{"id":1109,"date":"2011-03-06T20:05:50","date_gmt":"2011-03-06T19:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.graeme-skinner.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=1109"},"modified":"2011-03-06T20:05:50","modified_gmt":"2011-03-06T19:05:50","slug":"what-if","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.graeme-skinner.co.uk\/wordpress\/2011\/03\/what-if\/","title":{"rendered":"What if…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was trying to think of a painting for the theme of the month which is Airships over on the John Howe<\/a> website. And I was thinking (if you can call it that), what if Tolkien before he wrote the Council of Elrond scene had watched a few hot air balloons fly by, perhaps he’d have sent the ring South by balloon instead of with the fellowship on foot.<\/p>\n

Elrond looked annoyed and the other members of the council shuffled in their seats.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook,\u201d said Frodo, \u201cI’m not saying I won’t go to Mordor, it’s just walking all that way…\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one is saying you have to cover the distance in one day.\u201d Interrupted Elrond, \u201cThink of it more of an extended wander.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI already have bunions on both feet, and an ingrown toenail.\u201d Complained Frodo, \u201cplease don’t forget the condition of my feet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd my back,\u201d put in Gimli.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd my legs,\u201d chirped Legolas.<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, I get it.\u201d Elrond said slamming the table in frustration. \u201cSo you’re all too lazy to walk to Mordor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow many horses do we have?\u201d Asked Gandalf.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot enough I’ll warrant,\u201d Aragorn replied. \u201cRivendell lost far too many for the great feast.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEagles?\u201d Suggested Bilbo.<\/p>\n

No one answered, though Elrond threw a half eaten roll at Bilbo.<\/p>\n

Time passed and no one spoke, clouds drifted in front of the Sun and the council chamber fell dark. From the back of the council chamber a Elf from the distant realm of Golfier stood and cleared his throat. \u201cCould I make a suggestion?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point I’ll listen to Bill the Pony,\u201d said Elrond.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy Lord, I am \u00c9tienne from the realm of Golfier,\u201d he said bowing towards the other members of the council. \u201cWe have for many years now been designing vessels that fly in the air and are moved by nothing more than the winds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elrond, and most of the other council members looked doubtful.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is true my Lords,\u201d said another Elf standing next to \u00c9tienne. \u201cI am Findar\u00e1to brother of \u00c9tienne, these vessels of the air are a wonder to behold.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHang on,\u201d Gandalf said standing up. \u201cI’ve seen those airships, they’re nothing more than little baskets suspended beneath bags of air.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve refined the design a bit,\u201d \u00c9tienne said smiling. \u201cNow we suspend small rowing boats beneath the balloons.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow far can one of these airships go?\u201d Elrond asked curiously.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve never flown more than 40 miles in one go,\u201d replied Findar\u00e1to. \u201cThat’s not to say they won’t fly further, just that we’ve never seen the need to travel further than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s no way you’ll get me up in one of those things.\u201d Gandalf said shaking his head.<\/p>\n

\u201cHmmmm, let’s not be hasty,\u201d said Elrond holding up a hand to silence Gandalf.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you halfentish?\u201d Legolas asked Elrond with a smirk.<\/p>\n

The council chamber erupted with laughter and Bilbo called for ale which he’d done every fifteen minutes since they started.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you’re all quite finished,\u201d Elrond said, he was looking mightily cheesed off and everyone fell silent. \u201cThat’s better. I like this idea of flying silently into Mordor, it’s the one thing that Sauron won’t consider.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that because it’s a stupid idea?\u201d Asked Gandalf.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, we can’t walk, ride or Eagle it there,\u201d Elrond replied sharply. \u201cWe have little choice left to us. How long will it take to build these airships for the trip to Mordor?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThree weeks should be enough,\u201d said Findar\u00e1to.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can count me out of this scheme.\u201d Gandalf said to no one in particular.<\/p>\n

For three weeks the Golfier brothers worked on their airships until three were ready to fly, the fellowship sans Gandalf assembled and climbed aboard their ships. Gandalf shook his head and wandered down into the valley of Rivendell, he couldn’t watch them crash into the ground and die. As he stepped onto the bridge Gandalf looked up and saw the three airships floating off into the distance, slamming his staff down onto the bridge he called out to the fellowship \u201cFly you fools!\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course the text and Gandalf of the bridge is the result of Julie saying to my suggestion of the fellowship in airships was \u201cyes, and Gandalf could be shouting ‘fly you fools’ at them\u201d \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was trying to think of a painting for the theme of the month which is Airships over on the John Howe website. And I was thinking (if you can call it that), what if Tolkien before he wrote the Council of Elrond scene had watched a few hot air balloons fly by, perhaps he’d have sent the ring South by balloon instead of with the fellowship on foot. Elrond looked annoyed and the other members of the council shuffled in their seats. \u201cLook,\u201d said Frodo, \u201cI’m not saying I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,15],"tags":[44,89,158,52,54,19],"class_list":["post-1109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc","category-scribblings","tag-art","tag-gandalf","tag-hobbit","tag-illustration","tag-john-howe","tag-tolkien"],"gutentor_comment":3,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.graeme-skinner.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.graeme-skinner.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.graeme-skinner.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.graeme-skinner.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.graeme-skinner.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1109"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.graeme-skinner.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1110,"href":"https:\/\/www.graeme-skinner.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109\/revisions\/1110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.graeme-skinner.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.graeme-skinner.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.graeme-skinner.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}