After many days and nights traveling by themselves through vast wastelands, including the jagged hills of the black lands,and the Dead Marshes, Frodo, Sam and Gollum are tired, hungry, and feeling no closer to entering the perilous Mount Doom where they will be able to destroy the One Ring of power that they have carried with them all the way from Rivendell. It is notas easy as simply walking in to Mordor, so they have had to take a long and treacherous way round, and walking by night, hiding by days, and they have reached the point of hopelessness.
Sam Gamgee, arguablythe bravest character of them all, has been keeping an eye on their meagerprovisions of Lembas bread, the sustaining food of the elves, but even he has noticed that they are beginning to run low, and that they will not have enough for the return journey. Thus, when they get to the fields of Ithil, in which there is finally fresh clean water to drink, herbs and flowers that can be used to cook with, and most of all Game, he sends Smeagol off to hunt.
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The creature comes back with some young rabbits, which Samwise skins and cooks in a broth. Although there are no vegetables or anything to go with it, it is only a thin watery stew, it is probably the most nutritious thing they have eaten since leaving Lothlorien, where they were received as guests and taken care of by Lady Galadriel herself. However, a pice of kindling which Sam had been using to cook with gets slightly damp, and lets off some grey smoke, which alerts those in surrounding areas to their whereabouts.
Luckily for them, it is Faramir of Gondor and his Rangers of Ithilien who find them, rather than a band of orcs, or other servants of the enemy. Faramir’s men are out protecting the lands froma group of Hrardrim soldierswho are causing trouble and stumble across the hobbits because of the cooking mishap. Gollum manages to slip away, but Sam and Frodo aretaken to the forbidden poolwhere the rangers have a secret hideout.
There, they are offered the first proper meal that they have had in over a week, and compared to their meager pickings of late, it is a veritable feast of meats and cheeses and fruits with bread and butter. Before they sit down to eat, however, Sam dunks his entire head into a bowl of freezing cold water to try to wake himself up. He spent the entire night keeping vigilance over Frodo, because he does not yet trust these men, and fears that they may try to do him harm.
They are questioned if washing before dinner is a ritual in The Shire, and when they inform the strangers that it isn’t, Faramir invites them to join him and his men in their own strange ritual. They all sit at the table and turn to face the west before commencing their meal. Faramir explains “We look towards Numenor that was, and beyond to Elvenhome that is, and that which is beyond Elvenhome and ever will be.”
The hobbits are surprised by the sincerity of the ritual, and it makes them feel uncultured that no such thing exists back in their own homelands. But manyLord of the Ringsfans have found it a strange ritual to appear in an otherwise atheist story, because of its obvious resemblance to the Christian tradition of saying Grace before eating. It is the only mention of anything so symbolic throughout the trilogy, although they seem to be paying respects to the men who came before them and created the life they live now, rather than a deity of any kind.
However, it is a fact that Tolkien was deeply religious himself, and wasraised a Roman Catholic in an Oratorywhen his mother died young due to complications arising from Diabetes. So perhaps he wanted to pay homage to his personal background in this scene, and suggest that Middle Earth is not completely Godless. He did once say though that the religion within the story was more embedded within its themes and characters as opposed to anything so explicit. In many ways,Gandalf the Grey dying and being resurrected as Gandalf the Whiteis a very close allegory of the story of Christ, and the concept of the books that good will always triumph over evil as long as there is love, loyalty, and fellowship within the world, also has some religious connotations.
Whether the story is taken as a religious parable, or whether some natural context of the writer and his own lids just slipped in, doesn’t change the heart that exists within its core, and its message of hope and light in the darkest of places.
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