b1ae79d5   
   XPost: alt.fan.tolkien, rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: no.spam@no.spam   
      
   JJ wrote:   
      
   >> 31. The old stump of a tree (but with two possibly live branches) on   
   >>      the hill where Merry and Pippin met Treebeard   
   >   
   > I always thought that this *was* Treebeard?  Or is he one of the   
   > trees? ("I am no TREE!")   
      
   This gave me quite an "Aha!" moment. Almost Zen-like. Why had I never   
   "twigged" to this before?   
      
   Explanation: My country, Canada is so famous (or notorious) for logging   
   that even Monty Python made fun of us ("I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK...")   
      
   To me, a "tree stump" is about a foot high and as smooth and level on   
   top as a chain saw can make it. That cultural conditioning rendered me   
   incapable of interpreting this part of the story correctly:   
      
      The light grew broader as they went on, and soon they saw that   
      there was a rock-wall before them: the side of a hill, or the abrupt   
      end of some long root thrust out by the distant mountains.   
      
      In the face of the stony wall there was something like a stair:   
      natural perhaps, and made by the weathering and splitting of the rock,   
      for it was rough and uneven. High up, almost level with the tops   
      of forest-trees, there was a shelf under a cliff. Nothing grew there   
      but a few grasses and weeds at its edge, and one old stump of a tree   
      with only two bent branches left: it looked almost like the figure   
      of some gnarled old man, standing there...   
      
   Soon thereafter...   
      
      They found that they were looking at a most extraordinary face.   
      It belonged to a large Man-like, almost Troll-like, figure, at least   
      fourteen foot high, very sturdy, with a tall head, and hardly any   
      neck.   
      
   Well I couldn't remember ever having seen a 14-foot-high tree stump,   
   so this passage didn't compute. It feels like I've just stumbled over   
   some valuable that lay nearby but unseen for decades. A star shines   
   upon your posting.   
      
   SQ   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)