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.
Wisdom from The Lord of the Rings 
Cool post, more folly that is wisdom. It is too bad we keep losing our words for the opposite of control-mastery. Servant is lost in slavery and oppression, service is economic, politicians have given minister a jaded glow. It is unfortunate because there is a kind of matery, art, artisanship to service.
I really like your idea of “control-mastery”, Brenton as against the idea of mastery in service of the common good, to take a central theme from Catholic social teaching.
On your comment on the sad history of the word, minister I think of the prayers for the monarch in the 1662 edition of The Book of Common Prayer in which we declare that “that he, knowing whose minister he is may above all things seek thy honour and glory.” When I lead intercessions in church I now extend that prayer to include the King’s ministers.
If you ever want to go a bit further in your description of service as matey, artisanal and artistic I would be happy to read it.
Great response, Stephen. May your prayers availeth much!
Amen!
Well said and true, mastery and ownership are not the same thing. And I appreciate your parallel between Bombadil and the prefallen state in Eden. And Gandalf says that Bombadil would not take interest in the Ring and might carelessly lose it, so he’s even beyond the mold of prefallen Man. But he’s not a man, and within the context of LOTR his character has always struck me not only as believable but unforgettable, because if he can be indifferent to a thing that tempts everyone else in Middle Earth then he is uniquely a master of himself.
There is a sense in which Bombadil is indifferent to good and evil, has no knowledge of them,. Not in the sense that he knows nothing about them but in the sense of knowledge as participation. Frodo, on the other hand, knows good and evil in a way that I never will. As Ringbearer he is placed at the very place of stress, the schwerpunkt as Germans put it. That is what makes him heroic in the sense that Bombadil isn’t. It is Gandalf who is Frodo’s teacher because Gandalf has rejected mastery as control, as Brenton Dickieson puts it in a comment above.
Just found your blog. I have been reading Tolkien with love for 40 years now (and reading about him for many of those years) and this is one of the more compelling interpretations of the mysterious Bombadil I’ve seen. I’m eager to read through more of your commentary!
I really love it when someone new leaves a comment. And it is such a generous comment too. I look forward to reading some of your thoughts, rspecislly coming from someone who has been reading Tolkien for some years.