Fog on the Barrow-downs
If In the House of Tom Bombadil was all about enjoying Pauline Banes' illustration, for Fog on the Barrow-downs, I'm going to listen to Andy Serkis narrating this chapter from his 2021 The Fellowship of the Ring audiobook.
Of all the voices he gives the characters, his Bombadil is by far my favourite - solely for the sheer infectious joy he puts into Tom's voice. I think I remember hearing Serkis say that Bombadil was his favourite character to voice - and you can hear why!
It probably goes without saying that I've been reading along to a soundtrack of Howard Shore. The last few chapters, however, have had no corresponding music on the soundtrack as the Old Forest / Tom Bombadil / Barrow-wights are entirely absent from Peter Jackson's film adaptations.
Or ... perhaps not entirely.
One thing I respect about Jackson's adaptations are the constant concessions to missing material. Tolkien himself acknowledged that the 'cannons of narrative art' require methods of telling a story or conveying an idea.
A perfect example is one of my favourite exchanges in The Two Towers, which is missing from even the extended edition of the film, in which Gandalf declares: 'Behold, I am not Gandalf the Grey, whom you betrayed. I am Gandalf the White, who has returned from death. You have no colour now, and I cast you from the order and from the Council.’
I mourned the loss of that line. However - the same exchange is portrayed visually at Meduseld when Théoden, under the influence of Saruman says, 'you have no power here, Gandalf the Grey,' to which Gandalf responds by casting aside his tattered grey cloak and revealing his white robes to Saruman. Same sentiment - different medium!
With Fog on the Barrow-downs, Jackson, Walsh, and Boyens seem deliberately to have peppered in multiple nods to this chapter to compensate for its absence. Firstly, there is Sméagol's song in the Forbidden Pool:
Cold be heart and hand and bone,
Cold be travellers far from home,
They do not see what lies ahead
when sun has failed and moon is dead.
Which is virtually identical to the Barrow-wight's incantation:
Cold be hand and heart and bone,
and cold be sleep under stone:
never more to wake on stony bed,
never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead.
In the black wind the stars shall die,
and still on gold here let them lie,
till the dark lord lifts up his hand
over dead sea and withered land.
But, far more importantly, it's easy to forget that Ian McKellen's 'Death is just another path, one that we all must take,' speech in The Return of the King film isn't in the book at all - although his words about the grey rain-curtain of this world are lifted entirely from Frodo's dream in Bombadil's house at the beginning of this chapter:
'Frodo heard a sweet singing running in his mind: a song that seemed to come like a pale light behind a grey rain-curtain, and growing stronger to turn the veil all to glass and silver, until at last it was rolled back, and a far green country opened before him under a swift sunrise.'
It's a nice nod to an overlooked chapter - skippable in adaptations, maybe, but important nonetheless, as this is where Merry gets his Westernesse dagger that he will eventually stab the Witch King with!
When I reach Bree tomorrow, I'll be able to resume the Howard Shore soundtrack - but in the meantime I'm happily reading along to 'Tom Bombadil's Song' by the Tolkien Ensemble!
I'm not quite at the end of the chapter today, so I still have a few pages of Tom's infectious joy to enjoy tomorrow...
Of all the voices he gives the characters, his Bombadil is by far my favourite - solely for the sheer infectious joy he puts into Tom's voice. I think I remember hearing Serkis say that Bombadil was his favourite character to voice - and you can hear why!
It probably goes without saying that I've been reading along to a soundtrack of Howard Shore. The last few chapters, however, have had no corresponding music on the soundtrack as the Old Forest / Tom Bombadil / Barrow-wights are entirely absent from Peter Jackson's film adaptations.
Or ... perhaps not entirely.
One thing I respect about Jackson's adaptations are the constant concessions to missing material. Tolkien himself acknowledged that the 'cannons of narrative art' require methods of telling a story or conveying an idea.
A perfect example is one of my favourite exchanges in The Two Towers, which is missing from even the extended edition of the film, in which Gandalf declares: 'Behold, I am not Gandalf the Grey, whom you betrayed. I am Gandalf the White, who has returned from death. You have no colour now, and I cast you from the order and from the Council.’
I mourned the loss of that line. However - the same exchange is portrayed visually at Meduseld when Théoden, under the influence of Saruman says, 'you have no power here, Gandalf the Grey,' to which Gandalf responds by casting aside his tattered grey cloak and revealing his white robes to Saruman. Same sentiment - different medium!
With Fog on the Barrow-downs, Jackson, Walsh, and Boyens seem deliberately to have peppered in multiple nods to this chapter to compensate for its absence. Firstly, there is Sméagol's song in the Forbidden Pool:
Cold be heart and hand and bone,
Cold be travellers far from home,
They do not see what lies ahead
when sun has failed and moon is dead.
Which is virtually identical to the Barrow-wight's incantation:
Cold be hand and heart and bone,
and cold be sleep under stone:
never more to wake on stony bed,
never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead.
In the black wind the stars shall die,
and still on gold here let them lie,
till the dark lord lifts up his hand
over dead sea and withered land.
But, far more importantly, it's easy to forget that Ian McKellen's 'Death is just another path, one that we all must take,' speech in The Return of the King film isn't in the book at all - although his words about the grey rain-curtain of this world are lifted entirely from Frodo's dream in Bombadil's house at the beginning of this chapter:
'Frodo heard a sweet singing running in his mind: a song that seemed to come like a pale light behind a grey rain-curtain, and growing stronger to turn the veil all to glass and silver, until at last it was rolled back, and a far green country opened before him under a swift sunrise.'
It's a nice nod to an overlooked chapter - skippable in adaptations, maybe, but important nonetheless, as this is where Merry gets his Westernesse dagger that he will eventually stab the Witch King with!
When I reach Bree tomorrow, I'll be able to resume the Howard Shore soundtrack - but in the meantime I'm happily reading along to 'Tom Bombadil's Song' by the Tolkien Ensemble!
I'm not quite at the end of the chapter today, so I still have a few pages of Tom's infectious joy to enjoy tomorrow...
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