’The words are in the elven-tongue of the West of Middle-earth in the Elder Days,’ answered Gandalf. ’But they do not say anything of importance to us. They say only: The Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria. Speak, friend, and enter.’

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Today is my one hundred and eleventh birthday: I am eleventy-one today! 'Hurray! Hurray! Many Happy Returns!' they shouted, and they hammered joyously on the tables. Bilbo was doing splendidly. This was the sort of stuff they liked: short and obvious.

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Such was the dark Dunharrow, the work of long-forgotten men. Their name was lost and no song or legend remembered it. For what purpose they had made this place, as a town or secret temple or a tomb of kings, none in Rohan could say.

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As before Legolas was first afoot, if indeed he had ever slept. ’Awake! Awake!’ he cried. ’It is a red dawn. Strange things await us by the eaves of the forest. Good or evil, I do not know; but we are called. Awake!’

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A sweet fountain played there in the morning sun, and a sward of bright green lay about it; but in the midst, drooping over the pool, stood a dead tree, and the falling drops dripped sadly from its barren and broken branches back into the clear water.

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When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.

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Ho! Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo!
By water, wood and hill, by the reed and willow,
By fire, sun and moon, harken now and hear us!
Come, Tom Bombadil, for our need is near us!

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So Gandalf and Peregrin rode to the Great Gate of the Men of Gondor at the rising of the sun, and its iron doors rolled back before them. ’Mithrandir! Mithrandir!’ men cried. ’Now we know that the storm is indeed nigh!’

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To Isengard! Though Isengard be ringed and barred with doors of stone; Though Isengard be strong and hard, as cold as stone and bare as bone; We go, we go, we go to war, to hew the stone and break the door; For bole and bough are burning now, the furnace roars – we go to war!

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He paused, and then said slowly in a deep voice: ’This is the Master-ring, the One Ring to rule them all. This is the One Ring that he lost many ages ago, to the great weakening of his power. He greatly desires it – but he must not get it.’

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Spear clashed on shield. Then the king raised his hand, and with a rush like the sudden onset of a great wind the last host of Rohan rode thundering into the West. Far over the plain Éowyn saw the glitter of their spears, as she stood still, alone before the doors of the silent house.

The Orcs reeled and screamed and cast aside both sword and spear. Like a black smoke driven by a mounting wind they fled. Wailing they passed under the waiting shadow of the trees; and from that shadow none ever came again.

’Look at it, Mr. Frodo!’ said Sam. ’Look at it! The wind’s changed. Something’s happening. He’s not having it all his own way. His darkness is breaking up out in the world there. I wish I could see what is going on!’

’It is sad that we should meet only thus at the ending. For the world is changing; I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air. I do not think we shall meet again.’

’They cannot conquer for ever!’ said Frodo. And then suddenly the brief glimpse was gone. The Sun dipped and vanished, and as if at the shuttering of a lamp, black night fell.

Legolas stood before the gate and turned his bright eyes away north and east, and his fair face was troubled. ’I do not think that any would come,’ he answered. ’They have no need to ride to war; war already marches on their own lands.’

Then Gandalf laughed. The fantasy vanished like a puff of smoke. ’Saruman, Saruman!’ said Gandalf still laughing. ’Saruman, you missed your path in life. You should have been the king’s jester and earned your bread, and stripes too, by mimicking his counsellors. Ah me!’

Pippin looked out from the shelter of Gandalf’s cloak. He wondered if he was awake or still sleeping, still in the swift-moving dream in which he had been wrapped so long since the great ride began. The dark world was rushing by and the wind sang loudly in his ears.