The Dunedain

“I Must Go Down Also to Minas Tirith, But I Do Not Yet See The Road.” Aragorn Ponders His Way Ahead.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) p. 756-758

In the last post I thought about Merry’s fear of being left behind and of being treated as if he were merely a piece of excess baggage and commented that Aragorn gives little attention to Merry’s plight because he is pondering his own way ahead. Readers of The Lord of the Rings will recall the anguish that Aragorn felt following the fall of Gandalf in Moria as he wrestled with the question of whether he should go with Frodo to Mordor or to keep the promise that he had made to Boromir to go with him to Minas Tirith. Eventually the events that took place at Parth Galen made the choice for him and so he went with Legolas and Gimli on the great chase across Rohan following Merry and Pippin and then into the Forest of Fangorn where he met Gandalf once again beyond all hope.

Now as Théoden makes his way with his men from the wreck of Isengard to Edoras while Gandalf rides upon Shadowfax with Pippin directly towards Minas Tirith Aragorn wrestles once again with a choice. It would appear that the obvious choice would be to go with Théoden and the Riders of Rohan on their way to join the battle in Gondor but now he ponders a new question.

“He will hear tidings of war, and the Riders of Rohan will go down to Minas Tirith. But for myself and any that will go with me…”

And here Legolas and Gimli declare that they will go with Aragorn before he has the opportunity to conclude this line of thought. As far as they are concerned it is a simple matter of “All for one and one for all!” But then Aragorn continues.

“Well for myself… it is dark before me. I must go down also to Minas Tirith, but I do not yet see the road. An hour long prepared approaches.”

Aragorn is thinking about words that Galadriel sent to him through Gandalf and which he received in Fangorn. 

Where now are the Dúnedain, Elessar, Elessar, 
Where do thy kinsfolk wander afar?
Near is the hour when the Lost should come forth,
And the Grey Company ride from the North,
But dark is the path appointed for thee;
The Dead watch the Road that leads to the Sea.

Once again Aragorn’s decision will be made clear to him, not through his pondering but through events because suddenly a company of grey clad knights overtakes Théoden and his men and after the original anxiety that a battle will have to be fought is allayed by the discovery that these men are indeed the Dúnedain of the North, the Rangers of which Aragorn is the Captain, new words are given to him by Elrohir, the son of Elrond, confirming Galadriel’s words.

“The days are short. If thou art in haste, remember the Paths of the Dead.“

The story of those paths is told more fully later in the tale, of how the people of the mountains that lay between Rohan and Gondor were called by Isildur to fight with him and the forces of the last alliance between Elves and Men against Sauron at the end of the Second Age but how they had feared the Dark Lord and so refused to come. And the story goes that Isildur cursed them condemning them to a ghostly existence in the shadows of the mountains until the time came when his heir would call them to fulfil the oath that they had made to Isildur and then broken.

Words have come to Aragorn from the wisest of the Elven folk, each word confirming that which was spoken by the other. But still Aragorn hesitates.

“Great indeed will be my haste ere I take that road.”

One last thing will have to take place in order to make Aragorn’s decision clear to him. One last thing will move him from the long years of secrecy in which he has hidden his true identity, the reality that he is indeed the heir of Isildur and of Elendil, the King Elessar as Galadriel named him. Like Gandalf, who spent long years as the Grey Pilgrim before being renamed “the White”, and conferred by Iluvatar with an authority with which he could challenge the Dark Lord so too did Aragorn move from his grey years of secrecy and of hiding to a moment when he would claim his true identity as King and challenge his Enemy.

A Cure for Weariness, Fear and Sadness. Frodo in The Last Homely House, East of the Sea.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 219-220

I have been enjoying my imaginary rest in one of the wonderful beds in The Last Homely House as, I hope, have you as you have read the last pages of Tolkien’s great tale and my reflections upon them. Now it is time to get up and, with Frodo and Sam, who “has been getting to know some of the ways of the place”, it is time for us to get to know it a little better too. I don’t know about you but I could use a “cure for weariness, fear and sadness” right now. I know that beyond the hidden valley of Rivendell there will be many dangers to face but just for a while let us rest here to regather our strength and so make ready to face those dangers once more.

The journey eastward through Eriador in Middle-earth is always a journey towards hardship and danger; always away from the quiet lands of Bree, the Shire; and away from the Elven lands of Forlindon and Harlindon that lie hard against the great sea and the hidden lands beyond. When Bilbo Baggins made his journey to the lonely mountain of Erebor as recounted in The Hobbit this was the last time of rest before the passage through the Misty Mountains was to be attempted and all the adventures that were to befall him there and in the lands at their far side. Hence, in Bilbo’s mind it was always The Last Homely House.

Rivendell had always been a refuge from enemies right from its founding by Elrond in the middle of the Second Age when he had led an elven host against Sauron in the wars in Eregion after the making of the great Rings of Power by Celebrimbor, deceived as Celebrimbor had been by Sauron who desired only to learn ringcraft and to use all that he could learn to forge the One Ring, and through its power to subdue all lands and all peoples under his rule.

Sauron never achieved this end but also never gave up his age old desire to rule either. That this desire lies at the heart of The Lord of the Rings is made all too clear by Gandalf when he reminds the hobbits after Pippin’s ill judged words that “The Lord of the Ring is not Frodo, but the Master of the Dark Tower of Mordor, whose power is again stretching out over the world! We are sitting in a fortress. Outside it is getting dark.”

It was during the conflict with Sauron in Eriador that Elrond first founded the “refuge of Imladris” in 1697 of the Second Age, the same year in which Celebrimbor was killed. Eventually Sauron was driven from Eriador but not by Elrond but by the Dúnedain, the men of Númenor, who arrived in a mighty fleet and established dominions on the coasts of Middle-earth. Even his possession of the Ring was not enough for Sauron to withstand the power of Númenor but something else enabled him to overthrow that mighty land. The appendices at the end of The Return of the King put it in the most chilling way when they say, ” The shadow falls on Númenor”. No military defeat ever took place but an inner moral collapse most certainly did. Again, in the appendices, Tolkien uses a few words to terrible effect.

2251: Tar-Atanamir takes the sceptre. Rebellion and division of the Númenoreans begins. About this time the Nazgûl or Ringwraiths, slaves of the Nine Rings, first appear.

Surely, Tolkien has no need to spell out what happened in any explicit manner. Sauron did not seduce just anyone with his gifts. As we come to learn about Sméagol later in the story, a small and miserable creature is capable only of small and miserable evils. Only the great can do the greatest harms. Surely it was men of Númenor that Sauron seduced and made slaves to his will through the insidious gift of Rings of Power. And this is where the contrast between them and those who find refuge in Rivendell lies. There are those who will give everything, even their souls, for power. And there are those who seek “a cure for weariness, fear and sadness”.

And so throughout the long years, years that Elrond terms “the long defeat”, Rivendell remains a secret refuge, a Last Homely House for all weary travellers, a home in need for the remnant of the Dúnedain of the North and now, for a little while at least, a refuge for the Ringbearer and his companions, a place, as Pippin who recognises true joy when he sees it, where it is “impossible, somehow to feel gloomy or depressed”.

The Grey Company Come to Aragorn

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As Théoden and his escort ride toward Edoras they are overtaken by a company of horsemen riding hard. After initial fears that it is an attack they learn that the riders are Rangers of the North who have come to give aid to Aragorn, their kinsman and that with them have come also Elladan and Elrohir, the sons of Elrond of Rivendell. Aragorn is delighted. Only thirty have come but, as Théoden declares, “If these kinsmen be in any way like to yourself, my lord Aragorn, thirty such knights will be a strength that cannot be counted by heads.”

And Théoden is right. This is a mighty company of knights hardened in battle and loyal to their lord. The peaceful communities of Bree and the Shire have long been their care and little peace would they have known without it. So careful have they been to hide what they do that they have received little honour from the peoples that they have protected. Aragorn’s name of Strider by which he first introduced himself to Frodo and his companions at The Prancing Pony in Bree, is no affectionate pet name but a dismissal of one who is little regarded.

And yet the Rangers of the North are Dunedain, sons and daughters of Númenor and the once proud kingdom of Arnor. Over the long years since the wars against the witch kingdom of Angmar they have dwindled and their lord can no longer call himself, king, but only their chieftain, yet they have not shrunken into themselves as Saruman does after the fall of Isengard, who, even when he becomes lord of the Shire, is found to be living in miserable squalor. Their numbers may be few but they are a people who know their own greatness.

And this is because of Aragorn, their lord. Some years ago I came across some words of the 16th century Anglican theologian, Richard Hooker, that made a deep impression upon me then and still do today. “How are the people to know that they are faithful unless their captains tell them?”

To know myself as faithful is to know that my life has a purpose, a meaning and a value because it has been given to something greater than itself and it has been given well. The reason why the Rangers do not need the praise of the Shire and of Bree is because they have the praise of one that they honour far beyond them. Aragorn, their lord, named Estel, or Hope, by Gilraen his mother, raised by Elrond of Rivendell, befriended by Gandalf the Grey, loved by Arwen Undomiel, who fought with Rohan and Gondor as a young man is one whose praise is to be sought above any that they know. Think of Aragorn’s first words when he greets them.

“Halbarad!” he said. “Of all joys this is the least expected!”

Then think how you would feel if someone that you greatly respect spoke words like that to you. This is a people who know that they are faithful because their captain has told them and in knowing it they grow into the knights that Théoden speaks of. They are not simply a band of horsemen but a company of knights errant who have come to follow their lord wherever he goes even if it is unto death.

How much we need leaders like that today. Leaders who are praiseworthy in themselves because we know that they are willing to make great personal sacrifice for the sake of those who follow them and who make their followers as much a part of the enterprise that they share together as they are themselves. Too often it seems that the true purpose of an enterprise is to enrich a small number of people while many within it make great personal sacrifice simply to earn enough to get by. When things go wrong it is the loyal followers who must pay the price while the leaders walk away enriched by what others have given to them.

Aragorn is not such a leader. There are some that I have met who have something of his quality but not many. And it is a challenge to me to give thought to how I can be such a leader to others. My sphere of influence may not be great but I can make a difference within it.