The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 785-787

One of the greatest challenges that faces any person is not to pass the pain that they have faced onto another. So it is for each one of us, for all of us must endure pain at some point in our lives, whether in body, soul or spirit, or all three together. And so it is for Éowyn, sister-daughter of Théoden. She has long borne the pain of being forced to gaze helplessly upon her uncle’s long decline into dotage at the hands of Grima Wormtongue, and then as hope is suddenly rekindled in her heart at the sudden healing of Théoden, and even more as she falls in love with the greatest man of the age, Aragorn, the Heir of Isildur, the possibility of freedom and glory opens up before her. Then just as suddenly all is dashed from her grasp.

Aragorn takes the hopeless road, the Paths of the Dead, that no-one has ever passed, and what is worse, he will not take her with him. She must “do her duty” to her lord and king and to her people, attending as lady of her people to all the hearths that will await the men on their return from battle or, if they do not return, awaiting her fate and bearing it as bravely as she can. All the women, children and those too old to fight, do so in the best manner they can. Tolkien turns to the rhythm of speech of his Old English ancestors in order to speak of them:

“They were a stern people, loyal to their lord, and little weeping or murmuring was heard”.

Each woman and child does what is expected of them, what they have long been trained to do.

But there are two people who do not wish to stay behind. Meriadoc Brandybuck, swordthain of Rohan, feels shame as he thinks about having to stay with the women, the children, and the elderly while the warriors go to war, while his closest friends are putting their lives in mortal danger. He has to accept the reasons that Théoden has given to him, that Stybba, the pony small enough for him to ride alongside the king in the gentle pace of a journey along mountain paths will never be able to keep pace with the steeds of the Rohirrim or be able to join the charge of knights before the gates of Minas Tirith. He understands this but it cannot erase the dishonour he feels.

And Éowyn feels the cage that she fears closing round her once more and the rejection by Aragorn that leaves her with the feeling that there is no future, no hope for her beyond the fate of the women who “have leave to be burned in the house” when the men do not return from the war. She sees nothing beyond death in a burning house and so she chooses death in battle, taking on the disguise of a young warrior and the name of Dernhelm.

But even in her despair her heart is able to go out to another. She recognises in the young hobbit a fellow sufferer, one who is condemned to dishonour as he like her is left behind. As he watches the riders preparing to break camp a young Rider comes alongside him, one that he thinks he recognises but whose name he does not know. And the Rider speaks softly to him.

“Where will wants not, a way opens, so we say,” the Rider says… “You wish to go wither the Lord of the Mark goes. I see it in your face.”

And so Éowyn takes Merry secretly with her into battle. She may have been wrapped in anger and despair but she is still able to recognise the same feeling in another and to reach out to him. This does not begin a friendship. They never speak on the ride into Gondor. But in their silence they are able to grant strength to one another. And perhaps for Éowyn this reaching out to another in their pain, even within her own, a keeping open of her broken heart and not closing it against the world and its suffering, perhaps this is the beginning of her long journey towards healing