Shelob’s Lair

“None Could Rival Her, Shelob The Great, Last Child of Ungoliant to Trouble the Unhappy World.” We learn of the History of Shelob and Her Relationship with Sauron and with Gollum.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 944-948

The contrast is almost absolute. There is Galadriel’s gift. “A light when all other lights go out”. And then there is Shelob: “she served none but herself, drinking the blood of Elves and Men, bloated and grown fat with endless brooding on her feasts, weaving webs of shadow; for all living things were her food, and her vomit darkness”.

Galadriel gives light and life and Shelob consumes everything and leaves only darkness.

“Little did she know of or cared for towers, or rings, or anything devised by mind or hand, who only desired death for all others, mind and body, and for herself a glut of life, alone, swollen till the mountains could no longer hold her up and the darkness could not contain her.”

It is this notion of an existence that is reduced to mere consumption without making, of taking without giving, that disgusts us and, maybe, frightens us. Or it would most certainly frighten us if we were ever to meet it, knowing that one who existed thus would only be interested in us as something to devour and for no other purpose.

Even Morgoth, mightiest of the Valar, who entered into what he thought had been an alliance with Shelob’s sire, Ungoliant, in order to steal the Silmarils from Valinor, an alliance with all the usual boundaries and limits, found his ally’s desire terrifying. For Ungoliant wished to consume the Silmarils too and only a company of Balrogs, armed with whips of fire, were able to drive her off their master.

The word that Tolkien uses to describe the energy that drives both Ungoliant and Shelob her daughter is lust. We tend to use this word to describe an intense sexual desire and in one regard it is clear that Shelob is not driven by this particular desire. Shelob simply wants to eat. But anyone who has ever felt lust for another person will know the temptation is just to reduce all thought of that person to an object to be consumed. This desire that is called lust, at its most potent, contains no wish to give pleasure or delight, no wish to enrich the life of the other. These wishes are irrelevancies to the one who is consumed by lust and by lust alone. Tolkien describes this well in his description of Ungoliant in The Silmarilion. In speaking of her relationship to Morgoth he writes:

“But she had disowned her Master, desiring to be mistress of her own lust, taking all things to herself to feed her emptiness”. (The Silmarilion ,Harper Collins 1999 p76)

It is that phrase, “to feed her emptiness” that describes the lust we are speaking of here most effectively. When we speak of lust in this regard then there is no difference between lust as sexual desire or lust to possess an object as Morgoth desired to possess the Silmarils even though they caused him pain, or lust to devour as Ungoliant wished to devour those jewels and Shelob wishes to devour Frodo and Sam and the Ring. All these are expressions of the same desire, the desire to feed an emptiness within. And ultimately all attempts to feed that emptiness are in vain. Tolkien describes the end of Ungoliant with a devastating finality.

“Of the fate of Ungoliant no tale tells. Yet some have said that she ended long ago, when in her uttermost famine she devoured herself at last.” (Silmarilion p.86)

All people who achieve any self knowledge will come to recognise some form of inner emptiness and the desire to fill it in some way, the desire that we call lust. We may come to fear our own emptiness and that fear may become so unbearable that any object that we can seize upon that will give even a very temporary satisfaction of our hunger will be sought. But the great spiritual teachers tell us that we do not have to fear our emptiness. We can even learn to embrace it. So Meister Eckhart, the great 14th century German mystic and theologian wrote this:

“I never ask God to give himself to me: I beg him to purify, to empty, me. If I am empty, God of his very nature is obliged to give himself to me.”

It seems that it would require a vast leap of the imagination to think of Shelob, or Sauron or Gollum embracing their emptiness as Eckhart encourages us to do but it is actually their refusal to do so that distinguishes them from Galadriel, who “passed the test” when Frodo offered the Ring to her, to take the risk as she saw it of being diminished and to go into the West, to entrust herself to God and not to make herself a private possession. Shelob could have chosen differently, Sauron certainly was offered the opportunity to do so at the end of the First Age and he refused to take it. So both he and Shelob chose their lust and rejected the emptiness that only God can fill.

A POST SCRIPT

I almost never offer an explicit spiritual reflection on The Lord of the Rings because I want to honour Tolkien’s own decision not to do so in his greatest work. He allowed his story to speak for itself which is probably why it has been the best selling work of fiction now for many years. But he comes closest to such a reflection here in Shelob’s Lair at this moment of uttermost peril both in speaking of Shelob’s and Sauron’s lust and in contrasting them to Galadriel and her gift that Frodo uses as he speaks the words from Crist, the Old English poem by Cynewulf that captured his imagination before he began to write his legendarium and which was its wellspring. And it is because of this that I have chosen to depart from my usual practice.

It is also a good moment to write differently as I will be taking a short break from these reflections. Regular readers will know that with my wife, Laura, I have been walking one of the ancient pilgrim ways to the shrine of St James in Santiago da Compostela in northern Spain for the last couple of years, making the way in two stages. We began in Biarritz in south west France in September 2023 and reached the town of Llanes last year having covered about 270 miles. This year our intention is to cover the remaining 270 miles and to complete our pilgrimage. We will be walking the Camino Primitivo across the Picos Europa mountains from Oviedo. This is so named because it is the oldest pilgrim route of all but now less often travelled. I hope to post my next reflection in Wisdom From The Lord of the Rings on Saturday 13th September and maybe to write something about the experience of completing our pilgrimage. For those of you who pray please remember us as we walk this ancient way.

“The Lady’s Gift! The Star-glass! A Light to You in Dark Places, She Said it Was To Be.”

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 939-943

Frodo and Sam are lost within the tunnels of Shelob’s Lair and soon become horribly aware of the monster herself. They hear a sound, “a gurgling, bubbling noise, and a long venomous hiss”. Shelob, a demonic power in the form of a giant spider, is creeping up behind them. They are trapped with no way out.

But at such moments strength of which we are usually unaware can come to us. Sam’s hand goes to the hilt of his sword and as it does so Sam remembers where he found it, in another dark place, in the barrow where a wight dwelt, a servant of the Witch King of Angmar. And as his mind went to that place he thinks of their rescuer on that day, Tom Bombadil, whose merry but commanding song was far stronger than that of the wight. If only Tom was near them now. But Sam’s imagination has been awakened in ways in which even a few moments before he could not have predicted. Tom might not be near them but something else is.

“Far off, as in a little picture drawn by elven-fingers, he saw the Lady Galadriel standing on the grass in Lórien, and gifts were in her hands. And you, Ring-bearer, he heard her say, remote but clear, for you I have prepared this.”

Galadriel, one of the last of the Noldor, and kinswoman of Fëanor, mightiest of all craftsmen and women and maker of the Silmarils in which are held the light of the trees, Telperion and Laurelin. These trees were destroyed by Morgoth with the aid of Ungoliant, sire of Shelob, and all that was left of their light was that contained within the Silmarils. These were stolen by Morgoth and he placed them upon his iron crown. One of these were taken by the mighty hero, Beren, with the aid of Lúthien, and this eventually became the morning star whose light was caught within the glass that Galadriel gave to Frodo, to be “a light when all other lights go out”.

Frodo and Sam have already spoken together of how they are a part of a story that is bigger than they are and Sam mentioned the star-glass that Galadriel gave to Frodo in Lothlórien. But it is one thing to speak of something in a moment of relative calm. It is another to recall it at a time of greatest peril.

It is not Frodo who remembers Galadriel’s gift. It is Sam whose memory and imagination are awakened as he puts his hand to the hilt of his sword and who reminds Frodo of the gift that he possesses. And suddenly, in the briefest of moments, a mighty history and all the power contained within it, comes to the aid of the beleaguered friends. The work of the smith who forged Sam’s blade for the hopeless defence of Arthedain against the Witch King and his forces; and most potently of all, the work of Galadriel who, using the skill of her people and her kinsman, Fëanor, crafts the glass that contains within it the light that he once caught within the Silmarils. And Sam’s faithful friendship, there for Frodo at just the right moment.

And all this is brought to bear against Shelob when all seems darkest. Frodo finds a courage that is given to him when all hope of escape has gone.

“Then Frodo’s heart flamed within him, and without thinking what he did, whether it was folly or despair or courage, he took the Phial in his left hand, and with his right drew his sword. Sting flashed out, and the sharp elven-blade sparkled in the silver light, but at its edges a blue fire flickered. Then holding the star aloft and the bright sword advanced, Frodo, hobbit of the Shire, walked steadily down to meet the eyes.”

Tolkien makes quite sure that in his description of Frodo’s heroic act we all read the words, “hobbit of the Shire”. He is no more than this, but no less either. As we saw in the last reflection on this blog Frodo is a dead man walking. He has already given up his life for the sake of the task he has been given to do and so although it is only a hobbit who advances upon the monster it is also a hero who, as Elrond recognised, had earned the right to stand among the mighty Elf-friends of old, “Hador, and Húrin, and Túrin and Beren himself”. And it is in this laying down of his life that he receives a strength so great that even Shelob has to withdraw. For a time at least.

“Night Always Had Been, and Always Would Be, And Night Was All.” Frodo and Sam Enter Shelob’s Lair. The Dark Journeys of The Lord of the Rings.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 939-942

Frodo and Sam follow Gollum into Shelob’s Lair and enter a darkness such as they had not known since the passage through Moria. But at least in Moria there had been a sense of space and a movement of air. “Here the air was still, stagnant, heavy and sound fell dead. They walked as it were in a black vapour wrought of veritable darkness itself that, as it was breathed, brought blindness not only to the eyes but to the mind, so that even the memory of colours and of forms and of any light faded out of thought. Night always had been, and always would be, and night was all.”

The theme of the dark journey is one that repeats throughout The Lord of the Rings. The journey through Moria that ends in Gandalf’s fall, Aragorn’s passage of the Paths of the Dead with Legolas and Gimli, and here, Frodo and Sam in Shelob’s Lair.

This is a theme that runs through European mythology. Perhaps the most famous example being the journey of Odysseus into Hades in order to meet the blind prophet, Tiresias, and to learn what would befall him in his journey home to Ithaca from the war at Troy. But perhaps readers of Tolkien should turn to another example because he himself would have done so. Tolkien chose to draw from northern European sources because he wished to place his own theology within that world. He was particularly drawn to stories from Finland known as the Kalevala and in particular the tale of the hero, Leminķäinen. Leminķäinen was sent on a journey into the land of the dead, Tuonela, in order to kill the black swan that guarded it. He was killed himself by a blind cowherd and thrown into the waters of the river that runs through Tuonela before being restored to life by his divine mother.

We might think more about Tolkien’s love affair with the Finnish language and the mythology that flowed from it on another occasion but here we will move on from the tale of Leminķäinen to another telling of a dark journey, perhaps one of the greatest of all European literature, the Divine Comedy by Dante (1265-1321). At the opening of the poem, here translated by Dorothy L. Sayers, herself a member of the Inklings, we read these words.

Midway this way of life we're bound upon, 
I woke to find myself in a dark wood, 
Where the right road was wholly lost and gone. 

Ay me! How hard to speak of it- that rude 
And rough and stubborn forest! the mere breath 
Of memory stirs the old fear in the blood;

It is so bitter, it goes nigh to death;
Yet there I gained such good, that to convey 
The tale, I'll write what else I found therewith.

The poet, lost upon his journey “in a dark wood” is at the very gates of hell, above which are written the words:

Lay down all hope, you that go in by me.

Of course we should not try to draw parallels that are too exact between the dark journeys described here, nor are they an exhaustive list. We might add the winter journeys of Beowulf into the fenland in search of Grendel’s mother or Gawain in a search of the Green Knight, both stories that Tolkien knew and translated into modern English. But what they all have in common is that they cannot be escaped. In every tale the hero must take the dark journey that “goes nigh to death” in order to achieve their goal and even find good for themselves.

Frodo’s hell is the journey through Shelob’s Lair into captivity in the tower of Cirith Ungol and the agony of the passage through Mordor to Mount Doom. His purgatory (and we can use this word because Tolkien does himself) is his healing in the Undying Lands. We are not told of his paradise but I think we can be assured that he found it, not as an achievement but as a gift. Whatever work that any of us do in order to pass through hell and purgatory can only take us so far, If we are to enter paradise we can only do so as a gift of pure grace and love. I think that we can be assured that by the time Frodo had completed his “gentle purgatory” as Tolkien called it he knew that whatever came next was exactly that.

But first must come his dark journey through Shelob’s Lair.

“The Road That I Speak of Leads to The Mines of Moria”. Gandalf Counsels the Fellowship to Take a Dark and Secret Way Under the Mountains.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 287-290

The road over the mountains has failed and the weary travellers are forced to consider another way. Until this point neither Gandalf nor Aragorn have consulted the rest of the company about what way they should take but now it is necessary that they should do so. Merry and Pippin would give up if they could but Gandalf makes it clear that there can be no turning back for if they do this there will soon be nowhere to go. To his credit Boromir has said nothing up until now but now he counsels that they retrace the steps that he took in his journey from Minas Tirith to Rivendell, passing through the Gap of Rohan. Gandalf makes it clear that this is no longer a possibility, the treachery of Saruman has seen to that.

And then Gandalf tells them of the way that he thinks best. He will take them through the Mines of Moria.

“Since our open attempt on the mountain-pass our plight has become more desperate, I fear. I see now little hope, if we do not vanish from sight for a while, and cover our trail. Therefore I advise that we should go neither over the mountains, nor round them, but under them. That is a road at any rate that the Enemy will least expect us to take.”

Gandalf’s proposal is greeted with little enthusiasm except from Gimli the dwarf for whom the name of Moria calls to mind the greatest of his people’s achievements and the name of Durin, the greatest of their kings. Boromir simply dismisses the idea while Aragorn warns Gandalf that if he enters Moria he may never get out again. Frodo trusts the counsel of Gandalf, little though he likes the sound of this “dark and secret way” as Gandalf puts it. At the last it is not strength of argument that wins the day but a sudden attack by Wargs, the wolves of Mordor. Suddenly the way through Moria is the only option.

And so begins the first of the dark ways through which Tolkien takes the Fellowship. There are three such ways and each one of them is associated with death as well as darkness. Gandalf will fall into the abyss in Moria after the attack of the Balrog at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm; Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, will take the Paths of the Dead into Gondor; while Frodo and Sam will pass through Shelob’s Lair but only, in Frodo’s case, as one who has taken a deadly bite.

For each of the Company who must go these ways there is a sense in which they tread the kind of path that Dante takes in his Divine Comedy. Each must go their own personal way through hell, each tasting something of death, and in Gandalf’s case, literally so, before they can emerge through it to what lies beyond. But for none of them is there some simple journey into Paradise. For Gandalf what lies beyond his dark road is his greatest challenge as he pits himself against the might of Mordor as well as against the leader of his own order. For Aragorn and his companions the journey through the Paths of the Dead will bring them to the battle at the gates of Minas Tirith. While for Frodo and Sam the path through Shelob’s Lair merely takes them into Mordor and all that lies ahead. While it may be too simple a thing to call this a Purgatory and so take my allusion to Dante a little further there is no doubt that for each of Tolkien’s characters who pass through their own dark ways further tests lie ahead that are no less challenging than what they have already faced.

For each of them there is a sense in which they are strengthened by the tests that they have already faced. Gandalf becomes the White after facing death itself, while Aragorn takes upon himself his true identity as the Heir of Isildur, the one who has the authority to command the obedience of the King of the Dead. And if Frodo enters Mordor as if a dead man stumbling step by step to Mount Doom, Sam enters it as a mighty hero, able to take his master to the conclusion of their journey.

And Paradise, what of this for each of Tolkien’s heroes? Tolkien leaves the answer to this question in the hands of Ilúvatar. As Aragorn was to put it, “In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound forever to the circles of the world, and beyond them there is more than memory.”

Eärendil Was a Mariner. The Story That Seems to Fit Somehow.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 227-30

Frodo gradually emerges from “a dream of music that turned into running water, and then suddenly into a voice”. And the voice is that of Bilbo chanting verses. 

Eärendil was a mariner 
that tarried in Arvernien;
he built a boat of timber felled
in Nimbrethil to journey in;
her sails he wove of silver fair,
of silver were her lanterns made,
her prow was fashioned like a swan, 
and light upon her banners laid.

And so begins the longest poem in The Lord of the Rings. A poem that links the story both to The Silmarillion and to the moment in 1914 when first Tolkien began to conceive his legendarium, the moment in which his heart was captured by the beauty of some lines from an Anglo-Saxon poem.

” Eala earendel, engla beorhtast, ofer middangeard monnum sended…”

“O, Earendel, brightest of angels, sent to men above Middle-earth…”

The poem was entitled, Christ ,or The Advent Lyrics and as soon as we read the word, Advent, we know that these words are an expression of profound longing, a cry from the darkness of our prison, a longing for freedom and for peace.

The poem continues, “You come yourself to illuminate those who for the longest time, shrouded in shadow and in darkness here, reside in the everlasting night- enfolded in our sins, they have had to endure the dark shadows of death.”

It all fits because the tale that Bilbo tells in his poem is one of deliverance from darkness. Eärendil journeys from Middle-earth to Valinor to plead for aid against Morgoth who has conquered all. Gondolin has fallen. Nargothrond has fallen. Doriath has fallen. All that was most beautiful has been lost for ever.

But that is not all. The darkness does not belong to Morgoth alone. The sons of Fëanor, bound by the oath that they swore to their father in their grief and fury, attack Arvernien seeking for the Silmaril, seized from the very crown of Morgoth by Beren and Lúthien Tinúviel. Even the reverence in which the memory of Beren and Lúthien is held is not enough to restrain the revenge required by this oath. But Eärendil still goes to Valinor seeking mercy for all and Manwë, Chief of the Valar, of the Ainur, the makers of the Music, allows this one emissary to enter the Undying Lands. Eärendil, the great intercessor, brings aid to Middle-earth in its darkest hour. “The looked for that cometh at unawares, the longed for that cometh beyond hope.”

And Eärendil will come once more in The Lord of the Rings in Shelob’s Lair, when in his darkest moment, in darkness visible as death bears down upon him, Frodo holds high the star-glass of Galadriel in which the light of the Silmaril is held and cries out, “Aiya Eärendil Elenion Ancalima!” Hail Eärendil, Brightest of Stars! The very same Advent cry that Tolkien read in 1914 and which captured his heart.

“It all seemed to me to fit somehow.”

The sense in which the story fits, both in the Hall of Fire in Rivendell and in Shelob’s Lair in Mordor is that Frodo has been drawn into the age-old longing of the Children of Ilúvatar for a light that will never go out, that darkness can never overcome.

“O Morning Star! Come and Enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death”.

“O Oriens…Veni et inlumina sedentes in tenebris et umbra mortis”.

Those who sit at ease are not in need of deliverance. The story that seems to fit somehow is the age long story of the prisoner in darkness. Bilbo and then Frodo are drawn into this story. Bilbo becomes a member of Thorin Oakenshield’s party. Frodo sets off into the wild with his three companions. Both are linked together by the finding of the Ring of Power. Both are linked together too by a desire for adventure. Soon all who have been drawn into this story, all who have been brought to Rivendell at this moment, at the coming of the Ring and the Ringbearer, will gather together to take counsel for the deliverance of Middle-earth. And once again the prayer of Eärendil will be made by those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.

The Siege of Gondor: A Word to Those For Whom Hope Has Gone

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“So now at last the City was besieged, enclosed in a ring of foes.” And in the next few pages Tolkien relentlessly builds a picture of hopelessness as the hosts of Mordor begin the assault upon Minas Tirith until he reaches the appalling climax of the winged ride of the Nazgûl.

“Ever they circled above the City, like vultures that expect their fill of doomed men’s flesh. Out of sight and shot they flew, and yet were ever present, and their deadly voices rent the air. More unbearable they became, not less, at each new cry. At length even the stout-hearted would fling themselves to the ground as the hidden menace passed over them, or they would stand, letting their weapons fall from nerveless hands while into their minds a blackness came, and they thought no more of war; but only of hiding and of crawling, and of death.”

And so Tolkien brings us to a dark place once again and, as with Frodo and Sam in Shelob’s Lair, a light will break in that will proclaim that there is no darkness so deep that it cannot be breached. And the words of the one hundred and thirty-ninth psalm come to mind declaring:

If I say surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.

Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light  are both alike to thee.

This week’s posting on my blog is dedicated to all those who are in dark places; to all those who see no way to light and life beyond the darkness. It is dedicated to those for whom everything in which they have placed their trust has proved to be a broken reed. They are like the men of Gondor looking out across the Pelennor and seeing no possibility of relief; like the defenders of the city thinking “only of hiding and of crawling and of death”.

In a few days time on this blog I will tell the story of a man whose wife lies, an innocent prisoner in a foreign jail, a pawn in a game played by people of power; a man who cannot reach her or see her. Today I dedicate this piece to him and to his wife. And if you know something of the darkness that the defenders of Gondor know then this is for you as well.

Don’t give up.