The Lord of the Rings

while it’s falling. I wish this lot would go off to Hobbiton! Folk might welcome it there.’ Except on the high moors of the Northfarthing a heavy fall was rare in the Shire, and was regarded as a pleasant event and a chance for fun. No living hobbit (save Bilbo) could remember the Fell Winter of 1311, when white wolves invaded the Shire over the frozen Brandywine.
    Gandalf halted. Snow was thick on his hood and shoulders; it was already ankle-deep about his boots.
    ‘This is what I feared,’ he said. ‘What do you say now, Aragorn?’
    ‘That I feared it too,’ Aragorn answered, ‘but less than other things. I knew the risk of snow, though it seldom falls heavily so far south, save high up in the mountains. But we are not high yet; we are still far down, where the paths are usually open all the winter.’
    ‘I wonder if this is a contrivance of the Enemy,’ said Boromir. ‘They say in my land that he can govern the storms in the Mountains of Shadow that stand upon the borders of Mordor. He has strange powers and many allies.’
    ‘His arm has grown long indeed,’ said Gimli, ‘if he can draw snow down from the North to trouble us here three hundred leagues away.’
    ‘His arm has grown long,’ said Gandalf.
    While they were halted, the wind died down, and the snow slackened until it almost ceased. They tramped on again. But they had not gone more than a furlong when the storm returned with fresh fury. The wind whistled and the snow became a blinding blizzard. Soon even Boromir found it hard to keep going. The hobbits, bent nearly double, toiled along behind the taller folk, but it was plainthat they could not go much further, if the snow continued. Frodo’s feet felt like lead. Pippin was dragging behind. Even Gimli, as stout as any dwarf could be, was grumbling as he trudged.
    The Company halted suddenly, as if they had come to an agreement without any words being spoken. They heard eerie noises in the darkness round them. It may have been only a trick of the wind in the cracks and gullies of the rocky wall, but the sounds were those of shrill cries, and wild howls of laughter. Stones began to fall from the mountain-side, whistling over their heads, or crashing on the path beside them. Every now and again they heard a dull rumble, as a great boulder rolled down from hidden heights above.
    ‘We cannot go further tonight,’ said Boromir. ‘Let those call it the wind who will; there are fell voices on the air; and these stones are aimed at us.’
    ‘I do call it the wind,’ said Aragorn. ‘But that does not make what you say untrue. There are many evil and unfriendly things in the world that have little love for those that go on two legs, and yet are not in league with Sauron, but have purposes of their own. Some have been in this world longer than he.’
    ‘Caradhras was called the Cruel, and had an ill name,’ said Gimli, ‘long years ago, when rumour of Sauron had not been heard in these lands.’
    ‘It matters little who is the enemy, if we cannot beat off his attack,’ said Gandalf.
    ‘But what can we do?’ cried Pippin miserably. He was leaning on Merry and Frodo, and he was shivering.
    ‘Either stop where we are, or go back,’ said Gandalf. ‘It is no good going on. Only a little higher, if I remember rightly, this path leaves the cliff and runs into a wide shallow trough at the bottom of a long hard slope. We should have no shelter there from snow, or stones – or anything else.’
    ‘And it is no good going back while the storm holds,’ said Aragorn. ‘We have passed no place on the way up that offered more shelter than this cliff-wall we are under now.’
    ‘Shelter!’ muttered Sam. ‘If this is shelter, then one wall and no roof make a house.’
    The Company now gathered together as close to the cliff as they could. It faced southwards, and near the bottom it leaned out a little, so that they hoped it would give them some protection from the northerly wind and from the falling stones. But eddying blasts swirled round them from every side, and the snow flowed down in ever denser clouds.
    They huddled together with their backs to the wall. Bill the ponystood patiently but dejectedly in front of the hobbits, and screened them a little; but before long the drifting snow was above his hocks, and it went on mounting. If they had had no larger companions the hobbits would soon have been entirely buried.
    A great sleepiness came over Frodo; he felt himself sinking fast into