Sundry Beasts



Animals are vital to the chapter “A Shortcut to Mushrooms” – in ways both subtle and obvious.  The “clop” of ponies’ hoofs makes for a memorable moment at the end of the chapter.  Farmer Maggot’s dogs, likewise, provide some of the dramatic tension in this segment of the tale.  Ultimately, though, these are domesticated animals – allies of the hobbits.  The tame savagery of the dogs is admirably illustrated by the line: “The dogs lay by the fire and gnawed rinds and cracked bones.”  Tolkien would probably have appreciated C.S. Lewis’ comment about affection for animals in The Four Loves.  Lewis says a domesticated animal “has three legs in nature’s world and one in ours.  It is a link, an ambassador… Man with dog closes a gap in the universe.”  (Harcourt, 1960, p.52).

American Museum of Natural History

The Black Riders are, in many ways, defined by their horses.  Farmer Maggot, for example, was threatened by the “great horse” that spurred in front of him.  It and its rider later moved “like a bolt of thunder.”  Yet, the Riders are, in their own right, often defined by animal qualities.  In this chapter, as previously, they are described as “sniffing” – tracking the hobbits by scent, in a manner more suitable of a hound than a human.  Maggot notes how one of the Riders “gave a sort of hiss.”  Even more menacing, however, were the cries of the Riders.  Tolkien describes how “A long-drawn wail came down the wind, like the cry of some evil and lonely creature.”  Pippin thinks it might have been a bird, but Frodo insists, “It was not bird or beast…It was a call, or a signal – there were words in that cry, though I could not catch them.”  If Maggot’s dogs represent the mediators between civilization and beastliness in a positive way, the Ring Wraiths are an inversion of that process – human consciousness oddly reverted to animal savagery, and yet neither quite one nor the other.  When contemplating the supernatural qualities of the Wraiths, it is easy to lose sight of how much their menace – at this stage in the story, at least – depends upon their beast-like qualities.