Travel questions.

NeumeIndil · Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2005 3:11 pm Post subject: Travel questions.

How long was the return trip to Minas Tirith after the battle at the Black Gate? I'm not finding it in my copy of RotK.

Did they ride straight through or stop and camp occasionally b/c of wounded men and horses?

Would they stop for wounded men etc. or would Gandalf do some magical version of a time warp and just zap the wounded home and leave the healthy guys to catch up? Maybe he'd levitate the wounded instead and just float them along side the rest of the column?

Am I thinking way too hard about this? (Probably).
Thanks in advance.

Leaward · Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2005 12:10 pm Post subject:

They stopped for quite a while in the fields of Cormallen before returning from the Black Gates. They did send couriers back and forth (Eomer sends for Eowyn, for instance.) Sauron fell on March 25th, Frodo and Sam are rescued but do not wake up until April 8th and then they have a big celebration in their honour. Aragorn et al did not return to Minas Tirith until the end of April, arriving on the Pelennor fields April 30th.

from Field of Cormallen, ROTK"

(This starts after the celebration on April 8th ...)

"In the meanwhile the host made ready for the return to Minas Tirith. The weary rested an dthe hurt were healed. For some had laboured and fought much with the remnants of the Easterlings and Southrons, until all were subdued. And latest of all, those returned who has passed into Mordor and destroyed the fortresses in the north of the land.

But at the last when the month of May was drawing near the Captains of the West set out again; and they went aboard ship with all their men, and they sailed from Cair Andros down Anduin to Osgiliath; and there they remained for one day; and the day after they came to the green fields of the Pelennor and saw again the white towers under tall Mindolluin, the City of the Men of Gondor, last memory of Westernesse, that had passed through the darkness and fire to a new day.

And there in the midst of the fields they set up their pavilions and awaited the morning; for it was the Eve of May, and the King would enter his gates with the rising of the Sun."

Hope that helps ... so they hung around (most believe it was near Henneth Annun) for about a month, then returned, mainly by ship, to Minas Tirith in time for the Coronation. (Despite what the movies show, Arwen and Elrond and the rest of the Elves do not arrive until mid-June when she weds Aragorn on mid-summers day.)