The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 691-707

I remember sitting beside my wife as we watched the scene in Peter Jackson’s film of The Two Towers when Théoden and Aragorn lead the cavalry charge from the fortress of the Hornburg over the causeway and into the armies of Isengard. She had not been with when I saw it first at a morning screening at my local multiplex so we were sitting together watching it on a DVD in our front room. Laura is the most peaceable of people but as I looked across at her I could see tears in her eyes. Peter Jackson had done his work well, I thought. He had succeeded in portraying the beauty of the heroic act.

What conveys the beauty, I believe, is the unbearable moment in which the hero lays down his life for the sake of life. I ended last week’s reflection by quoting Faramir on this. “I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.” It is that which the hero seeks to defend that gives beauty to the sacrifice and brings tears to the eyes of those who watch. The author of the Old English poem, The Dream of the Rood, tells the story of the death of Christ upon the cross in such heroic language. Christ climbs upon the rood, grasping the wood of the cross as a young warrior in order by his death to defeat death itself. In so doing the poet dignifies the hero’s death, a theme that everyone in the cultures of northern Europe would have understood, in a new way. The hero’s death becomes a sacrifice for life in the face of death, for light in the face of darkness and for love in the face of hatred.

Tolkien never states this explicitly although he knew well all the resonances that I have touched upon but as Théoden leads Aragorn and the knights of his household in the last desperate charge at daybreak as the echoing sound of Helm’s horn resounds about him the beauty of the sacrificial deed shines forth and tears come to my wife’s eyes.

The language of the story needs to express this beauty as does the story’s shape. And so in his telling of the story of The Battle of Helm’s Deep Tolkien gives us a beleaguered force falling back before a host of enemies filled with “reckless hate”. At the last Théoden turns to Aragorn as he frets within the Hornburg questioning the wisdom of Gandalf’s counsel that he should lead his host there and says to him:

“I will not end here, taken like an old badger in a trap. Snowmane and Hasufel and the horses of my guard are in the inner court. When dawn comes, I will bid men sound Helm’s horn, and I will ride forth. Will you ride with me then, son of Arathorn? Maybe we shall cleave a road, or make such an end as will be worth a song-if any be left to sing of us hereafter.”

And as the dawn breaks and the doors of the Hornburg are shattered by an explosion the horn of Helm sounds and Théoden and his knights ride out sweeping all before them.

It is not death itself that is beautiful. A death can be a lonely, hopeless, even meaningless affair. But the setting of the sun at the end of a good day is beautiful even though it will end in darkness. At the Battle of the Pelennor Fields Éomer stands at bay before the host of his enemies. And as he stands by his banner he laughs at despair and cries out:

Out of doubt, out  of dark to the day's rising 
I came singing in the sun, sword unsheathing.
To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking:
Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!

For the Rohirrim there is such a thing as a good death and it is one when you have given your all and there is nothing left to give. This was Théoden’s death in the same battle and so he died at peace. At Helm’s Deep events were about to turn in a strange and entirely unexpected way. This is not the day in which Théoden will die but it is his willingness to die that is beautiful.

“And with that shout the king came. His horse was white as snow, golden was his shield, and his spear was long. At his right hand was Aragorn, Elendil’s heir, behind him rode the lords of the house of Eorl the Young. Light sprang in the sky. Night departed.”