English Folk Song "The Fox Went Out"

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So I obviously couldn't let it rest.

Here's a great resource page for "The Fox Went Out", which includes complete lyrics and a 33 second clip of the song in performance.

Nice! (But not at all how I've been singing it!)
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30th May: The Stone Trolls

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Troll sat alone on his seat of stone,
And munched and mumbled a bare old bone;
For many a year he had gnawed it near,
For meat was hard to come by.
Done by! Gum by!
In a cave in the hills he dwelt alone,
And meat was hard to come by.

Up came Tom with his big boots on.
Said he to Troll: 'Pray, what is yon?
For it looks like the shin o' my nuncle Tim.
As should be a-lyin' in the graveyard.
Caveyard! Paveyard!
This many a year has Tim been gone,
And I thought he were lyin' in the graveyard.

'For a couple o' pins,' says Troll, and grins,
'I'll eat thee too, and gnaw thy shins.
A bit o' fresh meat will go down sweet!
I'll try my teeth on thee now.
Hee now! See now!
I'm tired o' gnawing old bones and skins;
I've a mind to dine on thee now.'

But just as he thought his dinner was caught,
He found his hands had hold of naught.
Before he could mind, Tom slipped behind
And gave him the boot to larn him.
Warn him! Darn him!
A bump o' the boot on the seat, Tom thought,
Would be the way to larn him.

But harder than stone is the flesh and bone
Of a troll that sits in the hills alone.
As well set your boot to the mountain's root,
For the seat of a troll don't feel it.
Peel it! Heal it!
Old Troll laughed, when he heard Tom groan,
And he knew his toes could feel it.

One of my favorite Tolkien poems when I was a kid (you can read the whole thing here). I don't think I've ever heard the song to which this is supposed to be sung: the traditional English folk song "The Fox Went Out", according to The Annotated Hobbit. In my mind, it is a fast-paced, thumping tune (somewhat similar to - although faster than - the pub song Merry and Pippin sing in Peter Jackson's Fellowship of the Ring - you know, "There's a mug of beer inside this Took!")

Anyway, how nice that the trolls turn to stone on the first day of summer!

(My apologies to other Hobbit purists for quoting from LOTR. It was appropriate, I think.)
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30th May Dawn Take You All!

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And Be Stone To You!
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30th May Welcome Summer!

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Hob's Summer "To Do" List:
1. Sit in the garden.
2. Enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables.
3. Read The Hobbit.
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Last Day of Spring

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Today is the last day of spring (according to Hob's Calendar), and it is a wonderful way to end spring - cool weather, slightly overcast, with mild rain. It's actually been raining for days, and the garden couldn't be happier. The foxgloves are tall and lush, and the irises are just opening: great, dark purple and blue irises.

I do hope you've had a chance to enjoy a strawberry or two (or twenty, or fifty, or...), and enjoy and armload of flowers. May is one of my favorites months to pick up and re-read The Hobbit; if you haven't started reading The Hobbit yet, it's not too late to start! Glorious, apple-green and sky-blue May - I'm always sad to see May come to an end - it really is the sum and total essence of spring in my mind.

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More Trolls!

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A troll is a fearsome member of a mythical anthropomorph race from Scandinavia. Their role ranges from fiendish giants – similar to the ogres of England (also called Trolls at times, see Troller's Gill) – to a devious, more human-like folk of the wilderness, living underground in hills, caves or mounds. Source.

Stupid, primitive, distrustful, and unbelievably ugly creatures. They have noses like cucumbers, and a tail. They are horribly strong and fast, and they stink. They often keep boxes full of stolen money and jewels, with which they play for hours, running their fingers through them. Source: Gnomes 30th Anniversary Edition

These trolls have a human-like appearance. Sometimes they had a tail hidden in their clothing, but even that is not a definite. Many of these trolls had a single lock of hair that no human could comb, whereas the rest was generally messy. A frequent way of telling a human-looking troll in folklore is to look at what it is wearing: Troll women in particular were often too elegantly dressed to be human women moving around in the forest. They could attract human males to do their bidding, or simply as mates or pets. Later these would be found wandering, decades later, with no memory of what had happened to them in a troll woman's care. Source.

See also:
Illustration: John Bauer's Bland Tomtar Och Troll
Illustration: Einar Norelius and John Bauer's Bland Tomtar Och Troll (1944/49)
Thanks, Michael May!
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29 May Trolls!

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"They came to the hill and were soon in the wood. Up the hill they went; but there was no proper path to be seen, such as might lead to a house or a farm; and do what they could they made a great deal of rustling and crackling and creaking (and a good deal of grumbling and dratting), as they went through the trees in the pitch dark.

Suddenly the red light shone out very bright through the tree-trunks not far ahead.

'Now it is the burglar's turn,' they said, meaning Bilbo. 'You must go on and find out all about that light, and what it is for, and if all is perfectly safe and canny,' said Thorin to the hobbit."

Three very large persons were sitting round a very large fire of beech-logs. They were toasting mutton on long spits of wood, and licking the gracy off their fingers. There was a fine toothsome smell. Also there was a barrel of good drink at hand, and they were drinking out of jugs. But they were trolls. Obviously trolls.

Thus Bilbo discovers Bert, Tom, and William "Bill" Huggins; horrible, man-eating (when they can get it) monsters whose language is "not drawing-room fashion, at all."

" 'Blimey, Bert, look what I've copped!' said William.

'What is it?' said the others coming up.

'Lumme, if I knows! What are yer?'

'Bilbo Baggins, a bur - a hobbit,' said poor Bilbo, shaking all over and wondering how to make owl-noises before they throttled him.

'A burrahobbit?' said they a bit startled. Troll are slow in the uptake, and mighty suspicious about anything new to them.

[...]

' P'raps there are more like him round about, and we might make a pie,' said Bert. 'Here you, are there any more of your sort a-sneakin' in these here woods, yer nassty little rabbit," said he looking at the hobbit's furry feet; and he picked him up by the toes and shook him.

'Yes, lots,' said Bilbo, before he remembered not to give his friends away. 'No none at all, not one,' he said immediately afterwards.'

Right in the middle of the fight up came Balin. The dwarves had heard noises from a distance, and after waiting for some time for Bilbo to come back, or to hoot like an owl, they started off one by one to creep towards the light as quietly as they could. No sooner did Tom see Balin come into the light than he gave an awful howl. Trolls simply detest the very sight of dwarves (uncooked). Bert and Bill stopped fighting immediately, and 'a sack, Tom, quick!' they said. Before Balin, who was wondering where in all this commotion Bilbo was, knew what was happening, a sack was over his head, and he was down.

'There's lots more to come yet,' said Tom, 'or I'm mighty mistook. Lots and none at all, it is,' said he. 'No burrahobbits, but lots of these here dwarves. That's about the shape of it!'

'I reckon you're right,' said Bert, 'and we'd best get out of the light.'

And so they did.

Soon Dwalin lay by Balin, and Fili and Kili together, and Dori and Nori and Ori all in a heap, and Oin and Gloin and Bifur and Bofur and Bombur piled uncomfortably near the fire."

And so it is, that in the evening of 29 May, Bilbo and the dwarves, lost and wretched in the wilderness, followed a pleasant red light to the trolls. Lesson to be learned? Leave well enough alone! Or (since that really isn't in the spirit of the hobbit's adventure), wade right in - but be sure to have a wizard at your back!

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Roast Mutton

"At first they passed through hobbit-lands, a wide respectable country inhabited by decent folk, with good roads, an inn or two, and now and then a dwarf or a farmer ambling by on business. Then they came to lands where people spoke strangely, and sang songs Bilbo had never heard before. Now they had gone far into the Lone-lands, where there were no people left, no inns, and the roads grew steadily worse. Not far ahead were dreary hills, rising higher and higher, dark with trees. On some of them were old castles with an evil look, as if they had been built by wicked people."

From Chapter 2, "Roast Mutton"

New Welcome Mat

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Just spiffing up the site a bit, and decided on a new welcome mat to finish out Spring 2008.


The image is "Alpine flora logan pass", uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons by Traveler100 on 29th July, 2007.
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