#river anduin

The Pillars of the Argonath - by Donato Giancola

𐌌𐌉𐌔𐌄ɽ𐌙 𐌉𐌔 𐌀 𐌁𐌵𐌕𐌕𐌄ɽ𐌅𐌋𐌙

LotR fanfic - young Sméagol (Stoor)/Lover (POV)

- -

What happened to him, eh? Well, I don't know. I can tell you about him. My side only. Never say I said - but I will tell you only my side, if only to reflect. It matters not. I've long needed to confess this. Though it matters not.

I saw Sméagol often in my life, very often. Even as we were little ones, he was always 'round. He wasn't a bad child. He wasn't rough and tough, I mean. He wasn't unkind. I say it's my side - he wasn't unkind to me. We all know his grandmother - we did then, and we do even now. The old crone, now. She's our elder; we trust in her. We have all reason to trust in her... it was her decision, of course. So we - so I follow her wisdom.

They say misery is a butterfly, what spreads its heavy wings, and flies 'round even the coziest of dwellings. Those flutterings can take you right away - take o'er a gentle mind.

We were friends, me and him. As children, too, we played sometimes. Often enough. We would meet in a field and clasp hands and I'd beg him to spin me as hard as he could until we both fell away in dizziness, and then start back again. But I'd not gotten to know him better until... Well, once, when we were a long while older, I was making my way toward the river Anduin with my gear, and I saw him on the way out, rummaging through someone's open back window. He was struggling to climb up into it. I saw that it was the hut of the baker.

"Hey-o, Sméagol, what are you up to?" I called to him from the pathway. At this, I recall, he jumped back, and locked his wide-eyes on me. At first, he was startled, and looked so irate, but then he smiled in his friendly way and waved to me. I recall him. I had something soft in me for those large blue eyes - so unlike his grandmother's that we all mused about where he might've got 'em. Some of the men joked thru their tobacco pipes, with their hairy arms crossed, that the lad likely stole 'em. In the sunlight, his eyes...they reflected like pools of water - pools small as any Stoor's eye, but deeper beyond what any of us could dive. That's what I say on it, mind you.

"No matter, no matter," he called back quickly, abandoning whatever it was he was doing, and then he set toward me. "Where does it go?"

I had pointed into the trees, and I told him "a-fishin'."

I recall him. He was what the others called "obsessive". And you ask me, what did they mean? After that day, when he went a-fishin' with me, he stood nearby that baker's hut, by the pathway into the woods, every single day, and at the same time every day. For a while, yes, he did this. And it so happened that I was always heading out to go fishin'. I recall him; he'd begun to grab ahold my hand and lead me to that river each time, regardless that I already knew the way myself. If I wasn't as quick-footed as he, he pulled, almost to drag me along with him. But, I tell you, I liked him. I liked him so. Somehow, he knew exactly what I wanted: I wanted to share in his enthusiasms and schemes.

I recall him. He could plant his feet in a running stream and know exactly when to catch a fish, what slinked between the stones - and with his own hands he'd catch a few, or many, and throw them to me on the wet grass. I became obsessive, too. I would watch him do this, a-marvelin'. I began to desire nothing more than to sit nearby him - and watch him do anything, closely, for hours. He watched me closely, too.

For a Stoor, he was small. Unlike us all, he had little color to him except for the tops of his rather large ears - I mean, he was so milky pale that, under breath, it was his grandmother who got the censure from us ("shading the boy like that under her wing, that's what did it!"). As we aged, he did not grow out his beard, but for the long sideburns that framed his face, and so he looked a youth through his years; and he did not suffer any grit, the way we all did. He kept his dark grown-out hair long and free; his clothing sinched, buttoned and tucked well; his neckerchief (a strip of paisley from his grandmother's own skirts) knotted neatly at his throat. Who did he think he was, eh?

The menfolk would make more of an issue of it, had Sméagol not been of a sturdy nature. Nothing yet would make him cower, and it was difficult to push him over. He was able to swim and fish better than most. He was much stronger than he looked. All fealty and respect we gave him, for he was the grandson of our elder. In the shelter of her reputation, he did as he wished without any serious questionings (Though I do recall my sibling telling me once, "I watch out for Sméagol - he creeps a little too much for my comfort").

But it was merely common envy what made anyone else cross about him. He was a darling, and rather handsome despite the peculiarities. Honestly, we considered him a friend on the whole. He could be very generous and sweet, we knew it. This is how I knew him before.

And he was always adorned with trinkets. These he would let me see, let me examine. He handed me, once, a lengthy chain, longer than could be wrapped 'round someone so small as he. From out his pocket, like a magician, he pulled it, unending collection. Dangling from each link were his findings, which, he at once whispered to me, were secrets. What looked like shells, glazed buttons, beastly teeth, some fish bones dipped in silver, green and red beads of glass, a miniature bell, and many finely crafted fish hooks - these Sméagol coiled into my open palms, and he looked satisfied as I examined.

"A true fisherman's catch," I remember the compliment I gave to him. My admiration of these charms - the way they tinkled in my hands - seemed to excite him at length, vicarious. I heard him sigh, and he quietly said to me, in a way he'd not spoken to me before -

"Do these shiny things speak to it, my love?"

(Cont. below)

Brothers Hildebrandt, The Pillars of the Kings. Illustration (April) for the 1978 J. R. R. Tolkien Calendar (Ballantine Books, 1977).

Lord of the Rings in NZ 3: River

Multiple rivers were used in the filming of Lord of the Rings. The LOR tour from Wellington includes a visit to a small site in what I believe is the Hutt River (someone correct if I’m wrong?). Once you remove the sounds of nearby traffic, the smell of its exhaust, the power lines on the hill above, and the peeks into a suburban development, you can imagine having been there with Frodo and Sam when Frodo tried to push off alone on his journey to Mordor. The scene is amazingly photogenic provided that one zeros in on the appropriate area.

Photos by Gordon Saunders:

1. Woodlands beside Jackson’s ‘Anduin River.’

the fellowship of the ring: