Let's Read Tolkien 78: Many Partings

When the days of rejoicing were over at last the Companions thought of returning to their own homes.

Now that the partying is over, Frodo decides it's high time he got back to Rivendell to see Bilbo again. Arrangements are made: everyone will head north to Rohan shortly when Éomer comes to fetch Théoden's body from Gondor, and the hobbits can then head home. When he arrives, he and Gimli return to their quarrel back when Gimli was trying to commit suicide by Rohirrim: either Éomer acknowledges Galadriel as the most beautiful woman in the world, or Gimli assaults him with his axe. Éomer ripostes by saying that Arwen is hotter, and Gimli agrees to disagree.

Aragorn's court, wedding party and the fellowship escort Théoden to Edoras, where a Rohirrim funeral is held, and the marriage of Éowyn and Faramir is announced. The Fellowship continues west: Gimli and Legolas fulfill their mutual promises and visi the Glittering Caves, and they find Treebeard at Isengard - where Saruman has talked the ents into letting him go. Here the Fellowship finally splits up for good: Aragorn heads back home, Legolas and Gimli set off northward through Fangorn, and the others travel northwest.

On the road, Frodo's party meets Saruman, who swears at them and bums tobacco from the hobbits, before leaving with Gríma and muttering dark threats. The party of Lórien takes the Redhorn pass east, and the hobbits arrive in Rivendell just in time for Bilbo's 129th birthday. With the destruction of the Ring, age is catching up on Bilbo, and Frodo inherits his literary work. Eventually, Gandalf and the four hobbits leave Rivendell for Bree.

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The parallel chapter to Many Meetings, the show finally gets on the road back to the Shire. I think you can tell that Tolkien was into this, because his language is a bit more biblical than usual. While they're still in Gondor, I like that it's genuinely impossible to tell of Éomer and Gimli were actually going to fight or not.

It maybe needs to be pointed out that Éowyn's marriage to Faramir is throughout presented as an unequivocally good thing. This in spite of the fact that by the blood-racism of the Elronds of Middle-earth, it represents a "dilution" of Faramir's Nùmenoran blood. One imagines him frowning at the feast.

Since this is the last we'll see of Rohan, maybe a few words on it are in order. Like I said earlier, Rohan is Old English Mercia, but with more horses. Again, you can tell Tolkien is into it because of the long list of kings of Rohan, all solidly Anglo-Saxon names. But at Théoden's funeral, the Riders are also very foreign: a point is made of the fact that almost no-one understands their language, and while Théoden is very properly buried in a barrow, the Riders riding around it and singing in their strange tongue is closer to Tamerlane than Tamworth. I still have no idea why this is; either why Tolkien decided to make his northern horsemen into England-analogues or the other way around. I'm not aware of any biographical indications that Tolkien was like at all a horse dude. If you think about it, wouldn't the men of Dale have made a better fit for analogue-England, as waterborne traders with a mythical dragon-slayer as a national hero? But instead it's the horse-masters. Go figure.

The meeting with Saruman heavily foreshadows what's to come, and I can't help feeling that the emptiness of Tolkien's maps works against him here. Saruman has left Orthanc and is travelling northwest - where else could he be going? To set up as a beggar in Bree? Burgle Tom Bombadil? The ominous comment on the Southfarthing kind of clinches it in the end.

Having said that, I wonder if it's very responsible of Gandalf to just let Saruman go. He seems to complain when Treebeard did the same, but then again I don't know what they could have done, I guess.

The encounter with Saruman changes the mood somewhat from a triumphant homecoming to an expectation that the story isn't over yet, and meeting a clearly doddering Bilbo is also a reminder that things aren't just going to return to normal. I've said it a million times, but I'll say it again: I don't know what book the people who say this ends "happily ever after" with everything exactly the same as it was at the beginning have read, because it sure as hell wasn't this one.

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Next time: a pub.