film, which retains only Bilbo's "Walking Song" (The road goes ever on and on). The film gestures to the Elves' lament for Gandalf in Lorien, but not the more substantial threnody by Frodo. Jackson's portrayal of the Prancing Pony inn at Bree offers a brief glance of Hobbit culture--but once again, we lose Frodo's humorous ditty on "The Man in the Moon". 31 Apart from its function as a trope of culture, the extensive use of verse is also an index to the fundamental oral traditions of Tolkien's creations. Although Middle Earth is a literate world with a variety of alphabets, it is oral rather than scribal forms that dominate the dissemination of cultural lore and traditions. 32 This is best exemplified in the secrets of the Ring itself, preserved in the octave of The Verse of the Rings: "Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone Nine for mortal men doomed to die, One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne In the Land of Mordor where the shadows lie. One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them In the Land of Mordor where the shadows lie." This essential piece of verse lore never appears in the film, which only quotes the couplet inscribed on the Ring itself ("One Ring to rule them all," etc .). Further examples of verse lore are Bilbo's riddle