Month: April 2025

“Luck Served You There; but You Seized Your Chance With Both Hands One Might Say.” Some more thoughts on the empty Morgul Vale that Frodo and Sam will walk through.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 908-909

In my last post we thought about the chain of events that lead to the strange fact that the road from Ithilien into Mordor is empty at just the very moment in which Frodo and Sam need to walk down it. Instead of companies of orcs and other allies of Mordor constantly travelling up and down it, the road in the Morgul Vale is left free for two hobbits and their guide to walk along it unhindered.

The quotation that I have chosen for this piece does not come from the passage that I am thinking about here but from the chapter entitled Flotsam and Jetsam when Merry and Pippin tell the story of their adventures to Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli amidst the wreck of Isengard after it has been destroyed by the Ents. Pippin tells his companions how, by ,means of a fallen orc blade, he was able to cut the rope that his wrists had been bound by . Gimli responds to this approvingly.

“The cutting of the bands on your wrists, that was smart work!” said Gimli. “Luck served you there; but you seized your luck with both hands, one might say.”

In his study on the thought of J.R.R Tolkien, Tom Shippey considers the role of luck within The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R Tolkien, Author of The Century, Harper Collins 2001, pp. 143-147). Shippey tackles the assertion of some of Tolkien’s critics that his story is full of “biased fortune” and so cannot be taken seriously. In speaking of Gollum’s fall into the fires of Mount Doom that destroys the Ring, Shippey argues that “it is clearly not just an accident” but the direct, if unintended consequence, of many conscious choices. The word that Shippey chooses for this is the Old English word, wyrd, a word that both Shippey and Tolkien knew because both of them held the same chair at Oxford University in Philology, the study of language. Modern readers of English will, of course, immediately recognise the similarity between this Old English word and the modern word, weird. They might also note, with some sadness, the way in which a language that once had the capacity to express human experience with great subtlety has turned the words that were able to do this into banalities.

The Old English word that Gimli might have used when he spoke of Pippin’s luck might well have been wyrd. It would have meant something that had happened, something over which Pippin had no control, such as the sudden and unexpected availability of a sharp blade that Pippin was able to use and to change his fortunes. The same thing might be said about Bilbo’s finding of the Ring. The same thing could be certainly be said of the sudden emptying of the roads into Mordor. In every one of these cases luck, or wyrd, serves those who are able to take advantage of these happenings. But Pippin, Bilbo and then Frodo and Sam, each have to take seize their luck, to take advantage of it.

Frodo had to leave the relative security of the refuge of Henneth Annûn and put his trust in a treacherous guide who would eventually betray him. In walking down the Morgul Vale and then climbing the stair to Cirith Ungol he made his way directly into Shelob’s Lair and was poisoned by her. He only entered Mordor on the backs of orcs and his journey thereafter to Orodruin was one of unrelenting agony as the Ring that he bore slowly but inevitably wore down his resistance to its malignant power. By the time he reached the Cracks of Doom he had no strength left to resist it. At the end he needed an enemy to enable him to fulfil his mission and this enemy did so by biting off his finger. If after all this Gimli were to say to him that he seized his luck with both hands then Frodo might well reply that Gimli had a poor idea of luck. Frodo would be right but then so too would be Gimli. This luck truly opened the way to the mountain and it took the Ring into the Fire. But in seizing it Frodo had to pay a terrible price. He could never find peace again in Middle-earth.

“A Waiting Silence Broods Above the Nameless Land.” All is Prepared for Frodo to Enter Mordor.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 908-909

It was at the end of their sojourn in Lothlórien that the Fellowship was addressed by Galadriel on the matter of the journey that they were about to resume.

“Sleep in peace! Do not trouble your hearts overmuch with thought of the road tonight. Maybe the paths that you each shall tread are already laid before your feet, though you do not see them.”

Some of the Fellowship seem to do as Galadriel bids them. We hear little report of anxious thought on the part of Merry and Pippin although they both regard the journey to Mordor as folly and wish to go to Minas Tirith. And apart from declaring their intention to go with Frodo to the end neither Legolas or Gimli say anything of their preference for the road ahead. Sam, of course, will go with Frodo wherever he goes but shrewdly guesses that Frodo will cross the Anduin to fulfil the mission that was given him by the Council in Rivendell. “He knows he’s got to find the Cracks of Doom, if he can. But he’s afraid.” Boromir wants Frodo to come to Minas Tirith, at least that is what he has long said to himself until at last he is confronted by the truth within his heart that he desires to possess the Ring itself. And Aragorn is torn between his desire to go to the city that he believes to be his destiny while knowing that since the fall of Gandalf in Moria he has to guide Frodo the best he can.

The events that befall them all at Parth Galen throw all their plans into disarray. Boromir’s treachery and the attack by the orcs of Isengard sends Frodo across the river to the Emyn Muil fleeing from Boromir and he is only just caught by Sam before he does so. Merry and Pippin are taken prisoner by the orcs and are carried across the plains of Rohan before escaping into Fangorn Forest just in time to meet Treebeard the Ent. Aragorn realises that he can do little more for Frodo and decides to follow the orcs and their prisoners and Legolas and Gimli go with him. Boromir falls trying to defend Merry and Pippin and seeking to right his own wrong. And, of course, there is one other character who does not so much think but is driven by desire for the Ring and that is Gollum and he follows Frodo. Soon, much against both of their wills they will become companions upon the journey.

I will leave my readers to ponder the paths that each of the characters will take after the chaos of the breaking of the Fellowship but we can assert that none of them quite expected that they were to follow the paths laid before them in quite the manner in which they did. As small stones that begin an avalanche Merry and Pippin awaken the anger of the Ents and bring about the fall of Isengard. Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli meet Gandalf in Fangorn, liberate Théoden, King of Rohan, from bondage, and he leads his people to victory over Saruman and then to the relief of the siege of Gondor at the Pelennor Fields.

And, perhaps most unplanned for and most unexpected, Sauron becomes convinced that one of his enemies possesses the Ring and will try to use it against him. He sees Pippin in the Palantir of Orthanc, something that was no-one’s plan, and assumes that this is the hobbit who bears the Ring and that he is a prisoner within that fortress. And then Aragorn chooses to reveal himself to Sauron in the Palantir as the heir of Isildur and wrests control of the stone that is rightfully his from Sauron.

We must assume that Sauron is deeply shaken by his encounter with Aragorn. Until this point he has used the palahtiri to dominate others, both Saruman, who he wins to his side, and Denethor, who he leads to despair, although never treachery. Now he is defeated in a battle of wills by the heir of the one who cut the Ring from his finger. He needs to move quickly and decisively and so he prepares an attack upon Minas Tirith from the stronghold of Minas Morgul to be commanded by his most deadly of captains, the Witch King of Angmar, the Lord in the Nazgûl. All his forces are withdrawn either into Minas Morgul or directed to the Black Gate (the Morannon) in the north of Mordor. As Faramir says, “My scouts and watchers have all returned, even some that have crept within sight of the Morannon. They all find a strange thing. The land is empty. Nothing is on the road, and no sound of foot, or horn, or bowstring is anywhere to be heard. A waiting silence broods above the Nameless Land.”

It is as if everything has been arranged with the exact purpose of allowing Frodo to walk into that land unhindered. We will think more about this next week. Now we know that Frodo has to take full advantage of the opportunity that has been given to him.

“I Looked For no Such Friendship as You Have Shown. To Have Found it Turns Evil to Great Good.” The Redeeming Friendship of Frodo and Faramir.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 908-909

Friendship is one of the great themes of The Lord of the Rings. Friendship mattered deeply to Tolkien as he had known close friendship in his younger years and then lost those friends in the slaughterhouse of the trenches of the Great War of 1914-18. Early in Frodo’s perilous journey from the Shire came a moment in the cottage of Crickhollow when his friends revealed to him that they knew that he was leaving the Shire and that he was in danger. At first Frodo was dismayed. He had intended to go alone with Sam and in secret. But then Merry replied:

“You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin- to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours- closer than you keep it yourself. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo.”

And later in the story, Gandalf defended the right of Merry and Pippin to go with the Fellowship of the Ring from Rivendell.

“It is true that if these hobbits understood the danger, they would not dare to go. But they would still wish to go, or wish that they had dared, and be shamed and unhappy. I think, Elrond, that in this matter it would be well to trust rather to their friendship than to great wisdom.”

Of course, Gandalf might have reminded Elrond of his own words at the conclusion of the Council when Elrond recognised that Frodo, the hobbit, had been chosen by a Power greater than his own to carry the Ring to Mordor. It was Elrond who saw that this was “the hour of the Shire-folk” but maybe he did not grasp the true extent of what he had recognised. Maybe he did not see that it was the strength that lies within and above such things as pity, mercy and friendship that would, in words that he himself spoke, “shake the towers and counsels of the great”.

But it is in the very nature of such things as friendship that they have a fragility, a vulnerability, that do not belong to such things as power and control. In his famous treatise on leadership, The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote, “It may be more pleasant to be loved than feared, but it is safer to be feared than loved.” Every lord in Tolkien’s story would understand the truth of those words, even Elrond, and it was in the breaking of trust by Boromir when he tried to take the Ring from Frodo that Frodo’s heart was broken. It was a brokenhearted Frodo who met with Faramir in Ithilien and who learned that this man was not only a mighty captain of Gondor but also Boromir’s brother. Frodo was quickly drawn to this man and longed to put his trust in him but the memory of Boromir’s face transfigured by desire for the Ring was too fresh a memory. It was only Sam’s mistake in revealing that Frodo carries the Ring of Power that both made Frodo terribly vulnerable once more but also allowed Faramir to show his nobility and utter trustworthiness.

So it is that when Frodo bids Faramir farewell as he begins his journey to Mordor once more that he says to his new friend: “It was said to me by Elrond Halfelven that I should find friendship upon the way, secret and unlooked for. Certainly I looked for no such friendship as you have shown, To have found it turns evil to great good.”

After Boromir’s betrayal of friendship at the breaking of the Fellowship Frodo attempted to make his journey to Mordor alone and, unwillingly, he had to make three bonds of trust of varying kinds along the way. First he found that he could not go without Sam and it is this friendship that will carry him all the way to Mount Doom. Secondly, he found that he has to trust a guide who would eventually betray him and he knows this to be his fate. But third he would form a deep bond with the brother of the man who betrayed his trust. This is the great evil to which Frodo referred in the words he spoke to Faramir and this is the great good to which that evil is turned. That Frodo will begin the last stage of his journey with the friendship of Faramir in his heart and not the betrayal of Boromir will give him a strength that he will need throughout the terrible ordeal that awaits him.

“Do Not Go to Cirith Ungol!” Some Further Thoughts on an Impossible Decision.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 904-907

I have read this passage from The Lord of the Rings many times over the last fifty years or so and I don’t think I ever quite realised before the pivotal role that it plays in the whole story. Frodo has come to trust Faramir and here this noble figure is offering him safety and the chance to be free completely of the malicious character that is Gollum.

Tolkien reflected on this in a letter that he wrote to Michael Straight early in 1956, replying to a number of questions that Straight had asked him before writing a review for New Republic and he did so in terms of the 6th petition of The Lords Prayer, “Lead us not into temptation”. (The Letters of J.R.R Tolkien Harper Collins 2006 pp. 232-237).

Tolkien compared this petition with the 7th, “But deliver us from evil” and commented that the 6th is both harder and less often considered. Tolkien writes that “the ‘salvation’ of the world and Frodo’s own salvation is achieved by his previous pity and forgiveness of injury. At any point any prudent person would have told Frodo that Gollum would certainly betray him, and could rob him in the end. To ‘pity’ him, to forbear to kill him, was a piece of folly, or a mystical belief in the ultimate value-in-itself of pity and generosity even if disastrous in the world of time”.

So, when Faramir, the “prudent person” says to Frodo that if he chooses to abandon Gollum he will have Gollum escorted to any point on the borders of Gondor that Gollum might name, Frodo replies “I have promised many times to take him under my protection and to go where he led.” Frodo cannot break faith even though it is folly to keep it. Utter folly.

See how Kryztov Marczak imagines the chaos in Shelob’s Lair below the Tower of Cirith Ungol. The path that Frodo must take.

As we saw last week Frodo goes through with Faramir the options that are available to him. To return to the Black Gate is simply impossible and there is no-one apart from Gollum who could guide him into Mordor. And what of returning with Faramir to Minas Tirith?

“Would you have me come to Gondor with this Thing, the Thing that drove your brother mad with desire? What spell would it work in Minas Tirith? Shall there be two cities of Minas Morgul, grinning at each other across a dead land filled with rottenness?”

At the last Faramir respondes with the only words upon which both he and Frodo can agree completely.

“It is a hard doom and a hopeless errand.”

But Faramir hopes, beyond hope, that one day he and Frodo might sit “by a wall in the sun, laughing at old grief”. The thought is a tender one and one can only hope that both Frodo and Faramir were comforted from time to time by it on the hard roads that each of them were to take in the weeks ahead, roads that were to take both of them to the verge of death and then to new life beyond them. The Lord of the Rings does not recount these happy conversations but in other writings Tolkien speaks of times like this and we can only hope that the two heroes were able to enjoy one another’s company in this way.

Both Frodo and Faramir have to make choices that are folly. Faramir allows Frodo to go free, bearing the Ring of Power, in the company of a treacherous guide, into Mordor itself. His father cannot forgive him for this and we must think that he dies unreconciled with his son. Frodo goes on with Gollum and is betrayed by him in Shelob’s Lair in Cirith Ungol and attacked and wounded by him in the Cracks of Doom; and Frodo has to live in the knowledge that at the end he did not have the strength to cast away the Ring and was only saved by Gollum’s attack. But both make their choice in freedom in Henneth Annûn. As Tolkien reflected in his letter to Michael Straight, Frodo’s choice (and we must add, Faramir’s also) is a “piece of folly”. But Tolkien also opens the possibility that Frodo’s decision not to kill, or even abandon, Gollum has a mystical quality to it. This quality comes from the belief that any act of goodness has meaning in eternity “even if disastrous in the world of time”. In The Lord of the Rings this eternal quality breaks into the story at the moment when Gollum takes the Ring into the Fire to unmake it. In the stories in which we live we cannot tell what consequences our own choices for goodness will have. Perhaps we will only see disaster in the world of time but we are called to choose the good anyway and to trust.