Sauron

“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.”

Andrea Pipano’s fine depiction of Saruman the White.

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.”

Carrying Merry and Pippin to Fangorn. Inger Edelfelt depicts the ironic agents of good at their malicious work.

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.

“He is in Great Fear, Not Knowing What Mighty One May Suddenly Appear, Wielding the Ring”. Gandalf Speaks of Sauron’s Worldview.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 646-652

“Will you not open your mind more clearly to me?” Aragorn asks of Gandalf and so begins a situation room briefing from the one who has a better understanding of the big picture in Middle-earth than, perhaps, anyone in the story.

“The Enemy, of course, has long known that the Ring is abroad, and that it is borne by a hobbit. He knows now the number of our company that set out from Rivendell and the kind of each one of us. But he does not yet perceive our purpose clearly.”

Sauron does not perceive the purpose of his enemies at this point of the story, nor will he do so until the very end when Frodo claims the Ring within Mount Doom itself. And at that point we learn that “the magnitude of his own folly was revealed to him in a blinding flash and all the devices of his enemies were at last laid bare”. But at this point it is all too late.

But why did the Dark Lord not even consider that it might be possible that his enemies would seek to destroy the Ring? Gandalf answers this question quite simply.

“He is in great fear, not knowing what mighty one may suddenly appear, wielding the Ring, and assailing him with war, seeking to cast him down and take his place. That we should wish to cast him down and have no one in his place is not a thought that occurs to his mind. That we should try to destroy the Ring itself has not yet entered into his darkest dream.”

All the depictions of Sauron are merely expressions of his power.

It is a vital insight within The Lord of the Rings that goodness can understand evil because goodness has had to face and to overcome all that evil has to offer while evil understands nothing of goodness merely regarding it as a weak form of itself. So it was that when Frodo offered the Ring to Galadriel she replies by saying, “I do not deny that my heart has greatly desired to ask what you offer. For many long years I had pondered what I might do, should the Great Ring come into my hands”.

In order to understand goodness truly we need to think about those years of great desire and the slow formation of a character of adamant that took place during that time. Perhaps there were times within those years when Galadriel was tempted to the very limits of her endurance, perhaps as she watched the slow decay of all things around her and the rise of darkness close by her home with the Balrog in Moria and the Necromancer in Dol Guldur. Saruman could see these things too and he also desired the power that the Ring could give in order to overcome them. But while within the heart of Galadriel the desire for power lived alongside a longing to preserve beauty, goodness and truth, no such struggle took place within the heart of Saruman. He came to see the world merely in terms of strength and weakness and assumed that either Galadriel, Gandalf and Elrond were weak or ineffective or that they were secret competitors, merely hiding their desire behind a cloak of beneficence.

And what was true about Saruman was most certainly true about Sauron. Galadriel put this in these words:

“I say to you, Frodo, that even as I speak to you, I perceive the Dark Lord and know his mind, or all of his mind that concerns the Elves. And he gropes ever to see me and my thought. But still the door is closed!”

Still the door is closed!

This is why Sauron is in great fear. He assumes that as the Ring has indeed been found that it is inevitable that that one of the mighty among his foes will take it and use it against him. He may be puzzled why it would appear that the Ring is in the hands of creatures as insignificant as hobbits but this aspect of the story does not seem to bother him greatly. When before the battle at the Black Gate the so called Mouth of Sauron shows the tokens that seem to denote that Frodo has been captured he does so with the words, “What use you find in them I cannot guess; but to send them as spies into Mordor is beyond even your accustomed folly.” Sauron simply assumes that the hobbits are being used in some way because that is what he would do with them.

Goodness understands evil because it has had to overcome the temptation to possess all that evil seems to be able to offer. True goodness has been formed by this inner struggle. Evil on the other hand understands nothing of this. It has not been formed by struggle. The character of Sauron, Saruman, and Gollum, too, for that matter, is not formed by inner struggle but by their being taken possession of by their desire for mastery.

“Take Off the Ring!” Frodo’s Inner Struggle Upon Amon Hen.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 391-392

It all begins because Frodo has to flee from Boromir wearing the Ring in order to do so. Frodo climbs up the slopes of Amon Hen and finally reaches its top.

“He saw as through a mist a wide flat circle, paved with mighty flags, and surrounded with a crumbling battlement: and in the middle, set upon four carven pillars, was a high seat, reached by a stair of many steps.”

A beautiful depiction of Amon Hen by Woodhouse

The high seat upon Amon Hen has always been a place set apart for reflection, an expression of the belief that if only we can get high enough, if only we can somehow rise above all the chaos that surrounds us, we will achieve a kind of clarity and will know what we must do. But in all the long years since first the seat was placed upon this hill top by the men of Númenor there has never been a moment like this. No-one has been able to see as Frodo does because no-one has sat upon the chair while wearing the Ring.

And what Frodo sees is war. “The Misty Mountains were crawling like anthills; orcs were issuing out of a thousand holes. Under the boughs of Mirkwood there was deadly strife of Elves and Men and fell beasts. The land of the Beornings was aflame; a cloud was over Moria; smoke rose on the borders of Lórien.”

And last of all, and perhaps inevitably, Frodo’s gaze is drawn towards the place in which the Ring was forged and the tower in which its master dwells: “wall upon wall, battlement upon battlement, black, immeasurably strong, mountain of iron, gate of steel, tower of adamant, he saw it: Barad-dûr, Fortress of Sauron. All hope left him.”

A fascinating, almost surreal, depiction of the struggle upon Amon Hen by Joel Marriner.

It is at this moment that Frodo becomes aware that someone is searching eagerly, voraciously, for him, for the Ring that he is now wearing; and that this creature, whose very being has become an embodiment of desire, so entire, that if the thing that he longs for were to cease to exist there would be nothing left of him but a memory of what he once was, will find him. And it is at this moment too that he becomes strangely aware of a familiar voice telling him to take off the Ring.

“Take it off! Take it off! Fool, take it off! Take off the Ring!

The struggle lasts only for a moment but during that time the whole fate of Middle-earth lies, literally, in the balance. Frodo is held, “perfectly balanced” between the Voice and the Eye. If Sauron is able to find him, to identify exactly where he is, then he will regain the Ring at last and darkness will fall.

Crucially, this moment is resolved when Frodo becomes “aware of himself again” as one who is free to choose and he takes off the Ring. “Then all the sky was clean and blue and birds sang in every tree.”

Frodo is not only able to think for himself again but he is able to achieve a clarity of purpose that all his seeing could never give him. Not that the vision that he has been given upon Amon Hen has been of no value for it has enabled him to see that he cannot put his trust in any power outside of himself because every power is as nothing compared to the power that resides within Barad-dûr. All that he has is the Self who is able to make this choice, the choice to go alone to Mordor.

The problem with hope is, as T.S Eliot puts it in his Four Quartets, is that “hope would be hope for the wrong thing.” There is no hope for Frodo in Minas Tirith because, for all its courageous beauty, it cannot stand at the last before the power that is rising against it. All that he has is himself and the choice that he made at the Council of Elrond to take the Ring to the Fire though he did not know the way. As Eliot puts it, following his teacher, St John of the Cross, we come to the point in which all hope has been stripped away and there we find, as Frodo does, that “the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing”.

“Wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing”. A depiction of Minas Tirith.

“Seeing Is Both Good and Perilous”. Frodo Looks Into The Mirror of Galadriel.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp.354-357

“Do you now wish to look, Frodo?” said the Lady Galadriel. “You did not wish to see Elf-magic and were content.”

Alan Lee imagines Frodo looking into The Mirror of Galadriel.

Last week we saw how Sam did look into the Mirror of Galadriel having “wanted to see a bit of magic like what it tells of in old tales”; thinking, as he did, that all magic was of the variety of a conjuring trick and done either for the purpose of entertainment or to make the world a little more wonderful. What he did experience was nothing of this kind but deeply disturbing as he was forced to witness the destruction of his own home and his father fleeing as a refugee. And now will Frodo look into the Mirror?

What Frodo sees once he has made up his mind to do so is at first the great story of which he has become such a vital part; a hero, as Elrond put it, worthy to sit among “the mighty Elf-friends of old”. He sees the mighty sea that both destroyed the land of Númenor and brought the ships of Elendil, storm tossed to Middle-earth. He sees the mighty fortress of Minas Tirith and then the ship that will carry the King back to his city. And at the last he sees the ship that will carry him away from Middle-earth to the Undying Lands for his healing from the many wounds that he has taken in giving to it a future and a hope.

But it does not end there. Frodo sighs and prepares to turn away from the vision, having understood little, if any, of what he has seen, when he is arrested by something else. He sees at first a darkness, an emptiness, and then he sees an Eye, and soon knows that this Eye is searching for him. “Frodo knew with certainty and horror that among the many things that it sought he himself was one.”

Frodo sees the Eye that is searching for him.

Frodo has seen what Sauron has become. A lidless eye endlessly searching throughout the world for anything that might pose a threat to its own existence. Not that Sauron has been reduced yet to this alone. Gollum will speak of the nine fingers upon his hand which are enough to do terrible things, but this is the main form in which he exists within the earth. He is one who sees, or perhaps we should say, one who seeks, for he is not omniscient. Frodo knows that the Eye cannot see him unless he chooses to put on the Ring.

“Seeing is both good and perilous”. These were Galadriel’s words to Frodo when he asked whether or not he should look into the Mirror and her wisdom could have been either for Frodo or for Sauron. To Frodo because it is often the wisest course of action simply to deal with what is immediately in front of us. To see too far into the future can well render us impotent in the present. Or, as in the case of Sam, may tempt us to leave a pathway that had seemed entirely right in order to solve a problem that we will be perfectly capable of solving later on down the road after we have completed our present task.

And what of Sauron? His ability to see is good in so far as he is able to gather information about the world about him but ultimately what he sees is desperately limited and he is paralysed by the gaps in his knowledge. He cannot penetrate the minds of his enemies and even when he can, as in his use of the Palantír, the Seeing Stones, he still has to deal with the duplicity of Saruman and the essentially noble character of Denethor. And when he sees Aragorn in the Stone of Orthanc, he will misinterpret what he sees so badly as to cause him to leave himself fatally vulnerable to the one thing that he fails to predict. The painstakingly slow journey of the Ring into the very heart of his realm.

Sauron completely misinterprets what he sees in the palantír.

So does Frodo see anything of good? Well the answer is that he does. He sees that Sauron cannot see him unless he chooses to reveal himself. He will always have a choice to make and though this choice will become like an intolerable weight about his neck the power to make this choice will open a way for him to Orodruin itself.

“Dark is The Water of Kheled-zâram and Cold Are The Springs of Kibil-nâla. My Heart Trembles at the Thought That I May See Them Soon.” Gimli Draws Near To The Halls of His Ancestors.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 274-276

The mood of the pages that follow the departure of the Fellowship from Rivendell is in keeping with the season in which they travel. An icy wind blows from the East down from The Misty Mountains and the land is empty. But its emptiness is not of a place where no-one has ever lived. Once this land was full of life for the company are passing through an ancient kingdom of the Elves. This was Eregion or Hollin and it was ruled by Celebrimbor of the Noldor. We have thought about him before and how he, the grandson of Feänor, was the greatest of craftsmen among his people after his mighty ancestor.

It was Celebrimbor who was seduced by Sauron in his guise as Annatar into sharing his knowledge of the making of Rings of Power, a knowledge that was to enable Sauron to make the One Ring but also the Three Elven Rings that were to enable the Elves to resist Sauron and to do works of healing in Middle-earth. At the last Sauron made war upon Celebrimbor and slew him, destroying his kingdom and so it is an empty land through which the Fellowship passes.

Annatar and Celebrimbor

But it is not just a kingdom of the Elves that once flourished here. Close neighbour to Eregion and Celebrimbor its lord, was Khazad-dûm, Moria, greatest of all the kingdoms of the Dwarves. Celebrimbor and Durin, Lord of Moria, were close allies through many years and their shared love of the making of things meant that they gave much and learned much to and from one another. This alliance was one of the greatest fruits of the peace that followed the fall of Morgoth at the ending of The First Age before the rise to power of Sauron and its fall along with that of the kingdoms that comprised it was one of greatest unhappinesses of the Second Age.

Legolas mourns the passing of Eregion and acknowledges the greatness of its people in comparison to his own woodland folk and then Gimli expresses his longing for a sight of the Mirrormere, a lake in a mountain valley east of the Misty Mountains that is so shrouded by the shadows of the mighty peaks that surround it that it is said that one who looks into it will see only the stars of the night sky. It was this sight that led Durin to build his kingdom beneath the same mountains and it is one of the holiest places in the hearts of all Dwarves.

“Dark is the water of Kheled-zâram,” said Gimli, “and cold are the springs of Kibil-nâla. My heart trembles at the thought that I may see them soon.”

Ted Nasmith’s imagining of Mirrormere

The Dwarves and the Elves look back to a greatness that is now lost. It is one of the triumphs of Peter Jackson’s films that they succeeded in conveying this. The moment when Gandalf’s staff is lit and so reveals Durin’s halls in all their glory is one of the finest in The Fellowship of the Ring and Howard Shore’s music conveys the beauty of this sight to great effect. Moria is still magnificent but it is a glory of the past and not of the present and Gimli and all his people feel this deeply. It was this sense of loss that led Balin, one of the companions of Thorin Oakenshield and the Dwarf who was closest to Bilbo, to lead an expedition to Moria with the intention of making it a Dwarf kingdom once again. One of the reasons why Gimli has joined the company is to make contact with Balin and his companions if it is possible.

Alan Lee depicts the Halls of Durin in Moria

This elegiac mood, this winter mood, this setting of the great quest of the Ring in a winter journey, is an essential part of the way in which Tolkien tells his story. If there is to be a springtime, a renewing of life after Sauron, it will not be for all the peoples of Middle-earth. Perhaps one of the reasons why there is no singing or laughter at the departure of the Fellowship from Rivendell is because that departure is a signal that the beauty that the Elves have brought to Middle-earth is passing away. It is not just Eregion in which only a memory of the Elves is left.

“What of The Three Rings of The Elves?” Can They Be Used Against Sauron?

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 260-263

When Celebrimbor and Sauron (in his guise of Annatar) studied and then created the Rings of Power during the Second Age of Arda there were three rings made by Celebrimbor alone over which Sauron had no influence. Seven rings were made for the dwarves and nine for humankind. The dwarves proved to be of stubborn stuff and so even when Sauron was wielding the One Ring “to rule them all” these rings and their bearers did not fall under his sway. So began the long unhappy history of Sauron’s search for the rings of the dwarves which ended in Dol Guldur when Sauron took the last of them from Thráin.

The Three Rings of the Elves

The rings given to human lords brought them swiftly under the domination of the Dark Lord. The dwarves were always true to their essential nature, loving the things that they made, implacable both in friendship and enmity, but humankind was always constrained by their mortality in a very particular way. The very brevity of a human life meant that a choice had to be made. It still does. Some would look beyond the confines of their mortality and so live in hope accepting their fate while entrusting themselves to that which lay beyond them. So Aragorn said to Arwen at the end of his life, “We are not bound for ever to the circles of this world, and beyond them there is more than memory”. Or, as in the heroic world of the Rohirrim, they would laugh in the face of despair even as they confronted their own deaths, as did Éomer when it seemed certain to him that he would die in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. Or, as with the Dunlendings, there was a dull, grim and embittered spirit, a nation of “Gollums”, ever resentful of perceived slights at the hands of others. Or, as with the people of Bree, the spirit and wisdom of Ecclesiastes, “Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your life which you have been given under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun”. The hobbits were perhaps closest in spirit to them.

But for the Númenorians and their descendants, the ones who had come closest to Valinor and the immortality of the Elves, there was for many a growing sense that mortality was a curse that had been imposed upon them and one that they should strive to overcome. It was nine lords from among such as these who seized the opportunity given to them in Sauron’s gift of rings and who learned that immortality as a mere extension of existence is an intolerable burden, a curse rather than a blessing.

The Nazgûl. Wraiths and Wrath

The Rings of the Elves were not made by Sauron but by Celebrimbor alone although these rings could not have been made without the craft that they had learned together. Perhaps Celebrimbor had some secret suspicion of Sauron or, more likely, the desire like Fëanor before him to make something that was his and his alone, but they were not made for “strength or domination or hoarded wealth, but understanding, making and healing, to preserve all things unstained”. As with the Elves themselves, but as an intensification of who the Elves were, they were bound to the earth itself in joy and in sorrow. In the healing of the hurts of the earth and in the preserving of its beauty they brought great joy. If only we could find the earthly paradises of Rivendell or Lothlórien in our world today or even the Shire as Sam Gamgee was to remake it using Galadriel’s gift; or perhaps such places would best be kept hidden from us as we would probably spoil them by turning them into tourist destinations. Could you imagine some kind of “Lothlórien-world”?

Tim Catherall’s Imagining of Lothlórien

There is a sense in which the three rings of the Elves were used against Sauron. Elrond’s healing power, Galadriel’s adamantine resistance and, above all, Gandalf’s unresting work in warming hearts in a world ever growing cold, all of these fruits of the Elven Rings meant that Sauron had been kept at bay for long years but now as Sauron bent all of his might and malice in the task of the conquest of Middle-earth the rings of the Elves could no longer resist him nor could the combined strength of its free peoples. At the last there could only be one choice that could be made and that was as Elrond counselled the destruction of the Ring.

Take the Ring and Go Forth to Victory! Boromir Offers the Wise His Counsel.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 260-263

All who have participated in the great debate, finding “counsel for the peril of the world”, have spoken either of hiding the Ring or of destroying it, but there is one last option to be debated and it is Boromir who offers that option.

“Why do you speak ever of hiding and destroying? Why should we not think that the Great Ring has come into our hands to serve us in our hour of need? Wielding it the Free Lords of the Free may surely defeat the Enemy. That is what he most fears, I deem.”

Boromir longs to be the hero of the story.

And Boromir is right. Sauron does fear that one of his deadliest foes will take the Ring and then u7se it against him and he knows that among his enemies there are those capable of doing so. He knows that he only has a certain amount of time available to him to defeat them before what he regards as the inevitable happens. He knows that only one person can wield the Ring at any point. Gandalf was right when he said this to Saruman. But he knows also that before that moment comes there will be a struggle to be that one person. If he can strike with sufficient force while the struggle is taking place he can both defeat his enemies and regain the Ring.

But this is not how the Wise reply to Boromir. Elrond simply rejects Boromir’s proposal out of hand.

“We cannot use the Ruling Ring… It belongs to Sauron and was made by him alone, and is altogether evil.”

Sauron learns the art of ring-making from Celebrimbor

What Elrond rejects is the notion that one side in the struggle is good and right and the other side is bad and wrong. The good guys versus the bad guys. As Gandalf will say to Denethor later on, “I pity even his (that is Sauron’s) slaves”. In a straight forward us and them conflict there is only one question and that is the question of power. As Boromir puts it, “Valour needs first strength, and then a weapon.” As far as Boromir is concerned the Ring is a perfectly legitimate weapon. It gives “us” the means to defeat “them”. Boromir does not make this argument but there have been those who have argued that it is morally irresponsible not to seek to be as powerful as possible. To reject power is effectively to give in to those who will then use power against us. This was used as an argument against nuclear disarmament during the Cold War. To disarm, it was said, was irresponsible both morally and practically. Although Boromir does not make this argument himself there is little doubt that if it had been made at the Council Boromir would have agreed with it.

Some critics have argued that Tolkien meant the Ring to be an allegorical representation of nuclear weapons and that The Lord of the Rings was more or less a lengthy tract against the making and the use of such weapons. C.S Lewis in a critical essay of his own pointed out that Tolkien had been creating his mythology and pondering the question of the nature of evil long before he finally wrote his story and long before the atomic bomb was first conceived and used. To Tolkien the bomb was simply one more example, albeit a significant one, of the way in which power is gained and used by human beings. It is Gandalf who speaks more nearly of the nature of evil when he speaks of Sauron thus.

“He is very wise, and weighs all things to a nicety in the scales of his malice. But the only measure that he knows is desire, desire for power; and so he judges all hearts.”

It is the desire for power, power over others, that lies at the heart of the nature of evil. The Ring is the quintessential expression of this desire. How might a person achieve complete power over others? Surely it is by the possession of something that might grant that power. The Ring is both the desire for that power and it is the power itself. Thus it is utterly corrupting. To use it would be disastrous. To hide it would allow that corruption to persist. There is only one course of action open and that is to destroy it.

“In All These Things He Has Been the Chief.” Elrond Calls upon Gandalf to Tell His Part in the Story.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 243-248

After first Gloín, and then Boromir, have spoken of the reasons why they have come to Rivendell Elrond calls upon first Bilbo and then Frodo to speak of how they came to possess the Ring and of how it was brought to Elrond’s halls. Perhaps it is the childlike stature of the hobbits, halflings as they are named by others, that arouses a certain scepticism in their hearers and so it is Galdor who has come from the Grey Havens to represent Cirdan, his lord, who gives voice to this doubt.

“The Wise may have good reason to believe that the halfling’s trove is indeed the Great Ring of long debate, unlikely though that may seem to those who know less. But may we not hear the proofs?”

And so Elrond calls upon Gandalf, declaring that he will have the place of honour as the last to speak, for “in all this matter he has been the chief”.

Gandalf and the Ring at Bag End

We have been in the company, first of Bilbo ever since he first found the Ring deep within the tunnels of the Misty Mountains, and then of Frodo on his journey through the wild pursued by the Nazgûl. At the Fords of Bruinen we heard the cry of the Ringwraiths, “The Ring! The Ring!” as they urged their horses into the foaming waters at the Fords of Bruinen but as Galdor said, the “halfling’s trove” is too big a thing even to accept its identity at the word of Elrond and Gandalf. It is the “peril of the world” whose very existence places all the peoples of the world in the greatest danger whether they know of it or not. This is why Gandalf must offer more than his word and so he begins to tell his part in the story of the Ring.

Gandalf first came to Middle-earth as one of the Istari, seven travellers sent by the Valar “as messengers sent to contest the power of Sauron, and to unite all those who had the will to resist him”. Soon after their arrival a shadow began to fall upon the Greenwood, home to the woodland elves of Thranduil. An evil power had made a stronghold at Dol Guldur in the south of the forest and people began to call the forest, Mirkwood. At first it was thought that the power was one of the Nazgûl but eventually Gandalf went to Dol Guldur and established the truth that the power was Sauron himself who was seeking to gather all the Rings to himself and for news of the One and news of Isildur’s heir. The Istari and the greatest of the Eldar had formed a council in order to resist the Power and on learning that it was Sauron Gandalf urged an assault upon Dol Guldur but Saruman opposed him. Eventually in the year that Bilbo found the One Ring in the Misty Mountains, Smaug the Dragon was slain by Bard of Dale and the Battle of the Five Armies was successfully fought, Saruman finally agreed to an assault upon Sauron. He had learned that Sauron’s servants were searching the Anduin vale near to where Isildur had fallen and he had become alarmed. Sauron retreated from his woodland fortress but only because his work in Mordor was now complete.

The Coming of the Istari to Middle-earth

At all times Saruman sought to allay the fears of the Council concerning Sauron’s search for the Ring.

“Have I not earnestly studied this matter? Into Anduin the Great [The Ring] fell; and long ago, while Sauron slept, it was rolled down the River to the Sea. There let it lie until the End.”

But Gandalf’s fears were never fully allayed and with the help of Aragorn Gollum was found and at last, in the study at Bag End, Gandalf read the words written upon the Ring.

“One Ring to Rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the Darkness bind them.”

There is no doubt any longer that Frodo’s ring is indeed the One Ring that Sauron seeks.

One Ring to Rule Them All

Elrond Tells of How An Eagerness for Knowledge Allowed Sauron to Ensnare the Elven-smiths of Eregion.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp.236-239

It was the Elven-smiths of Eregion who gave Sauron the knowledge that he required to forge the One Ring. It was not that Celebrimbor was an ally to Sauron in his desire for the mastery of Middle-earth but that and his co-workers failed to perceive the true motives of the one they knew as Annatar. At this stage of his career Sauron was able to appear in a fair guise. That is one reason why Celebrimbor was deceived. But much more importantly he was deceived because of what he shared in common with the one who would become his deadly foe. He like Sauron had an eagerness for knowledge and this is what lead to his ultimate ensnaring.

An imagining of the friendship between Celebrimbor and Sauron/Annatar

Or so Tolkien the narrator relates that Elrond affirms in his speech to the Council in Rivendell. And I think that we must assume that Tolkien agrees with what Elrond says here for in saying this Elrond confirms the way in which the story of Sauron is told throughout the legendarium, the complete works of Tolkien regarding his mythical world. Sauron is always presented as a character who desires order and control above everything and what is always necessary if anyone is to achieve order is to possess knowledge. Without the possession of knowledge order is an impossibility.

The artist, Kapriss, imagines the shared desire for knowledge that leads to the forging of the Rings of Power

It was th desire for order that led Sauron first to admire Melkor who was to become Morgoth and then to follow him. After the Fall of Thangorodrim and the judgement of Morgoth by the Valar Sauron was at first willing to submit to the overwhelming logic of a greater power. At least he was willing in theory. The Valar demanded that he present himself in person in Valinor in order to receive their judgement but he never came. Was this because this presentation of himself was to be a voluntary act on his part and not one that would be brought about by force? And was his ever hardening rebellion caused (in his own mind at least) by the realisation that the Valar would never enforce their will upon Middle-earth? I think that we have to affirm that the answer to both of these questions is a resounding yes.

For Sauron the patience of the heavenly beings, the Valar to whom the One entrusted the rule of Arda (the earth) at the beginning of time was a sign of the frailty of divine lordship. For most of the second and the third ages of Arda it seemed as if the Valar had little interest in Middle-earth, leaving it more or less to its own devices. The only realities that Sauron perceived were the power of Númenor and of the great Elven kingdoms of Middle-earth. Of course he fully came to understand that there was a limit to his power when he encouraged Númenor to invade the Deathless Lands and so brought down upon himself the wrath of Illuvatar but nothing changed his mind about the apparent indifference of the Powers to Middle-earth. After all what d he did perceive in order to change his mind apart from the Eagles of Manwë, Lord of the Valar, and the arrival of the Istari, the wizards, most of whom proved either to be ineffective or open to corruption?

The Arrival of the Istari

But what of Celebrimbor and the Elven-smiths of Eregion? In what way can we say that they too shared at least something of Sauron’s perception of reality? In what way did this perception enable Sauron to ensnare them? Firstly we have to say that Sauron fully owned his perception whereas Celebrimbor did not do so. Thus one was the ensnarer while the other was ensnared; and second is that the Noldorin smiths ruled by the grandson of Fëanor also desired knowledge in order to achieve control and in their case this meant a control that would enable the preservation of beauty. Sauron may have desired mastery and order for their own sake and he may have had no interest in the preservation of beauty but in his belief that the knowledge that Sauron was offering him could enable him to preserve the beauty of an ordered world Celebrimbor proved himself a fellow traveller to Sauron’s world view.

“Don’t Adventures Ever Have an End?” Frodo, Bilbo and the Ring in the Hall of Fire.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 223-26

After the feast concludes Frodo and the whole company make their way, following Elrond and Arwen, to the Hall of Fire, a place which, except on high days “usually stands empty and quiet” and where people come “who wish for peace, and thought”; and it is there that Elrond brings Frodo and Bilbo together, much to their mutual delight.

The Hall of Fire

Frodo discovers that Bilbo had sat with Sam at his bedside through much of the days in which he had lain, close to death, as the sliver of the Morgul blade, wielded by the Witch-king of Angmar, worked its way slowly towards his heart. And Frodo also learns that Bilbo has not been at the feast. Indeed that Bilbo is now old and is content to be alone with his own thoughts in this quiet place, composing a poem that he will perform before the assembled company before all retire to their rooms and dwelling places.

Bilbo and Frodo in the Hall of Fire

Little has the capacity to stir Bilbo now; except for one thing.

“Have you got it here?” he asked in a whisper. “I can’t help feeling curious, you know, after all I’ve heard. I should very much like just to peep at it again.”

Bilbo, of course, is speaking of the Ring, and there follows a brief period which, for Frodo, and then for Bilbo as well, is one of the most distressing that he has known. Frodo finds himself looking at “a little wrinkled creature with a hungry face and bony groping hands”. The parallel with Gollum is all too clear for those who know the story. This is what the Ring does to those who have possessed it. This is what they are reduced to. Hungry and groping. They become spiritually ravenous and never satisfied. And except in degrees of power there is no distinction between Sauron, Gollum and, for a moment at least, Bilbo too. Each is reduced to the desire to consume all and everyone, “One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.”

In Bilbo’s case the triumph of his desire for the Ring is but momentary. Perhaps his distance from the Ring over many years and perhaps even the fact that he gave it up freely, albeit with a little help from Gandalf, enables Bilbo to master his craving; but for that moment the absolutely evil potential of the Ring mars the great love that Bilbo and Frodo have for one another and it even reduces the serene gathering of the company in the Hall of Fire in Rivendell, a place where at one moment Frodo wondered if people were ever ill, to an unhappy silence.

That moment passes as Frodo puts the Ring away but the distress that Bilbo feels as he realises, maybe for the very first time, the power that the Ring has over him and the burden that his beloved Frodo has to bear is heartbreaking.

“Don’t adventures ever come to an end?”

How does one portray Bilbo as hungry and groping?

And with this thought the whole entirety of Tolkien’s legendarium is brought together. And so too is the entirety of human history of the mythical world of which each one of us is a part. By myth we speak here of the age long need to find meaning in the age long sequence of events that have constituted the history of the cosmos ever since the Big Bang (as far as we know) and, in particular, the need to find meaning in the story of ourselves ever since we first emerged into consciousness in Africa long ago. Or not so long in comparison with the whole. This is the story told in the Music of the Ainur, and we will return to this next week. The story told in Tolkien’s creation myth, a story that the wise know is not about the manufacture of a clock that is then more or less left to its own devices, but one to which the divine is intimately connected at all times and in all places. Bilbo and Frodo are both a part of the one great adventure as are we. Does this adventure ever end? The Music of the Ainur reaches a sublime conclusion, but there is a beyond. There is always a beyond. But what that is is known only to the One.