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The New Hobbit Hole
Posted on 03/14/2002 5:07:26 AM PST by HairOfTheDog
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To: JenB
Got the zeroes! I need to get back in the corner...that's where the wings and pints are!
To: All
To: HairOfTheDog
Ok, here is a description of the picture above (the hobbit that I believe is Pippin, in the lower left hand corner of the book):
It shows a right profile of a slim hobbit climbing using hands and feet up a root. He has on a black shirt and blue knee-length pants. His dark hair is long, just past his shoulders. My copy of the picture shows that he is barefoot and that his eyebrows are furrowed down a bit, giving him an intense expression (even in my book which is in fair condition, this is hard to see.) You can't see much below this one's knees, so you'll just have to take my word for it till we get a better copy (if anyone is interested at all.)
To: 2Jedismom
Ok - Well, funny thing is I used to have those covers, but can't find that set of books. I am afraid I will have to take your word for it on the fine details! Is this Tolkien artwork? - I seem to remember that he did the cover artwork for this addition.
To: HairOfTheDog
Ok, now this is the one that I think is Merry (because he looks in worse shape than the other). It's a left profile picture of a hobbit lying on his abdomen, arms flung up above his head, with his face burrowed into where the crook of his left arm should be (Tolkien didn't put the crook in!) He also has dark hair that comes to his shoulders. He's wearing a bluish colored long sleeve shirt and black knee-length pants. He is barefoot. He has two items beside him which I believe must be some belongings, but I don't know what.
To: HairOfTheDog
Yes! Tolkien did them, which is what interests me so much about them! I feel I get a glimpse of what Tolkien really thought in his own head what the hobbits must have looked like. This particular watercolor is called "Fangorn".
I really feel like PJ did a good job of casting E. Wood and the Sean, Dominic and Billy...they just went right along with my imagination of hobbits, based completely on the picture of Bilbo riding out on the barrel on the cover of The Hobbit (another Tolkien watercolor) and this Fangorn print.I can stop talking about this now, since probably no one but me finds it all that interesting! ;-)
To: 2Jedismom
AHHH - Now I see it... the little pile of belongings was what I thought was the figure (the actual figure I looked at but couldn't recognize)... so I was looking for little dinky hobbits. Now that I see Merry I can recognize the other one of Pippen too. It looked like a bush and I just couldn't see it, because his face blends in with the background color! - Thanks.
To: HairOfTheDog
Pippin.... hehehe [sip]
To: HairOfTheDog
LOL!! You just don't know how relieved I am! You know how crazy people look at ink blots and read all kinds of stuff into them? I was beginning to feel like that's what I was doing! Ha ha!
Really they are much clearer though, on my own book. Even so, it wasn't until recently that I found the one lying down...I found the climbing one a few years ago.
Now go up to the big picture of the whole cover. See the thin green tree in the foreground? I think I see two eyes, a nose and a mouth discreetly placed in the bark...but then that might truly be the "ink blot" thing. But to me, I think that's "Treebeard" and he looks surprised!
To: 2Jedismom
I can see what you mean... Could be Treebeard.... then again, could be ink-blots!
To: 2Jedismom
To: 2Jedismom
To: 2Jedismom
Drat!
To: Overtaxed
Hmmm... The description is a little confusing to call it Mirkwood if the Title is Fangorn.... And in this shot I can tell that "Pippin" is most definately wearing shoes.... hmmmm...
To: HairOfTheDog; Overtaxed
Ahhh! You found the picture! And now I find that the story behind it is older even than the LOTR! So those are elves and not hobbits??
I'm having mixed emotions here, but I'm delighted to find out the real story behind the picture. Now I'm dying to know more!
Now I understand that the elf, Beleg is carrying a sword (Anglachel) and I never could figure out why "Pippin" had a sword after being abducted...oh, it's getting so clear!
To: Overtaxed; irishtenor; JenB
....ah-hah, it must have been the "Sauron guided their labors" that made me think that he helped them develop the "ring technology."
Thanks for looking that up, OT....
To: HairOfTheDog; Overtaxed; ecurbh
Here's what it says:
J. R. R. Tolkien stated in a letter of 1937 that the picture of Mirkwood for The Hobbit was itself redrawn from a painting made earlier to illustrate the passage in The Silmarillion (Chapter 21) where Beleg finds Gwindor in the forest of Taur-nu-Fuin. That painting is beyond question the one reproduced here, despite the title 'Fangorn Forest'. In view of the title the two figures would naturally be taken to be the hobbits Pippin and Merry, straying in Fangorn before their encounter with Treebeard (The Two Towers, Book III, Chapter 4). It is clear, however, that this is not so; the figures are elves and not hobbits; and the elf climbing over the tree-roots is Beleg Strongbow of Doriath, bearing his great sword Anglachel (which was afterwards reforged for Tu'rin and from which he became known as the Black Sword of Nargothrond). The other is Gwindor of Nargothrond, lying exhausted after his escape from the mines of Angband, with his lamp beside him.
To: Overtaxed
To: Overtaxed
Thank you so much for the link to JRR's pictures. I haven't seen many of them. My only exposure has been in the Hobbit. I find the history of his drawings fasinating. I wish (as I am sure many others do too) that I could sit down and pick JRR's brain to find out all of his thoughts and reasons for writing what he did, and not writing what he could have.
To: 2Jedismom
Glad you liked it! It was bugging me because I couldn't get a good look at that illustration. I put the link after the picture but I didn't give it a decent name (I wanted lunch!)
I was kind of confused about the picture description, though, and wondered if it had been altered slightly before it made The Two Towers cover.
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