Trick or Treat? Spooky Middle-Earth - Page 2
© Michael Martinez
It is possible that Frodo awoke in Rivendell around the time of Durin's Day. No one is really sure of when it would have occurred, although Tolkien used an Almanac for 1942 to calculate the phases of the moon for The Lord of the Rings. Frodo awoke on October 24 (Shire Reckoning, or October 14 in our reckoning).
Perhaps not coincidentally, Gandalf told Frodo that he had been on the brink of the wraith-world. Frodo's Morgul-wound had nearly made him a ghost, and Frodo had returned to the ranks of the fully living with Elrond's help. So Frodo began a period of introspection which lasted about two months. The highwater mark of this period was, of course, the Council of Elrond, at which various representatives of free peoples put together all the pieces of the large puzzle Tolkien had assembled. Gandalf even engaged in a little foretelling on the day Frodo awoke: he looked at Frodo and thought to himself that Frodo "may become like a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can."
When Frodo awoke from his sleep, Elrond gave a feast for his honored guest, the Ring-bearer, and Frodo found himself sitting next to Gloin, a Dwarf. Afterward, the celebrants retired to the Hall of Fire, where Frodo was reunited with Bilbo. The Elves sang many songs honoring Elbereth and probably other Valar. Strider was unmasked as the Dunadan, and Gandalf was compared (in Frodo's estimation, as he gazed upon the wizard at the feast) to "a wise king of ancient legend."
Another custom which was long associated with Halloween (and its predecessor holidays, including the ancient Roman holiday of Feralia, in which the passing of the dead was commemorated) was the telling of stories, especially about dead relatives and heroes. After Frodo was reunited with Bilbo, he began to drowse, but Bilbo's song of Earendil roused the younger Hobbit. Bilbo had the nerve (Aragorn felt) to sing about Earendil, the father of Elrond, in Elrond's house. In a Halloweenish way, Bilbo was honoring Elrond's "dead", although Earendil certainly had not died. He was lost to the mortal world, but Elrond could still expect to see his father some day. Life for the Eldar in Aman was therefore as bit like living in both this world and the next (and, indeed, Gandalf told Frodo that same day that those Elves who had dwelt in Aman lived at once in both the Seen and the Unseen worlds).
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