Dear Readers,
A few weeks ago I celebrated the first post on my blog to have been viewed 1,000 times. It is entitled A Chance for Faramir, Captain of Gondor, to Show His Quality. If you look at Top Posts and Pages in the column on the right of this page you will find a link to it there.
Today I wish to celebrate the second of my posts to achieve the same distinction. Actually allow me to confess. It has been viewed 997 times but I hope that by the end of the day that will have become 1,000! It is a piece that I remain pleased with. It expresses two things. One is the importance of small things in The Lord of the Rings and how wisdom is shown in paying attention to them. Another links to a recent conversation on the blog about how Sauron, the great planner, tends to overlook small things. Olga Polomoshnova made this point in a comment on my post, Why Did Sauron Make the Ring?
And the post that I hope you are about to read also gave me the chance to thank one or two othere who have been regular supporters of the blog. Conversation is one of the joys of blogging and it has contributed so much to deepening my understanding of Tolkien’s work.
Frodo cannot cast the Ring into the Fire. It has mastered him and will not be destroyed in that way. In the last two weeks, firstly in my own post, Frodo Claims The Ring For Himself and in Anne Marie Gazzolo’s wonderful meditation, The Ring Claims Frodo we saw that Frodo spent all that he could of himself just to bring the Ring to the Mountain. He had nothing more to give. As Tom Hillman put it, with typical wisdom in a comment on Frodo Claims The Ring For Himself, “no-one could have achieved the Quest by throwing the Ring into the Fire”
I think it is necessary to pause here a moment to say that when Tom says no-one he means that not Elrond, nor Galadriel nor Gandalf nor Aragorn could have thrown the Ring into the Fire. There is an amusing meme that does the rounds of the…
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Wisdom from The Lord of the Rings 