The Lord of the Rings: The Black Gate is Closed (Part Four and Last)

The Tale

The day draws on as they lay silent in their little grey hollow. The sky above and veiled with fleeting smoke. Not even an eagle could have seen the hobbits in their Elven cloaks. It might have seen Gollum: ‘a tiny figure sprawling on the ground: there perhaps lay the famished skeleton of some child of Men, its ragged garments still clinging to it, its long arms and legs almost bone-white and bone-thin: no flesh worth a peck.’

Sam is leaning back looking at the sky when he spots a winged figure flying into his sight, wheeling and turning, dark and menacing. Three others join it, and Sam can tell that they are huge, though far away. The travelers cower. They feel the same fear they felt in the presence of the Black Riders. ‘Gollum huddled himself together like a cornered spider.’

Eventually the Nazgul pass on. Sam wonders if they saw the hobbits; the Riders couldn’t see much in the daylight, could they? Perhaps, says Frodo, but the beasts they ride on can. ‘They are like great carrion birds.’

The fear eventually passes, but the silence has been broken. Frodo still makes no decision whether he should follow Gollum on his new path or not. At last, he stirs and stands up, as if he is about to speak and decide, but he stops, suddenly hearing something. There is singing and hoarse shouting, far away at first, but drawing nearer. The fear falls upon them that the Black Riders have sent troops to capture them. They freeze. Flight is impossible. The hobbits loosen their swords.

‘Gollum rose slowly and crawled insect-like to the lip of the hollow.’ He remains there, still and silent, until the noises pass. A distant horn sounds from the walls of Mordor, welcoming the troops in. Gollum reports what he has seen: Men with dark faces, black eyes and hair, and with gold rings in their ears. Their flags are red, and their round shields are yellow and black. ‘Not nice; very cruel wicked Men they look.’ Almost as bad as Orcs, and bigger. Perhaps they are from the lands beyond Anduin’s end. They came up that road. They are part of the new folk always coming into Mordor. ‘One day all the peoples will be inside.’

Were there any oliphaunts? Sam asks eagerly. ‘No, no oliphaunts. What are oliphaunts?’ said Gollum.’ Sam stands up and puts his hands behind his back (‘as he always did when ‘speaking poetry’), and recites the old Shire poem ‘Oliphaunt’, about a huge grey beast with a nose like a snake and horns in its mouth. Sam has heard distant tales Men of the South (‘Swertings , we call ‘em’) who ride around on oliphaunts and that’s why he asked about them, though he guesses it might all be traveler’s stories, ‘not sure as Shiretalk.’

But ‘Smeagol has not heard of them. He does not want to see them. He does not want them to be … Smeagol wants master to go. Nice master, won’t he come with Smeagol?’

Frodo stands. He laughed as Sam recited the old fireside rhyme of Oliphaunt, and it released him from hesitation. ‘I wish we had a thousand oliphaunts with Gandalf on a white one at their head … Then we’d break a way into this evil land, perhaps.’ But they’ve only got their own tired legs. ‘Well, Smeagol, the third turn may turn the best. I will come with you.’

Gollum cries in delight, praising the good, kind, wise master. They must rest now, well hidden, till the ‘Yellow Face’ (sun) sets. ‘Then we can go quickly. Soft and quick as shadows we must be!’

 

Bits and Bobs

We are given a good ‘bird’s-eye’ view of Gollum, establishing his ragged clothing, bone-white skin, and pitiable thinness. Perhaps his ‘darkness’ has been the effects of the shadows he dwells in or the slimes of his habitual haunts; perhaps now he is drying out. Where does he get his clothes? Tolkien speculates that, besides the Elves of Mirkwood having clothed him (perhaps not so potently as the productions of Lorien), Gollum would likely steal new raiment from Men or even Orcs when he needed them.

While later it is established that the Witch-King rides the reptilian ‘Fell Beast’, here it hinted that the regular ride of the Nazgul is some kind of raptor, like an eagle or a vulture. Perhaps this is just the impression that Frodo has of them from a distance; maybe they are all pterodactyl-like.

The name Sam gives for the Men of the South, ‘Swertings’, is related to the modern term ‘swarthy’, a word meaning dark-skinned or dark-colored, dusky. ‘Oliphaunt’ is of course an old version for the word ‘elephant’, who to the people of England for a long time was just a legendary beast of a far-off land, just as oliphaunts were to the Hobbits. The poem is a reworking of one of Tolkien’s already existing poems, ‘Jvmbo, or Ye Kinde of Ye Oliphaunt’. Some of the comparisons the little rhyme makes recall the tale of the Six Wise Blind Men and the Elephant (a nose like a snake, etc.), where they try to describe the beast by what only each can feel. There is a giant, Sir Oliphant, in the works of Chaucer.

Frodo recalls the old folk belief that ‘the third time’s the best’, or as we might say, ‘third time’s the charm’. Gollum has led them out of the Marshes, and then to the Gate; perhaps this third time will prove the pinnacle of his service. Or perhaps not. 

On a personal note, I can never hear of Gandalf riding on a white elephant in front of a herd without thinking of the scene in the 1972 Journey Back to Oz where Mombi, riding on the lead, heads a pack of green elephants against the Emerald City.