A Walking Song

"A Walking Song" is a poem in The Lord of the Rings. It appears in the third chapter, entitled "Three is Company". It is given its title in the work's index to songs and poems. There is a companion poem near the end of the novel. The poem has been set to music by the Danish group The Tolkien Ensemble. The road of the poem has been seen as a metaphor for destiny and experience, for both Bilbo and Frodo.

While the poem itself does not appear in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, parts of it are featured throughout, including in the song "The Edge of Night" sung by Billy Boyd in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King which has lyrics from the last verse.

The hobbit Frodo Baggins is travelling to Bucklebury in the Shire, accompanied by his gardener and friend Sam Gamgee and his kinsman Pippin Took. Frodo is ostensibly moving to a newly purchased house, having sold his hobbit-hole to his relatives, the Sackville-Bagginses. However, he and Sam have secretly planned to journey beyond, to Bree where he will meet again with Gandalf, so that they can travel to Rivendell; Frodo has the Ring of the Dark Lord Sauron in his possession, and he believes it will be safe there. They journey into the night, and at this point

They began to hum softly, as hobbits have a way of doing as they walk along, especially when they are drawing near to home at night. With most hobbits it is a supper-song or a bed-song; but these hobbits hummed a walking-song (though not, of course, without any mention of supper and bed).

Upon the hearth the fire is red,
Beneath the roof there is a bed;
But not yet weary are our feet,
Still round the corner we may meet
A sudden tree or standing stone
That none have seen but we alone.

Frodo's uncle Bilbo Baggins, who had adopted him, had made up the words "to a tune that was as old as the hills, and taught it to Frodo as they walked in the lanes of the Water-valley and talked about Adventure". After the song ends, the hobbits encounter a Black Rider for the second time.

A different walking song, "The Road Goes Ever On", appears in different versions in The Hobbit, in two places in The Fellowship of the Ring – the first two by Bilbo, the third instance spoken by Frodo, alongside "A Walking Song"; and again in The Return of the King, where again it is voiced by Bilbo.

"A Walking Song" is mirrored at the end of the novel, in the chapter "The Grey Havens". Frodo sings part of the song with slightly changed words, as he is leaving for the Undying Lands.