The Lord of the Rings: The Passage of the Marshes (Part Five and Last)

 

The Tale

Sam wakes up, thinking he’s heard Frodo call him. But Frodo is still asleep; he’s slid down towards the bottom of the pit. Gollum is right next to him, and at first Sam thinks he’s trying to rouse Frodo. But then he hears that the gangrel creature seems to be holding a debate with himself: Smeagol, whose eyes shine with a pale light, and Gollum, whose eyes shine green and who makes their voice hiss and squeak.

          Smeagol is his better self, if motivated mostly by fear. He clings to the promise he swore to Frodo by, if not on, the Precious, and is afraid to break it.

          The Gollum side points out they swore never to let Him have it. But it’s getting closer to him with every step. What are the hobbits up to?

          But Smeagol promised to help the master.

          But if we took it, we’d be the master, and we could help ourselfs.

But nice master took the cruel rope off. He speaks nicely to me.

We could still take it and not hurt the nice master. We would be good as fish.

But the Precious holds the promise.

Then we take it and then we hold the promise! Make the other, the nasty suspicious hobbit crawl.

But not the nice hobbit?

Not unless we want to. Still, he’s a Baggins, and a Baggins stole it. We hates Bagginses.

Not this one.

Yes, all who take the Precious.

But He’ll see if we get it! He’ll take it from us!

Oh, yes, He sees. He heard us make silly promises, and He and his wraiths are searching for it. But if we take it – not for him! Smeagol protests – if we take it, we can escape even from him.

‘Perhaps we grows very strong, stronger than Wraiths. Lord Smeagol? Gollum the Great? The Gollum! Eat fish every day, three times a day, fresh from the Sea. Most Precious Gollum! Must have it!’

But there are two of them, Smeagol points out. Not now. Not yet.

Gollum begins to protest, then pauses a long while. ‘She might help. She might, yes.’

Not that way, Smeagol wails, but Gollum’s hands, which have been reaching out for Frodo’s neck each time his voice spoke, are now reaching out closer than ever. Sam thinks the debate has gone on long enough.

Before Sam thought the only danger was Gollum just wanting to eat them; now he realizes the creature is responding to the terrible call of the Ring. He stretches and yawns, pretending that he’s just woken up, and asks the time. Gollum stands up hissing for a moment, as if he wonders if Sam heard anything, then collapses back into his old fawning behavior.

He even goes so far as to say, ‘Nice Sam!’ He’s been on watch and let the sleepy heads slumber, but now it’s evening and time to go. Sam says it’s high time too, and wonders if it would be just as dangerous to part with Gollum now as to take him with them. He goes down to wake up Frodo.

Frodo is feeling strangely refreshed. He had had a good dream, which he cannot remember, but whose mood remains. ‘His burden was less heavy on him.’ Gollum greets him ‘with dog-like delight’ and Frodo smiles on him.

‘You have guided us faithfully and well.’ This is the last stretch. All he has to do is guide them to the Gate and then he can go wherever he wants – but not to their enemies. ‘Poor Smeagol’ agrees, but says that when they get to the Gate, they might not like the looks of it at all. ‘Let’s get it over!’ grumbles Sam.

They scramble their way out of the pit and make their way through the dead land. Almost immediately they feel the terror of a Nazgul passing over again. They cower awhile, but it passes. Towards midnight a third goes over them. This time Gollum collapses, gibbering. Three times is a threat, he cries. He thinks the Nazgul are aware of them and are homing in. He won’t budge for any kind words or encouragement; Frodo has to command him angrily, hand on sword-hilt. ‘Then at last he rose and went before them like a beaten dog.’

‘So they stumbled on through the weary end of night, and until the coming of another day of fear they walked in silence with bowed heads, seeing nothing, and hearing nothing but the wind hissing in their ears.’

Bits and Bobs

Poor Gollum, or Smeagol, or however you want to call him. Here you can see that all his ideal of the good has shrunken down to mere appetite. “His mentality has reduced all the beauty of the world to a small pickled fish.” - Love and Death. When he struggles to express how he’ll act, Gollum can only say ‘as good as fish.’ The Ring tempts everyone according to their capacity; when it assails Sam later, it offers him a gigantic garden, as big as the world. The reach of Gollum’s imagination is – fresh fish, three times a day.

Perhaps we can see the hand of Irmo, or Lorien as he is called, the Vala or ‘guardian spirit’ of dreams, in this passage. Sam is woken from his sleep just in time to hear Gollum’s debate by what seems to be the voice of Frodo calling. Frodo awakes from his ‘visited’ dreams refreshed by the fair vision granted him ‘in this land of disease.’ Perhaps these little nudges and encouragements that seem to happen when most needed are commonplace divine helps that give that added little boost when most needed. We shall see more such instances later.

Lowly, wretched Smeagol. Whether delighted or beaten, his better nature is still to be doglike. ‘Nice Sam’? Ooh, what a hypocrite! For all his fears, the three passes of the Nazgul are not a threat; they are simply their coincidental comings and goings on Sauron's business - who, just a reminder, is He. Who She is, is yet to be seen.

The Lord of the Rings: The Passage of the Marshes (Part Four)

The Tale

Gollum crawls to the right looking for a way around the black mere. Sam and Frodo follow close behind, stooped and sometimes even using their hands as he does. ‘Three precious little Gollums in a row we shall be, if this goes on much longer,’ thought Sam.’ They come to the end of the mere and cross it, floundering from one tussock of weeds to another, sliming themselves up to the neck until they stink from waters like a cesspool.

          Late at night they at last find firmer ground, much to Gollum’s satisfaction. By some mysterious sense he seems to know where he is again and the way ahead. Late as it is he urges them forward, to ‘take master away from the wicked lights.’ He goes forward eagerly and the hobbits stumble after him. But in a little while Gollum stops and sniffs the air doubtfully. Sam asks him why: everything simply stinks. But Gollum has sensed a change coming. The air is moving. They move on, though Gollum shows signs of increasing uneasiness.

Suddenly they halt. They hear, far away, ‘a long wailing cry, high and thin and cruel.’ The stirring air grows cold and there is a noise like wind coming from the distance.  The misty marsh light waver and go out at its approach. Gollum freezes and stands shaking and gibbering. The rushing wind comes upon them, hissing and snarling, and the night grows less dark as the clouds and fog are torn before them. ‘[T]hen high in the south the moon glimmered out, riding in the flying wrack.’

For a moment Frodo and Sam are glad at the sight, though Gollum curses the White Face and its light. But then they see it come, ‘a small cloud flying from the accursed hills; a black shadow loosed from Mordor; a vast shape winged and ominous. It scudded across the moon, and with a deadly cry went away westward, outrunning the wind in its fell speed.’ They fall forward groveling on the cold ground. The shadow turns back and passes over them again, heading back to Mordor ‘with the speed of the wrath of Sauron.’ Behind it the wind roars along, rending the clouds and mist until the Dead Marshes lie bleak and bare under the ghastly moonlight.

Frodo and Sam get up, but Gollum will not move for terror. They rouse him a bit out of his panic at last. ‘Wraiths!’ he wailed. ‘Wraiths on wings! The Precious is their master.’ They see everything, and report back to Sauron. He knows everything! Gollum will not move until the revealing light of the moon has sunk off to the west.

‘From that time on Sam thought he sensed a change in Gollum again.’ Though more fawning than ever, he casts Frodo some mighty strange looks at times. He also goes back more to his old way of speaking.

But Sam has another growing anxiety. The closer they get to Mordor, the more the burden of the Ring is weighing upon Frodo, slowing him down and wearing him out. Frodo feels it as an Eye, a ‘horrible growing sense of a hostile will that strove with great power to pierce all shadows of cloud, and earth, and flesh, and to see you: to pin you under its deadly gaze, naked, immovable.’ Frodo can feel its location as surely as a man with his eyes closed knows where the sun is. He is walking into its power, and it beats upon his brow.

Gollum is probably feeling something of the same, torn between his promise and the fear of Sauron and his lust for the Ring, but Sam is distracted by his care for Frodo, so much so that he barely notices the shadow that has fallen on his own heart.

They struggle on until daylight, which reveals how much closer they are to the ominous mountains, no longer a cloudy menace but a bare black wall of towers. ‘The marshes were at an end, dying away into dead peats and wide flats of dry cracked mud. The land ahead rose in long shallow slopes, barren and pitiless, towards the desert that lay at Sauron’s gate.’ They spend the day cowering under a black stone, fearful of the possible return of the Nazgul overhead, spying them out.

The next two days are a stumbling nightmare of growing fear over ‘a weary, pathless land.’ The air grows harsh, with a bitter reek that parches their mouths. On the morning of the fifth day after they started following Gollum, they come to the desolation that lies before the gates of Mordor. Frodo looks around in horror.

‘Even to the Mere of Dead Faces some haggard phantom of green spring; but here neither spring nor summer would ever come again. Here nothing lived, not even the leprous growths that feed on rottenness. The gasping pools were choked with ash and crawling muds, sickly white and grey, as if the mountains had vomited the filth of their entrails upon the lands about. High mounds of crushed and powdered rock, great cones of earth fire-blasted and poison-stained, stood like an obscene graveyard in endless rows, slowly reveled in the reluctant light. They had come to the … lasting monument to the dark labour of its slaves that should endure when all their purposes were made void; a land defiled, diseased beyond all healing – unless the Great Sea should enter in and wash it with oblivion.  ‘I feel sick,’ said Sam.’

They watch as all the horror grows clearer in the growing daylight. Even the sunlight seems defiled, walking among the clouds and flags of smoke, unfriendly, as if it would reveal them to enemy eyes. Too weary to go further they try to shelter under a mound of slag, but it leaks foul fumes that choke them. Gollum finally gets up cursing and leads them to a foul circular pit, cold and dead with a sump of oily water at the bottom. Here they cower hoping to escape the attention of the eye.

The day passes slowly. At first they cannot sleep and a great thirst troubles them. They were last able to fill their bottles back at the gully, which seems a paradise compared to where they are now. They try to take watches in turns, but on Frodo’s watch, overburdened with the Ring and looking up at the smoke streaked sky, he seems to see ‘strange phantoms, dark riding shapes, and faces out of the past.’  Bewildered and weary, he falls asleep.

Bits and Bobs

While the Dead Marshes carry Tolkien’s memory of the waste and ravages of war, he seems to evoke even more horrified judgement on the deadly industrial desolation that was destroying the land even at the time, and is now never far to seek, and decades more advanced. It is this insight into the barrenness and poison that is left and that will endure ‘even when all their purposes are made void’, when all the good has been sucked from the earth and the reason for making the desolation has long passed, that makes Tolkien a proto-ecologist, at least on a practical and aesthetic level.

Tolkien struggled with the chronology of events, trying to make the Nazgul passing over them here the one that was headed to Edoras, tying them together by coincidence, but he could not make it work. Gollum particularly fears this appearance. Under the pressure of thinking that Sauron might be about to get the Ring, thus putting it beyond his reach forever, he is again turned to increased desperation about his Precious and towards his old wicked ways.

The Lord of the Rings: The Passage of the Marshes (Part Three)

The Tale

          In the shadows of evening, they go on. They take frequent rests while Gollum carefully finds the way. When it is dark, they come to the midst of the Dead Marshes. They walk carefully in line and the hobbits watch every move that Gollum makes. The fens grow wetter, and if the trio were not so light they might have sunk down forever.

It grows completely dark. The air seems thick. Sam starts to catch pale lights out of the corner of his eye, and at first he thinks that ‘his head was going queer.’ But they are there: wisps of pale sheen like misty flames flickering slowly above unseen candles or dimly shining smoke. They appear and go out and are replaced by others. At last Sam breaks down and asks Gollum, who are they? Are they trapped?

‘Yes, they are all around us,’ [Gollum] whispered. ‘The tricksy lights. Candles of corpses, yes, yes. Don’t you heed them! Don’t look! Don’t follow them! Where’s the master?’

Sam looks back and finds that Frodo has fallen behind. He goes back and finds Frodo looking at the lights, lost in thought. He urges his master on, relaying Gollum’s warning, and Frodo snaps out of it and follows. Turning back, Sam trips and falls and comes face to face in the dark water. There is a hiss, a smell, and the lights swirl. The water is like a grimy glass, and Sam sees something in it. He springs up with horror. ‘There are dead things, dead faces in the water!’ Gollum cackles. “The Dead Marshes, yes …You should not look in when the candles are lit.’

Sam turns to Frodo and asks what they could be. Frodo does not know. ‘But I have seen them too In the pools when the candles are lit. They lie in all the pools, pale faces, deep deep under the dark water. I saw them: grim faces and evil, and noble faces and sad. Many faces proud and fair, and weeds in their silver hair. But all foul, all rotting, all dead. A fell light is in them … I know not who they are, but I thought I saw there Men and Elves, and Orcs beside them.’

Gollum explains that there was a big battle here long ago (‘so they told him when Smeagol was young, when I was young before the Precious came’). The Marshes have come creeping over the years, covering the graves. Sam replies that was an age ago; the bodies cannot really be there. It must be some devilry hatched by Mordor. Who knows? says Gollum. But you can’t reach them or touch them; perhaps they are only shapes. He tried long ago. Sam shudders at the thought of the reasons the ever-hungry Gollum might have had to reach the corpses. ‘Can’t we get on and get away?’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Gollum. ‘But slowly, very slowly. Very carefully! Or hobbit down to join the Dead ones and light little candles. Follow Smeagol! Don’t look at the lights!’

Bits and Bobs

The ignis fatuus, or ‘foolish fire’ (so-called because of its erratic movement, or because only fools would follow it, or because it fools people) is a phenomenon storied in fable and lore, although we now know it as swamp or marsh gas, a mixture of methane and other gases that is caused by rotting vegetation that builds up and then escapes, the phosphine within it causing a transient glow.

But to people in folklore, it can be caused by fairies or ghosts, luring people into the depths of danger or marking where ancient crimes or treasures are buried. It has many names: will o’ the wisp, will-o-wisp, jack o’ lantern, friar’s lantern, hinkypunk, spook-lights, ghost-lights, orbs, and of course, corpse candle. And that is just part of a long list in English folklore; the occurrence has many names in many cultures. In my own native state of Texas, the so-called Marfa Lights, though believed by many to be UFOs, have been considered a species of ignis fatuus.

Sauron has the reputation in the Legendarium of being a master of phantoms and lying apparitions. It is by these means that he traps Gorlim into betraying Beren and his companions (in the first version of Lost Tales this was done by Morgoth). So, it seems likely that the appearance of the Dead in the Marshes was one of his works, both as a trap and a discouragement to stop anyone from crossing the area, but perhaps as a bit of propaganda to boot. You may be a valiant Man or Elf opposing Sauron, but the Dark Lord will reduce you to corpses under his sway, no better than if you had been the most obedient Orc. And like so many of Sauron’s ‘statements’, a lie. Their spirits had long passed beyond his grasp.

Tolkien is said to have probably based this passage partly on his experiences in World War One, when bloated unburied corpses could be seen rotting in pools formed by the shelling in No-man’s-land. The circumstances are well attested to in literature of the period.

The Lord of the Rings: The Passage of the Marshes (Part Two)

 

The Tale

When Sam wakes up, he realizes by the dimness in the sky that he has fallen asleep for at least nine hours, never waking Frodo for his watch, and with Gollum right by their side. But Gollum is nowhere to be seen. Sam starts calling himself a batch of reproachful names ‘drawn from the Gaffer’s large paternal word-hoard. But then he realizes Gollum has done them no harm.

‘Poor wretch!’ he said half remorsefully. ‘Now I wonder where he’s got to?’

‘Not far!’ Sam looks up and behind him and sees Gollum’s big head and ears against the evening sky. Sam’s suspicions come flooding back and he raises his voice, asking the gangrel creature what he is doing. He replies that Smeagol is hungry, but will be back soon, and leaves over Sam’s protests.

Frodo wakes at the sound, and Sam explains the situation. Frodo tells him not to worry. Gollum’s promise will hold a while yet, and anyway he won’t leave his precious. He makes light of the fact that they slept with a very hungry Gollum beside them all day; as it is, things all turned out well. Now they are both rested and ready for the hard road ahead.

Sam is also worried about the food. How long will this road take? He estimates that the lembas, if used sparingly, will only last three weeks. And what about the journey home?

‘Samwise Gamgee, my dear hobbit – indeed, Sam my dearest hobbit, friend of friends – I do not think we need give thought to what comes after that. To do the job, as you put it – what hope is there that we ever shall? And if we do, who knows what will come of that? If the One goes into the Fire, and we are at hand? I ask you, Sam, are we ever likely to need bread again? I think not. If we can nurse our limbs to bring us to Mount Doom, that is all that we can do. More than I can, I begin to feel.’

Sam nods silently at Frodo’s solemn words, and he takes Frodo’s hand, tears falling on it as he does. To cover his feelings he wipes his nose, gets up, and starts trying to whistle, saying now and then, ‘Where is that dratted creature?’

Gollum actually returns soon thereafter, fingers and face dirtied with mud, still chewing something, ‘Worms or beetles or something slimy out of holes,’ thought Sam. ‘Brr! The nasty creature; the poor wretch!’ Gollum washes up and then asks the hobbits if they are ready to go. They’ve slept well. ‘Trust Smeagol now?’

They travel down the gully for the rest of the night. It grows shallower and more earthy as it twists and wanders under cloudy skies. A thin grey light is the only indication of the new day as they reach the end of the water-course, which gurgles at last into a brown bog and is lost. ‘Dry reeds hissed and rattled though they could feel no wind.’

In front of them and on either side are fens and mores stretching south and east, mists curling and stinking like smoke on the air. Far away south they can see the Mountains of Mordor ‘like a black bar of rugged clouds’ on the horizon.

The hobbits are now totally in Gollum’s hands. Frodo asks him if they must cross these marshes, and Gollum tells them with grim humor that they could go back a little and then east, where there are many hard cold roads and plenty of Orcs who will be only too happy to take them straight to Him. That’s where Gollum himself was caught long ago. But he’s learned since then. Other ways, slower, not so quick, through the mists. ‘Follow Smeagol very carefully, and you may go a long way, before He catches you, yes perhaps.’

It is a windless and sullen morning, with overcast skies and marsh-reeks covering the fens. Gollum is anxious to continue their journey, so they off into the ‘shadowy, silent world.’ ‘They went slowly in single file: Gollum, Sam, Frodo.’

Frodo seems the weariest of the three, and the way is a maze of ‘pools, soft mires, and winding, half-strangled water-courses.’ But Gollum’s cunning finds them a way, crouching, sniffing, testing the path with fingers and toes, or listening with one ear to the ground. The way is dreary and tiring, still cold and clammy with winter, haunted with scum and dead grass and rotting reeds.

The day grows brighter with the rising sun and the mists thinner, but the sun gives no heat and shows no color. But Gollum scowls and flinches even at this pale hint. He halts them and they rest, crouching in the borders ‘of a great brown reed-thicket.’ There is no sound except the faint quiver of empty seedpods and broken grass-blades. Sam mourns, “Not a bird!’

‘No, no birds,' said Gollum. He licks his lips at the thought. Lots of snakes and worms and things in pools. But sadly, no birds. ‘Sam looked at him with distaste.’

Bits and Bobs

Long ago, when I still read Stephen King books, I noticed that he would reference something from The Lord of the Rings at least once in every book; it made a deep impression on him, it seems. I recall once (in a short story, I think) he says it would not appear to be improbable to see Frodo, Sam, and Gollum passing through the mist. There seems to be something primal to this image: I remember having a dream where I saw the three wearily passing through our neighbors the Coor’s yard. I don’t habitually dream things from Tolkien’s work.

Sam continues his developing ideas about Gollum. He seems to like him better when he’s not there, but his appearance snaps Sam back into his suspicions. In one sentence he calls Gollum a nasty creature and a poor wretch. And he is not best pleased when Gollum mentions eating ‘the nice birds’ that Sam only wishes to have around to cheer him up.

While Gollum’s diet does seem pretty nasty, it is necessary and no more ‘evil’ than soldiers having to scavenge off the land when they are cut off from supplies. He is proving to be resilient, resourceful, and crafty. Even Aragorn, ‘greatest tracker in the North’, only caught him by mere chance, and he is even warier than ever the nearer he is to Mordor.

The Lord of the Rings: The Passage of the Marshes (Part One)

 

The Tale

          ‘Gollum moved quickly, with his head and neck thrust forward, often using his hands as well as his feet.’ It’s hard for Frodo and Sam to keep up, but Gollum isn’t trying to escape anymore. He actually stops and waits for them. He takes them to a gully they passed by before, but here it’s a little lower, only about fifteen feet down. Gollum found it once when he was fleeing from Orcs.

He finds a way and leads them down. There is running water at the bottom, a little river flowing from the hills. He takes them southward, delighted to be splashing along the stony spring. He begins to croak a creepy little song, about how ‘The cold hard lands/ they bites our hands,/ they gnaws our feet.’ It turns into a tune praising water, and then into a riddle about fish. Baggins guessed it, long ago. ‘We only wish/ to catch a fish,/ so juicy-sweet!’

That only accentuates a worry Sam has been having: what will Gollum eat? He looks none too well-fed, and likely to try hobbit if he can’t find fish. But he won’t find Sam Gamgee napping.

They stumble tiredly along the gully for what seems a long time to the weary hobbits. The gully turned eastward and got shallower as they go. Finally, the sun starts to rise, and Gollum calls a halt. He won’t travel under its light, and they must hide. ‘Orcs and nasty things are about. They can see a long way.’

They settle down to camp on one of the large flat stones at the bottom of the gully, while Gollum scrabbles around in the stream. Frodo tells Gollum that he and Sam are going to eat a little. They don’t have much but they will share with him. ‘What is it they eats? Have they nice fishes?’

No, not fish, but he holds out some lembas. ‘Is it crunchable? Is it tasty?’ Gollum takes the wafer, showing disgust for the leaf wrapper; to him it stinks. But he breaks off a little corner of the bread and nibbles it.

Gollum spits it out and starts coughing at the taste. ‘Dust and ashes, he can’t eat that!’ Poor Smeagol must starve as he guides the hobbits as he promised. Frodo says the lembas would do him good if he tried, but perhaps in the condition he is in Gollum can’t even try yet.

The hobbits munch their lembas in silence; Sam thinks it tastes better than ever, somehow. ‘Gollum watched every morsel from hand to mouth, like an expectant dog by a diner’s chair.’ When the meal is over, he sits down a little way off and whimpers. Sam lowers his voice and tells Frodo they need to sleep a bit, but not both at the same time. Frodo tells him openly he thinks that there is no danger at the moment. Smeagol has changed, but how deep there is no telling. Sam can watch if he wishes while Frodo sleeps, but he must wake him up for his turn after two hours. He falls asleep almost instantly.

Gollum curls up and falls asleep as well, breath hissing softly through his clenched teeth. After a while Sam gets up and gently prods the sleeping creature. Sam whisper fissh into his ear, and when Gollum doesn’t even flinch, concludes that he must really be asleep. ‘And if I was like Gollum, he wouldn’t wake up never again.’

‘He restrained the thoughts of his sword and the rope that sprang to his mind, and went and sat down by his master.’

Bits and Bobs

There is an excellent recording of Tolkien reading Gollum’s little song in a hissing, creaking voice. The song is the extension of a riddle that Gollum told Bilbo in The Hobbit. There is a glint of malice in Gollum’s eyes as he recalls 'Baggins' and his losing of the Ring.

Gollum’s disgust with all things Elvish is further accentuated when he gives lembas a try. His long servitude to the evil of the Ring has left him no taste for anything as concentratedly wholesome, even spiritually nourishing, as the Elven-bread. Frodo thinks and hopes that if Gollum could ever bring himself to partake of it, it would help him, both physically and internally. But he perhaps is not ready to even want such a thing.

Gollum’s dog-like characteristics and his sufferings are once more alluded to, evoking our pity, if not Sam’s just yet. Sam instead has (suppressed) thoughts about murdering him. It is an understandable impulse, if uncharitable, and Sam is probably rational in his desire. However, it is his better nature that prevails, another step that leads to the eventual success of the quest.