And now we come to the Battle of Helm’s Deep.
Tolkien’s depictions of war, battles, and fights have tended to be divided into two categories: (1) those that might possibly be based to some extent on his WW I experiences, and (2) those that don’t. In this, the first of his two sweeping large-battle scenes, the similarities to WW I are hard to come by. It is a siege, not trench warfare. The noise level, so crucial to WW I personal experience and resulting afterwards in “shell shock”, is not really in evidence in this battle. While the camaraderie of the fighters may be similar to WW I, at least on the part of the defenders, the death toll (that is, the fact that it appears the defenders’ death toll is light, as compared to most WW I fights), and the psychological effect of all those deaths, does not seem the same. Homeric, Germanic/Saxon, heroic – whatever adjective you choose, this Battle seems to resonate more with myth than with modern reality.
But what does strike me about Tolkien’s description of this Battle, and of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields to follow, is how much attention Tolkien pays to the weather, and the state of the sky. The humid afternoon, echoing the tension of Men before battle. The gathering storm, that breaks in darkness as the enemy surges, giving lightning that acts like flares showing their onset. The grim darkness of the late night watches, below pale stars and a setting moon, under which a grim stalemated struggle rages. The pause before the final onslaught, under a paling sky just before dawn. The flare of sunlight as the Riders drive their foes before them, halting before the Deeping-Coomb. The darkness under the trees that waits hungrily for the defeated, for revenge. Nature does not show up until the end – but it is Nature deferred, not Nature denied. And in the meanwhile, the sky reminds us of the resonance of Nature with the tides of battle.
And then, of course, there is the strangely humorous reaction of Gimli and Legolas, finding joy in the oddest of places. A killing contest. With ever-mounting claims of totals, and much posturing. Boys just wanna have fun. And they’ll have fun, fun, fun, ‘til old Gandalf takes their enemies away, now. A hot-rod contest between Gimli and Legolas? Pay to see it, I would.
But now, while the desires of some readers for sufficient action are sated for the moment, I’d like to consider one small segment of the story: Theoden in the Hornburg. Consider it Theoden’s “dark night of the soul.”
He has started the day with a flare of hope, and a resurgence of strength. It has lasted until the events of the day have driven him here, inside the Citadel of the Hornburg, a place probably dimly lit by torches and otherwise cut off from the sky and the outside world – seemingly a place very like the Hall where he has spent much of his life, getting more and more depressed and shorter and shorter of days. And there he waits. And waits. And waits.
And while he waits, he may find himself increasingly concerned. Increasingly depressed. Increasingly wondering if Gandalf’s counsel is right or if he has not exchanged one badger trap for another. And he may echo the sentiments of Zangra in Jacques Brel’s song of that name (my own translation, with help from Rod McKuen):
My name is Lieutenant Zangra
At the Belonzio fort that dominates the plain
One day the enemy will come and make me a hero
…
My name is Captain Zangra
At the fort of Belonzio that dominates the plain
One day the enemy will come and make me a hero
…
My name is Commandant Zangra, now tired,
At the fort of Belonzio that dominates the plain
But one day the enemy will come and make me a hero
…
My name is Zangra; I’m an old Colonel now
At the fort of Belonzio that overlooks the plain
Yet still I hope one day the enemy will come and make me a hero
…
My name is Zangra, yesterday a General.
I have left Belonzio. The enemy is THERE.
I will never be a hero.
And Theoden may wrestle with these thoughts, may wrestle with these questions about the meaning of his life, throughout a long, dark night of the soul.
And what is Theoden’s answer? How does he wish to end his life, if end it he must? “[To] make such an end as may be worth a song.” A song.
What does Odin say on the matter? In the Poetic Eddas: “Cattle die, kinsmen die, the self itself must also die./One thing I know that never dies: the fame of each man dead.” Only in this way may I, Theoden, live on. In song.
What does reputation do for a dead man? Nothing. But to Theoden, his worthiness to be worth a song may be the whole point. It seems to fulfil, for him, the meaning of his life, his yearning (as he says at the Battle of The Pelennor Fields) to be worthy of the deeds and resultant fame of his ancestors, even if, as he notes now, none “be left to sing of us hereafter.” And at dawn? “On such a day as this,” says Thorfinn in Dorothy Dunnett’s King Hereafter as the longships land in early morning on a sea of hammered brass for a desperate fight, “it would not be a hardship to die.” To die worthy of a bard’s song.
And so he rides forth from the Hornburg, with doubts put aside as unimportant things in balance with this life, this death, and finds instead a new world. A world of talking trees. Of hobbits from the fairy tales of his childhood. A world in which he can be a father again, and a child again. For one last time.
But that is a story for next time.
Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Like You’ve Never Heard It:
- The First of a Series of Ramblings About JRR Tolkien
- Part II. Pre-Psychology Writing, Poetry, and a New Hero
- Part III. Torture, Enlightenment
- Part IV. Weather, Mushrooms, Leaders
- Part V. In the Moment, Sam the Obscure
- Part VI. Folk Songs, Master, First, Fair
- Part VII. Hiking, Curses, Noble Language
- Part VIII. The Hiker’s Extrasensory Writing
- Part IX. Torture, Elves, Endings
- Part X. Your Highness
- Part XI. Business Meetings, Dwarves
- Part XII. Horns of Wild Memory
- Part XIII. Ecstasies of the Dwarves
- Part XIV. Valaraukar, the Third Touch of God
- Part XV. Memory, Nature, Passion
- Part XVI. The Gift of Enchantment
- Part XVII. Frontier Maturity
- Part XVIII. Pity, Decisions, Endings
- Part XIX. Into the Shadow, Kings, Names, Winds
- Part XX. People of the Morning, Child Soldiers
- Part XXI. Herdsmen and High Trees
- Part XXII. The Faith of God
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