Fragments of the Secret History of Khamul, Sorceror, Ringwraith, King

Provenance: Several scraps of tattered and burnt vellum, discovered on the northwestern slopes of Amon Amarth ('Mount Doom') among the bones of a fell beast in the fourteenth year of Eldarion  Telcontar, son of Elessar. Long held to be bits of the creature's skin, they were subsequently identified as orc-hide, probably from one of the smaller, older breeds commonly referred to in some texts as 'goblins'.

King's Writer, Finduilas, daughter of Findegil, devoted many years of study to the translation and ordering of the faded texts. The commentary below is also hers.

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Being uncertain that the old half-deaf halfling, who stank of cabbages and potatoes,* had even understood my questions, I returned the next morning. 'Knock thou gently, knock thou slowly,' W-K had said, 'We don't want to attract too much attention. Save your Black Breath, and no "Open in the Name of Mordor."** I don't care how much fun it is. There'll be time for that later.' 

No sooner had I touched the door of Baggins' home than it swung open. A female, so old and mean looking I almost offered her a job, stared up at me with the most delightful venom in her eye.  

'Who are you?' she spat out. 'What do you want here?' It's mine, I tell you, all mine, my precious -- Bag End is mine.'***

'Charmed to meet you, madam,' I hissed. (I really was quite taken with her. Perhaps halflings weren't half useless after all.). 'My name is Khamûl ...' 

'Are you deaf? Go on with you! Get away from my door! There's no admittance. Now Good morning to you!' she shrieked. 

The whole while she was hitting me with her umbrella.***

I must confess, it had been so long since I felt my heart beat that I almost didn't recognize it when it did.  

Then I smelled it, or rather, her. She smelled like she had bathed in some infusion of flowers that had been steeping since the deeps of time. I sneezed. I couldn't stop myself. I didn't know what to do. I hadn't sneezed in over 4,000 years. My nose began running like an arterial hemorrhage. I fell back to my horse at the end of the lane. I couldn't stop sniffling for days.****

*old ... cabbages and potatoes -- This is surely Hamfast 'the Gaffer' Gamgee, father of Master Samwise, and grandfather of Elanor, Handmaid to Queen Arwen. The Red Book twice notes his conversation with a Black Rider the night Frodo Baggins, Peregrin Took, and Samwise Gamgee departed for Buckland. It also records his fondness for cabbages as well as potatoes ('the Gaffer's delight').

**Open ... Mordor -- The presence of this phrase here strongly suggests that it was Khamûl --  the only Ringwraith whose name is known, except Gothmog, the lieutenant of Morgul (see below) --  who broke open the door at Crickhollow.

***Bag End is mine -- These words and the reference to her umbrella below together indicate that Khamûl has come face to face with Lobelia Sackville-Baggins (née Bracegirdle), who purchased Bag End from Frodo Baggins in T.A. 3018 and later became a formidable leader in the resistance against Saruman. If Lobelia's words to Khamûl sound familiar, it has been suggested in some quarters that the portrayal of Gollum's obsession with the Ring is modeled on Lobelia's with Bag End.

****sniffling -- thus calling into question the Red Book's interpretation of Khamûl's smelling and its  significance.

uh oh, smells like elves!

After much debate between Finduilas and the sisters of King Eldarion, Finduilas persuaded them that Khamûl here refers to the arrival of Gildor Inglorion and his troop. 

Let the little people blow!

Confirms the accuracy of the otherwise inexplicable inclusion of the words of a Black Rider to himself or his fellow wraiths. Previously it had been thought that one of the guards at the gate of Buckland heard this before he was ridden down. 

He said the word!

Probably 'Elbereth'.

Which I told him prophecies are tricky things, but did he listen? No, mate, he did not. He just went on about the Houses of Lamentation again, like always. Been there. Done That. Got the gold ring. Serves him right for appointing Gothmog his second in command. Gothmog! Almost fell off his horse when we chased that elvish nag to the ford, he did, and then had his fell beast shot out from under him! 

This clearly establishes once and for all that Gothmog was a man and a Ringwraith, never an orc, though some inferior bards have sought to depict him as such.

Frodo's terror and grief

Here's a small piece of a much larger project I've been working on over the last few months. I have no idea when the whole will see the light of day, so I may post small excerpts here from time to time in case folks are interested and since I miss posting regularly.

Yet Frodo does not witness Boromir’s moment of recognition and repentance. Shaken by ‘terror and grief’ Frodo has put on the Ring and fled (FR 2.x.400). It may not be the horror and pity that moved Bilbo, but it is closer to those feelings than he has come before. Seeing the effects of the Ring on a comrade and a friend (TT 4.v.664) – and as we know Frodo has long feared for those he calls his friends on this ‘adventure’ of his – he now grieves for one whom he believes 'has fallen into evil’ (FR 2.x.401). His terror is natural, just as it had been in the Barrow, but the grief he feels here is as important as the courage he found there, and is as important for Frodo as the pity Bilbo felt for Gollum was for Bilbo. For the pity and the grief transcend the horror and the terror. Frodo grieves for someone whom he has run away from in fear of his life. Here is a Frodo very different from the one who sat in Bag End the previous spring judging Gollum worthy of death, reproving Gandalf because he and the elves of Mirkwood had let him live, and yielding the point with only a poor grace. Now, in terror of a present and immediate threat, he shows how he has grown beyond the hobbit who pronounced summary judgements on a potential threat he had never seen.

Two Brief Observations on Galadriel

It is curious that Galadriel uses her mirror to test the only two members of the Company who will ever bear the Ring. Does this fall under her knowing ‘in part what also shall be’ (FR 2.vii.357)?

At the Ford of Bruinen Frodo defies the Ringwraiths' demand for the Ring, and attempts to command them to '[g]o back to the Land of Mordor, and follow me no more!' (FR 1.xii.215). In response they laugh at him and tell him that they will take him to Mordor. In The Mirror of Galadriel Frodo offers to give Galadriel the Ring. In response she, too, laughs, but clearly at herself and her situation, and tells him that it is time for him to leave Lothlórien (FR 1.vii.365-366).

Penumbra: "Dispute it like a man."

MALCOLM: Dispute it like a man.

MACDUFF: I shall do so;
But I must also feel it as a man:
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me. 

Macbeth Act 4 Scene 3

I love how people to tell you to let things go, as if there were something wrong with you for being unhappy that you have been wronged. Or as if there were a switch installed somewhere (they never told you about) that triggered some ejection seat of grief and pain.

We must let things go. Of course we must. But to pretend they are gone, that they have been let go, before they have been fully felt, fully grieved, is a dangerous road to walk. Worse than deceiving others, it is deceiving ourselves. Wound? What wound?

When my mother died I was married and living in California. My wife neither said nor did anything to indicate that she was coming with me. She didn't start packing a bag, didn't say "let's go." When I got on the phone with the airline I looked at her with a questioning look, she turned away. I was actually in the car backing out of the driveway when she asked if I wanted her to come. Too late.

Before I had even returned from New York, she called me to tell me that her uncle was coming to town and wanted to know whether he could stay with us for a few days right after I got back. I couldn't believe she was even asking me to entertain people the moment I got back from my mother's funeral. I was stunned. In the moment I could either explode or say 'yeah, sure.' So that's what I said.

When I returned she never once asked me how I was doing, until after a month or so I was so hurt and angry because of this that I pointed out, not gently, how much this wounded me. After that she asked me how I was, dutifully and expressionlessly, every night. I was less than convinced that she cared what the answer was.

Though I didn't leave for another year, that was probably the end. Relationships you've invested a lot of yourself in are hard to leave even when they are painful.

I was no saint. She was no devil. Who would believe that anyway? Though she badly wronged me here, I had wronged her too at times, and made our situation worse. There were enough mistakes to go around, and more than enough pain. When I finally did leave, I think I wept the entire first 1,000 miles of my drive. It sure seems that way.

It took me years to feel my way through all of it, but tears were the way to start. Fortunately there was no one in the car with me to try to shame me for feeling this pain, to tell me to let it go or to dispute it like a man.

Idiotic Book Blurbs

Writing blurbs for the covers of books reached Pythonesque heights of self-parody years ago, so to laugh at their idiocy is nothing new. Which doesn't mean it's not worth doing.

Here's one that merits ridicule as hyperbolic as itself:

----------- --------- writes with the unflinching, cumulatively devastating precision of Chekhov and Munro, peeling back layer after layer of illusion until we're left with the truth of ourselves. Practically every line is a revelation of language, of character, of experience; ------'s lyricism stalks our hearts like a gorgeous assassin.

In the first sentence we have the obligatory, tedious comparison to authors whom a duration of time longer than fifteen minutes has proved to be true masters of the short story. Then there's the cliche promise of illusions giving way to something as residually profound as 'the truth of ourselves.' More offensive, however, is the juxtaposition of the exponentially cliche 'peeling back layer after layer', suggesting subtraction, with 'cumulatively', suggesting addition. More is less, I can only conclude.

The first part of the second sentence would actually be quite fine, if the author had experienced a revelation about writing instead of using revelation in an attempt to bear witness to the perception of new truths. The final three clauses use both anaphora and asyndeton to good effect, with each noun one syllable longer than the one before it. Yet recovering this gem is rather like recovering illegal diamonds that a mule has swallowed. And the preposterous simile of the second part of the second sentence steals back with both hands the bounty the first half has given. 

It's even sadder of course that none of it's true.