Durin's Bane

“Do You Not Know Death When You See It?” In Which We Learn That Gandalf Does Not Dear Death But That The Morgul Lord Does Fear It.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 809-811

Pippin runs bravely down to the gate of Minas Tirith, down into the heart of the battle, in search of Gandalf and looking for aid in his attempt to save the life of Faramir from his father’s madness; but when he reaches the gate he shrinks in terror, cowering into a shadow. For what he sees is the Morgul Lord, the Witch-King of Angmar, the Lord of the Nazgûl, revealed in all his power, riding through the broken gate of the city.

“In rode the Lord of the Nazgûl. A great black shape against the fires beyond he loomed up, grown to a vast menace of despair. In rode the Lord of the Nazgûl, under the archway that no enemy ever yet had passed, and all fled before his face.”

Pippin is terrified. And rightly so, for he stands in mortal danger. Even the bravest of the soldiers of Gondor flee before the face of this terrible being. But one stands in defiance of him. Gandalf, seated upon Shadowfax, does not flee.

Those who know The Lord of the Rings through Peter Jackson’s films know that this scene does not appear in Jackson’s telling of the story. When the gates are broken by the mighty blows of Grond the battle continues as orcs flood through the shattered defences. In the Director’s Cut there is a scene, almost a peripheral one, in which the Morgul Lord shatters Gandalf’s staff, a scene in which Gandalf appears almost as a broken old man before the horns of Rohan sound and the Witch-King is distracted from what is presented as an inevitable victory over his foe.

But this is not how Tolkien presents the scene and I would like to offer my thoughts here as to why this is.

As we have already seen, there is no sense in which Tolkien seeks to diminish the power of the Lord of the Nazgûl at this moment. He intends us to see him as Pippin does, clothed in a power that he did not display in the camp below Weathertop when he struck the blow that wounded Frodo, or at the Fords of Bruinen when he was almost able to capture Frodo and the Ring, but was defeated by Glorfindel before whom he had once fled in one of the great battles of the Third Age at the end of his kingdom of Angmar, and by the magic of Elrond in the rising of the waters there. There we saw that his power was limited, but here, surely, we see that nothing can stand before him. Not even Gandalf.

The Morgul Lord is sure of this, even when Gandalf tells him that he cannot enter the city and commands him to “Go back!” And so he responds.

“Old fool!” he said. “Old fool! This is my hour. Do you not know Death when you see it? Die now and curse in vain!” And with that he lifted up his sword and the flames ran down the blade.

This is the moment of power that Peter Jackson showed in the Director’s Cut. Gandalf as the old fool, powerless before death in all its terror, his staff shattered as the Witch-king raises his sword. But there is something that the Morgul Lord does not know, cannot know, and that is that Gandalf does know death. He passed through death at the end of his battle with Durin’s Bane, with the Balrog of Moria. There at the end of that terrible struggle on the mountain top Gandalf said that “darkness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads that I will not tell.”

Gandalf knows death. As Gandalf the Grey he died in battle against a mighty foe. But he was “sent back- for a brief time until my task is done.” And Eru Ilúvatar sends him back with a task to be completed. Gandalf does not fear death because he has already passed through it and he knows the mission that he must and will complete.

But the Witch-King does not know death. But we know that he fears it even as he serves it, believing death to have the ultimate power. This is why in his speech he gives Death a capital letter. We know this because it was because of this fear that he first accepted the Ring of Power from the hand of Sauron, believing that through his Ring he might escape Death for ever. He has devoted his entire existence to the service of Death and so he has become a wraith. When Gandalf commands him to fall “into the nothingness that awaits you and your Master”, Gandalf speaks words of doom, for soon he will fall in the battle at the hands of a woman and a hobbit.

“But He is No Fool; And I Will Not Think of Dying Until He Despairs of Life.” Further Thoughts on Despair and Hope From Peregrin Took.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 806-807

In my title I speak of Pippin’s thoughts, but these are not really deep reflections offered in a leisurely symposium. Pippin is not really inclined to such a thing, and anyway, he doesn’t have the time. Denethor is about to kill both himself and Faramir and the city is under attack from the Enemy.

So, what we see here is the true Pippin. Pippin presented to us as an image created by just a few simple brushstrokes, by the bare essentials of his Pippin-ness. Pippin when he doesn’t have the time to try to be something.

We have noted that it is the task of a true captain to show us whether we are being faithful or not. And the true captain has discerned what we need to be faithful to, whether it is to what is good, or beautiful, or true, or whether it is merely to our self-interest, that is, what am I going to get out of this?

In 1943, the German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, wrote a deep reflection on this question that he sent to two friends and co-workers in the resistance to the Nazi regime just before he was arrested and then imprisoned in a military prison in Berlin. Later on, after his death at the hands of the Gestapo in 1945, these thoughts were published as After Ten Years (Nach Zehn Jahre). It is a short essay full of profound wisdom, and perhaps its heart is expressed in a simple question that he posed.

“The ultimate question for one who lives responsibly to ask is not how are we to extricate ourselves heroically from the affair, but how the coming generation is to live.”

Now, as I said, Pippin is not a philosopher. We would not go to him to ask ourselves what the really important questions are that we should ask. But Pippin wants to know that his captains have thought about the important questions and that the answers they have found are good ones. And what I mean by good answers is not that they are clever answers but that the world that such answers is able to describe is good, that it is a world in which my children and all the children of the world will be able to live life in all its fulness.

And so, while Pippin offered his service to Denethor because he wanted to offer some act of grateful thanks to Boromir, his heart is given in service to Gandalf, to Aragorn and to Faramir, because he trusts them, because they call him to the best version of himself, to a faithful Peregrin Took.

This is what he tries to say to Denethor when the Lord of the City tells him to “die in what way seems best to you”.

“I will not say farewell, my lord,” said Pippin kneeling. And then suddenly hobbit-like once more, he stood up and looked the old man in the eyes. “I will take your leave, sir,” he said; “for I want to see Gandalf very much indeed. But he is no fool; and I will not think of dying until he despairs of life.”

For Pippin has already seen Gandalf in a moment of extreme peril. He has seen Gandalf on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm standing before Durin’s Bane and denying him passage. He has seen the wizard fall into the abyss of Moria beneath the bridge and heard him cry, Fly you fools! He knows that at the moment of extreme peril Gandalf was not thinking of himself but of the mission that he was prepared to give his life to. Gandalf did not despair as he fell from the bridge and so Pippin is sure that he will not despair now. Soon we will see Gandalf as he seeks to deny the Morgul Lord, the Chief of the Nazgûl, entry into the city, and we will know that at this critical moment it will be the Gandalf who pities even the slaves of Sauron and desires their welfare who will be standing there immoveable. This is the captain that Pippin wants to see now, the leader who calls him to his very best, one who can give him something worth dying and living for, one in whose service even the last moment would be to live life in all its fulness.

“I Will Not Walk Blindfold, Like a Beggar or a Prisoner”. The Sadness of a Divided World is Shown in the Beauty of Lothlórien.

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The Fellowship of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 332-340

After crossing the Nimrodel the Fellowship meet Elves of Lothlórien for the first time. Haldir, Rúmil and Orophin are guards upon the border and perform their duty conscientiously. In the night a company of orcs cross the stream so it is well that the Company are safe amid the high branches of a mallorn tree and in the morning they begin their journey further into the enchanted wood.

But here the story stumbles as if it has been plunged into darkness, for here the elven guards insist that one of the Fellowship must be blindfolded. Gimli the Dwarf cannot look upon the ways into Lothlórien.

“I will not walk blindfold, like a beggar or a prisoner,” he complains. “And I am no spy. My people have never had dealings with any of the servants of the Enemy. Neither have we done any harm to the Elves. I am no more likely to betray you than Legolas, or any other of my companions.”

That Gimli speaks the truth regarding his own heart there is no doubt but sadly there is much of the history of his people and the Elves that he leaves unsaid. In the tales of the Elder Days there are many sad stories of betrayal and readers of The Hobbit will remember how Legolas’s father, Thranduil of the Woodland Realm in the north of Mirkwood, imprisoned the company of Thorin Oakenshield among whose number was Gimli’s father, Gloín. They will then remember how Thorin, at first, refused to share any of the wealth of the Lonely Mountain following the fall of Smaug the Dragon and how with Dain Ironfoot of the Iron Hills he was prepared to go to war with Thranduil’s people in order to defend it.

But perhaps most sad of all was the history of Moria. We have seen how at one time there was close friendship between Durin’s people and the Noldor of Hollin, the people of Celebrimbor, how the gates of Moria could be opened by a simple expression of friendship but then how this golden age came to a terrible end first through Sauron’s betrayal of Celebrimbor who he had pretended to befriend in order to learn the lore of making rings of power and then through the disturbing of the Balrog hiding in the depths of Moria who slew Durin and drove his people from their home.

The tale of the peoples who dwelt east of the Misty Mountains during the long story of the rise of Sauron, first in Dol Guldur in the south of Mirkwood and then in Mordor, is one of a retreat behind defences. Such defences were necessary. We saw the company of orcs cross Nimrodel in search of the Fellowship and defence needed to be made against them and every land had to act in much the same way but what happened behind each fence was that the world beyond it became at first unknown and then suspect, even dangerous. So Celeborn of Lórien warns against Fangorn Forest while the people of Rohan know Lothlórien as Dwimordene, the place of phantoms. And for the Galadhrim, the tree people of Lothlórien, the dwarves who awoke the Balrog of Moria are most suspect of all.

Haldir, who has travelled on missions for his Lord and Lady puts it best of all.

“In nothing is the power of the Dark Lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all who still oppose him. Yet so little faith and trust do we find now in the world beyond Lothlórien, unless maybe in Rivendell, that we dare not by our own trust endanger our land.”

At the last Aragorn agrees that all the Fellowship will walk blindfold into Lórien so that Gimli is not singled out as a possible threat to its security. Gimli is now prepared to laugh as if this all a merry jest but all feel the sadness of being prisoners amid such loveliness.

“You Cannot Pass.” Gandalf Confronts The Balrog at The Bridge of Khazad-dûm.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp.310-323

At the end of their journey through Moria the Company are pursued by orcs and trolls and then, worst of all, by a Balrog, one of the most terrible servants of Morgoth, a survivor of the Elder Days, that had hid from the wrath of the Valar in the depths of the Misty Mountains until it was disturbed by dwarves delving ever deeper in search of mithril in the Mines of Moria. For this is Durin’s Bane. This is why the dwarves have always failed to return to their ancient kingdom and why Balin and his companions had finally fallen after early success in their attempt to regain their ancestral home.

Not knowing the true identity of his foe Gandalf has attempted to turn back its power and has exhausted himself in the process. Now he stands alone on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm knowing that unless he overthrows his enemy the Quest of the Ring and the lives of all the Fellowship are at an end.

“The Balrog reached the bridge. Gandalf stood in the middle of the span, leaning on the staff in his left hand, but in his other hand Glamdring gleamed cold and white. His enemy halted again, facing him, and the shadow about it reached out like two vast wings. It raised the whip, and the thongs whined and cracked. Fire came from its nostrils. But Gandalf stood firm.”

It is at this moment of crisis, of deepest need, that Gandalf reaches down into the innermost depths of his being, of his soul, there to find his true self.

“‘You cannot pass,’ he said. The orcs stood still, and a dead silence fell. ‘I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass.'”

Those who are careful readers of Tolkien will have become used to certain aspects of his style as a writer. Things such as the way that he uses capital letters in certain nouns and his use of exclamation marks. They will notice that the sentence, “You cannot pass”, does not end with an exclamation mark neither at the moment when Gandalf first speaks to the Balrog nor when he repeats these words. In other words Gandalf does not shout. This is not a challenge of a warrior to his foe. It is a simple statement of reality.

The reality is that of the world in which Gandalf and the Balrog both stand. The Balrog is, even in its terrible power, a creature of the shadow, not of the flame in whose light all the works of evil are no more than shadow, even its fire. In his excellent study of the spiritual vision of J.R.R Tolkien, Stratford Caldecott describes the Secret Fire, “the flame of Anor” as “Tolkien’s term for the distinctive creative power of Eru. It is God’s ‘secret’, for only God can truly create ex nihilo (from nothing). For Tolkien the fire represents life, love and creativity, the wisdom and love of God that burns at the heart of the world and sustains it in existence- it is a willed emanation from the creative energy of God’s own self; it is the life of God shared with the world” (Secret Fire by Stratford Caldecott, Darton, Longman and Todd, 2003, p107).

This is what Gandalf serves, what Morgoth lusted after in order to possess for himself but could never attain except as a gift freely offered by Eru to all who, like Gandalf, offer their lives in free service to him. Morgoth and his terrible servants, like the Balrog and like Sauron himself, could never possess the fire because they could never serve. The fire that they wield is mere shadow and it is to the Shadow that Durin’s Bane must return. It cannot pass.

Tolkien expresses this wonderfully as the Balrog responds to Gandalf’s words. “The fire in it seemed to die, but the darkness grew.” And so begins their mighty struggle upon the Bridge of Khazad-dûm to which I will return next week.