Éowyn of Rohan

“What Do You Fear, Lady?” Éowyn Knows What She Fears as She Seeks For What She Desires.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 765-767

In my last piece on this blog I touched on the words of Éowyn that I want to think more about this week.

“What do you fear, lady?” Aragorn asks her. And Éowyn replies:

“A cage,” she said. “To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.”

It is worth remembering here that The Lord of the Rings was published in the early 1950s and largely written during the late 30s and the 1940s. In other words before the modern women’s movement of the 1960s and beyond. The ideal world of a certain form of conservatism is one in which women largely remain in the home caring for their men and their children. It is one in which my mother had to give up her nursing career in England when she married in 1953. The modern nursing profession in England was created by Florence Nightingale in the mid 19th century and modelled upon a monastic style vocation in which women would give their entire life to nursing without the distraction of home and family. I remember my mother saying when she was particularly cross with the behaviour of myself and my four younger brothers and sisters, “If it were not for you I would be a matron (the senior nurse in an English hospital and a very powerful figure) now!”

So it is worth noting these words that Éowyn speaks in that particular context, the context of Tolkien’s world before the 1960s. She wants to go with the soldiers into battle. She tires of her responsibility as keeper of the hearth for the men until they return. Aragorn speaks truly when he reminds her that a deed that no-one notices is no less noble than one that is seen and praised by all. But Éowyn is no less true when she makes this reply.

“All your words are to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more.”

I do not want to think here about the question of whether the role of a women in either public affairs, (in Éowyn’s case, in the world of battle at a time of national crisis), or domestic affairs, (in Éowyn’s case, her responsibility to lead the women of her people as they watch over homes and families so that their men will have something to return to after battle is done), is more noble in one case than another. Clearly Aragorn is saying to her that her domestic role is just as honourable than any role that she might play in battle and in one sense that is true. The creation of an hospitable home is a wonderful thing as anyone who has experienced one will attest to and perhaps our deepest longing is to find rest within such a home after the trials of life. In Tolkien’s legendarium we might think of Rivendell as such a place, The Last Homely House, as Tolkien named it in The Hobbit. As Sam puts it when he and Frodo return there after their adventures for a brief stay, “We’ve been far and seen a deal, and yet I don’t think we’ve seen a better place than this.” (The Return of the King p. 964) There is a constant dialogue within The Lord of the Rings between deeds done beyond the domestic sphere and the places of shelter and hospitality within the story. Perhaps one comment that I might add is that the great places of hospitality are the shared responsibility of both women and men, of Arwen and Elrond, of Goldberry and Tom Bombadil, and at the end of the story of both Rosie Cotton and Sam Gamgee. And in the great battle of the Pelennor Fields great deeds are done, both by men and women, as we shall see.

But although Éowyn speaks bitterly about her feeling of being caged within one set of expectations and denied access to another, the most important thing she speaks of here is her own desire. And at this point in her story what she knows of herself is her fear. Her fear of living a caged life, and especially her fear of living within a degraded cage, “a thatched barn where brigands drink in the reek, and their brats roll on the floor among their dogs”. (The Fellowship of the King p. 849)

Éowyn knows what she fears. She also thinks that she knows what might free her from those fears as we shall consider in the next piece, but I would say that at this point she does not know what she truly wants, what she desires more deeply than anything else. But then for each one of us that is one of the hardest journeys of all. The journey into our hearts in order to discover what we truly desire.

“May I Not Now Spend My Life as I Will?” The Lady Éowyn Longs to Break Free From Her Cage.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 765-767

The journey that Aragorn takes with his friends and with the Dúnedain takes him from Edoras to Dunharrow where the Lady Éowyn greets them. She has taken the women and children of Edoras to the comparative safety of the stronghold high in the mountain valleys and there she has been fulfilling the task to which Théoden assigned her, to command the people in the absence of her uncle, the King, and her brother, Éomer.

Her first reaction on seeing the coming of the Dúnedain and the sons of Elrond is one of awe for never before in her life had she laid her eyes on “mightier men” than these. She wonders why they have arrived before the rest of the Rohirrim and when Aragorn tells her that he must depart after breaking his fast in the early morning she assumes that it was to see her that he has come in haste.

“It was kindly done, lord, to ride so many miles out of your way to bring tidings to Éowyn, and to speak with her in her exile.”

But it is not for this reason that Aragorn has come to Dunharrow although he courteously replies that such an errand would not be regarded as wasted by anyone. Aragorn has come to Dunharrow because the entrance to the Paths of the Dead lies close by.

Éowyn’s first reaction on hearing of Aragorn’s intent is one of horror. She has been raised on stories of the Paths of the Dead and of what lies beyond the door near Dunharrow that were intended to prevent any from attempting to pass them. She knows the story of Baldor, the son of Brego, the second king of Rohan, who stood at the feast that consecrated the Golden Hall of Meduseld and vowed that he would tread the Paths of the Dead; and she knows that Baldor never returned from that journey. All her people know the story and all hold the door that Baldor opened with dread.

But Éowyn has a desire that goes deeper than her fear of that path. She fears being left behind. And most of all she fears being left behind by a man who has captured her heart. For much of her life she has stood but a few feet away from the malicious whisperings of Wormtongue as he spoke them into Théoden’s ears and she had to watch her lord and her people as they declined into a pale shadow of what they had once been. I once wrote of how Théoden had to look upon the image of Eorl the Young, his mighty forefather and founder of the kingdom of Rohan, as he rode from the north to rescue Gondor at a time of need. We know that Théoden felt deep shame as he thought of the might of his ancestor and how at the moment of his death the thought uppermost in his mind was that because of the manner of his death in battle, doing what Eorl had done, riding to the aid of Gondor in their time of need, that he would be able to face him without shame. And Éowyn has looked upon Eorl herself and felt the same shame and she has felt the shame of her position, to be a servant to an old man, a decrepit king of a degraded people.

And now into her life has come this man. A son of kings surrounded by knights of whom she could only dream. Indeed she probably has dreamt of men like this, men so unlike those among whom she has grown up. Can we blame her for nursing a fantasy within her heart that this man might lift her high above all other women and might set her free.

“What do you fear, lady?” Aragorn asked her.

“A cage,” she said. “To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall and desire.”

Éowyn longs to break free from her cage, to spend her life, not as others command her, but as she will.

“May I not now spend my life as I will?”

We will be thinking about Éowyn and the story of her life over the next few pieces on this blog and we will think about Aragorn’s answer to her question in the next week, but perhaps we might want to begin with compassion. Compassion for the life that she has been forced to live behind the bars of her cage. And that is a good place to begin.