Worship and the Crossing of Thresholds

The crossing of boundaries is a fundamental aspect of The Lord of the Rings. The reader crosses into Faërie, the company crosses into Lórien, and Frodo and Sam cross into Mordor. The physical crossing is a crucial aspect of the story, but often, there is an aspect of worship that accompanies it. The singing or crying out about Elbereth, a name which can be seen as analogous to the Virgin Mary or another saint, often signals an important transition or revelation.

Catholicism is no stranger to the blending of the world with the immaterial as a result of worship or divine intervention: Moses received the ten commandments at Sinai, many Marian apparitions have been documented, and Tolkien discusses a vision he received in letter 89. In all of these cases, the fabric of the world seems to shift, where a portal is opened, blending the material and divine worlds. Tolkien describes how he seemed to perceive guardian angels being represented as individualized rays of light that extend into each person. This vision, like those of the mystics, seems to break the boundaries of the natural world and perceive something that exists beneath: the personalized connection of the angels and man.  

The Lord of the Rings, while a “fundamentally religious and Catholic work,” does not explicitly define a religion that those of Middle-earth worship (Letter 142). However, there are many aspects that can be construed as religious; most clearly, the references to Elbereth Gilthoniel, which means Elbereth Starkindler. While it is not fully clear what she is, she seems to behave or be understood like a saint. As with crossing into Faërie and encountering the different life that exists there, their initiation and understanding of the fantastical world they live in begins with a song about Elbereth. Here, the reader and Frodo meet the Elves and the first concepts of religion. Frodo’s experience with the elves becomes mystical, seemingly like a “waking-dream” (I, ch. 3). This near-dreamlike state, which has many similarities to how mystics and possibly Tolkien describe divine visions, becomes the vector for Frodo to peer beyond the immediate world he knows and learn about what resides beyond the Shire: of elves, of things old and new, and of many more things. It is not a coincidence that the Elves, who are most commonly associated with Faërie, are the ones who start to bring him in, commencing with a song about Elbereth. However, it is also with the name of Elbereth that they say farewell before vanishing. The boundary of his known world begins to become fluid, letting that which he previously could not interact with permeate. 

Accompanying the crying out of Elbereth as a battle cry at the Battle of Weathertop, another barrier is crossed. Frodo slips the ring on his finger, which changes the nature of his environment, where he becomes invisible to others, but the black riders become clearer and more defined. It is in this transitional state that Frodo invokes Elbereth’s name, as if invoking a saint, though the result is his swooning into unconsciousness and suffering a grave wound. It is in this moment that a great change occurs within Frodo. He literally becomes unconscious, signifying a gap, but he is struck with a great wound that must be healed. Not to mention the power of the ring is shown, where it, like the elves or mystic visions, can change the edges of the world and what permeates it.

The departure from Lórien is punctuated by Elbereth’s name, signifying the crossing of a threshold and the beginning of the rest of the journey. As they depart, they see the Lady Galadriel fade in the distance, being described as one would describe the Virgin Mary using aspects of the Litany of Loreto. The strong religious undertones emphasize the leaving of the mystical place of Lórien: a place that has strong connotations with paradise and similarities to the poem, “The Pearl.” Indeed, Elbereth’s name and the fading of Galadriel as a Madonna-like figure punctuate the ending of their time in a paradise-like land and the continued travel on their journey, except with the gifts they have now received. Thus, Elbereth does not only signify the beginning of a certain unveiling or part of their journey, but it also signifies the leaving of such mystical places. Seeming to correspond to how prayer brings them into the vision, but it is the ending of the prayer, which is signified by, in this case, a saint-like figure’s name, Elbereth, that pulls one out of the vision.

The song to Elbereth, at the close of the last chapter of The Return of the King, with the close of the Third Age, marks the departure of Frodo, Bilbo, and a great many elves. While it ends the time of many in Middle-earth, this sequence begins their journey aboard their ship westward. Here, it marks the ends of the novel, but in other ways, it marks the start. The appendices follow, and one can now behold “white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise” (VI, ch. 9).  In some ways, this parallels the beginning of the journey into Faërie, brought on by the elves with their song about Elbereth, except Frodo leaves with them. The parallel exists that it is through song and prayer that one becomes exposed to religion and the knowledge that comes with it, and at the end, while they may finish the story, the elves, like the story, exit with them, accompanying them beyond.  

The religious aspect of Elbereth throughout The Lord of the Rings corresponds to the crossing of a threshold — the lifting of a veil or a major change in the adventure, whether at the beginning or the end. Religion functions similarly in the primary world. Tolkien perceived what he recorded as a vision that illuminates how he conceives of guardian angels connecting to every human being. In each of these instances, religion aids in the crossing of boundaries, changing what permeates into the world. 

— ESW

Locating Tolkien's Sacred Worldview

The degree to which The Lord of the Rings and the Tolkien legendarium as a whole were influenced by Christianity has often been a subject of debate. Tolkien himself claimed that The Lord of the Rings was a “fundamentally religious and Catholic work,” although not intentionally at first. Rather, religion and Catholicism were implanted into the story not overtly, as in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia (the lion is Jesus do you get it), but rather subconsciously through Tolkien’s greater worldview. Tolkien holds strong beliefs about love, language, and culture, that while derived from his Christian beliefs, are not religious in nature. In this way, The Lord of the Rings needs no religious allegories or metaphors to be Christian but rather must be imbued with the very values of Christianity. When Tolkien tells stories of love, sacrifice, faith, and courage, he is lauding the very same virtues that he derives from the Bible. Admittedly, however, Tolkien’s worldview is incredibly complex, as it is influenced by numerous different theological, philosophical, and academic schools of thought. So, how can we best understand Tolkien’s beliefs, on his own terms?

A great place to start is The Letters of JRR Tolkien. These letters provide perhaps the most candid picture of Tolkien, as they represent his most guarded communications and are often written to his close friends and family. While not much can be said surely about what Tolkien thought from his literature, and even much of his academia, many of these letters seem to be credible accounts of his own personal philosophy. In these letters he speaks directly, often revealing his most firmly held beliefs and his greatest challenges. In letters 54, 89, and 142, Tolkien talks about God and faith. By examining these letters, we may come to a better understanding of Tolkien’s worldview, and perhaps better understand how The Lord of the Rings follows from his Catholic underpinnings. 

Tolkien writes letter 54 to his son, Christopher Tolkien. In the letter, his purpose seems to be advice-giving. He begins with an interesting distinction between our two positionalities relative to God. As ‘souls with a free will,’ our purpose is in a way to ‘face God.’ In other words, as rational beings with the power to make decisions, humans are built to comprehend and worship God, as well as make moral decisions and engage in sub-creation. In another way, however, God is behind us, ‘supporting us, nourishing us.’ Not only do we owe our health, prosperity, and safety to God, but we owe our very existence. God is very much ‘behind us’ in the metaphysical sense. Causally, God sit behind each and every action and can be rightfully praised for all good things. At this point, Tolkien shifts tone and gives Christopher advice for if he ‘cannot achieve inner peace,’ which Tolkien admits few can and himself ‘least of all.’ He suggests that his son seeks out song, ‘the gift of glee, which God gave him.’ Tolkien ends the letter cuttingly: “All down the ages men (of our kind, most awarely) have felt it: not necessarily caused by sorrow but sharpened by it.

In letter 89, Tolkien writes again to Christopher. He tells Christopher of a vision, ‘or perhaps a perception which at once turned itself into pictorial form in [his] mind.’ Sitting in a church, he describes perceiving ‘the light of God.’ He describes it as composed of millions of motes, with only one directed to his own mind. He goes on to describe how it seemed as if a single ray of light seemed to appear, which he calls the Guardian Angel of the mote: ‘not a thing interposed between God and the creature, but God’s very attention itself, personalized.’ Tolkien claims that this personalized light is in a way itself a finite being, in the same way that ‘as the love of the Father and Son.’ In my opinion, this passage represents an interesting an unexpected facet of Tolkien’s religious belief. I interpret this passage as describing a direct, personal line between us and God. Particularly I attached to the line ‘not a thing interposed.’ In a way, this seems a more Protestant interpretation, all though it by no means runs at odds with Catholic doctrine. 

Letter 142 was sent to Roben Murray in response to his critique and commentary on The Lord of the Rings. It is in this letter that Tolkien directly addresses the question of religion in his work, and it is indeed here where he claims LOTR is ‘fundamentally’ Catholic and religious. He admits to neither adding nor removing religious imagery from the text and rather claims that religion is ‘absorbed’ into the story itself. However, this isn’t because he intentionally wrote the story that way, but rather because of the way that he is. Tolkien says that his faith has taught him all that he knows, or in other words has shaped his most fundamental beliefs. Lord of the Rings is a religious and Catholic story, but only insofar as Tolkien himself is religious and Catholic. At first this seems a weak connection; that LOTR is only a Christian story by a technicality. This, however, underestimates how heavily Tolkien is influenced by his faith, and how heavily LOTR is influenced by Tolkien. Religious life and sacred belief are his guiding principles, and his whole self is poured into his literature. For Tolkien, every story, every moment, exists within the context of the ‘greater story’: the immaculate conception, crucifixion, and resurrection. Everything in a way mirrors or reveals some part of this ‘greater story.’ LOTR is no exception: when Tolkien wrote it, he echoed universal, eternal truths.

—JW

Resolving Pagan Imagery with Tolkien's Faith & Judging “Worship” of His Work.

While Christian Imagery is omni-present throughout Tolkien's work and methodology, Pre-christian imagery and mythos are also quite prominent. This dilemma at times makes it difficult to fully resolve how Tolkien’s stories fit into his vision of faith and creation. Tolkien himself was quite well versed in pre-christian thought and expression, particularly in England. Furthermore, in the essence of his mythmaking, Tolkien also reveals a philosophy of language and history beneath his mythos via his writing process. As a man of faith, Tolkien possessed an understanding of writing and creation that was deeply connected to his faith. In beginning his writing processes with Languages and building out of them, Tolkien expressed that faith and creation gain inner consistency and merit through their engagement with the living environment around them. As a result of this fact, we can reconcile Tolkien's inclusion of and reliance upon pagan imagery with his Christian faith through his understanding of how Christianity took root in England as well as what faithful sub-creation entails.  

For Tolkien, worship is an action rather than simply a belief or an experience of the intellectual kind. Rather, Faith occurs as a moment of transcendent lived engagement with both the human condition and our surroundings. This transcendent moment is not entirely different from the force which gives words, names, and even the arcs of  his stories weight in our hearts and cultural memories. Thus, it seems sensible that despite holding a Christian Faith, Tolkien would treat pre-christian myth with reverence to the lived experience it generated and even the manner in which it shaped Christianity’s development in early England.  Essentially, Tolkien's treatment of the pre-christian mythos stems from his understanding of norse myth and the process of naming. I wrote a blog post several weeks ago detailing how Tolkien's process of naming and use of language, as well as sub-creation itself interact with his concept of worship through language. In addition, we have to understand what differentiates Tolkien’s understanding of both language and faith distinctly. If we treat sub-creation as Tolkien’s expression of divinity, we can assess reinterpretations and adaptations of his work as either faithful to the spirit of his stories, or as the thieving work of Morgoth’s disciples. For Tolkien, engagement with the context around words and the world is the essence of sub-creation. Our aim as creators and thinkers is to find stories and spirit within the essence of the world and its ideas in order to join the music and experience the light of divine creation.

In exploring the notion of worship in Tolkien as a practice executed through Language and sub-creation we can not only explore Tolkien's notions of divinity. We can also assess the work that has been done with The Lord of the Rings that acts as “noble and faithful worship” of the series and work which does not fall under this category. The clearest two examples to contrast in this regard are the Peter Jackson Lord of The Rings films as opposed to the Amazon Rings of Power series. While at the beginning of such a sentence the reader might already decide which of the two was a faithful interpretation and which failed, but the details of each of the examples' creative processes reveal how success and failure are determined.  In beginning with the characters' names, Tolkien’s starting point for the origins of mythology becomes language, a cultural heartbeat which he felt through the mythos and literature of England. An example of an inspiring work for Tolkien is Beowulf and its associated mythology. Beowulf  is an interesting case due to the fact that despite being an “Anglo-Saxon” story it describes nordic peoples far from home. For Tolkien, this interconnected mythos is equally as important as “high literature”. For Tolkien such a story provides a beautiful  format for sub-creation. Within its language, its meter, and the essence of this piece, Beowulf and other works of myth provide loose ends upon which to construct, implications through which to engage in the music and share the light of their sacred trees.  

Returning to the two cases of subcreation with which we are confronted, while neither exist as perfect efforts, the Film adaptations by Peter Jackson are inherently more successful because of the process in which they were made. The films  attempted to capture the spirit that Tolkien’s words awakened. This was done with the aim of bringing its joy and features into a breathing world in a new medium, respecting the essence of each story, rather than attempting to package and sell “never before seen” elements of it.  Jackson’s films engage in an honest attempt to reconstruct Tolkien’s world for the viewer through its maps, its characters, and  its relationships Despite its failures in the understanding of evil, and even at times the cycles of History Tolkien attempted to document, they retain its essential features, and explore the world on the basis of its own limitations. Amazon, however, perceived the series as a group of elements to which audiences were attracted(interest in orcs, interest in elves, etc)  rather than a holistic body of languages and relationships which in their singular essence create a spirit. This approach evidently failed. While Tolkien’s starting point was language, and Jackson built on that language, Amazon began with a then preexistent Tolkien  “brand”. The Series’ primary point of engagement was the iconography of the films, followed by focus group data and a basic understanding of some of the stories in the Silmarillion.

Tolkien mastered the art of finding words that served as emotional and cultural touchstones in relation to lived human relationships. The space between linguistic relationships(in terms of one word relating to another word, or groups of words) and the transcendent singular human experience of them in relation to the world, the gap that Tolkien fills through repetition and verbal experience, is the same space that Amazon ignored. For Tolkien, worship and subcreation exist in the revelling of this moment, and thus such an act must come from intimate experience with and reverence for such an area. Here arrives the inclusion of pre-christian Mythos within Tolkien’s work.

The liturgy as well as all notions of Christian faith did not emerge into a vacuum, particularly not within England. Instead, as is argued by Dr. Rachel Fulton Brown, it emerged through the psalms, upon pre-existing traditions of riddles, jokes and singing within mead halls and gathering places. In such an environment, Tolkien’s mythological understanding and methodology would not retain its luster, as well as its legitimacy if it was not respectful of the presence of pre-christian tradition in its relationship with the mythos of England. For Tolkien if language and faith are a transcendent experience, of course it would be sensible to place that experience within the context that it was born. Furthermore, such an understanding would yield itself compatible with reverence to pre-christian tradition rather than ignorance to it, or abstracting these practices under the vague blanket of “Paganism”.

-PR

“Here ends the Silmarillion”

As we have finished up the quarter with this inspiring class, I’d like to discuss the endings of a story with the last chapter of Quenta Silmarillion in this last post.

The very famous last words Tolkien said in the Quenta Silmarillion are: “Here ends the SILMARILLION. If it has passed from the high and the beautiful to darkness and ruin, that was of old the fate of Arda Marred; and if any change shall come and the Marring be amended, Manwe and Varda may know; but they have not revealed it, and it is not declared in the dooms of Mandos.” (QS 244) One can not analyze the ending of the QS without taking into account those comments. I will be analyzing a few essential concepts within this, as the significance of the ending lies precisely in examining their relationships with each other.

First of all, we have the contrast between “the high and the beautiful” to “darkness and ruin”. It may seem that the distinction is almost too simplistic, as what is “high and beautiful” is undoubtedly implying the Age of Trees in Valinor before the Darkness and loss of the Silmarili, while the “darkness and ruin” must point to the destructions occurred due to the Oath of Feanor and the malice of Morgoth. However, from another perspective, it is also possible to claim that, considering the discussion on the right of Free Will, despite depicting the fate of Arda in the First Age, Tolkien also indicates that the storyline of QS is a process in which the Free Will of beings in Arda being gradually self-exploited and self-deprived. Indeed, Free Will is the power of sub-creation endowed upon the free folks by Eru; yet, it operates in the plot of QS as a rather neutral force, simultaneously motivating the characters to transcend themselves and allowing them to fall to their worst indiscriminately. In this case, what is “high and beautiful”, such as the creation of the Silmarili, and “darkness and ruin”, such as the pursuit of the Oath, can be understood as dual expressions of Free Will within the mythological structure.

Moving on from this, we get to the idea of the “Marring” or “Arda Marred”. In the published version of QS, Tolkien has never explained deliberately what exactly the idea of being Marred implies in his world, yet it is deductible from other evidence. Also in the last chapter, it is described that “...and thence in many a fleet the Eldar set sail into the West, and came never back to the lands of weeping and of war,” and “...they knew that those jewels could not be found or brought together again unless the world be broken and remade.” (QS 243) In this case, the departure of the elves and the eternal loss of the Silmarili are both indications of the idea of Marring, with Beleriand becoming the land of “weeping and war” instead of the original hope of finding freedom through sorrow, and the continent even sinks to the ocean at the end. On the other hand, Tolkien mentions that even though Morgoth is thrown into the Door of Night forever as a banishment, “Morgoth Bauglir, the Power of Terror and of Hate, sowed in the hearts of Elves and Men are a seed that does not die and cannot be destroyed; and ever and anon it sprouts anew, and will bear dark fruit even unto the latest days.” (QS 244) Considering the deeds of Sauron in the Second and Third Ages, it seems that from the very beginning of the tale, when Morgoth (still Melkor by then) attempts to put Feanor and Fingolfin into hating each other, til the War of the Ring, the seed (i.e. the desire to deprive others of their Free Will) has always been growing and prospering among all races in Arda. 

At this point, it seems that we can draw this as the conclusion that Arda is meant to be Marred and has to be Marred in this narrative, just as the Silmarili are destined to be lost to all and never retrievable. One might ask, based on this, does this reflect that the voyage of Earendil or the War of Wrath is not in fact meaningful, if the inherent “high and beautiful” vision cannot be repaired? Again, from the point of view of the Free Will and the transcendental nature of the Silmarili, it is also possible to argue that the final resting places of the Silmarili are the ultimate manifestation of their nature of being the sacred gems/products of transcendence. Just imagine, if the Silmarili eventually return to Valinor, who, if not Feanor himself, is capable of breaking them and giving the light of the Trees back to where it belongs? If they are unbreakable, how are the elves going to keep them? Will they become artifacts or are they going to be worshipped as sacred relics? If, as Tolkien indicates, the Silmarili are alive and filled with consciousness, then they are neither museum exhibitions nor ritual objects, but the embodiment of the sacredness itself. In that case, no one, including the Valar, has the right to utilize or wield them. Therefore, becoming Gil-Estel in the sky and being hidden in the heart of the earth and deep ocean all reflect the idea that they become part of Arda, or the creation of Eru, and so is their fate, which does transcend all fate of the living beings.

 

—YW

Love is Walking, Talking, and Refusing

“So much of the action isn't in fighting, it's the stamina of the relationships they need to be faithful to,” said RFB. This was the conclusion of a discussion on what love is and how it is demonstrated. As we have humorously noted in class, Tolkien doesn’t write battle scenes. It’s true: the substance of The Lord of the Rings is walking, talking, and refusing. So, why is this series a love story, and why do fathers pass it down?

On Walking

Boromir’s meme of “one does not simply walk into Mordor” got more than just laughs. Just as the Eagles are not a plothole, the story Tolkien chose to tell, vocalized by Boromir’s line, puts meaning into walking. The Fellowship walks from Rivendell to Lothlórien to the Anduin. Sam and Frodo walk across the Dead Marshes to Mount Doom. Even travel modes more profound, like horseback riding, are at a walking pace: Theoden’s march to Helms Deep. Tolkien gave us pages of terrain, hunger, and yet another day of walking.

Importantly, no one walks alone– in landslides, in deathly pursuits and retreats, in one-slip-and-you’re-in-the-Dead-Marshes. This reaches one of its highest expressions in the ascent of Mount Doom. At the end, Frodo claims that he cannot continue. Sam responds that while he can’t carry the Ring, he can carry Frodo. The readers do not automatically feel Sam’s love for Frodo through a vow, kiss, or even his carrying him. We feel Sam’s love for Frodo because we have read every mile of it.

On Talking

Aragorn's speech is an example of Tolkien demonstrating love through language. The following was said in class: "For magic consists in this, the true naming of a thing," which is a valuable teaser that sets up the discussion of Tolkien’s dialogue writing. His characters neither sound the same nor do the same characters always sound the same. Aragorn, in particular, is a master of code switching. When he first meets the hobbits at the Prancing Pony as Strider, he speaks plainly. With Théoden, he shifts into a high, formal address, the diction of a king meeting a king. In the Houses of Healing, he speaks softly, calling the wounded by name. Aragorn’s list continues, but even more so, he is just one character demonstrating fluency in multiple registers. It is the same man knowing, each time, who he is talking to and what that person needs to hear.

To address someone in their register is to recognize who they truly are, and that recognition is itself a form of love. This is what Dana Gioia’s poem describes. The world doesn’t need words to articulate itself. Gioia says that the world does not need our language to be real just as “the daylight needs no praise.”  The kiss is fully itself, though no words are spoken. Yet, "we praise it always." In accordance with Aragorn and his fluent code switching, the hobbits would still be hobbits without his warmth in tone, just as Theoden would still be a king without his formal address. But the words honor what and who already is. To name is to know, and to name correctly is to honor the thing or person being named. Aragorn's code-switching is the magic of genuine naming, and the magic is love.

On Refusing

Aragorn refuses the Ring and Eowyn's love. Sam, when Frodo tries to slip away to Mordor, refuses to leave him. Pippin refuses to abandon Denethor as he unravels. Tolkien's characters are baited by temptation; some say no, some say yes. Boromir is tempted by the Ring and tries to take it by force from Frodo; he repents only after he has failed. Saruman, sent to refuse Sauron, failed to do so. Almost everyone is offered power, affection, or status, which makes the refusals matter even more. Tolkien writes to his son in Letter 43 that “No man, however truly he loved his betrothed and bride as a young man, has lived faithful to her as a wife in mind and body without deliberate conscious exercise of the will, without self-denial.” There are three ideas to highlight. First, it denies that love is enough to sustain love at the start. Second, it claims that fidelity is not a feeling but a deliberate, repeated exercise of the will. Third, this exercise of will is a form of self-denial. The aforementioned refusals line up exactly with this structure. Aragorn refuses the Ring from the Council of Elrond onward and continues the quest without ever attempting to claim it. Sam refuses to leave Frodo not only at the end of The Fellowship, but every step of the way. Just as Aragorn could have attempted the Ring like Boromir, he did not. For all of these characters, the idea that they could have it— whether “it” was power, affection, status– and that they chose otherwise, not once, but consciously every time, is what Tolkien describes as love to his son and through this series.

On Why

This series spends more pages on walking than fighting. Walking, talking, and refusing are not three arguments but one, repeated in three forms: love is what is sustained, not what is declared. Love in Middle Earth is not a kiss, sex, or marriage, but rather the continued right choice in testing circumstances. It certainly has romantic love: Aragorn and Arwen, Faramir and Eowyn, Sam and Rosie. This is not an argument that renders these relationships moot, but rather a demonstration of how they are only part of the greater love story that is The Lord of the Rings.

At the start of this course, the students were asked how they came to read The Lord of the Rings. Most students who spoke in class mentioned their father, and most discussion posts did as well. Why this series, and why from fathers particularly? The story is not just an adventure to Mordor. It is a long, patient demonstration of what love is. To give a child this book is to give them a curriculum in stamina, in the kind of love that does not announce itself but shows up every day, in the unspectacular work of keeping faith. Letter 43 was Tolkien’s advice to his son, and Lord of the Rings is a letter for each father to pass down. This series tells an impressionable child that the love they will feel is not the achievement, the love they sustain is the achievement, and that the sustaining love comes from walking, talking, and refusing.

—EGA

No Orc Would Say That

When Sam needs a password to announce his return to Frodo in the orc tower, he does not call upon a Westron word or a hobbit phrase but the name of Elbereth. “Elbereth I'll call,” is what he tells himself. “What the Elves say. No orc would say that.” His logic in this moment is tactical, not spiritual. The name works as a ward because evil cannot bear to say it. Sam is not choosing to use the most sacred name in the book in a moment of devotion or to reach for anything beyond himself but for security and confirmation of identity.

This is stranger than it first looks. The Lord of the Rings contains several explicit invocations of Elbereth, and they often seem to be Tolkien’s version of prayer or a call for protection. The name of Elbereth most commonly occurs when characters have been pushed to their limits and are reaching for something transcendent. The password scene goes against that reading by removing the act of reaching for a power beyond oneself. Sam’s relationship with Elbereth is marginal at best. He is a gardener from the Shire using sacred language the way a soldier uses a countersign during war to confirm their identity. And yet it still serves its purpose and works for what Sam is trying to accomplish. The name carries some power that does not depend on the faith, intention, or even understanding of the person speaking it. That pattern is not unique to this scene. The moments where the sacred actually does something in the book are not the moments where someone is most explicitly trying to worship. Tracing those moments shows where Tolkien actually located the sacred in his world

Faramir is the opposite case of Sam’s use of Elbereth as a password. In Henneth Annûn, before the meal, Faramir and his men turn west and stand for a moment in silence, looking, as Faramir explains, toward Númenor, beyond it to Elvenhome, and to “that which is beyond Elvenhome and will ever be.” Frodo, hearing this, feels “strangely rustic and untutored,” as though he has no practice of worship beside these men who have a form and discipline to their practices. There is a lot of irony here as Frodo has already cried Elbereth’s name against the Witch-king at Weathertop, and he will do it again at the Ford. He has more contact with the sacred than almost anyone in the book, but Faramir’s habits and practices make him feel like a beginner. This version of saying grace before the meal is beautiful and it does nothing in the narrative. The invocations that do seem to work by repelling Nazgûl, breaking Shelob’s assault, shattering the will of the Watchers at the gate are those that arise without intention or form.

The most interesting of these to me is Sam at Shelob’s lair, where Tolkien writes that his voice cried out “in a language which he did not know.” In his “Meditation in a Toolshed,” C.S. Lewis argues that there are two ways of knowing an experience. One can look at it from the outside, as an anthropologist would observe a ritual, or look at it from within, as a person experiences it. His point is that modernity often wrongly dismisses the view from within which can help us understand the importance of the worshiper’s knowledge of what their own worship means. But the Shelob scene goes somewhere Lewis does not. Sam does not seem to be looking externally or internally. The words surface in him from somewhere he cannot name or access. The question of which perspective is more valid does not arise, because there is no perspective. There is only the language breaking through Sam.

This is what Tolkien means, in his letter to Robert Murray, when he writes that the religious element in The Lord of the Rings has been “absorbed into the story and the symbolism.” His characters, he notes elsewhere, have “little or no ‘religion’ in the sense of worship,” and invoking Elbereth is, at best, like what a Catholic does when calling on a saint. But the password scene pushes past that analogy. Prayer to a saint implies some form of a relationship because the person praying most often knows the name of the saint and has an intention for the appeal they are making. Sam brings neither. In a letter responding to W.H. Auden, Tolkien writes that the book is “about God, and His sole right to divine honour.” The password implies that divine honour is not produced by devotion but exists in the name the way light exists in the phial. An orc cannot say Elbereth’s name for the same reason it cannot face the phial. Not because it chooses not to, but because the name and the corrupt are ontologically incompatible.

Mount Doom tests this idea and somewhat clarifies its limits. Inside the Sammath Naur, Sam draws out the phial of Galadriel and it is “pale and cold” in his hand, casting no light into the dark. He does not call on Elbereth. The text seems to say this is because “all other powers were here subdued.” Her reach, which is real everywhere else in Middle-earth, does not extend to the heart of Sauron’s domain. But the Ring is destroyed anyway, and not by her name or her light. It is destroyed by the long chain of mercy that runs through the story from Bilbo sparing Gollum, to Frodo sparing him at Emyn Muil, to Sam sparing him on the slopes of the mountain. In his letters Tolkien describes this as Providence working through what looks like accident. Elbereth is a Vala, powerful within the world’s structure but not its deepest foundation. Underneath her, something else moves. Providence. Not a name one can speak but a current running through choices so small they look like accidents at the time.

I find that the password scene contains this whole theology within it. What Sam grasps instinctively, that no orc would say that, works because the name does not require him to mean anything by it. The same principle runs through the book. Frodo cries the name at Weathertop before he has time to think. Sam at Shelob speaks a language he cannot understand. At Mount Doom, the Ring is destroyed not by name or light but by mercies whose givers could not have known what they were giving. The sacred in Middle-earth is not something the worshiper produces. It is already there, woven into what names can be spoken, what light can be carried, and what survives at the Cracks of Doom when every other power has been subdued. When Tolkien writes that the religious element has been absorbed into the story, this is what he means. It does not arrive through the believer. It is the structure the believer is moving through.

- Z.S.K.

(The Consequences of) Free and Good Will

Note: This was written for the April 30th class "Creativity & Free Will III"

After a first read, The Lord of the Rings looks like a story about free will triumphing over domination. This is technically true, but Mount Doom makes the answer messier. Frodo freely chooses to bear the Ring at the Council of Elrond, freely chooses to leave the Fellowship, and chooses again and again to keep moving toward Mordor; yet when he finally reaches the Crack of Doom, he cannot destroy it. Tolkien admits in Letter 246 that this failure was real but not exactly moral: at the Ring’s maximum pressure, no one could have resisted. As Shippey argues in “Interlacements and the Ring,” the Ring’s fate depends not only on Frodo’s final act but on earlier decisions by Bilbo, Sam, Gollum, and Gandalf (Road to Middle-earth, 153–98). In other words, free will matters constantly in the story, but it cannot close the story by itself.

“I do not lay it on you. But if you take it freely, I will say that your choice is right.”—Elrond to Frodo, The Fellowship of the Ring, bk. II, ch. 2

Frodo is not dragged into the quest. Tolkien knew that his choice had to be his own, or it would have no moral weight. But characters in his story almost never choose with the whole map in front of them. They choose with limited information under pressure, without knowing how their choices will land. That is where Shippey’s point about interlacement becomes useful. Bilbo’s pity for Gollum seems almost incidental when Gandalf first explains it, but it becomes a hidden precondition for the Ring’s destruction. Frodo’s pity works the same way. He does not spare Gollum because he somehow knows Gollum will matter at the end. He spares him because killing him would mean accepting the Ring’s own logic: mastery, judgment, possession. That free choice, made without guarantee, is what saves the quest after Frodo himself cannot.

“Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.” —Gandalf to Frodo, The Fellowship of the Ring, bk. I, ch. 2 

Frodo doesn't spare Gollum because he knows he will be the deciding factor in the quest to destroy the ring, The Ring tempts by promising to end that uncertainty. It offers the fantasy that if someone had enough power, outcomes could finally be controlled. Boromir wants it to save Gondor; Gandalf and Galadriel both know they would want it for ends they would call good. Letter 246 is especially sharp here: Gandalf as Ring-Lord would have remained "righteous," but self-righteous, arranging the world for its own benefit according to his wisdom. Sauron’s evil at least makes the battle lines clear. Gandalf’s version would be worse because it would make tyranny look like goodness. That is the Ring’s most dangerous temptation: not crude selfishness, but the belief that your own goodness gives you the right to rule other wills.

When Sam takes the Ring because he thinks Frodo is dead, he briefly imagines turning Mordor into a garden, but the vision doesn’t really take hold because Sam is attached to Frodo, not to the world the Ring says he could build. He and Gollum mirror each other well here. Both call someone "master." Both structure their lives around another will. But Gollum’s loyalty is finally to the Ring, while Sam’s is to a person.

In this regard we cannot brush aside one of Tolkien's defining traits: His religion. Tolkien was a Catholic working in an Augustinian tradition where the will is truly free and truly insufficient, where grace is not a prize for effort but the thing that makes effort matter at all. Mount Doom dramatizes that doctrine. Grace destroys the Ring through Gollum’s fall. Grace heals Frodo through the gift of the West. Neither outcome is earned in the clean, heroic sense. Free will gets Frodo to the crack of Mount Doom, and when he falls short at the end, it's the consequences of his free and good willed actions that destroy the ring when he cannot.

Which brings us back to Mount Doom. Frodo chooses the road, spares Gollum, trusts Sam, and carries the Ring farther than any other bearer could have, and then succumbs to it literally steps away from triumph. The will that got him there cannot finish the job. But his earlier choices outlive that final failure. Because Bilbo pitied Gollum, because Frodo pitied Gollum, because Sam stayed, the “accident” at the Crack of Doom becomes possible. Frodo’s failure is not free of consequence, either. He comes home to the Shire and cannot really enjoy what he saved. Tolkien describes this in Letter 246 as "unreasoning self-reproach": Frodo sees himself as broken and guilty, even though he did everything that could have been asked of him. By the end, he tells Sam plainly: "I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me." The only remedy is passage over the Sea, which is not something Frodo can force into being. It is given.

-LR

The Soil is Deep: “Home” in Lord of the Rings

‘From the many-willowed margin of the immemorial Thames

Standing in a vale outcarven in a world-forgotten day

There is dimply seen uprising through the greenly veiled stems

Many-mansioned tower-crowned in its dreamy robe of grey

That strange city by the river ages in the lives of men

Proudly wrapt in mystic memory overpassing human ken’

-Valedictory, 1911 [first stanza]

 

    One of Tolkien’s motivations in writing The Lord of the Rings was to ‘create a mythology for England’. In doing so, he devised The Shire, rooted in the bucolic landscape in which he spent his formative years both in the outskirts of Birmingham and a place which is close to my own heart, Oxfordshire. The poem above, written by Tolkien at nineteen whilst at Oxford, is dedicated to a real place, written by a young man who would come to understand what it meant to leave somewhere he belonged.

 

    Indeed, there is a particular kind of love that Tolkien communicates purely, the love of place. Not a person, nor an ideal, but a patch of earth. It is found in the Dwarves’ proud tales of Moria’s mountain-halls, in the Rohirrim’s devotion to the plains of Rohan, in every moment the (regularly) homesick hobbits close their eyes and think of their Shire. In many ways, The Lord of the Rings is, at its core, a story about what it means to love, and to lose, a home.

 

    The clearest cautionary examples are also the most dramatic. The Dwarves of Erebor and Moria did not merely love their mountains; they became consumed by them. Their pride in what their forefathers had built in the deep places of Middle-earth grew into a greed, pushing them to dig ever deeper until something terrible was awoken in the dark, the Balrog. Their love of Moria took hold and possessed them. Similarly, Denethor risked the fate of Minas Tirith, one of the great citadels of Men. He would rather the city were to lose its leader and next of kin than be surrendered. In both cases, Tolkien gives us the same warning: a love of home that cannot see beyond itself risks destroying the very thing it seeks to protect.

 

    And then there is the Shire. If the Dwarves loved too greedily, and the men of Gondor too proudly, the hobbits could be accused of loving too innocently. Their naïve belief that the evils of the “big folk” would never breach the borders of the Shire and find its way down their winding country lanes was thoroughly misplaced. For a long while, they were right. But Tolkien, who had seen first-hand what industrialisation had done to the English countryside he adored, understood that innocence can act as unconscious ignorance. The Scourge of the Shire, one of the more moving pieces of the story, is the price that hobbits pay for their insularity. What redeems the Shire, and ultimately saves it, is not the hobbits who stayed, but the four who left. Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin carried the Shire inside them all the way to Mordor and back; their love of home was the fuel that kept them moving when everything else failed. Crucially, it was only because they had left, embarking on a journey which would simultaneously break and rebuild their spirits, that they became the heroes capable of saving the Shire. The Shire is restored not despite the hobbits’ journey, but because of it. 

 

    For me personally, this is not merely literary observation. Fields brimming with seasonal crops, the berries growing freely on dark green bushes, the rolling hills with little footpaths over gentle streams—this is Oxfordshire, part of Tolkien's inspiration, and a place I am glad to call home. He was writing about a love he knew firsthand, and a fear he knew firsthand too. After having watching the fields and hedgerows of the Midlands being consumed by factory smoke and the ever-encroaching city, the war came, bringing with it the near-total destruction of an entire generation of young men who had grown up in those same quiet lanes and villages. Tolkien lost many close friends in WWI, including two of the four Tea Club, Barrovian Society members. His love of the countryside endured through those dark times in the muddy trenches of the Somme. It was that love, intact upon his return, that he poured into the Shire. It is no coincidence, then, that Samwise Gamgee does exactly the same thing. On the long road to Mordor, through shadow, starvation, and despair, it is the Shire that Sam holds onto and reminds Frodo of. However, it does not function as an escape, but as a reason to keep going. 

 

    The Elves have the most complex relationship with ‘home’. Unlike Men, Hobbits, or Dwarves, they do not love their homes carelessly or possessively. Galadriel and the Elves of Lothlórien had dwelt in Middle-earth for thousands of years, and their love of it may run deeper than any of the other people’s. And yet, crucially, when Frodo offers Galadriel the One Ring, it is refused. As outlined in The Silmarillion, the Elves are a fading people. Immortal though they are, their time in Middle-earth must draw to a close, ending only in the voyage West to Valinor. What stayed this inevitability were the Three Elven Rings: Narya, Nenya, and Vilya. Their power preserved Lothlórien and Rivendell. Due to the binding nature of these Rings to the One Ring, its destruction at Mount Doom rendered them useless. When she refuses the ring, Galadriel is fully aware of this fact. She is not simply resisting potential corruption; she is accepting the end of everything she has come to know and love in Middle-earth. Her refusal reflects a wisdom that Dwarves and Men do not possess: that clutching at the preservation of home is to begin its corruption. The Elves sail West not because they do not love Middle-earth, but because they love it wisely enough to let it go.

 

    Tolkien’s world is built on a love of place. It is also, quietly, a story about what love demands. Samwise Gamgee proves it is the most powerful force in Middle-earth, carrying him all through Mordor, to the fires of Mount Doom. But love requires something in return: the daring willingness to risk, leave or hold it loosely rather than clutch it until it breaks. The Dwarves who dug too deep, the Shire-folk who closed their borders to the world—they lost what they loved because they loved it too tightly. Those hobbits who walked out of their round doors came back strong enough to save it. The Elves, who had understood this truth for millennia, enacted the greatest renunciation of all, sailing away from a world they had cherished since its first age. As Merry tells Pippin on the far side of their own quest: “the soil of the Shire is deep, but there are things deeper and higher”.

- AOL, missing my Shire. 

- Rapeseed fields near my house, mid-December 2024

The Scouring of the Shire: A Fitting Conclusion to Frodo's Journey

  The purpose of the Scouring of the Shire, upon my first reading, seemed a bit strange. Good had triumphed over evil, had it not? The movies ended off at Gondor with the hobbits being praised by all the nation. Why shouldn’t the book end there too? Why is it necessary to detail the long journey back to the Shire when a seemingly more “suitable” ending was available? There are a variety of reasons for why the Scouring is vital to the narrative of The Lord of the Rings, but I will primarily argue here that it is a vital part of Frodo’s story and to remove it would be to remove the complexity, beauty, and sorrow that defines his character.

In comparison to all the other major characters, Frodo seems to get the short end of the stick. Aragorn returns as the rightful king of Gondor and marries Arwen, Sam becomes Mayor and marries Rosie, Merry and Pippin marry and maintain close relationships with the rest of the Fellowship. Frodo, however, is no longer content in the Shire, or indeed in Middle-Earth. Sam’s conversation with him before the Grey Havens is revealing:

“‘But’, said Sam, and tears started in his eyes, “I thought you were going to enjoy the Shire, too, for years and years, after all you have done.’ ‘So I thought too, once. But I have been too deeply hurt, Sam. I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: someone has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.’” (The Grey Havens)

This is the clearest indicator of the toll that Frodo’s journey has taken on him. On his journey to Mordor, Frodo’s perspective is increasingly absent which is easy to miss as a key sign that Frodo is wrestling with the influence of the Ring, and his energy and will are being drained as a result. The Scouring, to some extent, allows Frodo to voice the impact that the journey with the Ring has had on him. 

I think “Frodo’s Dreme,” or “The Sea-Bell,” is a useful way to think about Frodo’s return in the scouring. In the introduction to The Adventures of Tom Bombadil,  the collector comments briefly on the poem, in that it is unlikely to have actually written by Frodo himself, but was instead associated with the dark dreams that plagued him on the anniversaries of Weathertop and Shelob for the last few years he remained on Middle-Earth. The general sense of the poem is of loss and defeat, which seemed to pervade Frodo’s thoughts even after the rebuilding and regarding of the Shire. One can imagine the immeasurable sense of grief that Frodo would have felt to realize that despite defeating Sauron and returning with his life, his home no longer provided him with a sense of belonging. The familiarity and comfort that Tolkien shows so well in the beginning of the story is no longer present for Frodo, and he feels painfully out of place. 

Consider the poem’s narrator, who, having only heard traces of any elvish presence in Faërie, decides to crown himself King: “‘Here now I stand, king of this land, with gladdon-sword and reed-mace. Answer my call! Come forth all! Speak to me words! Show me a face!’” This seems to speak to the guilt that Frodo bears for ultimately failing to accomplish what he set out: “‘I do not choose now to do what I came to do. I will not do this deed. The Ring is mine!’” The decision is a conscious, willing one; he does not say “I cannot” but that he chooses not to and will not cast it into Mount Doom, one that haunts him despite the fact that no mortal being would have been able to do differently in that situation. 

The poem also expresses a strong sense of disconnect between the narrator and those around him after he’s returned: “To myself I talk, For still they speak not, men that meet.” Frodo has experienced something that no other character has come close to doing. To other normal hobbits, his tales will likely seem fantastical and unlikely, as the Gaffer reacts to Sam’s fame, saying, “‘It takes a lot o’ believing…but I can see he’s been mixing with strange company’” (The Scouring of the Shire). The idyllic Shire and its people are at odds with all that Frodo has seen and felt. More importantly, even among Merry, Pippin, and Sam, Frodo stands out. He was stabbed by the Witch-King, poisoned by Shelob, and bore the ring to its uttermost end. While his wounds may have healed, the scars of his trauma remain. This lingering darkness is affirmed by many of the Wise who can see that Frodo has not been truly healed. Arwen says to him, “‘If your hurts grieve you still and the memory of your burden is heavy, then you may pass into the West, until all your wounds and weariness are healed,’” which comes before Frodo begins to show signs of discontent and fatigue, and predicts that he will not find peace within Middle-Earth. On the way back to the Shire, Gandalf, too, notices that all is not well:

“‘Are you in pain, Frodo?’ said Gandalf quietly as he rode by Frodo’s side. ‘Well, yes I am,’ said Frodo. ‘It is my shoulder. The wound aches, and the memory of darkness is heavy on me. It was a year ago today.’ ‘Alas! There are some wounds that cannot be wholly cured,’ said Gandalf. ‘I fear it may be so with mine,’ said Frodo. ‘There is no real going back. Though I may come to the Shire, it will not seem the same; for I shall not be the same. I am wounded with knife, sting, and tooth, and a long burden. Where shall I find rest?’ Gandalf did not answer.” 

Frodo is poignantly aware of his own unrest long before he arrives at the Shire. He doubts whether returning home will provide him with any comfort. This conversation with Gandalf is withheld from the others, who believe that returning to the Shire will fix all their ills. After “Sharkey” has been removed, the only glimpses that Sam, Merry, and Pippin get of Frodo’s suffering are when he takes ill on occasion, which Frodo attempts to conceal. We continue to get brief glimpses of his anguish: “I am wounded; it will never really heal,” and “It is gone, and now all is dark and empty” (The Grey Havens). While Merry, Pippin, and Sam all encountered peril and evil on their journey, it is Frodo who faced The Evil, which for any mortal spirit would be impossible to overcome. Deliver us from evil, indeed. 

Without the Scouring, Frodo’s journey never finishes. To remove his gradual descent into sorrow and unrest would be to remove a critical aspect of his character. As he himself says, some people must give up the things they love so that others can have them. Frodo sacrifices his own happiness and contentment on Middle-Earth so that others, like Sam, Merry, and Pippin, can flourish and heal the Shire’s hurts. He gave up any hope of truly returning home so that others could do so; that is why his departure for the Havens is so moving and so necessary. 

- GTB