Tolkien poems that spark that Magic Forest Feeling

Added: 2026-06-05

[00:00:00]So, I've now finished reading the first book out of the three book set that was the collection of Tolken's poetry. And I'm very keen to move on to the next set. But I wanted to talk about some of my favorite my favorite well the poems that really got me that I really thought were cool. And I was trying to figure out how to actually make this video rather than me just being like, I like this because of this and I like this because of this. And I'm also trying to just avoid reading the entire poem out on camera, which the temptation to do that is so real.

[00:00:34]I I will just read out little bits maybe like a lot of it. I've kind of found a way to separate the poems into like diff into categories as to how they make me feel um and different moods of different poems. Today I wanted to talk about that fay feeling, that otherworldly fay feeling. You know that feeling you get when you when you just feel like the forest is magical, like there could be something more than physics in the forest. You're walking through and you're like, I could expect a fairy to pop out any minute. or it's the middle of the night and you are sitting on your front front porch and everything's quiet and you just think there is something very magical about this silence right now when the world is sleeping. So the poems we're talking about is poem number 14 called outside and poem number 50 which is called the forest walker. And I also think I might even look at something from the book of the Lost Tales because I was reading through these poems again before filming this video. Um, and I've written a note that says, "Look at page 46 from the book of Lost Tales. I don't know what I and I don't know what I've written that down for, but I'm going to have to go and investigate now." I love my past self. Sometimes I just leave little Easter eggs for me to go hunt down, but don't explain what they are. Palm 14 ish I just love it so much. Look, you got to go read these poems um before you watch this video because it's going to make so much more sense. But if you don't, I'll try my best to explain everything. Let me read like a little bit of let me read some of the lines that really really stuck out to me and you might understand what I'm talking about.

[00:02:34]This is this is quite an eerie poem. I love it so much. We crouch by the islanded fire light in a circling ocean of dark. When out of the lull of a many voices grown suddenly still, I hear outside in the dimness in the night inexplorably vague.

[00:02:52]A voice that pipes to my heart with the shrill hollow fluting of ill.

[00:03:00]Okay, I love this so much because we crouch by the islanded fire light in a circling ocean of dark. If anyone has ever gone camping uh in the middle of nowhere, and I've done that many times in my life, mainly um when I was younger, there is a stillness about the light about the night when you are camping when literally all you can see is this circle of light that the fire makes and then beyond that it's just blackness because there's no light pollution from uh well, I suppose unless it's a full moon, um I guess you get quite quite a bit of light from a full moon. Um, but there's very no light pollution from from buildings.

[00:03:44]There's also no sound of cars going by when you're that far out in the wilderness. And there can be that moment when you're camping, right? When you've been talking and then suddenly there's a lull in conversation and all you can hear is the fire and the trees and there's something else, right? There's something else there in that in the quality of I hear outside in the dimness in the night.

[00:04:13]Inexplor inexplorably vague. I love inexplorably.

[00:04:18][laughter] I've never said that word.

[00:04:20]It's not really inexplorably vague. It's so vague it cannot be explored. The vague the vagueness is so vague you cannot explore it any further.

[00:04:28][laughter] I love that. A voice that pipes my heart with a shrill hollow fluting of ill. That's exactly the feeling, right? That there's something out there, but you kind of have that fearful response like it's something dangerous. Let me read a little bit more. An unbearable wandering wisp of a melody slender as glass and pale as an image of starlight mirrored in tear grade is born on the winds of loneliness out of some lightless place.

[00:05:02]There's something unself and inhuman goes haunting and stopping out there down the hill with the two moonlit woods up the path and I can't see its face.

[00:05:13]I really really love this because that's right there's something so or like you're walking through the woods or through a garden by yourself. It's just you and nature and there's something alive about about the place that you're walking through. There's something breathing.

[00:05:33]There's something that could talk to you and you would probably not be surprised if it started talking to you. You know what I mean? Um I don't know like has anyone ever had those intimate moments with nature? You know what I'm talking about where you could just start talking to nature? I have done it. Absolutely. I have done it. It feels so great. Anyway, that thing that calls to you, Tolken's written, it calls from the river of night, where the ghosts of the people of day, of the whispering dreaming trees, of the leaves and the glistening grass float thin on the many lunged heaving of the breath of the slumbering world.

[00:06:13]Yes, the river of night. I mean, Tolken's mainly talking about this from like the feeling of being outside in the middle of the night amongst nature, which is a very it's just it's just an experience that you just don't get very often.

[00:06:33]Float thin on the many lung teething of the breath of the slumbering world.

[00:06:38]100%. You can feel the world sbering and you can feel it breathing. But sorry, going back to this, a voice that pipes to my heart with a shrill hollow fluting of ill. Um, I also feel 100% that they and that's that fa feeling, right? That if I was walking through the woods and door opened a portal to another universe, immediately I would be like so excited. but also that feeling of danger at the same time as the feeling of wanting to step into that portal. It's a calling to go forward and a calling of warning at the same time. And that little that combination is just so exhilarating. [laughter] And I think this poem really captures it well.

[00:07:33]Tolken goes on to say, "And the light seems to wayne, and the fire song is frozen to whispering ash, and the chill of the fear of the darkness sits by my shoulder and cries, of terror primeval and helpless, of the dreads of the children of earth, of dim altars and magic unfathommed, that in shadow wrapped forests abide."

[00:08:02][sighs and gasps] Oh my god. Firstly, the fire song Frozen to whispering ash.

[00:08:08]Whispering ash. That is exactly what f what ash does when it's when it's on its last legs of burning. It whispers 100% next time I'm around a fire. I'm going to listen to the ash whisper to me. And the chill of the fear of the darkness sits by my shoulder and cries.

[00:08:25]Yes, that's right. It's like that little like you can feel the fear and it's kind of sitting there but you're also like I will ignore you cuz I'm going to go forward through this portal of the terror primeval and helpless.

[00:08:41]Yeah. Right. Nature just being so chaotic. I think like that's what the thing about I always associate the fay fa creatures the fay world fay practices. I always associated with um Oh, it's just gotten really dark outside right now. I always associated with chaos, just like nature. Uh there is nothing that you can trust about nature to have your back. You cannot 100%. Um and I feel the same way about the fay.

[00:09:20]Yet we are fine to go hiking on a mountain. You know, don't go off track.

[00:09:24]Of dim altars and magic unfathommed.

[00:09:26]Yeah, that's right. It's sort of this undefinable, unfathomable, unfathomable juna kind of magic that in shadow wrapped forests abide.

[00:09:39]Yeah, of course. Because you're never going to feel this fay feeling at your desk at work. [laughter] >> [gasps] >> It lives in these places where nature is wild. Anyway, I really love that poem.

[00:09:54]Um, especially the lines, we crouch by the islanded firelight in a circling ocean of dark and a voice that pipes to my heart with a shrill hollow floating of ill. In fact, he ends it differently in a different way of things that are ancient and nameless, unself and inhuman and old that cling to the gloom of great forests and go piping about in the dark with a thin hooting fluting voice calling and calling outside in the cold. Yes, this voice that calls from the cold. Wow, it is so dark. That hooting fluting voice calling and calling outside in the cold.

[00:10:33]question is, are you listening and will you obey?

[00:10:39]Oh, and I just saw this as well. I hear it. It lures and repels me and wanely it wales in my ears. It pipes and it tells me of lurking of wizardry pale and outside. And just that like combination of it lures and repels me. It pipes and it tells me like it repels and tells and entices and lures at the same time. It lures and repels me. This is exactly the thing, right?

[00:11:12]That ah that feeling when you're on the edge of the cliff and just wondering what it might be like to fall or like maybe a better thing is like the feeling of being on a foot path and seeing that someone has like made a desire path out to one side and wanting to go on that desire path but you know that or you don't know where it goes, you don't know where it ends, but you're just like I I want to I just love that like Tolken is setting This whole poem is like the voice in the forests in in these cold forests are like assumed evil yet we like them.

[00:11:55]Okay, editing Georgie here. I totally forgot to get my copy of The Book of Lost Tales part one um from this little box set. Oh, smells so good. Smells so good. Um, just I've gone to investigate what I was talking about on page 46 of Book of Lost Tales volume one. This is in part two, The Music of the Euro.

[00:12:24]I don't know.

[00:12:26]It's a conversation between Ariel and Ruml.

[00:12:32]And there's like a little part here. And I think maybe this just, let me just read it out.

[00:12:38]Then slept Ariel, and though his dreams there came a music thinner and more pure than any he heard before, and it was full of longing. Indeed, it was as if pipes of silver or flutes of shape, most slender, delicate, uttered crystal notes and thread-like harmonies beneath the moon upon the lawns, and Ariel longed in his sleep, for he knew not what.

[00:13:03]Slender, delicate, uttered flutes of shape. Most slender, delicate, uttered crystal notes and threadlike harmonies is so fay, but also so beautiful. This whole thing is about Ariel just like being on Tolera. I think that's how you say Teresa, which is that little island that moved back and forth between the east and west coast between Bolyrian and um Valenor. basically just like the elf shuttle. But I don't know. I think this book of lost tales was written before Tolken had written much written much else of that. So I think this was just like some faraway fa place that Ariel has stumbled across. This I think this is why I must have looked at this. This is like the thing that you [clears throat] stumble into if you follow those fa fluting voices.

[00:14:01]Um although I still hold to it that in the poem we were just talking about Tolken was really describing something a little bit more sinister in nature as well. Um that maybe just has the veil of beauty over the top of it. So this is not exactly the vibe but anyway there's also another line here that says rumor says and all the songs of tool ara are to be heard at times within this garden. It's basically this beautiful garden. Um, he caught a glimpse of shadow fililled garden that was full of trees, but its spaces were barred with silver lights and black shadows by reason of the moon.

[00:14:39]By reason of the moon, of course. Yeah.

[00:14:42]This is on Yeah. page 4567 of this book one of Lost Tales. Um, maybe even going through. It's just so It's just a nice little It's like being lost in the secret garden, right? And Ariel longed in his sleep for he knew not what. That's right. It's just this um feeling that you you feel but cannot explain of something otherness in the moment that you are living. But yeah, I feel like Ariel has managed to get to a place where he's actually followed those that creepy voice, that creepy fa alluring voice. Anyway, let's move on to the next poem, which is much lighter in vibe. So, [sighs] it's called The Forest Walker.

[00:15:43]And this one was written more like maybe not during the night, but during the day. Anyway, this one, this poem is super cute. Have you wondered in a woodland where the lights begin to glow?

[00:15:56]From tents and noisy ledges did your halting footsteps go astray from beaten pathways through through the bushes and young trees till the lights were far behind you and men's voices were like to bees. I love that. Yes, I love that. Men's voices were like to bees.

[00:16:16]A little buzzing.

[00:16:18]Yeah, this is like for me this poem is like h I just want to go for a walk, clear my mind, get away from the den of real life and and reconnect.

[00:16:32]And it's just so cute. And then it goes on to say, "I am hungry for deep forests, for the great pines that creek and moan with their bare arms in the moonlight, for a wind that has been blown over leagues of land untrodden, where the corpses and the grass, where the reedy river borders and the pools like palid glass.

[00:16:54]lie dreaming in the starlight in a land that knows no men, not even Elvish laughter in the moonrise in the Glenn.

[00:17:03]Where the voices are leaf rustles or vague whispering at night when the unknown ageless spirits at the changing of the light.

[00:17:11]Troop through silent spaces of the darkness of the wood. And the light flees at the coming of this old primeval brood, wooden brood through the boughs to die in crannies under ferns or some dark pool dripping about roots of elder in a gathered gloom and cool. Love it. I love this because, you know, he's like, I want to go for a walk in the forest. I really, really feel like my soul needs that, but it needs to be a place where I can't hear civilization. And also, I want to be walking through stuff that feels like no one has ever walked this pathway before.

[00:17:50]So, this is someone going off the beaten track. And that feeling for a wind that has been blown over leagues of land untrodden, that's so cool. Okay. Not only are you walking on land that and I love this line because it feels so specific sometimes to Australia, especially probably no one knows this, but I grew up actually in the Australian outback, which means in a small town where you could drive for maybe half an hour and be in the middle of nowhere in a very dangerous place you wouldn't actually want to be if you didn't have a car to get back. And it is absolutely true that you could just pull up anywhere on the side of the road or go a little bit off the beaten track with your car, get out, and you can pretty much say that you're probably walking in a place that no one has walked for maybe ever or like a hundred years. And the wind that is blowing in your face, you are the first person to feel this wind on your face for a 100 miles.

[00:19:01]You know, it's wind straight from nature. It hasn't passed through buildings yet. It hasn't passed through the lungs of a hundred other people busy on the street. Look, I don't know. I just like that line. For a wind that has been blown over leagues of land untrodden like this wind has only ever ted nature.

[00:19:25][snorts] Mysterious nature.

[00:19:30]There's also another cool little bit here um right at the end of this poem. It's just such a cute little poem there. The singing is the pine trees or the leaves of the great beach telling tales of the wide ages to the saplings. How they reach back back beyond the legends of the oldest trees that grow. Say perhaps the gloomy pine trees, but they tell not all they know. I love that. just like you kind of commune with the trees because the trees know everything.

[00:19:59]They've always been there except for the pine trees. They're really annoying.

[00:20:05]There the people are as shadows that awake no noise at all or so distant and so hidden that though I think they call and my heart is touched to longing, they are secret and unclear. And I long to find the forest there to wander down the year. Till the dancing in the darkness and the voices now unknown. Till the spirit of white places in the twilight is my own. Such a great ending. It's like you want to keep walking and walking and never look back until you feel like you are at one with the forest until like you are the mysterious thing in the forest. Till the spirit of wide places in the twilight is my own.

[00:20:44]Just think about that for a minute. till the spirit of wide places because yes absolutely it feels like wide places have a spirit and we've talked about this on the channel before when I was going through some of Tolken's letters and he was talking about wide open spaces and how they feel different to [snorts] cozy homes and there's some quality about being in those places that changes the way you think the spirit of wide places in the twilight is my own.

[00:21:20]I think um I think I need to put that somewhere. I think I need to just collect a whole bunch of like quotes from this book like favorite little ones and like put them somewhere. There's also a really cool little line that is written apparently on the side of something and wasn't in the poem.

[00:21:43]All so secret and so hidden that though whiles I think they call I can only guess deep meanings and I long with all my heart to understand the forest and to wonder there apart.

[00:21:56]Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. It's that longing to to understand, to know, to discover, to be at one with the spirit of wide open spaces or the soul that you feel in nature and just try to discover it and just be with it is like um I hate using the word mindfulness because I know that that's like a massive buzzword these days. But there is something that takes you right out of your head and puts your puts you literally just you feel like a body walking on a pathway and you are no longer yourself with your job that you have to go to tomorrow. you are no longer yourself with the fact that you forgot to get milk when you went shopping just before and you'll have to get that on the way home. It just takes you out of all of those worries and puts you and makes you so creaturely when you're walking through the forest. And so yeah, have you ever wondered in a woodland where the lights begin to glow from the tents and noisy lodges? Did your wa did your wisful footsteps go? I just really like those two poems. one of them more eerie than the other. And I'll be back with my next sort of theme poll soon.