The third day of Feast Week brings us to The Feast of Gildor. The hobbits are continuing their journey to Bree and are feeling scared after their first encounter with a black rider: but then they come across the elves in the greenwood and their spirits are lifted. They are filled with awe and wonder as Gildor, who is leading the elves, invites the hobbits to join them for meal.
Pippin afterwards recalled little of either food or drink, for his mind was filled with the light upon elf-faces, and the sound of voices so various and so beautiful that he felt in a waking dream. But he remembered that there was bread, surpassing the savour of a fine white loaf to one who is starving; and fruits sweet as wildberries and richer than the tended fruits of gardens; he drained a cup that was filled with a fragrant draught, cool as a clear fountain, golden as a summer afternoon.
Sam could never describe in words, nor picture clearly to himself, what he felt or thought that night, though it remained in his memory as one of the chief events of his life. The nearest he ever got was to say: “Well, sir, if I could grow apples like that, I would call myself a gardener. But it was the singing that went to my heart, if you know what I mean.”
The Fellowship of the Ring,Chapter 3: Three is Company.
The meal is a simple one and, although the elves called it “poor fare”, the hobbits welcomed it. For Feast Week it is white bread, fruit, and white wine or mead. I chose a honey and sunflower seed loaf to eat with apples, plums, greengages, raspberries and blackberries. To drink, a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. I’ve added hops and medlars from the garden, although the medlars won’t really be at their best until bletted by the frost.
Then tonight, if it isn’t cloudy, we can look up and enjoy the stars: the Pleiades (Remmirath), Betelgeuse (Borgil), and Orion (Menelvagor), just as the hobbits did.
Enjoy!
