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A Little Ring, the Least of Rings

02 Wednesday Jan 2019

Posted by Ollamh in J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth

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Aladdin, Alexandre Dumas, Barad-Dur, Chateau d'If, Edmond Dantes, Elba, French Revolution, Galadriel, Harad, Hitler, Jinghiz Khan, Louis XVI, Morannon, Mordor, Napoleon, Nazgul, Ring Wraiths, St Helena, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Toulon, Umbar, Waterloo

Welcome, readers, as always, and, if it’s part of your culture, Happy New Year!

We’ve recently been reading a book about Napoleon

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and his first fall, in 1814.  He was forced to abdicate,

 

thereby losing the massive empire he had built up in the early 19th century.

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His many enemies had a number of possibilities as to what to do with him.  They could, for example, have imprisoned him, as Edmond Dantes is in Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo (serialized 1844-46), in a fortress like the Chateau d’If.

image4chateaudif.jpg

Or, more radically—but certainly very effectively—they could have permanently removed him by the same means by which revolutionary France removed his predecessor, Louis XVI.

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Instead, they allowed him not only to live, but even to continue to be a kind of monarch—although only of a tiny island, Elba, off the west coast of Italy.

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They thought they’d seen the last of him, leaving him to spend the rest of his life as a sovereign of a ragged collection of fishermen and farmers.

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For Napoleon, however, who always saw himself as destined for only the greatest things, being king of Elba must have felt to him rather like the way the genie in Disney’s Aladdin (1992) expresses the contrast in his life–

image8genie.png

That being the case, Napoleon lived on Elba for less that a year before he planned and accomplished his escape.

image9napescapes.jpg

Back in France, he was welcomed by the very soldiers sent to stop him,

image10fifth

 

raised new armies,

image11napog

 

marched north to deal with his nearest enemies, Prussia and England, and was finally—and permanently—defeated at Waterloo, 18 June, 1815.

image12waterloo

 

This time, his enemies, having learned their lesson, sent Napoleon as far away from Europe as they could and to a much less hospitable place, the island of St Helena, in the South Atlantic,

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where he died in 1821.

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From his first success, at the siege of Toulon in 1793,

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Napoleon had climbed and climbed until, by 1801, he was the real ruler of France (as “First Consul”)

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and then, in 1804, Emperor.

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And yet, it was never enough, which reminds us of so many of the “great conquerors” of history, from Alexander,

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to Jinghiz Khan and his successors,

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to Hitler.

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In every case throughout history, no conqueror has ever had enough and, if we move out of this earth to Middle-earth, we find Sauron, a figure in many ways like all of these earthly conquerors, who, although defeated by an alliance of Elves and Men in the past, has returned and, in time, reacquired immense power.  To begin with, he has the entire realm of Mordor.

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He has also somehow gained the means to create giant fortifications (sometimes based upon older constructions), like the Barad-dur

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and the Morannon and all of the other inner and outer works of Mordor.

image26morannonimage27mordimage28cirithungol

He also controls the Nazgul,

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massive armies of orcs,

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as well as allies from the Harads and Umbar.

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All of which he has done, it seems, by whatever innate powers he possesses—without the Ring.  And this made us wonder:  what is it that the Ring actually does for its wearer that Sauron wants it back?

Certainly, the only power Gollum appears to have gotten from the Ring is that of invisibility (and the side-effect of longevity).

image32gol.jpeg

This is true for Bilbo, as well,

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and for Frodo–

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although, when Frodo puts on the Ring on Weathertop, he is plunged into a kind of alternate dimension, seeing the Nazgul as they really are

image35weather.jpg

and, again, on Ammon Hen, he is put into direct contact with the Ring’s real owner.

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Does this suggest that the Ring’s power is only as powerful as the Ring’s current wearer? Galadriel confirms this when Frodo asks her about the other rings: “why cannot I see all the others and know the thoughts of those that wear them?”

To which she replies:

“Did not Gandalf tell you that the rings give power according to the measure of each possessor?”

(The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 7, “The Mirror of Galadriel”)

This then accounts for Gandalf’s almost violent explanation when Frodo offers it to him:

“’No!’ cried Gandalf, springing to his feet. ‘With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly.’ His eyes flashed and his face was lit as by a fire within. ‘Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good. Do not tempt me! I dare not take it, not even to keep it safe, unused. The wish to wield it would be too great, for my strength. I shall have such need of it. Great perils lie before me.’” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 2, “The Shadow of the Past”)

Or when Frodo offers it to Galadriel:

“You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 7, “The Mirror of Galadriel”)

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Sauron has been able to accomplish so much without the Ring—what would happen should he ever wear it again?  In “The Shadow of the Past”, Gandalf tells Frodo that it controls the other rings—even the three long-concealed from Sauron:

“The Three are hidden still.  But that no longer troubles him. He only needs the One; for he made that Ring himself, it is his, and he let a great part of his own former power pass into it, so that he could rule all the others.  If he recovers it, then he will command them all again, even the Three, and all that has been wrought with them will be laid bare, and he will be stronger than ever.”

And, just as important—maybe even more so—Sauron has based his place of power and refuge, his sure foundation in Middle-earth, upon it, as Elrond tells the council:

“Sauron was diminished, but not destroyed.  His Ring was lost but not unmade.  The Dark Tower was broken, but its foundations were not removed; for they were made with the power of the Ring, and while it remains they will endure.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”)

So, then, just as Napoleon, exiled on Elba, could plot and accomplish return, given the Ring, Sauron, defeated before, could return and, with a greed for conquest as insatiable as that of the French emperor, reappear again and again in Middle-earth, where there was no St Helena to keep him for good.

image38sthel.jpg

Thanks for reading!

MTCIDC

CD

 

When One Door Closes.4

30 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by Ollamh in Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Maps, Uncategorized

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Alfred Lord Tennyson, Cirith Ungol, doors, Gilbert and Sullivan, Gondor, Grond, Hobbit door, James Fennimore Cooper, Minas Morgul, Minas Tirith, Morannon, Mordor, N.C. Wyeth, Nazgul, Orodruin, Princess Ida, Shelob's Lair, The Last of the Mohicans, The Lord of the Rings, The Princess, The Siege of Gondor, Tolkien

Welcome, as always, dear readers. In this posting, we’ll complete our survey of doors and entryways and what happens at them in The Lord of the Rings.

We began this series a little while ago when we got to thinking about Bilbo’s remark to Frodo that: “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door.”

Bilbo had learned this the hard way when Gandalf had come to his door and he had embarked upon an adventure he, originally, had no desire to be part of.

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In three postings, we’ve followed the story through doors and entryways from that moment all the way to the moment when Gandalf blocks the Lord of the Nazgul from entering Minas Tirith through its ruined main gate.

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In the process, we have come to see that doors and entryways seem to come in two forms: first, there are doors which lead to safety; second, there are doors which lead to danger. We’ve added other elements, natural entryways, like fords and bridges, and the fact that many of the entryways have challenges and challengers barring the way.

In a moment of cheerful intellectual cruelty, we ended the last posting at that crucial moment in “The Siege of Gondor”, in which Grond, the battering ram of the armies of Mordor, has, with the magical aid of the Lord of the Nazgul, broken down the gate and that Lord is about to enter the city, when he meets Gandalf as the challenger:

“ ‘You cannot enter here,’ said Gandalf, and the huge shadow halted. ‘Go back to the abyss prepared for you! Go back! Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your Master. Go!’ ”

And, just at that moment, “Great horns of the North wildly blowing. Rohan had come at last.”

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[We wondered, by the way, if that “Great horns of the North wildly blowing” was an accidental or deliberate allusion to a lyric from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s

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poetic criticism of the idea of women’s education, The Princess (1847),

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in which we find the line “The horns of Elfland faintly blowing”—here’s the whole poem:

from The Princess: The Splendour Falls on Castle Walls
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The splendour falls on castle walls
                And snowy summits old in story:
         The long light shakes across the lakes,
                And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
         O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
                And thinner, clearer, farther going!
         O sweet and far from cliff and scar
                The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
         O love, they die in yon rich sky,
                They faint on hill or field or river:
         Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
                And grow for ever and for ever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

 

This then formed the basis of an 1870 play by W.S. Gilbert, which he converted, with his collaborator, Arthur Sullivan, into an operetta, in 1884.]

 

Gilbert and Sullivan Cartoon.jpg

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For the Aragorn and company half of the story, we see the arrival of the army of Gondor and its allies at the Morannon as the last door.

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Here, there are, in fact, two challengers/challenges. First,

“When all was ordered, the Captains rode forth towards the Black Gate with a great guard of horsemen and the banner and heralds and trumpeters…They came within cry of the Morannon, and unfurled the banner, and blew upon their trumpets; and the heralds stood out and sent their voices up over the battlement of Mordor.” (The Return of the King, Book 5, Chapter 10, “The Black Gate Opens”)

In return,

“There came a long rolling of great drums like thunder in the mountains, and then a braying of horns that shook the very stones and stunned men’s ears. And thereupon the door of the Black Gate was thrown open with a great clang, and out of it there came an embassy from the Dark Tower.”

In both cases, it goes without saying that this is a door to danger, the difference being that those from Gondor want those within to come out so that, by defeating them (though they have little hope of this), those from Gondor can enter, while those within the gate want to prevent their entry (except, perhaps, as prisoners).

As we turn to the other half of the narrative, we begin at the same gate, where Gollum has brought Frodo and Sam.

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Here, there is no easily visible challenger, just the forbidding nature of the gate, but it is still not an entryway to safety, as, on the other side is an inhospitable landscape, populated by Sauron’s vast armies, constantly on the move, as we see in later chapters. As well, from those later chapters, we gain the sense that Frodo doesn’t believe he’s going to return from Mordor anyway.

Seeing no way to enter, Frodo pushes Gollum to lead them south and, with a diversion to Faramir’s base behind a waterfall (which, to us, is reminiscent of a similar hide-out in James Fennimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans (1826)

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—and how can we resist mentioning that, in 1919, N.C. Wyeth illustrated an edition?)

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they arrive at the southern entryway to Mordor, the pass with Minas Morgul at its western end and Cirith Ungol at its eastern.

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The challengers of Minas Morgul are the Lord of the Nazgul and a vast army, on their way to attack Minas Tirith, but these are skirted, as Gollum guides the two hobbits around the site and up on a perilous climb—and into Torech Ungol, Shelob’s Lair. Safety? Gollum wants the hobbits to think so. Danger? With Shelob as a challenger, what else?

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Even as Sam drives Shelob off, however, he loses Frodo, paralyzed and cocooned, and is faced with an inner door closed by the orcs as they withdraw. Climbing over it, he moves forward, cloaked by the ring, to look out towards Orodruin and the Tower of Cirith Ungol.

cirith-ungol2

And, with this, we have finished our survey.

Unless, of course, we consider two more events.

First, there is what happens at Mount Doom, where Gollum is the challenger, and the door, such as it is, leads to safety for Middle-earth, but not for Sam and Frodo.

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And, finally, at the edge of the Shire, in “The Scouring of the Shire”, where the returning hobbits meet with the followers of “Sharkey” at the bridge. Those followers, brain-washed by fear of “The Chief” and his “big man” followers, attempt to deny what should be a door to safety to Frodo, Merry, and Pippin, as the three had expected, but which leads, in fact, to conflict and open violence before their return home is safely accomplished.

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With that, we complete the pattern and here is our chart:

 

Entryway Source Challenger Challenged Outcome
Bilbo’s door The Hobbit Bilbo Dwarves Bilbo is tricked into hospitality
Beorn’s house The Hobbit Beorn Gandalf Beorn tricked into hospitality
Goblin cave The Hobbit Goblins Bilbo Escapes by use of the Ring
Mirkwood The Hobbit Elves Dwarves/Bilbo Bilbo rescues dwarves with Ring and barrels
Lonely Mountain (Back door) The Hobbit Smaug Dwarves/Bilbo Understanding the inscription, Dwarves open the door
Lonely Mountain (Front door) The Hobbit Dwarves Men, Elves, Goblins Battle of the Five Armies—eventual settlement
Bilbo’s door The Hobbit Hobbits Bilbo Bilbo’s things are up for auctions—Bilbo gets most things back
Ford of Bruinen The Lord of the Rings Wraiths Frodo/Elves After Frodo’s challenge, elf magic overwhelms wraiths
Moria (west gate) The Lord of the Rings Elves of Hollin Fellowship Gandalf discovers password—the group enters
Lothlorien (western side) The Lord of the Rings Elves Fellowship Challenged by elves, but allowed to enter
Edoras The Lord of the Rings Rohirrim Gandalf et al. Challenged by gate guards, but allowed to enter
Meduseld The Lord of the Rings Hama Gandalf et al. Challenged, but allowed to enter
Helms Deep The Lord of the Rings Aragorn Orcs/Wildings Aragorn warns them of their danger
Isengard The Lord of the Rings Merry/Pippin Gandalf et al. Greeted and offered food, drink, and smoke
Paths of the Dead The Lord of the Rings Oath-breakers Aragorn at al. Allowed to enter, but followed—leave safely
Morannon The Lord of the Rings Sauron King Elessar et al. Sauron’s army appears for battle
Morannon The Lord of the Rings Sauron Frodo/Sam/Gollum No way of entry—the three head south
Minas Morgul The Lord of the Rings Lord of Nazgul Frodo/Sam/Gollum Entry blocked by Lord’s Army
Torech Ungol The Lord of the Rings Shelob Frodo/Sam Gollum escapes, Frodo paralyzed by Shelob
Cirith Ungol The Lord of the Rings Orcs Sam With Ring as aid, Sam enters
Mt. Doom The Lord of the Rings Gollum Frodo Gollum gains Ring, but perishes in fire
Shire bridge The Lord of the Rings Hobbits Frodo et al. Hobbits climb over gate, guards run

 

Because this material becomes increasingly complex, there is always the possibility that, as thorough as we try to be and as inclusive, we’ve missed something. If so, we’d be glad to hear from our readers!

Thanks, as always, for reading!

MTCIDC

CD

 

Tobago to Lothlorien 2

26 Wednesday Oct 2016

Posted by Ollamh in Heroes, J.R.R. Tolkien, Uncategorized

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Anduin, Barad-Dur, Bree, Caras Galadhon, Cirith Ungol, defense, Edoras, fortification, Galadriel, Helm's Deep, Hildebrandts, John Howe, Lothlorien, Minas Tirith, Morannon, Nenya, Offa's Dyke, Rhodes, Robinson Crusoe, stockades, Swiss Family Robinson, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, tree house

Welcome, dear readers, as always. As you can see from the title, this is a continuation of our previous post.

In that previous posting, we began with the novel, Robinson Crusoe (1719),

Robinson_Crusoe_1719_1st_edition.jpg

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then on to Swiss Family Robinson (1812),

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being especially interested in the stockade of the former

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and the tree house of the latter.

swiss-family-robinson

The connection here was the tree house and Lothlorien, where the elves lived high up in the trees.

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At least, that’s where we began. As we looked more seriously at the architecture of Lothlorien, however, we began to wonder, in a world in which darkness had gradually spread, how it protected itself. After all, Robinson Crusoe, afraid of the cannibals he had seen, had walled himself in. Part of it was the power of Galadriel herself, as she implies to Frodo:

“But do not think that only by singing amid the trees, nor even by the slender arrows of elven-bows, is this land of Lothlorien maintained and defended against its Enemy.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 7, “The Mirror of Galadriel”)

But was there anything more besides singing, arrows, and Nenya, the Ring of Adamant?

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Far to the south, Minas Tirith had seven concentric (more or less) walls,

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and its opponents across the Anduin had the Morannon

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and Cirith Ungol

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and even the Barad Dur.

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It is not so clear about Edoras. There is mention that “A dike [that is, a ditch/moat] and mighty wall and thorny fence encircle it”, along with the phrase “wide wind-swept walls and gates” (The Two Towers, Book 3, Chapter 6, “The King of the Golden Hall”), but little else. And you can see that lack of information reflected in the rather scanty look in the Jackson films—

LOTR_twoTowers_edoras_03_940.jpg

Helm’s Deep, is, of course, a different matter—we show you versions by the Hildebrandts and by John Howe

helmsdeephildebrandt.jpg

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Lothlorien is, in fact, not a single site, like any of the above. This map

LothlorienMap.jpg

gives you an idea of its complexity. There is the outer forest, with its camouflaged guard flets in trees, seemingly along its borders, and then the actual center, the city of Caras Galadhon. Here’s JRRT’s description of that center:

“There was a wide treeless space before them, running in a great circle and bending away on either hand. Beyond it was a deep fosse lost in soft shadow, but the grass upon its brink was green, as if it glowed still in memory of the sun that had gone. Upon the further side there rose to a great height a green wall encircling a green hill thronged with mallorn-trees taller than any they had yet seen in all the land.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 7, “The Mirror of Galadriel”)

We are then told that there is a bridge, on the southern side, which crosses to “the great gates of the city; they faced south-west, set between the ends of the encircling wall that here overlapped, and they were tall and strong, and hung with many lamps.”

A fosse (from the Latin verb, fodio, fodere, fodi, fossum, “to dig”) means that there was a moat—in this case, it would appear to be a dry moat, like this one at the city of Rhodes.

moatrhodes.jpg

(Those stone balls, by the way, are left over from the Turkish artillery and stone-throwers which pounded the walls of Rhodes in 1522–when we have another posting–soon–on the attack on Minas Tirith, we’ll say more about that.)

That “green wall”, however, is a bit of a puzzle. Is it a wall of green stone of some sort? Or is it a “thorny fence”, like that which surrounds Edoras? There are two similar defenses, or at least boundaries, in LOTR. First, there is the border between Buckland and the Old Forest:

“Their land was originally unprotected from the East; but on that side they had built a hedge: the High Hay. It had been planted many generations ago, and it was now thick and tall…” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Chapter 5, “A Conspiracy Unmasked”)

The second such construction appears at Bree (which sounds much like Edoras):

“On that side, running in more than half a circle from the hill and back to it, there was a deep dike with a thick hedge on the inner side.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Chapter 9, “At the Sign of the Prancing Pony”)

So what is the green wall?  English hedges can be very dense things, often to mark off fields, as in this photo of Offa’s Dyke–and you can see the fosse/ditch/moat here, as well.

offasdyke2.png

In at least one previous entry, we discussed Offa’s Dike, a (possibly) 8th-century-AD ditch and earthen wall between England and Wales.

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Can we imagine the palisading of this reconstruction replaced with a thorny hedge? Here’s a long shot of Offa’s Dike with a bit of hedging visible.

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When we consider the general look of Caras Galadhon, it is of something organic: the elves loved the trees and, instead of cutting them down, as the hobbits had done outside the High Hay, they climbed up into them. Might we then see that their physical barrier against their enemies was of the same green and growing material as were their dwellings?

What do you think, dear readers?

Thanks, as ever, for reading,

MTCIDC

CD

Sites and Vision

25 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by Ollamh in J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, Narrative Methods

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Tags

Battle of Loos, John Garth, Morannon, Shell Holes, The Great War, Tolkien, World War I

Dear Readers,

Although we said in our last that we were going to pursue further the subject of that post, recently, we’ve been readers of John Garth’s Tolkien and the Great War (2003—he has a new book we’re about to order– Tolkien at Exeter College. If this interests you, you should also check out his impressive website at http://www.johngarth.co.uk) and, thinking about JRRT’s time in the trenches brought us to the Morannon:

“Upon the west of Mordor marched the gloomy range of Ephel Duath, the Mountains of Shadow, and upon the north the broke peaks and barren ridges of Ered Lithui, grey as ash. But as these ranges approached one another, being indeed parts of one great wall about the mournful plains of Lithlad and of Gorgoroth, and the bitter inland sea of Nurnen amidmost, they swung out long arms northward; and between these arms there was a deep defile. This was Cirith Gorgor, the Haunted Pass, the entrance to the land of the Enemy. High cliffs lowered upon either side, and thrust forward from its mouth were two sheer hills, black-boned and bare. Upon them stood the Teeth of Mordor, two towers strong and tall…Stony-faced they were, with dark window-holes staring north and east and west, and each window was full of sleepless eyes.”

Although JRRT didn’t come to the Western Front until after the battle of Loos in September-October, 1915, that description reminded us of this:

loostourheader

This is the so-called “Tower Bridge” (actually the top structure of mine elevators), the most striking landmark of the long-drawn-out struggle by the British to push the Germans back from their defensive line. It was common for British soldiers to name local French and Belgian features after things from home. Hence, this

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reminded them of this:

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The battlefield, however, also has more features similar to JRRT’s description of this bleak and ashy world in the artificial tailings (refuse heaps) from the coal mines which dotted the region.

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And, in the midst of this are Sam, Frodo, and Gollum:

“…lay now peering over the edge of a rocky hollow beneath the outstretched shadow of the northernmost buttress of Ephel Duath.”

Bomb-Hole

The area between British and German lines were pockmarked with holes blown in the earth by artillery shells,

French_Railway_Gun_27627u 

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sometimes thousands of them, and soldiers advancing would use them as temporary shelters. 

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which could then be used as the basis of new trench systems. 

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And, between those trench systems, was the area called “No Man’s Land “, in which whole villages and even forests could disappear into nothing but cellar holes and stumps:

damagefranceww1

HvAy67I

which look rather like the devastation described at the crossroads

“Presently, not far ahead, looming up like a black wall, they saw a belt of trees.  As they drew nearer they became aware that these were of vast size, very ancient it seemed, and still towering high, though their tops were gaunt and broken, as if tempest and lightning-blast had swept across them, but had failed to kill them or to shake their fathomless roots.”

JRRT strenuously objected to the idea that he was literally converting his thoughts and feelings and experiences in the two World Wars into Middle Earth prose, but he did say something about what he had seen:

“Personally I do not think that either war (and of course not the atomic bomb) had any influence upon either the plot or the manner of its unfolding.  Perhaps in landscape.  The Dead Marshes and the approaches to the Morannon owe something to Northern France after the Battle of the Somme…”

How could an intelligent, observant young man could live among such scenes and absorb them without finding some use for them—perhaps even as a kind of exorcism of the horrors he would rather not remember?

As ever, thanks for reading!

MTCIDC

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