Dreamflower's Mathom-house

In September of 2003, the two newsgroups, rec.arts.books.tolkien and alt.fan.tolkien
began a more or less weekly chapter by chapter discussion of Tolkien’s books: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. The discussion began on Sept. 1, with “An Unexpected Party”, and ended in Feb. of 2007 at the end of The Silmarillion.

Each discussion began with a summary of the chapter by one of the participants, who also included some questions and observations to kick off the discussions.

I volunteered for six chapters: “Road to Isengard”, “Flotsam and Jetsom”, “The Houses of Healing” and “The Field of Cormallen” “Appendix C: The Family Trees”. I chose “The Field of Cormallen” to post here, since it’s a chapter that is completely non-existent in the films. (Though one event at the beginning is shown.)

The summary, of course, contains spoilers for the chapter, so if you’ve not yet read the books, you may wish to skip. The numbers correspond to the questions at the end of the summary. This was a format adopted by a number of the participants.

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