The Lord of the Rings: The Palantir (Part One)

 

The Tale

The sun is sinking as Theoden and his men and the members of the Fellowship ride away. Merry rides behind Gandalf and Pippin behind Aragorn. The Ents are standing in long rows at the Gate, arms uplifted but quiet as statues. After a while the hobbits look back and see Treebeard standing like an old stump in the distance, and they think of their first meeting on the ledge at the border of Fangorn. When they pass the Pillar of the White Hand they find the Hand has been destroyed by the Ents; Gandalf says they pay attention to the details.

After a while, Merry asks if they’ll be riding long. As a ‘small rag-tag dangling behind’ the wizard, he would like to stop riding and lie down.

So, you heard that sneer, says Gandalf. Don’t worry; Saruman was probably paying more attention to the hobbits than to anyone else. Who are they, how did they get there, how did they escape the Orcs, are the ‘little riddles’ that occupy his mind. [He doesn’t say so, but I imagine Saruman is also wondering if they have - or had – the Ring]. If you want, you can feel honored by that.

Merry says it’s more an honor to dangle behind Gandalf; it puts him in a good position to ask questions. Are they going to ride all night?

Gandalf laughs. ‘All wizards should have a hobbit or two in their care,’ to teach them what care really means. They will gently ride a few hours until they reach the end of the valley, and then camp. The next day, instead of riding straight to the King’s hall of Edoras, they will go to Dunharrow by paths among the hills; no-one will move openly over the fields by day except one or two by necessity.

‘Nothing or a double helping is your way!’ says Merry. But what is this Helm’s Deep that he’s been hearing about? The hobbit doesn’t really understand this land. Gandalf says he’d better learn, but it’s not the wizard who’ll be educating him. He’s got too much to think about. Merry says he’ll tackle Aragorn when they camp. But why the secrecy of movement. Didn’t they win the battle?

Yes, they did, but that only increases their danger. The Eye of Barad-dur will be looking towards the Wizard’s Vale and Rohan. ‘The less it sees the better.’

They ride on through a clear chill night until they reach the wide plains and turn off the highway onto the ‘sweet upland turf’ again. At about 10 o’clock they make camp in a glen with thick, sheltering thornbushes, and set up fires by a tall, ancient hawthorn. All around them are signs of the coming spring. Two guards are set to keep watch. The hobbits lay on a pile of bracken by themselves. Merry is sleepy, but Pippin is restless, tossing and turning.

Merry finally asks him what’s wrong, and Pippin says he’s just uncomfortable. How long has it been since they slept in a real bed? Well, Lorien, says Merry, but Pippin says in real bed in a real bedroom. Rivendell, then. But Merry is so tired he could sleep anywhere.

But Pippin is getting closer to what is really bothering him. Did Merry get anything out of Gandalf? Merry says Pippin was riding right next to them, and they weren’t mumbling; he heard everything they were saying. But if he wants to, he can ride with Gandalf tomorrow, to ask any questions he wants. Pippin agrees, but Gandalf is still being rather ‘close’ – not being open about everything, just as he’s always been.

Merry wakes up a little at that and wonders what’s biting Pippin. Gandalf has changed, but they haven’t had much chance to observe it. He seems both merrier and more solemn than before. He has been enhanced. He is the White now, and Saruman had to come to heel before him.

If he’s changed, Pippin responds, he’s become even less communicative than before. ‘That – glass ball, now.’ Now we’re coming to the crux of Pippin’s restlessness. Gandalf seemed happy to get it, and to guess something about it. But it was Pippin who rescued it from rolling into a pool. The wizard just took it away. ‘It felt so very heavy,’ he adds quietly, as if he were thinking to himself.

So that’s it. Merry reminds him of Gildor’s saying, ‘Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.’ Pippin retorts that all they’ve been doing for the past few months has been meddling with wizards. He wants some information as well as danger. He wants to look at the ball.

Merry asks if this is the time? They need to sleep! He’s just as curious as Pippin, but it can wait until tomorrow. Pippin says there’s no harm in talking about it: he can’t get the stone anyway, with Gandalf sitting on it like a hen on an egg. But it doesn’t help that Merry just tells him to go to sleep.

What else could I say? Asks Merry. Tomorrow he’ll help Pippin with his ‘wizard-wheedling’. ‘But I can’t keep awake any longer. If I yawn any more, I shall split at the ears. Good night!’

Bits and Bobs

I don’t have much to say about this passage, and I couldn’t find any illustrations that fit it. Never of Merry riding behind Gandalf, but plenty of Pippin in front of him, from later. Nothing of Merry and Pippin in the camp.

Pippin is suffering from several symptoms of temptation, in some ways not unlike the attractions of the Ring itself. You might say that touching it has given him ‘itchy fingers’. There it might have stayed, but his curiosity has also made him start obsessing over it in his mind. He’s begun to stake claims on the ball: he picked it up, he saved it, and Gandalf just took it away with hardly a word. Surely, he has a right to at least look at it. What harm could it be? He deserves an answer!

I suppose the Palantir, while not actually evil, exerts a sort of fascination that all objects of power have, even (or perhaps especially) if they are not understood.

Just looking at this section of this copy of the book I notice that it has more than the usual ‘chili marks’ that aging books get. Our family calls them ‘chili marks’ or ‘chili stains’ because of their resemblance to actual blots of chili we would sometimes make in our books while eating in our more carefree days.