The Lord of the Rings: Helm’s Deep (Part Five and Last)

 

The Tale

Aragorn passes into the citadel, where he learns to his dismay that Eomer is not there in the Hornburg. He was last seen with Gamling and Gimli, leading a force at the mouth of the Deep. Reporting to Theoden, he expresses the hope that they have reached the caves. What chance they have there he does not know. Theoden says they probably have a better chance than they; there are provisions there and good air from fissures high in the rock, and it is easily defensible. Aragorn wonders. The enemy has this new blasting fire; they may simply seal them inside.

Theoden frets. ‘If I could have set a spear in rest, riding before my men upon the field, maybe I could have felt again the joy of battle, and so ended. But I serve little purpose here.’ ‘It is said that the Hornburg has never fallen to assault … but … the world changes, and all that was once strong now proves unsure. How shall any tower withstand such numbers and such reckless hate?’ He wonders that if he had known the full strength of Isengard if he would have followed Gandalf’s counsel.

Aragorn says not to judge the counsel of Gandalf until all is over, but the king says that will be soon enough. But he will not be ‘taken like an old badger in a trap.’ Their horses are in the citadel with them: when dawn comes, they will sound Helm’s Horn and ride forth, either to cleave a way through the enemy or to fall in battle. He asks if Aragorn will join him, and Aragorn says yes.

Aragorn leaves the king and returns to the walls, enheartening the men and joining the defense where the assault is hottest. Legolas goes with him, amidst blasts of fire and countless ladders and grappling hooks. Time and again the Orcs are cast down. At last Aragorn stands on top of the gates, looking out at the dawn and the countless swarming hosts below.

He raises an empty palm in token of parley and the Orcs below yell and jeer. If he wishes to speak with them, come on down! And bring his skulking king out before they have to drag him from his hiding hole. Aragorn sets their words aside. They ask him why he’s there, and he replies he only looks out to see the dawn. ‘What of the dawn? … We are the Uruk-hai: we do not stop the fight for night or day, for fair weather or for storm. We come to kill, by sun or moon. What of the dawn?’

‘None knows what the new day shall bring him,’ Aragorn declares. He orders the enemy to depart; this is a final warning. If they do not obey, none shall survive. So great is his power and authority that the wild men pause and look around uneasily. But the Orcs laugh and send a hail of darts and arrows at Aragorn. He leaps down from the battered gate, and the next moment it disappears behind him in a blast of fire. Aragorn speeds back to the king’s tower.  

But even as the gate falls, a rumor of dismay arises behind the yelling Orcs. They waver and look back. ‘And then, sudden and terrible, from the tower above, the sound of the great horn of Helm rang out.’ Many Orcs cast themselves down at the sound, trying to plug their ears with clawed hands. On the walls the men of Rohan look up. The sound does not die but is redoubled and answered from the hills. The Riders shout: ‘Helm is arisen and comes back to war. Helm for Théoden King!’ And with that call Théoden rides forth.

His horse is as white as snow and his shield golden, his spear long and terrible. By his side rides Aragorn Elendil’s Heir and behind him come the lords of the House of Eorl. They cry ‘Forth Eorlingas!’ They charge down the causeway in the dawning light, scattering the foes who flee before them. They are joined by all the men on the wall and forces that come pouring from the citadel. The Orcs retreat into the valley. ‘They cried and wailed, for fear and great wonder had come upon them with the rising of the day.’ Just as Aragorn had warned them.

The king and his host drive the forces of Isengard back past the Dike, but there they stop and look into the Deeping Coomb in wonder. For there where the green dale had lain, there is a looming forest, great trees bare and silent with a darkness under them. The Orcs are trapped between the forest and the army. To the east the hills are too steep for escape, and from the west their final doom approaches.

For there comes Erkenbrand the lord of Westfold at last, with a thousand marching men behind him. And with him rides Gandalf on Shadowfax. The captain blows the charge on a great black horn, echoing the call from Helm’s Deep.

 The host of Isengard roars, swaying this way and that, caught suddenly on many sides. ‘The White Rider was upon them, and the terror of his coming filled the enemy with madness.’ The wild men fall on their faces and surrender. The Orcs throw away their weapons, reeling and screaming. ‘Wailing they passed under the waiting shadow of the trees; and from that shadow none ever came again.’

Bits and Bobs

A few words about Theoden’s ‘mood’ here. In the desperate situation and at his advanced age, the King of Rohan is certainly aware of the likelihood, perhaps certainty, of his death. But he takes his last charge not as a matter of anger or despair, for in his culture death does not equal defeat. Nor does it see ‘joy in battle’ in a right cause as an ignoble thing. What he seeks is not death, ‘suicide by Orc’ if you will, but an ending that will bring him lof, an Anglo-Saxon word that has been interpreted as, ‘fame, reputation’, but is better thought of as ‘praise’. Theoden thinks perhaps to cleave an unlikely way through the enemy, but failing that, ‘such an end as will be worth a song – if any be left to sing of us hereafter,’ which the Jackson movies rather feebly translate into modernese as ‘worthy of remembrance’. Though he has lived for an ignominious period under Wormtongue’s poison, he does not want to go down clinging to a last few moments cringing in a cave and be remembered thus. He wants the leaving of his life to become him, as Shakespeare might say. But he does not despair, the besetting sin of our own historical ‘Northmen’.

Aragorn in his address to the army of Isengard once more displays the strange awe surrounding his person, both from his character and his heritage as the heir of Numenor, which Legolas has seen with his Elvish eyes flickering like a crown around his brows. It affects the Wild Men, but not the Orcs, who are completely depraved. In old Western European art, a halo or nimbus was often depicted around the consecrated heads of kings.

The awe that surrounds the resurrected and enhanced Gandalf the White does affect the Orcs, however, who cannot stand before his assault. In fact, Gandalf’s power echoes and counteracts the effect of dread that the Nazgul have. The Nazgul terrorize even their own forces, tormenting them to obedience, but Gandalf has the effect of encouraging his allies, kindling their hearts to resistance of evil and darkness.

We finally see the effect of the strange shadowy forest that followed the Ents, but like the wondering Rohirrim we must await a full explanation.