The Return of The King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 807-809

It suddenly struck me after I had written and posted my last piece on this blog that the Peregrin Took, the Pippin, that I have been writing about recently was no longer a boy, but a man, and so I decided for my title to go back to the words that Gandalf used about him when he introduced him to the soldiers at the outer walls of the Pelennor Fields. “His name is Peregrin, a very valiant man”.

What I could also have done in looking for a title for this piece would have been to turn to two moments in the events around the inner collapse of the spirit of Denethor, and his orders to prepare a pyre for his own ritual suicide and the murder of Faramir.

We remember that when Denethor dismisses Pippin from his service and asks him to send for the servants who will light the pyre, we read that Pippin “stood up and looked the old man in the eye”. And soon after we read of Pippin’s encounter with Beregond, a soldier of the Guard of the Tower in Minas Tirith, and how Pippin speaks to this warrior with the words, “You must choose”.

These are two moments that show how Pippin has come into his manhood. It is not as a defiant teenager that Pippin speaks to the Steward of Gondor, but as one man to another. At no point does Pippin cease to respect his lord, at no point does he fail to grant that respect to him, but he chooses to speak truth. And when he meets Beregond and bids him do what he can to prevent Denethor from what he seeks to do, he does so with the words, “You must choose”. Again, this is not a boy speaking to a man, but a man to a man.

And here I am reminded of Rudyard Kipling, a poet of the early 20th century, often dismissed merely as a mouthpiece of British imperialism. Many remember his words, “Oh East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet”, assuming that what Kipling is talking about is an inevitable clash of civilisations, but they fail to go on to read what the poet wrote next.

“But there is neither East not West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, when two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth.”

And so a hobbit stands “face to face” before the Steward of Gondor and a soldier of the Guard, and there is no hobbit and man. Gandalf is right. This is “Peregrin Took, a very valiant man”.

We have come a long way in a very short space of time from the young hobbit in Moria who dropped a stone into a well out of a curious desire to know how deep it was. We have come a long way from the young hobbit who had to stand with bowed head as Gandalf growled: “Fool of a Took! This is a serious journey, not a hobbit walking-party. Throw yourself in next time, and then you will be no further nuisance.”

And then we remember that in the few days since that unhappy event Pippin had been forced to witness the fall of Gandalf into the abyss with the Balrog that perhaps he had awoken. And he had been forced to witness the death of Boromir at the hands of orcs who had been sent to take halflings prisoner and take them to Isengard, there to be tormented at the hands of Saruman. And he had been forced to endure captivity in the hands of those same orcs and to escape from them during a battle into the Forest of Fangorn. And he had been forced to look into the face of the Dark Lord himself after looking into the Stone of Orthanc, and to endure the humiliation of being discovered as the culprit who had stolen that Stone.

Pippin has been through humiliation and has emerged on the other side, not with resentment but with humility and strength. He has been through a refining fire and has emerged a man who is able to look at another man face to face and not be ashamed or afraid.