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Things of Middle-earth

O! Wanderers in the shadowed land

Type: Songs & Stories

Other Names:
Song in the Woods (LoTR index only)

Description:

After entering the Old Forest, Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin have difficulty finding the path in the oppressive atmosphere:
[Stronger] than ever they felt again the ill will of the wood pressing on them. So silent was it that the fall of their ponies' hoofs... seemed to thud in their ears. Frodo tried to sing a song to encourage them, but his voice sank to a murmur.

O! Wanderers in the shadowed land
despair not! For though dark they stand,
all woods there be must end at last,
and see the open sun go past:
the setting sun, the rising sun,
the day's end, or the day begun.
For east or west all woods must fail...

Fail — even as he said the word his voice faded into silence. The air seemed heavy.... Just behind them a large branch fell from an old overhanging tree with a crash into the path. The trees seemed to close in before them.

'They do not like all that about ending and failing,' said Merry.

The Fellowship of the Ring, LoTR Book 1, Ch 6, The Old Forest

Contributors:
~Nessime 18Jul03

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