Middle EarthBoard

Hallo! I have heard from you travelers, please grab a chair, take a seat, enjoy the hopitality of Middle Earth and obviously delight us with tales of your adventures and travels... Do you like stew?

A riddle for our guests:

What has roots as nobody sees,
Is taller than trees,
Up, up it goes,
And yet never grows?

I found this cheap-looking gold ring that I can offer as a prize for whoever can guess...

Me?

Dwarf wrote:

A riddle for our guests:

What has roots as nobody sees,
Is taller than trees,
Up, up it goes,
And yet never grows?

I found this cheap-looking gold ring that I can offer as a prize for whoever can guess...

She’ll be comin’ ‘round it when she comes.

Drifter wrote:

So here we all are at this magnificent table in Middle Earth!

I would like to make a toast, not only to this lovey land, but also to some of the other travelers around the table.

Cheers to my fellow Bohemians!!
To wherever the wind blows you,
Here’s to SkodaTruck Drivers, Herby, The Eternal Sightseer, The 21 hot air balloonists, and Migrating Geese!

Thank you for your hospitality! (You might want to hide the ale before Kalmukia gets here and drinks it all)

Greetings and salutations, fair visitors!

The 21 hot air balloonists wrote:

Thank you for your hospitality! (You might want to hide the ale before Kalmukia gets here and drinks it all)

Greetings, Middle Earth

Please follow The 21 hot air balloonists advice. I start singing like a dwarf. Worse, I get ale goggles and orcs become as beautiful as elves.

"Hi Ho! Hi Ho! It's off to work we go!"

Oh wait, wrong dwarves...

Something which is special, I believe, about Bombadil's and Goldberry's hospitality: They may have 'otherworldy' powers, but that transcendence is merely looking at immanence from another angle. One can not imagine either of them ever longing to be somewhere else, travel somewhere else, explore new lands, return overseas. There are no other characters in Middle Earth, I believe, who are are to such a degree definitely at home in Middle Earth and nowhere else.
Tom's country ends here: he will not pass the borders.
Tom has his house to mind, and Goldberry is waiting!
I would not necessarily apply this verse to the Old Forest, but I would apply it to the continent. Therefore, in the profoundest sense of the word, Tom and Goldberry offer the hobbits hospitality in their home.

Dwarf wrote:

Lembas is that Elvish bread. You'll have to speak to the pointy-ears about that. However, they are often reluctant to share their secrets with outsiders... *grumbles about those Elvish types*

Well, because a courteous dwarf once proclaimed them to be even better than the honey-cakes of the Beornings... I've brought lembas for all and sundry, for a feast upon the green grass! Read your personal Elvish Holiday Card while you feast. :)

Elvish holiday card. On the road to the Grey Havens.
https://www.deviantart.com/victoriaclare/art/On-the-Road-to-the-Grey-Havens-765730052
A lucid dream. You see a shimmer as the travellers come towards you.
page=poll/p=150532

Welcome!

Thorin oakenshield wrote:

Whoah. Sounds too uncomfortably like going back to digging proletarian coal in the Blue Mountains... no no no!

At least there isn't A Balrog in those mountains.

Tao the wanderer wrote:

Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.

One of my favourite books is The Tao of Pooh, by Benjamin Hoffman - you can grab a .pdf online if you've not read it - but I've often thought Bombadil is essentially the Tao of Middle Earth, and much like Pooh he's fond of rhymes and song and not doing much but he does his own thing and is perfectly content, not minded with larger questions.

I am me,
And you are you,
As you can see;
But when you do
You'll find the Way,
And if that's true
The Way will also follow you.

Dwarf wrote:

Those are really nice observations :)

I remember he did a follow-up book, The Te of Piglet. Who is the Te of Middle Earth?

Samwise Gamgee might be a contender.

In the book Piglet is shown to possess great power — a common interpretation of the word Te, which more commonly means Virtue — not only because he is small, but also because he has a great heart or, to use a Taoist term, Tz'u.