The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp.928-935

I doubt whether a tour of Mordor would ever be a commercial success. Imagine it being sold something like this.

The adventure of a lifetime. In fact it will probably end your life. The chances that you will return alive are very small and the guide we will provide will do his best, either to kill you himself or to have you killed by a savage monster of terrible potency. So what’s stopping you from signing up?”

Perhaps a small number of adrenaline junkies might be prepared to take on the odds but most of us want to come back from our holidays, alive and in one piece.

It is in a moment of calm after the long climb up the stairs of Cirith Ungol and before they enter the tunnel that lies between them and Mordor, the Nameless Land as Tolkien calls it here, Sam reflects upon all that he and Frodo have experienced together upon their journey. It has been a long way from Bag End and when we compare the Sam that we first met there as Gandalf hauled him through the window of Frodo’s study by his ear we might say that the inner journey that Sam has taken has been even longer.

As they take a few moments of rest after their long climb Frodo expresses his dislike for their surroundings. “Earth, air and water all seem accursed. But so our path is laid,” he says. And then Sam responds with a speech of great beauty.

“Yes, that’s so… And we shouldn’t be here at all, if we’d known more about it before we started. But I suppose it’s often that way. The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind.”

The tales that matter

“The tales that really mattered, or the ones that stayed in the mind.” Sam is looking back on the years of his childhood when he would sit at the feet of Bilbo Baggins at Bag End. It is hard to imagine the Gaffer being a repository of stories unless they were ones of family history. He was more a storehouse of pithy sayings, all of which were intended to be the last word on any subject. Sam certainly remembers these, usually when he becomes aware that what he is doing would meet with his father’s disapproval, but the stories that Bilbo told were a different matter altogether. They opened doors into worlds of wonder and enchantment in Sam’s heart and mind. And they awoke desire there. Sam expressed that desire in the words, “I want to see Elves!”, a desire that was quickly satisfied in his journey in the meeting with Gildor Inglorien and his company while still in the Shire. Frodo asked him then whether he wished to continue now that his longing had been fulfilled and Sam responded by speaking of the need to see something through. We can only imagine that he returned to thoughts of resolution many times in his journey because he speaks in a similar way here.

“I expect that they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on.”

Carl Jung, the great map maker of the human psyche, spoke of this in these terms. “To this day God is the name by which I designate all things which cross my wilful path violently and recklessly, all things which upset my subjective views, plans and intentions and change the course of my life for better or worse.”

Sam’s language is very different from Jung’s but they are speaking of the same human experience. Oh, yes, Sam would say, you are speaking of a story that really matters. Oh yes, Carl Jung might reply, I am speaking about God.