I've got rambling on my mind ... walking and reality in The Lord Of The Rings

How reading LOTR out loud to an 85-year-old has given me even more respect for JRR Tolkien and a deeper understanding of why 'The road goes ever on and on'

By DAVID MYTON

Recently I have had the great pleasure of reading The Lord Of The Rings to a woman aged in her mid 80s. Her name is Faye (which derives, coincidentally, from an old word for “fairy”). She has poor eyesight so can’t read for herself, and is not in the best of health.

I have read LOTR scores of times since I first laid my hands (and eyes) on it more than 50 years ago. I love this book. It is a work of genius – specifically that of the great Oxford scholar JRR Tolkien.

But Faye had never read it, maybe hadn’t even heard of it, and neither had she seen the Peter Jackson movie trilogy.

Now she loves LOTR - and has a special fondness for Gandalf and Galadriel.

We are now well into the book, heading for the battle of Helms Deep.

Over several weeks and various adventures – I read to Faye one hour a week – the Hobbits and Aragorn eventually arrived at Rivendell.

Frodo and co were now “safe in the Last Homely House east of the sea”.

Faye said: “Well I’m very happy for them. They need a good rest after all that walking … maybe now they can put their feet up.”

There’s lots of walking in LOTR, although I’d never really registered it when I read the book to myself.

But reading it to Faye, I became very aware of it … walk, walk, and more walking. (Horses and passenger-bearing eagles appear in later chapters)

There’s even a walking song:

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began …

Here is the genius of Tolkien at work. Middle Earth is believable. It is a kind of rustic but mystical old England. And as Tolkien well knew, if you wanted to get anywhere in England, at least prior to the Norman Conquest in 1066, you walked.

When King Harold learned after the Battle of Stamford Bridge (against the Vikings) in North Yorkshire in September 1066 that William, Duke of Normandy, had landed with his soldiers at Pevensey on the South Coast of England – well, Harold and his army walked the 120 or so miles to Hastings to do battle. (Spoiler alert, the Normans won)

And when Merry and Pippin are kidnapped by Orcs at the beginning of The Two Towers, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli simply walk (and run) across the vast expanses of Rohan to try to find them.

Meanwhile, Frodo and Sam are walking to Mordor in their quest to destroy the ring in Mount Doom.

Tolkien’s Riders of Rohan may be “pure Anglo-Saxon” in their names and conduct – and much of their language is an echo of the old Saxon poem The Wanderer - but there is “one thing about the Riders which does not resemble the historical ancestors of the English, which is that they are riders …” writes Tom Shippey in JRR Tolkien: Author of the Century (HarperCollins, 2000)

Tolkien knew his history, which is why LOTR appears “real”. The “walking everywhere” trope may seem a minor detail, but it is absolutely essential in making Middle Earth “believable”.

Which is one of the reasons Faye loves it.

REFERENCES

JRR Tolkien, The Lord Of The Rings, HarperCollins, 2004

Tom Shippey, JRR Tolkien: Author Of The Century, HarperCollins, 2000

David Howarth, 1066 The Year Of The Conquest, Book Club Associates, 1978

Robert Lacey & Danny Danziger, The Year 1000. What Life Was Like At The Turn Of The First Millennium, Abacus, 2000