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“I Have Not Been of Much Use Yet, But I Don’t Want to be Laid Aside, Like Baggage to be Called For When All is Over.” Merry Speaks of His Self-Doubt to Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) p.756

From the very moment when Elrond chose the nine walkers to stand against the nine riders of Mordor there have been doubts about the suitability of the young hobbits, Merry and Pippin, to be members of that company. When at the last Elrond gave way to Gandalf and named them as members of the Fellowship he did so unwillingly and with a sigh.

And for all the brave words that Pippin spoke then about his determination to follow the Fellowship or to be tied up in a sack to prevent him from doing so both he and Merry have struggled with self-doubt about their being of any use upon the journey, and both of them have found themselves comparing their value to the others as being like a useless piece of baggage.

The first to do so was Pippin as he struggled back into consciousness after being captured by the orcs at Parth Galen.

“What good have I been? Just a nuisance, a passenger, a piece of luggage.” (The Two Towers, Harper Collins 1991, 2007, p. 579)

And later in the story it is Merry who makes very much the same complaint as he tries to stay secret, sitting in front of Éowyn whose own secret identity is Dernhelm as they ride towards Minas Tirith. Merry feels useless feeling that “he might just have been another bag Dernhelm was carrying.” Indeed when one of the riders trips over him in the dark Merry complains of being treated like a tree-root or a bag and the rider seems to join in with the joke saying to Merry, “Pack yourself up, Master Bag”. (The Return of the King, 1991, pp.812-813)

We have just left Pippin struggling with a different metaphor although a very similar sentiment. Pippin has likened himself to a pawn in a game of chess but on the wrong chessboard and now we join Merry in company with Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli as they prepare to ride with Théoden to Edoras and then on by some unknown way to Minas Tirith. As Aragorn ponders his journey Merry gives out a plaintive cry:

“Don’t leave me behind!”

Poor Merry. This is not the cry of a warrior before battle as are the cries of Legolas and Gimli as they promise their support to Aragorn, it is the cry of a little child who simply does not want to be left out. The child knows that the grown ups don’t really need them for the important task that lies ahead but they fear to be left alone, and they fear to be thought a mere nuisance by those whose opinion they value so much.

Are we of any use?

Poor Merry; if he had hoped to get an answer from Aragorn he received none. Aragorn might have recalled the words that Gandalf spoke about the young hobbits when he and Gandalf met once again in the forest of Fangorn, that the coming of Merry and Pippin to Fangorn “was like the falling of small stones that starts an avalanche in the mountains” (The Two Towers p.647). He could use those words to give some kind of reassurance to Merry; but he does not. Perhaps he is too busy thinking about his own road to Minas Tirith, something that we will think about in the next post, but he does not.

There comes a moment in every life when we realise that the grown ups are not going to turn up and whatever happens next we are going to have to face it alone. For some people that moment will come far too soon but whenever it does come it will always feel that it has come when we are not prepared for it. At that moment we will feel utterly inadequate for what we are about to face and like Pippin in Minas Tirith we will want Gandalf to make us feel better or like Merry on the road to Edoras we will plead with Aragorn not to leave us behind but we will receive nothing. Like Pippin we will feel like a pawn in the wrong game or like Merry we will feel like a useless piece of baggage. But like both of them we will be carried to a place where there is no-one else to act and we will either run away or do what we can. As we shall see Merry and Pippin will do what they can.

“The Darkness Has Begun. There Will Be No Dawn.” Pippin Has Nothing to Do But Wait for the Beginning of War.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 750-755

I have always found these pages in The Return of the King difficult to read. Like everyone else in the story I am waiting for the battle to begin. Not that I love stories of battle. Actually the older I get the less I like them. It’s just that waiting is so very difficult. What do you do as you wait for something that is too big to put out of your mind but you know that it is going to happen whether you want it to or not.

Even Gandalf seems to be distracted and unable to concentrate his considerable mind. At the end of the chapter that we have been reading and thinking about Pippin very much does not want to be alone. He wants to see Gandalf again, a figure from the familiar world of the Fellowship that set out from Rivendell and which has shared so much together. But when Gandalf arrives in the dead of night and Pippin tells him that he is glad to see him back Gandalf’s grumpy response is to say: “I have come back here, for I must have a little peace, alone. You should sleep in a bed while you still may.” In other words, leave me alone, Pippin!

Poor Pippin. There is so much difference between a bed that is a place of profound rest after great struggle, as is the bed on the Field of Cormallen for Frodo and Sam after their terrible trials, and a bed, however comfortable, that is but a brief pause before a time of trial. As Gandalf puts it with brutal succinctness, “the night will be too short.”

For Pippin, indeed for Gandalf too, there is no escape from this time of waiting except to pass through it. Pippin may want some kind of company in order to distract himself from himself but so too does Gandalf.

“When will Faramir return?” he asks himself, searching in the darkness for some piece that is missing in the vain hope that it will make sense of everything. Gandalf might just have asked, when will Théoden, or Aragorn, arrive? He might even ask, when will Frodo and Sam complete their task? And for poor Pippin there is the nagging ache that lies deep within his soul that is the unanswered question, where is Merry?

And that is the problem when all is said and done. I might be able to ask the question, but that does not mean that my question can be answered. Or, at the very least, it does not mean that I have any power within myself to answer that question. Gandalf cannot make anything happen that can quieten his troubled mind. All that he can do is to wait.

Some well meaning guides might suggest a mindfulness technique at this point. If only Gandalf or Pippin could focus on a mantra of some kind or a sacred word, then all will be well. But all would not be well. The forces of Mordor would still be about to arrive and that can never be good whatever we might do to prepare to meet it. And Faramir, Théoden and Aragorn would still be somewhere unknown.

Pippin is going through an initiation. He has been ever since he passed his first uncomfortable night in the fields of the Shire after setting out with Frodo and Sam from Bag End. How that night, the night before the hobbits encountered the Nazgûl for the very first time, must seem like paradise as Pippin waits through a night after which there will be no dawn. But that is the point in an initiation. Its whole purpose is to teach you how to die before you die. It teaches you to live light to everything except for the things that really matter. It teaches you what those things really are. They aren’t the accumulation of wealth, not even of power. As Gildor Inglorien said to Frodo on the second night of the journey across the Shire, take those who you can trust. In other words, friendship matters far more than power.

On the night before the outbreak of war Pippin feels very much alone and afraid. He is forced to endure it by himself. But he will emerge from this experience as one who can be a source of great strength to others. Later, Faramir will have reason to be grateful for his friendship, so too will Merry who will not be left to die alone on the battlefield, and Aragorn who will not be killed by the troll on the field before the Black Gate of Mordor. This night may be desperately hard to endure but, along with all the other things that Pippin has to pass through, it will make him the “very valiant man” as he was introduced to Ingold and his men at the beginning of The Return of the King.

“They Say that Men Who Go Warring Afield Look Ever to the Next Hope of Food and Of Drink.” Pippin Makes the Acquaintance of Beregond of the Guard.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 744-745

After his gruelling encounter with the Lord Denethor, Steward of Gondor, Pippin unsurprisingly responds to this experience as would any self respecting hobbit. He looks for something to eat. The tower bell has just struck 9 o’clock and Pippin stands alone in the street.

“Just the time for a nice breakfast, by the open window in spring sunshine,” he says to himself and immediately we are reminded of Bilbo on the adventure that we know as The Hobbit. Pippin reminds more of Bilbo than of Frodo. It is unlikely that Thorin Oakenshield would have praised Frodo for his pleasure in the matters of the table as he did Bilbo but he would have recognised in Pippin a kindred spirit to his friend and travelling companion. And he would not have mistaken Pippin’s love for food and drink for inadequacy in martial valour. Nor does Beregond of the Guard when Pippin asks him where he might find something to eat.

“Beregond looked at him gravely. ‘An old campaigner, I see,’ he said. ‘They say that men who go warring afield look ever to the next hope of food and drink; though I am not a travelled man myself.”

Tolkien, an army veteran himself of the First World War (1914-18), knew of what he spoke. It is thought that one of the things that encouraged young men in Britain to sign up at the outbreak of the war in 1914 was the guarantee of a good meal every single day. My father, himself a veteran of the Normandy landings in the Second World War of June 1944, and of the battles that followed them, used to speak of how the officers would never sit down for their own meal in the evening until they had made sure that the men under their command had eaten theirs.

Unbeknown to himself Pippin has already eaten breakfast in the company of the Steward of Gondor. As he says to Beregond it was “no more than a cup of wine and a white cake or two by the kindness of your lord”. To Pippin this was little more than a snack and hard earned because of Denethor’s interrogation but Beregond laughs and then replies that Pippin has broken his fast “as well as any man in the Citadel, and with greater honour.” It is worth noting here that the character of Denethor that Tolkien draws is very different from that created by Peter Jackson. I am sure that my readers will remember the scene in the film in which Denethor consumes a lavish meal served by a Pippin who is trying to hide his distaste as Faramir leads his men into battle in a suicidal cavalry charge. This is far from Tolkien’s creation. Denethor is no glutton. If anything he is a man incapable of escaping the bleak austerity of a city under siege. In the last post on this blog we spoke of Denethor’s wanhope, a state of mind to quote Chaucer, “that is despair of the mercy of God that comes sometimes of too much outrageous sorrow and sometimes of too much dread”.

Pippin, like Gandalf as we have thought about in recent posts, is a lover of life. By this we do not mean that he will “eat, drink and be merry” for all that he has to look forward to is death. Pippin does eat and drink, and he is certainly merry, but he does so in celebration of life. Pippin knows deep sorrow. He saw Boromir fall and he carries the pain of that sorrow with him wherever he goes and has offered himself in service to Boromir’s father in payment of the debt he feels he owes. But Pippin does this because in all things he joyfully affirms the life that Boromir laid down for him. Maybe that is why he was able to see the mirth in Gandalf that always lies just below the surface. Maybe that is why he is drawn to Gandalf. Maybe that is also why Gandalf is drawn to him.

“Opposing The Fire That Devours and Wastes With The Fire That Kindles.” Gandalf Kindles a Flame in The Hearts of The Free Peoples of Middle-earth.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 741-743

Readers of my blog will know that it is my custom to make the heading of each post a quotation taken from the passage in The Lord of the Rings that I am thinking about. In this post, the last in this short series on Gandalf in which I have been thinking about the question that Pippin asked of himself as he stood between Gandalf and Denethor, “What was Gandalf?”, I have taken my quotation from a different source.

To help me in my reflections I have been using an essay that Tolkien wrote but never published, and that his son, Christopher, included in Unfinished Tales. The title of the essay is The Istari, and can be found between pp. 502-520 in that volume. In that essay Tolkien wrote this of Gandalf:

“Warm and eager was his spirit (and it was enhanced by the ring Narya) for he was the Enemy of Sauron, opposing the fire that devours and wastes with the fire that kindles, and succours in wanhope and distress; but his joy, and his swift wrath, were veiled in garments grey as ash, so that only those who knew him well glimpsed the flame that was within.” (Unfinished Tales p.505 Harper Collins 1998)

I hope that you, like me, will have found your heart warmed by this description of Gandalf, and that thoughts about many passages in The Lord of the Rings will have been evoked as you read it. Indeed, so much was fire associated with Gandalf that when he kindled fire with a word of command in the snows of the Misty Mountains to save the company from freezing to death he declared to them:

“If there are any to see, then I at least am revealed to them… I have written Gandalf is here in signs that all can read from Rivendell to the mouths of Anduin.” (The Fellowship of the Ring p. 283)

Perhaps it was this spirit that Círdan of the Grey Havens recognised when Gandalf first arrived in Middle-earth around the year 1,000 in the Third Age, for it was Círdan who gave him Narya, the ring of fire, that was at that time in his possession. Círdan had received Narya from Celebrimbor in order to keep it safe from Sauron but he never used it, knowing that he had no particular affinity to the ring, that there was nothing in his spirit that would mean that he could use the ring’s fiery capabilities. He knew that this quality of the ring would be needed in the struggle against Sauron and in recognising Gandalf’s “joy and swift wrath”, hidden though these qualities were beneath his “garments grey as ash”, he knew that he had found the true keeper of the ring of fire.

Gandalf opposed Sauron in two ways. On occasion, when necessity demanded it, he would literally fight fire with fire, opposing the power of darkness with light. In The Lord of the Rings the occasion in which we see this most clearly is in the battle against the Balrog of Moria, the “the flame of Udûn”, when Gandalf declares himself as a “servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor”. (Fellowship p.322). The Balrog knows what he means by these words and we read that the fire in it seems to die as it hears them. After a long struggle the Balrog meets its end at Gandalf’s hands and although Gandalf gives up his life in this battle it is the flame of Anor that prevails and Gandalf receives his life again from Iluvatar.

Gandalf can wield fire in battle when necessary but for much of his time in Middle-earth it is the second way in which he opposes Sauron that is most prevalent. He opposes the fire that destroys, not in open conflict but “with the fire that kindles and succours”. Gandalf warms the hearts of the peoples of Middle-earth.

Tolkien uses a word that is rarely used in the English language to describe the condition of so many that seek to oppose the Dark Lord. It is the word, wanhope. We still use the word, wan, to speak of something that is a poor version of the best, but wanhope is a stronger word yet. In Chaucer’s Parson’s Tale (c.1400), we read:”now comes wanhope that is despair of the mercy of God that comes sometimes of too much outrageous sorrow and sometimes of too much dread” (my translation of Chaucer’s Middle English). I am sure that Tolkien had the good parson’s words in mind in using this word in Unfinished Tales and in describing the state of mind of many who despair of prevailing in the struggle against Sauron. Gandalf was able to save Théoden from wanhope but failed to do so in Denethor. Théoden renounces his despair while Denethor gives into his. Eventually it is the unexpected and unlooked for good fortune found in the person of Gollum in the Cracks of Doom that will save Middle-earth from destruction but it is Gandalf’s tireless work that means that there is a world worth saving.

Further Thoughts on Gandalf’s “Fountain of Mirth”. Gandalf and The Shire.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp.741-743

This is the third post in a short series of reflections that I am writing about Gandalf based upon the observations that Pippin makes of him both in the scene that takes place in the throne room of Gondor at the beginning of The Return of the King, the final volume of The Lord of the Rings and the scene that follows immediately after. As we saw in the last piece Pippin’s thoughts about Gandalf are inspired by the comparison that he begins to draw with Denethor, realising that Denethor’s impressive demeanour does not go anywhere near as deep as the reality of Gandalf, even though this does not seem so at first glance.

Two weeks ago I wrote about Gandalf’s joy for the first time, a joy that Pippin sees as “a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, were it to gush forth”, and in this post I want to think more about this.

The hobbits of the Shire know Gandalf as a strange figure who comes and goes among them from time to time. In many ways their main impression of him is as a kind of travelling showman. They know him best for his spectacular firework shows, such as he offered them at Bilbo’s farewell party. When in Lothlórien Frodo and Sam composed poetry by which to remember him after his fall in Moria it was this that Sam recalled most vividly. 

The finest rockets ever seen:
they burst in stars of blue and green, 
or after thunder golden showers 
came falling like a rain of flowers.

And if it were not Gandalf’s fireworks for which he was best known in the Shire it might have been his pleasure in pipe-smoking, something to which the hobbits had first introduced him. Indeed we might say that it was play and pleasure that regularly brought Gandalf to the Shire. Gandalf says as much in his telling of the story that we know as The Hobbit to Frodo and other members of the Fellowship in Minas Tirith after Aragorn’s coronation.

“I was tired, and I was going to the Shire for a short rest, after being away from it for more than twenty years. I thought that if I put them [dark thoughts about the return of Sauron and the potential threat of Smaug the dragon] out of my mind for a while I might perhaps find some way of dealing with these troubles.” (Unfinished Tales p. 416)

Gandalf associated the Shire and hobbits with much needed rest. But was it merely coincidental that it was on his way to the Shire that Gandalf met with Thorin Oakenshield and learned of Thorin’s desire to lead an expedition to recover the Lonely Mountain from the terrible dragon that lived there? It was in his meeting with Thorin that the thought of Bilbo Baggins first came into Gandalf’s mind.

“Suddenly in my mind these three things came together: the great Dragon with his lust, and his keen hearing and scent; the heavy-booted Dwarves with their old burning grudge; and the quick soft-footed Hobbit, sick at heart (I guessed) for a sight of the wide world.” (Unfinished Tales p. 417)

What Gandalf does is to play with the images that come into his mind, allowing them to take shape there and, in a sense, take on a life of their own. In many ways Gandalf does exactly what Tolkien the storyteller does. Both he and Tolkien journey into the imaginal realm and they play amidst the images that they find there.

It is essential here to emphasise that neither Tolkien’s play or Gandalf’s is a mere passing away the time between more serious tasks. Or maybe I should say that Tolkien was not just passing time when he journeyed into Faerie, the perilous realm, the imaginal realm. It was in that realm that both discovered and then sub-created his legendarium from what he saw.

In his telling of his story to Frodo and his companions Gandalf tells us a little more of his own journey into the imaginal realm, the journey that takes him to a place in which Smaug, Thorin Oakenshield and his companions, and Bilbo Baggins, somehow find themselves together. It is a journey that no-one else takes and it leads to consequences that no-one could have anticipated. For on his journey Bilbo finds the Ring of Power. Even at the time of that discovery no-one, Gandalf included, had any idea of the significance of Bilbo’s magic ring. Gandalf describes his own actions as no more than following “the lead of ‘chance'”, a journey on which he made many mistakes by his own admission.

We will come back to that journey in the next piece. In the meantime I invite you to think further about the relationship between play in Gandalf’s story and the events that ultimately lead to the discovery and then the destruction of the Ring and the fall of Sauron. I believe that they are intimately bound together.

I am grateful for the work of Dr Becca Tarnas for introducing me to the idea of Tolkien’s journey into the imaginal realm. I hope that her doctoral thesis comparing the Red Books of J.R.R Tolkien and Carl Jung will be published soon. In the meantime can I recommend her reader’s guide to The Lord of the Rings, “Journey to the Imaginal Realm”, published by Revelore Press in 2019.

“Fealty With Love, Valour With Honour, Oath-breaking With Vengeance.” Pippin Enters the Service of Denethor of Gondor.

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

Pippin’s pride is aroused by the questions that Denethor asks him about the death of his son.

“And how did you escape, and yet he did not, so mighty a man as he was, and only orcs to withstand him?”

“Pippin flushed and forgot his fear.”

He answers boldly and yet courteously, speaking of his memory of Boromir’s courage against impossible odds, until pierced by many orc arrows, he fell; and how he, Pippin, and Merry were taken prisoner.

“But I honour his memory, for he was very valiant. He died to save us, my kinsman Meriadoc and myself, waylaid in the woods by the soldiery of the Dark Lord; and though he fell and failed, my gratitude is none the less.”

And then Pippin offers himself in service to Denethor, presenting the sword of Arnor that he took from the burial mound in the Barrow Downs near the Shire and Denethor accepts his offer.

“I accept your service. For you are not daunted by words; and you have courteous speech, strange though the sound of it may be to us in the South. And we shall have need of all folk of courtesy, be they great or small, in the days to come. Swear to me now.”

And so Pippin swears fealty and service to Gondor and to its Steward. It is a moving moment, a “gleam of cold sun on a winter’s evening”, as Tolkien puts it.

Pippin now belongs to another and no longer simply to himself. He has come to this point upon his journey carried first by the bonds of his friendship to Frodo and then to the other members of the Fellowship; but now he has taken another step, an irrevocable one, and he is no longer free to go where he wills. We are very much in the world of feudal relationships in a pre-modern, medieval, world in which identity was determined by the lord that you were in service to. And you cannot leave that service just because you tire of it or feel inclined to offer your services elsewhere. Denethor receives Pippin’s offer of service with these words:

“I will not forget it, nor fail to reward that which is given: fealty with love, value with honour, oath-breaking with vengeance.”

I wonder how many of my readers work in situations where the organisations for whom they work promise to reward their service with love and honour? We live in a world of contractual relationships and not a world of covenant. Contracts are impersonal affairs. Covenants are deeply personal, founded upon the relationships that one person has with another. This is why Denethor promises more than remuneration to Pippin. In fact there is no remuneration mentioned here at all, no compensation for the service that Pippin will offer. What Denethor offers is to love and to honour Pippin. It feels more like the promises made at a marriage.

But what about the threat of vengeance? Thankfully I can think of no wedding ceremony in which the threat of vengeance is even implied if faith is broken. Later in the story we will meet Beregond of the Guard, a wonderful embodiment of the promises that Pippin makes to Denethor. In his story Tolkien gives us both the very best of the medieval world view and through the terrible dilemma that Beregond faces calls that world view into question. Beregond will both break his oath to Denethor for which he will come under judgement and he will also be rewarded and honoured for his faithfulness to a principle that goes deeper than that of personal loyalty. And for this to happen will require the judgement of a lord to whom the deeper principle matters as much if not more than the principle of personal loyalty.

“Well done, good and faithful servant.” These words from the gospels exemplify the relationship between master and servant that Pippin enters into at his first meeting with Denethor. Indeed throughout the Middle Ages they provided a theological underpinning of that understanding. But it is worth remembering that they are the words of a master who wields absolute power and who takes terrible vengeance upon any who fail to match the standards of fealty that he requires. It may help short term profitability if those in a servant relationship are afraid of their master and the power that he yields but that same master might want to think about what a servant might do if he were to love and honour that servant without threat of vengeance. He might want to learn from Aragorn or from Faramir.

“What is Wrong With Strider?” Gandalf Gives Pippin a Rapid Briefing on Aragorn Just Before They Enter the Throne Room of Gondor.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 736-737

You would have thought that Gandalf would have briefed Pippin about Aragorn and his true identity some time before they went into the throne room of Gondor to meet Denethor. After all it is four days since he had set out from the camp at Dol Baran with Pippin seated in front of him on Shadowfax so there has been plenty of time to do so, but he did not. In fact he tells Pippin that it was his responsibility to learn something of the history of Gondor. But I rather think that Gandalf knows that Pippin only learns something, really learns it, when it is absolutely necessary for him to do so. Before that time comes for him all that he is told will go in through one ear and out of the other.

So as they go down a passage to the throne room Gandalf tells Pippin not to tell Denethor any more than is necessary about the death of Boromir, nothing about Frodo’s errand, and nothing about Aragorn.

“Why not?” asks Pippin guilelessly. “What is wrong with Strider?”

It is worth noting that Pippin still refers here to Aragorn as Strider, to the name by which Aragorn introduced himself to Frodo and his companions in the Prancing Pony in Bree. This is not some slip of the tongue on Pippin’s part. He never really gets to know Aragorn by any other name. Readers may remember that in the chapter entitled Flotsam and Jetsam as Merry and Pippin tell their story to Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, Aragorn settles down with his pipe to listen to them and Pippin cries out: “Strider the Ranger has come back!” (Two Towers p.734). There will also be a moment later in the story after the Battle of the Pelennor Fields when Pippin will see Aragorn for the first time since leaving the camp in Rohan and will cry out in surprise and joy: “Strider! How splendid!” and Pippin’s familiarity will be a cause of some irritation at that moment for those who are just beginning to get used to the possibility that the warrior who arrived in the battle at just the right time might possibly be their king.

So to Pippin Aragorn always remains the man who befriended him and his friends in the inn at Bree. Perhaps Gandalf recognises this and so decides not to overcomplicate things with his young companion. Perhaps too, Gandalf knows that the real value that Pippin brings to his task is not his intelligence or subtlety but his innocence. After all Pippin would have to be a completely different and much older character even to begin to match Denethor in subtlety, and if he tried to do so the effort would be perceived so quickly that more harm might be done in the attempt than any good. Much better that Pippin simply keeps his mouth shut and comes before Denethor as he is. What touches Denethor, getting momentarily beneath his defences, is not Pippin’s cleverness but the moment when he pledges his service to Denethor in gratitude for Boromir’s sacrifice. After all Pippin always revered Boromir remembering how Boromir had laid down his life for him when he was captured by the orcs of Isengard.

Aragorn will have to take care of himself, how he will arrive in Minas Tirith and under what name. And when he does so he will even use Pippin’s over familiarity to his advantage. When the Prince of Dol Amroth acidly asks: “Is it thus that we speak to our kings?” Aragorn replies:

“Verily, for in the high tongue of old I am Elessar, the Elfstone, and Envinyatur, the Renewer… But Strider shall be the name of my house, if that ever be established. In the high tongue it will not sound so ill, and Telcontar I will be and all the heirs of my body (Return p.845)

So Gandalf trusts Aragorn to be Aragorn and I think we can also say with some confidence that he trusts Pippin to be Pippin and does not expect Pippin to be anything other than he is.

“Whatever Betide, You Have Come to the End of The Gondor That You Have Known.” Gandalf Enters the Gates of Minas Tirith and Declares Its Doom.

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The Return of The King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 733-735

There are many who fear the word, doom, believing it to be a word that speaks of destruction. And let us begin by saying that it does speak that way. Indeed it is a word that speaks of judgement and it is words of judgement that Gandalf speaks at the gates of Minas Tirith as he arrives there upon Shadowfax bearing Pippin before him.

The guards at the gate see Gandalf as the herald of war as is their belief about him and in reply to them he has no words of comfort for them.

The storm “is upon you,” he declares to them. “I have ridden upon its wings. Let me pass! I must come to your Lord Denethor, while his stewardship lasts. Whatever betide, you have come to the end of the Gondor you have known.”

This is the end of the Third Age of the world. Its terrible climax as Sauron reaches out his hand seeking to bring all things under his rule and domination, lacking only the ruling Ring to make his victory absolutely complete. If he triumphs, as Galadriel said to Frodo after he had looked into her mirror “then we are laid bare to the Enemy.” But if Frodo succeeds in his mission “then our power is diminished, and Lothlórien will fade, and the tides of Time will sweep it away”.

I speak here of the ending of the time of the Elves in Middle-earth but what of Gondor? In what way will its end have come? Surely if Frodo succeeds in destroying the Ring then Sauron will fall and Gondor will triumph being free from its greatest foe forever?

The clue to understanding what Gandalf says to the guards lies in his reference to the Lord Denethor, the Steward of Gondor. “I must come to your Lord Denethor, while his stewardship lasts.” Gandalf is not prophesying the particular end to which Denethor will come on the day of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. It is the return of the king to which he alludes here. Aragorn, the Lord Elessar, is making his way to the city even as Gandalf speaks, and either he will fall with Gondor or he will claim its crown as its rightful lord. The Gondor that its people have known for many centuries will come to an end either in defeat or triumph.

The Return of the King, the final volume of The Lord of the Rings, is a story of endings and new beginnings. Of course there is the ending of the great evil, the shadow that has oppressed the peoples of Middle-earth for many long years. As Sam will ask as he wakes at the Field of Cormallen: “Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?” And one sadness has indeed “come untrue”, but not all that is sad. Lothlórien will fade as the power of the Three Elven Rings will fade with the destruction of the One Ring, and their keepers, Galadriel, Elrond and Gandalf, will depart from Middle-earth, and with them will depart the enchantment, the song that Sam felt himself to be a part of in Lothlórien, with which they enriched the world. The disenchanted world in which we live, the burden that we must bear, is in part the fruit of Frodo’s triumph. How much would the readers of Tolkien’s great tales wish to be able to walk into the enchanted lands of Lothlórien and Rivendell in the clear light of day even as Frodo and his companions were able to do, but all we can do is to catch glimpses of Faerie and to carry them in our hearts in the diminished world that is the one in which we live, learning perhaps the art of re-enchantment as we bring what we have glimpsed to the task of ordinary life, to find “heaven in ordinary”, as George Herbert puts it in his poem, Prayer.

And so too will the Gondor that its people have known pass away, and we will journey with its steward, in his sad attachment to what has long been passing away under his watch. We will see that not all will welcome the possibility of renewal but will reject it. But renewal will come, even though much will be lost, and some will embrace it, even while they bear the loss of much that was beautiful.

“I am a Hobbit and No More Valiant Than I am a Man, Save Perhaps Now and Again By Necessity.” Pippin Declares Himself to The Guard at The Walls of The Pelennor.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 732-733

In an unsafe world in which the arrival of strangers might mean the coming of threat and danger it is necessary that those strangers should declare themselves to the guards. So we remember Aragorn first declaring himself to Éomer in the fields of Rohan and then to Hama at the doors of Meduseld and how it was on these occasions that he first announced his mighty lineage. When times are urgent and haste is required then the bearer of a name has no time for modesty if that one is not to suffer let or hindrance.

When Gandalf comes to the defences of the Pelennor Fields he has no need to declare himself to the guards as they rebuild its walls. They know him and know that he has the favour of the Lord of Minas Tirith. But who is the small creature who sleeps before him upon Shadowfax?

At first Gandalf speaks for his companion.

“His name is Peregrin, a very valiant man.”

Why does Gandalf speak of Pippin in terms like this? We have accompanied Pippin on his journey from the Shire all the way to this moment, from the time when his journey was no more dangerous than a walking holiday to his arrival at Minas Tirith in time of war. We recall Gandalf’s anger in the guard room in Moria when Pippin dropped a stone into the well so that he could find out how deep it was.

“Fool of a Took!”

That was what he thought of the young hobbit then. And we remember his anger when he caught Pippin looking into the Stone of Orthanc. Yet now he declares Pippin a mighty warrior to Ingold and his men. Is he simply trying to speed his journey or merely flattering his young companion?

I would argue that Gandalf does neither, that he is doing the same before Ingold and his men as Aragorn did before Éomer and Hama. He is announcing Pippin before the men of Gondor, declaring him to be a worthy addition to their number. A mighty man of arms in whose faith and help his fellows can trust.

“He has passed through more battles and perils than you have, Ingold, though you be twice his height; and he comes now from the storming of Isengard”.

Pippin is not the same hobbit who began the journey in the Shire, nor even the one who could not help taking a look into the Stone of Orthanc. He has passed through his initiation, both when he seized his chance “with both hands”, as Gimli spoke approvingly of the moment when he used a fallen orc blade to cut his bonds when he was the prisoner of the Uruk-hai of Isengard; but also in the way he has dealt with the humiliation he suffered through the incident with the palantir. He neither indulges in self-pity nor in self-congratulation. He knows that he was foolish to look into the Stone and he was fortunate that Sauron did not choose to interrogate him further at the time.

So he shows in the manner with which he announces himself.

“I am a hobbit and no more valiant than I am a man, save perhaps now and again by necessity.”

He has an appropriate pride in himself. He is a hobbit and he feels no need either to boast or apologise for this. He simply looks Ingold in the eye as Aragorn did with Éomer and says, this is who I am. And as for being valiant he declares to him that if he is ever brave it is only when he needs to be. Ingold and his men honour the manner in which he has spoken to them. That he has looked them in the eye, face to face, neither with arrogance or shame.

“Fare you well! ” said Ingold; and the men made way for Shadowfax, and he passed through a narrow gate in the wall. “May you bring good counsel to Denethor in his need, and to us all, Mithrandir!”

“The Beacons of Gondor Are Alight, Calling for Aid. War is Kindled.” Gandalf Speaks of The Ancient Alliance of Gondor and Rohan.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 731-732

Following the events at the borders of Mordor that we read at the end of The Two Towers, with Frodo taken by orcs to the tower of Cirith Ungol and Sam shut out before its doors, we return to the ride of Gandalf and Pippin from the wreck of Isengard towards war in Gondor. Peter Jackson’s film gives the impression that this is some sort of punishment for Pippin following the incident in which he gazed into the Palantir of Orthanc and was seen by Sauron, and there is no doubt that part of Gandalf’s purpose in taking Pippin with him was to put as much distance as possible between Pippin and the Palantir; but Tolkien describes a more complex, even tender, relationship between the ancient wizard and the young hobbit. There is a sense in which Gandalf actually needs Pippin’s company as he approaches the great crisis of his time in Middle-earth. We remember Gandalf’s words to Merry as Théoden’s company rode from Isengard after its fall, “All Wizards should have a hobbit or two in their care- to teach them the meaning of the word, and to correct them”. (The Two Towers p.768) They were words half spoken in jest, but they hid a deeper truth. Gandalf lived a life devoted to the care of the peoples of Middle-earth, even having pity for the slaves of Sauron, but perhaps none of those people were more important to him than the people of the Shire, holding a special place in his heart. After all, none of the peoples of Middle-earth apart from hobbits knew of his skill as a maker of fireworks, and it was hobbits who taught him the pleasure of pipe smoking, an art that requires a measure of stillness if you are to practice it properly.

So, as they ride to war in Gondor, Pippin grounds Gandalf in the true purpose of their journey together. Not to achieve some great plan, some strategic action for a geopolitical end, but an act of mercy to bring succour to a beleaguered people in Minas Tirith. Bearing his ring of fire, Gandalf will warm the hearts of the defenders of the West in their greatest need, and Pippin will warm his heart.

Gandalf brings fire to Minas Tirith, but as they ride suddenly they see fire on the tops of the mountains of Anórien. Pippin is afraid, “are there dragons in this land?”

Gandalf replies with even greater urgency: “On, Shadowfax! We must hasten. Time is short. See! The beacons of Gondor are alight, calling for aid. War is kindled.”

It was in the year 2510 of the Third Age that Eorl the Young, Lord of the Rohirrim, made his great ride from the northern lands at the head of his men and won the Battle of the Field of Celebrant over a host of orcs and easterlings who had come from Sauron’s fortress of Dol Guldur in the south of Mirkwood to assail Gondor. After the battle Eorl met with Cirion, Steward of Gondor, at the secret tomb of Elendil and they swore an oath to one another. Cirion gave the fields of Calenardhon to Eorl and his people as a possession until the “Great King” should return, and for his part Eorl swore this oath:

“I vow in my own name and on behalf of the Éothéod of the North that between us and the Great People of the West there shall be friendship for ever: their enemies shall be our enemies, their need shall be our need, and whatsoever evil, or threat, or assault may come upon them we will aid them to the utmost end of our strength. This vow shall descend to my heirs, all such as may come after me in our new land, and let them keep it in faith unbroken, lest the Shadow fall upon them and they become accursed.” (Unfinished Tales by J.R.R Tolkien, George Allen and Unwin 1980 pp. 301-305)

The beacons of Gondor are lit before Gandalf and Pippin arrive in Minas Tirith, not as an accident but because of the order of Denethor, and Théoden will come “to the utmost end” of his strength, because he holds the oath of his ancestor to be sacred.

Gandalf has warmed the heart of the King of Rohan, enabling him to lead his people to a mighty victory over Saruman, and Théoden will come to Gondor’s aid. Now can Gandalf warm the heart of the people of Gondor to resist until aid comes to them?