The True Strider

“What is Wrong With Strider?” Gandalf Gives Pippin a Rapid Briefing on Aragorn Just Before They Enter the Throne Room of Gondor.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 736-737

You would have thought that Gandalf would have briefed Pippin about Aragorn and his true identity some time before they went into the throne room of Gondor to meet Denethor. After all it is four days since he had set out from the camp at Dol Baran with Pippin seated in front of him on Shadowfax so there has been plenty of time to do so, but he did not. In fact he tells Pippin that it was his responsibility to learn something of the history of Gondor. But I rather think that Gandalf knows that Pippin only learns something, really learns it, when it is absolutely necessary for him to do so. Before that time comes for him all that he is told will go in through one ear and out of the other.

So as they go down a passage to the throne room Gandalf tells Pippin not to tell Denethor any more than is necessary about the death of Boromir, nothing about Frodo’s errand, and nothing about Aragorn.

“Why not?” asks Pippin guilelessly. “What is wrong with Strider?”

It is worth noting that Pippin still refers here to Aragorn as Strider, to the name by which Aragorn introduced himself to Frodo and his companions in the Prancing Pony in Bree. This is not some slip of the tongue on Pippin’s part. He never really gets to know Aragorn by any other name. Readers may remember that in the chapter entitled Flotsam and Jetsam as Merry and Pippin tell their story to Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, Aragorn settles down with his pipe to listen to them and Pippin cries out: “Strider the Ranger has come back!” (Two Towers p.734). There will also be a moment later in the story after the Battle of the Pelennor Fields when Pippin will see Aragorn for the first time since leaving the camp in Rohan and will cry out in surprise and joy: “Strider! How splendid!” and Pippin’s familiarity will be a cause of some irritation at that moment for those who are just beginning to get used to the possibility that the warrior who arrived in the battle at just the right time might possibly be their king.

So to Pippin Aragorn always remains the man who befriended him and his friends in the inn at Bree. Perhaps Gandalf recognises this and so decides not to overcomplicate things with his young companion. Perhaps too, Gandalf knows that the real value that Pippin brings to his task is not his intelligence or subtlety but his innocence. After all Pippin would have to be a completely different and much older character even to begin to match Denethor in subtlety, and if he tried to do so the effort would be perceived so quickly that more harm might be done in the attempt than any good. Much better that Pippin simply keeps his mouth shut and comes before Denethor as he is. What touches Denethor, getting momentarily beneath his defences, is not Pippin’s cleverness but the moment when he pledges his service to Denethor in gratitude for Boromir’s sacrifice. After all Pippin always revered Boromir remembering how Boromir had laid down his life for him when he was captured by the orcs of Isengard.

Aragorn will have to take care of himself, how he will arrive in Minas Tirith and under what name. And when he does so he will even use Pippin’s over familiarity to his advantage. When the Prince of Dol Amroth acidly asks: “Is it thus that we speak to our kings?” Aragorn replies:

“Verily, for in the high tongue of old I am Elessar, the Elfstone, and Envinyatur, the Renewer… But Strider shall be the name of my house, if that ever be established. In the high tongue it will not sound so ill, and Telcontar I will be and all the heirs of my body (Return p.845)

So Gandalf trusts Aragorn to be Aragorn and I think we can also say with some confidence that he trusts Pippin to be Pippin and does not expect Pippin to be anything other than he is.

“Strider the Ranger Has Come Back.” Who is Aragorn? Perhaps Pipe-smoking will give us a clue.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 730-734

Gandalf takes Théoden and Éomer around the walls of the flooded fortress of Isengard to find Treebeard and leaves Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli behind at the gatehouse with Merry and Pippin. So it is that the three hunters are reunited at last with the captives of the orcs in the very place in which Merry and Pippin were to have been held prisoner by Saruman. The young hobbits are able to provide their guests with a decent meal and a choice of wine or beer and then, when hunger is satisfied and a deep sense of contentment gently descends upon these friends Merry and Pippin are able to provide something that will deepen that feeling and that is Longbottom leaf, pipeweed of the very finest quality.

“Now let us take our ease here for a little!” said Ara Aragorn. “We will sit on the edge of ruin and talk, as Gandalf says, while he is busy elsewhere. I feel a weariness such as I have seldom felt before.” He wrapped his grey cloak about him, hiding his mail-shirt, and stretched out his long legs. Then he lay back and sent from his lips a thin stream of smoke.”

All pipe-smokers will know the particular pleasure that is achieved through the careful practice of their art. A really good pipe requires the right state of mind in order that it might be fully enjoyed. If one comes to a pipe in an agitated state then that feeling will be transmitted to the experience; but if one is able to achieve an inner quiet before lighting a well prepared pipe then both pipe and the state of mind can deepen one another. This is Aragorn’s experience now at the end of nine days endless activity since he decided to go in search of the young hobbits across the plains of Rohan.

With some sadness I have to describe myself as a former pipe-smoker and so I have had to draw upon memories of some years ago. I never smoked more than one or, at the most, two pipes in a day and I always did so when the tasks of the day were done and I had a quiet moment for thought or in the pleasant company of a fellow smoker. So for me the experience of pipe-smoking and inner quiet are intimately and delightfully linked.

My pipe-smoking career came to an end when my older daughter came back from school one day and put a screen-saver on my PC with the words, “Daddy, you will die!” It seemed that she had had a class that day in which the dangers of smoking to health were presented to the children. As she listened to the teacher anxiety grew within her about her own father and so she worked out a way of telling me about this. I love my daughter very much and as soon as I saw the message I knew that I could not be the deliberate cause of anxiety in her and so I gave up smoking my pipe on that very day.

If you want to learn a little about the pleasures of pipeweed then could I please recommend a talk by Malcolm Guite that you can find on his YouTube channel. If you search for him on pipe-smoking you will find a number of short videos there as well as much good material, especially the work that he is doing at present on the retelling of the Galahad tales from the Arthurian legends.

It is Pippin who realises that, as he watches Aragorn smoke his pipe, that he is back in the Prancing Pony with the stranger who will eventually introduce himself as Strider. And as he remembers he speaks.

“Strider the Ranger has come back!”

And Aragorn replies: “He has never been away… I am Strider and Dúnadan too, and I belong to Gondor and the North.”

Pippin belongs to the North and it is there that he first met the man who would be his king both there and in Gondor. it was Bilbo who first introduced us to Aragorn as Dúnadan, man of the West, of Númenor, making us realise his deep lineage, beginning with Eärendil and Elwing, and, before them, Beren and Lúthien. And it was Gandalf who told us that to call Aragorn only a Ranger was to misunderstand him completely. Later Pippin would hail Aragorn as Strider in the presence of the lords of that land which would prompt the Prince of Dol Amroth to ask, somewhat sardonically, whether it would be in terms of easy familiarity like this that kings would henceforth be addressed. Aragorn’s reply displayed his mastery of the moment as well as his mastery of himself.

“Strider shall be the name of my house, if that ever be established. In the high tongue it will not sound so ill, and Telcontar I will be and all the heirs of my body.”

“Only a Ranger!” Gandalf Puts Frodo Right About Strider.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 213-219

The Danish philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard, told a story of a prince who, in order to win the love of a peasant girl, decided to live among her people as a fellow peasant and to hide his true identity. Eventually he marries her and we await the moment when he will reveal himself to her. But then, Kierkegaard asks us, does he have to do this? Why can’t he remain a peasant for the rest of his life out of the same love that him to disguise himself in the first place?

As you ponder the philosopher’s question your thoughts may turn towards Strider, or Aragorn. The poet, priest and scholar, Malcolm Guite, has published a series of poems on the great O Antiphons of the Middle Ages that have a prominent place in the liturgy of the Advent season. In a note on his poem on O Rex Gentium, O King of the Nations, Guite comments that the antiphon speaks of Christ as both king and also as a dusty potter working with the clay of our humanity, and then he says, “he is the king who walks alongside us disguised in rags, the true Strider!”

Aragorn, or Strider as he is known to the people of Bree, has walked alongside Frodo and his companions all the way from Bree to Rivendell, clad in boots that have seen much wear and are “caked in mud” with a “travel-stained cloak of heavy dark-green cloth” wrapped around him. As Frodo thinks back over the journey he begins by telling Gandalf that at first he had been afraid of Strider, then that he had become fond of him.

“Well, fond is not the right word. I mean he is dear to me; though he is strange and grim at times. In fact he reminds me often of you.”

Finally, Frodo says, after making a few general and rather dismissive comments about “the Big People”, that he thought that Strider “was only a Ranger”. And so we return in our thoughts to the king who walks alongside us in rags. Those who learn wisdom come to understand that no-one, absolutely no-one, can be dismissed with the word, only. All people are more than they seem and if we take the time to be with them we begin to discover in what ways they are more than they seem. But Gandalf is anxious to let Frodo know that to say, “only” in relation to a Ranger, is an even greater insult.

“My dear Frodo, that is just what the Rangers are: the last remnant in the North of the great people, the Men of the West.”

It was Strider’s ancestors who first entered Beleriand in the last centuries of the First Age where they were befriended by the Elves and gave them aid in their wars against Morgoth. That this was the people of Númenor who lived within sight of the Undying Lands. At this point of the story Frodo still has no idea that when Strider had sung the Tale of Beren and Lúthien in the camp below Weathertop he had been singing of his forefathers and foremothers. He does not know how great is the story into which he has been drawn and in which he is to play so great a part. There is one point at which his perception is entirely accurate and that is when he says of Strider “that he reminds me often of you”. But he has not learned to trust his perception. He does not yet know that he, the Elf-friend, is growing in greatness. Perhaps it is just as well, for it necessary that as we grow in greatness we must also grow in humility, to learn that everything is not gained as an achievement but given as a gift. This is the last time that we will refer to Aragorn as Strider but as Aragorn will say at a later stage of the story, Strider “has never been away”.

And so we return to Kierkegaard’s story and to his question. Does his prince need to reveal his true identity to his beloved? Might not they live perfectly happily together as peasants for the rest of their lives? Perhaps they might, but equally, they might live together in happiness as a prince and princess. As Frodo is drawn into the great story so too he is becoming great, as Gildor Inglorien first recognised when he named Frodo, Elf-friend, and as Goldberry saw too in the house of Tom Bombadil. Just as with Kierkegaard’s prince, and just as with Strider, he will learn either to assume that greatness or to lay it aside as he chooses or as is necessary. Why cannot Kierkegaard’s peasant girl learn to do the same?

The Paths of the Dead. A Journey from Despair to Life .

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At the end of the Second Age the King of the Mountains swore allegiance to Isildur at the Stone of Erech. But when war against the Dark Lord came the king proved faithless for he had worshipped Sauron in the Dark Years and still believed the dark to be greater than the light. And so Isildur said to him:

“Thou shalt be the last king. And if the west prove mightier than thy Black Master, this curse I lay upon thee and thy folk: to rest never until your oath is fulfilled. For this war will last through years uncounted, and you shall be summoned once again ere the end.”

The miserable story of the King of the Mountains acts as a kind of parable within The Lord of the Rings concerning the fate that awaits all who give way to the Dark believing either that their advantage lies that way, or that they have no choice, or some combination of the two. The story of Saruman is another expression of this reality and, if Sauron had triumphed, no doubt the story of the king and people of Harad and the other allies of Mordor would have been another. Isildur’s curse is not an act of arbitrary power. He simply declares what all worshippers of the Dark most truly desire; to exist in the darkness.

When Aragorn declares that he is the true king, the heir of Isildur, he calls the Dead to fulfil their oath. They must now serve him. Unlike the hapless Baldor, son of Brego the second king of Rohan, who sought to tread the Paths of the Dead in his own pride and without authority, Aragorn comes as one to whom authority has been given and so the dead must obey him. Baldor died because the way was shut “until the time comes”. The time has now come. The king has spoken and the dead must hear.

In one of his Advent reflections that you can find in his collection, entitled Waiting on the Word, Malcolm Guite calls Jesus “the king who walks alongside us disguised in rags, the true Strider.” https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/2015/12/22/o-rex-gentium-a-sixth-advent-reflection/ This reference to Aragorn belongs to a poem inspired by the Advent antiphon,  O Rex Gentium, O King of the Nations and their desire. The Lord of the Rings is an Advent work proclaiming light in the darkness as we saw a few months ago when we heard Frodo cry out “Aiya Eärendil Elenion Ancalima!”, Hail Eärendil O Brightest of Stars! when he was lost in the utter darkness of Shelob’s Lair. https://stephencwinter.com/2016/01/12/the-dayspring-from-on-high-comes-to-the-aid-of-the-hobbits/ Advent is also the time when we long for the true king to come and heal the lands. We long for “the true Strider”. The Lord of the Rings shows us those, like Faramir, who have kept the faith, waiting for the true king and perhaps for the restoration of Númenor and maybe even the deepest reality of all, that to which Númenor, even at its most true, could only point to. It also shows us those, like Denethor, who lose faith, or those like Saruman or the King of Harad who come to believe in a perversion of the Advent hope believing the lie that declares that it is the dark that is the true reality.

Aragorn’s journey through The Paths of the Dead calling the dead to obedience and so to an end to their misery also recalls the ancient story of how Jesus went down to the dead after his death on the cross and so harrowed hell leading the dead from despair to life.

This is the journey that Aragorn now takes with the companions who follow him and he points us to the true Strider who calls us, too, to follow him through darkness into light.