And yes I know, the irony of asking not to be spoiled for a 80 year old book does not elude me, but there's a reason I haven't done wiki dives
Alright. Though i do want to state that part of its from other books so some of it isn't part of LotR. Anything involving the Ainur as an example.
I apologize too. I didn't mean to spoil things, so I'll be a lot more careful about trying to avoid that in any future comments.
Thanks, you two ::3 I do enjoy the ramblings, just not when it's like "oh this comes up halfways through the next book" or "from that supplementary material we learn" and I'm like, dude, I need to start somewhere. Also I had to face the fact that to get through LOTR in 4 days I would need to read about 260 pages a day, and I can barely get through 77. Can't inhale Tolkien like I can inhale some other authors. I might need to get some decent booze and read some chapters drunk. THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING - CHAPTER 4 - A short cut to mushrooms This sounds like an intermission. As Homestuck who has read the Intermission, I can't even say #didntreadtheintermission. #bluh Pippin, what happened to the hobbitish attitude of sharing food, if you need held back from inhaling Frodo's portion just because he slept in? Also, you guys need alarm clocks or sth. The fragrantness of the fern bed is sort of interesting, seeing as the dark rider sniffed around. Sam, Sam, das gay. Also why didn't you go and pour a bucket of water over Frodo's face to wake him up? ... Straight through the underbrush either means moving plants out of the way, not leaving a trail, but getting slowed down, or strategically utilizing a bushwhacker, leaving a trail, and not getting slowed down quite as much. Wonder how many twigs y'all gotta pick out of your foot hair later. Like, is that a thing? Something getting helplessly tangled in hobbit foot hair, and maybe the hobbit in question even gets stuck because of it, and then out the scissors come? Is that like a mark of shame? Or like a rite of passage, like you haven't been out and about until you've needed to cut something out of your foot hair? Or is that stuff like, pristinely combed? Are there hobbits who braid their foot hair? Maybe put beads in? You guys also need a compass. Drinking song ::D Still somber. On the other hand, I can imagine that quite a few drinking songs are somber, because of a need to drink in the first place... Also, yes, alert your hunter to your position by singing loudly. Also confirmed that it's at least two currently on their trail. Mushroom farm, nice. Wonder if Old Maggot just grows the edible kind, or if there's other reasons besides chasing off crop thieves that he doesn't like people touching his shrooms. Also, someone stop me from making a flora/fauna encyclopedia for my setting after I've finished the cultural one. Doggos! Yes of course Old Maggot will start at the name of Baggins, because that's the name the 'queer stranger' has been asking about, omf. Also, what happened to your travel name? On the other hand, I think Pippin still thinks Frodo is going to settle down across the river, so the neighbours ought to know his real name. If your dogs bolt, then you know there's something not only evil, but so strong they run. Yeah, the comment about smalltown busybodies from turtleDove makes a lot of sense. I guess I have trouble recognizing stuff like that, because I never lived anywhere remotely like that. Always a big city. And I knew like no one in the district I grew up in because we were the weird family. Gossiping is about as alien as being close to my neighbours "_"° Rest of the Maggot family is just periphery. Not even a "guests, pop?". At least he listens to the sensible phrase his wife says. Yeah, the terrible chill and urge to slip on the ring was missing.
I just want to know if Farmer Maggot grows anything else besides mushrooms. 'cause you can't grow most mushrooms in a field. And whether the mushrooms are intentionally cultivated or not, because a lot of the best mushrooms are super-capricious about whether they're going to decide to come up anywhere in particular on any year in particular. If he had, like, a fairly reliable patch of morels, it makes perfect sense both that he'd get mushroom poachers and that he'd be angry enough about it to sic his dogs on said mushroom poachers. :::PPP
I believe cutting your foot hair is frowned upon but I can't remember if that's canon or just super convincing fanon but it is generally pristinely combed and braids and beads are usually Dwarven stuff not somethign hobbits would get into. Well not most Hobbits, depending on how hard you ship Thorin and Bilbo, there may be one exception :P
IRL, the secret to farming mushrooms is that you don't try to grow them outdoors, silly. It's pretty simple, you just need a substrate of straw or other compost, soak it near-boiling water, place in a moist environment, and spread spores (easily gathered by just taking a mushroom cap and leaving it over a bit of cloth/paper/whatever) over it. Since hobbits are already into digging, they could pretty easily place a few mushroom growing trays in a 'closet'. So yeah, a mushroom field would definitely be a weird thing. That was definitely changed in the movie, and I don't recall that detail in the book...
Spoiler: Mushroom derail SOME mushrooms, sure. But I repeat: the first person to figure out how to get morels to come up anywhere but where they damn well please would get very rich indeed. (And I actually have seen a field of mushrooms, once. It was an empty lot that had like a dozen giant puffballs coming up in it. It was very impressive. Me and Grandma swiped a couple.)
Spoiler: Mushroom derail Morels are tricky, and an exception to the usual rule of growing mushrooms indoors, since they depend on a quasi-symbiotic relationships with specific kinds of trees. Therefore, in order to grow them, you need to co-culture them with the appropriate trees. The concept of co-culturing terrifies European farmers for some reason, and it's a slow and not particularly profitable process, even when it works. http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2005/biotech-brings-mushroom-hunt-indoors/ It's apparently *possible*to grow morels indoors, but requires modern technology. (Specific cultures of bacteria, chemical additives, etc.) Certainly did a fair amount of business, but apparently ran into contamination problems.
THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING - CHAPTER 5 - A conspiracy unmasked The Bucks have conspired to replace all signs into Buckland with shiny new signs and leave the old ones for Hobbiton unchanged, so you can see how much better off Buckland is? Scandalous. (Also I'm bookmarking all of these damn maps so I have half a sense of where the hell the party is) On the river, through the mist. A couple dozen kilometres north from where I lived, there is the story of a singing rock, and of a lot of ships sinking. Well, the river is treacherous there, let's hope the Brandywine isn't? Wow, that's one big burrow. Like a myzel. A hedge. Against the forest. Really. Any decent forest would just assimilate the hedge and then start throwing seedlings across, you'd think. Are they like, treating the forest like an unwanted solicitor, and once it comes too close to the hedge they charge it with treespassing?? Frodo you're fifty. The fuck you talking about retirement. "We can't begin life at Crickhollow with a quarrel over baths!" Yes, Merry, yes we can. Also, four tubs? That's decadent. And that's all I'm going to say on the matter. I love that bath song and I agree completely. Well, maybe not about the beer, because there's only one beer that is in any way drinkable and it's a local brew from my hometown. Frodo uses obfuscation! It's not very effective. Pippin, you know Frodo too well. Merry, you too. Or maybe Frodo just sucks at obfuscation, idk. Frodo, please note the omitted "You're not going to escape us that easily", I'm fairly certain they're planning on tagging along. #lolspoilers Merry, how the hell did you learn about that damn thing-- Oh, you mean the second 'going away', not the first? Good grief, you rascals. And of course Sam was spying. Just not out of his own curiosity alone, but because the rest of the band roped him into it. He just kept his place, and was slightly overlooked as the Gardener. You guys ought to be glad he limits his shenaniganry to eavesdropping, and not to developing new fertilizers. What happened to the other guys? So und jetz gehn alle nochmal aufs Klo und dann reiten wir los. "_" Speaking of maps, I just checked the partial Shire map, it has both Hobbiton and Brandy Hall on it, and how in the seven hells did they even get to that damn forest? Unless there's one that's not marked on the map, but the second they hit it shoulda told them they're too damn far south! ... "When the trees are sleepy and fairly quiet". Ok. So like, Disney's Snow White sort of forest? Also weird, maybe semi-prophetic dream. Yadda yadda, a storm is coming. Real subtle.
I just love forests a lot in fantasy. Tolkien is up there with one of my favs in regards to how forests are treated.
I read once that people hated going on walks with Tolkien because he would just stop and stare at trees for like 20 minutes and ignore everyone around him, and I absolutely believe it.
