Birthdays!

So I headed north for a bit of birthday celebration.  Some small walks, some games of Upwords, some nice meals, and family togetherness.  Ruth furnished a cake which, as she described it, seemed to be the product of a strange alchemy.  Apparently, you pour the chocolate cake batter in to the mold, and then pour the dulce de leche flan batter on top.  But during the baking process, the chocolate cake portion rises up through the flan to the top!  Of course, when it's done, and you turn over the mold, the chocolate cake becomes the base.  It was quite nice, especially the flan part.  

in person, the sleek lines of the little boat
in the foreground were quite appealing

as the sailboat tacked and moved along, the sail color seemed to change with the angle of the light;
at first, it looked like a solid dusky silver-grey, while later the white was almost blindingly pure

 a nice bold striation, there

an attractive arrangement of daisies

The teenagers were certainly missed, but I was feeling a little unnecessary extra pang initially, when I mistakenly thought I hadn't seen them in an entire year.  (In fact, it's only been one-third of a year.)  I mean, it would be great to see them more often, but given the pandemic and the frenetic pace of their high school activities, I can content myself.  In the mean time, I'm certainly glad I seized on pretty much every excuse to go see them in the early days, when they were more readily portable!  I'm so proud of them, and so curious to see the paths they will choose.

Today's Walk

I caught the train up to Cold Spring today two hours later than I'd intended, but at least an hour earlier than last weekend.  The subway was far less crowded (thank goodness!) and there didn't seem to be huge crowds of hikers exiting the train with me, so I went ahead with the classic 5.5 mile loop, taking Washburn up and over Bull Hill, then returning on Notch, Brook, and Cornish.

It was perfect weather.  Saw a paper wasp nest, the usual variety of fungi (including one that looked a little like a cross section of a tree branch) a low-flying turkey vulture overhead at the summit, two caterpillars (one on the trail and one on a Pepsi machine at the station), a very pale spider (also at the station). 

Had to push myself a bit, and stopped for several water breaks to catch my breath on the way up, but it felt really good.  (This is all very unlike last weekend, when I'd gone up the gentler Nelsonville trail to avoid the crowds – doing Washburn as a descent – and remained in the grip of lethargy and a sense of pointlessness all the way.)

Supported the local economy by buying some gelato afterward (flavor: cookies and cream).

paper wasp nest to the left of the trail on the ascent

ungathered mushrooms

¡si, oruga!

shy little spider on railing

 

Recent Walks

On July 31st, I walked the usual 5.4 mile loop: Washburn (white) up and over Bull Hill, to Notch (blue) to Brook (red) and Cornish (blue again - apparently they have a limited palette).  Conditions were pretty much ideal.  I saw two instances of a really cool black mushroom of some kind; it looked like embossed leather.

nifty black fungus

they've gotten SERIOUS about people not missing this little detour on the Notch trail

on the subway platform

I was toying with doing another solo walk on Wednesday, the predicted most clement day of my week off, but instead decided to (gasp) be social.  This meant going for a celebratory hot chocolate with friends Wednesday and then walking with a friend on Friday (I hadn't seen her in person since October).

Friday was ... not as clement.  I was feeling a little guilty for choosing an early start time, but it turns out we should have set out even earlier.  Like 2 or 3 hours earlier.  The air was heavy the entire day and we went quite slowly.  We chose to avoid the initial steep ascent of Washburn and ultimately followed a 7.5 mile lollipop route: Cornish (blue) to Brook (red) to Undercliff (yellow) to Washburn (white) up and over Bull Hill, then the traditional descent down through Notch (blue) to Brook (red) to Cornish (blue).  When you add in the 1.6 miles round trip walk to the train station, that's not bad at all!  

We met a fair number of people on the way up – they were all going the other way of course, like the man with seven wives, each carrying seven sacks with seven cats – but once we got to Washburn, we were completely alone.  

we saw several turkey vultures, but I never had my camera ready when they were close!

a bit of haze on the horizon

Then, by the time we started the descent from Bull Hill, we started to encounter some mosquitos.  Increasingly clouds or swarms of them.  We stopped several times to re-apply DEET and citronella, but nevertheless they persisted.  It was unpleasant, although I don't think either of us got bitten.  It was unprecedented in all my years walking the Hudson Highlands trails.

I was quite tired by the end of our walk.  My friend wanted to get some ice water, while I didn't want to miss catching the next train, which was supposed to arrive in 1 to 6 minutes.  So I directly went to the platform and boarded when the train arrived. I was hitting 'send' on some apologetic texts to my friend when, lo and behold, there she was! She'd made it! In between naps on the way home, I checked the weather and saw that the air quality was rated Very Poor, with a recommendation to avoid strenuous exercise.  Oops.

A Divine or Providential Madness?

So, the companions are waiting for Frodo to decide what to do.  Gimli, Legolas, Merry and Pippin all think it best to go to Minas Tirith.  Merry says "It would be mad and cruel to let Frodo go to Mordor. Why can't we stop him?" and Pippin concurs "We must stop him."  (FotR 403)   If they cannot dissuade him, they all mean to join him, but Sam recognizes that's not an option for Frodo.  He must and will choose to stick with the quest and head off to Mordor, preferably alone.  Aragorn concurs (id.): 

Now, Frodo is surely no match for two Men, especially if backed by a Dwarf and an Elf.  And yet in response to Pippin's renewed suggestion of forcible constraint, Aragorn seems almost to suggest that "other powers [...] far stronger" would thwart them from imposing their will on a single Hobbit, if he decides to press on eastward. 

This is a little astonishing; we have heard much about the power of the Ring, but here it seems there are "other powers" that would support Frodo's decision, should he manage to screw up his courage to do what he must.  This seems to me to follow the same hint we see in Beowulf: "Wyrd oft nereð / unfægne eorl þonne his ellen deah" (572-3).  If Frodo turns aside now, fate/providence won't save him... but if he is courageous enough to continue his quest, fate may save him if he's not doomed to fail.

When Boromir returns, they realize Frodo is not merely taking a long time to decide; he has quite literally disappeared (after putting on the Ring to escape Boromir).  Sam panics, and Aragorn attempts to impose order:

'Wait a moment!' cried Aragorn.  'We must divide up into pairs, and arrange – here, hold on! Wait!' 

It was no good. They took no notice of him.  Sam had dashed off first. Merry and Pippin had followed, and were already disappearing westward [...].  Legolas and Gimli were running.  A sudden panic or madness seemed to have fallen on the Company.  (FotR 404, emphasis added)

That last sentence suggests to me a divine madness, one that descends perhaps from the "other powers" to which Aragorn so recently alluded.  It is especially the words "seemed to have fallen on" that convey this impression, in conjunction with its suddenness.  This is no slow-boiling kettle, with people gradually working themselves up to a frenzy; the sense is of something external which has "fallen on" them.

As a result of this "panic or madness," the company is scattered, almost like the children of men in the land of Shinar when God confounds their language, that they may not understand one another's speech (Genesis 11:7 [tower of Babel]).  

But this madness and scattering providentially assists Frodo's decision to continue the quest.  Sam attempts to follow Aragorn, but can't keep up.  Stopping to catch his breath, he finally realizes what Frodo must have done and takes off after him just in time.  So Frodo gets the companion he needs, and the two are able to slip off undetected amidst the chaos until it is too late for their friends to stop them or join them. 

We can't say for sure that this is a divine or providential madness at work to support Frodo's new-found resolution... but I don't think we can rule it out.  

* * *

Coda: We later get Pippin's recollection of this "sudden panic or madness," as he starts to piece together where he is and what's happened.

Of course: he and Merry had run off into the woods. What had come over them? Why had they dashed off like that, taking no notice of old Strider? They had run a long way shouting – he could not remember how far or how long; and then suddenly they had crashed right into a group of Orcs: they were standing listening, and they did not appear to see Merry and Pippin until they were almost in their arms.

Again, he has the sense that something "had come over them."

Boromir Names His Reward

Boromir held out long against this choice; but when it became plain that Frodo would follow Aragorn, wherever he went, he gave in. 'It is not the way of the Men of Minas Tirith to desert their friends at need,' he said, 'and you will need my strength, if ever you are to reach the Tindrock. To the tall isle I will go, but no further. There I shall turn to my home, alone if my help has not earned the reward of any companionship.'

Boromir's comments here show a curious sense of something akin to entitlement.  He starts out promisingly; since he can't convince Aragorn/Frodo to come with him, he is willing to accompany them for a bit because it is "not the way" of his people to "desert their friends at need."  

But he immediately develops the theme of "at need" by suggesting that the other eight cannot make it – even so far as the Tindrock – without him and his strength.  (He is perhaps conveniently forgetting that it was Legolas who most recently dismayed the enemy by shooting a fell beast from the sky.)

This then takes yet a darker turn in his final sentence, that he will turn to his home at the tall isle "alone if my help has not earned the reward of any companionship."  This is where the clear sense of entitlement comes in; his "help" (which he deems necessary to the others) should, in his view earn a reward.  So he has, rhetorically, come quite a distance from it simply being "the way" of his people to stick by their friends when needed; he now thinks he deserves a reward for it.

The reward he names is "companionship"; the only proper way to show appreciation or gratitude for his help is to accompany him.  Significantly, he does not, even now, suggest that any of the others have any help to offer him or Minas Tirith (although the Ring can never be far from his mind and if Frodo accompanies him, so does the Ring).  Clearly, he believes he has the strength to reach Minas Tirith alone, but is setting up anyone who chooses to follow the original quest as a poor friend, ungrateful for all he has done for them, or worse.

It's darker still when you realize this whole little speech is meant almost entirely for Frodo's ears.  It is clearly the four hobbits who have most needed the help of others to get as far as they have.  But would Boromir be satisfied if Merry, Pippin and Sam rewarded him with their companionship to Minas Tirith, while Frodo went on with Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas?  I don't think so.  Even if everyone but Frodo joined him, I think it would not be sufficient.  The reward he wants is Frodo coming with him to Minas Tirith, thus bringing the Ring under the dominion of Denethor.  

Hnau Hunting Hnau in Middle-earth

I've always been troubled by Ghân-buri-Ghân's request to Théoden: 'if you live after the Darkness, then leave Wild Men alone in the woods and do not hunt them like beasts any more.'  LotR 833.

That is, we have rational beings (the Rohirrim) hunting other rational beings (the Wild Men) 'like beasts.'  One presumes this is done either as "pest control" (as with wolves or orcs) and/or for sport, rather than for food, but it still raises an equally disturbing question: What they do with the Wild Men once they've killed them?  One doesn't bury beasts after a hunt.  Do the Rohirrim display the heads as trophies or warnings, as Beorn does with the goblin and Warg ('A goblin's head was stuck outside the gate and a warg-skin was nailed to a tree just beyond.'  Hobbit 123)?

If nothing else, Ghân-buri-Ghân's comment re-contextualizes Aragorn's much earlier jest on discovering Frodo's mithril coat: 'Here's a pretty hobbit-skin to wrap an elven-princeling in!  If it were known that hobbits had such hides, all the hunters of Middle-earth would be riding to the Shire.'  LotR 336.

This is a much creepier comment than it seemed at first, given that hnau do hunt other hnau in Middle-earth.

Tolkien, J. R. R. The Hobbit.  HarperCollins Publishers, 2007.

--. The Lord of the Rings. 50th Anniversary One-Volume Edition, HarperCollinsPublishers, 2005.

The Case of the Fallen Warrior: The Faerie Queene III.iv & The Lord of the Rings V.vi

I won't claim that Tolkien was 'influenced' or 'inspired' by book III of The Faerie Queene (although Shippey has apparently done so - see Cilli 271), but I was struck by some 'set pieces' in FQ III.iv that remind me of certain aspects of Tolkien's legendarium.  I'm calling them 'set pieces' (rather imprecisely) because I believe these are images, scenes, and/or ideas that multiple authors have used or returned to, and are thus found in multiple sources.  Tolkien would certainly have been aware of them in Spenser, but would likely also have been aware of them in other works or traditions.

To my mind, perhaps the most striking point of similarity is between FQ III.iv and The Lord of the Rings V.vi: a fallen warrior is believed to be dead, until one with greater leechcraft arrives on the scene.  In each instance, the battle is one-on-one between a male warrior and a gender-hidden female warrior; the male warrior gets in one mighty, shattering blow before he is defeated by the female warrior's first stroke.  Moreover, in both, there is a misinterpreted prophecy about the defeat or destruction of the male warrior!  

Of course, I've deliberately described these elements in a manner that maximizes their similarities; they do not map one-to-one.  In FQ, it's the male warrior (Marinell) who is mistakenly believed to have been KIA; in LotR, it's Éowyn.  For present purposes, we'll look at three aspects of the scene. 

The Challenge and the Battle

Marinell is stationed at the entrance to a beach of 'pearles and pretious stones of great assay' as well as golden ore (III.iv.18); he challenges all comers and, until now, has always been victorious.  The warrior maiden Britomart, who is dressed as a knight and therefore always assumed to be male, arrives and does not declare her identity.  Marinell offers the chance to fight him and be defeated, or flee: 'Sir knight, that doest thy voyage rashly make / By this forbidden way in my despight, / Ne doest by others death ensample take, / I read thee soone retyre, whiles thou hast might / Least afterwards it be too late to take thy flight' (III.iv.14).  Britomart responds disdainfully to Marinell's 'proud threat' and, without waiting for a reply, runs right at him (III.iv.15). Marinell gets in one good blow, striking her 'full on the brest, that made her downe / Decline her head, & touch her crouper with her crowne' (id.).  Undaunted, she smites him with a mighty blow, defeating him, and rides on.

In Tolkien, it is the female warrior Éowyn who issues the initial challenge, commanding the Nazgûl to depart and 'Leave the dead in peace!' (LotR 841).  In essence, she is attempting to guard her beloved kinsman's body, just as Marinell was trying to guard his precious beach.  The Black Captain, like Marinell, has no idea the warrior before him is a woman. He issues a counter-challenge, as he, too, is certain he will kill this paltry opponent; he threatens her with long-lived torment (rather than death) if she comes 'between the Nazgûl and his prey!' (id.).  Éowyn, like Britomart, responds defiantly.  Unlike Britomart, however, Éowyn is on the defensive from the start.  First she must defend herself against an attack by the Nazgûl's steed, slaying it.  Only then does the Black Rider rise and 'With a cry of hatred that stung the very ears like venom he let fall his mace' (842).  This one blow shivers her shield, breaks her arm, and brings her to her knees.  He prepares to deal a death-blow with the mace; instead Merry attacks, Éowyn rises and smites her foe, and both she and the Nazgûl Lord fall.

So we can even increase our list of similar elements: a male warrior and male-passing female warrior meet; the initial challenge is issued by the one guarding something precious; it is met with defiance; there ensues a single mighty exchange of blows between those two, wherein the male strikes first; the female's stroke is even mightier and the male is defeated; and only one of the two is left alive on the battleground.

Tolkien has, however, complicated the picture with a counter-challenge by the Nazgûl bringing in supernatural horror and threats of torment, and a critical intervention by Merry (which proves necessary to undo the Nazgûl's supernatural advantage so that he can be destroyed).  Left on the battleground are Merry, Éowyn, Théoden, the bodies of Snowmane and the Nazgûl's steed, and the Nazgûl's's gear and garments.  A character we know and care about (Merry) is left to report on the scene; for all he knows intially, both Éowyn and Théoden are dead. 

Interestingly, Spenser has our heroine Britomart ride on, unconcerned with the fate of her foe. Thus, the misdiagnosis of Marinell is made by characters we've never met before: his mother Cymoent and her sister nymphs, who somehow receive word of his fall.

The Misdiagnosis

Notably, Cymoent and the other nymphs not only wail over Marinell's body (III.iv. 35-39); they also handle his body extensively without realizing their mistake: 'when they all had sorrowed their fill, / They softly gan to search his griesly wound: / And that they might him handle more at will, / They him disarm'd' (FQ III.iv.40).  Moreover, they 'softly wipt away the gelly blood / From th'orifice: which having well vpbound, / They pourd in soueraine balme, and Nectar good, / Good both for earthly medicine, and for heauenly food' (id.).  Through this entire process, they have absolutely no doubt of Marinell's death.

And then Liagore, the medically trained nymph, feels his pulse and realizes the reports of Marinell's death are greatly exaggerated:

Tho, when the lilly handed Liagore
(This Liagore whylome had learned skill
In leaches craft, by great Appolloes lore [...])
Did feele his pulse, she knew there staied still
Some little life his feeble sprites emong;
Which to his mother told, despeire she from her flong.  (FQ III.iv.41)

In Tolkien, Merry lifts Théoden's hand to kiss it, and discovers that Théoden is alive (842)  He sees Éowyn 'through a mist' of tears 'as she lay and did not move' (id.).  He is certainly convinced she is dead, but he does not touch her.  Éomer likewise diagnoses Éowyn as dead immediately on sight: 'suddenly he beheld his sister Éowyn as she lay, and he knew her' (LotR 844).  He does not linger to mourn, but impulsively, in the grip of a 'fey mood,' spurs 'back to the front of the great host' and rallies them with a cry of 'Death!' ... and they surge forward 'like a great tide' (id.).  So at this point, no one has taken the time to examine her body.  Thereafter, those left behind 'lifted Éowyn gently up and bore her after' Théoden, believing that she is dead (id.). 

Then along comes Imrahil.  Tolkien's deliberate archaism here – Imrahil referring to medics/doctors as 'leeches' – provides a linguistic echo of Spenser's passage:

'Are there no leeches among you? She is hurt, to the death maybe, but I deem that she yet lives.' And he held the bright-burnished vambrace that was upon his arm before her cold lips, and behold! a little mist was laid on it hardly to be seen. (LotR 845) 

As compared with Spenser, Tolkien has greatly heightened the tension and interest in the scene, by having a known and developed character – one of the good guys – mistaken for dead by other known and developed characters.  

The unexpected reveal that there is yet a little life in the fallen is also more dramatic or even cinematic, in Tolkien's version, because a bit of mist on polished armor is a visible sign of life, even if it is hard to see.  By contrast, the other nymphs in Spenser must take Liagore's word for it that she has felt a pulse.

Coda: The Misinterpreted Prophecy 

Marinell's mother, Cymoent, had consulted with Proteus, who 'was with prophecy inspir'd,' about her son's fate.  Proteus urged Cymoent "from womankind to keep [Marinell] well: / For of a woman he should haue much ill, / A virgin strange and stout him should dismay, or kill" (III.iv.25).  

From this, Cymoent mistakenly assumed love/sex/romance would be his undoing (III.iv.26-28), and urged him every day "The loue of women not to entertain" (III.iv.26).  As of stanza 46, which abruptly changes gear to follow Arthur and the Redcrosse knight, it seems that neither Marinell nor Cymoent and her sister nymphs have realized that Marinell's foe was a woman.  Rather, Cymoent believes Proteus has made a false prophecy: 'Not this the worke of womans hand ywis, / That so deep wound through these deare members driue' (III.iv.37).   She does not even suspect her own misinterpretation ('I feared loue: but they that loue do liue") (id.).

On the battlefield, the Nazgûl Lord boasts of his prophecy: 'No living man may hinder me!' (841).  Éowyn then reveals that she is not a 'living man' but a woman (id.).  This discomfits him; 'the Ringwraith made no answer, and was silent, as if in sudden doubt' and he is 'in doubt and malice intent upon the woman before him' (id.).  It is of course this intense focus and doubt which allows Merry to creep in close enough to make his own move.

The prophecy in LotR certainly echoes Macbeth far more closely than FQ, but I think all three may be worth considering together.

• The Nazgûl Lord trusts that no living man may hinder me; he is discomfited by learning that his challenger is a woman; and it turns out that a woman and a hobbit (with the aid of a dagger made by men who are now dead) may hinder him.
• Macbeth trusts that none of woman born shall harm Macbeth; he is discomfited by learning that Macduff was from his mother's womb untimely ripped; and it turns out that Macduff shall harm him. 
• Cymoent and Marinell believe that of a woman he should have much ill and be dismayed or killed; it turns out that a woman should dismay him in battle, but on finding her son apparently dead, Cymoent simply believes the prophecy is mistaken (she does not suspect that it has been fulfilled to the letter).

So Tolkien's version of the mistaken prophecy trope has elements found in Shakespeare and in Spenser.  Again, it is surely more dramatic to shatter the complacency of the person who trusts in the protection of a prophecy he has misinterpreted (as Tolkien and Shakespeare do), rather than revealing the existence of the prophecy to readers only after the battle (as Spenser does). 

Works Cited

Cilli, Oronzo. Tolkien's Library: An Annotated Checklist, Luna Press Publishing, 2019.

Spenser, Edmund. The Faerie Queene. Edited by Thomas P. Roche, Penguin, 1987.

Tolkien, J. R. R. The Lord of the Rings. 50th Anniversary One-Volume Edition, HarperCollinsPublishers, 2005.

And Yet, Here We Are

When my little brother got engaged, many many moons ago, I jokingly awarded him the title of 'Interim Elder Sibling' - since he was leapfrogging over me in milestones for adulthood. Never suspected at the time that my status as first-born could ever be in doubt.

Dragon Battle - Faerie Queene I.XI

Artwork by Trina Schart Hyman, from
Saint George and the Dragon, retold by Margaret Hodges.

I am not at all certain that this battle, though epic, is entirely meant to be taken seriously.  I'll address just a few points that occurred to me in reading Canto XI.

Making Mountains Out of Great Hills?

The showdown is bracketed with landscape-inflected similes, though there seems to be some 'inflation' here (from a great hill to a heaped mountain): 

Eftsoones that dreadfull Dragon they espide,
Where stretcht he lay vpon the sunny side,
Of a great hill, himselfe like a great hill. (4)^*

So downe he fell, and like an heaped mountain lay. (54)

We might be tempted to say the initial impression of the dragon as 'like a great hill' is merely due to distance, but I think it is telling that he lies like a great hill on the sunny side of a great hill.  Even at a distance, one ordinarily distinguishes between great hills and mountains.  He's not described as akin to a mountain on the side of a mountain.  It's 'great hills' all round, at the start.

Long-Shot Survival in the Cruell Rending Clawes 

In stanza 12, we learn the dragon's "cruell rending clawes" far exceed the sharpest steel:

Dead was it sure, as sure as death in deed,
What euer thing does touch his rauenous pawes,
Or what within his reach he euer drawes (12)

Well, that sounds pretty clear, doesn't it?  But after a fierce blow from our hero, the dragon is so annoyed, he takes to the air:

[...] he cutting way 
With his broad sayles, about him soared round: 
At last low stouping with vnweldie sway,
Snatcht vp both horse & Man, to beare them quite away. (18)

The dragon bears them "So farre as Ewghen bow a shaft may send" before he's forced to "let them downe before his flightes ende" (19).^†  

Spenser characterizes this journey as "Long," but just how far does a yew bow shoot?  Perhaps about 300 yards, it would seem.  

By way of comparison, the dragon's tail "of three furlongs does but little lacke" (11); that's a little less than 660 yards.  So the dragon bears knight and steed not even half as far as his own tail-length!!!  That's hardly a good show.

Moreover, despite the promise of stanza 12, knight and steed are still in fine fettle after being carried in the dragon's claws, and the knight is able to get in a good spear-thrust under the dragon's left wing (20)!

There is a tide in the affairs of men, / Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune

From the knight's most excellent spear-thrust, 

Forth flowed fresh
A gushing riuer of blacke goarie blood,
That drowned all the land, whereon he stood;
The streame thereof would driue a water-mill. (22)

Amazingly, the knight remains mounted on his steed despite dragon's blood gushing so powerfully that it would drive a water-mill; it's only when the dragon hurls his "hideous tayle" about that the steed gets knocked over and throws his rider (23).

And even as all the land drowns in the blacke goarie blood, the well of life – into which the knight will soon fall backward when "ouerthrowen" by the dragon (30) – fortunately remains completely untainted! 

A Dental Hygiene Nightmare?

Other little grace notes abound.  I like the contrast between the arguably bucolic scene of the dragon nestled like a great hill on a great hill ... and the shark-like configuration of the dragon's teeth: "Three rankes of yron teeth enraunged were, / In which yet trickling bloud and gobbets raw / Of late deuoured bodies did appear" (13).  

This dental hygiene nightmare is seemingly confirmed by the noxious cloud that comes "Out of his stinking gorge" filling "all the ayre about with smoke and stench" (id.).

FOOTNOTES:

^* On twitter, @virginicus connected this somewhat odd simile to one appearing in Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN #38 ("The Hunt").  Dialogue between grandfather and granddaughter:

[GF, telling story:] One day he took a handkerchief, and wrapped up his few possessions -- some tarnished bronze coins, a small bone that he had carved into the shape of a small bone, a thin wooden finger-ring his mother had left him...

[GD, interrupting:] A small bone that he had what?
[GF:] Carved into the shape of a small bone.
[GD:] But it was a small bone already.
[GF:] He carved it into the shape of a different small bone.  All right?

Specifically, @virginicus questioned whether this might have been "a jab at Spenser’s lame simile."  I have no idea of the truth of the matter, but I like to think he's right.

^† But I suppose in light of the interrupted flight (meaning he didn't reach his intended destination, whatever it may have been), we at least can absolve the dragon of selecting a ludicrously unwise battleground which contains both the well of life (30) and the tree of life (46) to restore his foe twice from death overnight.

2021 Reading Projects

It's time to undertake some reading projects for 2021.  I think the focus might be poetry.

• What I have in mind first is tackling Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene.  I recall reading at least the first stanza in college – I associate it with Professor Kent Cartwright's course on Medieval and Renaissance literature – but I am quite sure we did not read the whole thing.  If I read one canto per day, it should take 74 days.  (Six books of 12 cantos each, plus the 2 cantos of mutabilities.)
• I'd like to finish reading "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" in middle English.  The poem has 101 stanzas, of which I've read the first 22.  So if I read one stanza per day, we're talking 79 days.

That seems entirely doable!  After that, who knows.  Other targets might include "The Pearl" and "The Dream of the Rood."  I also want to go back to some of Tolkien's poetry, esp. "Light as Leaf on Linden-tree."  And probably Tennyson's "Idylls of the King."