The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 812-813

Poor Merry! When Théoden told him that he could not go into battle with the Riders of Rohan he was so angry.

“We ride on horses tall and swift,” Théoden had told him, “and great though your heart be, you cannot ride on such beasts.”

“I will not be left behind!” Merry had declared angrily to himself, and he was not left behind because a mysterious young warrior, Dernhelm by name, had offered to take Merry with him.

It seemed so good at the time but in the days that followed as the Rohirrim had drawn closer to Minas Tirith Merry had begun to ponder the wisdom of his earlier passion. He was in Elfhelm’s company and although the men of that company knew that he was there none of them gave away his secret. But none of them spoke to him either. Not even Dernhelm on whose horse Merry rode. “He might have been just another bag that Dernhelm was carrying.”

Just another bag. Just a piece of luggage to be carried about, to be used or discarded as necessary. Not a person but a thing. Not a Thou but an It. And so he felt “small, unwanted and lonely”. And he was also afraid because reports had come that the road ahead was held against them and that if they were to reach the battle before Minas Tirith at all they would almost certainly have to fight a battle first. So the bag was going to be carried into terrible danger and would almost certainly be lost.

Readers of The Lord of the Rings will remember the first time we met Merry, the organiser of the Crickhollow conspiracy, the cottage in Buckland in the most eastern part of the Shire close to the fence of the Old Forest where Frodo was to live after selling Bag End to the Sackville-Bagginses. They will remember that when Frodo, Pippin and Sam arrived at Crickhollow that it was Merry who had food and hot baths ready for them, and not only that but when the real reason for Frodo’s departure from Hobbiton was revealed it was Merry who had ponies packed and ready for an immediate departure from the Shire, and it was Merry who confidently led his friends into the forest in order to throw the Black Riders off the trail.

So the Merry that we first meet is confident, competent and decisive. After all, he is the oldest son of the Master of Buckland, one of the aristocracy of the Shire if we can say that there is such a thing. But all Merry’s self-confidence begins to unravel from the moment that he leaves the Shire, stumbling along the paths of the Old Forest into the malign clutches of Old Man Willow where he and his companions only survive thanks to the timely arrival of Tom Bombadil.

And there will be many more timely rescues along the way to the road through Anórien before Minas Tirith; and Merry will be carried by the boats of Lothlórien down the Anduin, by the orcs of Isengard across the plains of Rohan, by Treebeard through Fangorn Forest and now by the horse of an unknown warrior on the road to a battle where he will be of little use except to hinder the Rider who had brought him there. If only he could be “a tall Rider like Éomer and could blow a horn or something and go galloping”.

I love that last sentence because it reveals something about the uselessness of so much human activity. I love that “or something…”. As Merry tries to imagine what that something might possibly be, all he can think is that any action, must surely be of greater significance than what he is doing now.

A few weeks ago we thought about Pippin’s hard journey from boyhood to manhood and saw that it came through hardship, danger, failure and humiliation. We could say much the same about Merry. He might not share in Pippin’s impetuousness, but what he carries is an abiding sense of uselessness. He does not feel of any use to anyone. Maybe that is why he put so much effort into being the competent organiser at the start of the story. Maybe he worked so hard at that because he fears that he is of no use to anyone. People often speak today of imposter syndrome, that fear that we might be found out, revealed to be unqualified for the job that needs to be done. Just like Pippin, Merry will be revealed to be “a valiant man”, but he will only get there through facing up to his inadequacy and not by pretending to be a success.