I'm so glad you enjoyed it, Barbara. Once I saw my element, I could only imagine it being uttered within Middle Earth by Bombadil, and the whole story of how it was that Aragorn might have freed the Barrow-downs of the wights fell together. Not banishment, but fulfillment, as happened with the Oathbrakers. A transformation back to what they were intended to be.
I've always been fascinated by those insects that start their lives underwater but end up flying over it, and especially the dragon-, damsel-, and caddisflies. My older brother used to horrify me when I was very little with caddisfly larvae, bringing them home from the nearby stream to open up their carefully wrought shells to expose the unprotected larvae and chase our little sister and me around the yard with them. I was about seven when I began to appreciate the things, and became fascinated with watching them construct their houses out of whatever they had at hand. Our experiments with providing them with beads and colored sand, glitter, bits of colored toothpicks, and all were often most interesting. And I agree with you about them serving as wonderful metaphors for the wights particularly, as the wights also tended to make and fill their homes with the castoffs of others.
I remember also, back when we were very small and lived in Oklahoma, before we moved west to the Pacific coast, loving the cicadas and lightning bugs. Used to catch and examine both assiduously. I think they are about the only thing from those days I wish we had here on the west coast.
The Oathbreakers could only be freed from this world when they redeemed themselves by fulfilling those broken oaths--they had to be fulfilled themselves by fulfilling their obligations to Isildur's people. Couldn't it be similarly with the wights? But in their case they weren't all damaged by a simultaneous event; we must assume each chose individually to follow Melkor, so it stands to reason each must choose for himself to turn again toward the Song and the Light once more.
And hope you appreciated a hint of Frost thrown in there--heh! What could be more incongruous--finding New England stone walls between properties and Shakespeare's imagery thrown together, eh?
Anyway, I hope your birthday was a lovely one.
(And of course I had to edit this once it was revealed--what else is new, right?)
I've always been fascinated by those insects that start their lives underwater but end up flying over it, and especially the dragon-, damsel-, and caddisflies. My older brother used to horrify me when I was very little with caddisfly larvae, bringing them home from the nearby stream to open up their carefully wrought shells to expose the unprotected larvae and chase our little sister and me around the yard with them. I was about seven when I began to appreciate the things, and became fascinated with watching them construct their houses out of whatever they had at hand. Our experiments with providing them with beads and colored sand, glitter, bits of colored toothpicks, and all were often most interesting. And I agree with you about them serving as wonderful metaphors for the wights particularly, as the wights also tended to make and fill their homes with the castoffs of others.
I remember also, back when we were very small and lived in Oklahoma, before we moved west to the Pacific coast, loving the cicadas and lightning bugs. Used to catch and examine both assiduously. I think they are about the only thing from those days I wish we had here on the west coast.
The Oathbreakers could only be freed from this world when they redeemed themselves by fulfilling those broken oaths--they had to be fulfilled themselves by fulfilling their obligations to Isildur's people. Couldn't it be similarly with the wights? But in their case they weren't all damaged by a simultaneous event; we must assume each chose individually to follow Melkor, so it stands to reason each must choose for himself to turn again toward the Song and the Light once more.
And hope you appreciated a hint of Frost thrown in there--heh! What could be more incongruous--finding New England stone walls between properties and Shakespeare's imagery thrown together, eh?
Anyway, I hope your birthday was a lovely one.
(And of course I had to edit this once it was revealed--what else is new, right?)
And a happy Independence Day!
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