The Fellowship is in Dimrill Dale, mourning Gandalf. They head east, hoping to escape the orcs, and do a little desultory sight-seeing as they pass the Mirrormere. When they strike the Silverlode river, Aragorn explains his intention to head along it to the elven-woods of Lothlórien.
As they trek along, the wounded Frodo and Sam fall behind. Luckily Legolas notices, and Aragorn calls a halt so their injuries can be tended to. Frodo protests, but Aragorn takes off his jacket, revealing Bilbo's mithril-coat. Gimli is especially astonished; he recalls Gandalf's passing remark that the coat was worth more than everything else in the Shire, and reckons that Gandalf undervalued it.
With the hobbits bandaged up, the Company continues on their way. As night falls, they near the outskirts of Lórien. Frodo thinks they're being followed, but Gimli hears nothing and believes the orcs aren't chasing them. Boromir protests entering Lórien, saying that they've heard of the Golden Wood in Gondor, and its perils. Aragorn assures him that there is peril in Lórien only for the evil.
The Company crosses the Nimrodel, and Legolas sings a song about a lady who missed a boat. As they're looking for a place to camp, they run into some elves: Haldir of Lórien and his brothers. Having heard from Elrond, they knew to expect the Fellowship, but they're troubled to find a Dwarf among them. Eventually it's agreed that if Gimli is blindfolded, he can enter Lothlórien.
The Fellowship spends the night sleeping on platforms in the trees, where the elves are keeping watch. There's a commotion at night as a company of orcs passes by on the ground, and a pale-eyed shadowy figure tries to climb Frodo's tree, but is scared off by Haldir.
The next morning, the Company heads south and the elves set up a rope-bridge across the Silverlode river. Sam has the hardest time, but everyone makes it across to the other side, where they have an argument. Gimli not unreasonably points out that he never agreed to be blindfolded and resents the whole thing. The elves won't budge, so Aragorn resolves the issue by having them blindfold everyone. This obviously ticks off Legolas, but eventually they all set forth with their eyes covered. It's a smooth walk, though, and the next day, word reaches them from the Lord and Lady of Lórien that the blindfolds can come off. They then do some sightseeing in Lórien before heading off to meet the Lord and Lady.
**
Somehow this chapter feels as if the whole book was still a little dazed after losing Gandalf, with the Fellowship almost passengers on their own quest. The narration feels a little like the Hobbit in this respect.
Boromir's protests at entering Lórien feel strangely out of place here. I mean it makes sense that a warrior of Gondor would be uneasy about the magical elf forest - but he's just left Rivendell and is traveling with Legolas. It seems bizarre that the elves of Imladris and Thranduil's son are just fine, but this Lórien place is right out.
I mentioned ages ago that Tolkien has a thing for dramatic river crossings, and there's two of them here: the Nimrodel, which washes "the stain of travel" from Frodo, and then the Silverlode, which is maybe the most epic crossing of them all, with Haldir's rope-bridge and Sam's uncle Andy.
As soon as he [Frodo] set foot upon the far bank of Silverlode a strange feeling had come upon him, and it deepened as he walked on into the Naith: it seemed to him that he had stepped over a bridge of time into a corner of the Elder Days, and was now walking in a world that was no more.
In Rivendell there was memory of ancient things; in Lórien the ancient things still lived on in the waking world.
In short, Lórien is Faërie: the magical land beyond time. Tolkien professed a distate for Celtic mythology, but Faërie - the diaeresis is Tolkien's - made it into his portrayal of the elves, most directly in Lórien. When the Irish hero Oisín visited Tir na nÓg, where he thinks he spends three years, but in the reality he left behind, 300 years have passed. Thus Aragorn:
"Here is the heart of Elvendom on earth," he said, "and here my heart dwells ever, unless there is a light beyond the dark roads that we still must tread, you and I. Come with me!" And taking Frodo's hand in his, he left the hill of Cerin Amroth and came there never again as a living man.
**
Next time: more elves.
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