Month: May 2026

“The Red Arrow Has Not Been Seen in The Mark in All My Years.” Rohan Receives The Call for Aid From Gondor. The Importance of Strong Ritual.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins) pp. 781-783

The arrival of Hirgon, the messenger of Denethor, is one of those beautiful set pieces beloved of story tellers and story hearers of the Middle Ages. Those who know the story through Peter Jackson’s films will remember how the message comes to Rohan by means of lit beacons upon the mountain tops, It is a beautiful scene as the message seems to leap from one mountain to another, but a message of such import requires more than the efficiency and speed of lit beacons. It requires the power that can be conveyed only by ritual, by due ceremony.

We will live in an age that has been, in many ways, de-ritualised. Because we do not require rituals as entry points to significant aspects of life, such as long term relationships, it is easier to do without them altogether, In many ways one can understand, and sympathise with, the critique of the way in which past generations abused those rituals and the institutions they underpinned. I think of the forced marriages within my own family history and the story of unhappiness that followed, an unhappiness that continued for generations, and I do not blame the generation of my children for their caution in either entering an institution that has been socially enforced and the rituals that underpinned that institution. I also regret the commercialisation of the ritual of marriage and the sense that in order to marry a couple and their family will have to spend a considerable sum of money to fulfil social expectations. But when the ritual connected to marriage is drained of all its potency something of great import is taken from the institution and the life that the institution is meant to sustain. Perhaps we might say that we have forgotten that marriage exists for the sake of human flourishing and that human flourishing does not exist for the sake of institutions, even those as important as marriage,

But let us return to the scene in which Hirgon, the messenger of Denethor, appears at the camp of the Rohirrim bearing the Red Arrow. We note the pride with which he holds himself even as he pays all due respect to the King of Rohan and to the people that he leads. He is the servant of the Steward of Gondor, a mighty lord. We note also the importance that the King of Rohan attaches to Hirgon’s mission.

“The Red Arrow!.. The Red Arrow has not been seen in the Mark in all my years! Has it indeed come to that?”

The Red Arrow is the visible and outward sign of an inner reality. It serves to remind Théoden of the oath made by his mighty ancestor, Eorl, to Cirion, the Steward of Gondor, at the tomb of Elendil, that in return for the gift of the land of Calenardhon he and his descendants would always come to the aid of Gondor in its need. And we also note that Gondor has never abused this oath. As Théoden himself declares, “The Red Arrow has not been seen in the Mark in all my years!” Denethor was not in the habit of seeking the aid of his closest ally as a matter of course, such as the fight for the crossing of the Anduin at Osgiliath for example. He asks for it now at Gondor’s greatest need, but not before.

So Hirgon kneels before the King of Rohan and declares his mission.

“Gondor is in great need. Often the Rohirrim have aided us, but now the Lord Denethor asks for all your strength and all your speed, lest Gondor fall at last”

There will be some negotiation. Rohan’s pride requires it. Théoden cannot and must not be taken for granted even though it is already his intention to come to the aid of Gondor. When he rides into battle he needs everyone of those who follow him to do so willingly and so each one of them needs to know that their lord does also and that he is held in the highest honour by Gondor and not regarded as a mere vassal. Perhaps certain alliances of our own time would be the stronger if the most powerful of their members were to remember this.

All of this is made the stronger by the enacting of strong ritual. Those who stand by their king see how he is treated by Gondor and how he in turn treats the messenger of Denethor. They see the respect with each addresses the other, and that story will be passed between every warrior who gathers to make the ride to Minas Tirith and will give strength to each one of them. That is what strong ritual is able to give.

“The Way is Shut… It Was Made by Those Who Are Dead, and The Dead Keep It, Until The Time Comes.” How Can We Know the Proper Time for Things?

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 775-781

The words in the title for this piece were spoken long before the events described here. Brego, the second King of Rohan, went up the steep path out of the Harrowdale with Baldor his son, that had been cut from the rock in an age long before the arrival of the Rohirrim, the Eorlingas, to the lands where now they dwell. At the door in the mountain they met an ancient man who spoke the words to them before breathing his last.

As we have seen, Baldor decided to dare the door and was seen no more until Aragorn discovered his body within the mountain on the Paths of the Dead, and since that time no one had dared try the door until Aragorn does.

Éowyn tells the company of how Aragorn has passed through the door, “into the shadow from which none have returned”. Éomer’s heart falls as he hears his sister’s words.

“He is lost. We must ride without him, and our hope dwindles.”

But it is Théoden who reminds his companions of the story that we have read, the story of the words spoken to his forefathers, that the Dead keep the way, “until the time comes.”

Has that time come?

We know that Aragorn and the Grey Company have indeed passed through the Door, and that the Dead did not prevent him from doing so but heard his voice and followed him to the Stone of Erech where he called them to fulfil the oath that once they made to Isildur and then broke it. We know that the time has come, and Théoden himself says that Aragorn is “a kingly man of high destiny”, and one that might be able to do a deed that no-one else has dared. But Éomer is not persuaded. Perhaps such a man as Aragorn might be able to dare the Door but to what purpose? To him the way that Aragorn has gone is no more than a private quest, and maybe one that a great hero might endeavour, but surely there are other things to be done?

“Alas that a fey mood should fall on a man so greathearted in this hour of need! Are there not evil things enough abroad without seeking them under the earth? War is at hand.”

Éomer does not know the story that Aragorn does. Nor does he know that Aragorn made his choice because he believed that unless he did so he would not arrive at Minas Tirith in time, and that even if he did get there with the Rohirrim it would be fruitless because the Corsairs of Umbar would be able to sail up the Anduin unopposed and so the Rohirrim would come to a city that had already fallen.

But let us not think of such things now. The question I wish to consider here is the one posed in the title of this piece. How can we ever know the proper time to undertake a particular action? As Éomer says rightly, the only way to find out if the time has come to try the Door is to try it.

The whole of The Lord of the Rings is a story of grasping opportunities as they arise. At the heart of this, of course, is the One Ring itself. Suddenly, and entirely unexpectedly, the Ring that all had believed to be lost appears in the hands of a hobbit. Some, like Gandalf, were prepared for the reappearance of the Ring. No-one expected the Ring to appear in the manner that it did. Gandalf knows that the only thing to do with the Ring is to destroy it. What even he does not expect is that he will find a willing ally in the person of Frodo Baggins, and that this hobbit of the Shire is at first excited to make a journey out of the Shire, and then, against his own wishes but for the sake of his fellows, to offer his very self as Ringbearer.

Everyone at the heart of the story knows that the stakes are so high that everything must be risked in order to destroy the Ring and that every other ambition, however noble, must be set aside for that purpose. So, Aragorn risks everything for this ultimate purpose, while Éomer does not yet know of that purpose and so thinks in terms of important but lesser things, such as his fealty to his king and faithfulness to an ancient oath. Later he will be invited to the Final Debate and learn of higher things. For now, this is enough for him to act as he must do.

“Speak Not The Soft Words of Wormtongue in My Old Ears”. Théoden Thinks About Ageing and Death in Harrowdale.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) p. 775

As Merry turns his thoughts to Frodo and Sam at the end of the journey from the Hornburg to Harrowdale, Théoden makes ready for the great ride of the Rohirrim to Minas Tirith. Éomer is glad that this journey is over, but Théoden now thinks only of what lies ahead.

“This journey is over, maybe… but I have far yet to go. Last night the moon was full, and in the morning I shall ride to Edoras to the gathering of the Mark.”

Théoden may be thinking of the battle that lies ahead but Éomer has different thoughts in mind. What he sees in front of him is an old man. Perhaps the days when Théoden was confined to his chair in the golden hall of Meduseld have had a greater influence upon him than he realises.

“If you would take my counsel,” he says to the king, “you would then return hither, until the war is over, lost or won.”

In other words, though Éomer does not speak them out loud, you should take no part in the battle that lies ahead. It is time for you to rest, old man.

Théoden is seventy-one years old at the time of the events of The Lord of the Rings, and I am the same age as he was then. Would I listen to Éomer’s counsel and leave the battle to younger men? Or would I listen to Théoden who replies to his nephew, gently but firmly.

“Nay, my son, for so I will call you, speak not the soft words of Wormtongue in my old ears… Long years in the space of days it seems since I rode west; but never will I lean on a staff again. If the war is lost, what good will be my hiding in the hills? And if it is won, what grief will it be, even if I fall, spending my last strength?”

Théoden speaks more gently to Éomer than Jesus did to Peter when Peter tried to counsel him not to lay down his life in Jerusalem. Jesus told Peter to “get behind me, Satan!” But Théoden is just as firm in his intent and conviction as Jesus was. Do not try to prevent me from doing what I have to do, he says to his nephew. “The soft words of Wormtongue” were spoken in order to prevent Théoden from taking action against Saruman. They may have been cloaked in expressions of concern for an old man, offering kind advice to him not to overdo things, to conserve his strength, to look after himself, but Wormtongue’s true intention was to rob that old man of his capacity for any action at all.

And what of Théoden’s words to Éomer? What is the point in my hiding in the hills while my men go into battle? If we lose then death will come to me soon. If we win and I fall in the battle, what sadness will it be that I fell? My death in victory or defeat will be a good death, far better than any that might await me in the future if I only hide away in the hills.

And so it proves. The funeral of Théoden after the events of the War of the Ring is the most glorious of any King of Rohan. The memory in which he will be held thereafter will bring pride to the hearts of all his people.

And what do his words speak to all of us as we grow older? To those of us in our later years? Perhaps we should begin with caution. It is one thing in any of us to speak bold words, but it is another to fulfil them. If Théoden had, through weakness, delayed the ride of the Rohirrim to Minas Tirith, asking them to give him time to rest instead of riding on, his words would have no meaning at all. He must spend his strength with the best of his men, showing leadership at their head and not in the rear. If it is a feeble old man who leads the charge at the Pelennor Fields that might inspire pity but not courage. The leader that inspires others is one who lays down their life for the people. At the battle Théoden seizes a horn from his banner-bearer and blows such a blast upon it that it bursts asunder. He may be advanced in years but what strength he has he spends for those who follow him.

It may be given to few of us to lead a charge in battle in our later years but the call to pour out our lives and not to preserve them into decrepit senility as Wormtongue tried to persuade his master to do is a challenge to each one of us.

Soulstice

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I will be speaking on The Lord of the Rings at a men’s retreat at a farm in the Chiltern Hills in England that will take place between the 19th and 21st June. I will be talking about the moment when the hobbits return to the Shire after all their adventures with a sense of foreboding about what lies ahead but with the comfort of knowing that Gandalf will be with them. Then comes the bombshell.

“I am not coming to the Shire. You must settle its affairs yourselves; that is what you have been trained for,”

So I will be thinking about the question of Initiation. How our life experience and all its adventures have prepared us for what lies ahead. And how we never quite feel ready for the next challenge until we get there.

The hobbits have everything they need to free the Shire from Saruman and his gang. We have everything we need to face the next challenge in our lives.

The retreat is run by a men’s fellowship called The Resonant Man that I have joined and which I value very much, It is convened by Matthew Green, formerly a foreign correspondent for The Financial Times, and Jacob Kishere, a young man living and working in Mexico who has become a good friend over the past year.

There are a few places still available so please scan the QR code on the link for more details.

There are around 2,000 readers each week on my blog and it would be so good to meet some of you in person.

“I Am Forgetting Them!” Merry Thinks of Frodo and Sam in The Midst of His Loneliness.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 774-775

It has been three days since Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, and the Grey Company, departed from the Hornburg and early in the day Aragorn begins his great ride across Gondor towards the port of Pelargir in order to come to the aid of its defenders who have been attacked by the Corsairs of Umbar. Following him are “shapes of Men and of horses, and pale banners like shreds of cloud, and spears like winter-thickets on a misty night”. The Dead have come to fulfil the oath that once they made and then broke to Isildur.

And on that same day, at evening, Théoden arrives with his company at Harrowdale, a deep valley amidst mighty mountains. He will rest there that night; the last rest that he will take before he leads the Rohirrim on their great ride to Minas Tirith and the battle that will take before its walls on the Pelennor Fields. The thoughts of all have turned to what lies ahead and a silence has fallen upon the host. Meriadoc Brandybuck of the Shire has ridden that day just a few paces behind the king, and he too has ridden in silence.

Not that the whole journey from the Hornburg has taken place in silence. Merry has enjoyed the hospitable company of the king, sharing tales with him of the doings of the Shire and listening to tales of the deeds of Rohan. But despite Théoden’s gentle courtesy Merry has always felt lonely, aware of the “insupportable weight of Middle-earth” surrounding him, longing for the comforts of home, and thinking of his friends.

“He wondered where in all this strange world Pippin had got to; and what would become of Aragorn, and Legolas and Gimli.” They have been his company since their merry meeting amidst the wreck of Isengard and they are the first to come to his mind and to his heart.

But suddenly the thought of others comes to him “like a cold touch on his heart”. Merry has remembered Frodo and Sam, and he realises that it has been some time since he has done so. His thoughts have first been filled with his own plight and then with those who have been with him along the way. He is ashamed that he has not given the attention of his heart to those with whom he first left the Shire. “And yet they are more important than all the rest of us. And I came to help them.”

I do not think we should blame Merry for not thinking about Frodo and Sam. So much has happened to him since they parted company two weeks earlier at Parth Galen, violently sundered by the attack of the orcs who slew Boromir and who took both he and Pippin prisoner. Two weeks must feel like two years to him given the intensity of his experience, and the immensity of all that lies before him requires all the attention that he can give even though he has little idea of what the next days will bring. But that feeling, that “cold touch on his heart”, does the work that it was intended to do. It returns the attention of his heart to Frodo and Sam at just the moment it needed to do so. For it was early in the morning of that same say that Frodo and Sam left the stronghold of Henneth Annûn in the company of Gollum in order to begin the next stage of his journey to Mordor, bearing the Ring and the hopes of the world.

Perhaps Merry has needed the silence of that day’s ride down into Harrowdale in order to clear enough space in his heart to think of more than just of himself. This is one of the values of silence. Like the experience of most of us when we find ourselves in silence, Merry’s mind has been filled with himself, with thoughts and feelings. Most of the time, and for most of us, we are unaware of what we think and feel. Those thoughts and those feelings simply happen to us. But sometimes enough space is created for another level of awareness to be experienced. We become aware of what we are thinking and aware of what we are feeling. And then sometimes, in those quiet times, we may feel something like Merry’s cold touch, something that draws our attention away from ourselves and away from our usual patterns of thought. It is good that we stop to give such moments our full attention, to lean into the unexpected touches of our hearts. They enlarge our hearts and connect us to people and places who need our attention. We do not know what effect it had, for good, for Frodo and Sam. It isn’t given to us to know such things. There would be too much temptation to manipulate things if we did. But for those of us who try to pray, such moments call us consciously to place someone into the hands of God.

“I Summon You to The Stone of Erech!” On the Breaking of Oaths and The Authority of The Heir of Isildur.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 769-773

The Dead who follow Aragorn and the Grey Company along the Paths of the Dead clearly have power. We saw that in the last piece on this blog as we followed Gimli’s journey along that dark way and felt his fear, a fear that at last has him “crawling like a beast on the ground”. And it is this power that Aragorn will call upon to aid him in the cleaning of the land of Gondor from all the servants of Sauron.

When Isildur made this people swear loyalty to him as king and overlord, long ago, it was his authority and power that they feared. It was at the Stone of Erech, in a remote valley of Gondor, that the Oath was sworn at the ending of the Second Age, but that oath was broken because they feared and had worshipped Sauron for long years before the coming of Elendil and the Númenoreans to Middle-earth.

The keeping of oaths is a matter of great importance in Tolkien’s legendarium, as is their breaking also. So important is it that when Gimli speaks of swearing an oath to stay with Frodo until the end of his journey, Elrond replies:

“Let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall.” (Fellowship p. 274)

Gimli’s words are not a light affair. For a dwarf, the swearing of an oath is a matter of sacred importance; and perhaps that is why Elrond does not permit one on this occasion. He knows that none can foresee the nature of the journey that lies ahead. If Gimli had been bound by an oath to follow Frodo at the breaking of the Fellowship at Parth Galen, then he could not have followed Merry and Pippin across the plains of Rohan and his following of Frodo and Sam would have been to little or no purpose. Worse still it would almost certainly have been a hindrance to Frodo and Sam’s secret journey across Mordor. We might also note the irony in Elrond’s words about vows to walk in the dark after we thought about Gimli’s dark journey in the last piece. While Gimli is right to speak of how sworn words can “strengthen quaking heart”, Elrond is right too to aver that an oath rashly made can break a heart just as easily as it can strengthen it. It is best that he keeps Gimli from that trial. Best too, for the ultimate outcome of the Quest.

But what of the oath first made at the Stone of Erech to Isildur by the mountain people? That was not an oath made in friendship but through fear. There is no difference between them in their essence. Perhaps that is the reason why Jesus warns against the making of oaths in the Sermon of the Mount. Their spiritual power is such that we should fear it and never take it lightly. So, the oath to protect a constitution, or to speak the truth in a court of law, is not merely a form of words, a convenience to be observed merely as a matter of custom, but has a spiritual power that will be enforced in the court of heaven, and therefore should be feared.

The Dead who are summoned to the Stone of Erech know that power. They have endured it through long years without rest. Now, at last, comes the one who has the authority both to enforce their obedience to the oath and to declare the oath fulfilled at last.

“The hour has come at last. Now I go to Pelargir upon Anduin, and ye shall come after me. And when all this land is clean of the servants of Sauron, I will hold the oath fulfilled, and ye shall have peace and depart for ever. For I am Elessar, Isildur’s heir of Gondor.”

The same power that has held that mountain people in a state of unrest through long years now has power to free them also. Aragorn speaks with authority, but that authority does not lie within himself but has been granted to him. He is a man under divine authority and it is with that authority that he now speaks.