The Lord of the Rings: Helm’s Deep (Part Five and Last)

 

The Tale

Aragorn passes into the citadel, where he learns to his dismay that Eomer is not there in the Hornburg. He was last seen with Gamling and Gimli, leading a force at the mouth of the Deep. Reporting to Theoden, he expresses the hope that they have reached the caves. What chance they have there he does not know. Theoden says they probably have a better chance than they; there are provisions there and good air from fissures high in the rock, and it is easily defensible. Aragorn wonders. The enemy has this new blasting fire; they may simply seal them inside.

Theoden frets. ‘If I could have set a spear in rest, riding before my men upon the field, maybe I could have felt again the joy of battle, and so ended. But I serve little purpose here.’ ‘It is said that the Hornburg has never fallen to assault … but … the world changes, and all that was once strong now proves unsure. How shall any tower withstand such numbers and such reckless hate?’ He wonders that if he had known the full strength of Isengard if he would have followed Gandalf’s counsel.

Aragorn says not to judge the counsel of Gandalf until all is over, but the king says that will be soon enough. But he will not be ‘taken like an old badger in a trap.’ Their horses are in the citadel with them: when dawn comes, they will sound Helm’s Horn and ride forth, either to cleave a way through the enemy or to fall in battle. He asks if Aragorn will join him, and Aragorn says yes.

Aragorn leaves the king and returns to the walls, enheartening the men and joining the defense where the assault is hottest. Legolas goes with him, amidst blasts of fire and countless ladders and grappling hooks. Time and again the Orcs are cast down. At last Aragorn stands on top of the gates, looking out at the dawn and the countless swarming hosts below.

He raises an empty palm in token of parley and the Orcs below yell and jeer. If he wishes to speak with them, come on down! And bring his skulking king out before they have to drag him from his hiding hole. Aragorn sets their words aside. They ask him why he’s there, and he replies he only looks out to see the dawn. ‘What of the dawn? … We are the Uruk-hai: we do not stop the fight for night or day, for fair weather or for storm. We come to kill, by sun or moon. What of the dawn?’

‘None knows what the new day shall bring him,’ Aragorn declares. He orders the enemy to depart; this is a final warning. If they do not obey, none shall survive. So great is his power and authority that the wild men pause and look around uneasily. But the Orcs laugh and send a hail of darts and arrows at Aragorn. He leaps down from the battered gate, and the next moment it disappears behind him in a blast of fire. Aragorn speeds back to the king’s tower.  

But even as the gate falls, a rumor of dismay arises behind the yelling Orcs. They waver and look back. ‘And then, sudden and terrible, from the tower above, the sound of the great horn of Helm rang out.’ Many Orcs cast themselves down at the sound, trying to plug their ears with clawed hands. On the walls the men of Rohan look up. The sound does not die but is redoubled and answered from the hills. The Riders shout: ‘Helm is arisen and comes back to war. Helm for Théoden King!’ And with that call Théoden rides forth.

His horse is as white as snow and his shield golden, his spear long and terrible. By his side rides Aragorn Elendil’s Heir and behind him come the lords of the House of Eorl. They cry ‘Forth Eorlingas!’ They charge down the causeway in the dawning light, scattering the foes who flee before them. They are joined by all the men on the wall and forces that come pouring from the citadel. The Orcs retreat into the valley. ‘They cried and wailed, for fear and great wonder had come upon them with the rising of the day.’ Just as Aragorn had warned them.

The king and his host drive the forces of Isengard back past the Dike, but there they stop and look into the Deeping Coomb in wonder. For there where the green dale had lain, there is a looming forest, great trees bare and silent with a darkness under them. The Orcs are trapped between the forest and the army. To the east the hills are too steep for escape, and from the west their final doom approaches.

For there comes Erkenbrand the lord of Westfold at last, with a thousand marching men behind him. And with him rides Gandalf on Shadowfax. The captain blows the charge on a great black horn, echoing the call from Helm’s Deep.

 The host of Isengard roars, swaying this way and that, caught suddenly on many sides. ‘The White Rider was upon them, and the terror of his coming filled the enemy with madness.’ The wild men fall on their faces and surrender. The Orcs throw away their weapons, reeling and screaming. ‘Wailing they passed under the waiting shadow of the trees; and from that shadow none ever came again.’

Bits and Bobs

A few words about Theoden’s ‘mood’ here. In the desperate situation and at his advanced age, the King of Rohan is certainly aware of the likelihood, perhaps certainty, of his death. But he takes his last charge not as a matter of anger or despair, for in his culture death does not equal defeat. Nor does it see ‘joy in battle’ in a right cause as an ignoble thing. What he seeks is not death, ‘suicide by Orc’ if you will, but an ending that will bring him lof, an Anglo-Saxon word that has been interpreted as, ‘fame, reputation’, but is better thought of as ‘praise’. Theoden thinks perhaps to cleave an unlikely way through the enemy, but failing that, ‘such an end as will be worth a song – if any be left to sing of us hereafter,’ which the Jackson movies rather feebly translate into modernese as ‘worthy of remembrance’. Though he has lived for an ignominious period under Wormtongue’s poison, he does not want to go down clinging to a last few moments cringing in a cave and be remembered thus. He wants the leaving of his life to become him, as Shakespeare might say. But he does not despair, the besetting sin of our own historical ‘Northmen’.

Aragorn in his address to the army of Isengard once more displays the strange awe surrounding his person, both from his character and his heritage as the heir of Numenor, which Legolas has seen with his Elvish eyes flickering like a crown around his brows. It affects the Wild Men, but not the Orcs, who are completely depraved. In old Western European art, a halo or nimbus was often depicted around the consecrated heads of kings.

The awe that surrounds the resurrected and enhanced Gandalf the White does affect the Orcs, however, who cannot stand before his assault. In fact, Gandalf’s power echoes and counteracts the effect of dread that the Nazgul have. The Nazgul terrorize even their own forces, tormenting them to obedience, but Gandalf has the effect of encouraging his allies, kindling their hearts to resistance of evil and darkness.

We finally see the effect of the strange shadowy forest that followed the Ents, but like the wondering Rohirrim we must await a full explanation.

The Lord of the Rings: Helm’s Deep (Part Four)

 

The Tale

The skies are now clearing after the rain, but in the light of the sinking moon the defenders can see that despite the numbers of the enemy that have been killed, the host of Orcs and hillmen is growing greater every moment. They roar against the Deeping Wall, climbing with grappling hooks and ladders, many of which are cast down only to be replaced by more, ‘and Orcs sprang up them like apes in the dark forests of the South.’ The piled dead at the foot of the wall grows ever higher and higher but the enemy keeps coming with no slackening.

The men of Rohan grow weary. All their arrows are used up and their weapons and shields are notched and battered. Three times Aragon and Eomer lead them in driving the Orcs from the top of the wall. Then a clamor arises in the Deep behind them: Orcs have sneaked in through the culvert in the Wall through which the Deeping Stream passes. They gather quietly then spring out, attacking the horses and their defenders. The people fighting hotly on the Wall at first don’t notice, but Gimli does, and he leaps down shouting his war cry, alerting others to the Orcs’ presence and challenging Legolas to join him.

On the Wall, Gamling hears Gimli’s deep voice and leads a contingent of his Westfolders to meet the threat. While some Orcs flee towards the caves, they are killed by the guards there; the rest are hemmed back towards the culvert, either dying or forced back shrieking through the hole in the wall. Gamling asks Gimli, since ‘Dwarves are said to be cunning folk with stone’, if he will help them block up the culvert. Gimli, who is pleased that he has now killed 21 Orcs and surpassed Legolas’ count, says that though he can’t shape stone with an axe or his fingernails, he will do what he can. Under his direction the Westfolders use what broken stone is at hand to plug the culvert. The dammed water rises and spreads against the wall.

The warriors return to the walkway above, and Gimli proudly boasts of his new count.

‘Good!’ said Legolas. ‘But my count is now two dozen. It has been knife-work up here.’

Aragorn and Eomer lean on their swords. On the Rock there is a rising clamor, but the Hornburg holds fast. Though the gates lie in ruin the barricade is holding up and none of the enemy has passed it.  Aragorn looks wearily at the pale stars. The night seems to last forever; when will the dawn come?

Gamling says even when it does, it might not be much help. The half-orcs and goblin-men of Isengard do not quail in the sun. Neither will the wild hill men, whom Saruman has maddened with their old hate and envy of the Rohirrim, who were given the Mark by Gondor of old. Gamling knows their old language and understands their cries, calling death upon Theoden and the Forgoil, ‘the Strawheads’ as they call the blonde-headed Riders. Aragorn says that nevertheless dawn will bring him encouragement.

“Is it not said that no foe has ever taken the Hornburg, if men have defended it? … Then let us defend it and hope!’ said Aragorn.

Suddenly there is a blare of trumpets and a crash and a flash. A gaping hole has been blasted through the wall and the waters of the Deeping Stream go flowing out while the enemy host comes rushing in. ‘Devilry of Saruman!’ cried Aragorn. ‘They have crept in the culvert again, while we talked, and they have lit the fire of Orthanc beneath our feet!’ He jumps down into the breach. But at the same time hundreds of ladders are raised to the rampart. ‘Over the wall and under the wall the last assault came sweeping like a dark wave over a hill of sand.’

The defenders are swept away. Some are swept further into the Deep, while others cut their way to the citadel. Aragorn alone holds a broad stairway up from the Deep to the rear-gate of the Hornburg. When Legolas calls to him that the last have entered safely, Aragorn turns to come in. But he stumbles in his weariness and the Orcs leap upon him. Legolas uses his last arrow to kill the first Orc, but Aragorn is only saved by a boulder cast from above that shatters the stair below him. He reaches the door, and it clangs shut behind him. ’Things go ill, my friends.’

Ill enough but not hopeless as long as you are with us, says Legolas. Has he seen Gimli? No, the Ranger last saw him fighting under the wall. Perhaps he has escaped to the caves; such a refuge would be to the liking of a dwarf. Still, Legolas would like it better if he were with them, if only so he can tell him that his count is now 39.

Aragorn smiles. If Gimli makes it to the caves, the dwarf’s count with surpass his again. Never has he seen an axe wielded so mightily.

‘I must go and seek some arrows,’ said Legolas. ‘Would that this night would end, and I could have better light for shooting.’

Bits and Bobs

Okay, I don’t know why but it just fascinates me that the people of Middle-earth seem to know about apes ‘in the South’. Perhaps because what we know about the ‘Great Apes’ was not known in the Middle Ages; what they called ‘apes’ tended to be Barbary apes and baboons. Though I suppose those referred to might be the same.

We are given a reminder here about Saruman’s fiddling around with hybrids, with his ‘half-orcs and goblin-men’, though again evil troops also include humans stirred up from ancient enmity to present hatred. What exactly the blasting ‘fire of Orthanc’ is, is not made clear, though it is apparent Saruman has started some modernized weapons of warfare. The Jackson movie assumes it is some kind of explosive, planted in bombs, while the Bakshi film simplifies it into magical blasts of ‘fire of Isengard.’ Sauron is later shown to have a similar weapon. 

'Forgoil' is apparently the only Dunlandish word recorded in LOTR. The Dunlendings, or wild hill folk, are apparently a sort of expy for the Pictish people, driven by the Romans and later by the Anglo-Saxons to the edges of the British Isles.  

The Lord of the Rings: Helm’s Deep (Part Three)

 

The Tale

A slow time of waiting passes, as the forces of Isengard advance silently, their torches in the darkness showing their progress. Suddenly there are yells and screams and battle-cries from the Dike. The torches of the Orcs come streaming through the breach there but are quickly scattered and vanish. Men on horseback come riding up the ramp to the gate of the Hornburg: the rearguard have been driven in. They have spent all their arrows and filled the Dike with dead Orcs. ‘But it will not halt them long. Already they are scaling the bank at many points, thick as marching ants. But we have taught them not to carry torches.’

It is past midnight and utterly dark. Suddenly the night lights up with a blinding flash of lightning. Watchers on the ramparts and can see the land below them ‘boiling and crawling’ with dark figures, with hundreds and hundreds more swarming over the Dike. Thunder rolls in the valley and rain comes lashing down. The forces of Isengard let loose a rain of arrows that clatter off the battlements, but the forces inside answer with neither shot nor challenge. The Orcs and Dunlendings are momentarily baffled when they reach the wall, but with a blare of brazen trumpets they advance up the causeway to the gates, a group of the largest Men and Orcs bringing two huge trees as battering rams. Then the arrows fly from the forces of Rohan.

The attackers waver, break, and flee, always returning and breaking again, but getting closer every time. Finally, they reach the gate. They hold their shields above them like a roof against the arrows and stones hurled from the wall.  Eomer and Aragorn, standing together on the Deeping Wall, hear the assault on the gate, and run to the defense, gathering a body of swordsmen as they go. Through a small postern door at the side of the gate they take a narrow path, and leap out, leading their force into an attack on the rams.

The rammers drop the trees in dismay and flee, along with the Orc archers who have been covering them. The attackers are swept away. The rain has stopped now, and the stars and moon are glimmering. Aragorn and Eomer examine the Gates. They have come none too soon; the hinges and iron bars are twisted and bent and some of the beams are cracked. But they cannot stay here and defend the Gates. They must go inside to brace them there.

As they turn to go some dozen Orcs (who have been playing possum) leap up silently to attack them from behind. Two of them trip Eomer and are on top of him. But from the shadows springs a small dark figure, crying ‘Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd ai-mênu!’ [‘The axes of the Dwarves! The Dwarves are upon you!’] An axe swings. The two Orcs fall headless, and the rest flee. Eomer struggles to his feet as Aragorn runs back to his aid.

Once safe inside, Eomer thanks Gimli for his unexpected aid. ‘Oft the unbidden guest proves the best company.’ Gimli replies that he joined them to stretch his legs. No thanks are necessary; he enjoyed himself. ‘Till now I have hewn naught but wood since I left Moria.’

He rejoins Legolas on the wall and tells of his two kills. ‘Two?’ said Legolas. ‘I have done better, though now I must grope for spent arrows; all mine are gone. Yet I make my tale twenty at the least. But that is only a few leaves in the forest.’

Bits and Bobs

‘Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd ai-mênu!’ is the ancient battle-cry of the Dwarves and is indeed the one part of the secret language of the Dwarves, Khuzdul, that is known to other races, having been heard on battlegrounds throughout the history of Middle-earth. The language was said to have been taught to them by Aule, their Valar sub-creator, and had changed little over the ages.

Gimli’s statement that he’d hewn nothing but wood since Moria is inaccurate since he and Legolas slew Orcs at Parth Galen where the Fellowship was broken.

Legolas and Gimli here begin their rather grim banter concerning a running count of their kills during the battle. Book Legolas has to scrounge for arrows, as opposed to Movie Legolas who seems to have an inexhaustible quiver.

The name of Eomer’s sword, Guthwine, used here as a rally-cry, means ‘battle-friend’ in Old English. Legolas uses the word ‘tale’ in the sense of ‘tally’, a counting or reckoning.

The Lord of the Rings: Helm's Deep (Part Two)

The Lord of the Rings: Helm’s Deep (Part Two)

The Tale

The Riders are not yet in the Deeping Coomb ['short valley'] when they are attacked by wolf-riders, and scouts report a host of orcs and wild men coming behind them from the direction of the Fords, heading for Helm’s Deep. They have also found many of their folk slain, and no-one knows where Erkenbrand is. Gandalf has been seen riding here and there over the plains, and last seen going in the direction of Isengard. Wormtongue has also been spotted going north with a company of Orcs. The following enemy host is many times bigger than the Riders with Théoden. They must drive through whatever foes lay before them and trust to Helm’s Deep as a place to defend themselves in. They ride on.

The few bands of Orcs they find before them flee without fighting, but behind them the rumor of war grows louder, harsh singing and innumerable points of fiery light in the dark. ‘They bring fire … and they are burning as they come, rick [‘a large stack of hay, sometimes thatched’], cot [‘a small house, cottage’], and tree.’ The Rohirrim reach the breach in Helm’s Dike. They are only two furlongs from Helm’s Deep. The guard there welcomes them and urges them onward. On the sward before the Deep they find to their joy that Erkenbrand has left many men to hold Helm’s Gate, and that more have since joined them.

Gamling [‘old man’], the one in charge of this force, estimates they have about a thousand men fit to fight on foot. ‘But most have seen too many winters, as I have, or too few, as my son’s son here.’ He asks if they know where Erkenbrand is, but it seems that, if he is still alive, the whole army is between him and Helm’s Deep now. Theoden must bring his forces inside the Keep. Fortunately, there is a great store of food there, stockpiled in the caves behind, along with three fourths of the folk of Westfold, old and young, women and children. ‘If [the enemy] comes to bargain for our goods at Helm’s Gate, they will pay a high price,’ says Gamling.

Eomer quickly leads the men into Helm’s Deep and arrays their forces. The horses are led far up into the Deep; they cannot be used as yet. This will be siege warfare. The Deeping Wall is twenty feet high and so wide that four men can walk abreast on top. As Legolas and Gimli take their place upon it, they discuss their situation.

As a Dwarf, Gimli likes this place. ‘There is good rock here. This country has tough bones.’ Give him a hundred of his kin and they could make the Deep ‘a place that armies would break upon like water.’ Legolas does not care for it but finds Gimli’s stout attitude comforting. As for him, he could wish for a hundred Mirkwood archers; the Rohirrim have good ones after their fashion, but too few. Gimli says it’s too dark for archery and time for sleep. He feels the need for it; riding is tiring work.

‘Yet my axe is restless in my hand. Give me a row of orc-necks and room to swing and all weariness will fall from me!’

Bits and Bobs

I don’t know about you, but my head is whirling, trying to pin down exactly all the features of Helm’s Deep. The Coomb, the Dike, the Gate, the Deeping Wall, the Hornburg … when I see Diana Wynne Foster’s diagram [shown in Part One] I can see it all makes sense, but while I’m reading my head is whirling with terms (Helm’s this and Helm’s that), so that I’m rather in the position of Uncle Toby in Tristram Shandy who finally has to build a scale model of the Seige of Namur to explain exactly where he got his war wound.

Gamling displays the sort of terse, ironic humor and sarcasm which abounds in the Viking sagas, that makes light of grim situations, when he refers to the Orcs’ attack as ‘bargaining for our goods.’ Tolkien was of course very familiar with this kind of humor from his study of the old sagas. There will be further examples later in the story.

‘But you are a dwarf, and dwarves are strange folk,’ says Legolas, acknowledging the differences in their temperament, but finding his unusual outlook comforting in the circumstances. He is, of course, playfully echoing Gimli's earlier comment in Fangorn on Elves and their love of trees. As an Elf, he prefers mobility and freedom of attack, and less being stuck and possibly trapped amid lifeless rock. But Gimli’s sturdy presence at his side encourages him.

The Lord of the Rings: Helm’s Deep (Part One)

 

The Tale

The sun is already going down in the west when they leave, turning the fields of Rohan before them into a golden haze. They take the beaten way north-westward, to the Fords of Isen, where they hope to find the king’s men holding back the hosts of Saruman. The sun sets, but the army of Rohan rides into the night, driven by need.

At last, they stop and make camp. More than half their journey is still before them. They bivouac in a great circle under the waxing moon, lighting no fires, but setting mounted guards around them with scouts to watch for any approach. After an uneventful night they ride forth with the dawn.

There is a strange heaviness in the hot air, with growing darkness in the East, and in the North-west a creeping shadow coming from the Wizard’s Vale. Gandalf drops back to where Legolas rides in the host and asks him what he can see off towards Isengard. There is a shadow there with great shapes moving in it, the elf proclaims, but there is a veiling power that defeats his eyes as the darkness marches along the distant stream. ‘It is as if the twilight under endless trees were flowing downward from the hills.’

‘And behind us comes a very storm of Mordor,’ said Gandalf. ‘It will be a black night.’

As this second day of riding goes on, the air gets heavier and heavier and the dark clouds from the East draw nearer. The sun sets in blood and fire, and a lone rider approaches the host in the last glow. They halt and wait for his approach.

He approaches, a weary man with dinted helm and cloven shield. He asks if Eomer is there. They come too late, as things have gone badly at the Fords of Isen. Their forces have been driven back and scattered. Saruman must have emptied Isengard, and his Orcs are joined by the wild hillmen of Dunland. They broke the shieldwall, and now Erkenbrand of Westfold is trying to draw together as much folk as he can and fall back to Helm’s Deep. He again asks for Eomer, and says they must fall back to Edoras.

Theoden, who has been listening, rides forward and recognizes the man as Ceorl, and tells him the Eorlingas have ridden forth, and will not return until they have seen battle. They will go to the help of Erkenbrand. Ceorl is ordered a new horse and will ride with them.

While Theoden is speaking, Gandalf has ridden a little way ahead, gazing north and west. He now comes to Theoden and urges him to ride on to Helm’s Deep and not go to the Fords of Isen, or tarry on the plain. The wizard must leave him for a while on an errand, but they will see him again at Helm’s Gate. He speeds off into the sunset. ‘Gandalf Greyhame has need of haste.’

The host now heads southward, riding into the night. Ahead of them lies a green coombe (a short valley or hollow on a hillside) out of which a gorge opens in the hills, called Helm’s Deep after an ancient warrior who had refuge there. At Helm’s Gate before the mouth of the Deep is a heel of rock, and on its spur are high stone walls and a lofty tower, said to have been built by the sea-kings of Gondor in the days of old. It is also called the Hornburg because of the peculiar echoes aroused there if a horn is blown: it sounds as if ancient armies are issuing forth from the hollow hills. It is further protected by a ditch and a dike. Fearing war, Erkenbrand has been repairing the fortress and it is a strong refuge.

Bits and Bobs

The growing heaviness of the day might well have to do with Saruman’s opposition to the riding forth, as his power slowed the pursuit of Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli before. That strange grey darkness coming down from the hills has nothing to do with Saruman’s power, ominous though it looks.

Ceorl is of course named after the Anglo-Saxon ‘ceorl, also spelled Churl, the free peasant who formed the basis of society in Anglo-Saxon England. His free status was marked by his right to bear arms, his attendance at local courts, and his payment of dues directly to the king.’ – Encyclopedia Britannica.  Churl was a technical term and did not bear the onus now attached to it as of someone lowly and unmannered, as when someone is called ‘churlish’.   It looks like but is almost the opposite of Eorl, ‘Earl’.

Greyhame (‘grey mantle’), though another Rohirric title, recalls the earlier elven-king Thingol Greycloak, if only in literal meaning. Not related to the Scottish name ‘Graham’ at all. The element ‘hame’ can also mean a skin or hide. ‘Erkenbrand is a name that possibly was derived from two Old English words: eorcan ("precious") and brand ("fire-brand, torch; sword").' - Tolkien Gateway.