Today is Hobbit Day, that is, the birthday of both Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. Maybe next year I will manage to have a party in their honor. I only thought of it a week in advance this year, and that’s not enough time. Besides, Monday is not the best day for a party.
Has any of you, my readers, ever hosted or attended an event on Tolkien’s birthday or that of his hobbit characters? We had one at our house on January 3rd (Tolkien’s birthday) a long time ago, and it was a lot of fun. But this year, I’ll just post this song (with a musical link below it) from the tale of hobbits and their adventure:
MISTY MOUNTAINS
Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pale enchanted gold.
The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.
For ancient king and elvish lord
There many a gleaming golden hoard
They shaped and wrought, and light they caught
To hide in gems on hilt of sword.
On silver necklaces they strung
The flowering stars, on crowns they hung
The dragon-fire, in twisted wire
They meshed the light of moon and sun.
Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away, ere break of day,
To claim our long-forgotten gold.
Goblets they carved there for themselves
And harps of gold; where no man delves
There lay they long, and many a song
Was sung unheard by men or elves.
The pines were roaring on the height,
The winds were moaning in the night.
The fire was red, it flaming spread;
The trees like torches blazed with light.
The bells were ringing in the dale
And men looked up with faces pale;
Then dragon’s ire more fierce than fire
Laid low their towers and houses frail.
The mountain smoked beneath the moon;
The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom.
They fled their hall, to dying fall
Beneath his feet, beneath the moon.
Far over the misty mountains grim
To dungeons deep and caverns dim
We must away, ere break of day,
To win our harps and gold from him!
I like the YouTube video of Clamavi De Profundis singing “Misty Mountains”, an expanded-version cover of the original soundtrack of “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.” The song comes from the chapter “An Unexpected Party” of The Hobbit, and this group adds verses from later in the book. It’s not a poem I am likely to memorize, but the tune I can’t get out of my head. That’s okay. Its mood seems to be in harmony with my own daily paths:
The King is come unto his hall
Under the Mountain dark and tall.
The Worm of Dread is slain and dead,
And ever so our foes shall fall!
For I remember with certainty this fixed psychological fact; that the very time when I was most under a woman’s authority, I was most full of flame and adventure. Exactly because when my mother said that ants bit they did bite, and because snow did come in winter (as she said); therefore the whole world was to me a fairyland of wonderful fulfillments, and it was like living in some Hebraic age, when prophecy after prophecy came true.
If only I were better at writing funny stories – I’ve had such good material for them the last couple of weeks! When the “funny” things are happening — i.e., the crazy days when I lose my keys, forget my phone, break a crown on my tooth, spend half the day on a cooking project that turns out barely edible, spend the other half driving back and forth to appointments or making fruitless business calls, and at the end of it all get stood up by my computer guy — my writer’s mind tries weakly to do its usual thing of organizing chaos into sentences, but only in synaptic spasms. And what exactly is humorous about this, anyway…? The exhaustion is total, and I only want to go to bed early.
Gladsome Lights 