Welcome to the Lord of the Rings lorecast, the show that explores the background of Tolkien's amazing world from the very beginning. I'm going to do something different on this episode.

We're reaching the end of the formal story of Baron and Lutheran.

Of course, there are other details we can get into in future episodes and even next week.

But with this episode, and I've said this, I don't know how many times now, Tolkien's words

are amazing.

Sometimes they're dense. Sometimes they're dense.

Sometimes they go long into details about small things,

the way the grass looked or the trees or the water flowing down the river or whatever.

But in this section of the story, I think his words are particularly clear and detailed

and engaging.

So for the first half of this episode, I'm just going to read you the rest of the story.

Let it sink in, soak in it, enjoy it, and then we'll have the mid-break, and then I'll follow

up with some stuff at the end.

We'll get into some of the nitty-gritty details there.

So I hope you guys enjoy this.

And so the intro here has no background sounds, there's no environment, there's no music. This will be just the words because they are so

powerful just on their own. And I want you to just feel that.

And quickly to set you up before we get into it, remember, Baron and Luthian just

returned to Thingle.

And he claims that he has taken the Silmaril, but it is still in his hand, which is still

in Carcaroth's stomach.

And they laugh about it.

...