Since I am actively looking for places where the Hobbits and the ring company experience rest and rejuvenation along their journey, I feel compelled to pause and consider Farmer Maggot's farm. Farmer Maggot's farm is a place of rest, yes. They eat and drink as they rest. But is it a locus amoenus? And if not, then what?
The meal is a homely one--a homey one, we might say--farmhouse fare. It consists of mushrooms and other appropriate foods, and it is eaten within man-made--or hobbit-made--walls rather than in nature. In particular, there is no running water. There is also no priest. Farmer Maggot is a shrewd fellow, but he does not, in fact, preside over the meal. His wife is more instrumental than he in laying the table, and his part in the tableau is to analyze recent events rather than to serve. That the main part of the meal is made of mushrooms suggests an earthiness, or perhaps we might say an earthliness. This is good, nourishing food, but it is food of the earth rather than heavenly food. So perhaps sometimes a meal is just a meal? And yet, I'm not sure.
The meeting with Farmer Maggot follows close on the heels of the meeting with the elves at Woodhall. In fact, it is the very next chapter. Like the supper with the elves, this supper is communal: the hobbits share a meal with others, bringing the total to 14--the same number (if memory serves) as the voyage to the Lonely Mountain in the Hobbit, without Gandalf. Interestingly, it is also one more than the total of Jesus and his 12 disciples at the Last Supper (which some would say is the origin of 13 as an unlucky number).
Farmer Maggot, though not a priestly figure, offers sanctuary. He shields Frodo from the Black Riders and transports him to the Ferry. But in spite of not being a "priest" figure (there seem to be no priests among hobbits, even though Gildor calls Frodo a prince among hobbits), he has been in the Old Forest, and has even had some dealings with Tom Bombadil, who reveals his respect for Farmer Maggot later. And while the food is earthly rather than spiritual, he and his wife provide food for Frodo, Sam, and Pippin for their journey, and they later share it with Merry and Fredegar Bolger.
The positioning of this "ordinary" scene of communal eating so close to the extraordinary scene of communal eating and celebration begs for the reader to consider the possible connections. The spiritual food of the elves is different in kind than the homely, earthy food of the farmer, and yet both nourish the body. The eating of the communal meal at Farmer Maggots does relieve their fears, but the communal nature seems to be responsible for that relief rather than the food itself. While it is a man-made shadow of something that, with the elves, touches the divine, a communal meal nevertheless anticipates and participates, in a small way, in that taste of heaven. Here, we glimpse how ordinary moments become elevated to the sacramental in Tolkien, and as we live in this world, such a moment can be equally significant.
