True Fathers

“As a Father You Shall Be to Me.” Thoughts on Fathers and Sons as Merry Lays His Sword on Théoden’s Lap.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 758-760

Tolkien never knew his own father. He died in South Africa in 1896 soon after his wife, Mabel, had returned to England with her children on a family visit and was buried there in Bloemfontein. Mabel settled with her children in the Warwickshire village of Hall Green, now a suburb of the city of Birmingham. It was there that she converted to Roman Catholicism and eventually connected her family to the Birmingham Oratory, a church of the Oratorian community founded by John Henry Newman in the mid 19th century. Mabel developed Type 1 Diabetes, a condition at that time little understood and died in 1904 when only 34 years old. Ronald (J.R.R) Tolkien was just 12 years old and bereft of both his parents. Before she died Mabel had made arrangements with the priests at the Birmingham Oratory that they would become guardians to her sons and so it was that Father Francis Xavier Morgan, a man who possessed both kindness and wealth in equal and substantial measure, took on the responsibility for the raising of the two boys.

Readers of The Lord of the Rings have noted an absence of fathers, in a biological sense, in the story. Frodo is an orphan who is raised by his kindly (and wealthy) relative, Bilbo Baggins. Aragorn is an orphan who is raised by Elrond of Rivendell, and to a large degree by Gandalf also. Éomer and Éowyn are raised by their uncle, Théoden, after the death of their father, Éomund. Against this, of course, we must think of the importance of the relationship of Denethor to his two sons, Boromir and Faramir, and the relationship between Sam Gamgee and his father, the Gaffer, and it is worth noting that those relationships have many problems. Indeed, the best models of good fathers that we find in The Lord of the Rings seem to be those father figures, Bilbo, Gandalf and Théoden, who become guardians but not possessors of children.

There is a formal definition of that word, guardian, and Father Morgan had that formal relationship to the young Ronald Tolkien, but perhaps at its best it is a word that denotes a willingness to guard a charge against a world that might damage or even destroy a vulnerable young person before they are ready to face that world as an adult.

In a recent post on this blog I spoke about that moment in our lives when we realise that the grown ups are not going to turn up and we are going to have to face whatever challenge is facing us alone. We watched Merry face this as Aragorn wrestled with his own choices and we felt his vulnerability. Now, as Théoden and his company arrive at Helm’s Deep on their journey back towards Dunharrow and Edoras, we see Legolas and Gimli deepen their growing friendship, and we do not even know where Aragorn has gone. Once again, Merry feels like an item of unnecessary baggage as everyone else makes preparation for war. And then…

“The king was already there, and as soon as they entered he called for Merry and had a seat set for him at his side. ‘It is not as I would have it,’ said Théoden; ‘for this is little like my fair house in Edoras. And your friend is gone, who should also be here. But it may be long ere we sit, you and I, at the high table in Meduseld; there will be no time for feasting when I return thither. But come now! Eat and drink, and let us speak together while we may.”

It is a moment of the deepest tenderness as war is prepared and Merry is deeply moved. He offers his sword in service to the king just as Pippin did to Denethor and the king receives it graciously. Pippin offered his service to Denethor out of a sense of obligation, an attempt to pay the debt he felt he owed for the sacrifice of Boromir. Merry offers his service out of love for Théoden.

“As a father you shall be to me,” he says.

As I have written this piece a memory has come back to me and a name come to mind that I would like to honour in this blog. In 1980 I was a young teacher at a boys’ school in Zambia, Central Africa. I made a number of mistakes, not malicious ones, but the mistakes of inexperience and foolishness, and my students lost confidence in me and demanded my dismissal. Word of this even reached the office of the President of Zambia. Zambia was like a big village in those days and officials in that office told the school to get rid of me. Later I was to learn that the acting principal was going to carry out that instruction but was prevented from doing so by his deputy, Mr Tennyson Sikakwa. One evening as I sat miserably in my house at the school, Tennyson came to sit with me. “You will learn much more from how you deal with your failures than from your successes,” he said. It was a turning point in my life and I owe the profoundest debt of gratitude to him for standing with me at my lowest point. As a father he was to me and I wish to honour him here.

“Where Am I, and What is the Time?” Frodo Awakes in the House of Elrond.

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

I think that I shall be spending the next few weeks with Frodo and Gandalf in the flat ceilinged room with “dark beams richly carved” in the House of Elrond. This is partly because there are few feelings more pleasant than to awaken safely in a comfortable bed after a time of trial. Frodo is so well rested that he has no desire to do anything other than to continue in that state. At first he is so content just to be that he has little or no curiosity about his whereabouts but at last he speaks aloud and says,

“Where am I, and what is the time?” he said aloud to the ceiling.

“In the House of Elrond, and it is ten o’clock in the morning,” said a voice. “It is the morning of October the twenty-fourth, if you want to know.”

And that is another pleasure for me. Few people tell the time, ‘o’clock’, anymore and it is a pleasure to hear that word. But it is a greater pleasure to hear the voice in my head and imagination of the one who speaks in reply to Frodo’s question, for it is Gandalf, and just like Frodo I am always delighted when Gandalf turns up. All my life I have sought the company of men like Gandalf. I have liked many older men but I have met few elders, few truly wise old men. O truly fortunate Aragorn, to have been fathered by two such men, by Elrond and by Gandalf, but then Aragorn was being prepared to become a king, to be the father of his people.

Frodo too has been prepared for a great task and both Bilbo and then Gandalf have been fathers to him. And please note that none of the men mentioned here were biologically fathers to either Aragorn or Frodo. That is a relatively simple task, accomplished in a few moments. To be a father like Gandalf is the work of long years and requires much wisdom. Fascinatingly, in the baptism service of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer of 1662, the priest addresses only the godparents and not the birth parents. If only we had more godparents like Gandalf or Elrond or Bilbo today, men or women who are teachers of wisdom.

In a relatively brief conversation Frodo and Gandalf will say much to each other and their speech will be of great importance. That is another reason why I will gladly spend a few weeks thinking about what they say. They will speak of Frodo’s journey, of Aragorn and the Rangers of the North, of Frodo’s close shaves with death, or with something worse even than death, and with his healing by the skill of Elrond, and they will speak of the danger that lies ahead for all the free peoples of Middle-earth. There will be much for us to think about. But here I will end with a thoughtful speculation on Gandalf’s part as he looks upon the hobbit who appears to be healed.

“Gandalf moved his chair to the bedside, and took a good look at Frodo. The colour had come back to his face, and his eyes were clear, and fully awake and aware. He was smiling, and there seemed to be little wrong with him. But to the wizard’s eye there was a faint change, just a hint as it were of transparency, about him, and especially about the left hand lay outside upon the coverlet.”

What can the wizard see that is hidden from those who cannot see as he can? Does this hint of transparency denote Frodo’s journey towards becoming a wraith as was the intention of the one who left the splinter of the Morgul blade within his body? Gandalf ponders this and other possibilities.

“To what he will come in the end not even Elrond can foretell. Not to evil, I think. He may become like a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can.”

Two kinds of transparency are considered here. One is that shared by the ringwraiths who have rejected their bodies in return for a miserable form of immortality. The other about which Gandalf ponders must surely remind Tolkien’s readers of the glass that Galadriel will give to Frodo in Lothlorien that contains the light of the Silmaril borne by Eärendil in the heavens a light in dark places “when all other lights go out”.