Gandalf

“That is Shadowfax. He is The Chief of The Mearas, Lords of Horses”. Gandalf Must Reach Edoras Swiftly.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 657-659

Aragorn need do no more choosing. At least not for a while. Gandalf has bidden him not to regret the choice that he made in the valley of the Emyn Muil and to go to Edoras and to Théoden in his hall where he is needed.

“The light of Andúril must now be uncovered in the battle for which it has so long waited.”

And so on the edge of the forest and the plains of Rohan Gandalf gives a long whistle, “clear and piercing” and soon the companions hear the whinny of a horse and soon the sound of hooves also.

“There are three,” said Legolas, gazing over the plain. “See how they run! There is Hasufel, and there is my friend Arod beside him! But there is another that strides ahead: a very great horse. I have not seen his like before.”

Readers will remember how, on the night before they had entered Fangorn in search of Merry and Pippin, Saruman had come to the camp in search of news of what had happened to the band of orcs that he had sent in search of the Fellowship and of hobbits in particular. He chased Arod and Hasufel away but soon Legolas and Gimli heard a sound that mystified them. They had expected to hear the cries of frightened horses but heard joy instead. For what they heard was their horses meeting Shadowfax, their lord.

“That is Shadowfax,” said Gandalf. “He is the chief of the Mearas , lords of horses, and not even Théoden, King of Rohan, has ever looked on a better. Does he not shine like silver, and run as swiftly as a swift stream?”

Gandalf first met Shadowfax after he escaped from his captivity in Isengard, borne by Gwaihir, lord of eagles, to Edoras. Gandalf had tried to warn Théoden about Saruman but he was not listened to. Théoden told Gandalf to choose a horse and to depart and Gandalf chose Shadowfax who had never been ridden before.

The Rohirrim had long had a close relationship to horses, closer than any other people in Middle-earth. Tolkien based this people upon the English who dwelt in this land before the Norman conquest of 1066. The language that he created for them was closest to Old English, a language that he taught in Oxford. But Tolkien gave the Rohirrim something that the ancient people of England never had, a mastery of horses. For although the warrior elite of England could ride the mass of the people who would make up the army in time of war could not. The army of England was essentially an infantry force and in 1066 it had to fight two battles against invading forces. The first against Harold Hadrada of Norway was fought at Stamford Bridge in the north of England and the second, just a few days later, was fought against a Norman army under William the Conquerer near Hastings on the south coast. The Normans won the battle decisively and William became king. Tolkien believed that the imposition of the French language as the language of the new rulers of England and the relegation of English to the language of the peasantry destroyed the indigenous mythology of England. He also believed that a key factor in the English defeat was the lack of any effective cavalry in the English army and the use of cavalry by the Normans. As a consequence he not only gave horses to the Rohirrim but built an entire culture around this. The Rohirrim were the horse lords.

I know little about horses myself but have long admired them and I live in an area of England with a strong tradition of horse riding and horse racing. I spent many hours watching my daughters learn to ride as they grew up and observed the bond that can develop between horse and rider at close quarters. This bond is very deep indeed between Gandalf and Shadowfax. We see him ask permission of him and Arod and Hasufel to carry the four companions to Edoras.

“Gandalf caressed him. ‘It is a long way from Rivendell, my friend,’ he said, ‘but you are wise and swift and come at need. Far let us ride now together, and part not in this world again!’

“I Have Spoken Words of Hope. But Only of Hope. Hope is Not Victory.” Gandalf Looks to The Future.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 652,653

The moment is about to come when Gandalf will lead Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli to Edoras and to Meduseld, Théoden’s golden hall in the realm of Rohan. At that moment the story will leap forward once again even as Gandalf and the three companions leap forward borne by Shadowfax and the horses that ran from the camp on the night before Aragorn and his friends entered Fangorn. But just before this great leap there has been a pause, a drawing of breath, as Gandalf speaks of how things stand at this point in the story. And there is also the conclusion of a theme that has run through the story ever since he fell in Moria in the battle at the bridge of Khazad-dûm.

Aragorn speaks to his grief-stricken companions.

It was Aragorn who spoke then to his grief-stricken companions.

“Farewell, Gandalf!” he cried. “Did I not say to you: if you pass the doors of Moria, beware? Alas that I spoke true! What hope have we without you?”

And then he added words that would both drive him on yet hang around his neck like the mariner’s albatross in Coleridge’s great poem:

“We must do without hope,” he said. “At least we may be avenged. Let us gird ourselves and weep no more! Come! We have a long road, and much to do.”

To do without hope. To carry on without any sense that at the end of the long road there will be a completion of the taskdone. To carry on because that is what must be done and for no other reason.

And step by step, from the emergence of the Fellowship from the dark of Moria “beyond hope under the sky” until the reunion “beyond all hope” in the forest of Fangorn Aragorn has journeyed hopelessly.

Now hope is restored. Surely with Gandalf beside them once more there is hope they will triumph. But Gandalf speaks once again of their hope of victory.

“I have spoken words of hope. But only of hope. Hope is not victory. War is upon us and all our friends, a war in which only the use of the Ring could give us surety of victory. It fills me with great sorrow and great fear: for much shall be destroyed and all may be lost. I am Gandalf, Gandalf the White, but Black is mightier still.”

To follow a road hopelessly is a courageous act for it is to do what must be done simply because the deed is right and not for any sense that a reward of some kind might lie at the road’s ending. We might compare the way in which Aragorn and his companions journey onward from Moria to the journey that Thorin Oakenshield and his company make to the Lonely Mountain in Tolkien’s The Hobbit. There, we might say, a part of what sustains hope upon the journey is simply not to think too much about its end, upon the dragon that must be faced and overcome. The dwarves and their hobbit companion go from obstacle to obstacle thinking of nothing more than how to deal with each one as it comes until at the secret door into the mountain Thorin informs Bilbo that the time has come for him to do his job without any sense of how this is to be accomplished. Hope of treasure certainly drives them forward but in another sense they also travel without hope because hope of success lies too close to fear of failure and death in the flames of Smaug. It is best not to think either of success or failure.

Aragorn has also put aside all thoughts of triumph or disaster, only focusing on whether the deed is just or not. But now Gandalf is returned and his hope rekindled. Gandalf does not counsel that they should do without hope. Indeed he tells Legolas that he should go “where he must go and hope”. But he warns them that hope is not victory.

I am reminded of the grim and rather frightening deputy head at my school who, when he would lead prayers at the start of the day, would do so with these words of St Ignatius Loyola. They seem to have been written in very much the same spirit that Gandalf displays here.

“Lord Jesus, teach us to serve you as you deserve. To give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to labour and not to seek for rest, to give and not to seek for any reward save that of knowing that we do your will.”

“The Choice Was Just and It Has Been Rewarded”. Why Did Aragorn Choose to Pursue Merry and Pippin?

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 646-653

When Aragorn chose, with Legolas and Gimli, not to follow Frodo and Sam but to go across Rohan in pursuit of the orc band that had taken Merry and Pippin to Isengard it was a brave choice but also one of despair. When he had set out from Rivendell with the rest of the Fellowship his purpose was to fulfil his destiny. Through all that was to lie ahead of him, whether war in Minas Tirith or a journey with the Ringbearer to the Cracks of Doom, he would claim the throne, both of Gondor and Arnor, and he would claim Arwen, daughter of Elrond, to be his bride. For Elrond had told him that only the king, both of Gondor and Arnor, could marry his daughter.

Perhaps it was always a desperate hope but, step by step, he was determined to pursue his hope right to the very end. But then Gandalf fell in battle against the Balrog in Moria and his hope was dashed. Not even when Galadriel gave him the green stone of his ancestors, borne by Eärendil himself was his hope truly rekindled. Not even when she said: “Take the name that was foretold for you, Elessar, the Elfstone of the house of Elendil!”

So it was that when the Company was attacked at Parth Galen and Boromir fell and Merry and Pippin seized by orcs Aragorn chose to pursue them. Until that moment he had felt that he had two choices. Either he would go with Boromir to Minas Tirith and play his part in the defence of the city or he would go with Frodo to Mordor and there to do all he could to try to destroy the Ring. He felt in his heart that it was his duty to go with Frodo, especially after the fall of Gandalf, but that same heart longed to go to Gondor where his destiny lay.

All this was taken from him at Parth Galen. Boromir fell in battle seeking to defend Merry and Pippin and Frodo set out for Mordor taking Sam with him. What little hope remained to him that he might yet fulfil his destiny was taken from him. What lay ahead was what he knew was a fruitless task. He would pursue the orc band that had taken the young hobbits across the plains of Rohan and probably die in an attempt to free them. The pursuit took him to the Forest of Fangorn where he even wondered whether he might starve to death alongside the companions that he had tried to rescue.

And then he met Gandalf in the very place in which he expected to die beyond all hope. On the one hand he is filled with joy as hope is rekindled. On the other hand he wonders what the vain pursuit of Merry and Pippin was for.

Gandalf speaks to him.

“Come, Aragorn son of Arathorn!” he said. “Do not regret your choice in the valley of the Emyn Muil, nor call it a vain pursuit. You chose amid doubts the path that seemed right: the choice was just and it has been rewarded. For so we met in time, who otherwise might have met too late.”

Aragorn chose a path that that was utterly alien in nature to the dark forces ranged against him. For they saw all things and all creatures as objects merely to be used for their own purposes. This was true from Sauron and Saruman right down to the meanest of orcs. He chose to lay down his life, his dreams and deepest longings, in the service of two figures that seemed to be of little more value than lost luggage. Gandalf describes the choice as just. Aragorn acted justly in choosing to serve the weak. And he speaks of reward. He speaks of a sense that reality itself rewards such choices. Sauron and Saruman would dismiss such talk as mere sentimental drivel and typical of the weakness of people like Gandalf, a weakness that deserved to be swept away. Gandalf, and Aragorn too, have placed their bets upon an entirely different reality. They believe in a universe that is just; not an impersonal even an implacable thing. And, says Gandalf, the choice is rewarded. The universe approves an act of justice and of mercy.

“The Enemy Has Failed- so Far. Thanks to Saruman.” What Does Gandalf Mean?

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp.646-650

The treason of Isengard is one of the saddest stories within all that makes up The Lord of the Rings. One who was chosen by the Valar to rouse the peoples of Middle-earth against Sauron chooses to turn against them and to side with the very power against whom he was sent to fight.

Gandalf has been giving Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli a briefing on the state of affairs in the War of the Ring at this point in the story when he has been reunited with them in Fangorn Forest. He has spoken of how Sauron has no conception of the possibility that his enemies might want to destroy the Ring, being convinced that one of them will seize control of it and use it against him. With this conviction he is concentrating upon attack rather than defence. “If he had used all his power to guard Mordor, so that none could enter, and bent all his guile to the hunting of the Ring, then indeed hope would have faded: neither Ring nor bearer could long have eluded him.”

But what Sauron believes is that it will take time even for the most able of his enemies to learn how to wield the power of the Ring in a way that could ensure victory over him. Gollum, and then Bilbo later, possessed and used the Ring, but neither were able to do much more with it than to make themselves invisible. As Frodo draws nearer to Mordor he begins to become more aware of the Ring’s power threatening to use that power against Gollum in order to frighten him into co-operation, but compared to what Sauron could achieve if he were to regain possession of the Ring this is very small.

Because of this Sauron believes that he has a window of opportunity to strike a blow against his foes that will be strong enough to defeat them. His main goal is to capture Minas Tirith, the capital of Gondor and that is where the main part of his attention is focussed. Surely this is the reason why he sent only a small company of orcs to waylay the Fellowship and not a more significant force. His concern would have been that any larger company would have attracted the attention of his enemies and he did not yet have enough control over the territory between Mordor and the Anduin to fight a battle far from home.

So Grishnákh’s force that took part in the attack upon the Fellowship was not particularly large, and disastrously for Sauron, not large enough to force Uglúk’s Uruk-hai to go to Barad-dûr instead of Isengard.

“Already he knows that the messengers that he sent to waylay the Company have failed again. They have not found the Ring. Neither have they brought away any hobbits as hostages. Had they done even so much as that, it would have been a heavy blow to us, and it might have been fatal. But let us not darken our hearts by imagining the trial of their gentle loyalty in the Dark Tower. For the Enemy has failed- so far. Thanks to Saruman.”

Gimli is confused by Gandalf’s words, wondering if what he means by them is that Saruman is not a traitor, but what Gandalf means is that Saruman is not only a traitor to the Valar and the free peoples of Middle-earth but also to Sauron. Saruman wants the Ring for his own purposes. He wishes to become lord of Middle-earth. But he too has failed to seize the Ring. He too has not even been able to capture hobbits. All that he has managed to achieve is, as Gandalf puts it, “to bring Merry and Pippin with marvellous speed, and in the nick of time, to Fangorn, where otherwise they would never come at all.”

What Saruman has achieved by attempting to seize the Ring for himself is to make Sauron aware of his treachery. At this point of the story Sauron fears that it might be Saruman who has seized the Ring. Time and again irony has a big part to play within The Lord of the Rings. An action that is meant to do harm turns out to achieve the opposite of its intention. It might even be that irony is not merely a kind of chance event but is woven into the very fabric of reality.

“Gandalf! Beyond all Hope You Return to Us in Our Need!”

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 640-645

This is a wonderful piece to write on Tolkien Reading Day, the day on which the Tolkien Society encourage us to read favourite passages from his work. This is one of my favourite passages and I would love to hear from you in the Comments below about the passages that you choose to read this day. Of course, Tolkien would have marked this day in his own life by going to Mass to celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation, the news from the angel to Mary that she would conceive and bear a child who would be the Saviour of the World. He meant us to weave together in our minds the downfall of Sauron and this good news.

As Aragorn and his companions enter the Forest of Fangorn in search of Merry and Pippin, following the same stream that the young hobbits had two days before, Gimli becomes aware that their task is practically impossible. They have insufficient supplies to do more than starve with the young hobbits even if they find them.

“If that is indeed all that we can do, then we must do that,” said Aragorn. “Let us go on.”

Aragorn has been aware of the impossibility of their task since its beginning. It was Éomer who commented that Aragorn must know little of orcs if he hunted them in the fashion that he did. Aragorn knew that it was unlikely that he would catch up with the orc band and if they did they would likely perish in the attempt to rescue their friends. And even before this he had little hope. “We must do without hope,” he said to the Fellowship immediately after the fall of Gandalf at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm and ever since that moment Aragorn has gone on in a state of grim despair until this moment when he knows that it is likely that he has come to Fangorn to die.

The three companions climb the same rock shelf upon which Merry and Pippin met Treebeard two days before and it is from there that they see an old man moving through the woods below them. At first they are convinced that this must be Saruman until the wonderful moment of revelation and of recognition comes.

“”Mithrandir!” Legolas cries out in joy, firing an arrow into the air that bursts into flames as it flies. “Gandalf!” cries Aragorn “Beyond all hope you return to us in our need!”

This moment of revelation, of a renewing of hope, is one of many that come through the story, each one enabling the members of the Fellowship to take the next steps towards the completion, the fulfilment of their journey, until Gollum takes the Ring to the Fire and Sauron falls at last on March 25th in the year 3018 of the Third Age of Arda.

This moment is, as Gandalf says to the three hunters, a turning of the tide. “The great storm is coming,” he says, “but the tide has turned.” And from this point onwards, although Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli will face many dangers they will face each one with a flame of hope burning in their hearts. The return of Gandalf is one of the great moments of eucatastrophe, “when the sudden ‘turn’ comes we get a piercing glimpse of joy, and hearts desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rents indeed the very web of story, and lets a gleam come through.”

These thoughts came from a lecture that Tolkien gave in Oxford in 1938 that he entitled, On Fairy-Stories. In the lecture Tolkien explicitly linked the “sudden ‘turn'” with the Christian Story, the story that he convinced C.S Lewis is “the true myth”, the story that means that all the glimpses of joy that we experience in the reading of fairy-stories and the great myths are not mere wishful thinking but true. All point to the birth of Christ, the moment about which the angel spoke to Mary, as the eucatastrophe of the history of humankind.

Tolkien never wrote explicitly about this in his own stories. He allowed the glimpse of joy as in this moment of joyful revelation when Gandalf is restored to his friends to do its own work in the hearts of his readers, leading all of them towards the true myth to which all myth bears witness.

“It is Old, Very Old,” Said The Elf. Legolas In The Forest of Fangorn.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 639, 640

A few years ago I was taking the road through the Savernake Forest on a regular basis as I drove down to Salisbury in the county of Wiltshire in England to see my mother in the last days of her life. In England, when you see the name, Forest, attached to a particular place it will often mean an area of land set apart for hunting by the Norman conquerors of this land nearly a thousand years ago and so, for example, the New Forest in the south of England was new when the Normans first came in the 11th century but it is old now. Savernake Forest is of a similar age and standing by the side of the road is a an ancient oak tree that first took root around the time that William the Conqueror first established his realm here.

As Legolas enters the Forest of Fangorn with his companions, Aragorn and Gimli, in search of Merry and Pippin, it is the oldness of the forest that he feels.

‘”It is old, very old,” said the Elf. “So old that I almost feel young again, as I have not felt since I journeyed with you children. It is old and full of memory. I could have been happy here, if I had come in days of peace.”‘

It is this quality of oldness that can cause us to reassess our place in the scheme of things. I have sometimes seen this in the relationship between an old man and a young boy, a grandfather and grandson, noting the particular quality of attentiveness that they give to one another. Perhaps my favourite literary relationships are between old men and young boys, Dumbledore and Harry Potter, Merlin and the young Arthur, Gandalf and Frodo, teachers and eager pupils. And it is possible to make a relationship with a particular tree as well. I remember once taking shelter in woodland on a stormy day and finding great comfort in the presence of an ancient tree that stood so confidently as its branches swayed in the wind. I still go to seek out that tree from time to time just to feel its strength and feel the need to do so, once again, even as I write this.

And then there are certain places that have the capacity, somehow, to hold you because of their age. Old churches can have such a capacity. A memory that still holds me is of walking with my father through spring woodland on our way to church when I was a small boy. It is the memory of the presence of my father, a rare treat, the bluebell covered woodland floor, and the particular beauty of the church, at least as I saw it then, that has this quality of holding. I picked bluebells to give to my mother on my way home. No one had ever told me not to pick wild flowers and so I did so in complete innocence. The day was perfect.

Early memories of old churches also mean singing Evensong according to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England. I will join a congregation in an ancient country parish church this Sunday evening for the same service and anticipate happily the same quality of inner quiet that I found back then as a small boy with my treble voice. My personal copy of the Prayerbook was given me by my grandmother, who was born in reign of Queen Victoria, and who held my elder daughter on her lap in the last year of her life. If my daughter lives to a similar age that will mean almost two centuries of the life of our family connected in that moment by just two lives. That thought too has the capability of holding me if I pay attention to it

.

It is this quality of being held, of being young again in the presence of great age, of the feeling of safety, of rootedness in something much greater than oneself that Legolas feels as he enters the Forest of Fangorn even amid the seeming impossibility of finding Merry and Pippin and so Gimli is comforted too.

“This Old Man Had a Hat Not a Hood.” Who Did The Three Hunters See Under The Eaves of Fangorn?

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp.573-577

Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli have found the site of the battle between the Riders of Rohan and the Orc band who had taken Merry and Pippin but they have found no sign of the hobbits themselves. Now before they continue their search they decide to make camp for the night right under the eaves of an ancient chestnut tree. They build a fire taking care not to cut wood from any living tree but only that which they can gather from the ground about them.

As they rest by their fire they ponder the journey that lies before them, a journey that is likely to take them into the forest itself.

“Celeborn warned us not to go far into Fangorn,” Legolas says. “Do you know why, Aragorn?”

But Aragorn knows little of the forest save that it is old, “as old as the forest by the Barrow-downs, and it is far greater. Elrond says that the two are akin, the last strongholds of the mighty woods of the Elder Days, in which the Firstborn roamed while Men still slept. Yet Fangorn holds some secret of its own. What it is I do not know.”

The journeys of The Lord of the Rings sometimes lead under the ground, such as the journey through Moria, the Paths of the Dead under the White Mountains between Rohan and Gondor and the path through Shelob’s Lair that passes under the mountains that surround Mordor. Each of these paths hide a deadly peril. The Balrog lurks in the depths of Moria; the Dead haunt the paths under the White Mountains; and Shelob lies in wait for any that might pass through her lair under the mountains of Mordor. All who pass through these dark ways will come to an end of themselves in some way and emerge the other side as different from the self that first entered in.

But the journeys through forests are different in nature. In these journeys a secret is encountered. The hobbits encounter Tom Bombadil in the Old Forest, a strange and delightful wonder. In Lothlórien, the Golden Wood, the Fellowship meet the Lady of the Wood, Galadriel. And in Fangorn Forest Merry and Pippin meet Treebeard, the oldest of the Ents, the Onodrim of which Legolas speaks by the campfire. Each forest is alive, not just as the aggregation of many things, many separate trees and other plants, but as an intelligence that holds all the separate parts together and which is expressed in the secret life hidden therein.

The night passes and Gimli is on watch by the fire when something happens that awakens all three. Or perhaps I should say that two things happen. An old man “wrapped in a great cloak” is seen standing in the firelight but who disappears when challenged by Aragorn. And the other thing is that the horses run off at the same moment.

Gimli is convinced that the old man is Saruman and that he has driven their horses away. He is partly correct in this. The following day the companions will meet Gandalf in the forest. It is one of the great moments of the story. Gimli will ask Gandalf if it was him or Saruman who he had seen by the fire and Gandalf will reassure him that he was not there so it was likely to have been Saruman; that Saruman had not been able to wait for his orcs to bring him the hobbits and with the hobbits the greatest prize of all, the One Ring. But it was not Saruman who drove away the horses. The following morning Aragorn will remark to the others that the horses did not sound as if they were fleeing in terror and Legolas will reply that “they spoke as horses will when they meet a friend that they have long missed.” The friend, as we will learn later, is Shadowfax, the greatest of horses who has drawn near to Fangorn in order to await Gandalf. If the companions knew this they would not have to worry about their horses. As Galadriel told them their paths are laid out before their feet and all they need do is to walk the paths in trust.

“There Are Some Things That it is Better to Begin Than to Refuse, Even Though the End May be Dark.” Aragorn Ponders The Fate of The Young Hobbits.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 571-573

With some misgivings expressed by his company, Eomer gives three horses to Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli. Or I should say that he gives two, because Gimli refuses the offer, feeling no more at ease on the back of a horse than Sam Gamgee felt in the Elven boats of Lothlórien. Aragorn is asked to promise that he will return the horses to Meduseld, the golden hall of the King of Rohan and this he promises to do. After that the three hunters follow the orc trail until they come to the eaves of Fangorn Forest.

There they find the scene of the battle a great burning of the orc host, the burial mound for the fifteen members of Eomer’s company, but no sign of the hobbits. Eomer has told them that only orcs were burned but Gimli is sure that the hobbits must have been among them.

“It will be hard news for Frodo, if he lives to hear it; and hard to for the old hobbit who waits in Rivendell. Elrond was against their coming.”

“But Gandalf was not,” said Legolas.

“But Gandalf chose to come himself, and he was the first to be lost,” answered Gimli. “His foresight failed him.”

Gimli bases his judgement regarding the wisdom of a choice upon one thing only; whether the choice leads to a successful outcome. Gandalf fell in Moria at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm in the battle against the Balrog. Gimli fears that Merry and Pippin have fallen in the battle under the eaves of Fangorn Forest. Gandalf chose to accompany the Fellowship on its mission to destroy the Ring. Gandalf persuaded Elrond to allow the young hobbits to be a part of their company and it seems that they too are lost. Gimli is clear that Gandalf’s wisdom failed him as did his foresight.

To be fair to Gimli, Merry and Pippin feel the same way about the wisdom of their desire to go with Frodo and Sam. At least they feel that way while they are prisoners of the orcs. “I wish Gandalf had never persuaded Elrond to let us come,” says Merry. And who can blame him for feeling that way while he is trussed up like a piece of baggage and carried by his orc captors.

But Aragorn thinks differently. He too tried to persuade Gandalf not to go to Moria because he had a foreboding that something would befall Gandalf there. We are not told what he thought about Merry and Pippin going with the Company. His first impression of them, based upon his encounter with the hobbits at the Prancing Pony in Bree, had not been encouraging. But his respect for them grows on the journey to Rivendell as he realises that they are made of sterner stuff than he first thought. But he recognises that there are reasons for choices that outweigh any considerations the success or otherwise of the venture. Friendship is one of them. Merry and Pippin simply could not abandon Frodo and Sam just as Gimli could not abandon Legolas, just as they could not abandon the young hobbits.

The other reason is Aragorn’s own choice to go with the Fellowship. He must fulfil his destiny as the heir of Eärendil, as the heir of Isildur. Either he will succeed, thus becoming King of Gondor and of Arnor and winning the hand of Arwen, or he will fall in the attempt and be the last of his line. He can refuse the attempt but to do so will be to refuse hope both for himself and for the free peoples of Middle-earth. Like Denethor later he would have to accept that “the West has failed”. He does not know whether he will succeed or not. Indeed after the fall of Gandalf he has very little hope that he will. But he must go on, perhaps with failure the only outcome.

“The counsel of Gandalf was not founded on foreknowledge of safety, for himself or others… There are things that it is better to begin than to refuse, even though the end may be dark.”

“From the First my Heart Misgave Me”. Gandalf, and Tolkien too, only gradually begin to understand the meaning of the the Ring.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) p.245

When I thought to spend a few weeks reflecting upon themes from The Fellowship of the Ring over the summer before continuing with The Two Towers in September I did not expect to spend much of the time writing about Gandalf; but so it has proved. Maybe I should not have been surprised. When Elrond asks Gandalf to speak at the Council in Rivendell he introduces him by saying, “in all this matter he has been the chief”.

I wrote a few weeks ago about how Gandalf loved to play in order to find some rest from his labours and how the Shire became especially important to him to allow him to do this. We saw how this desire for play proves to be utterly crucial in the history of Middle-earth. We recall that when Tolkien’s publishers first asked him for “more about hobbits” after the success of The Hobbit that he first regarded the request as an annoying interruption to what he regarded as his life’s work, the history that his son Christopher would eventually edit and publish as The Silmarillion. It was only with time that it began to dawn upon him that the ring that Bilbo found in the depths of the Misty Mountains and put to such good and, might one say, playful use, might be prove critical to the resolution of the history of the Third Age.

As Gandalf puts it to the Council what began as a little more than a misgiving began to turn to dread. The thing that Bilbo had in his possession, that he regarded as little more than something useful in case awkward relatives like the Sackville Baggins came to call, was indeed the Ring of Power that Sauron had lost in the great battle at the end of the Second Age and for which he was now seeking in order to complete his conquest of Middle-earth.

Gandalf’s misgiving that turned to dread moved hobbits from a pleasant distraction on the fringes of his life onto the centre stage. When he reflects upon what he can discern of the big story, of the purposes of the divine, of Illuvatar in Arda, he tells Frodo that first Bilbo and then himself were meant to have the Ring. This is a statement of incredible importance. I use the word, incredible, in its essential meaning, as speaking of something that is hard, almost impossible, to believe. If the divine mind were to entrust the Ring to anyone for safekeeping surely a hobbit would be the last person chosen. Even hobbits are not, in themselves, a completely reliable choice. After all, Gollum was himself a hobbit and he began his possession of the Ring with murder.

But what began in Tolkien’s telling of a children’s story in The Hobbit as the happy and fortuitous entrance of magic into that tale was to turn into something that would be critical to the whole history of Middle-earth and it became clear that neither elf, nor dwarf or man could be entrusted with the Ring. It had to be a hobbit and it had to be a particular hobbit with the history and character that Bilbo had. And then because the Ring was beginning to have a destructive influence even on this good hobbit it had to pass to another, to Frodo. It has to pass to someone who does not want it, or the burden that it represents. Frodo tries to give it to Gandalf in Bag End, to Aragorn in Rivendell and to Galadriel in Lothlórien. He is the perfect person to have the Ring in his possession and even he will be overcome by it in the end.

Gandalf might have said that in his reluctance to take on the burden of the Ring Frodo reminded him of himself. When the Valar first thought to send the Istari to Middle-earth Gandalf was reluctant to go because he feared Sauron. Perhaps it is this reluctance, this desire for peace, even obscurity, that makes Gandalf, and Frodo too, the ones who can be chosen for the really great tasks. Help will be given to them when they most need it. Frodo will eventually achieve his task through the aid of Gollum. But it is not the ones who seek greatness who can be entrusted with the great things. It is those who wish to be little but are willing to say yes to the call that they receive.

“I Only Said I Think I Shall Come.” Life With and Without Gandalf.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) p.266

I have long been drawn to the figures of old men in literature and have wanted to spend time in their company. As a small boy I read and re-read T.H White’s The Once and Future King and the scene that gave me the greatest pleasure was that in which the Wart (the young King Arthur) comes across Merlin in a clearing in the Forest Sauvage for the very first time and you just know that life is never going to be the same again and it is going to be good. Then a few years later I settled down with Frodo by the open window of his study to smoke a pipe with Gandalf and was content. Years later I read the Harry Potter stories to my daughters and found that the attraction had not gone. I was never happier than in the scenes with Albus Dumbledore and when there seemed to be some distance between Harry and Dumbledore I felt an old familiar ache and longing inside. And perhaps one of the most significant and vivid dreams in my life ended, almost uniquely, in perfect resolution when I knelt before an old man who I identified as the Pope in order to receive his blessing. I could even smell the fragrance in the air at that moment of perfect peace and harmony.

I am not sure that I ever quite met the elder that I was looking for and at the age that I have now reached the opportunity to do so is receding but the longing has not gone. It’s just that I begin to realise that I am going to have to find this father within myself and not in a figure that I am likely to meet. Maybe that is the meaning of my dream. A dream that I think was given for my whole life and not just for a moment within it.

During these weeks of the summer I have been writing about some bigger themes in The Lord of the Rings before turning to The Two Towers in the autumn and I have begun to think about both the presence and the absence of Gandalf in the story. My readers may remember that I wrote a piece entitled “We Must Do Without Hope” back on December 11th 2021 https://stephencwinter.com/2021/12/11/we-must-do-without-hope-the-company-go-on-after-the-fall-of-gandalf/ as Aragorn takes command of the Company after the catastrophe of the fall of Gandalf in Moria. These words are almost a title for the early chapters of The Two Towers as Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli pursue Merry and Pippin and their orc captors across the plains of Rohan towards the Forest of Fangorn. Again and again Aragorn reflects both upon hope and its absence. Surely he knows that to free the young hobbits is a hopeless task against so numerous a foe, as Éomer tries to convince him, but he continues with grim resolution until at last in the forest he meets Gandalf once more. From that moment onwards he is a man transformed.

And we see the same reaction from Frodo when Gandalf announces to the hobbits, “I think I shall come with you.” Indeed, Tolkien writes, “So great was Frodo’s delight at this announcement that Gandalf left the windowsill, where he had been sitting, and took off his hat and bowed. ‘I only said I think I shall come. Do not count on anything yet.'”

Gandalf’s presence is so important that it gives huge confidence, energy and hope to all around him. When the Company are attacked by wargs near the western gate of Moria Sam is given hope as he says, “Whatever may be in store for old Gandalf, I’ll wager it isn’t a wolf’s belly.”

And then comes the moment when Gandalf falls at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm and for a time at least all hope is gone. Eventually Gandalf is restored to the Fellowship, for all at least except two. For Frodo and Sam have to go on alone step by step to the Cracks of Doom bearing the burden of the Ring and without even the sustaining thought that Gandalf is out there somewhere fighting on their behalf. It is worth pondering the fact that they, alone among their fellows, achieve their quest entirely without this source of strength and of hope. They know the loneliness of being a grown up and what strength they are able to find must be found within.