In the next two Chapters, we first reach the battle accompanied by the Rohirrim, and then fight it from beginning to end: a full battle, the largest-scale one in LOTR. And there are lots of themes of that battle: the Homeric hero-vs-hero quality of much of the battle, the coming together again of all the Stones Cast Outward in the nick of time, and of course the strange occurrence of the wind from the Sea in the night, which I interpret (having read The Fall of Gondolin) as the intervention of Ulmo yet again against the powers of evil. But instead of examining all these things, I want instead – yet again – to talk about horns.
This time, it’s about horns and the military.
In past pieces, I have talked about horns and hunting. But horns and trumpets and the like have a separate and distinct history with armies. The LOTR uses of the horn may reference its use by the Vikings to announce the onset of battle and rally troops, but there are a wide array of other uses: the shofar in the Bible, the tuba/cornu/buccina to send signals in Roman battles (and to regulate activities in camp), as well as Egyptian ones, to name but a few. When we extend the definition to include bugles and other trumpet-like instruments, we see their use in both battle and camp at least until the American Civil War. The Civil-War use of the bugle in much the same way as the Romans used their horns was the invention of Dan Butterfield, a Union general who as I understand it created the wake-up call and Taps, staples of military life and of American culture ever since.
Of more importance here, I think, is the long-term reaction to the horns. Pippin “never could hear a horn in the distance in after years without tears coming to his eyes.” Merry also associates a horn with battle and profound feelings, as when he says in the Shire that he is “going to sound the horn of Rohan and give them some music they have never heard before” – a music so compelling that Sam almost turned back to follow it. The horn of Boromir and its last call for aid during his final battle echo down even to Faramir, magically.
Because that, I think, is one of the things that is going on in these two Chapters. Horns not only serve their purposes in the immediate battle; they also echo down in the memory of the participants. And, like the Horns of Elfland, blowing, blowing, they make these memories magical. They imbue the memories of the battle with a sense of heroism and camaraderie to counter the awful memories of death, agony, and disfigurement. Lays by minstrels, solemn burial ceremonies, may serve to console the survivors, but they do not apply healing power to the actual stress of combat.
How might such a thing, horns as healing, work? Here is a fragment from a war memoir of the Civil War, done from memory: “And who can say that it will not be given to us to do it again? To rise from the grave … go into battle … and at the end, all will join, fallen and living alike, and say, was it not real? Was it not as in the old days?” This is taken from the end of Bruce Catton’s Never Call Retreat (I think the title is from a version of Battle Hymn of the Republic referring to the “trumpet that shall never sound retreat”), and his point in citing it was that this Civil War was unlike other civil wars in that the problem did not go smoldering on into the future, but ended up in a glamor of memory shared by both sides. But I think there’s another aspect to it. One would expect that such a horrendous conflict would result in an enormous amount of PTSD and the like, and indeed, the figure of the alcoholic former soldier was quite common after the war. But the periodic reunions of veterans, North and South together, resulted, I think, in many veterans avoiding or partially healing PTSD, by giving the memories a kind of magic – a magical memory triggered by the bugles of battle, calling, calling.
And so, I suspect that a similar thing may be operating in these two Chapters. That the survivors of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields will over time remember the fallen and the agony of battle with the sound of horns in their ears, while the bitterness of its horror and loss fade. They will remember the horns echoing from Mount Mindolluin in the morning. Remember the horns summoning the endless Orc legions. Remember the horns of the Rohirrim against the horns of the Haradrim.
But even if this is not true at all for the survivors, as it well may be, it certainly can be true for us. We can read of the death of too many of whom we tragically never got to know well, like Halbarad and Grimbold, and of the agony of an Eowyn or a Merry, and mourn their sorrows, and yet … and yet …
Who can say whether on some future day in early spring, in the very dawn of the morning, their ghosts will not arise again, to the sound of horns blowing? The ghosts of Halbarad, and Grimbold, of Eowyn and Merry, of Theoden King and the king of the Haradhrim, of Aragorn and Gimli and Legolas, perhaps even of the Lord of the Ringwraiths himself? And the horns will sound, and again the combat will recommence, and play out as before, and at the very end of the day, in the sunset hour, a last horn will signal the end, and fallen and living will meet together, and laugh, and say to each other, was it not real? Was it not as in the old days?
I find that thought somehow profoundly comforting. I find that thought somehow healing some of the sadness I feel thinking of all the fair things that have passed away in Middle Earth. I hear the horns of healing.
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
- Part XXIII. Theoden’s Law
- Part XXIV. Helm’s Deep, Zangra, and A Life Worthy of Song
- Part XXV. Book of Marvels, Book of Friendship
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