A lesson for Christmas from Thorin Oakenshield’s final words
“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
Thorin the Dwarf ‘King Under the Mountain” received mortal wounds in the battle of the five armies, which saw the combined forces of; men, elves, and dwarves fight the goblin and wolf hoardes. The battle was a close run thing and without the intervention of the great eagles, the triad of men, elves and dwarves would surely have been destroyed. With his dying breath Thorin speaks some hard learned wisdom to the little Hobbit Bilbo:
“There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
This was quite a turn around for the dwarf who not long before had called Bilbo a rat and had threatened to throw him to his death from the mountain. Thorin had become consumed with an insatiable greed and lust for riches; so much so that he was willing to start a war for them. Even though he had more than enough gold and gems to last him, and his not so merry band, a thousand life times, he still lusted for more and would not part with a penny of what he had.
This is a perfect picture of materialism, and how it is a hunger that can never be satisfied, just look at the cues around the street when a new phone is released, or the commotion on sales week when a TV just 2 inches bigger than the current model (that works perfectly fine) has a big red sale sign slapped on it. Even more worrying as we come up to Christmas, are the parents who get into debt to buy mountains of plastic tat for their kids all in a futile effort to show them how much they love them. I know someone who spent £900 last Christmas on a mobile phone for their teenager, and now laments the fact that the kid no longer spends any time with the rest of the family. Our grandparents on the other hand who had very little in the way of material goods, where delighted as kids with an orange, a handful of nuts, and a good dinner. Can you imagine the looks on kids todays faces if they woke on Christmas morning to a few easy peelers and a bag of KP nuts? But its not the kids fault, they don’t know any different, it is us adults that are to blame. Kids get toys and presents, new clothes, fancy sweets, puddings, and deserts every week of the year, and thus in an attempt to make Christmas more special than normal, parents go way overboard, and feel that unless the living room is filled from floor to ceiling with flashing, bleeping, plastic tat, then they are neglecting their kids. This year I must admit I am really looking forward to Christmas week, not for what presents I may get (at 44 with kids in their 20’s, I don’t expect much) rather I am excited for the simple things; a cold beer, a warm fire and a good big feed of turkey, ham and spuds. This has less to do with some sort of anti-materialistic enlightenment on my part, and more to do with the fact that I have been dieting, and thus starving. Thorin Oakenshield learned his lesson when it was too late to do anything about it, if he had survived perhaps he could have been generous with his riches or content with little, maybe like Bilbo he too would have been happy with; food, cheer and song, rather than hoarded gold. Now that we have his example, we don’t have to make the same mistakes as he did.
“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world”
Indeed it would Thorin