The Last Homely House

“What Do You Fear, Lady?” Éowyn Knows What She Fears as She Seeks For What She Desires.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 765-767

In my last piece on this blog I touched on the words of Éowyn that I want to think more about this week.

“What do you fear, lady?” Aragorn asks her. And Éowyn replies:

“A cage,” she said. “To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.”

It is worth remembering here that The Lord of the Rings was published in the early 1950s and largely written during the late 30s and the 1940s. In other words before the modern women’s movement of the 1960s and beyond. The ideal world of a certain form of conservatism is one in which women largely remain in the home caring for their men and their children. It is one in which my mother had to give up her nursing career in England when she married in 1953. The modern nursing profession in England was created by Florence Nightingale in the mid 19th century and modelled upon a monastic style vocation in which women would give their entire life to nursing without the distraction of home and family. I remember my mother saying when she was particularly cross with the behaviour of myself and my four younger brothers and sisters, “If it were not for you I would be a matron (the senior nurse in an English hospital and a very powerful figure) now!”

So it is worth noting these words that Éowyn speaks in that particular context, the context of Tolkien’s world before the 1960s. She wants to go with the soldiers into battle. She tires of her responsibility as keeper of the hearth for the men until they return. Aragorn speaks truly when he reminds her that a deed that no-one notices is no less noble than one that is seen and praised by all. But Éowyn is no less true when she makes this reply.

“All your words are to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more.”

I do not want to think here about the question of whether the role of a women in either public affairs, (in Éowyn’s case, in the world of battle at a time of national crisis), or domestic affairs, (in Éowyn’s case, her responsibility to lead the women of her people as they watch over homes and families so that their men will have something to return to after battle is done), is more noble in one case than another. Clearly Aragorn is saying to her that her domestic role is just as honourable than any role that she might play in battle and in one sense that is true. The creation of an hospitable home is a wonderful thing as anyone who has experienced one will attest to and perhaps our deepest longing is to find rest within such a home after the trials of life. In Tolkien’s legendarium we might think of Rivendell as such a place, The Last Homely House, as Tolkien named it in The Hobbit. As Sam puts it when he and Frodo return there after their adventures for a brief stay, “We’ve been far and seen a deal, and yet I don’t think we’ve seen a better place than this.” (The Return of the King p. 964) There is a constant dialogue within The Lord of the Rings between deeds done beyond the domestic sphere and the places of shelter and hospitality within the story. Perhaps one comment that I might add is that the great places of hospitality are the shared responsibility of both women and men, of Arwen and Elrond, of Goldberry and Tom Bombadil, and at the end of the story of both Rosie Cotton and Sam Gamgee. And in the great battle of the Pelennor Fields great deeds are done, both by men and women, as we shall see.

But although Éowyn speaks bitterly about her feeling of being caged within one set of expectations and denied access to another, the most important thing she speaks of here is her own desire. And at this point in her story what she knows of herself is her fear. Her fear of living a caged life, and especially her fear of living within a degraded cage, “a thatched barn where brigands drink in the reek, and their brats roll on the floor among their dogs”. (The Fellowship of the King p. 849)

Éowyn knows what she fears. She also thinks that she knows what might free her from those fears as we shall consider in the next piece, but I would say that at this point she does not know what she truly wants, what she desires more deeply than anything else. But then for each one of us that is one of the hardest journeys of all. The journey into our hearts in order to discover what we truly desire.

“Now I Can Take a Night’s Rest, The First Since I Have Forgotten When”. Gandalf is Able to Rest Even While Riding The Storm.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 254-258

The words in this week’s title come in the midst of a passage that is moves at a ferocious pace. From the moment in which Saruman has Gandalf confined to the pinnacle of Orthanc to the moment in which Gandalf apologises to Frodo for failing to keep his promise Tolkien takes us upon a journey that covers most of the western lands of Middle-earth and some east of the Misty Mountains too.

The journey begins with honest Radagast, keeping his promise to gather news and to send it to Gandalf in Isengard, a promise that he keeps even as he rides towards his home in Mirkwood. The Eagles of Manwë, Lord of the Valar, fly over many lands observing “the gathering of wolves and the mustering of orcs” and the ferocious pursuit search for the Ring by the Nazgûl. Gwaihir, the Windlord, takes Gandalf from his prison and carries him to Edoras and the hall of Théoden, King of Rohan, where Gandalf takes a horse, the mighty Shadowfax, who takes him hundreds of leagues even as Frodo and his companions rest in the house of Tom Bombadil and then have their misadventure in the Barrow Downs and their night at The Prancing Pony in Bree.

Gandalf arrives in Bree upon the very same day in which the hobbits had set off towards Rivendell with Aragorn and upon receiving this news from Barliman Butterbur with joy he decides to rest.

I have always enjoyed the moment in which Gandalf lays Butterbur’s beer “under an enchantment of surpassing excellence”. Apart from the obvious and enticing pleasure of excellent beer it is a moment in which we gain an insight into his character. Gandalf does not live at a great height in some remote and, to others, inaccessible place. In recent weeks we have poked fun at Saruman’s “high and lonely destiny”. Gandalf, the grey pilgrim, is as much at home in an inn at Bree, smoking his pipe and savouring the pleasure of good beer, as he is amongst the great. Not only does he enjoy simple pleasures for their own sake he also understands their importance in the wider scheme of things. Places of hospitality play a key role in the whole story of The Lord of the Rings. Without them the Ring could never have been taken to Mordor. All along the East-West road through Eriador from Rivendell to Bree to the Shire to the Grey Havens lie such places, places in which the giving of welcome is something that is prized. Such welcome is a inner disposition, an enjoyment of the stranger as well as those who are familiar. And, of course, there are the places along the road that are less known, where unexpected hospitality is given; places like Woodhall and Farmer Maggot’s farm, Crickhollow and Tom Bombadil’s cottage. It is because of the spirit of hospitality that the Quest of the Ring is ultimately successful and Gandalf has spent long years nurturing this spirit.

Gandalf is a warmer of hearts. He is the bearer of Narya, the ring of fire but this is not external to his character but merely an intensification of it. When Cirdan gave Narya to Gandalf and not to Saruman it was because of a recognition that he was the right bearer of such power. There are other uses that fire can be put to than the warming of hearts. Gandalf saw such uses as a prisoner in Orthanc in Saruman’s “pits and forges”. Places in which creatures are merely put to temporary use, in which shelter is a necessity required to enable production. Later Merry and Pippin will enjoy the hospitality of Isengard but will do so as a spoil of war and not as a freely given gift.

That Gandalf does not come to a place like The Prancing Pony in Bree as a figure of terror as do the Nazgûl is because he has chosen not to do so, a choice that he has made over and over again throughout the long and hidden years. That Aragorn and the hobbits are able to enjoy Butterbur’s hospitality too is the fruit of this choice and why Gandalf is able to sleep, albeit briefly, before returning to the great struggle.

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”.