Over at Tor.com, Kate Nepveu is doing
a re-read of LotR. It's interesting stuff - I've only just found it, and with the paper-thin excuse of feeling under the weather, I've been reading it this afternoon. I just reached the discussion of "Fog on the Barrow Downs" (which to my mind is one of the creepiest things in the book, especially the Barrow Wight's invocation of a Dark Lord who sounds more like Morgoth than Sauron, and its longing for the death of everything).
Nepveu finished her comments by asking
Okay, I had a serious “these people are weird” moment when the hobbits run naked on the grass, and pretty much always have. Tell me I’m not the only one?Actually, this has never struck me as peculiar, even if I'm not as keen on skinny-dipping as previous generations of Oxford academics were *g*, for reasons I gave below:
Rather late to the party, but one reason for the Unexpected Naked Hobbits is the fact that the enchantment of the barrow wight removed their clothes and replaced them with white clothes - symbolic shrouds, I suppose (or maybe it was the barrow wight who was the pervy hobbit fancier?). Quite apart from the rebirth symbolism, though that's important too, I can quite see why the hobbits couldn't stand to keep them on (they were probably mouldy and clammy to boot), even if it meant having to run around naked until the ponies returned with their baggage and fresh clothes... and given that it was sunny, it probably warmed them up faster.But after consideration of other people's comments about symbolism, I'm wondering if there isn't something more going on. Specifically, I think it's (unconscious?) reference to specifically Christian patterns of death and resurrection (and possibly even to the Harrowing of Hell).
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