'My name!' said the old man again. 'Have you not guessed it already? You have heard it before, I think. Yes, you have heard it before. But come now, what of your tale?'
Today is April 27th.
On this day (2941, the Third Age of Middle-earth) the hobbit Bilbo Baggins left the Shire with the company of Thorin Oakenshield and the wizard Gandalf.
The adventure begins!
Lots of people talk about hair braiding in their LOTR fics, especially among the elves and the Rohirrim. But I don’t think we talk about it enough among the horses. If Rohan is a place that puts so much effort and care into their horses and they frequently braid their own hair, then they’re definitely braiding some manes and tails, too, right? And if the elves are putting decorative bells on their horses, how are they not taking this other obvious chance to ramp up their aesthetic game as well? I think they must be, and we just aren’t hearing about it explicitly very often. We ALL braided horse hair at the stable when I was young, and I refuse to believe it’s just a preteen girl thing. More LOTR horse braids!
Tolkien’s subtle connections between LOTR and The Silmarillion are just glorious to discover. Like the reason Gollum hates sunlight and moonlight is the same reason the Nazgûl get scared off when Frodo calls out to Varda! Sauron, and thus his servants and his Ring that has completely corrupted Gollum’s soul, shares the absolute darkness of Melkor, who always hated and feared Varda because she is absolute light and thereby she created the Sun and Moon in defiance of that darkness… and she created them out of the last remaining light of the Two Trees which Melkor destroyed, so every time a piece of Melkor’s darkness comes into contact with the light of the Sun and Moon, it is reminded that Melkor did not destroy that light completely, that it lives on. Gollum can feel Varda’s creations forever clashing with what is indirectly Melkor’s creation.