The Lord of the Rings: Flotsam and Jetsam (Part Five and Last)

 

Merry and Pippin having brought their story up to date, the company fall silent a while. Then Gimli asks, what about Wormtongue? They had mentioned to Theoden and Gandalf that he was with Saruman.

Pippin says he had forgotten about him. They had just had a bit of breakfast when Treebeard had come over to tell them that the Huorns had returned and that there would be no more Orcs and axes, but rather a company they would be happy to see arriving soon. Then suddenly Grima appeared, atop a tired old horse. He looked a twisted kind of creature himself. The king’s erstwhile counselor came riding in slowly, gazing distractedly in bewilderment at the ruins of Isengard. When he noticed the hobbits and the old Ent he tried to ride away, but Treebeard caught him in three strides. The horse bolts away.

The man groveled, introducing himself as Grima and counsellor of Theoden, sent with messages to Saruman. He squirmed a while under Treebeard’s scrutiny, but he knew the jig was up when Treebeard suddenly addressed him as Master Wormtoungue. ‘Gandalf got here first.’ The new white wizard had suggested he put all the rats in one trap, and that’s what he will do.

They pass through the gateway’s arch, and Wormtongue is devasted to see the black tower of Orthanc now stands in a broad lake of water. He whines to be let go as all his messages are useless now. Treebeard says he has only two options: to stay and face his former master or join his new one. Wormtongue chooses Saruman and starts floundering across the flood. Treebeard follows him a little way, to make sure he doesn’t drown, and sees a hand pull him into the tower.

The old Ent returns and tasks the hobbits with finding enough ‘man-food’ for the approaching King’s company, who have fought a great battle with the Orcs and then to wait at the gate to greet them with fitting words. Meanwhile Treebeard will go to wash the slime of Isengard’s waters off and get a clean drink. The hobbits find two or three storerooms safe above the waterline and gather a great deal of provender, ‘for twenty-five’ as the Ents say when they come to carry it off (their number was carefully counted; Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas were obviously meant to go with the great people). But the hobbits kept as good as they sent, so the three hunters have eaten as well as the others. Better, because they have wine while the Ents considered the fresh waters of the Entwash fine enough for everyone to drink. Also, they have the pipeweed they found in Saruman’s storage.

Aragorn finds its presence troubling. Apparently someone in the Shire has had secret dealings with Saruman, and recently, too, as the dates on the barrels suggest. Hopefully with the downfall of the wizard the connection is broken, but he will mention it to Gandalf, just in case. ‘Wormtongues may be found in other houses than King Theoden’s.’

Merry wonders what Gandalf is up to right now, and they decide to enter Isengard to find out. ‘But it is not a very cheerful sight.’

 

Bits and Bobs

And so at last we finish the chapter we began over two months ago. Hopefully I can keep on track again with an installment every other day or so. You will probably notice that I’ve had a hard time keeping the tenses right everywhere, as this chapter is mostly told in retrospect. It should be more temporally straightforward from now on.

I find it an interesting note to Wormtongue’s character that he would rather be humiliated by Saruman’s scorn than to humble himself before Theoden and perhaps go on to a better fate. He must have been riding high but dangerously when he was a big man both in Rohan and Isengard. I wonder if Saruman ever considered him his Number Two, as it were, or if the wizard just hung onto him later as the only servant he had left?

Tolkien later wrote a little segment (later printed in Unfinished Tales) about how Saruman became acquainted with pipeweed and its pleasures. It appears that Gandalf was smoking rather heavily at one of the sessions of the White Council while Saruman was speaking, and in irritation the then-White Wizard mocked him for his attachment to the habits of a simple and rustic people. When Gandalf expounded on its virtues and subtly mocked Saruman’s ambitions, the other wizard remained scornful but secretly intrigued. He obtained and tried the weed in private, and soon developed a habit that he went to some pains to keep hidden. These dealings with the Shire eventually led to his demise on the very steps of Bag End.

The Lord of the Rings: Flotsam and Jetsam (Part Four)

 

Merry and Pippin were left on their own, wandering around the Ring of Orthanc, looking for something to eat, and wondering what is going on away in Rohan, or with the members of the Fellowship. Outside there is a great sound of thudding and rattling: the Ents and Huorns are digging pits and trenches, gathering the waters of the river Isen and what other streams and springs they can find. They stayed out of sight of the gaping windows of Orthanc.

Treebeard returned to them at last, stiff from his work. The Ents have moved more earth and cracked more stone than they have for years. He warns the hobbits to stay away from the gate and tunnel come nightfall; they will be releasing the waters and they may get trapped. The old Ent begins amusing himself by tearing down a little more wall.

Suddenly they are startled to hear the approach of hoofbeats. Treebeard hides in the shadow of the gates while the hobbits lie quiet. Then like a flash of silver a great horse comes to the gate, and who to Pippin’s amazement should be riding it was Gandalf, who he last saw plunging to his doom in Moria! He halts the horse just by the hobbits.

‘Did he say: “Hullo, Pippin! This is a pleasant surprise!”? No, indeed! He said: “Get up, you tom-fool of a Took! Where, in the name of wonder, in all this ruin is Treebeard? I want him. Quick!’

Treebeard comes out of the shadows. He says he’s glad Gandalf is come, because there is wizard to be handled, while Gandalf praises all that Treebeard’s done so far, but he has ten thousand Orcs to handle. What surprises Pippin is that neither seems to be surprised to see the other, even though Pippin told the old Ent about Khazad-dum. Gandalf and Treebeard hurry aside for a private conference, the wizard speaking very hastily indeed.

They confer about fifteen minutes. When they are done, Gandalf seems relieved. He finally tells Merry and Pippin he is glad to see them but has no time to fill in the gaps since their parting. He does tell them a bit of news that worries the hobbits, about the war that Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas seem to be caught up in. Gandalf warns them to stay away from the tower and is off again like a bolt of lightning.

Treebeard looks thoughtfully at the hobbits and says maybe they are not quite so hasty as he thought them. ‘You said much less than you might, and no more than you should. Hm, this is a bundle of news and no mistake! Well, now Treebeard must get busy again.’ He says little more, but enough to worry them about their friends in the coming battle. ‘Huorns will help,’ Treebeard assures them, then leaves them until the morning.

The hobbits spend an uneasy night on top of a pile of stones. The ‘Huorn-dark’, a mist or shadow, surrounds them, the air around them heavy and full of creaking and whispers. They can see flashes of lightning far away lighting the mountains in the south, and hear deep rumblings like thunder. About midnight, the Ents break the dam and let all the waters into Isengard. The mists have cleared away and the thunder rolled off. ‘The Moon was sinking behind the western mountains.’

The ring of Isengard begins filling up with water. Sometimes it goes down into dark shafts or spoutholes, and steams come hissing up and there are explosions and gusts of fire ‘One great coil of vapour went whirling up, twisting round and round Orthanc until it looked like a tall peak of cloud, fiery underneath and moonlit above.  And still more water poured in, until at last Isengard looked like a huge flat saucepan, all steaming and bubbling.’

Aragorn remarks that they saw the smoke and steam in the night, and thought Saruman was brewing up some devilry for them. ‘Not he!’ said Pippin. ‘He was probably choking and not laughing anymore.’  The water sank into all the holes, quenching the fires, then began rising at an alarming rate. The hobbits had rather a fright when the water began coming into the guardroom where they were watching. They scrambled to the roof and there witnessed the drowning of Isengard.

Come evening there was a rainbow over the hills, then a thick drizzle on the mountainside. Wolves howled mournfully, far away. The Ents stop the flow of water in the night.

Since then, the water had been sinking. Isengard was a dreary mess. With not even a visible Ent to talk to, and Saruman still penned in the tower, they spent a cold damp night, uneasy and nervous. They hear a sound in the dark that seems to be the Ents and the Huorns returning, though they’ve vanished now. ‘It was a misty, moisty morning’ when they climbed down again, with no one around. And that’s about it. It’s so peaceful, especially since Gandalf came back, that Pippin feels like he could sleep.

 

Bits and Bobs

Tom Fool: Some people have said that the phrase “Tom-fool” originated from Tom Skelton, the ‘fool’ or jester of Muncaster Castle, who is sometimes believed to have been the basis for the Fool in Shakespeare’s King Lear. But the phrase itself ‘starts appearing in the historical record early in the 1300s in the Latinate form Thomas fatuus’ or Fatuous (Foolish) Tom. A tom-fool is someone who is even more pronounced in their stupidity than an ordinary fool.

Misty Moisty Morning: The phrase is, of course, from the Mother Goose rhyme. According to Iona and Peter Opie’s The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, it is the adapted first verse of the 15 stanzas of the 1680 poem The Wiltshire Wedding. The first place I ever read it was here:

The Lord of the Rings: Flotsam and Jetsam (Part Three)

 

The Tale

Treebeard and dozen or so Ents attack that Gate and it is down in five minutes, their fingers and toes freezing onto the rock and tearing into it ‘like breadcrust’, the work of a hundred years of treeroots eating into stone done in a few minutes. Other Ents start eating into the walls.

Apparently, Saruman did not know how to deal with such an attack and did nothing at first. Pippin wonders if his wizardry was falling off of late, or even if he ever was all that to begin with, and his reputation only earned by his occupancy of Isengard. He does not, at any rate, have the ‘grit’ that Gandalf has. Aragorn replies he was once as great as he was famous: deep knowledge, subtle thought, and crafty hands, but most of all a persuasive and daunting voice, which he no doubt still has.

Well, the Ents won’t be persuaded, ever again. Saruman had never understood them and had no ready plan for their attack, as Ents all around the ring of Isengard begin burrowing holes through the surrounding wall and striding into the circle. Saruman’s folk inside begin fleeing; the Men are questioned and let go, but no Orc survives, especially from the surrounding contingent of Huorns who have remained.

Suddenly Saruman himself bolts from the gatehouse from where he had been watching his troops leave, trying to sneak back to the tower. But Quickbeam spots him and sends up the cry. The wizard barely makes it into Orthanc. But once inside, he starts some of his machinery going.

Great gouts of fire and fumes begin spraying out of the vents and shafts that litter the circle. Some of the attackers are scorched and blistered. ‘One of them, Beechbone I think he was called, a very tall handsome Ent, got caught in a spray of some liquid fire and burned like a torch: a horrible sight.’ This attack maddens the Ents.

They surround the tower of Orthanc and begin attacking it in a whirlwind of rage, breaking iron pillars and tossing them, hurling broken rocks at the tower, roaring and booming and trumpeting until the very stones start to split. They stride around the tower in a hurricane of assault, some even simply throwing themselves against the black rock of the tower. But here they are defeated. There seems to be some older power in it (it was, after all, made by the Numenoreans) and they cannot get a grip on it or make a crack in it anywhere.

Realizing his people are only hurting themselves, Treebeard raises his voice above the din and calls for a halt. There is sudden silence. In that silence they can hear the shrill laugh of Saruman; he thinks the Ents are defeated. But they become ‘cold, as grim as ice, and quiet.’ They gather around Treebeard, who softly tells them of a plan he has developed in his wise old head. Saruman has not reckoned on the ingenuity of the usually calm forest folk. They melt away in the coming dawn, leaving behind hidden sentries and Merry and Pippin, who are left to wonder what is going on. 

Bits and Bobs

No bits or bobs, just another picture of Ents enjoying themselves.

The Lord of the Rings: Flotsam and Jetsam (Part Two)

 

The Tale

‘Come now!’ [said Legolas] ‘Time wears on, and the mists are blowing away, or would if you strange folk did not wreathe yourselves in smoke. What of the tale?’

Pippin tells the story of the nine days since they parted at Parth Galen. At the end, Aragorn restores their knives, thrown away by the Orcs, and Pippin’s elven brooch. He praises the young hobbit’s action. ‘One who cannot cast away a treasure at need is in fetters.’ He is troubled by what he learns about the Orcs from Mordor. They seem to have known too much about the Fellowship and their purpose. But all agree that Saruman’s treachery has put him between a rock and a hard place between the West and Sauron.

Merry takes up the story and recounts the Entmoot and the march on Isengard, and the vast forest that moved with the Ents. This is made up of the Huorns (so-called, apparently, because they can talk with the Ents), trees that have come awake and can speak and move but are wild and strange and prone to fits of anger, if they are not restrained by true Ents. Merry and Pippin are riding on Treebeard’s shoulders. The whole march comes up to Isengard in the dark, then pauses and waits.

Then with a blare of trumpets, Saruman’s army comes tramping out and heading off to Helm’s Deep. It includes Orcs, both marching and riding on wolves, Men (tall and grim-faced but not particularly evil-looking), and what look to be half-orcs, as tall as Men but with goblin faces. Altogether, it looked to be about 10,000, and Merry thought it did not look good for Rohan. But Treebeard let them pass. ‘My business is with Isengard tonight, with rock and stone.’ But it appears a huge force of Huorns is moving off south, following them.

When the army is gone, Treebeard sets the hobbits down and goes up to the gates of Isengard and begins pounding at the doors and calling for Saruman. He is answered by stones and arrows from the walls. Luckily, Ent skin is even tougher than tree bark and they are immune to poison, and while the arrows sting and infuriate them, they produce no real damage: ‘An Ent can be stuck as full of Orc arrows as a pin-cushion, and take no serious harm.’ Once Treebeard gets a few arrows in him, however, he starts to get ‘positively hasty.’

 

Bits and Bobs

It has been suggested (I forget where) that Legolas’s attitude towards smoking might be a generally Elvish opinion of the habit, and indeed we never hear of an Elf smoking in the Legendarium. Whether this is because it is a relatively new innovation in Middle-earth or because they have health objections is not known. At least the Elves in Rivendell would have known of it through their friendship with Gandalf. But the Elves (at any rate while in Middle-earth) are not vegetarians, as is heavily implied in Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, so they do not check that box in what used to be called ‘the wheat-germ and granola crowd.’

Aragorn gives the hobbits back their daggers from the barrow, blades made for the old war with the Witch-King, which will be significant for Merry’s future story. Merry connects the goblin-men in Saruman’s army with the ‘squint-eyed Southerner’ back in Bree, which raises some concern about the wizard’s influence in the Shire area. We are lore-dropped with quite a bit about the Huorns and the Ents (a punch from an Ent-fist crumples iron like thin tin) which prepares us for the havoc to come. 

The Lord of the Rings: Flotsam and Jetsam (Part One)

 

The Tale

Gandalf and Theoden’s company ride off eastward along the curve of the ruined walls of Isengard. Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas (the Three Hunters) stay behind to talk to Merry and Pippin and find out all that has happened to them since they parted. Gimli says all their news would go better after a meal. Pippin agrees and suggests they retire to Saruman’s nearby guardhouse. Gimli grumbles ‘I will not go into any orc-house nor touch Orcs’ meat or anything that they have mauled.’ Merry explains that Saruman had many other servants than Orcs; he wasn’t so fallen in wisdom as to completely trust them. He had Men to guard his gates, his most faithful servants perhaps, and they had good provisions.

‘The hobbits led the way; and they passed under the arch and came to a wide door upon the left, at the top of a stair. It opened direct into a large chamber with … a hearth and a chimney at one side…light came in now through the broken roof.’

Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli sit down at a long table while the hobbits go to a nearby storeroom and bring back dishes and food. ‘This is not orc-stuff, but man-food.’ There’s bread (though three or four days old), wine, beer, salted pork, bacon, butter, and honey. The three sit down to eat and Merry and Pippin join them, ‘to keep our guests company.’ Legolas laughs at their courtesy and says they’d probably be feasting again, whether they had company or not.

Pippin asks, and why not? They’ve had enough foul fare amongst the Orcs and little enough after that. Aragorn remarks it seems it did them little harm. Gimli notices their hair is twice as thick and curly and they’ve grown noticeably taller! Merry explains that Treebeard gave them nourishing Ent-draughts, but they’ve felt the need for something more solid. Legolas says if they’ve drunk the legendary waters of the Ents then they probably have grown taller. 

Aragorn says he’s heard many tales about Fangorn, but never been there. What are Ents like? Pippin fumbles around a bit trying to describe them, but then says they’ve already seen some, apparently, and will probably actually meet some soon. Then they can make up their own minds.

Gimli says he wants to hear their story from the beginning but Merry proclaims they must finish their meal off with a good pipe. The hobbits went scavenging this morning and found two barrels of pipeweed, that turned out to Longbottom Leaf, all the way from the Shire! Apparently, Saruman imported this dainty for himself. Gimli mourns his lost pipe, but when Pippin produces a spare one, the dwarf declares that the hobbit has not only paid off the expense for his tracking, but he has also left Gimli deep in his debt.

Legolas says he is going out into the open air, and the others join him. They sit on a pile of rubble by the open gate. The mists are clearing and the valley before them growing clearer. Aragorn says they should sit there and just talk a while; he is feeling a great weariness such he has seldom known. ‘He wrapped his grey cloak about him, hiding his mail-shirt, and stretched out his long legs. Then he lay back and sent from his lips a thin stream of smoke.’

‘Look!’ said Pippin. ‘Strider the Ranger has come back!’

‘He has never been away,’ said Aragorn. ‘I am Strider and Dunadan too, and I belong to both Gondor and the North.’

Bits and Bobs

Flotsam refers to goods from a sunken vessel that have floated to the surface of the sea, or any floating cargo that is cast overboard. In maritime law, flotsam pertains to goods that are floating on the surface of the water as the result of a wreck or accident. One who discovers flotsam is allowed to claim it unless someone else establishes their ownership of it.

Jetsam designates any cargo that is intentionally discarded from a ship or wreckage. Legally jetsam also floats, although floating is not part of the etymological meaning. Generally, "jettisoning" connotes the action of throwing goods overboard to lighten the load of the ship if it is in danger of sinking. Per maritime law, one who discovers these artifacts is not required to return them to their rightful owner except in the case where the latter makes a legally abiding claim.

Generally speaking, ‘flotsam’ floats after a wreck, and ‘jetsam’ has been jettisoned on purpose. However, "flotsam may be claimed by the original owner, whereas jetsam may be claimed as property of whoever discovers it". And, of course, Merry and Pippin have been claiming what they need from the wreckage after the flooding of Isengard.

We are given the first intimations that there have been hidden dealings between Saruman and some agent in the Shire. And whereas the feeling of drinking an Ent-draught has been described, we actually get to hear the observed effect on the hobbits growth.