The Lord of the Rings: Minas Tirith (Part Two)

The Tale

Gandalf and Pippin now pass into the wide land beyond the out-wall of the Rammas Echor, that encloses the fields of Pelennor, the townlands surrounding the city of Minas Tirith. The furthest part of the wall north-eastward is four leagues (12 miles) from the Great Gate of the City, built highest and strongest there because the road leads to Osgiliath and the bridge to their sister-city Minas Ithil, now Minas Morgul. Nearest the Gate the wall is only a league (3 miles) away, and there are the landings of Harlond.

‘The townlands were rich, with wide tilth and many orchards, and homesteads there were with oast and garner, fold and byre, and many rills rippling through the green from the highland down to Anduin.’  Not many people live there though; most of the people of Gondor live inside the seven circles of the City, in the high vales of Lossarnach, or Lebennin of the seven streams further south. There live a hardy folk of mingled blood of Numenoreans and the men who lived there before the coming of Elendil, though they are ruled by Prince Imrahil, ‘of high blood’, in his castle of Dol Amroth.

After a while the day grows clearer and Pippin rouses himself to look up. To his left is a sea of mist and a bleak shadow to the East, but on the right is a great range of white mountains, the Ered Nimrais, that end abruptly in a mighty valley dug by the river Anduin. At the end of the mountains he sees the tall mass of Mount Mindolluin, and ‘upon its outthrust knee was the Guarded City, with its seven walls of stone so strong and old that it seemed to have been not builded but carven by giants out of the bones of the earth.’

As Pippin watches the mountains blush faintly with the dawn as the sun finally rises above the shadow in the East, sending a shaft of sunlight right on the City. ‘Then Pippin cried aloud, for the Tower of Ecthelion, standing high within the topmost wall, shone out against the sky, glimmering like a spike of pearl and silver, tall and fair and shapely, and its pinnacle glittered as if it were wrought of crystals; and white banners broke and fluttered from the battlements in the morning breeze, and high and far he heard a clear ringing as of silver trumpets.’

They ride to the Great Gates, and the iron doors are rolled open. The men there hail Gandalf as Mithrandir and say that with his appearance, they know that the storm is near. Gandalf says he has ridden at its wings and that it is upon them; he must go to Lord Denethor ‘while his stewardship lasts.’ The end of Gondor as they know it is near. They let him pass, though wondering at his small companion and at the great horse he rides, which they recognize as one of the great steeds of the Kings of Rohan. They wonder if the Rohirrim will soon come to their aid. ‘But Shadowfax walked proudly up the long winding road.’

For the City is built in seven circles, each ringed with a wall, each wall pierced with a gate. But the gates are not set in a single line, but are set at turns to the north and south as it winds upward, until it reaches the seventh level. The road passes through a great keel of rock thrust out of the mountain, like the prow of a ship, so that one standing there can look straight down on the Great Gate, seven hundred feet below.

A long, lamplit slope rises from the last highest gate to the High Court and the Place of the Fountain, and at last the White Tower at the base of Mindolluin, whose banner flies a thousand feet above the plain. Behind it is the only approachable by a shoulder of rock, hedged with great ramparts ‘right up to the precipice that overhung its western end; and in that space stood the houses and domed tombs of bygone kings and lords, for ever silent between the mountains and the tower.’

Bits and Bobs

Townlands: “a section of land constituted like a town and attached to a larger area”; a term mostly used in Ireland.

Homestead: “a house, especially a farmhouse, and outbuildings”

Tilth: “an area prepared or cultivated (tilled) for crops”

Oast: “a kiln used for drying hops (ingredient in brewing beer)”

Garner: “a storehouse for produce or grain; a granary”

Fold: “a pen or enclosure in a field where livestock, especially sheep, can be kept”

Byre: “a cowshed”

Rill: “a small stream”

Rammas Echor: Sindarin Elvish (rammas=great wall) + (echor=outer circle)

Harlond: Sindarin Elvish (south haven)

Lossarnach: Mix of Sindarin Elvish and pre-Numenorean speech (flowery+ Arnach)

Lebennin: Sindarin Elvish (five+rivers, waters)

Mindolluin: Sindarin Elvish (towering+blue-head)

Ecthelion: Sindarin Elvish (spearhead, or one of sharp pointed will); in this context, the name of the founding father of the House of the Stewards. Ecthelion II was Denethor’s father.

Imrahil: Untranslated Adunaic name

Dol Amroth: Sindarin Elvish (’hill of Amroth’). Amroth (‘upclimber’) was a former King of Lorien, and what would become Dol Amroth was first settled by Elves. The present (human) princes of Dol Amroth are said to have Elven blood as well as that of Numenor.

In this section we are given clues that we are passing into a time of legend. If Rohan was the echo of Anglo-Saxon England, Gondor is the Middle Ages, almost Arthurian, with a good dash of Roman ancestry. This is reflected in the terminology, which uses not only antique terms for places and things, but also in language, like ‘builded’ for ‘built’ and ‘carven’ for ‘carved.’ ‘Carven by giants’ also echoes the Anglo-Saxon belief that ancient structures built by the Romans were made by giants, with skill beyond that of mortal men. Its strangeness is accentuated by the many unfamiliar ‘Elvish’ names.

Tolkien goes far to not only describing a mighty city but also explains how it is maintained, its farmlands and routes of trade. Minas Tirith is not simply a ‘fantasy castle,’ with no visible means of support.

I have to admit that the first time I read this description of the winding layout of the City I couldn’t quite grasp the conception of its construction; indeed, much of the archaic language baffled me. But until I found out more later, Tolkien’s flow and music carried me on, like Elvish song and tale-telling, reaching beyond words into a brightness and depth of feeling.  And 'Lebennin' reminded me of Lebanon and 'Pelennor' of King Pellinore of Arthurian legend.