The Lord of the Rings: A Journey in the Dark (Part Three)

The Tale

After a brief rest they are on their way again, and march for several hours. Gandalf leads them his glowing staff in one hand and his sword Glamdring in the other. Frodo also has Sting out, and since these two blades are Elvish weapons are from the Elder days, they will glow with a cold light if Orcs are near. There is not a flicker from either, so that is a comfort. Gandalf goes first, and behind him Gimli, then Frodo and Sam, then Legolas, then Merry and Pippin, then Boromir. ‘In the dark in the rear, grim and silent, walked Aragorn.’

Gimli, as a dwarf, is less affected by the oppressive darkness than the others, but the complexity of the stairs and arches, passages and tunnels, is bewildering even for him. Gandalf has far-off doubtful memories of his one passage through the Mines long ago, but he knows which way he’s headed. At one point where they stop to consider a doubtful path, Aragorn says ‘He is surer of finding the way home in a blind night than the cats of Queen Beruthiel.’

There are many paths to choose from, and holes and pitfalls and wells by the path, and fissures and chasms right before their feet. One is seven feet across, and it takes Pippin a long time to get the nerve to jump over it. ‘Rope!’ muttered Sam. ‘I knew I’d want it, if I hadn’t got it!’

In the dark, Frodo finds that his healing from the Morgul blade has left him with his senses sharpened about the Unseen. He sees better than most others in the dark, and his hearing is more acute. Besides the sounds of the Company, he begins to hear something like ‘the faint fall of soft bare feet’ following them.

They travel for several hours until Gandalf meets his first check. There are three tunnels ahead of them, going in the same general direction, but one going up, one down, and one straight ahead. Even the wizard is too weary to decide which one to take. They decide to finally take a rest. There is a guardroom nearby; Merry and Pippin try to push inside, ready to rest, but Gandalf holds them back until he can check it out. Inside there is an open well with rusty chains; they could have fallen in. Fragments of its broken stone lid lie nearby.

As the others set up camp, Pippin finds himself strangely drawn to the well. Finally, he drops a stone into it. After a long fall a loud plunk comes echoing up the shaft. This alarms Gandalf; he is relieved but angry when Pippin explains that he’s responsible. ‘Fool of a Took! … Throw yourself in next time, and then you will be no further nuisance.’ Nothing is heard for several minutes, but then a knocking is comes from out of the depths, that stops and then is answered by another knocking as if in reply to a signal.

‘That was the sound of a hammer, or I never heard one,’ said Gimli.’

Gandalf hopes that it has nothing to do with Pippin’s stone, but fears something has been disturbed. He urges further caution, then as a punishment awards Pippin the first watch as the others rest. Pippin sets himself up at the broken door, but keeps turning around, ‘fearing that some unknown thing would crawl up out of the well.’ After an hour, Gandalf, who cannot sleep for worrying about their path, relieves him and takes up the guard. To help him think he says ‘I want smoke! I have not tasted it since the morning before the snowstorm!’ The last thing Pippin sees before going to sleep is the old wizard lighting his pipe.

Gandalf awakens the Fellowship after six hours. He himself has not slept, but he’s made his mind up. The middle way feels wrong, the left smells wrong; they will take the right-hand way as they need to start climbing again. His choice seems good, as the road is smooth without pits or cracks. They make good time and in eight hours have gone some fifteen miles.

Finally, they enter what seems to be a wide hall, with cold air blowing in front of them. Gandalf decides to risk a little more light, raising his staff and setting off a quick flash like lightning. The room is revealed as a vast hall of polished black stone. There are three other doors, one straight ahead and two on either side. He decides they should rest here. They are in the higher, more habitable halls. It is night outside, but he hopes the morning will bring in light down the old shafts from windows delved into the mountain side. The greater part of their journey is over, but it is still a long way to the Gate that will lead them out.

As the company settles down, they are ‘oppressed by the loneliness and vastness of the dolven halls and endlessly branching stairs and passages.’ Sam wonders why the Dwarves ever made these ‘darksome holes’. Gimli objects to this epithet and explains that it was once full of light and splendor before its downfall. He stands and chants a song about the riches and the wondrous works that Durin’s Folk achieved before the shadow fell. Sam applauds the song, then wonders if there are any piles of gold and jewels still lying around.

No, says Gandalf, Orcs have plundered the riches long ago. Why do the Dwarves still want to return? For mithril, or Moria-silver, that can only be found here. ‘The Dwarves tell no tale; but even as mithril was the foundation of their wealth, so also it was their destruction: they delved too greedily and too deep, and disturbed that from which they fled, Durin’s Bane … Mithril! All folk desired it. It could be beaten like copper, and polished like glass; and the Dwarves could make of it a metal, light and yet harder than tempered steel. Its beauty was like to that of common silver, but the beauty of mithril did not tarnish or grow dim.’

Gandalf astonishes Gimli with the news that Thorin gave Bilbo a corselet of mithril rings. A kingly gift. He never told Bilbo, but it was worth more than the Shire. Frodo touches the mail under his shirt. He feels sure that Bilbo knew. Thinking of Bilbo takes him back to the Shire and he wishes he were once more at Bag End – even if it was just mowing the lawn – ‘and that he had never heard of Moria or mithril - or the Ring.’

The company settles down and Frodo is on guard. A feeling of dread comes over him. When his watch is nearly over, he fancies that he can see pale points of light, like two eyes, in the western archway. He starts; he thinks he has nearly nodded off and was on the edge of a dream. He sits up and peers into the darkness. He does not see the lights again and falls into a quick but fitful sleep when he is relieved by Legolas.

He awakes to a dim light. They are indeed in the high rooms on the east side of the mountain and the sun is streaming in. Gandalf says they should be out of the Mines before the day is over. ‘I shall be glad,’ said Gimli. ‘I have looked on Moria, and it is very great, but it has become dark and dreadful; and we have found no sign of my kindred. I doubt now that Balin ever came here.’

After they have breakfast, they debate which way they should go forward. Gandalf thinks it will probably be the eastern way, but they will look around a bit first. There is light in the north door. They should scout that. They pass through the northern arch into a wide corridor. They find the light is coming from a doorway on the right; its stone door is ajar on its hinges. They go through into a square chamber, dusty and dim, and full of obscure things. But in the middle is a single oblong block of stone covered by a slab, lit by the falling light. They find it is deeply engraved with runes.

‘These are Daeron’s Runes, such as were used of old in Moria,’ said Gandalf. ‘Here is written in the tongues of Men and Dwarves: BALIN SON OF FUNDIN LORD OF MORIA.’

‘He is dead then,’ said Frodo. ‘I feared it was so.’ Gimli cast his hood over his face.’

 

BITS AND BOBS

“The cats of Queen Beruthiel” is an interesting example of Tolkien’s story-building methods. At first just a proverbial name mentioned here, Tolkien then had to later ‘find out’ what was the story behind it. In formerly unpublished writings he reveals that she was the wife of the Gondorean king Tarannon Falastur, but from the rebellious Black Numenoreans who had fled to establish their own realm in the south. She may have been wed as some kind of alliance, or even hostage. She hated cats and enslaved ten of them as her servants: nine black cats as spies, and one white cat to spy on the black ones. Her nefarious actions eventually got her exiled. She was set adrift at sea and alone and was last seen “flying past Umbar under a sickle moon, with a cat at the masthead and another as a figure-head on the prow”.  

Although Gandalf is an incarnate Maiar spirit, he is still subject to all the mortal woes of hunger, weariness, and fear. The wizards were originally sent in ancient venerable forms, not only so they would not overawe the people of Middle-earth, but also so they would not grow too attached to the world and forget their mission. Gandalf still enjoys the stimulus of smoking, however, and has even become renowned as a master of the ‘art’. He turns to it here as a comfort and an aid to thought.

Sauron is said to love mithril; his Orcs bring it to him as a tribute whenever they find any. Perhaps his desire for the metal has something to do with his origin as a Maiar of Aule the Smith of the Valar; perhaps, as an early draft has it, he is gathering it to make a weapon of war.

Gimli’s song about Durin and Khazad-dum is cited by Tom Shippey in The Road to Middle-earth as one of Tolkien’s literary devices to add depth to his world. The role-call of evocative names, the lament for the passing of the ancient world, give hints of untold stories and a vast history behind it all. Sam’s reaction, Shippey says, is meant to be ours: ‘I like that!’ said Sam. ‘I should like to learn it.’

Mithril (‘grey-glitter’) “is a fictional metal found in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings. It appears in many derivative fantasy works by later authors… The name "mithril" (also spelt mith, mithral, or mythril) is used in fictional contexts influenced by Tolkien. Mithral is mentioned in R. A. Salvatore's Forgotten Realms books on the world of Dark Elves, Dwarves, and other Underdark worlds. Mithril is a medium-tier metal in the online MMORPG RuneScape and its old school variant, as well as World of Warcraft. Mithril armour is featured in the video game series The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion.” – Wikipedia. ‘Mythril’ also appears in the Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest, and Final Fantasy games as a synthesis material. I should also mention that Terry Pratchett in his book Unseen Academicals introduces ‘dwarvish micromail’ which is tough, light, and made of the ‘miracle metal’ Retribushium, which absorbs any shock and rebounds the force of a blow back upon its inflictor.  

Frodo observes what turns out to be indications that Gollum is following them through Moria. It is later explained in Appendix B of The Return of the King and in Tolkien’s previously unpublished writings that Gollum, after his escape from Mirkwood, took the path through Moria as a way to disappear from sight and find a way through the mountains to the western lands and the Ring, which he still assumed was with Bilbo. Tunnel-crafty as he was, the passage proved more dangerous than he had hoped. He reached the western gate and assumed he could not move the heavy stone doors, even though from inside they would open easily with a thrust. He was on the verge of starvation and death when he was ‘saved’ by the Fellowship entering and passing through.   

Daeron’s Runes (Angerthas Daeron) were created in the First Age by Daeron, the minstrel and loremaster of King Thingol of Doriath, Luthien’s father. Their simple and angular shape made them fitting for stone inscriptions, and they were enthusiastically adopted by the Dwarves.

“I plodded on, mostly by night, till I stood by Balin’s tomb in Moria. There I halted for a long while. It was almost a year later when I went on …” J. R. R. Tolkien, Foreword to The Fellowship of the Ring.