The Lord of the Rings: The Battle of the Pelennor Fields (Part 4 and Last)

‘And now the fighting waxed furious on the fields of the Pelennor, and the din of arms rose upon high, and the crying of men and neighing of horses. Horns were blowing and trumpets were braying, and the mumakil were bellowing as they were goaded to war.’ The foot soldiers of Gondor advance on the Morgul-legions around the walls of the City, while their mounted troops ride to the aid of Eomer and the Rohirrim, ‘Hurin the Tall, Warden of the keys, and the Lord of Lossarnach, and Hirluin of the Green Hills, and Prince Imrahil with his fair Knights.’

And Eomer and his captains need it; their furious onset has driven wedges into the foe, great forces of Southrons. But wherever the mumakil (Oliphaunts) are the horses will not go, and the great beast stand unfought like towers in the middle of the battle with the Haradim rallying around them. The Rohirrim were already outnumbered by at least three times, and now new forces from Osgiliath are streaming onto the field.

These were forces that the Lord of the Nazgul had held mustered, awaiting the sack of Gondor. That Captain is now destroyed, but ‘Gothmog, the lieutenant of Morgul,’ now sends them into the fray; ‘Easterlings with axes, Variags of Khand, Southrons in scarlet, and out of Far Harad black men like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues.’ They come up behind the Rohirrim and some try to keep the forces of Gondor from joining up with Rohan.

It is now when things are already looking bad that they seem to look worse. In the clear mid-morning with rain to the north and a driving wind, lookouts see a vast fleet of black sails coming up the Anduin. The cry goes up that the Corsairs [pirates] of Umbar are coming, and that the coastlands must have fallen. They try to call Gondor back into the City in retreat, but the wind blows their clamor away.

But Eomer can see them. He is not even a mile from Harlond, the great docks, and can see the ‘dromunds, and ships of great draught, and … black sails bellying in the breeze.’ He now curses the wind that is bringing them, but the hosts of Mordor are filled with new fury with the prospect of these reinforcements.

Eomer’s mind, however, clears, and he gathers men to make a great shield wall to fight to the last, ‘though no man should be left in the West to remember the last King of the Mark.’ He rides to a green hill and sets the banner and speaks these staves:

Out of doubt, out of dark to the day’s rising

I came singing in the sun, sword unsheathing.

To hope’s end I rode and to heart’s breaking:

Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!

He laughs; the battle-fury is on him again. He isn’t wounded, he is young and king, and ‘lord of a fell people.’ He is ready to fight, beyond hope or despair. He raises his sword to the fleet in defiance.

‘And then wonder took him, and a great joy; and he cast his sword up in the sunlight and sang as he caught it.’ For a great standard has suddenly unfurled on the lead ship. It bears the White Tree of Gondor, and the Crown and Seven Stars of Elendil ‘that no lord had borne for years beyond count.’

“Thus came Aragorn son of Arathorn, Elessar, Isildur’s Heir, out of the Paths of the Dead, borne upon a wind from the Sea.’ The Rohirrim rejoice with laughter and swords and the City with ‘a music of trumpets and a ringing of bells.’ The hosts of Mordor are confounded with this sudden turn of fate, and it ‘seems a great wizardy’ that their own ships should come filled with their foes. The tides (quite literally) have turned against them.

From the east come the knight of Dol Amroth, from the south comes Eomer. And from the ships leap Legolas, and Gimli, and Elladan and Elrohir, the sons of Elrond. The dour-handed band of Rangers from the North lead ‘a great valour’ of the folk of the fiefs of the coastlands of the South, including men of the West that had been enslaved on the ships and were now freed. ‘But before all went Aragorn with the Flame of the West, Anduril like a fire new-kindled, Narsil re-forged as deadly as of old; and upon his brow was the Star of Elendil.’

At length Aragorn and Eomer meet in the midst of the fighting, and they pause a moment, each glad to see the other. Aragorn reminds Eomer that he told him at the Hornburg they would meet again, ‘though all the hosts of Mordor lay between.’ They clasp hands, and Eomer says his aid was never more welcome, or more timely. ‘Much loss and much sorrow has befallen us.’

‘Then let us avenge it, ere we speak of it!’ said Aragorn, and they ride back to battle together.

There is still plenty of hard fighting ahead;  ‘the Southrons were bold men and grim, and fierce in despair; and the Easterlings were strong and war-hardened and asked for no quarter.’  They gather and rally all for hours, but by the red end of the day the fields are drenched with blood. ‘[N]ot one living foe was left within the circuit of the Rammas [wall]. All were slain save those who fled to die, or to drown in the red foam of the River. Few ever came eastward to Morgul or Mordor, and to the land of the Haradrim came only a tale from far off: a rumor of the wrath and terror of Gondor.’

Aragorn and Eomer and Imrahil ride back to the City, weary but unscathed. Such was their skill and strength. ‘But many others were hurt or maimed or dead upon the field.’ Some named are Forlong, hewed with axes, Duilin and his brother Derufin, trampled by mumakil; Hirluin, Grimbold, Grimslade, and Halbarad the Ranger from the North. Long afterwards a ‘maker’ of Rohan lists them in his song of the [burial] Mounds of Mundburg [Gondor], along with Theoden, Harding, Guthlaf, Dunhere, Deorwine, Herefara, Herubrand, Horn, and Fastred.

Death at the morning and day’s ending

lords took and lowly. Long now they sleep

Under grass in Gondor by the Great River.

Notes

Hurin and Gothmog are both names from the original material of the Silmarillion, Hurin a great chieftain of men and Gothmog the Lord of the Balrogs. There has been some speculation of who or what Gothmog here was: a lesser ringwraith (as per the 1977 wargame); an Orc as per the Jackson films; or a human, perhaps a Black Numenorean. Nobody is sure.

There are many historical notes behind much of this battle: the fear of horses of elephants in battle was remarked on in Greek and Roman texts; a dromund is a ship used in medieval times ‘propelled by many oars with a single mast and a square sail’; Eomer tosses up his sword and catches it as the Norman minstrel Taillefer did at the Battle of Hastings. Much of this section is recounted in the Anglo-Saxon manner and using such verse forms; the end recalls the Homeric ‘Catalog of Ships’ where a list of names is recounted to demonstrate verisimilitude and to suggest details uncountable.

The Elendilmir or Star of Elendil is not the original; that was lost with Isildur when he was killed at the Gladden Fields. Aragorn wore the replacement that was made in Rivendell for Valandil and the heirs of Isildur. The original was found later locked in a secret vault in Orthanc; apparently Saruman had found it along with the chain Isildur had kept the Ring on.

Aragorn’s standard was made by Arwen ‘with jewels and silver’ and was the mysterious wrapped staff that Halbarad handed over to Aragorn and that was unfurled at the Stone of Erech to prove to the Dead Men his claims.

Eomer mentions that he did not know Aragorn was ‘fore-sighted’ when he said they would meet again, though all the hosts of Mordor stood between. Whether this was because of his plans and wisdom or because he really had some spiritual power, is ambiguous.

 

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle of the Pelennor Fields (Part 3)

After the passing of the Lord of the Nazgul Merry stands in the middle of the battlefield, ‘blinking like an owl in the daylight,’ blinded by tears. The motionless Eowyn lies near him, and there is King Theoden, ‘fallen in the midst of his glory.’ His horse Snowmane has rolled off him it its death throes; his faithful horse has been his ‘bane’, the instrument of his death.

Merry lifts the King’s hand to kiss it, and suddenly Theoden opens his eyes. He speaks in a quiet, clear voice. He knows he is dying.

‘My body is broken. I go to my fathers. And even in their mighty company I shall not be ashamed. I felled the black serpent [the herald and champion of the Easterlings]. A grim morn, and a glad day, and a golden sunset!’

Merry begs his pardon for disobeying his orders and following him to battle. Theoden smiles and forgives him: ‘Great heart will not be denied.’ He bids the noble Hobbit to smoke his pipe in peace and remember Theoden, for he shall never keep his promise to sit and listen to his herb-lore. He asks for Eomer; he must be king after Theoden. And he wants to send word by him to Eowyn, whom he shall never see again.

Merry begins to try to tell him that she is nearby, but he is interrupted by a sudden clamor and horns blowing all around them.  ‘[H]e had forgotten the war, and all the world beside, and many hours it seemed since the king rode to his fall, though in truth it was only a little while.’ Northward comes Eomer riding leading the Rohirrim, while a force issues out of Gondor led by the Prince of Dol Amroth, and from the south come the legions of Morgul, led by a line of horsemen of Harad with footmen behind them, and then mumakil shouldering bristling war-towers. It seems the battle will soon meet near where the hobbit stands. He wonders vaguely where Gandalf is. Couldn’t he have saved the king and Eowyn?

At that moment Eomer rides up with knights of the king’s household, who have mastered their horses which fled before the terror of the Nazgul. They look in wonder at the slain fell beast and the ruin around them. Eomer leaps from his horse and stands in silence at Theoden’s side, overcome with grief and dismay.  One of the knights lifts the king’s standard from the hand of the dead Guthlaf, king’s banner bearer. Slowly Theoden opens his eyes, and gestures that the banner be given to Eomer in token of his kingship. He hails him as King of the Mark and bids him ride to victory, and to tell Eowyn farewell from him.

‘And so he died, and knew not that Eowyn laid near him. And those who stood by wept, crying: Theoden King! Theoden King!’

‘But Eomer said to them:

‘Mourn not overmuch! Mighty was the fallen,

meet was his ending. When his mound is raised,

women then shall weep. War now calls us!’

But he himself is weeping. He bids them carry Theoden's body from the battlefield to keep it from being trampled, and also to take the men who have fallen around him. Suddenly he sees Eowyn and recognizes his fallen sister. His face goes deathly white. What is she doing here, slain? He goes deadly quiet, fury rise in him, and then ‘a fey mood took him.’

‘Eowyn, Eowyn!’ he cried at last. ‘Eowyn, how came you here? What madness or devilry is this? Death, death, death! Death take us all!’

He leaps to his saddle and spurs forward, blowing a hornblast and crying in a clear voice, ‘Death! Ride, ride to ruin and the world’s ending!’ The Rohirrim answer him with Death! In one loud and terrible voice, and they speed like a roaring tide southward to battle.

And still Merry stands blinking with tears, seemingly unheeded by all. He finally stoops to pick up the green shield that Eowyn had given him and slings it on his back. He looks for his sword that fell when he struck his blow to the Nazgul; his arm had gone numb with contact with that deadly flesh. ‘And behold! There lay his weapon, but the blade was smoking like a dry branch that has been thrust in a fire; and as he watched it, it writhed and withered and was consumed.’

‘So passed the sword of the Barrow-downs, work of Westernesse. But glad would he have been to know its fate who wrought it slowly long ago in the North-kingdom when the Dunedain were young, and chief among their foes was the dread realm of Angmar and its sorcerer king. No other blade, not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will.’

Men raise Theoden and Eowyn, ‘laying cloaks upon spear-truncheons’ on a makeshift stretcher. They have to leave seven others of the household on the field, surrounded by spears to mark them. They move the King’s horse Snowmane aside as well, and in time he has his own grave raised where he fell, with a stone engraved with an epitaph. But they burn the carcase of the fell beast, ‘and ever black and bare was the ground where the beast was burned.’

Merry follows behind the bearers and thinks no more of the battle. A great rain from the Sea starts to fall ‘and it seems that all things wept for Theoden and Eowyn.’ The entourage is suddenly met by a van of men from Gondor, led by the Prince of Dol Amroth, who pulls up beside them to see what they do. They reply that they bear Theoden who has fallen, but that Eomer now rides as king on the battlefield. The prince dismounts his horse to pay respect to the fallen king, and then is amazed that they also bear a woman.

He examines her, bending closer to observe her pale cold beauty, and takes her hand.  He suddenly cries aloud, asking the Rohirrim if they have no leeches [healers] among them. She is hurt, deadly so perhaps, but she still lives. ‘And he held the bright-burnished vambrace that was upon his arm before her cold lips, and behold! a little mist was laid on it hardly to be seen.’

Haste is now needed if she is to be saved, and the Prince sends to the City for aid. ‘But bowing low to the fallen, bade them farewell, and mounting rode away to battle.’

Notes

Part of Eomer’s despair is that he seems to be the last of his family, the last of the House of Eorl. And of course he thought Eowyn was safely back in Rohan. His mood is described again as ‘fey,’ doom-laden to the point of battle frenzy.

Aragorn said long ago after the attack on Weathertop, in reference to Frodo’s Barrow-blade, that ‘all blades perish that pierce that dreadful king.’ Merry seems to have dealt a more fatal blow. Its maker would have been glad ‘to know its fate’, to finally fulfill its purpose after centuries of laying in wait.

A vambrance is armor for the forearm. The episode recalls the scene in King Lear where Lear checks Cordelia’s breath in hope she is still alive: ‘Lend me a looking glass. If that her breath will mist or stain the stone, why then she lives.’

The grave of Snowmane is eventually marked by a howe, or burial mound, with a poem on the stone:

Faithful servant yet master’s bane,

Lightfoot’s foal, swift Snowmane. 

 

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle of the Pelennor Fields (Part 2)

‘But lo! Suddenly in the midst of the glory of the king his golden shield was dimmed. The new morning was blotted from the sky. Dark fell about him. Horses reared and screamed. Men cast from the saddle lay grovelling on the ground.’

Theoden tries to rally his men, telling them to fear no darkness, but his horse Snowmane rears up high fighting the air, then falls screaming, an arrow in his side. Theoden falls beneath him.

The dark shadow descends. It is a winged creature, bigger than any bird, with naked skin and webbed wings. ‘A creature of an older world maybe it was’, that Sauron took, feeding it with ‘fell meats’ and giving it to his servant to ride. It lands and fastens on Snowmane with its claws.

The Lord of the Nazgul rides upon it, clothed in black with a crown of steel, with nothing between but a ‘deadly gleam of eyes.’ He wields a great black mace. He has returned to the air and come before the darkness can fail, ‘turning hope to despair, and victory to death.’

Theoden’s knights are either slain or their horses, mad with fear, have taken them away. But Dernhelm and Merry are still there by the King; their horse Windfola had thrown them in his terror over the Nazgul descending upon them. But Dernhelm stands, ‘faithful beyond fear,’ and will not be driven away. But the knight weeps, having loved Theoden like a father. Merry crawls along like a dazed beast, blind and sick with horror. He cannot even open his eyes, though his heart reminds him that he, too, swore that Theoden would be like a father to him.

Out of the darkness Merry hears Dernhelm speaking, in a strangely changed voice.

‘Begone, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion! Leave the dead in peace!’

‘A cold voice answered: ‘Come not between the Nazgul and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye.’

Dernhelm is not intimidated; the ringing of a sword as the weapon is drawn, and the warrior declares ‘I will hinder [you], if I may.’ The Nazgul calls him a fool: ‘No living man may hinder me!’

Dernhelm laughs, and with a clear voice proclaims, ‘But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Eowyn am I, Eomund’s daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.’

The fell beast screams and the Nazgul pauses as if in doubt, and Merry opens his eyes in astonishment. A few paces before him is the winged beast with the Lord of the Nazgul looming like a shadow above it. Eowyn stands revealed standing in defiance a little to his left, her helm off and her hair flowing like pale gold. Merry’s mind flashes on the look on ‘Derhelm’s’ face as they rode from Dunharrow: the face of one with no hope, seeking death. ‘The slow-kindled courage of his race awoke.’ He is gripped with the determination she shall not die alone. He must try to help her. He tries to slowly crawl towards the Witch-King, hoping the wraith will not turn his deadly gaze upon him. But the wraith is intent on Eowyn and heeds the hobbit ‘no more than a worm in the mud.’

The fell beast screams and beats its wings, stirring up a foul air. It leaps toward Eowyn, striking with beak and claw. Eowyn does not blench. With one swift stroke she cuts off the thing’s head and it falls with beating wings into a wreck. With its collapse the darkness passes and the light of the sunrise shines about Eowyn.  

But the Black Rider rises up from the ruin of his steed, and towers threatening over the maiden. With a venomous cry of hatred he brings his mace down and shatters Eowyn’s shield. The shield falls in pieces, and she falls to her knees, her arm broken. The wraith’s eyes glitter and he raises his mace for another stroke.

But suddenly he stumbles forward with a cry of bitter pain. His mace misses Eowyn, burying itself into the ground. Merry’s crawling has finally brought him up to the Black Captain and he’s stabbed him from behind, ‘piercing the sinew behind his mighty knee.’ Merry cries out Eowyn’s name, and she rallies, with her last strength driving her sword between the wraith’s crown and his shoulders.

‘The sword broke into many glittering shards. The crown rolled away with a clang. Eowyn fell forward upon her fallen foe. But lo! The mantle and hauberk were empty. Shapeless they lay now on the ground, torn and tumbled; and a cry went up into the shuddering air, and faded to a shrill wailing, passing with the wind, a voice bodiless and thin that died, and was swallowed up, and was never heard again in that age of the world.’

Bits and Bobs

There has been much speculation about the ‘Fell Beast’ the Nazgul rides. It being called ‘a creature of an older world’ and its featherless webbed wings has put many readers in mind of a pterodactyl or pteranodon. In the Jackson movies it is rather dragonish, and I’ve heard many commentators refer to it and its brothers as ‘dragons’, which in the world of Middle-earth are totally different critters. In fact, it’s not even sure that the other Nazgul rode the same kind of creature that’s described here; it’s spoken of as a ‘last untimely brood’ that Sauron had fed and given to his servant (note the singular) as his steed. I know that in at least the rough drafts the wraiths steeds are sometimes called ‘black vultures,’ I suppose in contrast to the Great Eagles.

The fact that the gleam of the Lord’s eyes can be seen points, I think, to one of the properties of invisibility in Tolkien’s works. Things can be invisible, like the Nazgul’s ‘unseen sinews,’ but not the light that they put forth. This is a shown, if I remember rightly, when Elendil has to draw on his hood to dowse the light of the Elendilmir when he’s escaping wearing the Ring.

“Dernhelm,’ of course, means ‘helm of secrecy,’ and with her helmet off Eowyn is finally revealed. In the Jackson movies Merry twigs to her identity right away, but we can assume here that the hobbit, not expecting such a stratagem and being distracted with worry over the ride and coming battle, was thinking of other things. Her bravery is indeed great, being inspired by love for her uncle and the desire to do great deeds, but her recklessness is also being driven by her rejection by Aragorn: she is ‘seeking death.’ She mocks the Nazgul with the Rohirric term, ‘dwimmerlaik’ (work of sorcery). A sham, a cheat, no longer a man, a phantom, an empty thing.

The prophecy that the Witch-king cannot be killed by any living man was made by Glorfindel way back in the Second Age during the war with Angmar. Of course it echoes the prophecy in Macbeth, that he cannot be killed by any man of woman born, that is fulfilled when Macduff reveals he was ‘untimely ripped from his mother’s womb.’ The Lord of the Nazgul has been riding along on the assurance of this prophecy (he must have heard it somewhere, and puts credence in it), not considering the possible ambiguities in the statement. As it is, a woman and a hobbit together encompass his downfall.

And note that his threat to Eowyn is not that he will kill her, but will bear her away to ‘the houses of lamentation’, her flesh devoured and her mind left writhing under the gaze of Sauron. Compare Gorbag’s saying ‘[The Nazgul] will peel the body off of you as soon as look at you, and leave you all cold in the dark on the other side.’

·       Some have speculated that the Witch-King’s voice being ‘never heard in that age of the world again’ might imply that he could be back in another age. But it seems more to be a literary way of saying ‘never, ever again.’ The ring of the Nazgul that extended his life to an unnatural length, whether on his finger (and thus possibly left among his remains) or held by Sauron, would be destroyed when the One Ring is unmade. The Rankin/Bass The Return of the King, among its many other travesties, has the Lord of the Nazgul collapsing with the sound of a deflating balloon.

 

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle of the Pelennor Fields (Part 1)

‘But it was no orc-chieftan or brigand that led the assault upon Gondor. The darkness was breaking too soon, before the date his Master had set for it: fortune had betrayed him for the moment, and the world had turned against him; victory was slipping from his grasp even as he stretched out his hand to seize it. But his arm was long. He was still in command, wielding great powers. King, Ringwraith, Lord of the Nazgul, he had many weapons. He left the Gate and vanished.’

The triumphant Theoden is now on the road to the Gate, less than a mile to the City. His impetus slows as he seeks new foes and his knights catch up with him, including the enigmatic Dernhelm, with Merry still clinging behind. The Rohirrim have overrun almost all of the northern half of Pelennor Fields; Elfhelm’s eored is among the siege engines, killing and driving the enemy into their own fire-pits. Orcs are fleeing toward the River ‘like herds before the hunters.’

But the siege is not yet lifted. There are still great numbers around the Gate and hosts unchallenged on the south part of the plain. Among them is a host of Haradrim horsemen gathered around their chieftain. This leader, seeing Theoden’s banner far ahead of his men, raises his own standard (black serpent on red) and charges the King. ‘… and the drawing of the scimitars of the Southrons was like a glitter of stars.’

Theoden does not wait but leads a charge right into their superior numbers. The ‘white fury’ of the Rohirrim burns the hotter and their skill is greater; ‘they clove through the Southrons like a fire-bolt in a forest.’ Theoden’s spear is broken in the assault as he kills the chieftan, but he sweeps out his sword. He strikes down the serpent standard of the enemy, and all who are left flee before his wrath.

Notes

It is interesting to note that the darkness is breaking before Sauron had set a time for it. It implies that the darkness is only a temporary measure, a tactic to sow fear and give cover to the hosts of Mordor. Eventually the darkness would have broken at the ‘date’ Sauron had set for it. One would imagine that it would have been an enormous drain of power.

The phrase that ‘fortune’ had betrayed him is also intriguing. Throughout the story the terms ‘luck’ or ‘fortune’ can be seen as veiled references to what has been called Providence, the will of God. Gandalf has often expressed his scorn of the idea of ‘mere luck’ or ‘chance, if chance you call it.’ There has been some speculation that Manwe, Lord of the Valar and Master of Winds, has sent this blast to scatter the darkness and bring other aid to the forces of the West. A speculation that would not have been likely before the publication of The Silmarillion.

This section uses a lot of similes: ‘like herds before hunters;’ ‘like a glitter of stars;’ ‘like a fire-bolt (lightning) in the forest.’ This gives one unfamiliar with battle an idea of the speed and sights of the field.

I was hoping to get a little farther today, but perhaps it’s just as well as we leave Theoden at his most glorious moment. It’s about to get pretty dark again.