The Founding of the Fellowship at the Edge of a Forest

The first few pages of Chapter IV of The Fellowship of the Ring give us one of the finest examples in all the lore of Tolkien's wizardry with contrasts.

Awakening from his beautiful elf-bower and going to the edge of the autumn wood, Frodo is deep in an internal debate that does much to cement our understanding of his serious-mindedness. He is, after all, not your average hobbit, and we see him resolving not to lead his friends into deadly peril.

"A Star Shines on the Hour of Our Meeting" - Miriam Ellis

Woods are tangled places in The Lord of the Rings, and at the edge of this one, it is Sam Gamgee who is suddenly seeing with a marked clarity apparently gifted to him by his night amongst the elves. Frodo's fretful muddle and Sam's resolute vision at the grassy verge of the forest could be said to be the foundation on which the Fellowship will be built. Frodo will continue to agonize over his quest until the last pages of the long tale, and Sam will be with him until they are temporarily parted at the Grey Havens. Few other scenes are so filled with import.

Frodo is bewildered, and Sam is clear, but it is the third contrast that adds the real weight here, if we take care not to overlook the very few words that reveal it. What beleaguered Frodo and devoted Samwise give up in accepting their doom is only properly measured against what little Peregrin is doing. Running in the meadow, singing to himself in the sunshine, Pippin shows us ultimate hobbit simplicity. He is whiling away his morning as is natural to the merriest of his kindred, while the other two sit in the dappled light, making solemn vows. Pippin even chatters cheerfully about the Black Riders - the Ringwraiths! It shows just how little fitted his mind is to compass the reality of such nightmares.

"I am not made for perilous quests. I wish I had never seen the Ring!" Frodo cries out to a compassionate Gandalf in a previous chapter, and when we look at Pippin, we fully appreciate that Frodo is right.

We wish the Ring had never been made, and that Frodo and Sam could leap up from breakfast and go dancing through the grass with their friend. It is what they are suited to. One day, in another grassy place, a great king will bend his knee to Frodo and Sam, and it will be no more than they have deserved for all they have endured, risen to, and sacrificed.

Tolkien's masterpieces are so compendious that even lifelong readers constantly realize that we have overlooked some small thing in them of tremendous value. This might even be seen as a fault of Men. We don't expect little creatures to do magnificent deeds, but where I live, it is the humble squirrels who plant many oxygen-giving forests, and the beavers who water the whole land when humans step back. Little dogs have saved lives, and little children are more adept at the ways of empathy and peace than some Big Folk.

If it's reasonable to suggest that the Fellowship gets its real start in this moment of poignant contrasts, then honoring its astounding achievements should, perhaps, be a helpful reminder to readers to accord the highest respect to the smallest. The unpretending, the overlooked, the quietly brave and loving little ones - Professor Tolkien cared for these.

I hope you'll find value in spending a minute in the time and place of the fledgling of the Fellowship in this video short: