Reading “The Lord of the Rings”: Chapter 9: “At the Sign of the Prancing Pony”
By: Dr. Thomas J. West Iii
Tags: Books, Literature, Fantasy, Lord Of The Rings, Book Review

Having finally made it through the Old Forest and the Barrow-downs, the hobbits come at last to Bree, a small town that is, for all intents and purposes, the last staging-post before they really enter into the unknown. They find lodgings at a lovely inn called the Prancing Pony, but unfortunately things quickly go rather awry when Frodo, in the midst of performing a song, accidentally (or so it seems) puts on the Ring. The resulting disappearance causes quite an uproar, a situation made worse by the presence of a stranger that has taken quite an interest in Frodo and his doings.

I’ve always felt that Bree was one of the best places that Tolkien ever created, in large part because it seems to be such an anomaly. It’s a bit of an island in the midst of the wild lands that exist in the northwest of Middle-earth but, as the narrator makes clear, it’s actually far older than anything that the men of Westernesse established (or so the Men who live there claim, anyway). There’s no denying that there’s a solidity to the place that suggests that there’s no doubt some truth to their claims; it’s the sort of place that one can almost imagine living in, going on about one’s life without little care for the outside world. Bree, like so many other places that Tolkien created, seems to simply breathe history.

For Sam, this is one of those critical turning points, and the narrator allows us to see a glimpse inside his mind as they approach this strange city, so different from anything that he’s yet encountered. There’s a telling juxtaposition here, for while Sam had previously thought that seeing the wonders and terrors of the outside would would entail larger-than-life things, in reality the most unsettling thing (up until this point, anyway) is a small town full of the dwellings of Men. It’s actually rather touching to see the way in which Sam is so discomfited by something so seemingly ordinary. We also can’t help but admire his bravery in continuing onward anyway, his loyalty (and deference) to Frodo outweighing all other considerations.

The central location in the chapter is, of course, the inn, and it’s one of the warmest places that we see described in Middle-earth. Though there are some hints that all is not as well as it should be — the presence of the southerners proclaiming that they will claim land regardless of the wishes of those currently living on it, for example — it is, all around, a place of comfort and peace. I’ve always thought that one of the most disappointing translations that Peter Jackson made in his adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring was Bree, which becomes far more more menacing than it is in the novel.

That’s not to say that there’s no menace here, of course. Aside from the sinister southerners, there is the stranger that continues to whisper in Frodo’s ear in a corner of the common room, and this is one of those instances where it’s valuable to think about this book from the perspective of someone who’s never read it before. At this point, we have no reason to think that he’s an ally, still less to think that he might be an ally or a friend. Instead we, along with Frodo, can’t help but wonder whether he is just one more person in league with Sauron, making the later revelation that he is, in fact, a good friend of Gandalf and thus an invaluable aid to them all the more surprising.

What makes this especially fascinating is the convoluted path that Tolkien took to arrive at the character of Strider. As Christopher Tolkien documents in his magisterial The History of Middle-earth, for a long time Strider was in fact a character named Trotter who was a hobbit who wore wooden shoes. It’s hard to imagine such a character in the place of the Strider that we know and love, but it seems that the elder Tolkien held onto this idea for quite a long time, and it’s fun (if rather dismaying) to think about how drastically different this book would have been had we been saddled with the character of Trotter rather than Strider. It’s probably no exaggeration to say that The Lord of the Rings would have struggled to find success had he not decided to make this extraordinary change.

Now, I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m not always a huge fan of the songs in The Lord of the Rings (heresy for some, I know). However, there are some exceptions to that, and I personally think that the more amusing songs in this novel are the best ones. That is certainly true of the song that Frodo sings as an attempt to distract the gathered company from what would have been a too-revealing remark from Pippin about the nature of Bilbo’s disappearance. The song is, of course, an imaginative reconstruction of “The Cat and the Fiddle,” giving far more depth to the lyrics than we, in these latter days, were even aware of. It’s truly a brilliant piece of poetry, and it’s hard not to laugh and cheer along with the gathered crowd, our enjoyment given more potency by our awareness of just how brilliantly creative Tolkien must have been to add so many layers to a simple children’s rhyme. While it’s a shame that it was cut out of Jackson’s adaptation (though it makes an abbreviated appearance in Bakshi), it’s hard to imagine it making a very smooth translation to the screen.

In many ways, this is a hinge chapter, marking the moment when Frodo finally leaves behind everything that has even the most tenuous connection to what he’s grown up knowing. Once they leave Bree, they will leave behind hobbits and enter into lands where many have never even heard of them (or, if they have, think of them as nothing more than fairytales). After this brief sojourn, nothing will ever be the same again.

Next up, we’ll discuss in more depth the revelation that Strider is not quite what he seems.