“Maybe It Was the Ring That Called to The Wraith-lord, and For a Moment He Was Troubled.” A Contest of Powers Within the Morgul Vale.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 730-734.

Travelling through Scotland and having forgotten my usual edition of The Two Towers I am grateful to my sister in law, Elinor Farquharson and her husband, Geoffrey, of Edinburgh, for the loan of their single volume edition of The Lord of the Rings.

The short time that the companions spend at the Cross-roads is one of poignant tension between hope and despair, between light and darkness, and Tolkien immediately draws our attention to this at the beginning of the chapter entitled, The Stairs of Cirith Ungol, as Frodo turns his back reluctantly on the West and his face towards the East and to darkness. Gollum leads Frodo and Sam towards the tower of Minas Morgul and up the first steps of a path that crawls upwards “into the blackness above”.

Frodo is exhausted, feeling the great burden of the Ring for the first time since he entered Ithilien, but perhaps there is another power at work. “Weariness and more than weariness oppressed him; it seemed as if a heavy spell was laid on his mind and body.”

All the way through this passage we are aware of many powers at work, sometimes it would seem in contest with one another. The Lord of Minas Morgul, the Witch King of Angmar, Lord of the Nazgûl, is a master of dark magic and he has wreathed the very air about his fastness with spells that rob any who might dare to venture towards it of the will and strength to continue their journey. Tolkien is not explicit about this but when he says that “it seemed as if a heavy spell was laid on his mind and body” there are dark powers at work here.

Perhaps if this were an ordinary day in the foul history of Minas Morgul it would not have been long before Frodo and Sam were discovered. But this is no ordinary day. It is the day upon which Sauron, filled with fear that one of his foes has taken possession of the Ring, sends forth an army to take possession of Minas Tirith, the greatest fortress of his enemies.

“So great an army had never issued from that vale since the days of Isildur’s might.”

And this great army and all the carefully choreographed terror that goes before it and which surrounds it achieves precisely an end for which it was never intended. So great is the energy of the powers both of Minas Morgul and of Barad-dûr that is poured into the departure of the army, an energy whose intention is to terrify the army of Gondor and to rob it of what courage remains to it, that for a brief moment the powers of the Morgul fortress are unaware of what is taking place beneath their very noses. The Ring of Power is passing the armies of Mordor borne by one whose intention it is to destroy it if he can.

And the Ring-bearer is almost caught. The Nazgûl Lord, the king who almost stabbed Frodo to the heart in the dell below Weathertop, pauses for a moment. “He was troubled, sensing some other power within his valley.”

He begins to reach out towards that power just as he did below Weathertop but unlike on that occasion when Frodo felt compelled to put on the Ring this time he is able to resist. He has a strength now that he did not possess before. Eventually this strength will tempt him to take possession of the Ring but now he knows that he does not yet have the power “to face the Morgul-king- not yet”.

That “not-yet” tells us that one day soon he will try to use the Ring, to become its lord, but now it works in Frodo’s favour.

And there is one more power at work. Frodo becomes aware that his hand is moving, unbidden, at least by him, towards the Ring, but as it does so it finds the star-glass of Galadriel, in which the light of the Silmaril, borne by Eärendil into the undying lands and set as a star in the heavens by Elbereth herself. His hand folds about it and the Witch King ceases from his search and moves on.

At this moment the power of the star glass is enough but what if the Witch King had given his entire attention to his search for the power that briefly he is aware is present in his valley? Would Frodo, even aided by the glass, even aided by the Ring, have had the strength to resist? But this test never takes place. It is an exquisite irony that so much has been put into the choreography of the departure of the army of Minas Morgul that the Witch King is distracted, just enough, from finding the very thing that has the power to destroy his lord.

“They Cannot Conquer For Ever!” Frodo Finds the Consolation of Nature and The Desolation of Darkness at The Cross-roads.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 915-919

The journey from the fragrant woodlands of Ithilien to the Cross-roads is marked by a growing sense of threat as, although it is only afternoon, a deepening darkness takes hold of the land, as if, as Sam puts it, the worst storm that ever was is about to break over their heads. The very ground beneath their feet begins to quiver as “a rolling and rumbling noise” is heard all about them.

Frodo descends into deep gloom.

“I’m afraid our journey is drawing to an end.”

The Cross-roads themselves are surrounded by ancient trees “of vast size, very ancient it seemed, and still towering high, though their tops were gaunt and broken, as if tempest and lightening-blast had swept across them, but had failed to kill them or shake their fathomless roots.”

On this occasion nature fails to give comfort to the hobbits. The trees seem to glower over them and as they stand at the Cross-roads and looks eastward towards the Morgul Vale Frodo is “filled with dread”.

But, at that moment, he turns westward as he becomes aware within the deepening gloom that a light is shining.

“Turning towards it, he saw, beyond an arch of boughs, the road to Osgiliath running almost as straight as a stretched ribbon down, down, into the West. There, far away, beyond sad Gondor now overwhelmed in shade, the Sun was sinking, finding at last the hem of the great slow-rolling pall of cloud, and falling in an ominous fire towards the yet unsullied Sea.”

The light of the setting sun falls upon the statue of a king at the centre of the Cross-roads and at first all the hobbits are aware of is the way in which orcs have desecrated it. The body of the king has been decapitated and its once proud head replaced by “a round rough-hewn stone, rudely painted by savage hands in the likeness of a grinning face with one large red eye in the midst of its forehead”.

But then in the last gleams of light cast by the setting sun Frodo sees the old head of the king lying by the side of the road and sees that it has been crowned again. Not this time with gold but a “trailing plant with flowers like small white stars had bound itself across the brows as if in reverence for the fallen king, and in the crevices of his stony hair yellow stonecrop gleamed”.

This is a moment in which both dread and hope are held together in utter poignancy. Briefly it is hope that rises in Frodo’s heart and he declares that “they cannot conquer for ever!” before the light is extinguished and it seems that they have been cast into everlasting night.

Which is more real? Are the last gleams of light that fall upon the crown of flowers more real than the darkness that follow them? We are reminded here of the words that St John writes as Judas goes out from the upper room to betray his lord and friend into the hands of his enemies. “And it was night”. Here too we see the struggle between light and dark playing out within a single moment and Tolkien surely alludes to the words of St John as he ends the chapter by saying that “the Sun dipped and vanished, and as if at the shuttering of a lamp, black night fell”.

It is hard not to feel the absolute triumph of darkness at this moment and yet too, the glimpse of hope in the refusal of life to allow the memory of the dignity of the king to be lost forever cannot be forgotten. This moment at the Cross-roads is one of the great moments in The Lord of the Rings. We think too of the crowing of the cockerell at the broken gates of Minas Tirith as day dawns and the sound of the horns of the Riders of Rohan is heard amidst the wreckage. The struggle between light and dark has to be fought within every human heart and the temptation to despair to be fought against, sometimes with every fibre of our being. It may not be his shout of defiance that carries Frodo onwards into his own struggle against the dark but neither is it forgotten as he shoulders his burden once more and marches into the very heart of the darkness. Frodo is not carried by lofty thoughts as he trudges eastward but neither does he give up. His own renunciation of despair is seen in every hard fought step that he takes.

“Around Them Lay Long Launds of Green Grass, Dappled with Celandine and Anemones, White and Blue, Now Folded for Sleep”. The Journey of Frodo and Sam to the Cross-Roads.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 910-915

I am going to make an assumption that Tolkien was not familiar with the work of the great Blues singer, Robert Johnson, and so did not know his classic song, Crossroad, even though the opening lines, “I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees… Asked the Lord above, “Have mercy now, save poor Bob if you please”, seems strangely apposite to Frodo’s situation and state of mind.

As we have been seeing in these last weeks, Tolkien does not allow Frodo and Sam the comfort that they would receive if they could share the same faith that he did, and yet it is clear that they live in a world that is under divine order. For although, as Gollum puts it, they are in “Dangerous places” where “Cruel peoples come this way, down from the Tower”, these same places are, for the time being, absolutely empty, as if they have been prepared for the hobbits to walk along them in complete safety. We have thought about the sequence of events that have led to this being so, but we have also thought about how the best explanation that Frodo and Sam might be able to give to this sequence is luck or wyrd.

Frodo and Sam have to make their journey without comfort or a sense that they are part of a story that is divinely governed. And yet they are not left entirely comfortless. We have seen the comfort that Frodo received through the unexpected friendship of Faramir that “turns evil to great good” and in the next reflection we will think about a particular incident that takes place on this journey at the Cross-roads. And as they make their fearful journey from Ithilien to the Cross-roads Tolkien shows us another form of comfort.

As they make their way Tolkien gives particular attention to the flora of the landscape about them.

“As the third stage of their day’s march drew on and afternoon waned, the forest opened out, and the trees became larger and more scattered. Great ilexes of huge girth stood dark and solemn in wide glades with here and there among them hoary ash-trees, and giant oaks just putting out their brown-green buds. About them lay long launds of green grass dappled with celandine and anemones, white and blue, now folded for sleep; and there were acres populous with the leaves of woodland hyacinths: already the their sleek bell-stems were thrusting through the mould.”

Anemone and celandine …

Tolkien gives us a rich account of what readers from England would recognise as a classical woodland landscape in spring time. He also treats us to the word, laund, that the Oxford English Dictionary tells us is an archaic word which “refers to an open, grassy area, especially in a woodland, like a glade or a lawn.” It also tells us that the word is now rarely used. I have made a decision, based upon reading this passage, to use the word whenever I come across such a place. I would never have known about it if Tolkien had not used it here and I feel that my imagination has just been enriched by it.

I recently went on a long country walk through that went, in part, through the kind of woodland scene that Tolkien describes here. The walk took me down to the banks of the River Severn at this point and I saw a profusion of celandine and wood anemone in the launds about me. I took the walk in the last days of March, near the Feast of the Annunciation on the 25th March, the date upon which the Ring goes into the Fire and Sauron falls into nothingness. Spring has come a little earlier here upon the marches of Gondor, but we know that this land lies more under the influence of a Mediterranean type of climate than does England itself and so the flowers that I saw would come a little earlier there. We know too, that these woods lie higher in the mountains than my woodland walk down by the river. And for me there was the added pleasure of having known the farmer, of old Worcestershire stock, who had chosen to set aside this area on his land for wildlife. As he had proudly shown me round his farm just as he was about to hand it over to his son, he spoke of his decision to set a part of it aside as a wildlife reserve. I knew that he was too shrewd a businessman not to receive financial reward for his actions but on the day I walked through these woods I just remembered him with thanksgiving and affection.

My walk through these spring time woods was rich with a feast of sight, sound and smell. The trees had not yet turned green (is this why Tolkien refers to them as “dark and solemn”?) but this allowed the ground underneath them access to sunlight and the spring flowers to proliferate. I felt as if I had stepped into heaven. Did Tolkien feel the same way on spring time walks? Did Frodo feel the same way on his walk to the Cross-roads?

“Luck Served You There; but You Seized Your Chance With Both Hands One Might Say.” Some more thoughts on the empty Morgul Vale that Frodo and Sam will walk through.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 908-909

In my last post we thought about the chain of events that lead to the strange fact that the road from Ithilien into Mordor is empty at just the very moment in which Frodo and Sam need to walk down it. Instead of companies of orcs and other allies of Mordor constantly travelling up and down it, the road in the Morgul Vale is left free for two hobbits and their guide to walk along it unhindered.

The quotation that I have chosen for this piece does not come from the passage that I am thinking about here but from the chapter entitled Flotsam and Jetsam when Merry and Pippin tell the story of their adventures to Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli amidst the wreck of Isengard after it has been destroyed by the Ents. Pippin tells his companions how, by ,means of a fallen orc blade, he was able to cut the rope that his wrists had been bound by . Gimli responds to this approvingly.

“The cutting of the bands on your wrists, that was smart work!” said Gimli. “Luck served you there; but you seized your luck with both hands, one might say.”

In his study on the thought of J.R.R Tolkien, Tom Shippey considers the role of luck within The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R Tolkien, Author of The Century, Harper Collins 2001, pp. 143-147). Shippey tackles the assertion of some of Tolkien’s critics that his story is full of “biased fortune” and so cannot be taken seriously. In speaking of Gollum’s fall into the fires of Mount Doom that destroys the Ring, Shippey argues that “it is clearly not just an accident” but the direct, if unintended consequence, of many conscious choices. The word that Shippey chooses for this is the Old English word, wyrd, a word that both Shippey and Tolkien knew because both of them held the same chair at Oxford University in Philology, the study of language. Modern readers of English will, of course, immediately recognise the similarity between this Old English word and the modern word, weird. They might also note, with some sadness, the way in which a language that once had the capacity to express human experience with great subtlety has turned the words that were able to do this into banalities.

The Old English word that Gimli might have used when he spoke of Pippin’s luck might well have been wyrd. It would have meant something that had happened, something over which Pippin had no control, such as the sudden and unexpected availability of a sharp blade that Pippin was able to use and to change his fortunes. The same thing might be said about Bilbo’s finding of the Ring. The same thing could be certainly be said of the sudden emptying of the roads into Mordor. In every one of these cases luck, or wyrd, serves those who are able to take advantage of these happenings. But Pippin, Bilbo and then Frodo and Sam, each have to take seize their luck, to take advantage of it.

Frodo had to leave the relative security of the refuge of Henneth Annûn and put his trust in a treacherous guide who would eventually betray him. In walking down the Morgul Vale and then climbing the stair to Cirith Ungol he made his way directly into Shelob’s Lair and was poisoned by her. He only entered Mordor on the backs of orcs and his journey thereafter to Orodruin was one of unrelenting agony as the Ring that he bore slowly but inevitably wore down his resistance to its malignant power. By the time he reached the Cracks of Doom he had no strength left to resist it. At the end he needed an enemy to enable him to fulfil his mission and this enemy did so by biting off his finger. If after all this Gimli were to say to him that he seized his luck with both hands then Frodo might well reply that Gimli had a poor idea of luck. Frodo would be right but then so too would be Gimli. This luck truly opened the way to the mountain and it took the Ring into the Fire. But in seizing it Frodo had to pay a terrible price. He could never find peace again in Middle-earth.

“A Waiting Silence Broods Above the Nameless Land.” All is Prepared for Frodo to Enter Mordor.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 908-909

It was at the end of their sojourn in Lothlórien that the Fellowship was addressed by Galadriel on the matter of the journey that they were about to resume.

“Sleep in peace! Do not trouble your hearts overmuch with thought of the road tonight. Maybe the paths that you each shall tread are already laid before your feet, though you do not see them.”

Some of the Fellowship seem to do as Galadriel bids them. We hear little report of anxious thought on the part of Merry and Pippin although they both regard the journey to Mordor as folly and wish to go to Minas Tirith. And apart from declaring their intention to go with Frodo to the end neither Legolas or Gimli say anything of their preference for the road ahead. Sam, of course, will go with Frodo wherever he goes but shrewdly guesses that Frodo will cross the Anduin to fulfil the mission that was given him by the Council in Rivendell. “He knows he’s got to find the Cracks of Doom, if he can. But he’s afraid.” Boromir wants Frodo to come to Minas Tirith, at least that is what he has long said to himself until at last he is confronted by the truth within his heart that he desires to possess the Ring itself. And Aragorn is torn between his desire to go to the city that he believes to be his destiny while knowing that since the fall of Gandalf in Moria he has to guide Frodo the best he can.

The events that befall them all at Parth Galen throw all their plans into disarray. Boromir’s treachery and the attack by the orcs of Isengard sends Frodo across the river to the Emyn Muil fleeing from Boromir and he is only just caught by Sam before he does so. Merry and Pippin are taken prisoner by the orcs and are carried across the plains of Rohan before escaping into Fangorn Forest just in time to meet Treebeard the Ent. Aragorn realises that he can do little more for Frodo and decides to follow the orcs and their prisoners and Legolas and Gimli go with him. Boromir falls trying to defend Merry and Pippin and seeking to right his own wrong. And, of course, there is one other character who does not so much think but is driven by desire for the Ring and that is Gollum and he follows Frodo. Soon, much against both of their wills they will become companions upon the journey.

I will leave my readers to ponder the paths that each of the characters will take after the chaos of the breaking of the Fellowship but we can assert that none of them quite expected that they were to follow the paths laid before them in quite the manner in which they did. As small stones that begin an avalanche Merry and Pippin awaken the anger of the Ents and bring about the fall of Isengard. Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli meet Gandalf in Fangorn, liberate Théoden, King of Rohan, from bondage, and he leads his people to victory over Saruman and then to the relief of the siege of Gondor at the Pelennor Fields.

And, perhaps most unplanned for and most unexpected, Sauron becomes convinced that one of his enemies possesses the Ring and will try to use it against him. He sees Pippin in the Palantir of Orthanc, something that was no-one’s plan, and assumes that this is the hobbit who bears the Ring and that he is a prisoner within that fortress. And then Aragorn chooses to reveal himself to Sauron in the Palantir as the heir of Isildur and wrests control of the stone that is rightfully his from Sauron.

We must assume that Sauron is deeply shaken by his encounter with Aragorn. Until this point he has used the palahtiri to dominate others, both Saruman, who he wins to his side, and Denethor, who he leads to despair, although never treachery. Now he is defeated in a battle of wills by the heir of the one who cut the Ring from his finger. He needs to move quickly and decisively and so he prepares an attack upon Minas Tirith from the stronghold of Minas Morgul to be commanded by his most deadly of captains, the Witch King of Angmar, the Lord in the Nazgûl. All his forces are withdrawn either into Minas Morgul or directed to the Black Gate (the Morannon) in the north of Mordor. As Faramir says, “My scouts and watchers have all returned, even some that have crept within sight of the Morannon. They all find a strange thing. The land is empty. Nothing is on the road, and no sound of foot, or horn, or bowstring is anywhere to be heard. A waiting silence broods above the Nameless Land.”

It is as if everything has been arranged with the exact purpose of allowing Frodo to walk into that land unhindered. We will think more about this next week. Now we know that Frodo has to take full advantage of the opportunity that has been given to him.

“I Looked For no Such Friendship as You Have Shown. To Have Found it Turns Evil to Great Good.” The Redeeming Friendship of Frodo and Faramir.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 908-909

Friendship is one of the great themes of The Lord of the Rings. Friendship mattered deeply to Tolkien as he had known close friendship in his younger years and then lost those friends in the slaughterhouse of the trenches of the Great War of 1914-18. Early in Frodo’s perilous journey from the Shire came a moment in the cottage of Crickhollow when his friends revealed to him that they knew that he was leaving the Shire and that he was in danger. At first Frodo was dismayed. He had intended to go alone with Sam and in secret. But then Merry replied:

“You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin- to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours- closer than you keep it yourself. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo.”

And later in the story, Gandalf defended the right of Merry and Pippin to go with the Fellowship of the Ring from Rivendell.

“It is true that if these hobbits understood the danger, they would not dare to go. But they would still wish to go, or wish that they had dared, and be shamed and unhappy. I think, Elrond, that in this matter it would be well to trust rather to their friendship than to great wisdom.”

Of course, Gandalf might have reminded Elrond of his own words at the conclusion of the Council when Elrond recognised that Frodo, the hobbit, had been chosen by a Power greater than his own to carry the Ring to Mordor. It was Elrond who saw that this was “the hour of the Shire-folk” but maybe he did not grasp the true extent of what he had recognised. Maybe he did not see that it was the strength that lies within and above such things as pity, mercy and friendship that would, in words that he himself spoke, “shake the towers and counsels of the great”.

But it is in the very nature of such things as friendship that they have a fragility, a vulnerability, that do not belong to such things as power and control. In his famous treatise on leadership, The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote, “It may be more pleasant to be loved than feared, but it is safer to be feared than loved.” Every lord in Tolkien’s story would understand the truth of those words, even Elrond, and it was in the breaking of trust by Boromir when he tried to take the Ring from Frodo that Frodo’s heart was broken. It was a brokenhearted Frodo who met with Faramir in Ithilien and who learned that this man was not only a mighty captain of Gondor but also Boromir’s brother. Frodo was quickly drawn to this man and longed to put his trust in him but the memory of Boromir’s face transfigured by desire for the Ring was too fresh a memory. It was only Sam’s mistake in revealing that Frodo carries the Ring of Power that both made Frodo terribly vulnerable once more but also allowed Faramir to show his nobility and utter trustworthiness.

So it is that when Frodo bids Faramir farewell as he begins his journey to Mordor once more that he says to his new friend: “It was said to me by Elrond Halfelven that I should find friendship upon the way, secret and unlooked for. Certainly I looked for no such friendship as you have shown, To have found it turns evil to great good.”

After Boromir’s betrayal of friendship at the breaking of the Fellowship Frodo attempted to make his journey to Mordor alone and, unwillingly, he had to make three bonds of trust of varying kinds along the way. First he found that he could not go without Sam and it is this friendship that will carry him all the way to Mount Doom. Secondly, he found that he has to trust a guide who would eventually betray him and he knows this to be his fate. But third he would form a deep bond with the brother of the man who betrayed his trust. This is the great evil to which Frodo referred in the words he spoke to Faramir and this is the great good to which that evil is turned. That Frodo will begin the last stage of his journey with the friendship of Faramir in his heart and not the betrayal of Boromir will give him a strength that he will need throughout the terrible ordeal that awaits him.

“Do Not Go to Cirith Ungol!” Some Further Thoughts on an Impossible Decision.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 904-907

I have read this passage from The Lord of the Rings many times over the last fifty years or so and I don’t think I ever quite realised before the pivotal role that it plays in the whole story. Frodo has come to trust Faramir and here this noble figure is offering him safety and the chance to be free completely of the malicious character that is Gollum.

Tolkien reflected on this in a letter that he wrote to Michael Straight early in 1956, replying to a number of questions that Straight had asked him before writing a review for New Republic and he did so in terms of the 6th petition of The Lords Prayer, “Lead us not into temptation”. (The Letters of J.R.R Tolkien Harper Collins 2006 pp. 232-237).

Tolkien compared this petition with the 7th, “But deliver us from evil” and commented that the 6th is both harder and less often considered. Tolkien writes that “the ‘salvation’ of the world and Frodo’s own salvation is achieved by his previous pity and forgiveness of injury. At any point any prudent person would have told Frodo that Gollum would certainly betray him, and could rob him in the end. To ‘pity’ him, to forbear to kill him, was a piece of folly, or a mystical belief in the ultimate value-in-itself of pity and generosity even if disastrous in the world of time”.

So, when Faramir, the “prudent person” says to Frodo that if he chooses to abandon Gollum he will have Gollum escorted to any point on the borders of Gondor that Gollum might name, Frodo replies “I have promised many times to take him under my protection and to go where he led.” Frodo cannot break faith even though it is folly to keep it. Utter folly.

See how Kryztov Marczak imagines the chaos in Shelob’s Lair below the Tower of Cirith Ungol. The path that Frodo must take.

As we saw last week Frodo goes through with Faramir the options that are available to him. To return to the Black Gate is simply impossible and there is no-one apart from Gollum who could guide him into Mordor. And what of returning with Faramir to Minas Tirith?

“Would you have me come to Gondor with this Thing, the Thing that drove your brother mad with desire? What spell would it work in Minas Tirith? Shall there be two cities of Minas Morgul, grinning at each other across a dead land filled with rottenness?”

At the last Faramir respondes with the only words upon which both he and Frodo can agree completely.

“It is a hard doom and a hopeless errand.”

But Faramir hopes, beyond hope, that one day he and Frodo might sit “by a wall in the sun, laughing at old grief”. The thought is a tender one and one can only hope that both Frodo and Faramir were comforted from time to time by it on the hard roads that each of them were to take in the weeks ahead, roads that were to take both of them to the verge of death and then to new life beyond them. The Lord of the Rings does not recount these happy conversations but in other writings Tolkien speaks of times like this and we can only hope that the two heroes were able to enjoy one another’s company in this way.

Both Frodo and Faramir have to make choices that are folly. Faramir allows Frodo to go free, bearing the Ring of Power, in the company of a treacherous guide, into Mordor itself. His father cannot forgive him for this and we must think that he dies unreconciled with his son. Frodo goes on with Gollum and is betrayed by him in Shelob’s Lair in Cirith Ungol and attacked and wounded by him in the Cracks of Doom; and Frodo has to live in the knowledge that at the end he did not have the strength to cast away the Ring and was only saved by Gollum’s attack. But both make their choice in freedom in Henneth Annûn. As Tolkien reflected in his letter to Michael Straight, Frodo’s choice (and we must add, Faramir’s also) is a “piece of folly”. But Tolkien also opens the possibility that Frodo’s decision not to kill, or even abandon, Gollum has a mystical quality to it. This quality comes from the belief that any act of goodness has meaning in eternity “even if disastrous in the world of time”. In The Lord of the Rings this eternal quality breaks into the story at the moment when Gollum takes the Ring into the Fire to unmake it. In the stories in which we live we cannot tell what consequences our own choices for goodness will have. Perhaps we will only see disaster in the world of time but we are called to choose the good anyway and to trust.

“Frodo, I Think You Do Very Unwisely in This… I Do Not Think You Should Go With This Creature. It is Wicked.” Frodo and the Wisdom of Unwisdom.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 902-907

When I first sought for a title for this blog and all that I am trying to achieve in reading and rereading The Lord of the Rings at this point in my life I decided to call it Wisdom From The Lord of the Rings because that is what I was looking for. And when I first began to write it twelve years ago I never thought that one day I would be writing about unwisdom and that I would be doing so approvingly. You, my dear readers, must judge if I am right to do so and whether you think that Frodo is right to do as he chooses to do here or whether, with Sam, you will sigh audibly when Frodo declares to Faramir that he will take Sméagol under his protection and that he will go with him to Mordor.

“Frodo, I think that you do very unwisely in this,” said Faramir. “I do not think you should go with this creature. It is wicked.”

“No, not altogether wicked,” said Frodo.

“Not wholly, perhaps,” said Faramir, “but malice eats it like a canker, and the evil is growing. He will lead you to no good.”

And Faramir is right. Gollum has told him that he intends to lead Frodo and Sam into Mordor by way of the pass of Cirith Ungol, or cleft of the spider, and that there is “no other way”. And we know that in that place Gollum will betray Frodo and hand him over to Shelob, deadliest of the children of Ungoliant, a malicious and monstrous spirit in spider form who, long ago, had aided Morgoth in the destruction of the trees of light and in the theft of the silmarils of Fëanor.

Gollum will lead Frodo to no good because he intends to regain the Ring from him and he will not rest until he has done so. We know that and Frodo knows it too. He does not know exactly how Gollum will seek to do him harm but he knows that he intends to do so.

So Denethor is right to call this a fool’s hope when he learns of what his son has done in setting Frodo free and not bringing the Ring to Minas Tirith. Faramir’s action is an act of foolishness and so is Frodo’s. It is utter foolishness to go to Mordor carrying the Ring of Power into the very heart of the Enemy’s power. It is foolishness to entrust the task to a “witless halfling”. And before we leap to Frodo’s defence here and speak of his wisdom we might recall that when Frodo asked Gandalf why he had been chosen for this task and not another, Gandalf replied to him:

“You may be sure that it was not for any merit that others do not possess: not for power or wisdom at any rate. But you have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.”

Faramir tells Frodo that he does not think that Gandalf, the wise one, would have made the choice that Frodo makes. But even Gandalf has never entered Mordor but only Sauron’s lesser fortress of Dol Guldur. There is no guide that Frodo could possibly choose to take him into Mordor than Gollum and Gollum will only take him there because of his desire for the Ring and it is almost certain that Gollum will betray him.

If wisdom means making the best choice among all available options then surely we must say here that no such choice exists. Faramir cannot think of one and neither could the Council in Rivendell. Frodo must give himself up to a wisdom that is so unwise that maybe the Wise would be incapable of doing it. Maybe this is why all the other members of the Fellowship are given other work to do, absolutely necessary work without which Frodo could never accomplish his mission.

Gandalf did come closest to the unwisdom that Frodo now chooses back in the study at Bag End when he spoke about Gollum.

“My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end…”

Gandalf, more than anyone else in the whole story, knows that there is a Power at work in the story that does not work primarily through the wisdom of making the right choice among available options but a wisdom of such things as Pity. Frodo will make his choice through this wisdom. It will almost cost him his life. It will certainly cost him the possibility of a happy retirement in the Shire among those who love him. But it is through this unwise choice that Middle-earth will be saved.

“I Declare You Free in The Realm of Gondor to The Furthest of its Ancient Bounds.” Why Does Faramir Set Frodo Free?

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 902-904

Why does Faramir set Frodo free? Why does he allow him to leave, carrying the Ring with him, to go into Mordor? It is almost certain that he is sending Frodo to his death and it is just as certain that the Ring will be taken from him and that the Dark Lord will regain it.

Later in the story Denethor, Faramir’s father and Steward of Gondor, will ask the same question. Why did his son allow this witless halfling to go free? For Denethor, this angry question is bound up with his grief over the loss of Boromir. Why did Boromir go to Rivendell and not Faramir? Why was it that Boromir fell and not Faramir? If Boromir had been in command at Henneth Annûn Frodo would not have gone free. Boromir would have brought his father “a mighty gift”.

Denethor has his own understanding of why Faramir acted as he did. Faramir is living in some private fantasy. He imagines himself reenacting the life of one of the ancient kings of Gondor, lordly in his condescension, being able to act in this manner because he has the power to do so. He suspects that Gandalf has something to do with this and accuses Faramir of being a wizard’s pupil. Boromir had not fallen under Gandalf’s spell.

Is Denethor’s accusation true? Is Faramir acting out some private fantasy in which he is the hero? Is he merely a Don Quixote who has spent too long immersed in chivalric tales to the point that he has come to imagine himself still living within them.

Actually, Faramir has immersed himself in the stories of the past. I do not know if he knows the tale of Beren and Lúthien and how they went together into the very heart of darkness in order to take a silmaril from the iron crown of Morgoth. Aragorn knows this story and told a part of it to Frodo and his companions just before they were attacked by Nazgûl below Weathertop. Indeed the story of Beren and Lúthien matters deeply to Aragorn because it is the story of the love of an elf-maiden and a man and he is living within the same story in his love for Arwen.

We do not know precisely what stories Faramir lives in but they are stories that have led him to regard Gondor as “full of light, high and fair, beautiful as a queen among other queens: not a mistress of slaves, nay, not even a kind mistress of willing slaves”.

And Denethor lives inside stories too. But his stories are of a kingdom in decline from its former glory, a kingdom that stands alone in the world against overwhelming and malignant power. It is this story that he has passed onto Boromir but not Faramir. At the Council of Elrond Boromir told this story to those gathered there with great pride. He identified himself completely with it. He was the hero in that story and this was the story that he told to Frodo just before he tried to take the Ring from him, imagining himself as the captain of mighty armies driving all his foes before him, wielding the Ring of Power.

Denethor’s stories lead him to despair. Boromir’s stories lead him to try and take the Ring by force from Frodo. And Faramir’s stories lead him to set Frodo free to go into Mordor on a hopeless mission.

We all live within stories and we all have to choose which ones we will live in. If we believe we live in a world of objective facts that we are able to stand apart from as a clear eyed observer then this is our story. In this regard we are closest in spirit to Denethor. He tried to gather facts, using the palantir, the seeing stone of Orthanc, in order to do so, not knowing that Sauron controlled what “facts” he was able to see. We might liken this to our own belief that our chosen media platform is able to give us the facts that we need in order to make our own clear eyed decisions. Faramir’s stories lead him to hope against hope, to do the impossible thing, to let Frodo go free to complete his mission and to free the world from a very great evil.

“There are Locked Doors and Closed Windows in Your Mind, and Dark Rooms Behind Them… But in This I Judge That You Speak The Truth.” Faramir and Gollum in Henneth Annûn.

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

When Sauron interrogated Gollum in Barad-dûr he found to his surprise that there was an inner strength within this pathetic creature that he was unable to break. By means of his tortures he was able, at last, to learn of Baggins and the Shire but he was never able to open the “locked doors and closed windows” in Gollum’s mind or to enter “the dark rooms behind them”.

In the end Sauron deemed that he had learned all that he needed to know and that there was not enough of significance that might dwell within those dark rooms for him to continue his interrogation and so he released him. He even thought that Gollum’s malice might even be of some small use to him in the future. Little did he know that Gollum would eventually bring about his downfall.

Sauron would never acknowledge or accept that Faramir had an advantage that he, in his wisdom, had abandoned long ago. When Faramir, with Frodo’s unhappy assistance, was able to capture Gollum alive in the forbidden pool beneath Henneth Annûn he needed to find out what Gollum knew.

“Do you know the name of this place? Have you been here before?”

If Gollum was unable or unwilling to answer these questions in a satisfactory fashion Faramir would have either to kill him or to bring him captive back to Minas Tirith. No one unless they were judged to be trustworthy could know of the existence of this refuge within Ithilien. The very survival of Faramir and his men depended upon its location remaining a complete secret.

“Slowly Gollum raised his eyes and looked unwillingly into Faramir’s. All light went out of them, and they stared bleak and pale for a moment into the clear unwavering eyes of the man of Gondor. There was a still silence. Then Gollum dropped his head and shrank down, until he was squatting on the floor shivering. ‘We doesn’t know and we doesn’t want to know,’ he whimpered. ‘Never came here; never come again,'”

It is enough. Faramir has learned all that he needs to know. And he has learned this because,wholly unlike Sauron, he is a man of truth.

“I would not snare even an orc with a falsehood,” Faramir had declared to Frodo the previous day when he questioned the hobbit before his men. Faramir speaks the truth and he has an unwavering commitment to the truth and so he recognises truth and he recognises falsehood when he hears them.

We might think that Sauron was seeking for truth when he questioned Gollum in Barad-dûr. He wanted to know what the connection was between Gollum and the Ring and he wanted to know where the Ring might be found. Surely these are both expressions of truth? But Sauron has come to believe that no-one can be trusted unless they fear him and unless they fear the consequences of betrayal more than the consequences of loyalty. The servants of Sauron may have little love, if any, for their master, but they believe that his triumph is inevitable and they want to be on the winning side.

Faramir’s servants also fear his power but they love him too, knowing that he would lay down his life for them. They know that he has not separated truth from goodness and beauty. When he says that he would not even snare an orc with a falsehood they know that he speaks the truth and that he would never be false to them either. And he will not be false to Gollum. Does Gollum recognise this? Does he see anything different in Faramir that he did not see in Sauron? Probably not. For Gollum, his heart twisted by five hundred years possession of the Ring, there is only power, but at this moment the power that Faramir possesses is tempered by a love of truth, beauty and goodness and that makes all the difference.