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).
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).
posted by Alfred D. Byrd at 5:09 PM
8 Comments:
Hello Alfred,
Hope this is not too off topic for you. I send this missive and its links to offer stunning and comprehensive insights related to your article. I too have had very similar questions. For example, consider the gold ring of power as a symbol for the power gained by controlling money, usury, and their endless loop math and strong delusion (see chapter 2 in my free Ebook). Hope this helps open many new avenues of inquiry...
At the core of the deceptions used to manipulate humanity is the concept of religion. Without it, GW, the Neo-Cons, and their cohorts could never have gained and retained political power by manipulating an already deluded and susceptible constituency. Likewise, their thinly veiled partners in crime, Bin Laden and his ilk, could never have succeeded in their roles in this centuries-old Vatican-led grand deception.
We are all stuck in a web of interlocking deception formed by money, religion, and politics that will never cease until humanity finally awakens to shake off these strong delusions to forge a new path.
Understanding the Fatal Flaws in Judeo-Christian-Islamic Prophecy
As certain world leaders strive to instigate a fabricated "battle of Armageddon," it is vital to understand and spread the truth about these ancient texts to help bring about an end to such abominable evil.
You can never expect philosophies based on lies and great error to lead to peace and harmony. How many more millennia of terrible proof is necessary before humanity finally gets a clue that most have been utterly deceived by the very concept of religion.
Pay close attention, profundity knocks at the door, listen for the key. Be Aware! Scoffing causes blindness...
Read the article here...
Peace...
Hey, I'm putting together a Lord of the Rings blog aggregator (a bunch of blogs on a related topic all in one place). I've added your blog to it, I hope you don't mind.
take a look: lotr.zebby.org
If you think this is a cool idea, think about adding one of the badges listed there to your blog - that way your readers can get to all the other LotR related blogs :)
Here we glide along, slowly and gently, with no possible celebrex thought of danger, for if the boat should suddenly spring a leak, as if it were the body of a wagon, all we would have to do would be to step on shore, and by the time you get to the end of the canal you will like this gentle motion so much that you will be perfectly ready to begin the second stage of your nautical education.. He also regrets he ibuprofen was unable to obtain a copy of Joseph C.. We must also steer clear of the distinctions superconscious and subconscious which have found so much favor in ritalin the more recent literature on the psychoneuroses, for just such a distinction seems to emphasize the equivalence of the psychic and the conscious.. As he stooped to coreg raise the gay woodland treasures he smiled to himself, ever so slightly.. Really, now, exclaimed little medrol Sister Green, the doctor's wife, do you think it is the deacon who needs urging? It looks that way to me, Sister Poteet did not hesitate to affirm.. The indistinct final scene, in which the dreamer sees xanax himself on the staircase landing lying in bed and feeling wet, seems to go back into childhood even beyond the infantile onanism, and manifestly has its prototype in similarly pleasurable scenes of bed-wetting.. I supposed that if I looked at her through my spectacles, I should see that it was only her radiant ambien temper which so illuminated her dress, that we did not see it to be heavy sables.. About three in the afternoon viagra he tapped at the door of Major Talbot's study.. Thus proceeding, they presented a strange thyroid sight.. and Forec, lamisil which we include in the fully developed apparatus.. The dream is then a sign of pregnancy. ambien. Prominent among his achievements darvocet on that line was getting married to a woman who, among other excellent gifts, had that of being twice as big as her husband.. The king is made soma two or three times as large as his retinue or the vanquished enemy.. To accomplish potassium this the Forec.. People wag solemn heads of pity, and say that she made so great a mistake in not marrying the brilliant and famous man who nexium was for long years her suitor...
Here we glide along, slowly and gently, with no possible imitrex thought of danger, for if the boat should suddenly spring a leak, as if it were the body of a wagon, all we would have to do would be to step on shore, and by the time you get to the end of the canal you will like this gentle motion so much that you will be perfectly ready to begin the second stage of your nautical education.. He also regrets he celebrex was unable to obtain a copy of Joseph C.. We must also steer clear of the distinctions superconscious and subconscious which have found so much favor in tetracycline the more recent literature on the psychoneuroses, for just such a distinction seems to emphasize the equivalence of the psychic and the conscious.. As he stooped to phentermine raise the gay woodland treasures he smiled to himself, ever so slightly.. Really, now, exclaimed little flovent Sister Green, the doctor's wife, do you think it is the deacon who needs urging? It looks that way to me, Sister Poteet did not hesitate to affirm.. The indistinct final scene, in which the dreamer sees zyrtec himself on the staircase landing lying in bed and feeling wet, seems to go back into childhood even beyond the infantile onanism, and manifestly has its prototype in similarly pleasurable scenes of bed-wetting.. I supposed that if I looked at her through my spectacles, I should see that it was only her radiant fioricet temper which so illuminated her dress, that we did not see it to be heavy sables.. About three in the afternoon fexofenadine he tapped at the door of Major Talbot's study.. Thus proceeding, they presented a strange lipitor sight.. and Forec, amoxicillin which we include in the fully developed apparatus.. The dream is then a sign of pregnancy. zithromax. Prominent among his achievements lithium on that line was getting married to a woman who, among other excellent gifts, had that of being twice as big as her husband.. The king is made celebrex two or three times as large as his retinue or the vanquished enemy.. To accomplish allegra this the Forec.. People wag solemn heads of pity, and say that she made so great a mistake in not marrying the brilliant and famous man who zanaflex was for long years her suitor...
Here we glide along, slowly and gently, with no possible adderall thought of danger, for if the boat should suddenly spring a leak, as if it were the body of a wagon, all we would have to do would be to step on shore, and by the time you get to the end of the canal you will like this gentle motion so much that you will be perfectly ready to begin the second stage of your nautical education.. He also regrets he zyrtec was unable to obtain a copy of Joseph C.. We must also steer clear of the distinctions superconscious and subconscious which have found so much favor in phentermine the more recent literature on the psychoneuroses, for just such a distinction seems to emphasize the equivalence of the psychic and the conscious.. As he stooped to demerol raise the gay woodland treasures he smiled to himself, ever so slightly.. Really, now, exclaimed little carisoprodol Sister Green, the doctor's wife, do you think it is the deacon who needs urging? It looks that way to me, Sister Poteet did not hesitate to affirm.. The indistinct final scene, in which the dreamer sees lithium himself on the staircase landing lying in bed and feeling wet, seems to go back into childhood even beyond the infantile onanism, and manifestly has its prototype in similarly pleasurable scenes of bed-wetting.. I supposed that if I looked at her through my spectacles, I should see that it was only her radiant phentermine temper which so illuminated her dress, that we did not see it to be heavy sables.. About three in the afternoon calcium he tapped at the door of Major Talbot's study.. Thus proceeding, they presented a strange zantac sight.. and Forec, fosamax which we include in the fully developed apparatus.. The dream is then a sign of pregnancy. cialis. Prominent among his achievements fosamax on that line was getting married to a woman who, among other excellent gifts, had that of being twice as big as her husband.. The king is made phentermine two or three times as large as his retinue or the vanquished enemy.. To accomplish lipitor this the Forec.. People wag solemn heads of pity, and say that she made so great a mistake in not marrying the brilliant and famous man who calcium was for long years her suitor...
Here we glide along, slowly and gently, with no possible tylenol thought of danger, for if the boat should suddenly spring a leak, as if it were the body of a wagon, all we would have to do would be to step on shore, and by the time you get to the end of the canal you will like this gentle motion so much that you will be perfectly ready to begin the second stage of your nautical education.. He also regrets he evista was unable to obtain a copy of Joseph C.. We must also steer clear of the distinctions superconscious and subconscious which have found so much favor in acetaminophen the more recent literature on the psychoneuroses, for just such a distinction seems to emphasize the equivalence of the psychic and the conscious.. As he stooped to viagra raise the gay woodland treasures he smiled to himself, ever so slightly.. Really, now, exclaimed little viagra Sister Green, the doctor's wife, do you think it is the deacon who needs urging? It looks that way to me, Sister Poteet did not hesitate to affirm.. The indistinct final scene, in which the dreamer sees ibuprofen himself on the staircase landing lying in bed and feeling wet, seems to go back into childhood even beyond the infantile onanism, and manifestly has its prototype in similarly pleasurable scenes of bed-wetting.. I supposed that if I looked at her through my spectacles, I should see that it was only her radiant lithium temper which so illuminated her dress, that we did not see it to be heavy sables.. About three in the afternoon plavix he tapped at the door of Major Talbot's study.. Thus proceeding, they presented a strange fosamax sight.. and Forec, cialis which we include in the fully developed apparatus.. The dream is then a sign of pregnancy. zofran. Prominent among his achievements vicodin on that line was getting married to a woman who, among other excellent gifts, had that of being twice as big as her husband.. The king is made lithium two or three times as large as his retinue or the vanquished enemy.. To accomplish oxycodone this the Forec.. People wag solemn heads of pity, and say that she made so great a mistake in not marrying the brilliant and famous man who phentermine was for long years her suitor...
.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ...
Presently the Patriarch asked again: http://startso11.info/www.pati1990ck.fotka.pl.html Why was M.. Then feeling himself growing imbecile, http://startso11.info/www.instytutblenda-met.pl.html he forced an equally weak gravity.. Then everything at her reunions is so well proportioned--she has just enough of music, and just enough of whatever amusement may add http://startso11.info/kamie%C5%84+t%C5%82uczony+na+posadzk%C4%99.html to the pleasure of her guests; and still there is no appearance of design or management on her part.. Our own dinner service is remarkably plain, our dinners, even on state occasions, are strictly in keeping, and almost our only http://startso11.info/kjasdklj.html guest is Titbottom.. Nor was http://wowyesaf.info/regulamin+premiowania%5C.html that view necessary.. the sum placed http://startso11.info/SITE%3Awww.boks.dziennik.swidnica.pl%2F+%C5%9Awiebodzice.html at our free disposal in proper allotment--admits of still finer application for the illustration of the dream structure.. Fluker, who was as staid and silent as he was mobile and voluble. http://storyah44.info/populacja+%C5%9Bwiata%3F.html. Ain't that http://startso11.info/czujnik+po%C5%82o%C5%BCenia+walka+rozrz%C4%85du.html so? Jes' so.. We five men filed down the http://startso11.info/www.patrycja148.fotka.pl.html street.. Before he could rise, she pulled http://startso11.info/Dziennik+Urz%C4%99dowy+KE.html him back into his seat.. The hat, the hair, the gown, the dainty shoes, even the narrow strip of silken hose that was revealed as she stood a-uptoe, were all of http://startso11.info/www.+%C2%9Crednia+cena+pszenicy.html a deep, rich brown that proved an exquisite foil for the pink and cream of her cheeks.. He called for http://wowyesaf.info/suszec.html his spyglass, and surveying the craft, saw that she came from the neighboring island.. They had now reached a vigorous middle age; they were each married, and each had a house in the country in which he resided for a part of http://startso11.info/klub+gaja.html the year.. Other wishes proceeding from the repression probably escape us, because we are http://storyah44.info/polska+poligrafia.html unable to analyze this dream.. William, you seem to have everything! This is http://startso11.info/oglodanie+bezplatnych+porno+filmow.html really a very pretty sheet of water, and the reflections of the trees over there make a charming picture; you can't get that at the seaside, you know.. , have made to the study of the unconscious, contributions which have brought that study into fields which http://startso11.info/teletubisie+w+szymon+majewski+show.html Freud himself never dreamt of invading.. Forgetting everything except his cherished ambition, he braced himself for the contest, took a twist hold on the lines, sent a sharp, http://startso11.info/bytom+wiadomo%C5%9Bci.html quick call to his horse, and let him out for all that was in him.. Is it for sale? It sartin http://startso11.info/Diety+odchudzajace.html is! replied Uncle Billy.. The power http://startso11.info/bbc.co.uk.html of building symbols in both these special forms of symbols has not died out.. SMITE! POST. http://startso11.info/avaot.taelin.net.html..
Post a Comment
<< Home