BIBLICAL PARALLELS TO MIDDLE-EARTH XIII. SECRETS OF THE RINGS

(SPOILER ALERT! This blog summarizes the chapter "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age" from The Silmarillion.)

The Story

When Morgoth was cast into the outer darkness, Sauron came before Manwe's herald and asked him for pardon. He told Sauron that to get pardon he must come to Valinor and stand before Manwe in judgment. Although Sauron might have wished to return to the light, he was unwilling to do so at the cost of a possible imprisonment and servitude like that which his master had endured. Thus, Sauron left the Valar's presence and hid himself in Middle-Earth.

There he came to hate the Elves who had stayed east of the sea and the men of Numenor who were coming back to Middle-Earth's shores. Hungering for power over both peoples, he sought it through deception. Men, Sauron, still beautiful and fair spoken, could readily deceive. The Elves, though, were a challenge to him.

To deceive the Elves, Sauron took a disguise as a wandering wise man calling himself Annatar, "Lord of Gifts." In this disguise he came to Middle-Earth's eastern shores, where Gil-Galad, King of the Elves, and his herald, Elrond, ruled a still mighty people. Sauron taught them many deep things and promised to make Middle-Earth as fair as Valinor, but they mistrusted him, for they could not tell what he was.

Sauron, in his disguise as Annatar, though, at first had success with the Deep Elves who had moved to the Misty Mountains and the forests east of them. Celebrimbor, Feanor's grandson, and Galadriel, Feanor's niece, helped Sauron in his work of making rings of power. With these the Elves hoped to gain power over nature to make their realms of exile beautiful and glorious.

Sauron guided the Elves in the making of the rings, but in secret, in the magma chamber of Mount Doom in the land of Mordor, he forged a secret ring. Into this he put most of his own power so that with this One Ring he could rule all of the other rings. While he wore the One Ring, he could see all that anyone else wearing a ring of power could see, and he could warp the wearers of other rings to his will.

As soon as Sauron put on the One Ring, Celebrimbor and Galadriel were aware of his deception. While Sauron had been making the One Ring, Celebrimbor had been making three last rings that Sauron had never touched. These three Elven Rings, red Narya, white Nenya, and blue Vilya, had the power to keep all things unchanged. These rings, Celebrimbor hid among the Elves. The white ring came to Galadriel, who kept it in Lothlorien till Frodo's time.

With the power of the One Ring, Sauron learned of Celebrimbor's hiding the rings. Sauron came against the Elves in war to recover the rings. He destroyed the fair Elven kingdom that once stood by the gates of Moria, and, although he did not get hold of the three Elven Rings, he recovered many of the others. Celebrimbor was killed, but his ring, blue Vilya, and many of his people came to the hidden valley of Rivendell, where they took Elrond as lord.

With the rings that he had recovered, Sauron tried to enslave Middle-Earth's other peoples. Seven rings he gave to the lords of the seven houses of the Dwarves. They took the rings and used them to found hoards of cursed gold, but the Dwarves were never willing to obey Sauron. In the end he send Orcs and Dragons against the Dwarves, and they lost all of their rings.

With Men, Sauron had his greatest success. He gave nine rings to nine powerful kings, whom he seduced with the promise of immortality and sorcerous might. These, the kings got, at the price of becoming Sauron's slaves. While they wore the rings, the kings could walk about, invisible to all eyes except those that could see the Unseen World. In time, the kings faded, becoming entirely creatures of that world. As such they became shapes of great terror known as the Nazgul, the Ringwraiths.

With the One and the Nine, Sauron gained dominion over Middle-Earth. Most of it he cast into Shadow, where he ruled as a god of darkness. Against him held out only a few free realms: the Kingdom of the Woodland Elves, Lothlorien, Rivendell, the Grey Havens, the Dwarvish kingdoms, and the coastal cities of the Numenoreans. All of these were realms under siege.

Sauron might have ruled Middle-Earth forever were it not for the Numenoreans. Their greatest king, Ar-Pharazon, came to Middle-Earth with a mighty fleet to challenge Sauron's power. Seeing that he could not win by war, Sauron set aside the One Ring and came to Numenor as Ar-Pharazon's prisoner. There, as it has been told, Sauron deceived the Numenoreans into making war on the Valar. Numenor was destroyed, and Sauron fell into the abyss at the sea's bottom.

Out of the sea from Numenor came Elendil, the Elf-friend, and his sons, Isildur and Anarion. Elendil and Anarion settled in the south and founded a realm in exile called Gondor. Isildur settled in the north and founded a realm called Arnor. With them from Numenor the exiles had brought a white tree, the scion of one that bloomed in Valinor, and seven Seeing Stones, the Palantiri, which the Elves of Valinor had given them as gifts.

In time Sauron rose from the abyss and returned to Mordor, where he resumed the One Ring. Now, though, he could no longer appear to Men and Elves as a figure of light, but only as one of terror. He awoke Mount Doom to life and prepared to go to war again against Elves and Men. He destroyed Minas Ithil, the Tower of the Moon, built in the Mountains of Shadow west of Mordor, and destroyed the White Tree. Isildur, though, escaped with a seedling of it, and his father and brother sought help to save their realm.

They forged the Last Alliance, in which Gil-Galad's Elves from the Gray Havens, Elrond's from Rivendell, Galadriel's from Lothlorien, and the Dwarves of Moria fought side by side with Men. There was a terrible battle on a plain outside Mordor. Such was the force of evil wielded there that the plain was turned into a cursed marsh where bodies did not decay, but remained intact, sending out ghostly flames.

The Elves and Men were victorious and entered Mordor, where they besieged the Dark Tower for seven years. In the end Sauron came out to do battle with Gil-Galad and Elendil. They were killed, along with Elendil's son Anarion, but Sauron was cast down, and Isildur, Elendil's surviving son, cut the One Ring from Sauron's hand with the shards of Elendil's sword. Bereft of the One Ring, Sauron became a disembodied spirit and fled Mordor.

Elrond and the other Elvish rulers counseled Isildur to destroy the One Ring in Mount Doom's fires, but Isildur insisted on taking the ring as compensation for his father's death. Isildur stopped briefly in Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun in the White Mountains west of the Great River. There he wrote a history of his taking the One Ring, and set his brother's son on Gondor's throne.

Isildur then set out for his own kingdom. On the way there, by the Great River at the foot of the Misty Mountains, he fell into an ambush by Orcs. He put on the One Ring to become invisible and tried to swim to safety, but the Ring slipped off of his finger and was lost in the river's depths. Isildur was killed by Orcs' arrows, but his steward brought the shards of Elendil's sword to Rivendell, where it was kept as an heirloom for Isildur's heirs.

Isildur's son ruled Arnor, but it did not long survive. Part of its fall was due to dissension among royal heirs, but much of its fall was due to the Witch-King of Angmar, who assaulted Arnor from an icy kingdom in the north. Only much later was it learned that the Witch-King was the Lord of the Nazgul. Isildur's heirs became a wandering folk called Rangers, whose proud ancestry was recalled only in Rivendell.

In the south Gondor fared better than its northern sister. Gondor's kings ruled from the city of Osgiliath, which straddled the Great River, and kept palaces in Minas Ithil in the east and Minas Anor in the west. Over time, though, the kings lost control of Mordor, and the Ringwraiths returned there. The Lord of the Nazgul seized the Tower of the Moon, which he turned into the Tower of Terror, Minas Morgul. He challenged Gondor's last king to single combat, slew him, and desecrated Osgiliath.

Gondor lived on under a line of stewards who ruled a shrunken realm from the Tower of the Sun, which they renamed Minas Tirith, the Tower of Guard. Besieged, though, by enemies called from the east by the Ringwraiths, Minas Tirith would have fallen were it not for the timely arrival from the north of the Rohirrim, the Horse Masters. These, the stewards of Gondor granted lands that had once been Gondor's, and the Rohirrim founded the Kingdom of Rohan.

Things went badly for the Dwarves of Moria. As they dug too deeply there for Starsilver, they awoke a Balrog, a demon of Morgoth's who had fled there for refuge from the Valar. The Balrog destroyed Moria, but refugees from there set up a kingdom in exile in the Lonely Mountain, far to the north. The Lonely Mountain prospered till it drew the attention of another of Morgoth's old servants, Smaug, the last of the Dragons. Smaug destroyed the Dwarvish kingdom of the Lonely Mountain, and refugees from it fled to the mountains on the western border of a land called the Shire, where lived mysterious, peaceful creatures who called themselves Hobbits.

So matters lay when a new Shadow began to rise in the great woods east of the Misty Mountains. What this Shadow was, Men and Elves did not know, but they gave it the name Necromancer. Only later did they learn that it was Sauron taking shape again. He was seeking the One Ring, which he had learned had traveled north with Isildur and been lost. He turned the great woods into a place of terror called Mirkwood.

Unknown to all, the One Ring had been found again, by a fisher named Deagol. When he showed it to his best friend, Smeagol, the power of the Ring seduced Smeagol into killing his friend. He used the ring to do mischief against his community, which drove him out. Growing ever more twisted by the Ring, he hid in caverns in the Misty Mountains, where he lived by eating fish and Orcs. In time he forgot his own name and called himself by a sound that he made in his throat, Gollum.

As Sauron began to rise again, the Valar took compassion on Middle-Earth and sent it aid in the form of five Maiar, lesser immortal spirits who manifested themselves in the form of old men. These five men appeared one day in a white ship at the Grey Havens. Most of the Elves were uncertain of who the men were, but Cirdan, the ancient shipwright who had lived by the sea since before the sun first rose, knew them as they truly were. Cirdan especially respected one old man dressed all in gray and gave him the gift of an Elven Ring, red Narya.

The five old men never revealed their own names, but used names that Elves and Men gave them. One of the men, who always wore white, received the name Saruman. The old man dressed in gray received the names Mithrandir and Gandalf. Because no one knew what the five old men were, Men called them Wizards, and Elves and Dwarves borrowed the name.

The Wizards went throughout Middle-Earth to stir its peoples to resist the Shadow. Gandalf was everlastingly a wanderer, but Saruman desired a place and a rule of his own. Going to Gondor, he won from its steward the right to live in an ancient Numenorean fortress called Isengard, north and west of Rohan.

Gandalf spent much time in studying the Shadow growing in Mirkwood. He became convinced of the Shadow's being Sauron, looking for the ring. When Gandalf came to Saruman with his concerns, though, Saruman said that he had learned that the One Ring had rolled down the Great River to the Sea and been irretrievably lost. Gandalf reluctantly believed Saruman, for he could not yet know that Saruman was lying, already having fallen to the temptatation to seek the Ring for himself.

As the Shadow in Mirkwood kept growing, the heads of the Elves, Cirdan, Elrond, and Galadriel, formed with the Wizards the White Council to resist the Shadow. Galadriel, mistrusting Saruman, wanted Gandalf to be the Council's head, but Saruman won the post and used it to delay any action against the Shadow. He, knowing this to be Sauron, wanted Sauron to keep searching for the Ring so that Saruman could intercept it before it reached him.

Gandalf, though, took action on his own, sneaking into the Shadow's stronghold in Mirkwood. There, Gandalf found imprisoned a mad Dwarf, the head of the Dwarves who had once lived in Moria. The Dwarf, armed with the last of the Dwarvish rings and a map of the Lonely Mountain, had been en route there to slay Smaug when the Necromancer caught him. The Necromancer, whom Gandalf at last proved to be Sauron, had taken the Ring, but overlooked the map, which the Dwarf gave Gandalf.

Gandalf now dedicated himself to two tasks, fighting Sauron and killing the Dragon, which would be a mighty weapon in Sauron's hands. He turned first to the Dragon. Going to the mountains west of the Shire, Gandalf enlisted thirteen Dwarves in a quest to kill Smaug. Going east through the Shire towards the Lonely Mountain, Gandalf added to the party an unlikely adventurer, a Hobbit named Bilbo Baggins.

In the Misty Mountains, Gandalf's party was ambushed by Orcs, and all of it but Bilbo was captured. Taking refuge in caverns, Bilbo came across a gold ring that, he learned to his amazement, made him invisible. With the ring he escaped a mad creature named Gollum, who tried to kill him, and helped free his companions from the Orcs.

Having got the Dwarves and Bilbo through the Misty Mountains, Gandalf left them to go on to the Lonely Mountain, while he himself joined the White Council in attacking the Necromancer. The Council drove Sauron from Mirkwood, while the Dwarves, with the aid of Bilbo and his mysterious ring, slew Smaug. All seemed to be well in Middle-Earth.

Sauron, though, just retreated to Mordor, where he rejoined the Ringwraiths and awoke Mount Doom to life. He made war on Gondor, where the last steward, Denethor, and his sons, Boromir and Faramir, led a desperate defense. In this they were aided by a mysterious stranger from the north, a friend of Gandalf's who went by the name of Strider. Only Gandalf, Elrond, and Galadriel knew that he was really Aragorn, Isildur's heir.

Gandalf was ever concerned with Bilbo's ring. In the end Gandalf called Aragorn from Gondor to track down Gollum to learn what he could tell of the Ring. Nothing was certain, though, and Gandalf still thought that the Ring might be only one of the lost Dwarvish rings. Thus matters stood when, on his one hundred and eleventh birthday, Bilbo had a party...

The Parallels

This chapter of Tolkien's work is a bridge uniting his three main stories, the Tale of the Silmarils, the Fall of Numenor, and the Quest of the Ring. (Structurally, the events of The Hobbit, which I summarized above, form a lead-in to The Lord of the Rings.) This bridge introduces no new themes, but recapitulates old ones. I'll use the bridge as a chance for a final review.

We've seen in this book the fall of perfect angelic beings (Morgoth and Sauron) because of pride that can't submit to a superior's rule, but seeks to express itself in the rule of inferiors. In Sauron's heart, in the balance between wanting to be restored to holy fellowship and being unwilling to accept the price to do so, it's pride that weighs him down in favor of continuing his rebellion. He has, like Milton's Lucifer, decided that it's "better to reign in hell than serve in heaven."

It's pride, too, that leads Celebrimbor and Galadriel, still under the Doom of Mandos, to accept Sauron's aid in trying to make Middle-Earth Valinor's equal. Galadriel remains under this doom till, offered the One Ring by Frodo, she finds the strength of character to refuse it. She, unlike Sauron, is able to choose to serve in heaven. As a servant in Valinor, she'll know bliss, whereas Morgoth, Sauron, and their servants have doomed themselves to wander in darkness forever, without even power as a consolation for their sufferings.

The One Ring, of course, embodies the will to power that motivated Morgoth and Sauron throughout their career as rebels. The One Ring is shaped by the will of its maker into something like what he chose to be, one that rejects good's creativity good for evil's destructiveness. As the embodiment of Sauron's will the One Ring ensnares the will of everyone who wears it. Even Bilbo, the Ringbearer least affected by its evil, begins his ownership of it with a lie. As readers of The Hobbit recall, he told Gandalf that he had got the Ring, not by finding it on a cavern's floor, but by winning it from Gollum in a game of riddles.

Still, Bilbo is the only Ringbearer who ever had the strength of character to give up the Ring. His strength of character, a small thing confounding the wise (I Corinthians 1:25-29),is part of the divine providence that allows the Free Peoples of Middle-Earth victory over the Shadow.

This providence is best embodied in the Wizards, "angels" that the good in Middle-Earth entertain "unawares" (Hebrews 13:2). Their true nature is discerned only by those with spiritual insight (I Corinthians 2:14-15). It is Gandalf who sees that it is not the mighty Aragorn, but the lowly Frodo, Bilbo's heir, whose task it is to carry the Ring to Mount Doom. Frodo embodies the Biblical principle that God has chosen the small things of the world to confound the wise. (Gandalf, in The Lord of the Rings, quotes this principle almost verbatim.)

Not even the innocent Frodo, though, can resist the Ring's temptation. At his quest's end, he falls to the Ring. All would have been lost but for the Ring's evil working against itself, as the Ring's temptation of both Frodo and Gollum leads to a fight in which the Ring is inadvertently destroyed.

Again, all seems well with Middle-Earth. Tolkien, though, began a novel called The Return of the Shadow, in which the evil of Morgoth and Sauron again would return to trouble Middle-Earth. Tolkien's insight that not even the destruction of the One Ring would end evil forever is valuable to us today. We've fought more than one "War to End All Wars," only to find evil arising again in new forms, even within ourselves.

In Tolkien's mythology, only a final battle in which the Valar and Morgoth fought directly would finally purge the world of evil's presence so that a new Song, in which both Elves and Men would sing, would make a lasting world of bliss. This is also the Biblical view, in which only God's coming in power to purge the earth with fire will yield a new heaven and a new earth in with there will be no more tears (Revelation 21:1-4).

BIBLICAL PARALLELS TO MIDDLE-EARTH XI. THE RISE AND FALL OF NUMENOR

(SPOILER ALERT! This blog summarizes the chapter "The Akallabeth" from The Silmarillion.)

The Story

When the Valar overthrew Morgoth in the War of Wrath at the First Age's end, they rewarded the Men who fought on their side with a new homeland, the island of Numenor, raised in the sea between Middle-Earth and the Undying Lands. To the intercessor Earendil's half-Elven, half-human children, the Valar gave a choice of the race to which each child would belong. Elrond chose to be an Elf and stay in Middle-Earth with the new Elven high king, Gil-Galad.

Elrond's brother, Elros, though, chose to be a Man. He sailed with the other faithful Men to Numenor and became the first king of the Dunedain, the Men of the West. To them the Valar gave a lifespan many times that of lesser men. The Valar put on the Numenoreans just one restriction, that they must never sail to the Undying Lands, reserved to the immortals. The Numenoreans built fair cities and swift ships. In the heart of Numenor, on the land's highest peak, Meneltarma, the Numenoreans built a holy place, an open-roofed temple to Iluvatar, the All-Father.

In Numenor's early days the Dunedain were Elf-friends. They sailed to the Elven lands of Middle-Earth, and the Elves of the Undying Lands sailed to Numenor. The Elves of the West brought gifts, the mightiest of which was a white tree, the image of the tree Telperion, whose silver light had once lit Valinor for half of the day, and was now preserved only in the moon. The kings of Numenor planted the White Tree in their palace's heart.

For many lifetimes the Numenoreans blessed the world. While much of Middle-Earth suffered under Morgoth's servant, Sauron, the Numenoreans brought its coastlands order and prosperity in mighty cities that the Numenoreans built as colonies. In time, though, the Numenoreans grew jealous of the immortal lives of the Elves and the Valar, and began to resent the ban on sailing into the West. The Elves tried to explain to the Dunedain that death was Iluvatar's gift to Men. It could not be taken from them just by sailing to the Undying Lands. These, which enhanced the lives of the immortals who lived there, would just shorten the lives of Men if they came there. To the Elves belonged a blessing in life in the world; to Men belonged a blessing in death beyond the world.

The Men of Numenor mistrusted a blessing hidden from them, but, fearing the Valar's might, still obeyed the ban. Numenor's kings tried to cling to life by medicine and magic, but died at last and left only mummies that filled ever-growing tombs. A party called the King's Men grew estranged from the Elves, but a party called the Faithful kept the ancient friendship, even as the King's Men's hostility to the Elves and Elf-Friends grew. The Faithful were headed by a house that descended from Elros, but did not hold the throne.

While dissension arose in Numenor, Sauron had deceived Middle-Earth's Elves into making rings of power. He enslaved the rings with the One Ring that he himself cast in Mount Doom in the land of Mordor. War broke out between Sauron and the Elves, who hid three rings that Sauron had never touched. The Elves could resist Sauron in part because of aid from the Numenoreans on Middle-Earth's coasts. Sauron conceived a terrible hatred of Numenor. With some of the nine rings that he gave Men, Sauron enslaved Numenorean lords who sought power and immortal life. In time the enslaved Men became the Nazgul, the Ringwraiths, undead sorcerors who lived half in this world and half in the unseen realm. With the Nazgul's aid Sauron began assaulting the Numenorean cities in Middle-Earth.

In Numenor itself the kings, burning with resentment of their mortality, turned further against all things Elvish. They neglected the White Tree, banned the use of Elvish languages and Elven visits to Numenor, and banished the Faithful to Numenor's east coast, farthest from the Undying Lands. A last faithful king came to the throne, but could not reverse his kingdom's slide into unbelief. At his death the throne should have passed to his only child, a daughter. Her cousin, Ar-Pharazon, though, forced her to marry him, then took her throne. Although he had no love for Elves, he grew angry at Sauron, who in defiance of the Numenoreans had taken the title King of Men. This title Ar-Pharazon wanted for himself.

Although Numenor had declined in wisdom and faith, it had grown in material wealth and military might. Ar-Pharazon assembled the greatest fleet that the world had seen, and filled it with an army worthy of the fleet. When this reached Middle-Earth's shores, Sauron's servants fled in fear. Ar-Pharazon marched at the head of an army to Mordor. There, filled with confidence, he sent heralds to summon Sauron to him. Sauron, seeing that he could not win a military victory, decided to rely on his and Morgoth's greatest weapon, deception. Thus, Sauron took off the One Ring and came to Ar-Pharazon in surrender. In triumph Numenor's king took Sauron home.

There matters went as Sauron wished. Appearing as a figure of light, he told the King's Men in honeyed words that it was their destiny to rule the world, but that the Valar and the Elves stood in the way of their receiving the True God's blessings. This was not Iluvatar, whom the Valar had made up to justify their unjust rule of Men, but Morgoth, the Lord of the Darkness, out of which all things arose. If the Men of Numenor served Morgoth, they would get the power and immortal life that they desired. Ar-Pharazon and the King's Men listened ever more to Sauron. They closed the shrine to Iluvatar on Meneltarma and agreed to cut down the White Tree.

This would have been lost to the world but for the Faithful. In Ar-Pharazon's day these were led by Amandil, his son Elendil, and his sons Isildur and Anarion. They had stayed in secret contact with the Elves of the West through the Palantiri, seven seeing-stones that the Elves had brought from Valinor as gifts to the Faithful. Learning of the plan to destroy the White Tree, Isildur traveled alone through great dangers to the palace and fought his way out of it with a single fruit of the tree. Isildur delivered the fruit to his father, then lay near death till the fruit yielded a sapling whose first leaf restored Isildur to health.

Ar-Pharazon cut down the White Tree and built a temple to Morgoth where Sauron presided over human sacrifices. These, he said, would give the Numenoreans life and power. The first sacrifices were burned with the wood of the White Tree itself. Death, though, did not leave the land, but grew, for, through dissension that Sauron awoke, Men killed each other for scant cause. They did, though, grow ever richer, both from the plunder of their sacrificial victims, and from the wealth that Sauron himself, gold's master, could make. Still, Men were never satisfied. Ar-Pharazon, though king of all the mortal lands by now, felt old age and the fear of death stealing all that he had won.

At last Sauron spoke his greatest deception. He said that the Valar had lied in saying that the Undying Lands could not grant mortals immortal life. The Valar had lied, he said, out of fear and jealously of Numenor's Kings. It was the greatest injustice that immortal life was withheld from Ar-Pharazon, King of Kings. "Great kings," Sauron said, "take what is their due." Ar-Pharazon accepted Sauron's words. In secret at first, but more and more openly with time, he began to prepare a fleet even greater that the one with which he had defeated Sauron.

Amandil, the Faithful's head, learning of Ar-Pharazon's plan, feared for Numenor. He told Elendil and his sons to take their families, their followers, and their goods, including the White Tree and the Seven Stones, aboard ships and wait off Numenor's east coast. Amandil himself sailed into the West to intercede with the Valar as his ancestor Earendil had done long before. Amandil, though, never reached Valinor. What became of him none knows.

At length Ar-Pharazon's armada was ready, and he sailed into the West. He reached the shores of the Undying Lands and stood by the walls of the greatest of Elven cities, but achieved neither power nor life. In the hour of Ar-Pharazon's invasion the Valar called on Iluvatar to judge the Numenoreans. He caused Valinor's mountains to fall on the invaders, and opened a chasm in the sea between Numenor and the Undying Lands. Into this chasm Numenor's fleet fell; out of this chasm climbed a great, green, curving wave, crowned with foam, that swept over Numenor. Out of all the land there remained amid the sea just the peak of Meneltarma, a holy place on which mortal Men's feet could never again stand.

A wind that arose from the abyss carried the Faithful's fleet to Middle-Earth. There, Elendil and Anarion founded the kingdom of Gondor in the south; Isildur, the kingdom of Arnor in the north. The White Tree was planted in Gondor; the Seven Stones, divided between the two kingdoms. As for Sauron, his fair body was drowned in the abyss. Never again could he seem fair to Men. His spirit, though, rose from the abyss and returned to Mordor, where he took a new body, one reflecting the darkness and evil within him. He put on the One Ring again and began a war against Elendil and his sons. In this war Sauron again would fall. Isildur would cut the One Ring from Sauron's hand.

In times of peace after Sauron's second fall, the Dunedain sailed into the West in quest of Numenor and Valinor. They found neither, though, and came at last to Middle-Earth's western shores. The world had been bent; the Undying Lands had been taken into the heavens and hidden from mortal eyes. To the Elves, though, and to a few faithful among mortals, there remained the Straight Road. Sailing this into the West, one would rise above the mortal world and reach a land untouched by evil.

The Parallels

Numenor's tale, as Tolkien said, was the tale of Atlantis. Tolkien's tale of this grew from a challenge that he took with his friend C. S. Lewis to make original stories of science-fiction for the Inklings, a writer's club to which both men belonged. C. S. Lewis, taking the theme of space travel, wrote Out of the Silent Planet, the first of the novels in his space trilogy. Tolkien, taking the theme of time travel, began a novel in which men of the present traveled in vision to the lost continent, which Tolkien, using one of his Elvish languages, called Numenor, Land of the West.

Over time it came clear to Tolkien that his Atlanteans were Men of Middle-Earth who had survived the War of Wrath at the end of The Silmarillion. After abandoning two starts of the novel, Tolkien got caught up in a new project, The Lord of the Rings. To tie this to Middle-Earth's First Age, the time of The Silmarillion, Tolkien made Numenor the center of a Second Age, the bridge to the tales of the Third Age, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien's tale of Atlantis shares all of the key points of the Egyptian tale that Plato retold in his philosophical dialogs, Timeas and Critias. In both tales the gods create a land amid the sea as a homeland for a race of heros. These, virtuous at first, prosper, not only in material wealth, but also in what pleased the gods most, justice and compassion. In time, though, greed for material wealth overcame the Atlanteans' sense of justice. They neglected the worship of the gods and became oppressors, attacking their neighbors just for dominion's sake. In the end the gods destroyed the land amid the sea with earthquake and wave in a single night.

To Plato's tale Tolkien added details from Celtic mythology, which has Atlantis-like tales of its own of Ys, Lyonesse, and Hy Brasil. He added, too, details from the Biblical parallel to the fall of Atlantis, the Cataclysm, the great flood in which God destroyed all of humanity but Noah and his family (Genesis 6:1-9:17). Much of the tale, though, is original to Tolkien himself, and flows forward from The Silmarillion and backward from The Lord of the Rings.

Besides the obvious Biblical parallels to a world destroyed by water for its wickedness (Genesis 6:1-7:24) and a faithful remnant taken by ship to a new world where they can prosper (Genesis 8:1-19), there are elements from several other Biblical accounts in Numenor's rise and fall. The gift of Numenor to the Men who had opposed Morgoth in Middle-Earth goes along with God's gift of the Holy Land to Israel after Egyptian bondage (Joshua 1:1-9) and of the Millennial Kingdom to those who come through Great Tribulation (Revelation 19:20-20:6). Note that in both cases the people that receives the gift falls into sin and loses the land (II Kings 24:17-25:21; Revelation 20:7-10).

The tale of Numenor's fall most clearly reflects the account of Revelation 20, in which Satan deceives the nations and leads them in war against the Holy Land. The nations are destroyed in judgment, and Satan is cast into the abyss. In Tolkien's tale, though, Sauron must ascend from the abyss to fulfill his role in The Lord of the Rings.

Sauron, Numenor's Satan-figure, embodies not only the tempter of Gog and Magog, but the tempter of Eve and the tempter of Jesus. That with which Sauron tempts the Numenoreans, though, is a mirror-image of that with which Satan tempted Eve (Genesis 3:-15): whereas Satan tempted Eve, who had eternal life, with knowledge of good and evil, Sauron tempted the Numenoreans, who had great knowledge, with eternal life. Sauron also tempted the Numenoreans with everything with which Satan tempted Jesus: material goods, security, and world dominion (Matthew 4:1-11).

Ar-Pharazon, alas, was more like Eve than he was like Jesus. In his role as the one who destroyed his people's faith in, and service to, Iluvatar, and comprised his land's destruction, Ar-Pharazon recalls Manasseh, the evil king of Judah, who fell away from the service of the Lord to offer human sacrifices to idols (II Kings 21:1-9). Manasseh's apostasy comprised Jerusalem's destruction just as Ar-Pharazon's comprised Numenor's (II KIngs 21:10-15).

What would have happened if Ar-Pharazon had conquered the Undying Lands? The Elves of the West had warned his ancestors that, if they entered Valinor's light, they would wither in it like moths in a flame. Tolkien is expressing a theme, common to legend throughout the world, that, if a mortal without virtue obtains immortal life, it will be a curse to him. Usually this curse takes the form of a life-in-death, like that of vampires or werewolves. In the account of humanity's expulsion from the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:22-24), God fears that if Adam and Eve stayed there they would eat the fruit of life and live forever. Some theologians interpret this account to mean that, if our first parents had obtained eternal life after the fall, they would have lived in their sin forever and gone from bad to worse as they kept decaying with old age and sickness without dying. In a sense, such decay is the curse of the damned in hell (Mark 9:47-48).

The concept of the Faithful, a remnant that clings to the true faith despite persecution, goes back to the "seven thousand who have not bent the knee to Baal" when Queen Jezebel tried to suppress the worship of the Lord God of Israel (I Kings 20:18; see I Kings 16:29-II Kings 10:28). The faithful remnant would have been linked in Tolkien's mind to the Church that persisted in the days of the Roman Empire under pagan persecution, and, in the Great Britain of his day, to those like him and C. S. Lewis who held Christian faith and practice in a world of ever more secular institutions.

The Faithful of Numenor, though, most clearly reflect the Maccabeans of the Children of Israel who returned to the land after Jerusalem's destruction described in II Kings 24. The evil Greek king Antiochus Epiphanes tried to wipe out the Jews' faith and practice, including their language, their Scriptures, their rite of circumcision, and their temple sacrifices. Overcoming the Greeks against incredible odds, the Maccabees restored their faith and practice in a land free from Greek oppression and ensured the Jews' survival till today, just as Elendil and his sons restored a Numenorean way of life that persisted down to the time of Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings.

The loss of the Undying Lands to mortal men is, of course, the barring of fallen humans from the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:22-24). The detail of the Straight Road on which a faithful few may reach the undying lands in the west, though, comes from the Celtic legend of the holy Irish voyager, St. Brendan, who may have reached North America centuries before the Vikings reached it. Brendan, though, like Tolkien, was a Christian. Both men would have compared the Straight Road with the narrow gate that leads to life (Matthew 7:13-14).

In the tale of Numenor's fall appear many elements that will be important in The Lord of the Rings. The rings of power, the Nazgul, Elendil, Isildur, the White Tree, the Palantiri, and the realm of Gondor, though, are just mentioned in passing here. They will be explored further in the last section of The Silmarillion, which follows the rings of power from their forging to their final disappearance at the end of the War of the Rings.

BIBLICAL PARALLELS TO MIDDLE-EARTH XI. EARENDIL'S VOYAGE

(SPOILER ALERT! This blog summarizes the chapter "Of the Voyage of Earendil and the War of Wrath" from The Silmarillion.)

The Story

After Tuor and Idril had sailed off, their son, Earendil, wed Elwing, Beren and Luthien's granddaughter. She bore twin sons, Elros and Elrond. Earendil could not rest at home. In the incomparable ship Vingilot he sailed the seas west of Middle-Earth in hope of finding his parents and bringing the Valar a plea for help from Elves and Men. At length, though he had finished neither mission, longing to see Elwing again led him homewards.

While Earendil was asea, Feanor's remaining sons learned that Elwing had the Silmaril that Beren had cut from Morgoth's crown. Bound by their father's oath to recover his handiwork, they sent her an embassy demanding that she return them the jewel. When she refused to, Feanor's sons led their forces against her followers in the third and most evil of the Kinslayings of Elf by Elf. In the battle all of Feanor's sons but Maedhros and Maglor died. They captured Elros and Elrond, but Elwing, bearing the Silmaril, flung herself into the sea.

Ulmo, the sea's Power, pitied her. He gave her the gift to transform herself into a bird. In this form, bearing the Silmaril, she reached her husband's ship and fell upon its deck. When he tended her, she turned back into his wife. When he learned of his sons' capture, he feared for their death at the hands of Feanor's sons. Maglor, though, felt guilt over the Kinslaying, and spared the boys.

Earendil, seeing no hope left in Middle-Earth, turned his ship again in quest of Valinor, which none of the Noldor had reached since their exile from it. Wearing the Silmaril on his brow, he passed the Enchanted Isles and the Shadowy Seas to the Sea Elves' havens, where the first Kinslaying had occurred.

Earendil and Elwing went ashore. Earendil sought the Valar till Eonwe, Manwe's herald, led him to them. Earendil, telling them of the suffering of Middle-Earth's Free Peoples, begged the Valar's pardon for the Noldor, and pity on the Dark Elves and Men, oppressed by Morgoth.

The Valar dealt first with whether Earendil, Elwing, and their sons were Elves or Men. The Valar gave each member of the family the right to choose to which people he or she belonged. Elwing chose to be an Elf; Earendil, to be with his wife. Neither, though, could return to the lands of Elves and Men. The Valar raised Vingilot to the heavens and set Earendil, wearing the Silmaril, at its prow. In the heavens he shines before dawn or after dusk as a sign of hope. Elwing stayed in a tower by the sea, but when her husband neared the earth she could fly to him as a bird.

The star filled Middle-Earth's Elves with hope, and Morgoth with doubt, as an army of Valar, Maiar, and Elves sailed from Valinor to Middle-Earth in answer to Earendil's prayer. The War of Wrath between the Valar and Morgoth was terrible, sinking into the sea most of the ancient Elven lands west of the Blue Mountains. In the end, when all of Morgoth's Balrogs and Orcs had fled or been killed, he loosed his last defense, winged dragons. Against these the Valar themselves fell back. Only the timely arrival of Earendil, fighting from Vingilot's deck, and the Eagles of Manwe saved the day.

Just a few of Morgoth's minions survived, fleeing into the east. The Valar pursued Morgoth into Angband's deepest pits. There they bound him with a chain and cut the two remaining Silmarils from his crown. These they gave into Eonwe's safekeeping. Feanor's sons, fearing that the Silmarils were about to be lost to them forever, bade Eonwe return them the jewels. Eonwe, though, said that Feanor's sons' evil deeds had voided their claim to the jewels. In desperation Maedhros and Maglor stole them.

These, recognizing Feanor's sons as evil, burned their hands. In despair Maedhros hurled himself and his Silmaril into a fiery chasm. Maglor flung his jewel into the sea and has ever after wandered Middle-Earth's shores and sung laments.

Most of the Elves of Middle-Earth chose to return to the West. Cirdan the Shipwright, though, stayed at the Gray Havens. Galadriel went with her husband Celeborn into the east. Elros chose to be human, but his brother, Elrond, chose to be an Elf and served in Middle-Earth as the herald of Gil-Galad, the High King of the Elves who stayed there. Elros and Elrond were parted, but their descendents, Aragorn and Arwen, would reunite their lineages two ages of the world later.

Morgoth, the Valar cast into the Timeless Void beyond the Walls of the World. There, Earendil keeps watch on him. Morgoth's lies, though, still bear fruit among Elves and Men.

The Parallels

Tolkien's tale of Earendil has a Christian origin in an Old-English poem, "Crist." In this appear the lines, "Eala Earendel engla beorhtast/ ofer middangeard monnum sended." These may be translated into Modern English as, "Hail, Earendel, the brightest angel sent to the world of men!" The word for world in this line, middangeard, literally means Middle-Earth. From this one line Tolkien developed, not only his tale of the angelic messenger Earendil, but also the whole rich mythology of The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings.

Earendil fills the Biblical role of an intercessor, one who "goes between" fallen humans and a righteous God to plead for their forgiveness. The concept of an intercessor first appears in the Book of Job, where the suffering innocent wants someone to plead his case with God (Job 9:32-35). In the Jewish Scriptures, the most dramatic example of an intercessor was the High Priest, who on the Day of Atonement carried a sacrificial animal's blood into the Holy of Holies of the temple to cover Israel's sins (Leviticus 16:1-34). The New Testament sees Jesus, who died for the sins of all of humanity, as the fulfillment of the high priestly role of intercessor (Hebrews 4:14-5:10).

Earendil, bearing Beren's Silmaril into the heavens, becomes the morning star, foreshadowing the deliverance of Elves and Men from Morgoth. In the role of Morning Star, Earendil is a Christ-figure, for Christ is called the "bright and morning star" (Revelation 22:16). He is also the day-star that rises in our hearts (II Peter 1:16-20). In both roles He appears as the promise of our final deliverance from darkness. Those who overcome temptation and keep doing righteous deeds to the end will receive the morning star's fulfillment (Revelation 2:26-28). A star was associated with Jesus' birth (Matthew 2:2-13). Many early Christian writers saw Jesus as the fulfillment of a promised "Star out of Jacob" (Numbers 24:15-17).

The answer to Earendil's prayer for Elves and Men is an apocalyptic war in which the archangelic Valar overthrow the Satan-figure, Morgoth. From this war Sauron, a Balrog, and the Dragon Smaug escape to bedevil Elves and Men in the world's Second and Third Ages. Morgoth himself is chained again, but will break his chains at time's end to begin the Final War. After his defeat in this, Elves and Men (and possibly Dwarves and Ents) will join the Valar and the Maiar in the Second Great Music, the creation of a world untouched by Morgoth's evil.

The parallels of the War of Wrath and the Final War to the Book of Revelation have already been discussed. The drowning of much of Beleriand has parallels to the flood of Noah, the Cataclysm. This will appear much more clearly, though, in Tolkien's tale of his Atlantis, Numenor, the Fallen Land to which Elros went and from which Aragorn's ancestors came.

BIBLICAL PARALLELS TO MIDDLE-EARTH X. THE TALE OF GONDOLIN'S FALL

(SPOILER ALERT! This blog summarizes the chapterS "Of Maeglin" and "Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin" from The Silmarillion.)

The Story

After Huor, Hurin's brother, died in the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, Huor's wife bore a son, Tuor. Although he was a Man, he was reared by fugitive Elves. He became an outlaw fighting against Morgoth.

In time Ulmo, the Power of the sea, called Tuor by secret ways to the old halls where King Turgon of Gondolin had lived before he built the Hidden City. In the old halls Tuor found a suit of armor that Ulmo had bidden Turgon hide there. The armor was a sign that whoever wore it was Ulmo's messenger.

Ulmo, appearing to Tuor in a storm by the sea, bade him find Gondolin. When the storm ended, Tuor found on the shore an Elf, the sole survivor of a ship that Turgon had sent as an embassy to the Valar in Valinor. The Elf, learning of Tuor's mission, led him to the Hidden City.

Taken prisoner by its guards, Tuor was led before King Turgon. Before his throne Tuor was recognized as Ulmo's messenger. Tuor told Turgon that the Curse of Mandos would destroy him and his people if they stayed in Gondolin, and bade Turgon lead all of his people to the sea.

Turgon, proud of his city's strength and beauty, spurned Ulmo's warning. Nonetheless, Turgon, from respect for Ulmo and admiration of Tuor's courage and fair appearance, welcomed the Man to his city. In time the king's daughter, Idril, fell in love with Tuor.

Idril's love for the Man awoke the jealousy of Maeglin, the king's heir. Maeglin was the son of the king's sister. She, wandering once from the Hidden City, had been taken prisoner by the Dark Elf Eol and made his wife. Escaping with her son to Gondolin, the king's sister had been tracked down and killed by Eol, whom Turgon had killed in turn. Nonetheless, Turgon had accepted Maeglin for his mother's sake. Maeglin had much of his father's dark nature and longed to marry his cousin, Idril, though the Elves banned marriages of relatives of near degree.

Tuor and Idril married and had a son, Earendil. Tuor and Idril, amid their happiness, did not forget Ulmo's warning. On Idril's advice Tuor's followers built a secret way of escape from Gondolin.

Morgoth, having learned from Hurin Gondolin's general location, had been seeking it with spies. One day these captured Maeglin and took him to Angband for questioning. There, Morgoth bought Maeglin's treason against the Hidden City with the promise of Gondolin's rule and Idril's hand. Maeglin told Morgoth all of Gondolin's secrets, then returned to the Hidden City to open its gates to Morgoth's armies.

On a night of festival, as the Gondolindrim were watching the east for the sunrise, a red dawn rose in the north as Dragons led a host of Balrogs, Orcs, and wolves against the Hidden City. In Morgoth's assault, Maeglin seized Idril, but Tuor fought Maeglin and slew him. Tuor wanted to stay to protect the city, but Idril convinced him of its being lost and of his need to guide her, her son, and their followers to safety.

Thus, as Turgon and his warriors died nobly, but terribly, in the fire of Dragons and Balrogs, Tuor led his family and followers along Idril's way of escape. In the hills around Gondolin, though, a company of Orcs led by a Balrog caught Tuor's party. Only the heroism of an Elf named Glorfindel, who died killing the Balrog, let the party escape.

With much suffering it reached Middle-Earth's shores. There Tuor's party of survivors of Gondolin mingled with survivors of Doriath, led by Elwing, the daughter of Dior, the son of Luthien and Beren. There, too, came the Sea-Elves led by Cirdan the Shipwright, and other Elves that had fled from the North.

The refugees awaited Morgoth's attacking them anew. Tuor and Idril, though, sad at all that they had lost in Middle-Earth, set sail in a ship for the West. Whether they reached Valinor, no tale tells.

The Parallels

"The Fall of Gondolin" was Tolkien's first story, written during World War One in the trenches of France. The story holds many motifs familiar to readers of Greek mythology and Tolkien.

The armor by which Turgon recognizes Tuor recalls the armor that Aegeus, King of Athens, left under a stone for his son, Theseus. The armor is equivalent to the sword Excalibur, which revealed Arthur as England's rightful king by his ability to pull it from a stone.

Tolkien recycled three elements of "The Fall of Gondolin" in The Lord of the Rings. Morgoth's seduction of Maeglin to treason with Gondolin's throne and Idril's hand turns into Saruman's seduction of Wormtongue to treason with Rohan's throne and Eowyn's hand. Glorfindel's saving of Tuor's party from a Balrog at the cost of Glorfindel's life becomes Gandalf's saving of Frodo's party from a Balrog at the cost of Gandalf's life. The siege of Gondolin becomes the siege of Minas Tirith.

(In the book version of The Lord of the Rings, an Elf named Glorfindel, not Arwen, carries Frodo on horseback to Rivendell. Given the fate of Elves in Middle-Earth, the Glorfindel who saved Frodo may well have been the reincarnation of the Glorfindel who saved Earendil. Tolkien never clearly answered the question what relation the second Glorfindel had to the first.)

Little, if anything, in The Tale of Gondolin's Fall is specifically Biblical in origin. Still, as both the the tale and the Bible address universal themes, there are parallels between the two works. The general story of a doomed holy city recalls the destruction of Jerusalem in a siege by the Babylonians (II Kings 25:1-12). Maeglin, as a traitor, can stand for Judas Iscariot in the betrayal of Christ (Matthew 26:14-16, 21-25, 46-50; 27:3-10). (Note, though, that Maeglin receives judgment at the hands of the man whom he has betrayed, whereas Judas Iscariot judges himself.) Finally, Maeglin's motive for treason, forbidden desire for a female relative, parallels Amnon's lust for his sister Tamar (II Samuel 13:1-29).

In the next story, The Voyage of Earendil, Biblical themes will again come to the fore.

BIBLICAL PARALLELS TO MIDDLE-EARTH IX. THE NECKLACE OF THE DWARVES

(SPOILER ALERT! This blog summarizes the chapter "The Ruin of Doriath" from The Silmarillion.)

The Story

After the deaths of Turin Turambar and Nienor, Morgoth freed their father, Hurin, from bondage. Morgoth freed him, not from compassion, but from malice. He had filled Hurin with tales of how the Elves, especially King Thingol of Doriath, had mistreated Hurin's children.

Hurin sought sanctuary in the hidden Elvish kingdom of Gondolin, where he had once been. When he came to its hidden entrance, he called out to King Turgon. The king, fearful of taking in a released prisoner of Morgoth's, refused to heed Hurin's cries for help. Morgoth's spies, though, having followed Hurin, now knew where Gondolin was. Morgoth began laying plans that would mature in The Tale of Gondolin's Fall.

In his sleep, Hurin heard the voice of his wife, Morwen. Following the voice, he came to the Forest of Brethil, where Morwen was mourning at her children's grave. There she, too, died. Hurin buried her.

Filled with grief and wrath, Hurin went on to Nargothrond, where his children had fallen under Glaurung's spell. There, Hurin found the Dwarf Mim seated on the pile of gold where the Dragon had once lain. Mim had claimed the gold as compensation for Turin's killing his son, but Hurin claimed the treasure for his son's having killed Glaurung. When Mim tried to buy Hurin off, he slew the Dwarf.

Hurin took from the Dragon's hoard a fabulous necklace that the Dwarves had made for King Felagund, who had died in Beren's quest of the Silmaril. Hurin took the necklace to Doriath, where he threw it at King Thingol's feet and called it payment for the king's fine treatment of Morwen, Turin, and Nienor. When Hurin learned the truth from Thingol and his wife, the Maia Melian, Hurin was ashamed of having believed Morgoth's lies. Leaving the necklace with Thingol, he wandered on to the western sea and flung himself into the waves.

Thingol, seeing that the necklace would make a fitting setting for the Silmaril that Beren and Luthien had won from Morgoth, summoned Dwarvish goldsmiths to set the jewel in the necklace. The Dwarves grew filled with greed for their ancient necklace and the incomparable Elvish jewel. When the Dwarves' work was done, they demanded Thingol's necklace. When he refused to give it to him, they slew him.

Most of the Dwarves fleeing from Doriath were killed by Elves. The Necklace of the Dwarves, now the setting for the Silmaril, was recaptured. A few of the Dwarves, though, reaching their underground cities in the Blue Mountains, fired their kindred to vengeance on the Elves.

In Menegroth, the cavern-city of Doriath's Elves, Melian found no joy in the Silmaril's recovery; the husband with whom she had lived for ages of the world was dead. Sending Beren and Luthien in their hidden land word that she was leaving Middle-Earth, Melian went into the West. Her magic, which for ages had kept Doriath from all invaders, was gone.

The Dwarves, coming in force against Menegroth, slew its defenders and sacked the city. They took a hoard of gold and the Necklace of the Dwarves. As the Dwarves were crossing a river on the way home, though, a host of Dark Elves, led by Beren, fell upon them. The Dwarves died, but not before their king had cursed the gold.

Beren took the necklace home to Luthien. She, wearing the Silmaril in the necklace's setting, was the loveliest sight ever seen in Middle-Earth. Beren and Luthien's son, Dior, as Thingol's heir, led a force of Dark Elves to reclaim Doriath. There, Dior reigned as king, and his daughter Elwing grew up.

After a time a messenger bearing the Necklace arrived in Menegroth. Dior knew that his parents had passed beyond the world to whatever fate awaited Men. When he began wearing the Silmaril, Feanor's sons demanded that he return it to them. When he refused, they led an army of Elves against Menegroth in the second Kinslaying of Elf by Elf. Feanor's sons killed Dior and his men, but his daughter, Elwing, fled with the Silmaril into the south.

The Parallels

The killings of the Necklace of the Dwarves produce the bad blood between Dwarves and Elves that shows up in The Hobbit and in the Council of Elrond in The Lord of the Rings.

The Necklace of the Dwarves is a transitional story setting up the events of The Fall of Gondolin and The Voyage of Earendil. The theme of the necklace is cursed gold of a dragon's hoard, which comes from The Volsunga Saga and The Nibelungenlied. Anyone who has read these works knows to have nothing to do with Dwarf-cursed gold!

Even though the story is part of Tolkien's earliest, most pagan-influenced work, he would have been well aware of its Biblical applicability. In general, the story holds the outworking of the Deceiver's lies in the lives of those whom he has misled. In particular, the story shows this outworking in two deadly sins, wrath and greed. All who yield to either of these fall under the Curse of Mandos. Even the innocent Melian, who had tried to dissuade Thingol from his actions, suffers from them.

What one could teach from this story is each person's need to "be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, for human wrath does not produce God's righteousness" (James 1:19-20). Put another way, "Do not avenge yourselves, but give way to God's wrath, for it is written, 'Vengeance is Mine; I will repay,' the Lord says" (Romans 12;17-21). The pride and greed of the Dwarves and Elves sets in motion a wheel of hatred that is still turning in the time of Gimli and Legolas, thousands of years later. Only the courage and wisdom of the two companions in seeing each other as a friend, not an hereditary foe, breaks the cycle.

The wrath in the story is tied up with possession of material goods, Nargothrond's gold and Feanor's Silmaril. "The love of money is a root of all evils." (I Timothy 6:10). Even artists as great as the Dwarves can grow obsessed with their handiwork; even a king as noble and wise as Thingol can fall to gold's lure.

"Better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble therewith!" (Proverbs 15:16) One could contrast the attitudes of Thingol and the Dwarves with that of Pippin, Frodo's companion. He cast away a jewel of Lothlorien, a gift of Galadriel, to give his companions a clue to his still being alive after he was captured by Orcs. When he later told his companions that it was a wrench to let the jewel go, Aragorn, Thingol's descendant, replied to him, "One who cannot cast away a treasure at need is in fetters."

BIBLICAL PARALLELS TO MIDDLE-EARTH VIII. THE TRAGEDY OF TURIN TURAMBAR

(SPOILER ALERT! This blog summarizes the chapters "Of the Fifth Battle" and "Of Turin Turambar" from The Silmarillion.)

The Story

After Beren and Luthien had stolen the Silmaril from Morgoth, King Fingon of the Noldor and Feanor's sons felt that they might take Angband. They formed an alliance of Elves, Dwarves, and Men to attack Morgoth. The Elves of Nargothrond and Doriath, though, angry with Feanor's sons for their ill-treatment of Beren and Luthien, stayed home.

In the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, the alliance was betrayed by the men of the East, who would later fight for Sauron in the War of the Rings. The faithful Elves, Dwarves, and Men fell to an army of Balrogs, Orcs, and wolves, led by the Dragon Glaurung.

The leader of the faithful men in the battle was Hurin, of the House of Beor, to which Beren belonged. Hurin had once gone to the hidden city of Gondolin. Capturing Hurin, Morgoth tried to make him betray the hidden city. When Hurin refused to, Morgoth chained him to Thangorodrim and cursed him to watch through a Vala's eyes the grief that would befall his family.

Hurin had left at home his wife, Morwen, pregnant at the time, and a young son, Turin. Morgoth gave the Easterlings the lands that had once belonged to the House of Beor. The Easterlings feared Morwen, whom they suspected of being an Elvish witch. She gave birth to a daughter, Nienor. The life of Morwen, Turin, and Nienor was miserable, both from the loss of Hurin and from the Easterlings' evil behavior.

After a while Morwen sent Turin for fostering by King Thingol of Doriath. Turin begged his mother to come with him. She refused, hoping that Hurin would still return to her. In Doriath, Thingol became a mighty warrior against the Orcs. He wore a dragon-helmet, an heirloom of the House of Beor.

One of Thingol's Elves envied Turin his honor from the king. When Turin came home unkempt from the woods one day, the Elf asked him whether his mother was as wild as he was. Turin, responding to the Elf's insult, inadvertently caused his death and, fearing the King's vengeance, fled Doriath.

In the wild Turin became an outlaw, leading a band of Men and Elves against all around them. In Doriath, though, Thingol, learning the truth of the Elf's death, pardoned Turin and sent an Elvish warrior named Beleg to find him. Turin, from pride, refused Thingol's pardon and convinced Beleg to join the band. Thereafter it fought only Orcs.

When Beleg returned to Doriath to give Thingol news of Turin, Turin sought a new stronghold. After meeting a Dwarf named Mim and killing Mim's son, Turin agreed to spare Mim's life in exchange for shelter in the Dwarf's caves. There, Turin became a terror to Morgoth's Orcs. There, in time, Beleg returned, bearing from Doriath the Dragon-Helm and Anglachel, a black sword of meteoric iron.

One day, while Beleg was scouting, Mim went into the woods to gather herbs and was seized by Orcs. To save his life, he offered to lead them to Turin's lair. Turin's men were killed; he himself was captured. The Orcs, fearing no pursuit, took him slowly on to Angband.

Beleg, returning to the caves, learned of Mim's betrayal and set out in pursuit of the Orcs. On the road he met a bent and broken Elf, Gwindor of Nargothrond, an escaped prisoner of war. Gwindor led Beleg to the Orcs' camp. There, in a terrible thunderstorm, Beleg, with skilled and stealthy archery, killed the Orcs. When Beleg freed Turin of his bonds, though, he cut Turin in the darkness. Turin, thinking that an Orc was assaulting him, seized Anlachel from Beleg and slew him with it. When a flash of lightning revealed to Turin that he had killed his friend, Turin grew senseless with grief.

With great difficulty Gwindor got Turin to Nargothrond. There, the Elves treated GWindor with distrust as one who had been in Morgoth's power. Turin, though, became a hero to the Elves and was honored by the king. Finduilas, the king's daughter, who had once loved Gwindor, found her heart turned against her will to Turin.

Till then the Elves of Nargothrond had been hiding from Morgoth's forces and fighting them from ambush. Turin convinced the king to turn to open war, and to bridge the river before Nargothrond's gates so that his army could easily leave it.

For a while Turin's policy brought safety to the Elves and Men of the North. During the time of safety Morwen and Nienor fled from the Easterlings to Doriath. Because, though, Turin insisted on keeping his name secret, and being known only as Dragon-Helm, his mother and sister could not learn where he was.

Morgoth, on the other hand, knew well who Dragon-Helm was, and sent against Nargothrond an army of Orcs and wolves led by Glaurung. The Elves, caught in the open, all died. Turin, protected by the Dragon-Helm's power of, barely escaped with his life. The Orcs and Glaurung sacked Nargothrond and took its women and children as prisoners to Angband.

Turin, reaching Nargothrond, tried to attack Glaurung. The Dragon, though, with the power of the evil spirit in his eyes, held Turin immobile and taunted him for leaving his mother and sister as slaves of the Easterlings while he was a lord of Nargothrond. Glaurung forced Turin to listen to Finduilas's pleas for help as the Orcs led her off to a life of slavery. Glaurung then gave Turin a terrible choice, to pursue Finduilas, or to try to rescue his mother and sister.

Turin chose to go to the Easterlings' land to save his mother and sister. Learning there that Glaurung had lied to him, and that his mother and sister were safe in Doriath, Turin slew the Easterlings' king in his own hall, then sought Finduilas. In the forest of Brethil he found her grave. To prevent her escape during an attack by the Men of Brethil, the Orcs had slain her. Turin wept on Finduilas's grave, then accepted the call of the Men of Brethil to lead them. Among them he took the name Turambar, Master of Fate.

Meanwhile, word had reached Doriath that the Dragon-Helm was Turin, and that Nargothrond was in the Dragon's power. Morwen and Nienor, with a party of Elves, went to Nargothrond to learn Turin's fate. There, Glaurung, now the Dragon-King of Nargothrond, attacked the party and killed or scattered it, except for Nienor. Glaurung, reading in her mind that she was Hurin's daughter and Turin's sister, stripped her of her memory and power of speech, and sent her off into the wild.

Nienor wandered to Finduilas's grave, where she fell senseless from hunger. There, Turambar found Nienor, a beautiful maiden in place of a beautiful maiden. When he spoke kindly to her, she was drawn to him, but wept for frustration at being unable to speak. Moved by her tears, he named her Niniel, Tear-Maiden. Not having seen her since her early childhood, he did not recognize her as his sister.

In time Turambar and Niniel married, and Niniel was with child. Glaurung, hearing news of the Black Sword that guarded Brethil, set out for there. Turambar, to guard his people, went out against Glaurung alone and sought to slay him from ambush. Catching the Dragon crossing a ravine near a waterfall, Turambar stabbed him in the belly with the blade Anlachel to its hilts. As Turambar tried to pull out the blade, the Dragon's venomous blood spurted onto him. He fell to the ground as if he were dead.

There, beside the dying Dragon, Niniel found Turambar. She bound his wound and called on him to awake, but awoke only the Dragon. Glaurung, with his last breath, told her that she was really Nienor, daughter of Hurin, and that her husband, Turambar, was really her brother, Turin. As the Dragon died, Nienor's memory returned, and she recognized her brother. In despair she flung herself over the waterfall.

When Turin awoke, he learned what the Dragon had said, and how Nienor had died. Turin flung himself onto the point of his sword. The Elves of Doriath, learning of his fate, called his torment the worst of all of Morgoth's deeds. It was whispered that Turin did not pass beyond the world, but waited in the Halls of Mandos for the Great End, when he would deal Morgoth his deathstroke.

The Parallels

Dark fantasy is no new thing. Tolkien wrote a fine example of it over eighty years ago.

The Tale of Turin Turamabar, another of Tolkien's oldest works, is again mainly pagan in origin. It owes most to the story of Kullervo in the Finnish epic, The Kalevala. Kullervo, like Turin, unwittingly mated with his sister, and suffered a terrible doom for the sin of incest. Turin's story also has overtones, in terms of unwitting incest, of the Greek tragedy, Oedipus Rex, and, in terms of tragic lovers committing suicide, of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The Dwarf, Mim, and the Dragon, Glaurung, owe much to characters of the Norse saga of the Volsungs and the German epic, The Nibelungenlied. The deeds of Mim and Glaurung will play a major role in the next of Tolkien's Tales, The Necklace of the Dwarves.

Turin Turambar, though, does have parallels to two of the Bible's tragic figures, Samson (Judges 13-16) and King Saul of Israel (I Samuel 9-31). Like both men, Turin has gifts of physical prowess and courage beyond those of ordinary men, and is his people's deliverer. Like both men, though, Turin is also proud, impulsive, and vengeful. Like both men, too, Turin is destroyed by a fatal flaw in his character, the essence of tragedy. As Samson is destroyed by his lust for Delilah, and Saul is destroyed by his fear of David and his superstitious trust in the witch of Endor, Turin is destroyed by his blind trust in his own destiny as a peerless warrior.

Finally, like both Samson and Saul, Turin dies by his own hand. For Tolkien as a devout Roman Catholic, Nienor's and Turin's suicides would have been terrible deeds. He would've known that in the Bible just four men, all outside God's will -- Saul (I Samuel 31:4-6), Ahithophel (II Samuel 17:23), Zimri (I Kings 16:18), and Judas Iscariot (Matthew 27:3-5) -- had killed themselves. Samson's death at his own hands (Judges 16:25-30), in which he slew a multitude of Israel's enemies, the Philistines, falls into a gray area between suicide and honorable death in battle, and is worthy of discussion in itself in light of modern instances of one's killing oneself to kill one's enemies.

Roman Catholicism has taught that suicide is a mortal sin for two reasons. First, it is murder, the unjustified taking of life in God's image (Genesis 1:26-27; 9:5-6). Second, it is despair, hope's final rejection. As the mortal sin of suicide leaves no chance for the Church to grant absolution in this world, it must lead to final separation from God in the world to come.

Other Christian traditions, by no means encouraging suicide, recognize that a person covered by God's grace might, through special circumstances in one's life that overwhelm one's ability to endure, take one's own life, yet be received into God's presence in the world to come. Such traditions believe that God's grace can forgive every sin except that of blaspheming the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:31-32).

In Nienor and Turin's case, the special circumstance that drives them to suicide is guilty knowledge of their having committed incest. Brother-sister matings horrified the pagan Finns (The Kalevala) just as much as mother-son matings horrified the pagan Greeks (Oedipus Rex). In neither society would Nienor and Turin's ignorance of their incest have freed them of guilt. The Law of Moses, too, condemned mother-son and brother-sister matings and judged them worthy of death if committed willfully (Leviticus 16:6-9; 20:10-17). Incest appears in Scripture in the account of King David's chidren, Amnon and Tamar (II Samuel 13:1-29). Tamar's rape by her brother Amnon, and Amnon's death at the hands of his and Tamar's brother Absalom, set in motion a cycle of suffering for David's family with devastating consequences for it.

The tale of Nienor and Turin, then, reflects both a pagan and a pre-Christian view of justice. Under the Christian Law of Love (Romans 13:8-10; I John 4:7-12), however, one who is guilty of incest can, like any other sinner, turn from his sin to serve Christ, and be received into the fellowship of the Church (I Corinthians 6:9-11; 5:1-5; II Corinthians 2:3-11).

Finally, Glaurung is yet another of Tolkien's Satan-figures. Although he comes from Fafnir, the Dragon of The Volsunga Saga and The Nibelungenlied, Glaurung, in his role as destroyer, deceiver, and tormentor, is a type of Satan as the Great Dragon (Revelation 20:2-3). In one respect, Glaurung is the worst of Tolkien's Satan-figures. Whereas Morgoth's and Sauron's cruelty is often impersonal, a matter of policy, Glaurung inflicts his cruelty on his victims face to face out of a clear desire to make them suffer. Glaurung is thus like Satan as "a roaring lion ... seeking whom he may devour" (I Peter 5:8-9).

BIBLICAL PARALLELS TO MIDDLE-EARTH VII. THE TALE OF BEREN AND LUTHIEN

(SPOILER ALERT! This blog summarizes the chapter "Of Beren and Luthien" from The Silmarillion.)

The Story

After the Battle of Sudden Flame, Barahir and his son, Beren, stayed in the north to fight Morgoth. Sauron, though, sent one of Barahir's men a false vision leading him to betray Barahir's hidden camp. While Beren was scouting, Sauron's Orcs attacked the camp and killed all there. Returning there, Beren buried his father, then pursued the Orcs. Daringly, he recovered from them the ring that the Elvish King Felagund of Nargothrond had given Barahir in payment for saving Felagund's life.

Pursued by Morgoth, Beren fled southward into Doriath, the enchanted realm of the Elvish King Thingol and his wife, the Maia Melian. There, at moonrise on a summer's eve, Beren saw Luthien, Thingol and Melian's daughter, dancing in the woods. She was the most beautiful of all of Iluvatar's Children. Beren fell in love with her. As he ran to her, she vanished.

He wandered the woods in quest of her. He saw her in an autumn evening and a winter night, but could never approach her. At last, though, as spring began, he heard her sing a song more beautiful than any other that had been sung since the Great Music. When he called out to her, "Tinuviel," Elvish for nightingale, she responded to the name as her own. She fell in love with Beren.

When Thingol learned what his daughter had done, he took Beren captive and brought him to the throne for judgment. There, Beren found courage to claim Luthien as his own. Thingol would have slain Beren but for Barahir's ring. Thingol, though, set Beren a task that, if attempted, would surely cause his death. Thingol told Beren that he could have Luthien as his wife if he brought Thingol as her brideprice one of the Silmarils from Morgoth's crown. Melian, hearing her husband's challenge, grieved. By involving himself with the Silmarils, Thingol had brought upon himself the Doom of Mandos.

Beren, saying that Thingol sold his daughter cheaply, set off for Nargothrond to seek Felagund's help. Felagund, recalling the debt that he owed Beren's father, volunteered to help Beren win the Silmaril. Two of Feanor's sons, Celegorm and Curufin, were living in Nargothrond. They warned Thingol that Feanor's Oath made them foes of whoever kept from them a Silmaril. Ignoring their warning, Felagund left Nargothrond with Beren and a small party of Elves to enter Angband, Morgoth's impenetrable fortress.

On the way there, Beren and Felagund slew some Orcs and took their gear as disguises. When Beren's party passed an outlying watchtower, Sauron, its master, called the party of "Orcs" before him to tell him their business. Felagund fought with a Sauron a magical duel that Sauron won, exposing the party as Elves and a Man. He could not, though, learn their names or business. He put them into a dungeon. There, night after night, he sent a wolf to slay one of the party till just Beren and Felagund remained.

Meanwhile, Luthien had been trying to find Beren. After being held prisoner by her father, Luthien had escaped from Doriath, only to be captured by Celegorm and Curufin, who took her to Nargothrond. There they meant to force her to marry Celegorm. With the aid of Celegorm's hunting dog, Huan, one of the hounds of Valinor, Luthien escaped from Nargothrond and reached the watchtower.

There, Sauron's wolf had just killed Felagund. Luthien sang a song that awoke a response from Beren. It also awoke a response from Sauron, who sent a wolf after her. When Huan slew it, Sauron recalled a prophecy that Huan could never die till he met the world's mightiest wolf. Sauron himself, taking a wolf's form, fought Huan. Huan's power and Luthien's song prevailed. Sauron was forced to release Beren and flee in disgrace to Morgoth.

Beren and Luthien wandered long till he found the resolve to send her home and go for the Silmaril alone. Before he could do so, Celegorm and Curufin attacked him and Luthien. Huan fought against his old master. Beren defeated Celegorm and stripped him of his weapons, but Curufin, riding off with his brother, shot Beren with a poisoned arrow. Beren was saved only by a magical leaf that Huan brought him, and by Luthien's song.

As Beren convalesced, he agreed to Luthien's demand to share his path wherever it ran. With her aid, he disguised himself as a wolf. With her as a bat beside him, he set off for Angband. At its gate Beren and Luthien met Carcharoth, the world's mightiest wolf, whom Morgoth had bred in view of Huan's prophecy. With her song Luthien put Carcharoth asleep.

Beren and Luthien went on to Morgoth's throneroom. There, Beren, still disguised as a wolf, slunk under Morgoth's throne. Luthien, dropping her disguise, offered to serve Morgoth as a minstrel. While Morgoth conceived an abominable lust for her, she sang the second mightiest song ever sung by a Child of Iluvatar. One by one Morgoth's minions fell asleep. At length, he, too, fell senseless from his throne. His iron crown rolled from his head.

Luthien awoke Beren. Beren cut a Silmaril from Morgoth's crown. When he tried to cut the other Silmarils from it, his knife snapped. As Morgoth and his minions began to stir, Beren and Luthien fled the throneroom in terror. At Angband's gates, they met Carcharoth, again awake. Luthien, spent from her song before Morgoth, could do nothing against him. Beren tried to raise against him the light of the Silmaril, as Frodo and Sam would raise that Silmaril's light, caught in the Phial of Galadriel, against Shelob. Carcharoth, though, bit off Beren's hand. Driven mad by the Silmaril's holy light in his evil body, Carcharoth ran howling off.

Luthien barely had time to stanch Beren's wound before Huan came to bear her and Beren away from Morgoth's pursuit. With the aid of Huan and the eagles of Manwe, Beren and Luthien returned to Doriath. There, Beren claimed Luthien on the basis of his having a Silmaril in his hand. When Thingol challenged him to produce the jewel, he showed Thingol his handless arm and said that the hand was in Carcharoth. Thingol, at last seeing Beren as a Man of truth and courage, granted him Luthien's love.

This, Beren did not long enjoy. Carcharoth, with the Silmaril's power within him, burst into Doriath and began to ravage the land. Beren, Thingol, and Huan hunted him. In a terrible battle with Carcharoth, Huan slew the wolf, but not before both Huan and Beren were mortally wounded. Beren had just enough time to place the Silmaril in Thingol's hands before he died.

At Luthien's prayer, Beren was detained in the Halls of Mandos and did not pass beyond them to whatever destiny awaited Men. Luthien herself soon sickened and died. Coming in spirit before Mandos, she sang to him the mightiest song of Iluvatar's Chidren, a song of all of the suffering and sorrow of Elves and Men in Middle-Earth. The pitiless Mandos, moved to tears for the sole time, granted Luthien her wish.

She chose to return with Beren to Middle-Earth and live with him there the rest of a mortal life, then share with him Men's destiny beyond the world. In Middle-Earth, in a hidden land of peace, Beren and Luthien had a son, Dior. From him the heritage of Elves and Maiar would reach Men of the present day through his descendants Aragorn and Arwen.

The Parallels

The Tale of Beren and Luthien, to many the greatest of Tolkien's tales, is his most personal. It's the story of him and his wife. As an orphaned teenager under a Catholic priest's guardianship, Tolkien met and fell in love with a fellow orphan, Edith. Once, when she danced for him in a grove of trees, he conceived a story in which she was an Elven princess; he, an outcast warrior forbidden to marry her. The forbidding reflected Tolkien's and Edith's different faiths: he was Catholic; she, Anglican. Indeed, when the priest learned of Tolkien and Edith's relationship, he forebade Tolkien to see her again. Only when he came of age, and Edith turned to Catholicism, could he marry her. On the Tolkiens' grave, the work "Beren" stands below his name; the word "Luthien," below hers.

Still, Tolkien must've seen the parallels between the story of Beren and Luthien and two Biblical accounts of a man who had to undergo an ordeal to gain the woman whom he loved. The first account is that of Jacob, who had to labor seven years to win Laban's daughter, Rachel (Genesis 29:15-29). The second account is that of David, who had to kill a hundred Philistine warriors to win King Saul's daughter, Michal (I Samuel 18:14-29). King Thingol of Doriath, in The Tale of Beren and Luthien, displays both Laban's greed and King Saul's suspicion and pride.

In keeping with Tolkien's statment that, though he detested allegory, he accepted applicability, there's much of the latter in this tale. King Felagund of Nargothrond represents the godly man, who, having sworn an oath to his hurt, yet keeps it (Psalm 15:1-5). Luthien shows Ruth's determination to share the fate of one whom she loves (Ruth 1:16-17). Beren, Felagund, Huan, and Luthien all illustrate the theme of sacrifice that runs through Tolkien's work. Tolkien again plays the "Adam and Eve" theme when he restores Beren and Luthien to a peaceful garden and makes them the parents of a son who, like Seth, is the ancestor of the Deliverer, to be embodied at the end of the First Age as Earendil, at the end of the Second Age as Isildur, and at the end of the Third Age as Aragorn (Genesis 4:25-26; 5:3; Luke 3:23-38).

Mostly, though, as The Tale of Beren and Luthien is one of Tolkien's earliest stories, it's also one of his least Biblical. It borrows its themes of the hunt, shapeshifting, magical animals, and a dark quest of the underworld from the Celtic mythology that fascinated Tolkien in his youth. His tale most directly parallels the stories of Annwn from the Welsh classic, The Mabinogion.

Tolkien's tale ends with a magnificent role-reversed retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus. To this Tolkien gives a bittersweet ending in contrast with the Greek myth's stark tragedy. In the myth of Orpheus, Orpheus wins his true love, Eurydice, from Hades, but loses her on the way back to the earth. In the tale of Beren and Luthien, Luthien wins her true love, Beren, from Mandos, and returns with him to Middle-Earth, but must sacrifice her immortality for the sake of her love. In The Lord of the Rings, Luthien's descendent, Arwen, will make Luthien's bittersweet choice out of love of Aragorn.

In the end, The Tale of Beren and Luthien is a beautiful story. Surely we do no wrong in appreciating it just as that.