The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, #1)

by J.R.R. Tolkien

‘Courage is found in unlikely places,’ said Gildor. ‘Be of good hope!

This is, of course, the central conceit of The Lord of the Rings. It is the unlikely courage of the hobbits that saves Middle-earth, and the unlikely courage of the lowly, the overlooked, the enslaved and oppressed, that have always brought down mighty empires. The power of such courage is multiplied and transformed through fellowship, through collective action by individual acting in free choice, to bind themsleves to reciprocal obligations of loyalty. It is also, in that respect, an evolution of the ethos of the Anglo-Saxon warrior, of the heart of Beowulf. May we all live up to that ideal.