyes and crawling silently away. It seems he might be
seeing what Sam sees.
Sam turns and finds Gollum
has brought a couple of small rabbits, which he is already beginning to eye
greedily. He asks if the hobbits maybe don’t want them, but Sam has no
objection to rabbit, at least cooked rabbit. ‘All hobbits, of course, can cook,
for they begin to learn the art before their letters (which many never reach’.
Sam carries a small collection of cooking gear in his pack, including a bit of
salt, and has done the cooking for the Fellowship when any has needed to be
done.
He starts to prepare the
rabbits. He’s not about to leave Frodo alone, so he coaxes Gollum into going
and filling his little pans with water. While he’s gone Sam builds a little
fire pit and starts a dry, nearly smokeless fire. Gollum returns with the
water, carrying the pans carefully and grumbling. He sets them down and then notices
the fire, and shrieks, both frightened and angry. It is dangerous! It will draw
enemies!
Sam tries to calm him down,
insisting that he must cook the ‘coneys’ for the hobbits to eat them. Gollum
withdraws hissing into the ferns. Sam busies himself with the preparation, then
calls Gollum back to go find him some herbs; bay-leaves, thyme, and sage. ‘Third
time pays for all.’
But Gollum has gone one too
many times to the well. He balks at hunting grasses or roots, which he doesn’t
eat himself. He’s tired and hungry and frightened. And ‘Smeagol is not pleased.’
Sam threatens him with a scalding
when the water boils if he doesn’t do as he’s told, and says he’d make him look
for carrots and turnips and taters, if it was the season for it.
But Gollum is adamant. He
won’t go: ‘this hobbit’s not nice.’ He won’t grub for roots and carrots and –
taters. ‘What’s taters, precious, eh, what’s taters?’
‘Po-ta-toes,’ said Sam. ‘The Gaffers delight, and rare good ballast for an empty belly.’ If Gollum is good and goes, someday Sam will cook him some, fried fish and taters, served by S. Gamgee himself. ‘You couldn’t say no to that.’ But Gollum insists he could. ‘Spoiling nice fish, scorching it. Give me fish now, and keep nasty chips!’
Sam gives up on Gollum as
hopeless and gets his own herbs. Luckily they are quite close to camp. He lets
the rabbits stew for an hour or so, testing them now and then, then takes it
over to where Frodo is still sleeping. Frodo wakes from another ‘gentle,
unrecoverable dream of peace’ and asks if anything is wrong. Sam explains
things. Frodo objects that he should have been resting and a fire could be
dangerous, but he likes what he smells and asks what Sam has stewed.
‘A present from Smeagol,’
said Sam. ‘But there’s naught to go with them but a few herbs.’
They sit and eat the food, ‘sharing
the old fork and spoon,’ and with half a piece of lembas each it seems a feast.
When they have nearly finished it off, Sam whistles softly for Gollum. There is
still a chance for him to sample stewed coney. But he doesn’t appear. They
finish it off, then Frodo insists that Sam must get some sleep while he
watches. Sam tells him he must be careful of Gollum: ‘We don’t see eye to eye,
and he’s not pleased with Sam, O no precious, no pleased at all.’
Sam goes to the stream to
rinse his pans, but looking back he sees to his dismay a thin spiral of smoke
rising in the clearing morning air. He has neglected to put out his fire,
distracted by the meal. Rushing back, he hears a birdcall, and an answering
whistle not far away. It sounds like an imitation. At the campsite he hurriedly
stamps out the fire and buries the ashes and reports what he’s heard to Frodo. If
he’s brought trouble on them, he’ll never forgive himself.
‘Hush!’ whispered Frodo. ‘I
thought I heard voices.’
Notes
Professor T. A. Shippey, in
his magisterial work The Road to Middle-earth, points out the connection
between ‘hobbits’ and ‘rabbits’, at least in the formation of the words. ‘Rabbit’
is a comparative neologism: the animals were only introduced into England in
the 13th century before escaping and going native. Before that there
were only hares. In the same way ‘hobbit’ is a new word for an imaginary race
that has become assimilated into lore. Tolkien, although he denied the
resemblance of hobbits to rabbits, often compared these hairy-footed
hole-dwellers to each other, especially in The Hobbit. Sam uses the old
term ‘coney’ for a rabbit, a word that went out of fashion in polite society
for its fancied resemblance to a vulgar sexual term, and ‘taters’ as a naturalized
word for the American Indian ‘potatoes’.
No comments:
Post a Comment