Sacrifice

“Adventures, as I Used to Call Them.” Sam Gamgee Ponders the True Nature of Adventure Before the Hobbits Try to Enter the Nameless Land.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp.928-935

I doubt whether a tour of Mordor would ever be a commercial success. Imagine it being sold something like this.

The adventure of a lifetime. In fact it will probably end your life. The chances that you will return alive are very small and the guide we will provide will do his best, either to kill you himself or to have you killed by a savage monster of terrible potency. So what’s stopping you from signing up?”

Perhaps a small number of adrenaline junkies might be prepared to take on the odds but most of us want to come back from our holidays, alive and in one piece.

It is in a moment of calm after the long climb up the stairs of Cirith Ungol and before they enter the tunnel that lies between them and Mordor, the Nameless Land as Tolkien calls it here, Sam reflects upon all that he and Frodo have experienced together upon their journey. It has been a long way from Bag End and when we compare the Sam that we first met there as Gandalf hauled him through the window of Frodo’s study by his ear we might say that the inner journey that Sam has taken has been even longer.

As they take a few moments of rest after their long climb Frodo expresses his dislike for their surroundings. “Earth, air and water all seem accursed. But so our path is laid,” he says. And then Sam responds with a speech of great beauty.

“Yes, that’s so… And we shouldn’t be here at all, if we’d known more about it before we started. But I suppose it’s often that way. The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind.”

The tales that matter

“The tales that really mattered, or the ones that stayed in the mind.” Sam is looking back on the years of his childhood when he would sit at the feet of Bilbo Baggins at Bag End. It is hard to imagine the Gaffer being a repository of stories unless they were ones of family history. He was more a storehouse of pithy sayings, all of which were intended to be the last word on any subject. Sam certainly remembers these, usually when he becomes aware that what he is doing would meet with his father’s disapproval, but the stories that Bilbo told were a different matter altogether. They opened doors into worlds of wonder and enchantment in Sam’s heart and mind. And they awoke desire there. Sam expressed that desire in the words, “I want to see Elves!”, a desire that was quickly satisfied in his journey in the meeting with Gildor Inglorien and his company while still in the Shire. Frodo asked him then whether he wished to continue now that his longing had been fulfilled and Sam responded by speaking of the need to see something through. We can only imagine that he returned to thoughts of resolution many times in his journey because he speaks in a similar way here.

“I expect that they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on.”

Carl Jung, the great map maker of the human psyche, spoke of this in these terms. “To this day God is the name by which I designate all things which cross my wilful path violently and recklessly, all things which upset my subjective views, plans and intentions and change the course of my life for better or worse.”

Sam’s language is very different from Jung’s but they are speaking of the same human experience. Oh, yes, Sam would say, you are speaking of a story that really matters. Oh yes, Carl Jung might reply, I am speaking about God.

“His Horse Was White as Snow, Golden Was His Shield, and His Spear Was Long.” Théoden Rides to Victory at The Battle of Helm’s Deep.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 691-707

I remember sitting beside my wife as we watched the scene in Peter Jackson’s film of The Two Towers when Théoden and Aragorn lead the cavalry charge from the fortress of the Hornburg over the causeway and into the armies of Isengard. She had not been with when I saw it first at a morning screening at my local multiplex so we were sitting together watching it on a DVD in our front room. Laura is the most peaceable of people but as I looked across at her I could see tears in her eyes. Peter Jackson had done his work well, I thought. He had succeeded in portraying the beauty of the heroic act.

What conveys the beauty, I believe, is the unbearable moment in which the hero lays down his life for the sake of life. I ended last week’s reflection by quoting Faramir on this. “I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.” It is that which the hero seeks to defend that gives beauty to the sacrifice and brings tears to the eyes of those who watch. The author of the Old English poem, The Dream of the Rood, tells the story of the death of Christ upon the cross in such heroic language. Christ climbs upon the rood, grasping the wood of the cross as a young warrior in order by his death to defeat death itself. In so doing the poet dignifies the hero’s death, a theme that everyone in the cultures of northern Europe would have understood, in a new way. The hero’s death becomes a sacrifice for life in the face of death, for light in the face of darkness and for love in the face of hatred.

Tolkien never states this explicitly although he knew well all the resonances that I have touched upon but as Théoden leads Aragorn and the knights of his household in the last desperate charge at daybreak as the echoing sound of Helm’s horn resounds about him the beauty of the sacrificial deed shines forth and tears come to my wife’s eyes.

The language of the story needs to express this beauty as does the story’s shape. And so in his telling of the story of The Battle of Helm’s Deep Tolkien gives us a beleaguered force falling back before a host of enemies filled with “reckless hate”. At the last Théoden turns to Aragorn as he frets within the Hornburg questioning the wisdom of Gandalf’s counsel that he should lead his host there and says to him:

“I will not end here, taken like an old badger in a trap. Snowmane and Hasufel and the horses of my guard are in the inner court. When dawn comes, I will bid men sound Helm’s horn, and I will ride forth. Will you ride with me then, son of Arathorn? Maybe we shall cleave a road, or make such an end as will be worth a song-if any be left to sing of us hereafter.”

And as the dawn breaks and the doors of the Hornburg are shattered by an explosion the horn of Helm sounds and Théoden and his knights ride out sweeping all before them.

It is not death itself that is beautiful. A death can be a lonely, hopeless, even meaningless affair. But the setting of the sun at the end of a good day is beautiful even though it will end in darkness. At the Battle of the Pelennor Fields Éomer stands at bay before the host of his enemies. And as he stands by his banner he laughs at despair and cries out:

Out of doubt, out  of dark to the day's rising 
I came singing in the sun, sword unsheathing.
To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking:
Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!

For the Rohirrim there is such a thing as a good death and it is one when you have given your all and there is nothing left to give. This was Théoden’s death in the same battle and so he died at peace. At Helm’s Deep events were about to turn in a strange and entirely unexpected way. This is not the day in which Théoden will die but it is his willingness to die that is beautiful.

“And with that shout the king came. His horse was white as snow, golden was his shield, and his spear was long. At his right hand was Aragorn, Elendil’s heir, behind him rode the lords of the house of Eorl the Young. Light sprang in the sky. Night departed.”

“Their Coming Was Like The Falling of Small Stones That Starts an Avalanche in The Mountains”. Gandalf Speaks of the Awakening of the Ents.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 646-649

What a gift gentleness is to a world grown weary with the mere exercise of power. And so Merry and Pippin awoke a kindliness within the heart of Boromir the warrior, inflated as he was by fantasies of his own greatness, who sought to gain what he desired by abuse of his strength in the attempt to steal the Ring from Frodo. When Aragorn ordered Boromir to stay with the young hobbits and to protect them as best he could he was simply trying to find some order amidst the chaos of battle and to give himself space to do what he felt that he must do, to find the Ringbearer; but what he gave to Boromir in the giving of that order was the opportunity to find redemption for his failure in the laying down of his life.

This alone would have been sufficient reason for the contested decision to include Merry and Pippin within the Fellowship but Gandalf speaks of more.

“But that is not the only part they have to play. They were brought to Fangorn, and their coming was like the falling of small stones that starts an avalanche in the mountains. Even as we talk here, I hear the first rumblings. Saruman had best not be caught away from home when the dam bursts!”

There are three occasions in which hobbits are captured by orcs in The Lord of the Rings. No other character has to suffer this indignity although Éowyn is threatened with imprisonment by the Witch King of Angmar, the Lord of the Nazgûl. The capture of Merry and Pippin in the breaking of the Fellowship is the first; the second is the capture of Frodo by Shagrat and Gorbag near Shelob’s Lair; and the third the capture of Frodo and Sam by the road to the Black Gate in Mordor. And on each occasion the capture serves only to carry the hobbits nearer to their goal. In the case of Frodo and Sam the goal is known to them. Somehow they must take the Ring to the Fire at Orodruin and they need a road to follow in order to get there. In the case of Merry and Pippin the Uruk-hai of Isengard carry them across the plains of Rohan in order to deliver them at the feet of Treebeard.

There is a delicious irony in this, of course. Gandalf speaks of this to Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli. “Saruman also had a mind to capture the Ring, for himself, or at least to snare some hobbits for his evil purposes. So between them our enemies have contrived only to bring Merry and Pippin with marvellous speed, and in the nick of time, to Fangorn, where otherwise they would never have come at all.”

But there is something further to say in regards to Merry and Pippin. Gandalf again speaks of this to his companions when he tells them that Sauron, as well as Saruman, had tried to capture hobbits and to take them to Barad-dûr, either to retake the Ring or to keep them as hostages. Thankfully Sauron, as well as Saruman, failed to achieve their purpose and Gandalf adds: “Let us not darken our hearts by imagining the trial of their gentle loyalty in the Dark Tower.”

It is the gentleness of the hobbits that proves essential here. On the one hand it is a quality that is entirely disregarded by both Sauron and by Saruman. To them gentleness is merely an expression of weakness. But in delivering this quality to Fangorn the orcs of Isengard awaken the hearts of Treebeard and the Ents to their own destruction. It is gentleness of the young hobbits that delights the Ents, which reawakens them and reconnects them to their essential vocation, that of being shepherds.

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep and in their reawakening the Ents are recalled to that duty. Sacrifice is something that the powers of darkness are incapable of doing or even imagining. By this we don’t mean that they are incapable of sacrificing others for their own ends. They do this constantly without giving it a second thought. But they have rendered themselves incapable of any action that even remotely approaches self-sacrifice and so Frodo’s choice to take the Ring to the Fire, Sam’s choice to go with him, Gandalf’s sacrifice of himself in the conflict with the Balrog at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, Boromir’s sacrifice for the sake of Merry and Pippin, and the sacrifice that Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli make in their hopeless pursuit of the orcs who captured Merry and Pippin, all of these are simply incomprehensible to the dark powers and all of are essential to the ultimate victory of good over evil.