Frodo's Decision

Frodo still sat in silence. The afternoon was passing slowly. He was pondering the way Gollum had told him. It was the pass of Cirith Ungol, though Frodo did not know the name. Had Aragorn or Gandalf been with him they would have warned him of that way. "But they were alone, and Aragorn was far away, and Gandalf stood amid the ruin of Isengard and strove with Saruman, delayed by treason" (p. 252, The Two Towers). Gandalf's thought was ever on Frodo and Sam though they did not know that he was alive. Perhaps Frodo perceived Gandalf from afar for as he sat in silence his thought was bent on Gandalf trying to remember all he had said. They had never spoken of how to enter Mordor. "And here he was a little halfling from the Shire, a simple hobbit of the quiet countryside, expected to find a way where the great ones could not go, or dared not go...it was like a chapter in a story of the world's youth, when the Trees of Silver and Gold were still in bloom" (p. 252, The Two Towers). These are all amazing chapters in the world of Middle-earth!

Frodo continued to think as the day drew on. Sam was looking at the sky above and Gollum sprawled on the ground. Sam noticed four flying shapes high in the sky; dread came over them all again. The Black Riders were abroad. The silence was broken and not only by their talk of the Riders. Soldiers could be heard. At first they thought they had been spied. Gollum crept slowly to the edge of their hollow; it was more Easterlings entering into Mordor. Sam, forgetting all peril, asked Gollum if he saw oliphaunts. Gollum had never heard of such a beast. Sam then broke out into a silly poem about oliphaunts that made Frodo laugh. This must have been a traditional Shire poem; later included in the Red Book. But the tension was broken and Frodo decided he would follow Gollum to Cirith Ungol.

Middle-earth timeline: Third Age, 3019, March 5th
Today's reading comes from: The Two Towers, pages 252-256, The Tolkien Reader, page 234