LOTR re-read :)

[Alcuin]

Originally Posted by Valandil

I'm actually finishing something else too - before I start "The Hobbit". ... I started some threads about three years ago that are still on this first page. Maybe that was the time of my last re-read. I see about four of them. Shall I *bump* as we get to those parts? All are from pretty early in the book.

Yes, please bump them.

I’ve just completed re-reading The Hobbit. I need to write and post an essay before I begin Fellowship of the Ring; I’ll try to complete that this week. So I’ll be a laggard, too.

A thought has been burning in my mind for many months now, though: the Forward says,

Three Elf-towers of immemorial age were still to be seen on the Tower Hills beyond the western marches. They shone far off in the moonlight. The tallest was furthest away, standing alone upon a green mound. The Hobbits of the Westfarthing said that one could see the Sea from the lop of that tower; but no Hobbit had ever been known to climb it.

Those towers were built by Gil-galad, either for Elendil or given to him upon his arrival in Middle-earth. The tallest one was where the last of the palantÃ*ri of Arnor was kept, the one that looked upon Avallónë in Tol Eressëa. I think Elendil used it to communicate with his father, Amandil, and with the Elven friends of the Lords of Andúnië who gave Amandil the palantÃ*ri; after he died, no Dúnadan used it again, but the Eldar made pilgrimages to look into it: Gildor Inglorion and his companions who met Frodo, Sam, and Pippin in the Woody End just as the Nazgûl (Khamûl) overtook and was about to capture them, had just returned from such a pilgrimage; Tolkien indicates they had seen a vision of Elbereth Gilthoniel in the palantÃ*r.

After the departure of Elrond and most of the remaining Eldar, that strip of land was empty and the towers unguarded. At Sam’s request (probably more as a suggestion to the King) as Mayor of the Shire, they were added to the Shire, and Sam’s son-in-law, Elanor’s husband Fastred of Greenholm, was made Warden of Westmarch. I believe the towers then fell under his care. I imagine he was given the keys to the towers – and I also think it quite possible that after Sam left Middle-earth following the death of Rose, his wife, that Elanor climbed the tower to look into the West, where her beloved father had gone.

Just a little imagination.