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Sorry that Hobbit movies have ended. However, NOT sorry to have to sit through yet more extended battles scenes. This time one fallen Maia's henchman, orcs, wargs, trolls and one smooth-talking dragon battling three good wizards, elves, men, dwarves, eagles and one huge bear. Enough already! The books had much, much more. Besides, those were goblins in the Hobbit, not orcs. I am still miffed that Sam did not receive the little box of Lorien elven soil with a one mallorn tree seed from Galadriel which then meant that the scouring and regreening of the Shire did not take place in the LotR:RotK movie. Beautiful environmental message offed by a bunch of CGI mavens. I had high hopes for these movies.
LotR, tFotR:391-392. (Galadriel) "'For you little gardener and lover of trees,' she said to Sam, 'I have only a small gift.' She put in his hand a little box of plain grey wood, unadorned save for a single silver rune upon the lid. 'Here is set G for Galadriel,' she said; 'but also it may stand for garden in your tongue. In this box there is earth from my orchard, and such blessing as Galadriel has still to bestow is upon it. It will not keep you on your road, nor defend you against any peril; but if you keep it and see your home again at last, then perhaps it may reward you. Though you should find all barren and laid waste, there will be few gardens in Middle-earth that will bloom like your garden, if you sprinkle this earth there. Then you may remember Galadriel, and catch a glimpse far off of Lorien, that you have seen only in our winter. For our spring and our summer are gone by, and they will never be seen on earth again save in memory.'..........
LotR:tRotK:302-304. "Then suddenly one day, for he had been too busy for weeks to give thought to his adventures, he remembered the gift of Galadriel. He brought the box out and showed it to the other Travellers (for so they were now called by everyone), and asked their advice.
'I wondered when you would think of it,' said Frodo. 'Open it!'
Inside it was filled with a grey dust, soft and fine, in the middle of which was a seed, like a small nut with a silver shale. 'What can I do with this?' said Sam.
'Throw it in the air on a breezy day and let it do its work!' said Pippin.
'On what?' said Sam.
'Choose one spot as a nursery, and see what happens to the plants there,' said Merry.
'But I'm sure the Lady would not like me to keep it all for my own garden, now so many folk have suffered,' said Sam.
'Use all the wits and knowledge you have of your own, Sam,' said Frodo, ' and then use the gift to help your work and better it. And use it sparingly. There is not much here, and I expect every grain has a value.'
So Sam planted saplings in all the places where specially beautiful or beloved trees had been destroyed, and he put a grain of the precious soil at the root of each. he went up and down the Shire in this labour; but if he paid special attention to Hobbiton and Bywater no one blamed him. And at the end he found that he still had a little of the dust left; so he went to the Three-Farthing Stone, which is as near the centre of the Shire as no matter, and cast it in the air with his blessing. The little silver nut he planted in the Party Field where the tree had once been; and he wondered what would come of it. All through the winter he remained as patient as he could, and tried to restrain himself from going round and round constantly to see if anything was happening.
Spring surpassed his wildest hopes. His trees began to sprout and grow, as if time was in a hurry and wished to make one year do for twenty. In the Party Field a beautiful young sapling leaped up: it had silver bark and long leaves and burst into golden flowers in April. It was indeed a mallorn, and it was the wonder of the neighborhood. In after years, as it grew in grace and beauty, it was known far and wide and people would come long journeys to see it: the only mallorn west of the Mountains and east of the Sea, and one of the finest in the world.
All together 1420 in the Shire was a marvellous year. Not only was there wonderful sunshine and delicious rain, in due times and perfect measure, but there seemed something more: an air of richness and growth, and a gleam of beauty beyond that of mortal summers that flicker and pass upon this Middle-earth. All the children born or begotten in that year, and there were many, were fair to see and strong, and most of them had a rich golden hair that had before been rare among hobbits. The fruit was so plentiful that young hobbits very nearly bathed in strawberries and cream; and later they sat on the lawns under the plum-trees and ate, until they had made piles of stones like small pyramids or the heaped skulls of a conqueror, and then they moved on. And no one was ill, and everyone was pleased, except for those that had to mow the grass.
In the Southfarthing the vines were laden, and the yield of 'leaf was astonishing; and everywhere there was so much corn that at Harvest every barn was stuffed. The Northfarthing barley was so fine that the beer of 1420 malt was long remembered and became a byword. Indeed a generation later one might hear an old gaffer in an inn, after a good pint of well-earned ale, put down his mug with a sigh: 'Ah! that was proper fourteen-twenty, that was!'"
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"Leave Sauron to me."