Uploaded April 2019 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
These lyrics are an excerpt from the source text “Bilbo’s Song”, the last music heard on the ROTK Extended Edition DVD Fan Credits, making it the ‘last’ piece of ROTK movie music. It is an Elvish translation of a song from the book with the first line, “I sit beside the fire and think.”
Douglas Adams stated that this music was written specifically for the ROTK Fan Credits and was never intended to be used in the film: “Yes, (Howard Shore) wrote that beautiful, beautiful theme… it’s the absolutely final variation on the Shire material and it could turn a stone-hearted cynic into a poet. I remember getting a call from London during the ROTK DVD recording sessions. They had a few questions for me regarding fan scroll music, and mentioned at the time, “Oh, Howard wrote one more song for the boys.” I was shocked, because he wasn’t in the practice of writing new pieces for the credits. “He just felt like he should.” How great is that?”
It is sung by The London Oratory School Schola and entirely recites:
Im nauthon nan naur nu ngilith
O naid i gennin im
O lyth e-barth a gwilwilith
Ne laer i vanner lim
O lhiath a golas malen
Ne daint i lais gwennin
Na chith ah anor celebren
A gwaewath or find nin
Im nauthon nan naur vi vuil
Maven natha i ardhon
Ias tol i riw ben ethuil
Ir im u-genithon
An nadath laew nar annan
I ulu im cennin
Vin eryn ned ethuil ban
Nar ennas laegath gwin
Im hevin nan naur a nauthon
O gwaith nedin lu iaur
A gwaith i cenitha ardhon
Ir istathon u aur
Dan iar im nan naur peliel
Oh aurath ioer nauthon
Laston a thail etheliel
A lemmaid nan annon
That is in sindarin (translated by David Salo, Tolkien’s original poem can be found in “The Ring Goes South”, FOTR, Book 2, Chapter III, when Bilbo sings this song, mostly to himself but with Frodo present, just after he gives Frodo the mithril vest and Sting in Rivendell):
I think by the fire under the starlight about things that I saw
About flowers of the field and butterflies in summers that went quickly
About gossamer strands and yellow leaves in autumns past
With mist and silver sun and winds upon my hair
I think by the fire in shadow, how the world will be
When the winter comes without a spring that I shall not see
For many things there are yet that I never saw
In the wood in every spring there are new green things
I sit by the fire and think about people in old times
And people who will see a world that I will see on no day
More info about the translation of David Salo can be found on A Magpie’s Nest.
These lyrics are an excerpt from the source text “Bilbo’s Song”, the last music heard on the ROTK Extended Edition DVD Fan Credits, making it the ‘last’ piece of ROTK movie music. It is an Elvish translation of a song from the book with the first line, “I sit beside the fire and think.”
Douglas Adams stated that this music was written specifically for the ROTK Fan Credits and was never intended to be used in the film: “Yes, (Howard Shore) wrote that beautiful, beautiful theme… it’s the absolutely final variation on the Shire material and it could turn a stone-hearted cynic into a poet. I remember getting a call from London during the ROTK DVD recording sessions. They had a few questions for me regarding fan scroll music, and mentioned at the time, “Oh, Howard wrote one more song for the boys.” I was shocked, because he wasn’t in the practice of writing new pieces for the credits. “He just felt like he should.” How great is that?”
It is sung by The London Oratory School Schola and entirely recites:
Im nauthon nan naur nu ngilith
O naid i gennin im
O lyth e-barth a gwilwilith
Ne laer i vanner lim
O lhiath a golas malen
Ne daint i lais gwennin
Na chith ah anor celebren
A gwaewath or find nin
Im nauthon nan naur vi vuil
Maven natha i ardhon
Ias tol i riw ben ethuil
Ir im u-genithon
An nadath laew nar annan
I ulu im cennin
Vin eryn ned ethuil ban
Nar ennas laegath gwin
Im hevin nan naur a nauthon
O gwaith nedin lu iaur
A gwaith i cenitha ardhon
Ir istathon u aur
Dan iar im nan naur peliel
Oh aurath ioer nauthon
Laston a thail etheliel
A lemmaid nan annon
That is in sindarin (translated by David Salo, Tolkien’s original poem can be found in “The Ring Goes South”, FOTR, Book 2, Chapter III, when Bilbo sings this song, mostly to himself but with Frodo present, just after he gives Frodo the mithril vest and Sting in Rivendell):
I think by the fire under the starlight about things that I saw
About flowers of the field and butterflies in summers that went quickly
About gossamer strands and yellow leaves in autumns past
With mist and silver sun and winds upon my hair
I think by the fire in shadow, how the world will be
When the winter comes without a spring that I shall not see
For many things there are yet that I never saw
In the wood in every spring there are new green things
I sit by the fire and think about people in old times
And people who will see a world that I will see on no day
More info about the translation of David Salo can be found on A Magpie’s Nest.
