Thorin Oakenshield

Further Thoughts on Gandalf’s “Fountain of Mirth”. Gandalf and The Shire.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp.741-743

This is the third post in a short series of reflections that I am writing about Gandalf based upon the observations that Pippin makes of him both in the scene that takes place in the throne room of Gondor at the beginning of The Return of the King, the final volume of The Lord of the Rings and the scene that follows immediately after. As we saw in the last piece Pippin’s thoughts about Gandalf are inspired by the comparison that he begins to draw with Denethor, realising that Denethor’s impressive demeanour does not go anywhere near as deep as the reality of Gandalf, even though this does not seem so at first glance.

Two weeks ago I wrote about Gandalf’s joy for the first time, a joy that Pippin sees as “a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, were it to gush forth”, and in this post I want to think more about this.

The hobbits of the Shire know Gandalf as a strange figure who comes and goes among them from time to time. In many ways their main impression of him is as a kind of travelling showman. They know him best for his spectacular firework shows, such as he offered them at Bilbo’s farewell party. When in Lothlórien Frodo and Sam composed poetry by which to remember him after his fall in Moria it was this that Sam recalled most vividly. 

The finest rockets ever seen:
they burst in stars of blue and green, 
or after thunder golden showers 
came falling like a rain of flowers.

And if it were not Gandalf’s fireworks for which he was best known in the Shire it might have been his pleasure in pipe-smoking, something to which the hobbits had first introduced him. Indeed we might say that it was play and pleasure that regularly brought Gandalf to the Shire. Gandalf says as much in his telling of the story that we know as The Hobbit to Frodo and other members of the Fellowship in Minas Tirith after Aragorn’s coronation.

“I was tired, and I was going to the Shire for a short rest, after being away from it for more than twenty years. I thought that if I put them [dark thoughts about the return of Sauron and the potential threat of Smaug the dragon] out of my mind for a while I might perhaps find some way of dealing with these troubles.” (Unfinished Tales p. 416)

Gandalf associated the Shire and hobbits with much needed rest. But was it merely coincidental that it was on his way to the Shire that Gandalf met with Thorin Oakenshield and learned of Thorin’s desire to lead an expedition to recover the Lonely Mountain from the terrible dragon that lived there? It was in his meeting with Thorin that the thought of Bilbo Baggins first came into Gandalf’s mind.

“Suddenly in my mind these three things came together: the great Dragon with his lust, and his keen hearing and scent; the heavy-booted Dwarves with their old burning grudge; and the quick soft-footed Hobbit, sick at heart (I guessed) for a sight of the wide world.” (Unfinished Tales p. 417)

What Gandalf does is to play with the images that come into his mind, allowing them to take shape there and, in a sense, take on a life of their own. In many ways Gandalf does exactly what Tolkien the storyteller does. Both he and Tolkien journey into the imaginal realm and they play amidst the images that they find there.

It is essential here to emphasise that neither Tolkien’s play or Gandalf’s is a mere passing away the time between more serious tasks. Or maybe I should say that Tolkien was not just passing time when he journeyed into Faerie, the perilous realm, the imaginal realm. It was in that realm that both discovered and then sub-created his legendarium from what he saw.

In his telling of his story to Frodo and his companions Gandalf tells us a little more of his own journey into the imaginal realm, the journey that takes him to a place in which Smaug, Thorin Oakenshield and his companions, and Bilbo Baggins, somehow find themselves together. It is a journey that no-one else takes and it leads to consequences that no-one could have anticipated. For on his journey Bilbo finds the Ring of Power. Even at the time of that discovery no-one, Gandalf included, had any idea of the significance of Bilbo’s magic ring. Gandalf describes his own actions as no more than following “the lead of ‘chance'”, a journey on which he made many mistakes by his own admission.

We will come back to that journey in the next piece. In the meantime I invite you to think further about the relationship between play in Gandalf’s story and the events that ultimately lead to the discovery and then the destruction of the Ring and the fall of Sauron. I believe that they are intimately bound together.

I am grateful for the work of Dr Becca Tarnas for introducing me to the idea of Tolkien’s journey into the imaginal realm. I hope that her doctoral thesis comparing the Red Books of J.R.R Tolkien and Carl Jung will be published soon. In the meantime can I recommend her reader’s guide to The Lord of the Rings, “Journey to the Imaginal Realm”, published by Revelore Press in 2019.

“These Hobbits Will Sit on the Edge of Ruin and Discuss the Pleasures of the Table.” Merry and Pippin Amidst the Wreck of Isengard.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 726-729

This week we return from Théoden’s wonder at his first sight of Ents at Helm’s Deep to Merry and Pippin amidst the wreck of Isengard. Not that I think that they mind our neglect, as they are resting after their first good meal since they were captured by orcs over a week before. Treebeard had given them drafts of a drink that not only sustained them but even made them grow, but there is nothing like proper food and drink to achieve contentment and nothing like a hobbit to enjoy it properly.

“These hobbits will sit on the edge of ruin and discuss the pleasures of the table, or the small doings of their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers, and remoter cousins to the ninth degree, if you encourage them with undue patience.” So says Gandalf to Théoden after Merry has begun to discourse on the history of pipe-smoking in the Shire, and we know this to be true, not just because Gandalf says it but because we remember how Merry and Pippin sat down on the edge of Fangorn to eat a piece of lembas as Éomer’s company did battle with the orcs just a few yards away and how, when Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli found signs of this meal they commented that this was proof that hobbits had been there. Who else would choose such a spot for a meal?

Gandalf does not say it here but this is why he loves the Shire and his visited it so often over many years. There is a sense in which the whole Shire has been sitting on the edge of the ruin of Eriador as it has been since the fall of the Kingdom of Arnor and its successor, Arthedain, at the hands of the Witch-king of Angmar for many years and has quite simply ignored the fact, being entirely absorbed with its own affairs, the pleasures of the table and the small doings of its families. How different this has been from Gondor, for example, with its endless anxiety about the world beyond its borders, although perhaps in Lossarnach and in their lord, Forlong the Fat, there is something of a hobbit spirit.

Gandalf has needed the Shire for many reasons. In part he has needed it as a place of rest amidst his long and weary travels. But he has also needed it as a place of play, a place where he has learned to play. Sam Gamgee wanted Frodo to include a verse about Gandalf’s fireworks in the lament that he had composed about Gandalf in Lothlórien and that is what Gandalf had meant to him and to most of the people of the Shire. There is a sense that as Gandalf incarnated his Olorin spirit in Middle-earth as one of the Istari sent by the Valar to contend with Sauron, it was the Shire, and its “small doings” that shaped that incarnation in a very particular way. Saruman never understood this, laughed at it, and suspected it too. His own incarnation lay within the walls of what he thought was an impregnable fortress, a place where he could plot the conquest of Rohan and even dream of becoming the Lord of the Rings and master of Middle-earth.

That it was Gandalf who triumphed in the War of the Ring that ended the Third Age of Arda, and not Saruman, was in no small measure because of his love of the Shire. This was not just because, by a set of strange circumstances, the Ring came to the Shire, and then from the Shire to Mount Doom, but also because Merry and Pippin came to Fangorn Forest. It was Gandalf himself who told Frodo how he had chosen Bilbo for the Quest of the Lonely Mountain, a story recounted in Lost Tales, telling Thorin Oakenshield that “a foresight is on me.” This foresight, this world changing intuition, was formed within Gandalf’s soul by hours at hobbit tables on the edge of ruin while he smoked his pipe and listened to tales of the small doings of his hosts. It was from these doings that Sauron and Saruman fell.

“Lockbearer, Wherever Thou Goest My Thought Goes With Thee.” Galadriel Sends Messages to Gimli, Aragorn and Legolas.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 652-657

Back at Eastertide I wrote about the mighty battle upon Celebdil between Gandalf and the Balrog of Moria when it appeared to any who might look upward “that the mountain was crowned with storm”. If any would like to read what I wrote then please click on Gandalf the White in the tags below. At the battles end Gandalf threw his enemy down “and he fell from the high place and broke the mountain-side where he smote it in his ruin”.

Gandalf died then and returned to the invisible realm for a time but was “sent back” to finish his work upon earth. It was upon the peak of Celebdil that Gwaihir the Windlord, mighty servant of Manwë in Middle-earth found him and carried him to Lothlórien for healing. And it was from Lothlórien that he came to Fangorn to be reunited with Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli.

Gandalf brought messages from the Lady Galadriel for the three companions. Were there messages for the other members of the Fellowship? We never find out. Only three are ever revealed. Did Galadriel see the breaking of the Fellowship from afar in a way that Gandalf did not? Here I ask my readers to follow me as I imagine what may have happened. I have no authority in the text for what I am about to write but I think that this might be true to the character of Galadriel as she is portrayed in The Lord of the Rings.

We go back to the giving of gifts as the Fellowship departed from Lothlórien on their journey down the Anduin. There we remember that her attention was given largely to Frodo and Sam and then to Aragorn. Simple, though still beautiful, gifts were given to Boromir, Merry, Pippin and Legolas and then last of all she turned to Gimli.

“And what gift would a Dwarf ask of the Elves?”

At first Gimli declares himself satisfied merely to have looked upon the Lady of the Galadhrim and to have heard “her gentle words”, following here the conventions of courtly love in a way that both surprises and delights Galadriel. Later we will see these same conventions from the Middle Ages in the wooing of Éowyn by Faramir when he tells her that even were she “the blissful Queen of Gondor” he would love her. But then Gimli does ask a gift from Galadriel’s hand and it is for a single strand of her hair “which surpasses the gold of the earth as the stars surpass the gems of the mine”.

None of the portrayals of Dwarves in all Tolkien’s works are able to prepare us for this moment; most certainly not the portrayal of Thorin and his companions in The Hobbit when Thorin’s avarice almost leads to a battle which would have been catastrophic not just for the characters in that story but the whole history of Middle-earth. Gimli’s encounter with Galadriel has awakened something within his soul that has lain dormant, possibly all his life long. He learns that it is possible to love without needing to possess. Galadriel recognises this when she tells him that his hands “shall flow with gold” but that over him ” gold shall have no dominion”.

So great was Galadriel’s surprise and delight that she ponders her meeting with this Dwarf thereafter, a meeting that begins to heal the long animosity between Elves and Dwarves that stretches back to the wars of the First Age in Beleriand. And here I imagine that as she ponders she thinks of Gimli and Legolas together and their growing friendship. She knows that Frodo and Sam are beyond her aid now except for the gift she gave to Frodo. Merry and Pippin she is content to allow to journey on although she would be delighted by all the good that they share and cause in their adventures. And Boromir causes anxiety within her heart. Did she know that Aragorn would be with Legolas and Gimli? Not perhaps in the precise way in which Gandalf finds them in Fangorn but she both guesses that they would become sundered from Boromir and that the Hobbits might journey on together. Certainly in her message to Aragorn she makes it clear that she foresees for him a very particular journey and very particular companions.

So for Gimli there is given the very simple message that she thinks of him and that is enough. Gimli is ready for the next part of the story as he swings his axe in delight.

“I Have Spoken Words of Hope. But Only of Hope. Hope is Not Victory.” Gandalf Looks to The Future.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 652,653

The moment is about to come when Gandalf will lead Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli to Edoras and to Meduseld, Théoden’s golden hall in the realm of Rohan. At that moment the story will leap forward once again even as Gandalf and the three companions leap forward borne by Shadowfax and the horses that ran from the camp on the night before Aragorn and his friends entered Fangorn. But just before this great leap there has been a pause, a drawing of breath, as Gandalf speaks of how things stand at this point in the story. And there is also the conclusion of a theme that has run through the story ever since he fell in Moria in the battle at the bridge of Khazad-dûm.

Aragorn speaks to his grief-stricken companions.

It was Aragorn who spoke then to his grief-stricken companions.

“Farewell, Gandalf!” he cried. “Did I not say to you: if you pass the doors of Moria, beware? Alas that I spoke true! What hope have we without you?”

And then he added words that would both drive him on yet hang around his neck like the mariner’s albatross in Coleridge’s great poem:

“We must do without hope,” he said. “At least we may be avenged. Let us gird ourselves and weep no more! Come! We have a long road, and much to do.”

To do without hope. To carry on without any sense that at the end of the long road there will be a completion of the taskdone. To carry on because that is what must be done and for no other reason.

And step by step, from the emergence of the Fellowship from the dark of Moria “beyond hope under the sky” until the reunion “beyond all hope” in the forest of Fangorn Aragorn has journeyed hopelessly.

Now hope is restored. Surely with Gandalf beside them once more there is hope they will triumph. But Gandalf speaks once again of their hope of victory.

“I have spoken words of hope. But only of hope. Hope is not victory. War is upon us and all our friends, a war in which only the use of the Ring could give us surety of victory. It fills me with great sorrow and great fear: for much shall be destroyed and all may be lost. I am Gandalf, Gandalf the White, but Black is mightier still.”

To follow a road hopelessly is a courageous act for it is to do what must be done simply because the deed is right and not for any sense that a reward of some kind might lie at the road’s ending. We might compare the way in which Aragorn and his companions journey onward from Moria to the journey that Thorin Oakenshield and his company make to the Lonely Mountain in Tolkien’s The Hobbit. There, we might say, a part of what sustains hope upon the journey is simply not to think too much about its end, upon the dragon that must be faced and overcome. The dwarves and their hobbit companion go from obstacle to obstacle thinking of nothing more than how to deal with each one as it comes until at the secret door into the mountain Thorin informs Bilbo that the time has come for him to do his job without any sense of how this is to be accomplished. Hope of treasure certainly drives them forward but in another sense they also travel without hope because hope of success lies too close to fear of failure and death in the flames of Smaug. It is best not to think either of success or failure.

Aragorn has also put aside all thoughts of triumph or disaster, only focusing on whether the deed is just or not. But now Gandalf is returned and his hope rekindled. Gandalf does not counsel that they should do without hope. Indeed he tells Legolas that he should go “where he must go and hope”. But he warns them that hope is not victory.

I am reminded of the grim and rather frightening deputy head at my school who, when he would lead prayers at the start of the day, would do so with these words of St Ignatius Loyola. They seem to have been written in very much the same spirit that Gandalf displays here.

“Lord Jesus, teach us to serve you as you deserve. To give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to labour and not to seek for rest, to give and not to seek for any reward save that of knowing that we do your will.”

“I Will Not Walk Blindfold, Like a Beggar or a Prisoner”. The Sadness of a Divided World is Shown in the Beauty of Lothlórien.

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The Fellowship of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 332-340

After crossing the Nimrodel the Fellowship meet Elves of Lothlórien for the first time. Haldir, Rúmil and Orophin are guards upon the border and perform their duty conscientiously. In the night a company of orcs cross the stream so it is well that the Company are safe amid the high branches of a mallorn tree and in the morning they begin their journey further into the enchanted wood.

But here the story stumbles as if it has been plunged into darkness, for here the elven guards insist that one of the Fellowship must be blindfolded. Gimli the Dwarf cannot look upon the ways into Lothlórien.

“I will not walk blindfold, like a beggar or a prisoner,” he complains. “And I am no spy. My people have never had dealings with any of the servants of the Enemy. Neither have we done any harm to the Elves. I am no more likely to betray you than Legolas, or any other of my companions.”

That Gimli speaks the truth regarding his own heart there is no doubt but sadly there is much of the history of his people and the Elves that he leaves unsaid. In the tales of the Elder Days there are many sad stories of betrayal and readers of The Hobbit will remember how Legolas’s father, Thranduil of the Woodland Realm in the north of Mirkwood, imprisoned the company of Thorin Oakenshield among whose number was Gimli’s father, Gloín. They will then remember how Thorin, at first, refused to share any of the wealth of the Lonely Mountain following the fall of Smaug the Dragon and how with Dain Ironfoot of the Iron Hills he was prepared to go to war with Thranduil’s people in order to defend it.

But perhaps most sad of all was the history of Moria. We have seen how at one time there was close friendship between Durin’s people and the Noldor of Hollin, the people of Celebrimbor, how the gates of Moria could be opened by a simple expression of friendship but then how this golden age came to a terrible end first through Sauron’s betrayal of Celebrimbor who he had pretended to befriend in order to learn the lore of making rings of power and then through the disturbing of the Balrog hiding in the depths of Moria who slew Durin and drove his people from their home.

The tale of the peoples who dwelt east of the Misty Mountains during the long story of the rise of Sauron, first in Dol Guldur in the south of Mirkwood and then in Mordor, is one of a retreat behind defences. Such defences were necessary. We saw the company of orcs cross Nimrodel in search of the Fellowship and defence needed to be made against them and every land had to act in much the same way but what happened behind each fence was that the world beyond it became at first unknown and then suspect, even dangerous. So Celeborn of Lórien warns against Fangorn Forest while the people of Rohan know Lothlórien as Dwimordene, the place of phantoms. And for the Galadhrim, the tree people of Lothlórien, the dwarves who awoke the Balrog of Moria are most suspect of all.

Haldir, who has travelled on missions for his Lord and Lady puts it best of all.

“In nothing is the power of the Dark Lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all who still oppose him. Yet so little faith and trust do we find now in the world beyond Lothlórien, unless maybe in Rivendell, that we dare not by our own trust endanger our land.”

At the last Aragorn agrees that all the Fellowship will walk blindfold into Lórien so that Gimli is not singled out as a possible threat to its security. Gimli is now prepared to laugh as if this all a merry jest but all feel the sadness of being prisoners amid such loveliness.

“It Was Well Given!” Gimli Takes Delight in Frodo’s Mithril Coat and in Thorin Oakenshield’s Giving.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 326-328

Aragorn is anxious to put as much distance as possible between the Company and the eastern gates of Moria before darkness falls. He is sure that they will be pursued by orcs and so he pushes his companions to keep going. But in the fight in the Chamber of Mazarbul both Sam and Frodo were wounded and Frodo by a troll’s spear thrust that, as Aragorn put it, “would have skewered a wild boar”. At first the flow of adrenaline in battle enabled them both to forget their wounds and after that the fall of Gandalf drives everything from mind, heart and body, but as the weariness of the day continues so their hurts begin to claim attention.

“I am sorry, Frodo!” Aragorn cries. “So much has happened this day and we have such need of haste, that I have forgotten that you were hurt; and Sam too.”

So it is that at last Frodo’s hidden mithril coat is discovered. The Company has discussed it once before while in Moria when Gandalf spoke of how it was mithril that always drew the Dwarves back to their ancestral home.

“Mithril! All folk desired it. It could be beaten like copper, and polished like glass; and the Dwarves could make of it a metal, light and yet harder than tempered steel. Its beauty was like to that of common silver, but the beauty of mithril did not tarnish or grow dim.”

It was one of Tolkien’s many achievements in The Lord of the Rings to create something that our imaginations are capable of conceiving and yet does not exist. He saw his work as that of a sub-creator and the word, “sub” was of vital importance here. He chose deliberately to place himself under the Creator in absolute distinction from Morgoth, and later Sauron, who in failing to create anything independently of Ilúvatar would only mar, mock or corrupt. The orcs were the saddest fruit of this desire to create in envy of Eru but one might argue that there were other works such as the corruption of Númenor that were just as unhappy. And here we might note that unhappiness was always the fruit of their work. Was there ever a time when they pursued happiness as a goal in and of itself? Perhaps in the earliest days but in all the history of Arda the works of Morgoth and then of Sauron and their followers are acts of despair. All they can do is to achieve control and thus reject happiness.

Not so Gimli. Readers of Tolkien’s works know how prone the Dwarves were to avarice. The desire of Thorin Oakenshield for the Arkenstone of Erebor almost destroyed the achievement won by the slaying of Smaug. That any gifts were given at all at the ending of The Hobbit seemed unlikely at one point but when at the last gifts were made they were indeed kingly as Gimli put it when he learned that Bilbo had been given a mithril coat by Thorin before he died. In Gimli’s eyes the knowledge that Thorin had given such a gift only made him the greater for great kings made great gifts in all worlds until modern times. And when Gimli finally saw the mithril coat upon Frodo his admiration and reverence only grew.

“But it was well given!”

Later Galadriel will speak praise of Gimli and his understanding of wealth when she says of him that his hands “shall flow with gold” and yet over him “gold shall have no dominion”. It is not that Gimli has no concept of the idea of the price of things. He quite happily states that Frodo’s mithril coat is worth more than the entire value of the Shire but it is beauty that is the true ruler of Gimli’s heart. His greatest work after the War of the Ring was the creation of what artists would now call an installation in the Caves of Aglarond, a true act of subcreation made from crystal, the shaping of caverns and of light. And the gift that he will treasure most will be three tresses of the hair of Galadriel that he will wear next to his heart within a jewel that he has crafted himself.

“A Foresight is On Me”. How Gandalf Chooses.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 267-269

I have learned over the years in which I have written this blog that I have readers who know their Tolkien very well, often much better than I do, and so I am sure that there will be readers who will instantly know that the quotation that heads this week’s post is not from The Lord of the Rings. It is in fact from Tolkien’s Unfinished Tales. It comes from a chapter in which Frodo describes a conversation with Gandalf that takes place in Minas Tirith after the Ring has gone to the fire and Sauron has fallen. In that conversation Gandalf speaks of how he came to be convinced that Bilbo should be a part of the company that would make the journey to Erebor, the Lonely Mountain, under the leadership of Thorin Oakenshield.

I write about it here because we are thinking about the choosing of Frodo’s companions in the Quest of the Ring. We have already seen that the company is chosen, as much for its symbolic quality as for its effectiveness. Nine walkers will oppose nine riders. Nine of the free peoples of the earth will oppose the slaves of the Dark Lord. And as we journey through the unfolding of the story we find that it is the hobbits who will play central roles in it. The journey of Frodo and Sam to Mordor and the Mountain and the journey of Merry and Pippin, carried as prisoners of the orcs, to the borders of Fangorn Forest and the meeting with Treebeard are these central actions and none of the rest of the company go with them on these journeys. They will have other parts to play.

Gandalf’s support for Pippin is described as “unexpected”. When Pippin announced his intention to go with Frodo because there needed to “be someone with intelligence in the party”, Gandalf’s response was that Pippin would certainly not be chosen on that basis. But Gandalf is greatly drawn towards Pippin. Indeed I rather think that Gandalf liked Pippin to be nearby and found his simple honesty and friendliness to be a comfort. Was it because he needed such comfort that Gandalf liked to go to the Shire? In his account of how he came to choose Bilbo to go with the Dwarves to Erebor he speaks of how he had been going to the Shire “for a short rest” after a twenty year absence. “I thought that if I put [my dark thoughts] out of my mind for a while I might perhaps find some way of dealing with these troubles”.

Gandalf’s “dark thoughts” were about the reappearing of Sauron in Dol Guldur, about the ever present danger to the north of Middle-earth that was posed by Smaug the dragon in his occupation of the Lonely Mountain, about the fragility of the free peoples and about the opposition of Saruman to any direct action against Sauron. Gandalf’s thoughts are like a hammer striking against a hard surface with the intention of making it give way before the force of its blows. He knows that his thinking will not bring about a solution by itself. It will only keep bringing him back to that which is insoluble and so he heads for the Shire and a rest from his anxiety. The Shire folk have taught him how to play. It is there that he makes fireworks and it is there that he enjoys wholesome food, good beer and pipeweed. And it is on his way there, just outside Bree, that he encounters Thorin Oakenshield who is also beset with his own dark thoughts.

Is it because he is in search of rest that Gandalf is open to something entirely unexpected? Is it his proximity to the Shire and to hobbits that makes the participation of Bilbo a possibility for the expedition to Erebor? In Carl Jung’s idea of synchronicity it is the empty space between the spokes of a wheel that give the wheel its usefulness just as much as do the spokes themselves. So it is the empty space that the Shire is for Gandalf in his endless labours that gives him the idea of Bilbo. And when the idea comes it does so with such force that he describes it as a foresight. Not that he knows what is to come but he knows that he has to listen to his inner voice and that Thorin has to listen to it too when he declares it aloud. Perhaps it is in knowing the power of Gandalf’s inner voice that Elrond too gives way to him about Merry and Pippin despite his own misgivings.

It is But a Trifle That Sauron Fancies. Gloín tells of the mission of the messenger of Mordor.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 234-36

One by one the company who are the Council of Elrond tell of how it is that they have come to Rivendell and as each listens to the other they begin to learn the truth of what Elrond says of how it is that they are sitting there on that October morning.

“You have come and are here met, in this very nick of time, by chance as it may seem. Yet it is not so. Believe rather that it is so ordered that we, who sit here, and none others, must now find counsel for the peril of the world.”

And so it is that Gloín is the first to give an account of why he is in Rivendell that day. A messenger of Sauron had come to the Kingdom under the Mountain seeking news of hobbits. For “one of these was known to you on a time”. That hobbit, of course, is Bilbo and the messenger seeks him because of the Ring. Although it is not stated explicitly it is clear as we read Gloín’s account that the messenger is a Ringwraith, one of the nine, the Nazgûl. His breath came “like the hiss of snakes” and all who stand near by shudder. Sauron wishes for his embassy to have a maximum impact and requires a herald who will be a cause of fear in all who hear him.

But if Sauron’s intention is to create fear what he achieves is to inspire resistance. The messenger’s mention of hobbits serves only to remind Dáin Ironfoot, the King under the Mountain, of his bond of obligation to Bilbo without whom he would never have gained his crown. And it serves also to remind him and the other chieftains of the dwarves of the alliance that fought the Battle of the Five Armies and the shelter and counsel that Thorin Oakenshield’s party received at Rivendell during their journey. For we should not assume that just because Gloín and his companions are present at the Council that this represents a normal state of affairs in which ambassadors go to and fro between the hidden valley and the lonely mountain. If there is an ambassador whose labour in making alliances between the free peoples of Middle-earth is bearing fruit on this day in Rivendell then it is Gandalf, the Grey Pilgrim, the one who encouraged Thorin to make his journey to Erebor and who, for some strange reason, had him take a hobbit with him. And it was Gandalf who brought together the men of Dale and Esgaroth, the elves of the Woodland Realm and the dwarves to defeat the orcs of the Misty Mountains. Gandalf has followed hunches, grasped at straws, and held onto fool’s hopes many times and for many years before this moment, many times before the decision is made that will be the outcome of this Council.

Sauron too has been a builder of alliances over many long years. He is gathering them together for the great war even as the Council deliberates. He knows that many of the peoples of Middle-earth are not natural allies for all Gandalf’s efforts. There has been little love between elf and dwarf through the ages, much suspicion and sometimes outright hostility and even war. The dwarves have fought many battles against orcs through the centuries but apart from the Battle of the Five Armies they have fought them alone and they have usually felt alone in the world. Sauron’s alliance building is usually a mixture of threat and gift and so it is with the dwarves. The threat is war and the gift is of two of the rings of power once held by dwarf lords, rings that greatly increased their wealth. What choice will the dwarves make in the war that is to come?

It was no accident that Elrond placed Frodo and Gloín together at the table top of highest honour at the feast the night before. Gloín, the companion of Thorin Oakenshield had to become acquainted with the heir of Bilbo, the Ringbearer. He had to be reminded bodily of the bond between dwarves and hobbits, with the family of Bilbo.

“You have done well to come,” Elrond says to Gloín after Gloín speaks of his fears. “You will hear today all that you need in order to understand the purposes of the Enemy. There is naught that you can do, other than to resist, with hope or without it. But you do not stand alone. You will learn that your trouble is but part of the trouble of all the western world.”