The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 386-387

It is the 26th of February in the year 3019 of the Third Age and when Frodo walks away from his companions so that he might have an hour in order to think he will not see them again until he wakes on the Field of Cormallen on April 8th. That is, I should have said, he will not see his companions save one, and briefly, tragically, another, until that day. During that time the world will change because of the choice that Frodo will make but also because of the choices of each of his companions, but at this moment none of them knows what those choices will be.

Perhaps Frodo really does know but as he walks away in order to think he still struggles with that choice and with how he is to tell the others. Sam really does know. “Plain as a pikestaff it is,” he says to himself, but then for the very first time in all the story Sam chooses not to follow Frodo. Frodo has to make his own mind up.

That the Ring must go to the Fire is, for Frodo, beyond doubt. He made this promise at the Council of Elrond with the words, “I will take the Ring… though I do not know the way” and Elrond confirmed his choice at the departure of the Fellowship from Rivendell.

“The Ring-bearer is setting out on the Quest of Mount Doom. On him alone is any charge laid: neither to cast away the Ring, nor to deliver it to any servant of the Enemy nor indeed to let any handle it, save members of the Company and the Council and only then in gravest need. The others go with him as free companions, to help him on his way. You may tarry, or come back, or turn aside into other paths, as chance allows. The further you go, the less easy it will be to withdraw; yet no oath or bond is laid on you to go further than you will. For you do not know the strength of your hearts, and you cannot foresee what each may meet upon the road.”

Elrond’s words prove prophetic but perhaps, as is the true nature of prophecy, he speaks of what is always true and at all times. None of the Fellowship can foresee what they are to meet upon the road and the events that will follow Frodo’s request to spend time alone in thought are, at the moment when he makes that request, entirely unknown both to him or to any of the others. For each one of them it will be these events and not what they thought had been their considered opinions that will shape their choices. Gimli had wanted to swear an oath, as was the practice of his people, to stay with Frodo with Frodo until the very end but Elrond wisely persuaded him not to do this. On this day Gimli will need the freedom that Elrond gave him to make a choice that he never thought that he would ever have to make.

Is there any point in all our struggles to make the great choices of our lives? Should we not simply accept, as Galadriel said to the Fellowship on the eve of their departure from Lothlórien, that the paths that each of us will tread are already laid before our feet though we do not see them?

As with Elrond’s words Galadriel’s are always true, always and timelessly wise, but surely there is a place for thought of the road ahead? Such thought acts as a preparation of the heart for the moment when the choice will have to be made. Frodo has already decided that he must take the Ring to the Fire and that this is his destiny. Sam is certain that he must go wherever Frodo goes. Aragorn longs to go to Minas Tirith but feels that it is his duty to go with Frodo. The events of this fateful day will appear to take him to neither but he will remain true to his deepest self.