The 'Lame' Sovereignty of Melkor and Man -- Disability and Power in 'The Children of Húrin'

Fingolfin's Challenge © John Howe 2003

Plutarch's Agesilaos tells the story of a power struggle for the throne of ancient Sparta. When Agis II died in 400, his younger brother, Agesilaos challenged the claim of Agis' son, Leotychides, on the grounds that he was illegitimate. It was objected that Agesilaos could not succeed his brother because he had a limp, and a prophecy warned that Sparta should beware lest 'lame kingship' (χωλὴ βασιλεία) harm the state, which till then had been 'sound of foot' (ἀρτίποδος; Ages. 3.3-4). By dint of superior cleverness -- and no doubt better politicking -- the cause of Ageslaos prevailed. The real 'lame kingship,' he argued, would result from an illegitimate heir taking the throne (Ages. 3.5).

Here we see the word χωλή (khōlé) employed as an insult both literally and metaphorically, to suggest that the person or thing so described is impaired and therefore inferior to the 'sound of foot.' 'Lame' in English is similar in its range and potential for giving offense. A brain or an idea can be as 'lame' as a leg. The simpler, physical meaning, even if never wholly free from negative connotations, gives rise to the metaphorical and is then eclipsed by it. Clearly this has been going on since at least the time of Homer, centuries before the events of which Plutarch speaks:

ἄσβεστος δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἐνῶρτο γέλως μακάρεσσι θεοῖσιν
ὡς ἴδον Ἥφαιστον διὰ δώματα ποιπνύοντα. 

(Iliad 1.599-600) 

Unquenchable laughter was roused in the blessed gods
When they saw Hephaistos bustling through the palace.

And why does the sight of Hephaistos bustling stir up such laughter, and why is it marked by the particle ἄρα, which signifies that their laughter is what was after all only to be expected? Because he is 'περικλυτὸς ἀμφιγυήεις / Ἥφαιστος', 'famous Hephaistos, lame in both feet' (Iliad 1.607-08).

Turning from Plutarch and Homer to Shakespeare, we see the magnificent villain, Richard III, revelling in and despising the stigma which his limp inflicts upon him (1.1.12-31). We can see it elsewhere, too, spread across his comedies, tragedies, and histories as well as the sonnets and other poems (see here). However much Tolkien may have preferred Old English and Old Norse, he was far from ignorant of Homer and Shakespeare; a knowledge of the history of the Greeks in the fifth and fourth centuries and a familiarity with the Lives of Plutarch would have also been normal for an educated man of his day (cf. C.S. Lewis, Letters, of 13 May 1917, 11 January 1939, 12 October 1940, 1 January 1949).

So, if an author like Tolkien introduces a character affected by a physical disability, the author may well be using that particular disability to suggest something. When that author introduces a second character with the same disability, it becomes difficult to claim that the author is not suggesting something. But when the author brings in a third such character in a pivotal role, we have only ourselves to blame if we fail to see that some point is being made. Thus we have The Children of Húrin, in which Tolkien gives us three characters who have a limp.

Early in the tale we meet Sador. Maimed by an accident while cutting wood, and thus unable to serve Húrin, his lord, as a fighting man, Sador works as a servant in his household, making and repairing things (40-41). Morwen and Húrin treat him with indulgence, though they believe he could spend his time better than he does (49-50, 72). Young Túrin, however, loves him and spends much time talking to him and learning things about life he has not learned from his parents. He affectionately calls Sador 'Labadal', that is, 'Hopafoot', which in his childlike way Túrin means as an endearment, and at which Sador takes no offense because he knows that it is meant 'in pity not scorn' (41). Yet Labadal is Túrin's first attempt at naming, the first of many he will make in his life, and it succeeds, to the extent that it does at all, only because Sador is wise enough not to take offense at its misapprehension of reality. 'Labadal' is the beginning of a series of names through which Túrin comes to challenge the world around him, culminating in Turambar, Master of Fate.

It is late in the tale, when Túrin comes to Brethil where he will give himself the last of his names, Turambar, the Master of Fate, that Brandir enters the story, the second of the limping characters in The Children of Húrin. Unlike Sador, Brandir's disability arises from 'a leg broken in a misadventure in childhood' (193), but it also unfitted him for war, especially since he was already 'gentle in mood'. Like Sador, Brandir has more interest in wood than metal (41, 72, 193), with which we may contrast the importance of metal, both practically and symbolically, in Túrin's life -- the knife which he gives Sador as a gift, the dragon-helm that declares his identity as rightful Lord of Dor-Lómin, and the black sword with which he kills Glaurung, Brandir, and himself. Unlike Sador, however, Brandir is the lord of his people, a people at war whom he cannot lead in battle, which is of course his role.

Both Sador and Brandir also have crucial roles to play with Túrin's sisters. It is to Sador that the young Túrin turns when his beloved sister, Lalaith (Laughter), dies in childhood as a result of a plague sent by Morgoth (40-44). It is from Sador that Túrin first learns about the inevitability of death as the fate of all Men. It is from Brandir, on the other hand, that he learns that 'the feet of his doom were overtaking him' in his tragic ignorant marriage to Níniel (Maid of Tears), his 'twice-beloved' sister (250-56). And just as he had called Sador 'Labadal' in love and pity, he now calls Brandir 'club-foot' and a 'limping evil' in wrath and scorn. And just as 'Hopafoot' had told him of all that Men could learn from the Elves, it is the elf Mablung who teaches him the truth of 'Club-foot's' words. From the bewept Laughter to the beloved Maid of Tears, from the dear Hopafoot to the despised Club-foot, from the lore Men can acquire from Elves to the lesson of doom that Mablung brings, these two characters and their lameness frame this tale, both narratively by appearing at its beginning and end, and tragically by their involvement in and commentary on the life not only of Túrin, but of Man overall.

With lameness so interwoven into Túrin's tragic tale, it is impossible not to think of Oedipus and his tragic tale, which of course Tolkien himself openly acknowledged as a source of 'elements' in The Children of Húrin's (Letters, no. 131). Dimitra Fimi, moreover, has analyzed these 'elements' in her excellent '"Wildman of the Woods": inscribing tragedy on the landscape of Middle-earth in The Children of Húrin', where she comments:

Túrin is not lame or maimed himself, but two important characters in his tale are so afflicted: Sador [...] for whom young Túrin feels pity; and Brandir [...] whose position Túrin usurps as an able-bodied warrior. In Oedipus' case lameness is a sign of his real identity, while Túrin's reaction to lameness shows his change from sensitive youth to rash warrior, who associates the wilderness with aggression in order to channel his dangerous wrath. 

(Fimi, 55)

While I wholly agree with Fimi about 'Túrin's reaction' -- indeed he had previously usurped the authority of Orodreth at Nargothrond, whose leadership is also weak and who could be seen as metaphorically lame when viewed alongside Brandir's (CoH 160-65, 171-76) -- I would argue that there is more to be said about lameness in The Children of Húrin. Indeed, as Fimi has shown, the correspondences between the two stories are extensive. For anyone familiar with Oedipus, that Túrin himself is not lame is immediately noticeable but not necessarily noteworthy. After all, as Tolkien also pointed out, Túrin owes 'elements' to Sigurd and Kullervo as well (Letters, no. 131). Yet the development of lameness as a metaphor through not two but three other characters who play important roles in Túrin's life indicates that Tolkien was after something bigger here. Considering the third of these characters will help us see what that is.

For Morgoth is the third character, whose malice towards Húrin and his family drives the tale as much as Túrin himself does. Curiously, slyly, Tolkien never openly says in The Children of Húrin that as a result of his duel with Fingolfin 'Morgoth went ever halt of one foot after that day, and the pain of his wounds could not be healed' (Silm. 154). He does, however, emphasize that 'Morgoth hated and feared the House of Fingolfin, because they had scorned him in Valinor and had the friendship of Ulmo his foe; and because of the wounds that Fingolfin gave him in battle' (CoH 60, italics mine). Note the construction of this sentence. Rather than say that he hated Fingolfin's house because of a, b, and c, which would be the common way of phrasing it, Tolkien says that he hated them because of a and b -- pause (thus, the semicolon) -- and because of c. He thus quite literally singles out the final reason and signals through the balance of the sentence that this reason is of special importance, perhaps even of equal importance. And of the eight wounds which Fingolfin inflicted on Morgoth, the only one specifically named is the last, the wound that maimed his foot.

Morgoth punishes Hurin © Ted Nasmith

So, we have seen how the lameness of Sador and Brandir is meaningfully interwoven with Túrin's misfortunes. How does Morgoth's matter? It undermines the claims to unrivaled position and power he makes in his verbal duel with Húrin, whom he can dominate and destroy, but never daunt (CoH 61-65). In this respect Húrin's encounter with Morgoth parallels Fingolfin's. They both defy, though in different ways, a power by whom they are outmatched. Yet their linked defiance refutes their defeat and marks the inner deficiency in Morgoth which his outer disability exemplifies. Their defeat may be inevitable, but so is his; and because he is cruel and cowardly and selfish, Morgoth's defeat is a refutation of all that he claims. In the end his shall prove to be a 'lame' sovereignty. For as Ilúvatar told him before the beginning:

'And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.'

(Silm. 17)

No matter Morgoth's boast to Húrin that he is 'the Master of the fates of Arda', he is not, no more than Túrin 'Turambar' is the 'Master of Doom' that he claims to be (CoH 65, 196, 218, 243-44). Their positions are analogous. Though each of them is powerful, neither one can finally prevail in thought or strength against one who is in turn mightier than he. The connections we see here between Morgoth and Túrin also call to mind another passage:

But Ilúvatar knew that Men, being set amid the turmoils of the powers of the world, would stray often, and would not use their gifts in harmony; and he said: ''These too in their time shall find that all that they do redounds at the end only to the glory of my work.' Yet the Elves believe that Men are often a grief to Manwë, who knows most of the mind of Ilúvatar; for it seems to the Elves that Men resemble Melkor most of all the Ainur, although he has ever feared and hated them, even those that served him. 

(Silm. 42)

© Alan Lee

There is more to be said here, I believe, more to be explored at length in greater detail, and I hope to turn to that before long. For now, however, it seems clear that the 'lameness' that surrounds Túrin and connects him and Men in general to Morgoth shows, directly in Morgoth and by reflection in Túrin, what Shakespeare might have called 'a will most incorrect to heaven' (Hamlet 1.2.101) and Homer, Sophocles, and Plutarch hybris. In such a case it is little wonder that, when Mablung arrives like the fateful messenger in Oedipus Tyrannos, and says to Túrin that the years 'have been heavy on you', he receives the reply (CoH 253):

'Heavy!' said Túrin. 'Yes, as the feet of Morgoth.'

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Works Consulted

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Sand of Pearls in Elvenland, or, Boethius on the Shore

The Shores of Valinor -- copyright Ted Nasmith

Being a lifelong lover of the Sea and the shore, I have always found Tolkien's evocation of the home of the Teleri beyond the Sea appealing. So the moment in The Silmarillion in which Finrod conjures this place in song, only to have it turned against him by Sauron in his song has always been for me, not surprisingly, one of great enchantment and dismay:

Backwards and forwards swayed their song.
Reeling and foundering, as ever more strong
The chanting swelled, Felagund fought,
And all the magic and might he brought
Of Elvenesse into his words.
Softly in the gloom they heard the birds
Singing afar in Nargothrond,
The sighing of the Sea beyond,
Beyond the western world, on sand,
On sand of pearls in Elvenland.
     Then the gloom gathered; darkness growing
In Valinor, the red blood flowing
Beside the Sea, where the Noldor slew
The Foamriders, and stealing drew
Their white ships with their white sails
From lamplit havens. The wind wails,
The wolf howls. The ravens flee.
The ice mutters in the mouths of the Sea.
The captives sad in Angband mourn.
Thunder rumbles, the fires burn --
And Finrod fell before the throne. 

                                                                 (Silm. 171)

In these lines the most striking have always been the turning point: 

The sighing of the Sea beyond,
Beyond the western world, on sand,
On sand of pearls on Elvenland. 

Then the gloom gathered; darkness growing
In Valinor, the red blood flowing
Beside the Sea...

The sound of the water sighing as it slides up the beach is one well known and well loved by me. And there's always this instant, this caesura if you will, when the water pauses ever so briefly as it reaches its highest point before slipping away down the slope.  The words 'on sand, / On sand of pearls in Elvenland' mark that instant of nature and peripety, both for the Sea as Finrod conjures it and for Finrod in his battle against Sauron. The cunning of Sauron turns the memory of Finrod against itself by recalling the Kinslaying.

It is a sweeping moment and the image of 'sand of pearls' is vivid and powerful not only in itself, but more importantly in its contrast to the gloom and 'red blood flowing' which is the next wave, as it were. The very images that Finrod conjures to combat the darkness themselves end in darkness. They do so now because they did so then. Paradoxically, Sauron is here the Undeceiver. He will not allow Finrod to see the pearls shining on the jeweled strand, but forget the blood which stains them. That it was the quest to regain other jewels that led to their staining only increases the irony, and the force of what may be an implicit lesson.

For in one of the poems in The Consolation of Philosophy Lady Philosophy bids all those taken prisoner by the desire to possess (libido) to come to her (Book 3, poem 10):

huc omnes pariter venite capti,
quos fallax ligat improbis catenis,
terrenas habitans libido mentes:
haec erit vobis requies laborum
05    hic portus placida manens quiete
hoc patens unum miseris asylum.
non quicquid Tagus aureis harenis
donat aut Hermus rutilante ripa
aut Indus calido propinquus orbi
10    candidis miscens virides lapillos*
inlustrent aciem magisque caecos
in suas condunt animos tenebras.
hoc, quicquid placet excitatque mentes,
infimis tellus aluit cavernis;
15    splendor quo regitur vigetque caelum**
vitat obscuras animae ruinas;
hanc quisqe poterit notare lucem
candidos Phoebi radios negabit.

Which I render:

Come here all you prisoners,
Whom deceitful lust, which dwells in earthbound minds,
Binds in chains of wickedness.
Here you will find rest from labors,
05   Here a haven waiting in gentle peace,
Here a single refuge open to all the wretched.
No gift which the Tagus bestows with its sands of gold,
Or the Hermus with its red-gold banks,
Or the Indus which, at the edge of the Torrid Zone,***
10  Mixes emeralds with shining white pearls --
None of these gifts could illuminate your vision rather than
fixing your blind minds in a darkness of their own.
Whatever pleases and stirs our minds,
This the earth nurtures in its deepest caverns;
15  But the splendor by which the heavens** are ruled and flourish
Shuns the dark ruins of our minds;
Whoever takes note of this light,
Will deny that Phoebus' rays shine bright. 

It is with the image of just such a haven (portus) or refuge (asylum) that Finrod, the exile and prisoner, seeks to combat the darkness in which he finds himself. But he is as deceived as those whom the brightness of jewels deludes. Their splendor does not illuminate the mind but darkens it, because they themselves come from the lowest deeps of the earth (line 14: infimis tellus aluit cavernis). Even the pearls found on the banks of the Indus at the far side of the world lead only to darkness, as Finrod, mutatis mutandis, finds to his cost. In the context of Finrod's tragic failure it is surely worth pointing out that of all the princes of the Noldor in exile he was the one who 'had brought more treasures out of Tirion' (Silm. 114). Wise and noble, kind and generous he may have been, but also not without fault.

The sand, the pearls, the water, the farthest shores of the inhabited world, the false promise of shiny things that offer neither refuge nor enlightenment, all find themselves transformed in Tolkien's hands from philosophy into the setting for tragedy. Through Fëanor's greedy love of the Silmarils and Morgoth's lust to possess them solely (Silm. 67, 69) -- or libido as Lady Philosophy would call it -- moral and physical darkness come first to Valinor, and then to Middle-earth.  Conversely, it is also not until Beren and Lúthien seek a silmaril out of love, not in order to possess it, but only to give it away, that it begins to become something whose splendor will bring hope to the world and illuminate, however briefly, even the oath-blind minds of the sons of Fëanor (Silm. 250).  And this, too, fits, because in an earlier poem, Lady Philosophy had pointed out that love (amor) binds (ligat) the world together properly (Book 2, poem 8.1-15), and that without love the very mechanism by which the world is moved would be destroyed (16-21). Moreover, she concludes (28-30) in words that line 15 of Book 3, poem 10 echoes:

O felix hominum genus,
Si vestros animos amor,
Quo caelum** regitur, regat. 

O fortunate human race,
If the love, by which the heavens** are ruled,
Also ruled your minds!

It is nothing new of course to note that Tolkien knew his Boethius, but he also seems to have drawn on him for one of his most vivid and exotic images in such away that it allowed him to give dramatic life to the ideas expressed by Lady Philosophy in her dialogue with Boethius.

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*  This line appears to be an allusion to Horace Serm. 1.2.80, where he refers to a woman 'inter niveos viridesque lapillos', that is, ‘amid her pearls and emeralds’. 'Niveos' -- 'white as snow' -- emphasizes the shining brightness of the color, just as 'candidis' does in Boethius. Roman politicians would wear a specially whitened toga, the toga candidata, to make themselves more visible. 

Given Tolkien's extensive reading in Classics, it is quite possible, even likely, that he will have read this satire of Horace, and so recognized Boethius' allusion.

** 'Caelum' is singular in Latin, but I have translated it as plural to avoid the suggestion that Boethius is talking about Heaven.

*** The Torrid Zone was the area nearest the equator which was commonly thought too hot to sustain life.

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Works Consulted

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My Bentley's Horace

From Terrible Beauty to Beacon of Hope -- The Silmarils from Fëanor to Eärendil

One of the most fascinating developments in Tolkien's legendarium is the changing role played by the Silmarils in the fates of Arda. In the First Age from the death of the Two Trees onward the Silmarils are almost exclusively a curse upon the Elves and their allies. The theft of the jewels, the murder of Finwë, the oath of Fëanor, the three kinslayings, the Doom of Mandos, and the suffering and death that end not even with the overthrow of Morgoth -- all of these the rising of Eärendil's star casts into stark relief.  That star of course is the Silmaril Beren and Lúthien set free from Morgoth, and not even the oath-sick sons of Fëanor fail to see it as a sign of hope:

Now when first Vingilot was set to sail in the seas of heaven, it rose unlooked for, glittering and bright; and the people of Middle-earth beheld it from afar and wondered, and they took it for a sign, and called it Gil-Estel, the Star of High Hope. And when this new star was seen at evening, Maedhros spoke to Maglor his brother, and he said: 'Surely that is a Silmaril that shines now in the West?' 

And Maglor answered: 'If it be truly the Silmaril which we saw cast into the sea that rises again by the power of the Valar, then let us be glad; for its glory is seen now by many, and is yet secure from all evil.' Then the Elves looked up, and despaired no longer; but Morgoth was filled with doubt. 

(Silm. 250)

This is the image of the Silmaril with which we are most familiar from The Lord of the Rings.  For in the Third Age the evils that once swirled around the Silmarils are long past, and the one remaining jewel is a sign of hope, even for the Elves who remember the sorrows of the First Age.

Far above the Ephel Dúath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master's, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo's side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep.

(RK 6.ii.922)

Though more than six thousand years separate them, both Maglor and Sam understand that this Silmaril is 'secure from evil' and 'far beyond [the Shadow's] reach.'  It is this removal that allows its transformation into so potent a symbol of hope, as the evils attendant upon the continuing attempts of the sons of Fëanor to fulfill their oath amply demonstrate.  Moreover, the loss of the other two Silmarils in the sea and the earth balance the elevation of the first into the heavens, an outcome which in its context has more than a hint about it of something that was meant to be: 'And thus it came to pass that the Silmarils found their long homes: one in the airs of heaven, and one in the fires of the heart of the world, and one in the deep waters' (Silm 254).

Tolkien's wording here is of interest, as it so often is.  He calls the sky, the earth, and the sea, the 'long homes' of the jewels. 'Homes' of course tell us that they belong there, but the phrase 'long homes' evokes an image of the grave: 'because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets' (Ecclesiastes 12:5 KJV). But this phrase, especially as Tolkien uses it in The Silmarillion, alludes not just to the grave, but to a home removed forever from the evils of this world in which 'all is vanity,' as the final, far more famous summation of Ecclesiastes 12 proclaims.

For the Silmarils were from their creation like the stars themselves -- 'even in the darkness of the deepest treasury the Silmarils of their own radiance shone like the stars of Varda' (Silm. 67) -- and 'Mandos foretold that the fates of Arda, earth, sea, and air, lay locked within them' (Silm. 67). Note the corresponding references to earth, sea, and air here and in the 'long homes' of the Silmarils quoted above. Indeed The Silmarillion even suggests that 'some shadow of foreknowledge came to [Fëanor] of the doom that drew near; and he pondered how the light of the Trees, the glory of the Blessed Realm, might be preserved imperishable' (Silm. 67).

Yet it is also true that no sooner were they made than they became objects of destructive interest. The heart of Fëanor, their maker, was 'fast bound' to them, and the terms in which he thought of them changed. What had been meant to preserve 'the glory of the Blessed Realm' now seems more about the glory of possession and the glory of Fëanor: 

for though at great feasts Fëanor would wear them, blazing on his brow, at other times they were guarded close, locked in the deep chambers of his hoard in Tirion. For Fëanor began to love the Silmarils with a greedy love, and grudged the sight of them to all save to his father and his seven sons; he seldom remembered now that the light within them was not his own.

(Silm. 69).

The reaction of Melkor to the Silmarils was not dissimilar. He lusted for them, 'and the very memory of their radiance was a gnawing fire in his heart' (67).  Just as he had once wished to possess the Light 'for himself alone' (31), and fell when he could not have it, so now, once he has succeeded in stealing them with Ungoliant's aid, he refuses to let her even see them, and 'name[s] them to [him]self for ever' (80). We need only recall that he, too, wore them, 'blazing on his brow', in the 'deep chambers' of Angband, which he never left but once before his final overthrow.  In Melkor's hands, as in Fëanor's, the situation of the Silmarils is precisely the opposite of what Sam and Maglor witness: the glory of the Silmarils is seen by only a few. Yet it is the evil of Fëanor's greedy love and Melkor's lust that make it possible for the Silmarils to become the greatest symbols of hope in Middle-earth. The evil is a felix culpa, through which Ilúvatar brings into being 'things more wonderful' and 'beauty not before conceived' (Silm. 17, 98).

Three passages, all of which recount similar moments, illuminate this transformation. In the first Fingon has come to Thangorodrim to rescue Maedhros.  Though the sight of Morgoth's realm leaves Fingon 'in despair', 'in defiance of the Orcs...he...sang a song of Valinor that the Noldor made of old' (Silm. 110). But Maedhros, whom Morgoth has hung from an inaccessible precipice far above, hears Fingon and sings back to him, revealing his location. Yet he remains in the grasp of evil beyond Fingon's reach. '[B]eing in anguish without hope' Maedhros asks Fingon to kill him with his bow; Fingon, 'seeing no better hope' prays to Manwë to guide his arrow. That Manwë responds by dispatching one of his eagles to help Fingon to rescue Maedhros -- though not without the sacrifice of his hand -- is inspiring and gratifying to reader and characters alike, but it also underscores the hopelessness of the Elves' unaided struggle to regain possession of the Silmarils. For the strength of Morgoth is such that 'no power of the Noldor would ever overthrow' it, as Fëanor himself saw 'with the foreknowledge of death' when he looked upon the towers of Thangorodrim (Silm. 107).

Ulmo's later words to Turgon, moreover, may be seen to offer commentary on the truth of this scene, if not on the scene itself. They allude to the lessons history offered -- the Silmarils, Fëanor's 'greedy love' for them, and the reckless, vengeful oath -- as well as prophesying that 'true hope' was something from beyond Middle-earth: 'love not too well the work of thy hands and the devices of thy heart; and remember that the true hope of the Noldor lieth in the West and cometh from the Sea' (Silm. 125). And, of course, the hope to which Ulmo alludes is the hope with which we began this essay, that embodied by Eärendil and his Silmaril.

In the second passage Beren lies imprisoned in Sauron's dungeon. Finrod has lost his contest of song against Sauron, and died saving Beren from a wolf.

In that hour Lúthien came, and standing upon the bridge that led to Sauron's isle she sang a song that no walls of stone could hinder. Beren heard, and he thought that he dreamed; for the stars shone above him, and in the trees nightingales were singing. And in answer he sang a song of challenge that he had made in praise of the Seven Stars, the Sickle of the Valar that Varda hung above the North as a sign for the fall of Morgoth. Then all strength left him and he fell down into darkness. 

But Lúthien heard his answering voice, and she sang then a song of greater power. The wolves howled, and the isle trembled.... 

(Silm. 174)

Finrod's defeat and death show once again that the solitary power of the Elves is insufficient to defeat the evil they face. Yet Sauron, who defeated Finrod by turning his song against him, does not contest the strength of Lúthien in songs of enchantment. Indeed the effect of her first song should remind us of Finrod's: hers leads Beren to see the stars shining and hear birds singing in the darkness of his prison cell, just as his conjured the sounds of birdsong in Nargothrond and of the sea sighing in Elvenhome (Silm. 171). Beren then defiantly sings a song of his own that invokes the promise of the Sickle of the Valar, a constellation set in the heavens by Varda as 'a sign of doom' for Morgoth (Silm. 48).  But Lúthien's second song shakes the entire island Sauron's tower stands upon. It also makes clear to Sauron that he is facing Lúthien, who is 'the daughter of Melian', and the power of whose song is famous, and he adopts a different strategy. Yet this also fails because Huan, the Hound of Valinor, is superior to all his strengths, whether gross or subtle (Silm. 175).  Sauron is vanquished and Lúthien's third song brings down the tower and sets Beren free. Almost every factor that gives hope against evil points beyond the sea to Valinor, to the Valar and Maiar rather than to the Elves.

But with Beren, the mortal, new elements are introduced.  For 'a great doom lay upon him' (Silm. 165), which leads him and Lúthien first to confront Sauron here and then Morgoth himself in Angband, where they win the Silmaril that their grand-daughter, Elwing gives to her husband, Eärendil. Until then, his attempts to reach Valinor to plead for help have been in vain, despite the fact he can speak for both Elves and Men, for those whose fate lies entirely within Arda and those whose fate lies beyond it. With it, he can pierce the veils that prevent anyone from reaching Valinor, to find that the Valar have been waiting for him. He is 'the looked for that cometh at unawares, the longed for that cometh beyond hope' (Silm. 248-49), to which Ulmo adds: 'for this he was born into the world' (249).

Just as Beren's doom allowed him to enter enchantment shrouded Doriath and then to achieve his quest to win a Silmaril, so Eärendil's fate drives him, by means of that same Silmaril, to reach hidden Valinor and achieve the hopes of Elves, Men, and Valar. Equally both of them must also pay a price: Beren loses his hand and his life, and Eärendil any possibility of ever returning to mortal lands. And the price they pay exceeds that which Maedhros paid because they are buying something far more precious, the hope that jealous possession of the Silmarils denies, whether it is moved by Melkor's lust or Fëanor's greedy love.

In the final passage Sam discovers the captive Frodo by singing in the tower of Cirith Ungol, just as Fingon had found Maedhros (RK 6.i.908-909). We have already seen this moment alluded to by Sam when a glimpse of Eärendil's star revealed to him that '[h]is song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself.'**  In this he was like Fingon at Thangorodrim, who sang in defiance of the orcs with no other purpose. Unlike Fingon, however, the song Sam sings is not one he knows of old or one that was written by another.  Rather 'words of his own came unbidden to fit the simple tune' (RK 6.1.908).  Yet, while Sam's defiant singing recalls Fingon's within the larger context of the legendarium, within the context of that part of the tale in which he finds himself his sudden inspiration recalls and contrasts his and Frodo's experiences crying out to Eärendil and Elbereth in their struggle against Shelob.

Frodo:

Seldom had he remembered it on the road, until they came to Morgul Vale, and never had he used it for fear of its revealing light. Aiya Eärendil Elenion Ancalima! he cried, and knew not what he had spoken; for it seemed that another voice spoke through his, clear, untroubled by the foul air of the pit.

(TT 4. ix.720)

and Sam:

Gilthoniel A Elbereth!

And then his tongue was loosed and his voice cried in a language which he did not know: 

A Elbereth Gilthoniel
o menel palan-diriel,
le nallon si di'nguruthos!
A tiro nin, Fanuilos!

(TT 4.x.729)

Sam's words and language in the tower are by contrast his own, and yet they come 'unbidden' by him. Given the inspired invocations of Elbereth and Eärendil we have just seen, some kind of external inspiration seems at work here, too. The light of the Silmaril, both in the star of Eärendil and captured in the phial of Galadriel, is indeed 'a light when all other lights go out'. It illuminates this part of Frodo and Sam's tale, from the moment on the stairs when they discuss the Tale of Beren and Lúthien and Sam makes the connection between it and the light of the star in the glass (TT 4.viii.712) until the moment when Sam sees the star itself (RK 6.ii.922). It repeatedly aids and inspires them to see beyond the darkness in which they find themselves otherwise nearly helpless. It is, as it were, a physical manifestation of that Power which speaks through them in a voice not their own and a language unknown to them, bringing them essential help from a world beyond their own.

The juxtaposition of the return of hope to Sam with his realization that his song had been defiance because 'then he was thinking of himself' (RK 6.ii.922) is also noteworthy. For it tells us something about the difference between the two in Tolkien's thought. Defiance, his explanation seems to say, thinks no farther than the self, but hope does. Which should perhaps remind us of Fëanor and his greedy, grudging 'love' of the Jewels: 'he seldom remembered now that the light within them was not his own' (Silm. 69). With Sam's epiphany in Mordor as he sees the star we may profitably compare the dying sight of Fëanor:

And looking out from the slopes of Ered Wethrin with his last sight he beheld far off the peaks of Thangorodrim, mightiest of the towers of Middle-earth, and knew with the foreknowledge of death that no power of the Noldor would ever overthrow them; but he cursed the name of Morgoth thrice, and laid it upon his sons to hold to their oath, and to avenge their father. 

(Silm. 107)

The Silmaril risen into the heavens reflects what Fëanor could have been, 'like' -- to borrow a phrase not without relevance -- 'a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can' (FR 2.i.223). A remark made by the narrator of The Silmarillion is also of the greatest significance here: 'it may be that [Fëanor's] after deeds would have been other than they were', had he agreed to unlock the Silmarils so that Yavanna might thereby resuscitate the Two Trees (Silm. 79). For Fëanor would have had to renounce selfish possession of the Jewels, abandoning his 'greedy love' of them for ever, for the good of others.  As a result, we might almost describe them with the words of Maglor upon seeing the star rise for the first time and recognizing it for what it must be: 'its glory is seen now by many, and is yet secure from all evil' (Silm. 250). The same, of course, could be argued for Morgoth.

As we saw above, Mandos had prophesied that 'the fates of Arda ... lay locked' within the Jewels. The plural points to multiple possibilities, to good as well as evil, and here we have seen that the Silmarils, possessed or lusted after, led both Elves and Valar on to evil, but, once removed, led on to hope and the promise of deliverance from an evil that is ultimately transitory. Ilúvatar has brought forth still greater wonders, transforming the beauty of the Silmarils, terrible in its consequences when viewed selfishly, into the single most outstanding symbol of hope in Middle-earth.

Moreover, given Tolkien's identification of his Eärendil with Earendel in the poem Christ, whom Anglo-Saxons identified with John the Baptist,*** we may also see Eärendil as one who 'prepares the way of the Lord', though at a far greater remove than John the Baptist or any prophetic figure of the Old Testament. The salvation that Eärendil makes possible because, having two natures, he can speak for both Elves and Men, is by no means the same as the redemption that Christ, with his two natures, can enact. But the two resonate with each other, and thereby Tolkien evokes the intervention of the One in the woes of this world, an intervention necessarily foreseen since Middle-earth is our world. 

** The citation of this passage at RK App. A 1035 n. 5 shows that the star Sam sees is in fact the star of Eärendil.

*** I refer of course to the famous lines 'Éala Éarendel,    engla beorhtast / ofer middangeard     monnum sended' (Christ 1.104-05). The Blicking Homilies refer to John the Baptist as 'se níwa éorendel', 'the new Earendel.' One wonders how much influence that word 'new' had on Tolkien's thinking. 

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Works Consulted

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Image source

The Dark Heart of the Smith Still Dwells in It (Silmarillion 201-02)

Fireball over Banff National Park, CA. Dec. 2014 © Brett Abernethy

[Melkor] began with the desire of Light, but when he could not possess it for himself alone, he descended through fire and wrath into a great burning, down into Darkness. And darkness he used most in his evil works upon Arda, and filled it with fear for all living things.

(Silmarillion 31)

With passages like this in mind, which recall for many of us the words of Isaiah 14:12 -- 'How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! -- it is easy to forget that Melkor was not the only thing that fell from the sky and which a dark heart made evil.

'I ask then for a sword of worth,' said Beleg; 'for the Orcs come now too thick and close for a bow only, and such blade as I have is no match for their armour.' 

'Choose from all that I have,' said Thingol, 'save only Aranrúth, my own.' 

Then Beleg chose Anglachel; and that was a sword of great worth, and it was so named because it was made of iron that fell from heaven as a blazing star; it would cleave all earth-delved iron. One other sword only in Middle-earth was like to it. That sword does not enter into this tale, though it was made of the same ore by the same smith; and that smith was Eöl the Dark Elf, who took Aredhel Turgon's sister to wife. He gave Anglachel to Thingol as fee, which he begrudged, for leave to dwell in Nan Elmoth; but its mate Anguirel he kept, until it was stolen from him by Maeglin, his son. 

But as Thingol turned the hilt of Anglachel towards Beleg, Melian looked at the blade; and she said: 'There is malice in this sword. The dark heart of the smith still dwells in it. It will not love the hand it serves; neither will it abide with you long.' 

'Nonetheless I will wield it while I may,' said Beleg.

(Silmarillion 201-02)

Most people these days think of objects as morally neutral, and even if we tend to regard specific weapons as evil, we do not regard them as possessed, as it were, by the malice of their makers.  But clearly Tolkien portrayed things differently.  The intention of the smith, of the maker, matters greatly, for good or for ill, as Gandalf makes clear:

 ... let all put doubt aside that this thing is indeed what the Wise have declared: the treasure of the Enemy, fraught with all his malice; and in it lies a great part of his strength of old. Out of the Black Years come the words that the Smiths of Eregion heard, and knew that they had been betrayed: 

     One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
     One Ring to bring them all and in the Darkness bind them.

(FR 2.ii.254)

Hellehinca, or Morgoth the Lame

Fingolfin's Challenge, © John Howe

Readers of The Silmarillion will recall Fingolfin's hopeless challenge of Morgoth to single combat in Of the Ruin of Beleriand and the Fall of Fingolfin (153-54), and how, beaten down at last, Fingolfin struck one final blow:

.... Therefore Morgoth came, climbing slowly from his subterranean throne, and the rumour of his feet was like thunder underground. And he issued forth clad in black armour; and he stood before the King like a tower, ironcrowned, and his vast shield, sable on-blazoned, cast a shadow over him like a stormcloud. But Fingolfin gleamed beneath it as a star; for his mail was overlaid with silver, and his blue shield was set with crystals; and he drew his sword Ringil, that glittered like ice. 

Then Morgoth hurled aloft Grond, the Hammer of the Underworld, and swung it down like a bolt of thunder. But Fingolfin sprang aside, and Grond rent a mighty pit in the earth, whence smoke and fire darted. Many times Morgoth essayed to smite him, and each time Fingolfin leaped away, as a lightning shoots from under a dark cloud; and he wounded Morgoth with seven wounds, and seven times Morgoth gave a cry of anguish, whereat the hosts of Angband fell upon their faces in dismay, and the cries echoed in the Northlands.  

But at the last the King grew weary, and Morgoth bore down his shield upon him. Thrice he was crushed to his knees, and thrice arose again and bore up his broken shield and stricken helm. But the earth was all rent and pitted about him, and he stumbled and fell backward before the feet of Morgoth; and Morgoth set his left foot upon his neck, and the weight of it was like a fallen hill. Yet with his last and desperate stroke Fingolfin hewed the foot with Ringil, and the blood gashed forth black and smoking and filled the pits of Grond. 

Thus died Fingolfin, High King of the Noldor, most proud and valiant of the Elven-kings of old .... Morgoth went ever halt of one foot after that day, and the pain of his wounds could not be healed.... 

(Silmarillion 153-54)

Now the first time I ever read this I was reminded of the Greek God, Hephaestus, who was lame because Zeus had hurled him down from Olympus. But, though Hephaestus also had a hammer, he was in no way evil. Of course the Vala he most closely resembles is Aulë, who was like him a smith. And yet the image of Hephaestus cast down from heaven still made me think of the fall of Lucifer as in Milton, or Isaiah 14:12:

'How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!'

Then this morning I was looking up something else in Bosworth-Toller and spied an entry for hellehinca, which it defines as 'the hell-limper, -hobbler, the devil lamed by his fall from heaven.' Which made me think of Morgoth once more. So I looked up the passage cited for the word, and found more interesting words:

Þa for þære dugoðe     deoful ætywde,
wann ond wliteleas,     hæfde weriges hiw.
Ongan þa meldigan     morþres brytta,
hellehinca,     þone halgan wer
wiðerhycgende,     ond þæt word gecwæð

Andreas 1168-72

Then before that band the devil appeared,
Black and unlovely, he had the look of a monster.
He then began, the prince of murder,
The hell-lame, to accuse this holy man,
With evil intent, and said these words...

The word weriges in line 1169, which I have translated 'monster,' comes, not from werig -- 'weary' -- as I thought at first glance, but from wearg/h -- 'a monster, a malignant being, an evil spirit.' In line 1170 I have rendered morþres as 'murder,' but it comes from morþor, which can also be more abstract -- 'mortal sin, great wickedness, torment' etc.

Morþor is of course the source of Mordor, and wearg of warg, which is nothing new to say. What is intriguing, however, is that hellehinca is quite a rare word (only one citation in Bosworth-Toller), and it records an equally unusual attribute of the devil, both of these in close proximity to words of significance for Tolkien. So it may be that this is the origin of Morgoth's limp,