The first time I “read” The Fellowship of the Ring, I listened to it as an audiobook. Robert Englis was a wonderful narrator, but every time one of Tolkien’s Middle-earth songs entered the story and Englis started singing it, the needle would scratch across the vinyl for me, and I’d have a moment like Fred Savage in Deadpool 2 The Princess Bride, where I’d screw up my face and be like “unngh…kissing singing. Again.”

Much like kissing in The Princess Bride, there was a bit of singing in The Fellowship of the Ring. However, I didn’t have the grandfather (played by Peter Falk) there to assure me that some day I “might not mind so much.”

Years later, I really don’t mind it so much! In fact, these days, I think it’s a great way to deliver lore in the stories we tell as Dungeon Masters.

I haven’t worked up the courage yet, but there may be an occasion in the future where, if there’s an Intelligence (Nature/History) check to recall what a character knows about the Mere of Dead Men or Leilon, it may come in the form of a song.

When will this happen? Time will tell. But I’m committed to the bit enough that I wrote the song.

To the tune of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Bad Moon Rising:

Just Beyond the Mire

[Verse 1]
Up north, where the High Road’s flooded
Where dead men give the swamp its name
This boy has risen from the marshlands
Mud on my boots, saltwater in my veins

[Chorus]
Well, don’t you stop at night
Amid ghost lights and lamplike eyes
Leilon’s just beyond the mire

[Verse 2]

Lanterns floating through the marshes
Cold mists rising from the mud
Quicksands threaten every misstep
Once you go down, you’ll never come back up

[Chorus]

Well, don’t you stop at night
Amid ghost lights and lamplike eyes
Leilon’s just beyond the mire

[lute solo]

[Verse 3]

Swamp snakes and clouds of biting midges
Gators, giant leeches, toads, and frogs
If that ain’t enough to make you wary
There’s dragons, lizardfolk, and bullywogs

[Chorus]

Well, don’t you stop at night
Amid ghost lights and lamplike eyes
Leilon’s just beyond the mire
Don’t you stop at night
Amid ghost lights and lamplike eyes
Leilon’s just beyond the mire

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