The Fox and the Hobbits: Grimmian Wonder

"'Hobbits!' he thought. 'Well, what next? I have heard of strange doings in this land, but I have seldom heard of a hobbit sleeping out of doors under a tree. Three of them! There's something mighty queer behind this.' He was quite right, but he never found out any more about it." - The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Chapter 3: "Three is Company"

Once the four Fellowship hobbits pass through the Brandybucks' Old Forest gate, they journey from marvel to marvel - but I do not think this should be taken to mean that there were no wonders at home in the Shire. Some readers, I know, object to the soliloquizing fox who stumbles upon Frodo, Sam, and Pippin sleeping in the Woody End on the very first night of their adventure. Perhaps a sentient beast strikes some as out of keeping with the epic grandeur of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, but I think the charming fox typifies one of the Professor's best teachings.

As so stirringly explained in Tolkien's "On Fairy-stories" lecture and essay, an escape to the Secondary World of imagination can refresh our Primary World perceptions. When we read the old tales recorded by the Brothers Grimm, as did Tolkien, we do not demand a rational explanation for how a poor boy can cut down a tree and find a precious goose inside it, nor of how a fish can make a palace appear on the shore. Whilst in Faërie, we accept that this is the way things are, and it is that experience of wondrous possibilities that is the broadening exercise for our imaginations.

As you stand here beneath the great fir tree with the fox and the hobbits, perhaps there is a gift to bring back with you to the Primary World. Homo-centrism is something I view as a kind of flaw that cuts some people off from according full respect to our fellows in the animal kingdom. Could it not be quite possible that animals think just like the thoughtful fox in our Primary World, though in their own developed languages? Researchers are always being surprised by animals' methods of communication with one another, and people who enrich their lives with domesticated creatures hardly need scholars to tell them that their pets communicate all sorts of things to them, and to one another. I will be the least surprised person in Middle-earth if science one day declares that all creatures have been talking to one another all along in their own tongues and have been attempting to communicate with us since the beginning. I have observed many curious things.

If the talking fox in "Three is Company" gives you pause, perhaps it's a pause that can contain a message to be on the lookout at all times, in all places, and amongst all creatures for the "ordinary everyday sort" of magic which the hobbits were said to possess, in the eyes of Big Folk. In March, I will have the pleasure of giving a little talk at the Tolkien Society's Tolkien Reading Day gathering on the subject of how we underrate the capacities of overlooked heroes at our peril. Goodness knows, we do not want to be like Saruman, who overlooked the ents and their companions.

I love walking through the Grimmian door to suppose that the Shire was full of wonders. Perhaps the thrushes and ravens there were always trying to talk to the hobbits, but it took Bilbo being in perilous circumstances to listen. I rather dread being sleepy-minded and missing out on marvels. Frodo, Pippin, and Sam are quite asleep here as the fox passes quietly by, and neither party ever hears any more about the other, but I would gladly follow the fox for further adventures. I hope it is a pleasure to see this remarkable scene depicted in the arts, and that you will enjoy this little video short: