As always, dear readers, welcome.

When you reread The Hobbit, do you look forward to any particular chapter?  Mine is Chapter 5, “Riddles in the Dark”–

(Alan Lee)

although, logically, I’ve always wondered about the conditions of the riddle game:  if Bilbo lost, would he automatically have shrugged, put down Sting, and allowed Gollum to make a meal out of him?

Still, the consequence of losing gives the scene an extra tension, along with Bilbo being at an unknown location, being alone in the dark, and sitting next to such a strange and menacing creature.  (I also wonder about Gollum’s language:  he had gained the Ring about the year TA 2463 and met Bilbo in TA 2941, meaning that he had been born over 500 years before.  Gollum had been in hiding for virtually all of that time, so that he had had no contact with native speakers of his language, which would be rather like someone from Shakespeare’s time suddenly meeting us.  We know what Shakespeare’s English sounded like—see:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2QYGEwM1Sk if you don’t—so would he have, in fact, been harder to understand than he appears in The Hobbit, with his snaky hissings?)

About the riddles, Tolkien once wrote:

“And what about the Riddles?  There is work to be done here on the sources and analogues.  I should not be at all surprised to learn that both the hobbit and Gollum will find their claim to have invented any of them disallowed.”  (letter to the editor of The Observer, printed in the paper 20 February, 1938, Letters, 42)

In fact, almost 10 years later, he has more to say about their “sources and analogues”:

“As for the Riddles:  they are ‘all my own work’ except for ‘Thirty White Horses’ which is traditional, and ‘No-legs’.  The remainder, though their style and method is that of old literary (but not ‘folk-lore’), have no models as far as I am aware, save only the egg-riddle which is a reduction to a couplet (my own) of a longer literary riddle which appears in some ‘Nursery Rhyme’ books, notably American ones.”  (from a letter to Allen & Unwin, 20 September, 1947, Letters, 177)

These are all riddles in The Hobbit, in the contest between Gollum and Bilbo, but in The Lord of the Rings, two more riddles appear, the first presented in a dream which both Faramir and Boromir have had:

“Seek for the Sword that was broken:

In Imladris it dwells;

There shall be counsels taken

Stronger than Morgul-spells.

There shall be shown a token

That Doom is near at hand,

For Isildur’s Bane shall waken,

And the Halfling forth shall stand.” 

The second is presented by Bilbo:

“All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken:

The crownless again shall be king.”

(The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”)

Parts of these two riddles are answered immediately—

“ ‘And here in the house of Elrond more shall be made clear to you,’ said Aragorn, standing up.  He cast his sword upon the table and that before Elrond, and the blade was in two pieces.  ‘Here is the Sword that was broken!’ “

And Gandalf then adds:

“ ‘Bring out the Ring, Frodo!’ said Gandalf solemnly.  ‘The time has come.  Hold it up, and then Boromir will understand the remainder of his riddle.’ “

So much for the Bane, the Sword, and the Halfling, but there is a further part of the riddle, however, that it will take much of the rest of the story to solve:  who is the unglittering gold, the wanderer, the light and fire, the crownless?

It’s also important to note that, as well as riddling, there is prophesying here:  it begins with “Doom near at hand” and “a fire shall be woken”, as well as “a light from the shadows shall spring”, “renewed shall be blade that was broken”, and “the crownless again shall be king”.  With words like “renewed” and “again”, there is a sense both of the past and the future here, and, linked with the previous “unglittering” and “wanderer”, it suggests that some one, not some thing, is the answer to these riddles—and what about that “Doom”?

Boromir is puzzled:  “Isildur’s Bane” (“bane”= “curse”) is identified as the Ring, which Frodo, the Halfling, has held up, but—

“Boromir’s eyes glinted as he gazed at the golden thing.  ‘The Halfling!’ he muttered.  ‘Is then the doom of Minas Tirith come at last?  But why then should we seek a broken sword?’ “

Appropriately, it is the holder of that sword who responds:

“ ‘The words were not the doom of Minas Tirith,’ said Aragorn.  ‘But doom and great deeds are indeed at hand.’ “

To JRRT, the medievalist, “doom”, coming originally from Old English “dom”, which has a fairly wide field of meanings but, in Middle English, can mean “fate”, and, combined with all of the prophecy we’ve just seen, might suggest “something inevitable”—but not necessarily evil—especially provided that the conditions set out are understood and fulfilled:

1. the sword must be reforged

2. the Ring must reappear, in the hands of a hobbit

What happens then is left open—what must be done with the sword and the Ring?

One part of the riddles, however,, is made clearer when Aragorn continues:

“ ‘For the Sword that was Broken is the Sword of Elendil that broke beneath him when he fell.  It has been treasured by his heirs when all other heirlooms were lost; for it was spoken of old among us that it should be made again when the Ring, Isildur’s Bane, was found.  Now you have seen the sword that you have sought, what would you ask?  Do you wish for the House of Elendil to return to the Land of Gondor?’ “

So, following that, we can guess that the inheritor of the sword must then be the wanderer, the unglittering—but then, to take it a step farther, he must also be descended directly from Elendil, the founder of Gondor—and therefore be that uncrowned king. 

Boromir has already had his doubts, even before Frodo displays the Ring: 

“ ‘And who are you, and what have you to do with Minas Tirith?’ asked Boromir, looking in wonder at the lean face of the Ranger and his weather-stained cloak.“ 

And even after Gandalf identifies Aragorn as the descendant of Isildur, son of Elendil, Boromir continues to doubt:

“ ‘Isildur’s Bane is found, you say…I have seen a bright ring in the Halfling’s hand, but Isildur perished ere this age of the world began, they say.  How do the Wise know that this ring is his?  And how has it passed down the years, until it is brought hither by so strange a messenger?’ “

So, although possessing the sword, Aragorn’s claims are questioned and this is, really, a new riddle:  how can he back up his claim as to who he is and what he should then inherit?

As the Voice of Sauron says:

“ ‘Is there anyone in this rout [“mob”] to treat with me?…Or indeed the wit to understand me?  Not thou at least!’ he mocked, turning to Aragorn with scorn.  ‘It needs more to make a king than a piece of Elvish glass, or a rabble such as this.  Why, any brigand of the hills can show as good a following!’ “ (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 10, “The Black Gate Opens”)

(Douglas Beekman—for more on him and his work, see:  https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/beekman_doug )

In part two of this posting, we will see the answer.

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

Stay well,

If you’ve seen this rear-window sticker, wonder if Aragorn has learned to drive,

And remember that there’s

MTCIDC

O