The Lord of the Rings: The King of the Golden Hall [Part Two]

 

The guards challenge the travelers in the tongue of the Riddermark. ‘Stay, strangers here unknown!’ They ask their names and why they have come. They look at Gandalf with dark eyes. Apparently wizardly-looking people are under suspicion with Saruman acting up. Gandalf answers them in the same language. He understands their tongue, but few strangers do. What’s the meaning of this new procedure?

It is Theoden’s orders that no-one should enter who aren’t friends that know their speech, their own people or those from Mundburg (Minas Tirith). But who are they, that come riding on horses that look like their own, and so strangely clad? ‘Say, are you not a wizard, some spy from Saruman, or phantoms of his craft?’

Aragorn answers them in their own language. They are no phantoms, and these are indeed horses of Rohan they ride, as he suspects they already knew. But they have come returning the beasts that Eomer loaned them: ‘seldom does thief ride home to the stable.’ Hasn’t Eomer given word of their coming?

The guard looks troubled. Perhaps their coming is not totally unexpected. He will say nothing of Eomer, but it was only two nights ago that Wormtongue gave orders as if by Theoden that no stranger should pass the gates.

‘Wormtongue?’ Gandalf looks at him sharply. Their errand is not to Wormtongue, but to the King himself. Will he not announce them? He bends his gaze upon the man until he slowly agrees to go. But who will he say has come?

Gandalf identifies himself; he has returned, and Shadowfax is with him. And he brings Aragorn the heir of Kings, Legolas the Elf, and Gimli the Dwarf. Their purpose is to have speech with the King, if he will let them in his halls. Go now and tell him so.

The guard agrees but tells them not to hope too much; these are dark days. He leaves them with his fellow guards, and after some time returns. They may come in, but must leave all weapons behind, ‘be it only a staff.’ The doorwardens will keep them.

They leave the guard and climb the steps up to the entrance of Meduseld, under the alert eyes of the watchmen. When they reach the terrace at the top, they are greeted by Hama, the Doorward of Theoden. He asks them (courteously) to surrender their weapons.

Legolas gives him his knife, his quiver, and his bow; when Hama hears they are from the Lady of Lothlorien herself, he handles them a little fearfully. That land has a sorcerous reputation in Rohan. But Aragorn hesitates before surrendering his sword Anduril. It is his ancient heritage, from the line of the Kings of Gondor. He would, in courtesy, surrender any other sword, even it was only in a woodman’s hut, but not this sword. Hama says he must, if he would not fight alone against all the men of Edoras. Not alone, Gimli replies, fingering his axe. Not alone.

Gandalf defuses the situation with some diplomatic words and offers his own sword, Glamdring, to the doorkeeper. Aragorn slowly hands over Anduril, after threatening death to anyone who draws it besides himself. Gimli says that if it has Aragorn’s blade to keep it company, his axe can lay there too. They prepare to go in, but Hama stops them again.

“Your staff,’ the guard tells Gandalf. You have to leave that behind too. ‘Foolishness!’ said Gandalf. ‘Prudence is one thing, but discourtesy is another. I am old. If I may not lean on my stick as I go, then I will sit out here, until it pleases Theoden to hobble out himself to speak with me.’ Aragorn laughs. Everyone has something they find hard to part with! But Hama wouldn’t part an old man from his support?

‘The staff in the hand of a wizard may be more than a prop for age,’ said Hama. He looked hard at the ash-staff on which Gandalf leaned. ‘Yet in doubt a man of worth will trust to his own wisdom. I believe you are friends and folk worthy of honor, who have no evil purpose. You may go in.’

The guards lift the bars on the doors and swing them open. The travelers enter in. It seems warm and dim inside. The hall is long and wide, upheld with mighty pillars, its walls covered with tapestries and its floor with carved runes. Smoke, thin and wispy, rises up to the high louvre [‘an opening to allow ventilation’]. From the eastern windows a beam of sunlight falls on one particular tapestry, showing a young man with yellow hair on a spirited white horse.

‘Behold Eorl the Young!’ said Aragorn. ‘Thus he rode out of the North to the Battle of the Field of Celebrant!’

Bits and Bobs

Tom Shippey, in The Road to Middle-earth, points out the many parallels here in Old English works, especially from Beowulf. The ritual of challenge and response with the unnamed guard and later with Hama echoes the exchange between Beowulf and the coastal guard when he lands in Hrothgar’s Kingdom. In both the poem and here in LOTR the guards use their discretion (beyond their orders) to let the travelers pass.

The description of Meduseld, Theoden’s hall, also follows closely Hrothgar’s hall of Heorot. The only outstanding deviation is the use of a louver (a word and concept of French derivation). Tolkien likes to reproduce historical situations but includes some not historically unfitting upgrades.

We are teased with a slight introduction to Wormtongue. The element of ‘worm-‘ in the name refers to an older term used for ‘snake, serpent’. It implies that he is crafty and subtle, but possibly that his speech is also poisonous and devious, that he might indeed speak, in the old cliché, ‘with a forked tongue’.

While the name of Eorl, the first King of Rohan, is merely the Old English word for ‘one of the nobility; earl’.