Terrible as an Army with Banners

25 Wednesday Sep 2019

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

Tags

banner, Captain Souter, color, Dol Amroth, ensign, Eye of Sauron, First Afghan War, flag, George Washington, Revolutionary War, Rohirrim, saltire, standard, The Lord of the Rings, The Song of Solomon, Tolkien, Trooping of the Colour, White Hand of Saruman, white horse of Hannover, White Tree of Gondor, WWI, WWII

Welcome, dear readers, as ever.

Our title comes from the Hebrew Bible, in the book entitled The Song of Solomon, Chapter 6, verses 4 and 10, where the speaker’s beloved’s beauty is likened to an army with banners. Growing up, we always wondered about that word “terrible”. We didn’t see why someone’s good looks could be frightening, but we could certainly see how an army with its flags could be scary.

On the subject of banners, recently, we’ve been writing about 2^nd Lieutenant JRR Tolkien.

In an earlier posting, in fact, we mentioned that that rank of 2^nd Lieutenant was a replacement for the earlier rank of “ensign”. “Lieutenant” is just the English version of a French compound for “place-holder” (lieu + tenant), in this case meaning the person who will step into the captain’s shoes if necessary. Instead of a compound with its implication of replacement, “ensign” is actually a job description. An “ensign” is a flag (a “color”, if infantry, “standard”, if cavalry) and an “ensign” is also the person who carried it.

By 1916, when Tolkien became a 2^nd Lieutenant, colors were no longer carried in battle, but only on parade, as this early-20^th-century illustration demonstrates—

and is still the case for the famous “Trooping of the Colour” for the Queen of England’s birthday parade, where her splendid footguards march with one of their colo(u)rs.

This is clearly all about show, now, but, once upon a time, colors—and their ensigns—had an important role in warfare. Earlier colors were much bigger—in the 18^th century, they were 6 feet by 6 feet square (1.82 metres by 1.82).

And here are some modern reenactors to help you to see just how big that really is.

The reasons for such a size (on a 9-foot pole, or “pike”—that’s 2.74m) are:

units in earlier times (pre-late-19^th-century, more or less) fought in long lines and, if you put the colors in the middle, everyone in a unit had a kind of fixed point to help them know where they—and their unit—were

as well, earlier firearms, which used black powder, put out enormous clouds of (white) smoke—

If colors were big and tall, they could still be made out in the midst of those clouds.

They could also act as a rallying point. When lines came apart and the order was Charge! (Or when things were falling apart and the call was for Retreat!)

In time, colors came to be thought of as almost the physical representative of the spirit of a unit and being called upon to surrender them was looked upon as the worst disgrace. This portrait of George Washington would have been thought particularly nasty by his British and German enemies because all around him are their colors, captured in two battles, Trenton and Princeton. (His own headquarters flag—13 stars in a circle on a blue background—is in the upper right of the picture.)

To escape surrendering their colors, soldiers would strip them from the poles/pikes and hide them in their clothes or, in real desperation, burn them, as the French did in 1760 when forced to surrender to the British at Montreal, in Canada (then New France).

In earlier centuries, before gunpowder came to dominate battlefields, colors were already used as rallying points,

but also, in the days before uniforms, colors—big or little—indicated who was fighting. If you saw a figure bearing a flag with a white, angled cross (a “saltire” in heraldic terms) on a blue field (background), for example, you knew that the King of Scotland was on the battlefield.

Thus, although 2^nd Lieutenant Tolkien would no longer carry one of his unit’s colors into battle, as previous ensigns had, he would have known the importance of their role—and especially of the role of what they carried, which is why, for example, we see that, when it comes to battle in Middie-earth, nearly everyone seems to have a distinctive flag:

the Rohirrim have their running horse

(which we think JRRT may have borrowed either from the chalk cutting known as the “White Horse of Uffington”

or possibly from an emblem long-related to the British monarchy, the white horse of Hannover—as we can see on this 18^th-century grenadier cap).

Gondor has its tree and stars

and, when Aragorn marches out of Minas Tirith,

it’s under his version of that banner–

which also boldly states his claim to be the rightful king—without actually coming out and saying it—compare the two banners–

and the Prince of Dol Amroth has his flag, with “his token of the Ship and the Silver Swan” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 1, “Minas Tirith”).

As for their opponents, we see Saruman’s white hand on armor,

so we can presume, we think, that any banners carried would bear the same insignia and the same is true for Sauron’s orcs, which would have borne the lidless eye.

(We might also note that Southrons in the service of Mordor appear to carry red banners—as Gollum reports to Frodo and Sam in The Two Towers, Book Four, Chapter 3, “The Black Gate is Closed”.)

All of which made us wonder if Solomon would have been so eager to describe his beloved as he did if the army he saw looked like this?

As ever, thanks for reading and

MTCIDC

In an odd but fortunate use of a color, in 1842, during the First Afghan War, a Captain Souter was saved because he had hidden one of his regiment’s colors by wrapping it around his waist. As the last members of his unit fell around him, his Afghan opponents saw what they believed to be a fancy waistcoat/vest and took him prisoner, hoping for a rich ransom.

Who Goes There? (4)

05 Wednesday Dec 2018

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

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Cirith Ungol, doorwarden, Edoras, Faramir, Gorbag and Shagrat, guards, Hama, Heorot, Ingold, Isengard, Ithilien, Meduseld, Merry and Pippin, Minas Tirith, N.C. Wyeth, Orcs, Rammas Echor, Rangers, Robin Hood, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, White Tree of Gondor

Welcome, dear readers, as ever.

This post will complete our series on watchmen, sentries, and patrols in The Lord of the Rings and how confrontations with such figures may change the action.

In our last, we’d gotten as far as Edoras and, within, Meduseld, with Hama, its doorwarden.

(This is actually from John Howe’s painting of Heorot, the mead hall in Beowulf, but, as Meduseld is meant to mean “mead hall” in Rohirric—the language of Rohan—we figure that we can justify the substitution.)

From Edoras, we’ll follow Gandalf and Pippin to Minas Tirith,

passing through the Rammas Echor, the old barrier wall protecting the fields of the Pelennor, where Gandalf talks with Ingold, who appears to be in charge of repairing a section of that wall fallen into disrepair. (See The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 1, “Minas Tirith”) We don’t have a illustration of this—although we think that it would make a good one—so, as we think of the Rammas Echor as a cousin of Hadrian’s wall, here’s an illustration of that wall under construction, just to give the idea.

But we said we will follow Gandalf and Pippin. First, we have to double back to Isengard, where the Ents have wreaked justifiable havoc.

(A T Nasmith we’ve used before)

When Gandalf and crowd come to call upon Saruman, they meet with very different doorwardens from Hama:

“The king and all his company sat silent on their horses, marvelling, perceiving that the power of Saruman was overthrown; but how they could not guess. And now they turned their eyes towards the archway and the ruined gates. There they saw close beside them a great rubble heap; and suddenly they were aware of two small figures lying on it at their ease, grey-clad, hardly to be seen among the stones. There were bottles and bowls and platters laid beside them, as if they had just eaten well, and now rested from their labour. One seemed asleep, the other, with crossed legs and arms behind his head, leaned back against a broken rock and sent from his mouth long wisps and little rings of thin blue smoke.” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 8, “The Road to Isengard”)

It’s Merry and Pippin, of course, and, for Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli, after their long, grim march across northern Rohan in search of their missing companions, only to have Eomer suggest that they’ve been killed with the orcs, this is certainly a change of mood, as well as a change of plot—not only are the two restored, but Pippin will help to rescue Faramir from his mad father and Merry will save Eowyn from the Nazgul.

Now, however, having picked up Pippin, we’ll continue on to Minas Tirith,

where, at the approach of Shadowfax:

“So Gandalf and Peregrin rode to the Great Gate of the Men of Gondor at the rising of the sun, and its iron doors rolled back before them…Then men fell back before the command of his voice…” (The Return of the King, Book 5, Chapter 1, “Minas Tirith”)

Passing up through the seven levels of the city, they dismounted at the gate of the Citadel, where:

“The Guards of the gate were robed in black, and their helms were of strange shape, high-crowned, with long cheek-guards close-fitting to the face, and above the cheek-guards were set the white wings of sea-birds; but the helms gleamed with a flame of silver, for they were indeed wrought of mithril, heirlooms from the glory of old days. Upon the black surcoats were embroidered in white a tree blossoming like snow beneath a silver crown and many-pointed stars.”

This was an image surprisingly difficult to find. Here’s a depiction (sort of) from the Jackson films.

The helmet might be right, but the black surcoat is missing—here’s Pippin, also from the films, wearing one.

We add to this an image by a Russian illustrator, Denis Gordeev. Here, the helmet may not be quite what we’d expect, but the rest of the ensemble works.

It says much for Gandalf’s influence in Minas Tirith that neither does Ingold, at the Rammas Echor, challenge him, nor the guards at the main gate of Minas Tirith, nor those at the Citadel—as Ingold says:

“Yea, truly we know you, Mithrandir…and you know the pass-words of the Seven Gates and are free to go forward.”

Our next sentries, are not so easily passed however, as Frodo and Sam discover, when:

“Four tall Men stood there. Two had spears in their hands with broad bright heads. Two had great bows, almost of their own height, and great quivers of long green-feathered arrows. All had swords at their sides, and were clad in green and brown of varied hues, as if the better to walk unseen in the glades of Ithilien. Green gauntlets covered their hands, and their faces were hooded and masked with green, except for their eyes, which were very keen and bright.” (The Two Towers, Book Four, Chapter 4, “Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit”)

Their outfits immediately made us think of NC Wyeth’s Robin Hood and his men

from Wyeth’s 1917 Robin-hood.

Their leader, Faramir, questions Frodo and Sam closely before letting them go—and this meeting gives Faramir news of the end of Boromir, a view of Boromir’s character from Frodo, as well as providing us with a view of Faramir, who says of the Ring:

“I would not take this thing, if it lay by the highway. Not were Minas Tirith falling in ruin and I alone could save her, so, using the weapon of the Dark Lord for her good and my glory. No, I do not wish for such triumphs, Frodo son of Drogo.” (The Two Towers, Book Four, Chapter 5, “The Window on the West”)

Once he knows their purpose, Faramir lets them go—to much worse sentries. First, there are orc patrols, like those of Shagrat and Gorbag.

Image13: shag and bag

There is no conversation here between hobbits and orcs, but we certainly gain a better view of orc loyalty, as one orc leader, Gorbag, says to another, Shagrat:

“What d’you say? –if we get a chance, you and me’ll slip off and set up somewhere on our own with a few trusty lads, somewhere where there’s good loot nice and handy, and no big bosses.” (The Two Towers, Book Four, Chapter 10, “The Choices of Master Samwise”)

Then there are the Watchers at the Tower of Cirith Ungol:

“They were like great figures seated upon thrones. Each had three joined bodies, and three heads facing outward, and inward, and across the gateway. The heads had vulture-faces, and on their great knees were laid clawlike hands. They seemed to be carved out of huge blocks of stone, immovable, and yet they were aware: some dreadful spirit of evil vigilance abode in them. They knew an enemy. Visible or invisible none could pass unheeded…” (The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 1, “The Tower of Cirith Ungol”)

And here are the last sentries and perhaps a last sign for Frodo and Sam before their terrible and near-fatal trip across Mordor that there is still power for good in a world grown dark. Having rescued Frodo from his orcish imprisonment, Sam and Frodo have come up against the Watchers, who seem to block their way until:

“ ‘Gilthoniel, A Elbereth!’ Sam cried…

‘Aiya elenion ancalima!’ cried Frodo once again behind him.

The will of the Watchers was broken with a suddenness like the snapping of a cord, and Frodo and Sam stumbled forward. “

There are no more sentries, although the two hobbits will be passed by a small search party and will then be swept up into an orc marching company before being on their own on the way to Mount Doom, where we will leave them and this set of postings.

As always, thanks for reading and

MTCIDC

Name, Rank, and…

10 Wednesday Oct 2018

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

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1984, Alan Lee, Eye of Sauron, Flodden, George Orwell, Great War, Heraldic Device, Mordor, Oceania, Orcs, Sauron, serial numbers, Serialized, Swan of Dol Amroth, the Lancashire Fusiliers, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, White Hand of Saruman, White Horse of Rohan, White Tree of Gondor, Winston Smith

As always, dear readers, welcome.

In George Orwell’s (1903-1950)

image1orwell

1949 horrific political novel 1984,

image2nineteen

the protagonist, Winston Smith, is attempting to do what are called “physical jerks”, meaning calisthenics, in front of a “telescreen”. This is, in fact, a two-way device, but it’s impossible to know when, as you are watching it, it can be watching you, until:

‘Smith!’ screamed the shrewish voice from the telescreen. ‘6079 Smith W.!

Yes, YOU! Bend lower, please! You can do better than that. You’re not

trying. Lower, please! THAT’S better, comrade. Now stand at ease, the

whole squad, and watch me.’ (1984, Chapter 3)

And so we see just how militarized “Oceania”, Smith’s homeland, has become. You are not a citizen, but a member of a “squad”, and your name has a serial number attached.

The same is true of Sauron’s Mordor, as Sam and Frodo overhear, desperately trying to conceal themselves behind a “brown and stunted bush”. Two scouts appear:

“One was clad in ragged brown and was armed with a bow of horn; it was of a small breed, black-skinned, with wide and snuffling nostrils…The other was a big fighting-orc, like those of Shagrat’s company, bearing the token of the Eye.”

(Here’s Alan Lee’s illustration of the two, by the way.)

image3orcs

They are soon quarreling and, when the small one tries to escape, the larger fighting-orc shouts:

“You come back…or I’ll report you!”

To which the smaller replies:

“Who to? Not to your precious Shagrat. He won’t be captain any more.”

And the larger answers that with:

“I’ll give your name and number to the Nazgul.” A threat which soon gets him killed.

When we think about Tolkien in the Great War,

we can see at once where the idea of the “name and number” came from. Although there had been attempts at serial numbers as far back as 1857,

image5eighteensixty

in 1881, units in the British Army adopted a regimental serial system.

image6eighteeneighties

Thus, in JRRT’s army, he would have seen a man in his battalion of his regiment (the Lancashire Fusiliers) identified as “189, Smith, W” (although officers like Tolkien were not issued such numbers).

image7nineteen

There is, of course, another identifying mark for the soldiers both of Sauron and Saruman, the heraldic device on helmets or shields, the red eye for Sauron, the white hand for Saruman

image8eye

image9hand

When we say “heraldic device”, we mean, as you can see, a decoration on cloth or metal, clothing, armor, and flags, which indicates, in some way, who the wearer is, or to whom he belongs. On a medieval battlefield, before men wore uniforms, this would help those in charge to understand, at a glance, who was fighting whom.

image10flodden

In this painting of the large and confused battle between English and Scots soldiers at Flodden (1513), a late-medieval, early-Renaissance struggle, you can see how confusing things could be, but some order could be made out of the English standard to the left, and two Scottish flags to the right, the far one being generic Scots, but the near one being the banner of the Scottish king himself, James IV.

Up close, the one of the heraldic badges of the Stanley family (on the English side), the claw, marks this archer.

image11stanley

The science of heraldry is large and complicated, but may be seen at its simplest in The Lord of the Rings, not only among orcs, but also among the forces of the West—

the white horse of Rohan,

image12rohan

the swan and ship of Dol Amroth,

image13dolim

and the tree and seven stars of Gondor.

image14gondor

Where there is a strong contrast between the two sides, however, and we can only speculate as to JRRT’s intent, was the assignment of numbers to the orcs of Mordor and not to the soldiers of the West a quiet comment on the facelessness of modern warfare, where a soldier is a number first, before he is ever a name and perhaps all men are reduced to orcs?

image15dead

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC

Re: Tree

23 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by Ollamh in Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Narrative Methods, Poetry

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Alfred Tennyson, Dreamflower, Fangorn Forest, Galadriel, Gondor, Helm's Deep, Isengard, Laurelindorenan, Lothlorien, Lotus-eaters, mallorn, Minas Tirith, Mirkwood, Old Forest, Old Man Willow, Palantir, Rath Dinen, Samwise Gamgee, Saruman, The Lord of the Rings, The Odyssey, Tolkien, Treebeard, trees, White Tree of Gondor

Welcome, as always, dear readers.
image1ajrrttree
The inspirations for our postings come from many places: from something we’re reading or have just watched/seen, from a connection between two texts, or between Tolkien’s world—the real or Middle-earth—and something from the history of this world. Sometimes ideas come from the Sortes Tolkienses—our take on an ancient fortune-telling method, in which one posed a question, then opened a copy of an important text like The Bible or Vergil’s Aeneid, closed one’s eyes, and pointed and the text where the finger landed was believed, through interpretation, to contain an answer to that question. In our case, should we require inspiration, we sometimes use our 50th Anniversary hardbound of The Lord of the Rings to do this and, surprisingly often, what we find gives us an idea about what to write.
In the case of this posting, however, it was more of a “we were working on something else entirely and then there it was.” The “it” here is the White Tree of Gondor.
image1treeofgondor
(We confess, by the way, that we have iphone cases with the image—and we are often complimented on them.)
image2phonecase
We had, in fact, been thinking about another post, this one about corruption through technology, as represented by the palantiri, and had been reading references to Denethor. This had led us to his fiery death in Rath Dinen, “Silent Street”, which led to the tombs of the kings and stewards of Gondor. Besides the rulers of Gondor, however, the street had another occupant, the old White Tree, long dead,

but which, when a new sapling

was found in the mountains by Gandalf and Aragorn, was still treated with ceremony:
“Then the withered tree was uprooted, but with reverence; and they did not burn it, but laid it to rest in the silence of Rath Dinen.” (The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 5, “The Steward and the King”)
This seemed a rather odd thing to do to a tree and this led us, finally, to consider one function of trees in The Lord of the Rings: just as the White Tree is buried, as human rulers were, could trees act as a mirror for the condition of the human world at what would be the end of the Third Age? And can they also act as a mirror of change for the better?
Consider, for example, the dead White Tree as a symbol for the withering of Gondor itself, as Minas Tirith is described:
Pippin gazed in growing wonder “at the great stone city, vaster and more splendid than anything that he had dreamed of; greater and stronger than Isengard, and far more beautiful. Yet it was in truth falling year by year into decay; and already it lacked half the men that could have dwelt at ease there…(The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 1, “Minas Tirith”)
And this decay of city and tree appears to be echoed in the natural world of Middle-earth in general, as Treebeard says of Lothlorien:

“Do not risk getting entangled in the woods of Laurelindorenan! That is what the Elves used to call it, but now they make the name shorter: Lothlorien they call it. Perhaps they are right: maybe it is fading, not growing. Land of the Valley of Singing Gold, that was it, once upon a time. Now it is the Dreamflower.”
[Just a quick footnote here. “Dreamflower” immediately takes us to Odyssey, Book 9, 82-105, where a small party of Odysseus’ men, set ashore to explore, meet up with the Lotus-eaters, who give them the mysterious lotus to eat and that “whoever might eat of the sweet fruit of the lotus, no longer wished to bring word back or to return home/but wanted, feeding on lotus, to remain in the very same place with the lotus-eating men and to forget about home-going.” (94-97, our translation). This certainly could describe at least some of the Fellowship’s reaction to Lothlorien. Here’s an illustration from a cartoon-version:

Alfred Tennyson wrote a poem on the same subject—here’s a LINK, in case you would like to read his 1832 (revised 1842) interpretation.]
Beyond Lothlorien, other parts of the tree-covered natural world seem more menacing–there’s the Old Forest,

and Mirkwood,

described by Haldir:
“ ‘There lies the fastness of Southern Mirkwood…It is clad in a forest of dark fir, where the trees strive against one another and their branches rot and wither.’ “ (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 6, “Lothlorien”)
It wouldn’t take much imagination to replace “where the trees strive” with “where the humans strive against one another and their kind rots and withers”!
There is the sentient, malevolent Old Man Willow,

and even Treebeard and his forest do not at first offer the kind of invitation one hears in the first verse of this song, from Shakespeare’s As You Like It:
Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me
And tune his merry note,
Unto the sweet bird’s throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither:
Here shall he see
No enemy
Than winter and rough weather.

Instead, when Treebeard

overhears Pippin say:
“This shaggy old forest looked so different in the sunlight. I almost felt I liked the place.” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 4, “Treebeard”)
he says, “ ‘Almost felt you liked the Forest!’ That’s good! That’s uncommonly kind of you…Turn round and let me have a look at your faces. I almost feel that I dislike you both…”
Treebeard’s hostility towards Pippin and Merry actually springs from another source—Saruman:
“He and his foul folk are making havoc now. Down on the borders they are felling trees—good trees. Some of the trees they just cut down and leave to rot—orc-mischief that; but most are hewn up and carried off to feed the fires of Orthanc.”
Treebeard’s growing anger, however, then marks a turn in the behavior of the natural world: somehow the appearance of Pippin and Merry acts as a catalyst:
“Curse him, root and branch! Many of those trees were my friends, creatures I had known from nut and acorn; many had voices of their own that are lost for ever now. And there are wastes of stump and bramble where once there were singing groves. I have been idle. I have let things slip. It must stop!”
And it’s not simply the Revenge of the Ents. Treebeard has a larger strategy, saying to the two hobbits:
“You may be able to help me. You will be helping your own friends that way, too; for if Saruman is not checked Rohan and Gondor will have an enemy behind as well as in front.”
As we know, Treebeard convinces the other Ents to help and, in a short time, they not only destroy Isengard

but also the orcs at Helm’s Deep,

effectively removing Saruman from the story except as an empty threat—and a final, petty Sauron, ruining the Shire, which included cutting down numbers of trees—among them the famous Party Tree. And here we see one more symbol, perhaps. Long before, Galadriel had given Sam a gift which, in her wisdom (and perhaps in her foresight?) seemed almost perfect for a gardener:
“She put into his hand a little box of plain grey wood, unadorned save for a single silver rune on the lid….’In this box there is earth from my orchard, and such blessing as Galadriel has still to bestow is upon it…Though you should find all barren and laid waste, there will be few gardens in Middle-earth that will bloom like your garden, if you sprinkle this earth there.’ “ (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 8, “Farewell to Lorien”)
Once the Shire has been scoured of Saruman’s final evil, Sam remembers this present and uses it, spreading the earth across the Shire:
“So Sam planted saplings in all the places where specially beautiful or beloved trees had been destroyed, and he put a grain of the precious dust in the soil at the root of each.” (The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 9, “The Grey Havens”)
And his plan succeeds:
“His trees began to sprout and grow, as if time was in a hurry and wished to make one year do for twenty.”
In midst of such fertility, there is an extra favor. Sam had found within Galadriel’s box “a seed, like a small nut with a silver shale [shell or husk].”
Sam planted this in the Party Field, where the tree had once stood, and, in the spring:
“In the Party Field a beautiful young sapling leaped up: it had silver bark and long leaves and burst into golden flowers in April. It was indeed a mallorn [the golden tree specific only to Lothlorien], and it was the wonder of the neighborhood.”
Just as the human world of Middle-earth, stunted by Sauron and his minions, is now free, so is the natural world free once more—no more orcs to abuse its forests, no malevolent will to taint its woods, and the reflowering of the Shire and, at its center, the mallorn, may stand as a symbol for that rebirth—and even be twinned with the new White Tree of Gondor, far to the south.

[With thanks to Britta Siemen’s blog, where we found this image—LINK here]
Thanks, as ever, for reading!
MTCIDC
CD

Herald-ry in Middle Earth

30 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by Ollamh in Fairy Tales and Myths, Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, Narrative Methods

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Achilles, armour, Battle of Bannockburn, Eurybates, flailing and winnowing, Heraldry, Heralds, Hermes, kerykeion, Lakedaimonia, lambda, Medieval, Mouth of Sauron, Robert de Septvans, Robert the Bruce, Roger de Trumpington, Sir Henry de Bohun, Spartans, tabard, Talthybius, The Black Gate, The Illiad, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, White Tree of Gondor

Welcome, as always, dear readers.

There is a moment in the film of The Return of the King which has always puzzled us. The Lieutenant of the Tower of Barad-dur has appeared outside the Morannon with taunts and with what appears to be disconcerting news about Frodo.

In response, Aragorn kills him. Even if you had never seen a movie with knights in it so that you would know that this was a herald or messenger of some sort and that there are rules about such people, there are modern parallels—flags of truce, even the silent protection offered to diplomats—to make you think that this was hardly proper behavior for a king.

If we look at this scene in the chapter entitled “The Black Gate Opens”, we see that this is another of those disturbing—and seemingly arbitrary—changes made by the script writers, showing once more their disregard—or lack of proper understanding—of the author and his wishes.

“Aragorn said naught in answer, but he took the other’s eye and held it, and for a moment they strove thus; but soon, though Aragorn did not stir nor move hand to weapon, the other quailed and gave back as if menaced with a blow. ‘I am a herald and ambassador, and may not be assailed!’ he cried.”

There is a parallel in this, when we are told that Aragorn has used the Palantir and wrestled with Sauron.

“ ‘It was a bitter struggle, and the weariness is slow to pass. I spoke no word to him, and in the end I wrenched the Stone to my own will…Now in the very hour of his great designs the heir of Isildur and the Sword are revealed; for I showed the blade re-forged to him. He is not so mighty yet that he is above fear; nay, doubt ever gnaws him.’ ” (The Return of the King, Book 5, chapter 2, “The Passing of the Grey Company”)

(This is misportrayed in the extended version of the film. For some reason, in return for being shown Anduril, Sauron shows Aragorn a lifeless—perhaps just napping? “she looks like she’s only sleeping!”—Arwen—which, as is so often the case with the clumsy script writers, completely misses the real point of the scene in the book.)

In both of these scenes, what the author clearly meant to show was that Aragorn’s power, now that he has chosen to reveal it, comes from within and is so great that it needs neither words nor violence to assert itself—more signs that he is the true returning king.

Thus, harming a herald, in fact, shows him as the very opposite: not only violent, but, instead of restoring and preserving—his proper task as king—he violates custom.

We note, by the way, that, in the book, he looks to be following custom. Under the direction of Gandalf, the army which marches to challenge Sauron formally declares its ownership of Ithilien with trumpet blasts

Black Trumpeterearly16thc.jpg

and its own heralds.

What is a herald, anyway? The Mouth of Sauron claims to be one and even claims immunity because of it—why?

In fact, heralds, in the western world, have an ancient lineage, first appearing in literature in The Iliad, where they act both as messengers

and as referees.

You’ll notice, in the first of these two pictures, that the two heralds, Talthybius and Eurybates, have the badge of a herald: a special curved wand, called a kerykeion. Hermes carries one, to indicate that he is the patron god of heralds (and therefore their protector).

At some point in their early history, the convention appeared that heralds were considered, in their role as messengers, to be somehow neutral and therefore were not to be harmed. (It’s not clear, however, during their first appearance, in Iliad 1, that this was so then—or at least when dealing with Achilles–but perhaps that’s just Achilles, who is not necessarily always the most balanced individual.)

Heralds in the western medieval world continued with these functions, but added another.

We have a little evidence that some ancient Greek warriors and states may have used specific designs as badges. Spartan shields, for example, sometimes carried a lambda—a tentlike shape which stands for the sound of L in English and was short for “Lakedaimonia”, which is where Sparta was located.

A much more elaborate system of designs gradually developed during the Middle Ages, in part because of the increasingly-elaborate armor, which, from a long shirt of chain mail, came to cover the whole knight, making him, potentially unidentifiable.

So, both to make himself distinguishable on the battlefield and probably because it was macho, and therefore sexy, a knight would devise a distinctive design for his shield, possibly his clothing, and maybe even his horse, as well.

This could be pretty spectacular—just look at Robert the Bruce, king of Scotland in the early 14^th century.

[A footnote here– at the site of the Battle of Bannockburn, there is a famous equestrian statue of the Bruce in which the head and facial features have been reconstructed from the Bruce’s actual skull.

Just before this same battle, the Bruce had shown his knightly skills by splitting, with his battle axe, the helmet and head of the English knight, Sir Henry de Bohun.]

Sometimes these designs could include puns on their owners’ names. Here’s Roger de Trumpington, with trumpets.

And Robert de Septvans (Septvans = “seven (winnowing) fans”).

The fan here looks actually like a basket, but was used for helping the wind to carry off the outer husk of the grain ear, a process called winnowing. (To the left is the previous process, flailing, where the beard of grain is being broken off the stalk before it is winnowed.)

As the number and complexity of patterns on armor developed, it appears that specialists took over the job of identifying them and keeping track of them, the heralds. And, from their name, we get our general name for the designs used on armor and clothing, heraldry. Because they worked in the world of heraldry, they decorated themselves, as well, and, in England, still do.

Heralds-at-the-Garter-Service-Julian-Calder-1024x681.jpg

Thus, we can imagine that, when Aragorn, Gandalf, and their companions reached the crossroads in Ithilien,

after the trumpets sounded, heralds wearing a special coat, called a tabard,

which would have been embroidered with the tree and seven stars,

would have stepped forward and reclaimed the land for the king. Specially marked, they would have been very visible, and as the lieutenant of the tower tells us, protected by custom from harm. So why is Aragorn, the one man capable of returning order to Middle Earth, scripted to kill one? What do you think?

Thanks, as ever, for reading!

MTCIDC

And now you know what the White Rabbit is wearing and is supposed to be doing in Alice

De_Alice's_Abenteuer_im_Wunderland_Carroll_pic_37.jpg

doubtfulsea

~ adventure fantasy

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