Reading Tolkien Out Loud - The Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter Six.

[curiouswombat]

For those of you expecting pictures of steam trains - normal service will be resumed later!

But today is the last day for the current round of reading-Tolken-out-loud. This time my section can be found a couple of pages into Chapter Six of 'The Fellowship of the Ring'...


The link is Here

And the text, for you to read along


'That is Durin's Stone! ' cried Gimli. `I cannot pass without turning aside for a moment to look at the wonder of the dale! '

`Be swift then! ' said Aragorn, looking back towards the Gates. `The Sun sinks early. The Orcs will not, maybe, come out till after dusk, but we must be far away before nightfall. The Moon is almost spent, and it will be dark tonight.'

'Come with me, Frodo! ' cried the dwarf, springing from the road. `I would not have you go without seeing Kheled-zaram.' He ran down the long green slope. Frodo followed slowly, drawn by the still blue water in spite of hurt and weariness; Sam came up behind.

Beside the standing stone Gimli halted and looked up. It was cracked and weather-worn, and the faint runes upon its side could not be read. `This pillar marks the spot where Durin first looked in the Mirrormere,' said the dwarf. 'Let us look ourselves once, ere we go!'

They stooped over the dark water. At first they could see nothing. Then slowly they saw the forms of the encircling mountains mirrored in a profound blue, and the peaks were like plumes of white flame above them; beyond there was a space of sky. There like jewels sunk in the deep shone glinting stars, though sunlight was in the sky above. Of their own stooping forms no shadow could be seen.

'O Kheled-zaram fair and wonderful! ' said Gimli. `There lies the Crown of Durin till he wakes. Farewell! ' He bowed, and turned away, and hastened back up the green-sward to the road again.

`What did you see? ' said Pippin to Sam, but Sam was too deep in thought to answer.

.................

The road now turned south and went quickly downwards, running out from between the arms of the dale. Some way below the mere they came on a deep well of water, clear as crystal, from which a freshet fell over a stone lip and ran glistening and gurgling down a steep rocky channel.

'Here is the spring from which the Silverlode rises.' said Gimli. `Do not drink of it! It is icy cold.'

'Soon it becomes a swift river, and it gathers water from many other mountain-streams,' said Aragorn. `Our road leads beside it for many miles. For I shall take you by the road that Gandalf chose, and first I hope to come to the woods where the Silverlode flows into the Great River-out yonder.' They looked as he pointed, and before them they could see the stream leaping down to the trough of the valley, and then running on and away into the lower lands, until it was lost in a golden haze.

`There lie the woods of Lothlórien! ' said Legolas. `That is the fairest of all the dwellings of my people. There are no trees like the trees of that land. For in the autumn their leaves fall not, but turn to gold. Not till the spring comes and the new green opens do they fall, and then the boughs are laden with yellow flowers; and the floor of the wood is golden, and golden is the roof, and its pillars are of silver, for the bark of the trees is smooth and grey. So still our songs in Mirkwood say. My heart would be glad if I were beneath the eaves of that wood, and it were springtime! '

`My heart will be glad, even in the winter,' said Aragorn. 'But it lies many miles away. Let us hasten! '

Comments

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

That really is a very descriptive passage, you can almost hear and feel the stream and the woods.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Isn't it? It was a nice piece to read.

[shirebound]

I love having the book read to me. You read beautifully.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Thank you - I like to be read to, too; I will spend time later listening to it in order once all the posts are in.

[wormwood-7.livejournal.com]

A really nice passage. This is what Tolkien does best. He gives his world such a strong sense of place.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

He does, doesn't he? A world for the rest of us to wander through!

[lbilover.livejournal.com]

You have such a lovely reading voice! :D Thank you so much! It's always touched me that Gimli asks Frodo to go with him to look into the Mirrormere, and Tolkien's descriptions are so wonderful that it's easy to visualize it.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

You have such a lovely reading voice!

Thank you.

It really is a lovely moment to uplift Frodo in the depth of his sorrow.

[dreamflower]

So nicely read! I love your accent!

That's such a nice passage-- when I hear the familiar words read aloud, it seems I often notice words that didn't register just from my own reading silently. This time it was "freshet". That's such a nice word, uncommon, and yet easily understood from context.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Thank you - of course to me my accent seems the usual one for reading out loud - I was fascinated the first time I heard someone with an American accent reading Tolkien!

I was rather taken by the word freshet, too. Reading aloud really does help to highlight words like that.

[ink-gypsy.livejournal.com]

You have a lovely reading voice, and this Yank loves your accent. It was made for Tolkien. Great job!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much - I'm really glad that you enjoyed it.

[addie71.livejournal.com]

I love the descriptions of Mirrormere and Lothlórien. I really enjoyed listening to you.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Thank you - it is a beautifully descriptive passage to read.

[hildigard-brown.livejournal.com]

Tolkien gives us such vivid descriptions of his world and its people. It brings everything to life in my mind, which I guess is one of the many reasons that it still resonates with me even after 45 years of reading it. A very lovely reading, dear!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Thank you. And yes - there are some beautiful descriptive passages and insights into each character, no wonder we keep them in our hearts and minds for so any years.

[vaysh]

No, I came too late! Did you take the reading down already?

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Oh my goodness - no I didn't take it down! Perhaps Vocaroo are time limited and I hadn't realise? Thank you so much for pointing it out.

And now, if I go to Vocaroo there is a request to sign in - which there certainly wasn't a couple of weeks ago, it looks as if they've changed the way they operate. I will have to look at it more closely later, and possibly find some other way of doing it - I can't use voice-posts as I am in Europe.

If I can re-record it it will be back by Sunday afternoon - if you can find the time for coming back to check.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

I seem to be having a problem getting the embedding to work, even though it was working fine when I originally posted. So I have put a straight link - I would really appreciate it if you could check for me it is working.