The Witch King of Angmar

“And in That Very Moment, Away Behind in Some Courtyard of The City, a Cock Crowed.” When The Earth Fights Back Against The Servants of Darkness.

/ stephencwinter / 5 Comments

The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 809-811

The “very moment” that Tolkien speaks of here is the moment that the Morgul Lord describes as “my hour”, the triumph of the powers of darkness over the free peoples of Middle-earth. As the defenders of Minas Tirith flee before him only Gandalf stands. But what happens next is not a mighty struggle such as took place in the mines of Moria when Gandalf fought the Balrog and died as he overthrew his enemy, but the sound of horns. The Riders of Rohan have come at last to the aid of their ancient allies.

And there is something else, something that the Morgul Lord does not seem to notice, but is absolutely fundamental to the turning of the battle before the walls of the city.

“And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the City, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, recking nothing of wizardry or war, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn.”

The Witch-King does not notice this because why should he? What does it matter to him that in the heart of a great battle such a thing should happen? The doings of small creatures are beneath his notice. Ultimately, the doings of any creature are of nothing to him, chief of all the servants of the Dark Lord. The end of that creature, as is the end of any creature, is darkness, so why should he bother?

Except that the crowing of the cockerel announces a turning of the tide. Maybe not the ultimate downfall of his master, that is yet to come and is equally unlooked for, but it is the turning of the tide in the story of that day, because what the cock announces in its crowing is the coming of the dawn.

For many days now there has been no dawn. The smokes of Mount Doom have spread over the lands of the south, reaching even the mustering of the Riders of Rohan in Harrowdale far off in Rohan. As the world turns towards the springtime of the year Sauron declares to that world that there will be no spring, there will be no welcome to the return of life, but only darkness. His own armies and most especially his orcs, fear the sun, and even his allies who have sold themselves to the power of darkness acknowledge its inevitable triumph and serve it. Frodo may have cried out in defiance at the setting of the sun at the Crossroads that the Powers of Darkness will not conquer forever, but if Sauron had heard that cry he might have named it as bravery in the face of defeat but nothing more than that. Both he and his master, Morgoth, have heard many such cries and have never feared them.

But the crowing of the cock is not a cry of defiance. The cock is simply doing what he has always done when the dawn breaks over the world. He crows. And in the simple act of his crowing, he declares something that undermines the power of every tyrant. He declares that although the earth is marred by darkness it is both good and free. He declares that “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork.” That the sun “as a bridegroom cometh out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.” The good earth and the good sun is not the servant of Sauron but of Eru Ilúvatar, the Creator of all. The morning is coming high above the shadows that Sauron has made, and he has no power over it, and with the changing of the direction of the wind those shadows are beginning to lift, and the cock crows to welcome the dawn and the ending of the night.

The words that the Morgul Lord speaks to Gandalf in the gate of the city inevitably recall the words that Jesus spoke to the temple guards who had come to arrest him in the Garden of Gethsemane: “but this is your hour and the power of darkness” (Luke 22.53). But just as the power of darkness in the gospel has only the power permitted to it for it to wield so too the power of the Morgul Lord is only for a moment. The cock crow announces the end of that power as the dawn breaks and the horns of Rohan sound.

“Do You Not Know Death When You See It?” In Which We Learn That Gandalf Does Not Dear Death But That The Morgul Lord Does Fear It.

/ stephencwinter / 6 Comments

The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 809-811

Pippin runs bravely down to the gate of Minas Tirith, down into the heart of the battle, in search of Gandalf and looking for aid in his attempt to save the life of Faramir from his father’s madness; but when he reaches the gate he shrinks in terror, cowering into a shadow. For what he sees is the Morgul Lord, the Witch-King of Angmar, the Lord of the Nazgûl, revealed in all his power, riding through the broken gate of the city.

“In rode the Lord of the Nazgûl. A great black shape against the fires beyond he loomed up, grown to a vast menace of despair. In rode the Lord of the Nazgûl, under the archway that no enemy ever yet had passed, and all fled before his face.”

Pippin is terrified. And rightly so, for he stands in mortal danger. Even the bravest of the soldiers of Gondor flee before the face of this terrible being. But one stands in defiance of him. Gandalf, seated upon Shadowfax, does not flee.

Those who know The Lord of the Rings through Peter Jackson’s films know that this scene does not appear in Jackson’s telling of the story. When the gates are broken by the mighty blows of Grond the battle continues as orcs flood through the shattered defences. In the Director’s Cut there is a scene, almost a peripheral one, in which the Morgul Lord shatters Gandalf’s staff, a scene in which Gandalf appears almost as a broken old man before the horns of Rohan sound and the Witch-King is distracted from what is presented as an inevitable victory over his foe.

But this is not how Tolkien presents the scene and I would like to offer my thoughts here as to why this is.

As we have already seen, there is no sense in which Tolkien seeks to diminish the power of the Lord of the Nazgûl at this moment. He intends us to see him as Pippin does, clothed in a power that he did not display in the camp below Weathertop when he struck the blow that wounded Frodo, or at the Fords of Bruinen when he was almost able to capture Frodo and the Ring, but was defeated by Glorfindel before whom he had once fled in one of the great battles of the Third Age at the end of his kingdom of Angmar, and by the magic of Elrond in the rising of the waters there. There we saw that his power was limited, but here, surely, we see that nothing can stand before him. Not even Gandalf.

The Morgul Lord is sure of this, even when Gandalf tells him that he cannot enter the city and commands him to “Go back!” And so he responds.

“Old fool!” he said. “Old fool! This is my hour. Do you not know Death when you see it? Die now and curse in vain!” And with that he lifted up his sword and the flames ran down the blade.

This is the moment of power that Peter Jackson showed in the Director’s Cut. Gandalf as the old fool, powerless before death in all its terror, his staff shattered as the Witch-king raises his sword. But there is something that the Morgul Lord does not know, cannot know, and that is that Gandalf does know death. He passed through death at the end of his battle with Durin’s Bane, with the Balrog of Moria. There at the end of that terrible struggle on the mountain top Gandalf said that “darkness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads that I will not tell.”

Gandalf knows death. As Gandalf the Grey he died in battle against a mighty foe. But he was “sent back- for a brief time until my task is done.” And Eru Ilúvatar sends him back with a task to be completed. Gandalf does not fear death because he has already passed through it and he knows the mission that he must and will complete.

But the Witch-King does not know death. But we know that he fears it even as he serves it, believing death to have the ultimate power. This is why in his speech he gives Death a capital letter. We know this because it was because of this fear that he first accepted the Ring of Power from the hand of Sauron, believing that through his Ring he might escape Death for ever. He has devoted his entire existence to the service of Death and so he has become a wraith. When Gandalf commands him to fall “into the nothingness that awaits you and your Master”, Gandalf speaks words of doom, for soon he will fall in the battle at the hands of a woman and a hobbit.

“I Am Too Late. All is Lost”. Frodo’s Struggle With Despair Outside Minas Morgul.

/ stephencwinter / 8 Comments

The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007)

The overwhelming force that is the army of Minas Morgul has passed down the valley on its way to assault th6e city of Minas Tirith and Frodo is left alone in the shadows at the beginning of the long climb to Cirith Ungol with Sam and Gollum.

Suddenly, despite his escape from the Lord of the Nazgûl, Frodo is overcome by despair.

“Frodo stirred. And suddenly his heart went out to Faramir. ‘The storm has burst at last,’ he thought. ‘This great array of spears and swords is going to Osgiliath. Will Faramir get across in time? He guessed it, but did he know the hour? And who can now hold the fords when the King of the Nine Riders is come? And other armies will come. I am too late. All is lost. I tarried on the way. All is lost. Even if my errand is performed, no one will ever know. There will be no one I can tell. It will be in vain.’ Overcome with weakness he wept. And still the host of Morgul crossed the bridge.”

“And still the host of Mordor crossed the bridge”. Alan Lee depicts the scene that Frodo saw as the Witch King leads his army to war.

Perhaps the choreography that I spoke of in my last post on The Two Towers has had its effect, albeit one that was unintended. The shock and awe was all intended to drain morale from the defenders of Minas Tirith but it is Frodo who is lying on the ground, all hope gone and no strength left to continue his journey. We can imagine that repeated phrase, “all is lost”, resounding over and over again within him, gaining an ever tightening grasp upon his heart. And there is still the terrible climb up the stairs of Cirith Ungol yet to be attempted; a task that will require all the strength that he possesses.

At a moment like this when all seems lost something has to pierce the darkness and for Frodo this something is one of exquisite simplicity. We must assume that Frodo must have fallen into a swoon, overwhelmed by the horror of what he has witnessed, or at least to have appeared to have done so, because it is Sam’s voice that breaks through to him.

“Wake up, Mr. Frodo! Wake up!”

And in those simple words, just for the briefest of moments, Frodo is transported back to the Shire and breakfast is about to be served. Of course the moment cannot last and the awful reality must return but when it does Frodo has strength to resist it. He knows that it is likely that all is in vain, that Gondor will fall before the power that has come against it but it is almost as if this no longer matters. “That what he had to do, he had to do, if he could, and that whether Faramir or Aragorn or Elrond or Galadriel or Gandalf or anyone else ever knew about it was beside the purpose.”

The early fathers of the Christian Church taught that an essential foundation of the spiritual life was a renunciation of despair and this is true. For Frodo this renunciation is expressed in the words “what he had to do, he had to do”. And it is worth emphasising here also, that for Frodo, and for many others also, the spiritual life is not some state of endless bliss but a bloody minded refusal to give in, a determination to go on putting one foot in front of the other. Tolkien puts this wonderfully as he concludes this passage by saying of Frodo that “he prepared to take the upward road”.

Frodo does renounce despair at this point in the story and there is a sense in which he will have to repeat that renunciation over and over again before the end of his journey and when his mind can no longer do so his body will have to do it and when his body can no longer do so Sam will have to carry him and renounce despair for him. But just before the renunciation that we have described here there is that moment of pure grace when another reality than the one he must return to breaks in from outside through Sam’s voice and simple words. This moment of grace will not always be repeated but it comes here, just Frodo has to take the upward road, and it is enough, though barely. Frodo will make the journey to Orodruin.

“Maybe It Was the Ring That Called to The Wraith-lord, and For a Moment He Was Troubled.” A Contest of Powers Within the Morgul Vale.

/ stephencwinter / 2 Comments

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

Travelling through Scotland and having forgotten my usual edition of The Two Towers I am grateful to my sister in law, Elinor Farquharson and her husband, Geoffrey, of Edinburgh, for the loan of their single volume edition of The Lord of the Rings.

The short time that the companions spend at the Cross-roads is one of poignant tension between hope and despair, between light and darkness, and Tolkien immediately draws our attention to this at the beginning of the chapter entitled, The Stairs of Cirith Ungol, as Frodo turns his back reluctantly on the West and his face towards the East and to darkness. Gollum leads Frodo and Sam towards the tower of Minas Morgul and up the first steps of a path that crawls upwards “into the blackness above”.

Frodo is exhausted, feeling the great burden of the Ring for the first time since he entered Ithilien, but perhaps there is another power at work. “Weariness and more than weariness oppressed him; it seemed as if a heavy spell was laid on his mind and body.”

All the way through this passage we are aware of many powers at work, sometimes it would seem in contest with one another. The Lord of Minas Morgul, the Witch King of Angmar, Lord of the Nazgûl, is a master of dark magic and he has wreathed the very air about his fastness with spells that rob any who might dare to venture towards it of the will and strength to continue their journey. Tolkien is not explicit about this but when he says that “it seemed as if a heavy spell was laid on his mind and body” there are dark powers at work here.

Perhaps if this were an ordinary day in the foul history of Minas Morgul it would not have been long before Frodo and Sam were discovered. But this is no ordinary day. It is the day upon which Sauron, filled with fear that one of his foes has taken possession of the Ring, sends forth an army to take possession of Minas Tirith, the greatest fortress of his enemies.

“So great an army had never issued from that vale since the days of Isildur’s might.”

And this great army and all the carefully choreographed terror that goes before it and which surrounds it achieves precisely an end for which it was never intended. So great is the energy of the powers both of Minas Morgul and of Barad-dûr that is poured into the departure of the army, an energy whose intention is to terrify the army of Gondor and to rob it of what courage remains to it, that for a brief moment the powers of the Morgul fortress are unaware of what is taking place beneath their very noses. The Ring of Power is passing the armies of Mordor borne by one whose intention it is to destroy it if he can.

And the Ring-bearer is almost caught. The Nazgûl Lord, the king who almost stabbed Frodo to the heart in the dell below Weathertop, pauses for a moment. “He was troubled, sensing some other power within his valley.”

He begins to reach out towards that power just as he did below Weathertop but unlike on that occasion when Frodo felt compelled to put on the Ring this time he is able to resist. He has a strength now that he did not possess before. Eventually this strength will tempt him to take possession of the Ring but now he knows that he does not yet have the power “to face the Morgul-king- not yet”.

That “not-yet” tells us that one day soon he will try to use the Ring, to become its lord, but now it works in Frodo’s favour.

And there is one more power at work. Frodo becomes aware that his hand is moving, unbidden, at least by him, towards the Ring, but as it does so it finds the star-glass of Galadriel, in which the light of the Silmaril, borne by Eärendil into the undying lands and set as a star in the heavens by Elbereth herself. His hand folds about it and the Witch King ceases from his search and moves on.

At this moment the power of the star glass is enough but what if the Witch King had given his entire attention to his search for the power that briefly he is aware is present in his valley? Would Frodo, even aided by the glass, even aided by the Ring, have had the strength to resist? But this test never takes place. It is an exquisite irony that so much has been put into the choreography of the departure of the army of Minas Morgul that the Witch King is distracted, just enough, from finding the very thing that has the power to destroy his lord.

What Happened at the Fords of Bruinen? Gandalf Explains All to Frodo in Rivendell.

/ stephencwinter / Leave a comment

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 215-219

Gandalf explains much to Frodo as the hobbit rests in his wonderful bed but one question above all still bothers him.

“Just give me news of my friends, and tell me the end of the affair at the Ford, as I keep on asking, and I shall be content for the present. After that I shall have another sleep, I think; but I shan’t be able to close my eyes until you have finished the story for me.”

We thought about the events at the Fords of Bruinen a few weeks ago when we were introduced to Glorfindel and his decisive intervention. Now we return to them as Gandalf explains to Frodo what was happening to him on that day. Gandalf explains to Frodo that the Ringwraiths could see him even when he was not wearing the Ring because he was “on the threshold of their world”. The Morgul-knife, with which the Witch-king of Angmar, the Lord of Minas Morgul, had pierced Frodo in his shoulder, had broken inside the wound and had left a splinter there. He had tried to pierce Frodo in his heart and if he had succeeded he would have done a deed that would have been worse than murder for Frodo would have become a wraith, he “would have become like they are, only weaker and under their command”.

And now we know why Gandalf looked at Frodo so closely. How far into the shadow world had Frodo gone? Was there any lasting damage caused by the Morgul Blade as the Witch-king intended or had Elrond been successful in both removing the deadly splinter and in preventing Frodo from slipping out of the world of substance and into the world that the ringwraiths knew?

What is clear is that Frodo’s resistance played a crucial role in his escape and then his recovery. As Gandalf puts it, “Your heart was not touched, and only your shoulder was pierced; and that was because you resisted to the last”. Frodo’s resistance was crucial at that point and then at the Fords of Bruinen when he called out, “You shall have neither the Ring nor me”. But most important of all was the fact that he was able to resist tye journey of the fragment of the blade from the shoulder to the heart.

Frodo’s resistance was aided at the beginning by Strider’s application of athelas to the wound. Even though he is not yet king it is a sign of his true identity that this herb, that seems to share his hiddenness in its apparent insignificance, responds both to his touch and his voice. Strider is the true king who is to come and the world listens to his voice.

But this is not the only aid that Frodo receives. When his hobbit companions said to him, “We are your friends, Frodo”, on that night at Crickhollow when the “conspiracy” was unmasked, these were not mere words. The friendship of Merry, Pippin and, above all, Sam was shown in the unloading of Bill the pony and the carrying of great burdens; it was shown in hobbit cheerfulness even in adversity; it was shown in Sam’s song about trolls at the discovery of the place where Bilbo’s first adventure took place; and it was shown at the Fords of Bruinen when they all ran towards the deadliest of danger in the ringwraiths. And, as readers of The Lord of the Rings know, this was not the last time in the story that this friends were willing to lay down their lives for the love of a friend.

Of course, none of this would have been to any effect if the hobbits had been alone. The Nazgûl would have been too deadly a foe and the Ring, and Frodo too, would have been taken away to Mordor had it not been for the intervention of Glorfindel and the power in the river that awaited any attempt to cross by an enemy. The waters in the river rose and the steeds of the ringwraiths were swept away, their riders forced to return to Mordor having failed in their mission and to be rehorsed.

All of this Gandalf explains to Frodo but he also tells him that while “fortune or fate” may have helped him to escape his deadly foe so too did courage and all through the story that courage will make all the difference.

“Tom, he is Master”. The Stronger Songs of Tom Bombadil Rescue the Hobbits From the Barrow Wight.

/ stephencwinter / Leave a comment

The Fellowship of the Ring (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 133-143

Anyone who has ever been out walking in the downland of a county like Wiltshire in England as the evening turns towards night will know that it does not require too much imagination to picture the scene that Tolkien gives us in this episode of The Lord of the Rings. Some of the barrows that you will find there are older by far than anything that you would call European civilisation and among them are the great stone circles such as Stonehenge that conjure such a wonderful sense of mystery, or at least they would do so if it were not for modern highways and visitor centres.

The opening to a barrow in Wiltshire that is 6,000 years old

Once again the hobbits let their guard down, falling asleep with their backs to a standing stone and awakening amidst a chilling fog as night begins to fall. Frodo becomes separated from his companions and their ponies panic and flee towards safety. Eventually Frodo is captured by the same creature that has taken his friends, a barrow wight, and all are imprisoned within a burial chamber.

Frodo found Sam, Merry and Pippin lying “on their backs, and their faces looked deathly pale; and they were clad in white. About them lay many treasures, of gold maybe, though in that light they looked cold and unlovely. On their heads were circlets, gold chains were about their waists, and on their fingers were many rings. Swords lay by their sides, and shields were at their feet. But across their three necks lay one long naked sword.”

The hobbits have been drawn inside the spell under which a barrow wight, a spirit that feeds upon the sadness of death, has placed the barrow and those who have been laid to rest within it. When they are rescued by Tom Bombadil it becomes clear that for a time they have been imprisoned within an old memory of a battle between the forces of the witch kingdom of Angmar and the kingdom of Arthedain. As he returns to consciousness Merry is held for a moment within that memory, feeling a spear piercing him in his heart. The barrow wight is a creature that exists almost entirely within the dread, the misery and sadness of such memories, relying upon incantations and ceremonies through which it draws its prisoners into its own miserable existence.

The wight is so frozen within that moment that even Frodo’s limited freedom is already too much for it. Frodo has it at bay even before he begins his own spell, the song that calls Tom Bombadil to aid them. It is the song that Tom taught them while they stayed in the house under hill and soon he arrives, joyfully announcing that “Tom, he is the Master: his songs are stronger songs, and his feet are faster”.

Tolkien’s legendarium is faithful to the spirit of norse mythology with its intimate relationship between language and matter. In many ways the incantation of the wight within this story represents that relationship in its most corrupted form as the evil creature seeks to bend the hobbits to its twisted but miserably limited purposes. Tom’s song by contrast is completely pure, although deceptively simple. His one purpose is to allow all creatures to be entirely free and themselves. He has a wild desire for their beatitude, as one theologian speaks of the saints. Tolkien was a great student of language but did not only know language in an abstract sense as in dictionary definitions. Language was something he experienced through his five senses. Tolkien always regarded Charles Williams, the member of the Inklings who understood and perhaps practised magic the most, with a certain suspicion. I wonder if that is because, as with Gandalf and his fear of the Ring, he knew that he might have too great a profiency as a practitioner of magic himself, were he ever to practice it, with all its attendant temptations to control the lives of others.

How important it is then that this episode ends with the hobbits running naked and free upon the downs, subject to no-one except by the commitments that they have made to each other and, as in Frodo’s case, his promise to Gandalf. Frodo, in particular, has won an important victory, most especially over the temptation to put on the Ring, but also in his exercise of freedom in wielding a blade against the barrow wight and in the song that calls Tom Bombadil, the master, to give them his aid.

Éowyn, Merry and The Lord of the Nazgûl

/ stephencwinter / 7 Comments

As Théoden lies, his body broken beneath Snowmane, only two among his household knights remain beside him. One is the hobbit, Meriadoc Brandybuck, who began the great ride of the Rohirrim in some indignation feeling that his offer of service to the king had been disregarded but who at this moment of horror is at Théoden’s side only because he has been carried there. And the other is the one who carried Merry into battle and who followed the king wherever he went in the fight. This knight named himself, Dernhelm, but is now revealed as Éowyn, daughter of Éomund, and niece to Théoden.

Éowyn is there because of her love for Théoden who has been as a father to her, and she is there because she seeks death. Indeed we could describe her as being one who has already died and so feels no fear.

“Begone, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion! Leave the dead in peace!” she cries. And the Lord of the Nazgûl who has journeyed deathless through long ages and through battles beyond numbering, advances upon her to destroy both her and Théoden.

But he is resisted. The fear that robs all who try to cross his path of the strength even to try and resist him has no power over her for she is beyond fear, and then something new and entirely unexpected is brought to the story. When Éowyn declares her intent to hinder him he cries out that, “No living man may hinder me!” and in so doing he grants to Éowyn a new strength and determination for, as she declares to him, “no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund’s daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you if you touch him.”

Doubt enters the Ringwraith’s mind and amazement the mind of the terrified hobbit and, within moments, Éowyn and Merry have pierced the sinews of the Black Captain that he had thought invulnerable to all hurt “and a cry went up into the shuddering air, and faded to a shrill wailing, passing with the wind, a voice bodiless and thin that died”. So passes the Lord of the Nazgûl in utter despair.

This is a moment of great power in Tolkien’s story and it is one that neither Éowyn nor Merry have foreseen nor even dreamt of. Merry wanted simply to follow Théoden into the battle. Indeed, all he wanted was not to be left out. Éowyn wanted only a death in battle to obliterate the unendurable pain of rejection that she has had to bear since Aragorn’s departure. But a deeper feeling is awoken in both of them by the Lord of the Nazgûl. Deeper than Éowyn’s despair or Merry’s fear and sense of insignificance. In Éowyn it is her love for Théoden and in Merry a realisation that he cannot stand by and let Éowyn die alone. These deeper feelings rouse them to action but, by themselves, could do little more than bring them to a brave death that would have achieved nothing. It is the pronouncement of the prophecy by the Lord of the Nazgûl, the Witch King of Angmar of old, that brings about his own destruction, turning Éowyn and Merry into deadly foes and making vulnerable an undead body that has been untouchable through long ages.

Many who have achieved something of significance in their lives have spoken of an energy, a strength, that is given to them at a critical moment. At that moment and for that moment only it is as if no power can stand before them. The desire to do some good and the strength to do it come together irresistibly. It is as if some latent possibility is released that can, it seems, achieve anything. It can never be ordered and we can never know when it will come but when it does then we must act with all the courage that we can muster. And such power comes to those who desire some good for others and never for some selfish end. It is this divine power that comes to Merry and to Éowyn at this critical moment.