Month: November 2023

“This Assuredly is The Stone of Orthanc From The Treasury of Elendil.” Some Thoughts About Palantíri and Other Communication Devices.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 775-784

We live in a world now in which there are so many communication devices that the palantír into which Pippin looked and in which he saw the Dark Lord himself might not seem so remarkable. And yet it is not so long ago when much of the world was not connected as it is now and the speed at which the world has changed has been so rapid that we have hardly had the time to think about all that has happened to us.

As a young man I taught in a school in Zambia, Central Africa, for six years in which there was only one phone and that was located in the headmaster’s house. I used that phone on only one occasion throughout the entire time that I was there. I now look back on that time as being a time of peace in which in order to communicate with someone I either had to go to see them or to write a letter.

But I also remember a conversation with a young Somali woman some years later who was in the UK for development studies. She spoke of her dream for her people and as I listened I became aware that this was an occasion for treading softly. She spoke of how she imagined every group of wandering herdsmen among her people possessing a communication device and how, as they sat around their campfires at night they could speak to each other, telling of where there was good pasture for their animals or of dangers to avoid. As she spoke my heart was carried out to the beauty of the African night and the soft beauty of African languages that I had heard there. Words spoken quietly in the still of the night under glittering starlight and the air feels like silk upon your face.

We can see why Elendil would have wanted the capacity to communicate in this way across his kingdoms in Middle-earth although how these seeing stones, created by Fëanor himself in the depths of time, came to be in his possession and not in the hands of the kings of Númenor I cannot tell. There were three stones in Gondor and three in Arnor and one in Orthanc, a fortress that in the early years of the two kingdoms linked them both. In an age in which a message sent from Osgiliath in Gondor to Annúminas in Arnor would have taken weeks even upon upon the swiftest horses such devices would have been of great value.

But in the years of the decline of Arnor all its stones were lost. One remained in Minas Tirith in Gondor although at this point in the story as Gandalf rides there with Pippin upon Shadowfax we do not know about its existence. Gandalf tells Pippin that the stone that Sauron possesses came from Minas Ithil, the tower of the moon, that is now the city of the Lord of the Nazgûl, Minas Morgul, and an evil place. And there was still the stone of Orthanc that is now in the possession of Aragon, Elendil’s heir, and to whom it rightfully belongs.

There is a mystery about the stones that Fëanor made so long ago that is conveyed in the stars that shone when Pippin first looked into it and the swirling images that cleared when at the last the Dark Lord came himself. And we are left with two questions. Is a palantír simply a communication device such as the ones that we all carry as a matter of course, or are our devices more mysterious than we usually think? Perhaps the answer is yes to both questions. Yes, perhaps the Stone of Orthanc is nothing more than the devices that we carry about with us all the time, and yes, our devices have something more of a palantír about them than we usually recognise.

It is easy for us to see in the palantíri of The Lord of the Rings a spiritual power at work, a battle between the wills of those who look into them, a battle in which it is wise not to regard one’s own power too highly, as Saruman did. Gandalf is relieved that he was saved from a battle of wills with Sauron by Pippin’s foolish act. But we have become so used to the devices that we carry that we are not aware of their spiritual nature and so, like Saruman, we look into them, confident in our own ability to deal with all that we see there, unaware that other wills are at work as well as our own. Unaware, perhaps, until we are trapped by them and we are enslaved to the will of others, whose power is so much greater than ours.

“All Wizards Should Have a Hobbit or Two in Their Care.” Peregrin Took and The Palantír of Orthanc.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 767-773

This is supposed to be a blog about wisdom. About the wisdom found in The Lord of the Rings, but what wisdom do we learn from Peregrin Took in the matter of the Orthanc-stone except, perhaps, as Merry said to his friend, quoting Gildor Inglorion, “Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards for they are subtle and quick to anger”?

It was Pippin who first picked up the stone after Wormtongue threw it down from a window in Orthanc, hoping to kill one of the party that had parleyed with Saruman at its doors. Gandalf had taken it from him as quickly as possible but Pippin could not get it out of his mind. And so when they all slept in a camp on the road from Isengard to Helm’s Deep he crept silently to where Gandalf lay, took it, and then settled down to take a good look at it.

What he saw terrified him because he saw the Dark Lord himself in Barad-dûr. It was only because Sauron did not think he needed him that he was set free at all. Sauron would send a Nazgûl to Orthanc to bring Pippin to him for further interrogation and, perhaps, to bring him the Ring itself. So confident was he that he would soon have Pippin before him in person that he did not continue his questioning at that moment. Had he done so he would soon have learned much of all his enemies’ plans. Maybe even where the Ring was and how he might find it.

Thankfully at this point Sauron knows nothing of this. He even assumes that what he sees is a prisoner in Orthanc being paraded in front of him for his inspection. Soon, when Aragorn presents himself before Sauron he will learn his mistake but now for a little while he is filled with anticipation at what he will soon know, or even possess.

A disaster has been averted and Gandalf repeats Gildor’s advice to Pippin but is that all we learn?

I would argue that in this, as with all the history of Peregrin Took within The Lord of the Rings, we learn something much more profound. Pippin is kind of divine agent-provocateur within the story and I choose the word, divine, with care here. It was Gandalf who said to Frodo that he was meant to have the Ring and that this was an encouraging thought. What Gandalf meant by this was that he had a sense that he could discern the hand of God, of Eru Ilúvatar, in all the strange events that had led the Ring, first to Bilbo and then to Frodo. It was a hobbit that was meant to find the Ring and to watch over it for a while. Perhaps Bilbo was not the first attempt to put the Ring into the gentle hands of a hobbit but with Déagol all had ended tragically and for hundreds of years the Ring had lain hidden beneath the Misty Mountains.

Tolkien himself had asked the question, “What more can hobbits do?” after his publishers had asked for more about them following the success of The Hobbit and it took him a long time to find out. As he wrote himself, “the tale grew in the telling”, not just in length but depth also. And what Pippin does is to move the story forward time and again. First when he awoke the Balrog of Moria by dropping a stone into the guardroom well, driving Gandalf into a terrible conflict with a mighty foe and then through death itself before returning with power increased for the final struggle. Then when he and Merry were carried by orcs to the eaves of Fangorn Forest in time to awaken the Ents from their long slumber and to destroy Isengard and Saruman’s power. As Gandalf had said their coming to Fangorn “was like the falling of small stones that starts an avalanche in the mountains”. And now Pippin’s misadventure with the Stone of Orthanc propels the story forward to the Battle of the Pelennor Fields before Minas Tirith and to Aragorn’s coming to his kingdom.

Maybe this wisdom, a wisdom that would in most cases be seen as foolishness, can only be divine, because it can only be discerned and not devised. No-one would possibly devise a strategy in which each of the events that I have just outlined was at the heart of it. To do so would be utter folly and would almost certainly end in disaster. But Pippin’s foolishness and his childlike simplicity achieves much in the story that could never be achieved by careful thought. Elrond was right when he said that Pippin should not be a part of the Fellowship of the Ring. There were many within his household more capable than Pippin was. But Gandalf discerned the hand of God at work in bringing Pippin and Merry to Rivendell and so insisted that the young hobbits should be included. In saying that wizards should have a hobbit or two in their care “in order to teach them the meaning of the word”, he only half spoke in jest. He knew that through hobbits much could be achieved that could never be by the hands of those who were greater or wiser.

Only God could bring us this wisdom. Only the truly wise could discern it.

“This is a Strange Friendship.” Treebeard Ponders The Friendship of Legolas and Gimli. An Elf And a Dwarf.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 763-766

Treebeard’s memory is very long indeed. In the very first making of Arda, the earth, Yavanna, the Vala who most loves things that grow, feared for the welfare of trees, seeing how vulnerable they were, how easily cut down. And the creatures that she most feared were Dwarves, the wielders of axes. She desired some kind of protection for her trees and so certain spirits entered some of the trees and Ents were born.

And the oldest of Ents was Treebeard.

After Gandalf has completed his business with Saruman and cast him from the order of wizards he returns with the young hobbits and Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli to find Treebeard who has remained hidden during the debate. Treebeard welcomes Legolas warmly and looks forward to welcoming him as a guest to Fangorn. But then comes a moment of doubt and uncertainty. Legolas asks leave of Treebeard that he might bring Gimli with him.

“Hoom, hm! Ah now,” said Treebeard, looking dark-eyed at him. “A dwarf and an axe-bearer! Hoom! I have good will to Elves; but you ask much. This is a strange friendship!”

It was no mere coincidence in Tolkien’s mind that as Gimli bowed low, in Dwarf fashion, to greet Treebeard, his axe fell from his belt. It is almost as if the axe were speaking for itself, reminding Treebeard of Aulë’s words to Yavanna that the dwarves, his children, would have need of wood.

Although it was largely the Númenorians that destroyed the forests of Eriador there is only one recorded battle in Tolkien’s work in which it is known for certain that Ents took part and that is the Battle of Sarn Athrad in Beleriand during the First Age of Arda. A Dwarf army was returning from the destruction of the hidden Elven kingdom of Doriath and the killing of Thingol, its king, when they were assailed by a force commanded by Beren who had married Lúthien, Thingol’s daughter. Thingol was avenged by Beren and the trees of Doriath, a forest kingdom, were avenged by Ents. It is almost certain that Treebeard took part in that battle and he has not forgotten.

The friendship between Legolas and Gimli is very strange for they too have memories of a time when things were very different. For Gimli remembers how Glóin, his father, was once a prisoner in Mirkwood of Thranduil, king of that land and Legolas’s father. If Treebeard’s memory is long so is the memory of Dwarves, and in their case that memory is held within families. There may have been a kind of reconciliation between Thranduil’s people and the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain due to their sharing in the Battle of the Five Armies as allies against the orcs of the Misty Mountains but suspicion and dislike remained.

The strange friendship of old foes.

It was Galadriel who created the conditions in which the strange friendship between Legolas and Gimli could be forged. Although Galadriel was of the Noldor, the people of Fëanor who first came to Middle-earth to avenge the theft of the Silmarillion by Morgoth, she came to have a deep love for Melian, the wife of Thingol, who was a healer in the deepest sense of that word, a healer of the earth and of its peoples. And while the Noldor were the makers of fortress cities like Gondolin and Nargothrond, the kingdom that Galadriel was to make was a forest land in Lothlórien, a kingdom like Doriath of old, and the king with whom she ruled it was Celeborn who was himself a son of Doriath. Galadriel too remembered the destruction by the Dwarves of that hidden kingdom and how Melian had departed, broken-hearted, from Middle-earth after Thingol’s death.

Perhaps it is a grace that works in the world during that part of its history that is recorded in The Lord of the Rings that love is awakened in so many hearts and strange friendships are forged. Galadriel’s heart goes out to Gimli when he stands before her grief-stricken by the death of Balin and the fall of Gandalf in Moria and love is awakened in Gimli because of this. Legolas becomes aware both of the compassion shown by Galadriel and by Gimli’s response to it and he enters into what is taking place. If Boromir brought his peril into Lothlórien Gimli brought his capacity to love and to be loved there. So was forged this strange friendship before which even the oldest of all the Ents now stands in wonder.

Galadriel awakens love in the heart of an angry dwarf.

“I Do Not Wish For Mastery.” If Not Mastery, What Does Gandalf Wish For?

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 762-766

The accusation came first from Saruman when Gandalf told him that he could only have his freedom if he surrendered the Key of Orthanc and his staff, to be returned later if he merited them.

“Later! Yes, when you also have the Keys of Barad-dûr itself, I suppose; and the crowns of seven kings, and the rods of the Five Wizards, and have purchased yourself a pair of boots many sizes larger than those that you wear now”

Last week we thought about how in these words Saruman reveals his own desire, It is he that desires mastery over all things. As Gandalf puts it, “he will not serve, only command.”

Pippin asks Gandalf what he will do to Saruman and receives this reply.

“I? I will do nothing to him. I do not wish for mastery.”

The idea of mastery is often reflected upon in The Lord of the Rings. The title itself, the only title that Tolkien really liked, is about mastery. It is about Sauron’s desire to rule over all things. So is Gandalf saying that mastery is of its very nature wrong? And if Gandalf does not seek for mastery then what does he wish for?

There is a moment in the story when we are given a very different picture of mastery than the one that Saruman and Sauron give us. It comes in the house of Tom Bombadil when Frodo asks Goldberry who Tom Bombadil is.

Goldberry replies” “He is the Master of wood, water and hill.”

Observant readers of Tolkien will immediately recognise one of his characteristic capital letters here in the word, Master. Tolkien uses them in the middle of a sentence when he wants to draw our attention to the importance of something. In this case it is Tom Bombadil’s authority over everything. It is because of this authority that Old Man Willow has to free Merry and Pippin. But when Frodo asks if this means that the land belongs to him Goldberry replies in distress:

“No indeed!.. That would indeed be a burden… The trees and the grasses and all things growing or living in the land belong each to themselves.”

In the case of Tom Bombadil Tolkien gives us a glimpse into Eden before the Fall. I wonder if the reason why the chapters in which the hobbits stay with Tom and Goldberry are so beloved of the readers of The Lord of the Rings is because, just for a moment, just after we have been introduced to the Nazgûl for the first time, and just before the hobbits captivity in the barrow, we rest briefly in a place of pure and childlike innocence. Tom is Master in the sense, as Goldberry puts it, “No-one has ever caught old Tom walking in the forest… He has no fear.”

In Tom we see a picture of authority without ownership. It is the authority of a great musician in relation to their instrument and the music they play upon it. The musician gives us no anxiety that the music will be too much for them and while we may admire their mastery it is the music to which we give our ultimate attention. The music belongs to itself and a truly great musician allows us to enter a space that we ourselves do not control but within which we experience delight, wonder, exhilaration, peace and sometimes terror.

So mastery is not, of itself, an evil. In fact, in the world of Tom Bombadil, it allows all things to be truly themselves although even Tom has a house and garden although it is a place in which, as in Treebeard’s Wellinghall, the boundaries between what lies inside and outside the house are somewhat porous. So what does Gandalf reject? For Gandalf also has the kind of mastery that Tom enjoys. Few are likely to catch Gandalf out. As Sam put it when the wargs attacked near the gates of Moria, “Whatever may be in store for old Gandalf, I’ll wager it isn’t a wolf’s belly,”

What Gandalf rejects is Saruman’s idea of mastery with ownership. He rejects Saruman’s desire to make all things serve him. As Gandalf would later say to Denethor, he is a steward. He looks after all things in order that they may be truly free in themselves. That is why he came to Middle-earth to free it from a particular tyranny and to allow it, if it would take the opportunity, freedom to be fully alive.