Cirion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Upon One Form the Sunlight Fell. A Young Man Upon a White Horse”. Eorl the Young in the Hall of a Broken King.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp.660-668

The hall of the King of Rohan is an unhappy place. In Peter Jackson’s film, The Two Towers, this is effectively depicted by giving Edoras the sense that it is a barren place where nothing grows with a harsh wind sweeping through it. As Gandalf and his companions arrive at the doors of Meduseld they are met first with suspicion and are even refused entry. But at last word comes that they are to be permitted to enter and so they approach Théoden in his darkened hall.

Tolkien tells us that “The hall was long and wide and filled with shadows and half lights”. The travellers need a few moments to allow their eyes to adjust to the darkness within but as they do so they begin to see that “the pillars were richly carved, gleaming dully with gold and half-seen colours”.

This is the world within which the King of Rohan lives. A “half-seen” world. He spends his days seated upon a gilded chair, “a man so bent with age that he seemed almost a dwarf”. Théoden is a broken man, one so given to age that it feels as if there is no life left in him. It is a theme displayed within the Grail legend that when the King is wounded, robbed of life and of fruitfulness, the whole land becomes a desert, incapable of sustaining life.

One thing within the hall seems to break through this barren darkness.

“Many woven cloths were hung upon the walls, and over their wide spaces marched figures of ancient legend, some dim with years, some darkling in the shade. But upon one form the sunlight fell: a young man upon a white horse. He was blowing a great horn, and his yellow hair was flowing in the wind.”

This is Eorl the Young, the first King of Rohan, who rode out of the North at the head of his men to the aid of the armies of Gondor who were hard-pressed in battle upon the Field of Celebrant. After victory in the battle Eorl and Cirion, Steward of Gondor, swore oaths to one another at the tomb of Elendil upon the hallowed Hill of Halifirien. Cirion gave the plains of Calenardhon to Eorl and his descendents to be their land in perpetuity, swearing the same oath of alliance that Elendil had sworn to Gil-galad before they went to war with Sauron together at the end of the Second Age. Eorl promised that if ever Gondor were in great need again Rohan would ride to their aid “and whatsoever evil, or threat, or assault may come upon them we will aid them to the utmost end of our strength,”

It is this image upon which Théoden has to gaze from his chair from day to day. This image of youthful vigour and the story with which Théoden would have been raised from his youth stands in judgement over his aged and decrepit form and over the people who once rode to glory behind their lord and now sink into shame behind this dying king. It is Saruman who will name this shame. “What is the house of Eorl but a thatched barn where brigands drink in the reek, and their brats roll on the floor among the dogs?”

Théoden feels this shame deeply every day. At the end of his life when his body lies broken beneath his horse at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields he will name it, ” I go to my fathers. And even in their mighty company I shall not be ashamed. I felled the black serpent. A grim morn, and a glad day, and a golden sunset.”

Théoden lives in shame each day that he looks upon his mighty ancestors but although shame cripples the one who feels it shame is always hated. The one who feels it never comes to accept it. At any moment the one who feels shame can cry out in angry protest against it. No one, least of all the one who feels shame, can predict when this moment will come. Nor in the story that Tolkien tells can Wormtongue, the King’s chief counsellor, who is deliberately dragging Théoden into the misery and degradation that he now feels in order that he will not make effective resistance to Saruman in the war that now rages.