Chapter 6: The Old Forest

Chapter 6 is really the first chapter where no one is really comfortable or knows what to expect.

Merry does a fine job of leading the party as best as he can through the trails of the Old Forest and using what knowledge he has to be a suitable guide. However, it seems like even a Hobbit who spent all his years next to the brooding and forlorn Old Forest is unable to navigate it successfully.

The Old Forest is a really fascinating area, so close to the Shire, yet impossibly strange and old. Living next door for centuries and the Hobbits still don't know very much about it and don't venture in for fear of the Forest. This fear is both a physical fear (remember the story about the trees rising up and attacking Buckland that is told in the previous chapter?) and a mental one (I probably wouldn't handle living next to violent trees very well either).

The Willow Man is Tamed by Ted Nasmith

Old Forest is remnant of the ancient forest that also included Fangorn. This is more obvious and apparent in the next chapter but it's good to remember up front. Merry describes how trees seem to talk to each other and move and there is an ever-present sense of always being watched.

Again, I come back to the story of the trees attacking the Hedge and the Hobbits that cut down hundreds of these trees and burned them in a gigantic clearing that can still be found at the edge of the Forest. This is one of Tolkien's early and very strong examples of the struggle between nature and people. Really, the entire series can be seen as a story of this struggle but this is a pretty obvious case. I think that through this lesson of Hobbits co-existing with the Forest, Tolkien is really saying something like, "sometimes nature is weird and wild but balance is needed between destroy it all and let it dominate." The Hobbits have learned to live in peace in the shadow of the Forest and just because there is a mystery, does not mean they need to destroy it all.

I also like to view this chapter as an extension of the Shire chapters where I discussed the theme of a "Children's book" that progressively gets darker. Parts of this chapter feel very much like a classic fairy tale with the Hobbits getting lost in the woods as if they were children in a generic Brothers Grimm story.

The Forest actively pushes the Hobbits deeper into the woods and towards the Withywindle River which Merry had wanted to avoid at all cost. Instead, they end up at the river and rest under the branches of a gigantic willow tree. Again, Tolkien is showing the power of nature here, but this time, commenting how even something good can be despoiled and twisted. In this case, evil has pervaded the Forest and has twisted the once pure nature into something with malice and hate.

Old Man Willow, who will be discussed more in the next chapter, is a sentient tree (remind you of anyone?) and lulls the Hobbits to sleep. Hope is almost lost and the Hobbits nearly perish but Sam resists the allure of Old Man Willow and knows something is wrong. He rescues Frodo from drowning, the FIRST TIME HE SAVES FRODO'S LIFE! Cool point of trivia.

Finally, Merry and Pippen are rescued by the oddest of Tolkien's characters and the focus of the next chapter, Tom Bombadil. I'll just save that discussion for that post because it will be a doozy!