The Paths of the Dead

“I Summon You to The Stone of Erech!” On the Breaking of Oaths and The Authority of The Heir of Isildur.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 769-773

The Dead who follow Aragorn and the Grey Company along the Paths of the Dead clearly have power. We saw that in the last piece on this blog as we followed Gimli’s journey along that dark way and felt his fear, a fear that at last has him “crawling like a beast on the ground”. And it is this power that Aragorn will call upon to aid him in the cleaning of the land of Gondor from all the servants of Sauron.

When Isildur made this people swear loyalty to him as king and overlord, long ago, it was his authority and power that they feared. It was at the Stone of Erech, in a remote valley of Gondor, that the Oath was sworn at the ending of the Second Age, but that oath was broken because they feared and had worshipped Sauron for long years before the coming of Elendil and the Númenoreans to Middle-earth.

The keeping of oaths is a matter of great importance in Tolkien’s legendarium, as is their breaking also. So important is it that when Gimli speaks of swearing an oath to stay with Frodo until the end of his journey, Elrond replies:

“Let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall.” (Fellowship p. 274)

Gimli’s words are not a light affair. For a dwarf, the swearing of an oath is a matter of sacred importance; and perhaps that is why Elrond does not permit one on this occasion. He knows that none can foresee the nature of the journey that lies ahead. If Gimli had been bound by an oath to follow Frodo at the breaking of the Fellowship at Parth Galen, then he could not have followed Merry and Pippin across the plains of Rohan and his following of Frodo and Sam would have been to little or no purpose. Worse still it would almost certainly have been a hindrance to Frodo and Sam’s secret journey across Mordor. We might also note the irony in Elrond’s words about vows to walk in the dark after we thought about Gimli’s dark journey in the last piece. While Gimli is right to speak of how sworn words can “strengthen quaking heart”, Elrond is right too to aver that an oath rashly made can break a heart just as easily as it can strengthen it. It is best that he keeps Gimli from that trial. Best too, for the ultimate outcome of the Quest.

But what of the oath first made at the Stone of Erech to Isildur by the mountain people? That was not an oath made in friendship but through fear. There is no difference between them in their essence. Perhaps that is the reason why Jesus warns against the making of oaths in the Sermon of the Mount. Their spiritual power is such that we should fear it and never take it lightly. So, the oath to protect a constitution, or to speak the truth in a court of law, is not merely a form of words, a convenience to be observed merely as a matter of custom, but has a spiritual power that will be enforced in the court of heaven, and therefore should be feared.

The Dead who are summoned to the Stone of Erech know that power. They have endured it through long years without rest. Now, at last, comes the one who has the authority both to enforce their obedience to the oath and to declare the oath fulfilled at last.

“The hour has come at last. Now I go to Pelargir upon Anduin, and ye shall come after me. And when all this land is clean of the servants of Sauron, I will hold the oath fulfilled, and ye shall have peace and depart for ever. For I am Elessar, Isildur’s heir of Gondor.”

The same power that has held that mountain people in a state of unrest through long years now has power to free them also. Aragorn speaks with authority, but that authority does not lie within himself but has been granted to him. He is a man under divine authority and it is with that authority that he now speaks.

“Here is a Thing Unheard of! An Elf Will Go Underground and a Dwarf Dare Not!” Gimli’s Secret and Very Personal Dark Journey.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 768-771

As Aragorn and his company arrive at the “evil door” to the Paths of the Dead, I am taking a little time to reflect on some of the Dark Journeys of The Lord of the Rings, journeys that as I wrote last time, have a rich literary and cultural history.

This week I want to write about the dark journey of Gimli, son of Glóin, of the Dwarf kingdom of Erebor. Of all the company that pass through the evil door with Aragorn, it is through Gimli that Tolkien chooses to tell this part of the story. He rarely makes this choice usually choosing one of the hobbits if possible. Indeed, the only other occasion that comes to mind in which Gimli is the chosen vehicle for the telling of the story is in his first interaction with Galadriel when he expected enmity but encountered love. That moment changed his life. Does this one?

We read of how Aragorn led the way through the door and of how both his men and their horses followed him. We read of how Arod, the horse from the plains of Rohan who has carried both Legolas and Gimli on their journeys through that land, is afraid to follow, but how Legolas, the elf from the Woodland Realm, is able to calm his fear and lead him into the dark; and then we read this.

“And there stood Gimli the Dwarf left all alone.”

Gimli is not left alone because no-one cared about him, but because everyone assumed that Gimli, the son of a people for whom caves and mines were his natural milieu, was all right, that Gimli would be following on behind. But Gimli is not all right.

“His knees shook, and he was wroth with himself. ‘Here is a thing unheard of!’ he said. ‘An Elf will go underground and a Dwarf dare not!’ With that he plunged in. But it seemed to him that he dragged his feet like lead over the threshold; and at once a blindness came upon him, even upon Gimli Glóin’s son who had walked unafraid in many deep places of the world.”

And indeed, we remember how it was Gimli, of all the members of the Fellowship, who welcomed and embraced the journey through Moria and whose enthusiasm comforted even Gandalf in that dark place. There he was a strength to his companions. Here he is the straggler in the rear.

And soon we learn what it is he fears. It is the company of the Dead who soon fall in behind him, and because he is at the rear it is Gimli who is most aware of them.

“Nothing assailed the company nor withstood their passage, and yet steadily fear grew on the Dwarf as he went on: most of all because he knew there could be no turning back; all the paths behind were thronged by an unseen host that followed in the dark.”

Tolkien tells us of Gimli’s fear but he never tells us why he was afraid. This is largely, I think, because he knows of his own experience that when we are gripped by fear our experience is exactly that. Something comes and takes hold of us, something for a while at least that is too great for us to resist. At such a time we are unable to engage in any kind of reflection. We are rendered incapable of asking ourself a question like:

“I wonder why I feel this way?”

Indeed, for all who have known the effect upon us of an overpowering feeling such as fear, the thought that we might be able to engage in reflection at such a time is almost laughable. And for Gimli this feeling is so overpowering precisely because it is so unexpected. He is used to going underground, even living there.

Of course, it is Gimli’s encounter with the Dead that is knew to him, and I wonder if we learn something of his character, and his fundamental response to both life and death that we learn later in the story at the wedding feast of Aragorn and Arwen in Minas Tirith. There, Gimli and Éomer engage in a little chivalrous disagreement about which of the ladies at the feast is the most beautiful. For Éomer the choice is Arwen, but for Gimli it is Galadriel. And Gimli ends the dispute with these words.

“You have chosen the Evening; but my love is given to the Morning. And my heart forebodes that soon it will pass away for ever.” (Return p.953)

Here we learn a fundamental disposition of Gimli’s heart. And here we learn why he might fear, perhaps in a manner of which he is largely unaware, of anything that speaks of the night, as does the army of the Dead. And before we judge him for such a fear, we might examine our own hearts to see the fears that lie within. Both those fears of which we are aware and which we might fight with all our strength; but also those fears of which we may be unaware, that might take us unawares as they do here with Gimli. Of course, we do not know what fears they might be but if we know that they lurk within us, we might be more gentle with ourselves when they appear, and more gentle with others who are overcome by their own fear.

“This is An Evil Door”. Some Thoughts on The Dark Journeys of The Lord of the Rings as Aragorn and his Company Enter The Paths of the Dead.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 768-773

“This is an evil door,” said Halbarad, “and my death lies beyond it. I will dare to pass it nonetheless; but no horse will enter.”

Aragorn and his company have arrived at the door to the Paths of the Dead and every heart, unless it be the heart of Aragorn himself, and Legolas perhaps, falls under a dread at this haunted place. Such is the strength of Aragorn’s will, something that we might call fey if it were not that he has been called to his destiny by a power that is both deeper and higher than the spirits of the earth, that at the last all the horses of the Dúnedain and even Arod of the Rohirrim are willing to follow their masters into the dark. For a time, Gimli stands rooted to the spot by his fear of the dead, but eventually he too is willing to follow.

The journeys into dark places, into tunnels, form a major theme in The Lord of the Rings. Gandalf is warned by Aragorn not to enter Moria, but when he does so he is confronted by the Balrog and in the deep places of the earth and then in a high place he fights the battle of his life, passing even into the place of the dead. Frodo and Sam go through Shelob’s Lair where the darkness has a tangible presence that can be touched, and there Frodo passes into a death-like state after suffering the sting of Shelob’s bite. Now Aragorn’s company follow their lord into the paths of the dead through a door that Halbarad, close kinsman and companion to Aragorn, knows that heralds his death. He will fall in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields a few days later.

I could go on to speak of other dark journeys that do not necessarily involve physical tunnels but share aspects of those. I could speak of the dark journey of Merry and Pippin across the plains of Rohan as captives of the orcs of Isengard; the dark journey that Faramir goes through in his relationship to his father that leads almost to his death; the journey that Frodo and Sam take across Mordor to the Cracks of Doom; Sam’s horror in seeing the destruction of the Shire by Saruman and his gang of thugs; and I could also speak of the dark journey that Éowyn takes that leads to her encounter with the Lord of the Nazgûl at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields and the darkness that she enters and within she remains after the battle. In fact, we could say that every major character in the story has to take a dark journey.

Of course this is not original to Tolkien, nor did he intend it to be. The theme of the hero’s dark journey is an old one in the European mythology from which Tolkien drew so much of his inspiration, weaving those stories with his own dark journey, his experience of the trenches of the First World War and the Battle of the Somme of 1916, and the death of all but one of his closest friends in that terrible conflict. We could mention the journey of Lemminkäinen into the underworld in the Kalevala of Finland that Tolkien loved and read in its original language. And although Tolkien did not appreciate it so much, I do not think that we can leave out the journey of Odysseus into Hades on his journey home from Troy to his home in Ithaca.

That none of us can find life, can come at last to Paradise, without passing through death, is at the heart of all of these stories, and Tolkien’s story invites us to consider this for ourselves. Indeed, we could say that it is the refusal of characters to embrace loss and diminishment in The Lord of the Rings, characters like Sauron and Saruman and Denethor, that is their greatest tragedy. And at the heart of all this, the story to which all the stories ultimately point, is what Tolkien called the True Myth, the death and resurrection of Christ as recounted in the gospels.

“Then She Fell on Her Knees, Saying: ‘I Beg Thee!” Éowyn is So Desperate That She is Prepared to Humiliate Herself.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 767-768

It is a grievous thing to witness the humiliation of a proud woman as Legolas and Gimli do the humiliation of Éowyn before Aragorn. I do not know whether Tolkien deliberately draws our attention to this contrast, but shortly after the scene in which Éowyn falls to her knees before the man who has, to her mind at least, rejected her, we read of Arod, the horse who has borne both Legolas and Gimli, standing before the door that leads to the Paths of the Dead, “sweating and trembling in a fear that was grievous to see”. In both cases it is the witnesses that grieve. Legolas and Gimli, proud sons of lords of their people, grieve to see a daughter of the king’s brother, casting aside her dignity in a last and utterly desperate attempt to persuade Aragorn to take her with him to Gondor and the battle. It is a grievous thing for those who hold honour dear to see such a thing. And we see the Dúnedain of the North, for whom the bond between themselves and their horses is a precious thing, grieved to see a horse bereft of its dignity.

Dignity and honour are things precious to us. As we leave the innocence of our childhood behind and begin to enter our adulthood, we do the work of creating a persona. I still remember my first night in a dormitory in an English boarding school, a boy who was fourteen years old, lying in bed with the sleeping forms of four other boys in the beds round about me, making conscious choices about the person I felt I needed to be if I were to be accepted by my fellows. I was no longer going to be the child that had slept in my parents’ home among my younger brothers and sisters just the night before, I had begun the process, quite literally, of re-inventing myself, and presenting a person of dignity to the world, worthy of the world’s respect, was central to that project.

Wise people have said that no-one should give their Self away until they have a Self, strong enough, secure enough, to be able to give. Until that moment comes then it is right and proper that the primary task of each person is to build a strong Self. This is the task in which Éowyn is now engaged and until now she has undertaken this task in acts of service as has been expected of a woman of her status among her people. While for other women among the Rohirrim this has meant serving a household, for her it has meant serving a king. And while others may have regarded such a position as being worthy of honour, for her it has become merely another form of servitude. Later, when she lay near to death in the Houses of Healing in Minas Tirith, Gandalf spoke truly of her in these words:

“Who knows what she spoke to the darkness, alone, in the bitter watches of the night, when all her life seemed shrinking, and the walls of her bower closing in about her, a hutch to trammel some wild thing in?”

So, as she kneels in desperation before the man she thinks of as her last hope of freedom from her shrinking existence, as she casts aside her dignity and merely asks for pity, we see a woman for whom the creation of a strong Self amidst the choices that seem to lie before her is an impossibility. She will make one more attempt to recover something of that dignity when she asks Théoden to allow her to ride to Minas Tirith among the Rohirrim, but when he refuses her request, she takes the matter into her own hands, going in the disguise of a man, knowing that her abilities as a horsewoman are such that she can match any one of them. And she will reach a place in the battle where she will perform a deed that no man could have done, a deed that will be one of the turning points of the battle.

All of this will be a part of her journey towards Selfhood. The words that she speaks in desperation into the darkness as her life shrinks about her, the words that she cries out to Aragorn in desperation before he takes the Paths of the Dead, her appeal to Théoden to let her ride with the Rohirrim to Minas Tirith, her action in going with the riders in the disguise of a man, her battle with the Witch-king of Angmar on the Pelennor Fields, her meeting with Faramir in the Houses of Healing, all of these are stages on her road to Freedom, her road to Selfhood. Such a road can never be a transition from one success after another. The authentic road will always be a road downwards before it can be an upward path.

“They Go Only Because They Would Not Be Parted From Thee- Because They Love Thee.” Some Thoughts on Éowyn’s Unrequited Love For Aragorn

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

Éowyn has tried in every way that she can think to persuade Aragorn to take her with him on what she is convinced is little more than a suicide mission through the Paths of the Dead into Gondor, laying bare her soul to him, of her fear of remaining within a cage for the whole of her life, whether long or short. And at the last all she hears are these words:

“Stay! For you have no errand to the South.”

Aragorn has given up any attempt to be gentle. He knows that he is risking everything on this venture and that everything may well be lost. All his hopes and even his life itself and the lives of all who go with him. Nothing must stand between him and his effort to come to Minas Tirith in time before it falls to the forces of Mordor and this includes the desperate young woman who stands before him. She too must be swept aside and it must be done swiftly.

And so Éowyn is left with but one thing remaining that she can offer of herself. Her heart. She longs to be claimed by this hero and all she can hear and feel is his rejection. She heard him say that were his heart to be where it most desires to be it would “be wandering in the fair valley of Rivendell”. She did not hear Aragorn speak of Arwen but she fears that there might be someone else in his life. But she has come to believe that the only hope of the freedom for which she longs lies in his hands and that if he casts her aside then she is left with nothing. And at this moment it is this nothing that she fears above all.

So when Aragorn brutally commands her to stay in Rohan, that she has no errand to the South she speaks the words that she has kept hidden from him until now.

“Neither have those others who go with thee. They go only because they would not be parted from thee- because they love thee.”

Then, having given everything that she can give she turns away and vanishes from sight.

Does Éowyn really love Aragorn? Or does she only love what he represents for her? The possibility of achieving the freedom from captivity and degradation that she has come to hate and to fear? How many of us truly know our own hearts? Does this mean that none can really know whether they love another person or not? To fall in love is a glorious thing. Perhaps the most exalted state that any human being can ever achieve. But to go beyond this state that can become a thing desired in itself because it is so all consuming, so intoxicating, takes something greater than the action of falling into it. It requires a commitment to remain with another person through everything.

As a priest in the Church of England I have presided at many weddings over the years and time and time again I have felt a thrill run through my body when I have heard a couple promise to one another that they will love and cherish each other:

For better, for worse; for richer for poorer; in sickness and in health.

These are words of commitment that I know will be tested to the limit in the lives of everyone who speaks them aloud before many witnesses, and, I believe, before God. But perhaps one of the greatest gifts that someone can give to the world is a life that has been true to those promises, through all its tests and even through failure. Such a life, such a gift, can be a source of great strength to others who struggle through their own trials, that it is worth not giving up, that there remains something to hope for.

Later in the story Éowyn will respond to the declaration of love made by another man and we will read that “the heart of Éowyn changed, or else at last she understood it”. I would add to these words that she understood her heart as it appeared to her at that moment, but she would come to understand it even better after years together with the man that she chose. This is true for all of us and as with Éowyn, though not by the path that she will walk that is unique to her, we will go through many trials and through many joys to the day when we can truly understand our hearts.

“To The Stone of Erech! I Seek The Paths of The Dead. Come With Me Who Will.” Aragorn Acts Swiftly as Time Runs Out.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) 762-765

It is in the very nature of things of great importance that however long we spend in thinking about them or in making preparation for them there will always come a point when action has to be taken and that when that time comes it will feel as if there is not sufficient time to do what we need to do. Nor are there sufficient resources. As my friends in North America put it, we will always feel like we are a dollar short and a minute late.

As to the questions of time and resources Gimli puts it well. When Aragorn, the Heir of Isildur, succeeds in taking control of the Stone of Orthanc from Sauron’s control, he learns that a great peril is approaching Minas Tirith from the south. These are the Corsairs of Umbar, ancient enemies of Gondor who have allied themselves with Sauron to put a final end to their foes. Aragorn knows that if help does not come then Minas Tirith will fall in ten days time.

“Then lost it must be,” said Gimli. “For what help is there to send thither, and how could it come in time?”

There is no help and there is no time.

But messages have come to Aragorn from Elrond and now he knows that perhaps there is help and there is time. But the way is dark and full of doubt. Perhaps that too is the way with decisions that we must take that are of great importance. We can never be entirely sure that what we are doing is the right thing. For Aragorn the message bids him remember the words of the Seer, spoken long ago in the days of his ancestor, the last king of the northern kingdom who fell in battle against the Witch-king of Angmar.

From the North shall he come, need shall drive him:
he shall pass the Door to the Paths of the Dead.

But how can Aragorn know that he is the one of whom the Seer spoke long ago. Have there not been many times since those days in which there has been great need? The answer is that Aragorn cannot be certain, not completely certain. It may be that this is not the final climax even though everything seems to point to the fact that it is.

And what of the help?

Aragorn tells the story of a people who lived long before the days of Malbeth the Seer, a people who lived in the mountains that divide Rohan and Gondor. He tells of how in the days of the Last Alliance when Elves and Men fought together against Sauron Isildur called upon this people to fulfil their oaths to serve him and his heirs in time of need, but how they refused to come because they had once worshipped Sauron and they feared him. And Aragorn spoke of how Isildur had cursed them, telling them that they would “rest never until your oath is fulfilled.” And how they lived still as unquiet spirits, the “Sleepless Dead”, around the hill of Erech in Gondor, waiting until they might receive the call from the Heir of Isildur to fulfil their oath to him.

“I hope that the forgotten people will not have forgotten how to fight,” said Gimli; “for otherwise I see not why we should trouble them.”

They cannot know whether the help of the oath-breakers will be enough. They cannot know if they will obey the Heir of Isildur even though his need is great, and even if they go with him to face the threat from the south, whether their help will mean anything. All they can do is to take the Paths of the Dead, to go to the Stone of Erech, to call the Dead to fulfil their oaths to Isildur and his heirs, and then to go with them into battle. It is only then that they will find out what power the oath-breakers possess. It is only then that they will know that they have the resources needed to do what is required.

A dollar short and a minute late. That is how it always is with the big things; with those decisions that truly shape our lives. We must take action, and only then will we learn whether we are too late and do not have enough. Or perhaps, that we arrived in time and have enough to do what we need to do.

“He Knows Not to What End He Rides; Yet if he Knew , He Still Would Go On.” Merry Begins His Ride to War.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 760-762

The last few posts on this blog have been a kind of mini-series on Meriadoc Brandybuck, known to all as Merry. I didn’t intend to do this. I wanted to move on, as soon as possible, to think about Aragorn’s ride to war beginning with his challenge to Sauron through the Stone of Orthanc but each time I tried to do so I found myself being interrupted by the young hobbit. Merry did not want to be “left behind” and I found that I could not do that myself.

Poor Merry. At all times in this part of the story he is unsure about what part he might be able to play, if any part at all. He fears being left behind and yet when he rides with Théoden and the Rohirrim from Helm’s Deep to Dunharrow he finds that it is he who leaves behind Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli and the Dúnedain of the North. For Aragorn emerges from the Hornburg and makes a startling announcement.

“We must ride our own road, and no longer in secret. For the time of stealth has passed. I will ride east by the swiftest way, and I will take the Paths of the Dead.”

We know that the sons of Elrond accompanied the Dúnedain on their journey south in search of Aragorn and that they brought with them word from their father:

“If thou art in haste, remember the Paths of the Dead.“

But only Aragorn heard these words and no other and he did not wish to discuss them further at that time, so when he does announce his intention to take that road it comes as a complete surprise to all who hear him. And poor Merry suddenly finds himself placed in Théoden’s hands as Aragorn makes his plans without him. A short while before Merry was grateful to have Théoden’s company but now he feels unhappy and abandoned by a companion with whom he has journeyed since Rivendell and has come to love.

Like Sam Gamgee, Merry often feels “torn in two”. He would dearly love to ride with Aragorn wherever he goes; he would have loved to have ridden with Pippin and Gandalf to Minas Tirith; and he has come to love Théoden as a father, but unlike Sam he does not have a lode-star that will enable him to overcome all doubt. Sam will walk with Frodo wherever he goes and this will always be his guiding principle. Merry was denied the option of going with Frodo when he and Pippin were taken by the orcs of Isengard and since that time he has been carried first by his enemies to Fangorn, then by Treebeard to Isengard, and lastly by the Rohirrim to Helm’s Deep. At no time has he any choice in where he goes and now he is being carried to Dunharrow.

Bilbo’s words on the night of the Long-expected Party come to mind.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

We remember that Merry began with “eager feet” at Crickhollow. He was the main organiser of the conspiracy that had been planned to prevent Frodo from leaving the Shire alone. We remember how he was ready to leave the Shire with ponies packed and how with confidence he led the hobbits into the Old Forest in order to avoid the Black Riders. But then he became the prisoner of Old Man Willow, of the Barrow Wight, and at last of the orcs of Isengard, “like baggage to be called for when all is over” and that is how he feels now.

I say, that is how Merry feels, but this does not determine what he does. He is deeply unhappy and yet on he rides. He cannot see it for himself but Aragorn sees. He watches Théoden, Éomer and Merry ride away then turns to his companions and says:

“There go three that I love, and the smallest not the least… He knows not to what end; yet if he knew, he still would go on.”

Merry’s heart may be torn in two but on he goes. Bilbo’s words may have been written for him.

“And whither then? I cannot say.”

For Bilbo himself was carried on and on to the Lonely Mountain through many adventures, none of which were chosen by himself, and last of all he entered the deadly presence of Smaug himself. The question of whether he felt inclined to engage in any of the adventures of his journey was never asked of him after Gandalf invited him to join the Dwarf company. It was a complete irrelevance. So too it is for Merry. He does not know what he is doing. He has not known for a very long time. But still he goes on. He goes on to a glory that no-one, most especially himself, could ever have imagined.

“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.

“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 Danger of Light and Joy”. Gimli Weeps Openly as He Bids Farewell to Galadriel and Lothlórien.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp.369-370

As the three small boats that contain the members of the Fellowship are swept down the Great River, the Anduin, Gimli weeps openly as he mourns a loss that he never expected to experience.

“Tell me, Legolas, why did I come on this Quest? Little did I know where the chief peril lay! Truly Elrond spoke, saying that we could not foresee what we might meet upon our road. Torment in the dark was the danger that I feared, and it did not hold me back. But I would not have come, had I known the danger of light and joy. Now I have taken my worst wound in this parting, even if I were to go this night straight to the Dark Lord. Alas for Gimli, son of Glóin!”

Those who know the story will know that for Gimli there will be a torment in the dark that lies ahead for him that will almost cause him to abandon his fellows. They know too that in his finding of the glittering caves of Aglarond Gimli will find a beauty that will delight him, and give him a labour for years to come to satisfy his soul but none of this can diminish the sense of loss that overwhelms him now as the river carries him away from Lothlórien.

For Gimli, in his encounter with Galadriel, has met something far greater than a beautiful person. He has met Beauty itself and now cannot know peace and contentment in anything less than an abiding in its presence. And Gimli has also discovered what it means to have been wounded by Beauty, to be utterly surprised by that wound, and to feel the pain that cannot be satisfied by anything less.

Gimli’s experience was one to which the members of the Inklings paid much attention. C.S Lewis chose as the title of his autobiography words from a poem by William Wordsworth, “Surprised by Joy” in which he speaks of his entire life as being a search for something that came upon him unawares in his childhood. Wordsworth’s poem is a telling forth of the way in which an unexpected encounter with Joy recalls him to the recollection of one that he has lost and back to the experience of that loss with almost the same keenness with which he first knew it. Gimli would understand what Wordsworth was trying to say and what both of them felt. Wordsworth could not understand how he was able to live his life forgetting, even for a moment, his “most grievous loss” but he does and so will Gimli. Perhaps it is a kindness that we are granted not to have to bear such pain constantly but both Wordsworth, and Gimli too, tell us that any kind of life that is smaller than the present moment in which both the joy and the pain are known in their entirety is not really to be alive at all.

For Lewis, the search for Joy led him eventually to Christian faith. Here, it is vitally important to understand that this faith is not in itself a satisfaction of the longing for Joy or for Beauty. For Lewis, and for all who follow this way, faith in Christ is not the end of the journey but a sure way forward that leads at the last to an entire participation in them both. The well known quotation of the 2nd century theologian, Iranaeus of Lyon, that “the glory of God is a human being who is fully alive” continues by saying that to be alive is to have the vision of God, by which he does not mean that we spend eternity staring at an old man with a long white beard but that we contemplate and entirely participate in, as Dante put it, “the love that moves the sun and other stars”.

Those who have been “surprised by joy” or wounded by beauty and by love know that any life that is less than a complete participation is in them is no life at all. Gimli knows this now and knows too that he will not find rest in anything less than that complete participation. There is no comfort for him now but Legolas is right in saying that his friend is blessed in suffering the loss of the Beauty that he has glimpsed of his own free will. The true search for Beauty and for Joy always lies onwards and never back until it finds at last its fulfilment in the divine vision.