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The Tale
Pippin and Beregond are
suddenly frozen with fear as a shuddering cry rends the air. Pippin recognizes
it; he heard it long ago in the Shire when they were fleeing to Bree, but ‘it
was grown in power and hatred, piercing the heart with a poisonous despair.’
For a moment they can neither move nor speak.
With an effort, Beregond,
who had been staring out when paralyzed, speaks to Pippin, calling him to look
below. In the dim air are five wheeling shadows, ‘five birdlike forms, horrible
as carrion-fowl yet greater than eagles.’ They come to within bowshot of the
wall, then wheel away, concentrating on something moving along the ground.
Pippin mutters that the ‘Black
Riders in the air’ are chasing a small group of four or five horsemen. The
peril and the hideous shrieking are more than he can handle, and the little
hobbit cries out for Gandalf to help against this horror.
There is another horrific
screech that is answered by the call of a rising horn from below. Beregond
recognizes it as Lord Faramir’s call. At first it seems Faramir will hold his
men together and reach the Gates, but the horses go mad with terror and the men
are thrown. All except Faramir: ‘he can master both beasts and men.’ He rides
back to help his unsaddled men. But one of the foul ‘hell-hawks’ comes stooping
at him personally. Beregond springs away and hurries down to help his beloved
captain.
Ashamed of himself, Pippin
masters his terror enough to get up and
look out over the wall more closely, just in time to see ‘a flash of white and
silver coming from the North, like a small star down on the dusky fields.’ It
is Gandalf on Shadowfax, and the shadows seem to give way before him, and
Pippin hears like an echo his great voice calling.
Pippin cries out the name of
the wizard who ‘always turns up when things are darkest’, urging him on like a
spectator at a great race that is almost lost.
But the Nazgul are now aware
of the White Rider, and one wheels toward him. But Gandalf raises his hand ‘and
a shaft of white light stabbed upward.’ The Nazgul gives a wailing cry, then all five
wheel and fly away into the grim clouds above, and for a while the Pelennor fields
seem less dark.
Pippin watches as the White
Rider meets the horseman and they wait for the others on foot. Men now hurry
out to join them, free from the wailing terror, and the company pass out of
sight below toward the Great Gate. Pippin hurries down to meet them, guessing
they will go right to the citadel and Denethor.
He joins a cheering crowd
who are calling out for Faramir and Mithrandir; many have watched the race and
rescue from the walls. The two dismount from their horses and walk toward the
gate of the citadel, Gandalf with smoldering eyes and Faramir swaying like a
weary or wounded man.
When Pippin presses forward
and sees the face of Faramir he is startled. It is a face of one who has
mastered a great fear, proud and grave. But what astonishes the hobbit is how
much he resembles his brother Boromir, ‘whom Pippin had liked from the first,
admiring the great man’s lordly but kindly manner.’ But he also sees in Faramir
‘an air of high nobility such as Aragorn at times revealed’ but also ‘touched
with the wisdom and the sadness of the Elder race.’ Here is a captain he would follow even under
the shadow of the stooping Nazgul.
Pippin calls out his name
with the others and Faramir, hearing his strange voice amid the clamor, turns
and is amazed to see ‘a halfling, and in the livery of the Tower!’ Where did he
come from?
‘But with that Gandalf
stepped to his side and spoke. ‘He came with me from the land of the Halflings,’
he said. ‘He came with me. But let us not tarry here. There is much to say and
do, and you are weary. He shall come with us. Indeed he must, for if he does
not forget his new duties more easily than I do, he must attend on his lord
again within the hour. Come, Pippin, follow us!’
Bits and Bobs
Just how ‘birdlike’ are the
Winged Steeds of the Nazgul? Some earlier illustrators make them winged horse, ‘steeds’
literally. The beast that the Lord of the Nazgul rides later is described as a
creature ‘of an older world maybe’ in terms that strongly suggest a pterodactyl
to many readers. Tolkien agrees that it is at least ‘pterodactyl-like’. Are all
the Nazgul supplied with similar beasts? They are most often compared to birds,
hawks or eagles or other scavenger species. Is that just in shape? In an old
draft the Witch-King rides something like a ‘huge vulture.’ Of course, in the
Jackson movies they are most like dragons, wyverns to be exact, with only two
legs. I’ve heard them commonly referred to as dragons by a lot of first
reactors.
Some people who have only
seen the movie have asked why Gandalf doesn’t use his ‘magic flashlight’
against the Nazgul more often. Perhaps it’s too draining. More than likely, it
was because the Valar had set limits to the use of the wizards’ powers, never
to use more than absolutely necessary to overcome situations that the Free
Peoples could not match themselves. Enough to drive the Nazgul away and preserve
life; not enough to outright destroy them.
Much space is given to
Pippin’s first reaction to Faramir. You might say that as Pippin was now pledged
to Minas Tirith that Faramir was his ‘ideal’ in the command chain. Something is
in him that the hobbit ‘would fain call master.’ We are also given a further
insight into Pippin’s attachment, his almost ‘hero-worship’ of Boromir that
makes him quick to ally himself to his brother. One can almost imagine Pippin telling
Frodo (as he gathers material for The Lord of the Rings) about his first
impressions of Faramir after seeing him act to save his men under the terror of
a Nazgul attack.
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