Narrative Interlude: An Interview With C.J.R. Tolkien
Narrator: Picture for Schools featuring Christopher John Reuel Tolkien, take seventeen.
[clack]
Director: Action!
Christopher Tolkien: After Samwise's valiant rescue of Frodo, the pair made their way into the very heart of Mordor disguised with armor and coverings scavenged from the slain orcs of Minas Morgul and Cirith Ungol. Taking advantage of the broken and twisted landscape of the haunted plain of Gorgoroth, they made their way to the foot of ominous Orodruin... the dread mountain of fire that was their destination. Yet, with each passing step, the burden of the ring became ever more impossibly grievous for Frodo to bear. So great was the evil power of the One Ring near the cursed place of it's making that it is very telling to know Samwise never returned the pocket change taken from Frodo during the brief time he carried the precious ring. For his part, Frodo never bothered much about what became of his pocket money and afterwards always assumed the orcs must have made off with it. This act would, unfortunately, haunt and gnaw away at the otherwise faithful and steadfast Samwise Gamgee's soul through the many remaining years of his long life...
[clop clop clop]
(what appears to be a Gondorian knight rides up behind C.J.R. Tolkien)
Christopher Tolkien: Now, a clue as to exactly how much pocket change was involved may or may not be found in my new upcoming book "The History of Middle-Earth Vol. XXXVII: Grocery Lists, Doodles, Cleaning Receipts, and Other Things my Father Never Possibly Intended to Publish" which will be available at fine bookstores everywhere by the summer of--
Knight: Aaah-ha!
[slam]
[hack chop hack]
[clunk]
C.J.R.'s Wife Baillie: Chris!