3. The Ring Goes South
Bilbo and Frodo discuss the end of Bilbo’s book, the chronicle of his own adventure and the continuation he envisions for Frodo’s. But Frodo is disheartened about his future prospects and – well, his own ending. Bilbo says encouragingly that it might end with them all settling down together and living happily ever after. This is not the first time Bilbo has expressed this, shall we say, somewhat childish hope. Frodo, as we have seen, is a more mature character and harbors no such hopes himself – “happy” he will never be. In any case, Sam says: “Alas! And where will they live? That’s what I often wonder.”
The adventure has left them homeless. They have, once and for all, left their home, their familiar situation. This is what makes the adventure, or the individuation process, so frightening – that one leaves behind the familiar and therefore safe, to move toward something unknown. Because the adventure changes one, and because the world thereby changes, one cannot return; it can never be as it was. Consequently, it requires something extra to set out. Bilbo was more or less forced to go, while Frodo followed a calling. Frodo, as we know, will return to the Shire, it’s true, but life will never be the same; he has, so to speak, lost his innocence by then, he has grown up. So has Sam.
Frodo gets a respite in Rivendell. Elrond has sent out scouts and awaits their return before the company sets off southward. This is a relief for him. But gradually, Frodo begins to notice a red star that shines brighter each night. “It glowed like a watchful eye.” It is the call reminding him. A single star represents the individual’s fate.[1] Frodo cannot linger here.
Seven and Union
Then comes the moment. Elrond announces that the Fellowship of the Ring shall consist of nine members, to oppose the nine riders of evil. It becomes necessity versus necessity, symbolically speaking. Rationally, the number might seem less relevant; as far as Elrond knows, the riders are now washed away and bodiless, thus fairly harmless for the time being. Moreover, the Fellowship of the Ring will never directly confront even a single rider, let alone nine. But the mirroring of the number underscores that the riders represent the Fellowship’s shadow.
“In seven days, the Fellowship of the Ring shall set out,” Elrond then says. Since we are now discussing the symbolic value of numbers, the number is worth noting; not least because, just a few lines later, there is mention of Aragorn’s reforged sword, adorned with an emblem of seven stars between a sun and a moon. The number seven thus holds symbolic significance.
The number expresses time, development, and the unfolding process that leads to fulfillment. The number three is active and masculine, while four is resting and feminine; these opposites strive for unity in the wholeness of seven. In this context, it is a number that expresses the development of opposites over time, leading to union. When Elrond says the journey begins in seven days, he hints that this process is now set in motion, while the fact that Aragorn’s sword bears seven stars in this context indicates that he represents the process’s fulfillment (at least potentially). That the stars are found between the sun and the moon on the emblem further underscores that fulfillment concerns the union of the masculine and the feminine.[2]
Now Aragorn will finally leave Rivendell and journey to Minas Tirith to be crowned king. The time has thus come to reforge his sword. When we first met him, he was a yearning wanderer in the service of the Mother, at home in Rivendell (where his mother lived). But now he will go to, simply put, serve the Father, and it is therefore fitting that his sword is repaired; that the castration required by the Great Mother, so to speak, is undone.
In Rivendell, hints have already been made about how the story now begins to strive for union – the Hall of Fire with the sound of rippling water, the dream vision Frodo had where he was bathed in gold and silver, and the glimpse we got of Aragorn and Arwen in a private moment. Another hint comes now, as Frodo receives the sword Sting from Bilbo, along with his priceless mithril mail. The blade is, of course, a decidedly active, masculine symbol, while the mail, gleaming like “moonlit silver” and adorned with white gems, with an accompanying belt decorated with pearls and crystals, is clearly feminine. Frodo is careful to wear his feminine mail so that no one sees it, so he appears as an “ordinary hobbit.” He cannot manifest femininity, because it would go against the masculine quest.
Since the Fellowship only potentially unites opposites through these signs, we will see how the story’s first attempt at true union occurs on a “low” level, in Moria.
Sam
Sam insists on bringing the pony Bert, which they acquired in Bree. He says the horse can almost speak; that is, he has established a close relationship with the animal, which in turn reveals that this hobbit has a closeness to his instincts. He expresses a “primitive” simplicity, with both feet firmly on the ground. He is careful to bring cooking pots – “which were his greatest treasure” – but also a box of salt, flint and tinder, and so on. If we stick strictly to the text of the story, it is only Sam who is practical enough to think of such things, so grounded. This quality will prove crucial for Frodo, as it keeps him grounded, in touch with the earth, throughout their breathtaking adventure. Without this quality, Frodo would not have succeeded in the mission.
Motherlessness
The Fellowship that leaves Rivendell with the Ring is not only strikingly masculine – all are men – but also dreadfully motherless: Frodo’s, Sam’s, Aragorn’s, and Boromir’s mothers each died when the respective man was a child; Legolas and Gimli lack mothers according to the annals, and Gandalf, of course, has no mother. (Merry and Pippin are exceptions, but they are also the least prominent members of the Fellowship.)[3]
This absence of actual mothers (and wives) underscores, along with the relative absence of women, that the feminine is suppressed. We have discussed this before, but the Shire, the Old Forest, Rivendell, and so forth, together with the Ring, are symbols of the suppressed femininity that the story strives to integrate into, so to speak, Frodo’s (or ego’s) world. Since it is suppressed, as we have also mentioned, it reappears in symbolic, often terrifying forms rather than literal ones. The adventure aims to break the unconscious maternal bond to establish a conscious relationship with the feminine, symbolized by marriage, by the establishment of real relationships.
We recognize this symbol from countless folktales, which begin with a situation where either the masculine or the feminine is one-sided and end with a balance between the two dynamics, for example, through the prince and princess marrying each other. Jung’s close collaborator Marie-Louise von Franz frequently returns to this theme in her fairytale interpretations, which are warmly recommended.
Male Heroes
In the saga, the heroes are, as is well known, almost exclusively men. This has its cultural explanation, of course, but it is also symbolically consistent. The conscious ego has a masculine quality (regardless of whether it pertains to a man or a woman), while that which resists change, that which becomes an obstacle (the unconscious), has a feminine quality. For this reason, active heroes in fairy tales who overcome obstacles are almost always boys or men, but this should not be understood literally.[4]
“Fairy tales are the purest and simplest expression of collective unconscious psychic processes,” writes Marie-Louise von Franz,[5] meaning that, in other words, they represent archetypal images and themes. In our saga, we see that Frodo, in particular, represents consciousness, while the Ring, elves, and monsters represent the unconscious, and the story strives, so to speak, to break the bond, to end the enchantment of the unconscious. This becomes a struggle between the conscious, masculine ego and the unconscious, feminine content.
Erich Neumann elaborates on the relationship between masculinity and consciousness (the ego) and femininity and unconsciousness:
“As we have already pointed out, it is consistent with the conscious-unconscious structure of the opposites that the unconscious should be regarded as predominantly feminine, and consciousness as predominantly masculine. This correlation is self-evident, because the unconscious, alike in its capacity to bring to birth and to destroy through absorption, has feminine affinities. … Conversely, its opposite, the system of ego consciousness, is masculine. With it are associated the qualities of volition, decision, and activity as contrasted with the determinism and blind ‘drives’ of the preconscious, egoless state. /…/
“… through the masculinization and emancipation of ego consciousness the ego becomes the 'hero'. The story of the hero, as set forth in the myths, is the history of this self-emancipation of the ego, struggling to free itself from the power of the unconscious and to hold its own against overwhelming odds.’”[5]
While it is consistent with the structure and dynamics of the saga that a group of motherless men take the Ring and carry it south to destroy it, the heroes, whether in our saga or in fairy tales, should not be understood as representatives of men in opposition to women. Rather, the experience of breaking the bond, of initiating a conscious individuation process, is shared by both men and women. But symbolically, it is expressed as a man’s struggle, as he provides a fitting image for the inherently masculine ego, while the opposition in the form of monsters represents the inherently feminine unconscious.
Moria and Dwarves
The Fellowship travels south. They are determined to avoid Moria, the dwarves’ vast, underground realm, long abandoned and, according to reliable sources, very dangerous. But they also do not want to cross from the western side of the mountain range to the eastern (which they must eventually do) via the “Gap of Rohan” at the mountain’s end, as that would bring them too close to Isengard and Saruman. They attempt to cross the mountains via a pass, but a snowstorm makes this impossible. They must go through the mountain, via Moria’s mines. In fact, it is Gandalf who suggests this route, while Aragorn hesitates and advises against it. One gets the impression that Gandalf wants to go through Moria and finally finds a reason to lead the Fellowship there, as, according to him, they have no choice. Moria represents a severe trial, not least for Gandalf himself. This is a parallel to Tom Bombadil’s indirect leading of the hobbits to the Barrow-downs, so they might face trials, symbolic death, and rebirth; exactly what will become Gandalf’s fate in Moria. Just as it was necessary for Frodo to be initiated at the Barrow-downs, it is now necessary for Gandalf to undergo his own rite of passage before he can continue the adventure. Aragorn says: “It is not of the Ring or the rest of us that I am thinking now, but of you, Gandalf.”
Humans represent a conscious relationship to the content; we have seen that Frodo, only after his initiation at the Barrow-downs, establishes a relationship with “the Big Folk” and, so to speak, integrates Aragorn into his life. The riders, who initially represent the Big Folk while the hobbits fear them, later appear as the shadow of the grown men and, in this respect, are the Terrible Mother’s agents. Gandalf and Tom Bombadil have represented the daemon, the call, and the Good Father (all three contained within the same symbol). The elves are feminine and represent the Good Mother, offering recurring protection in her embrace. But what, then, do the dwarves represent? Well, they are a bit more complex.
Dwarves belong to the underground, or, in other words, to Mother Earth, and are to a great extent associated with creativity and materialism – that is, they work, create, and gather treasures. As Jung puts it, the folkloristic dwarfs symbolize “the chthonic self.”[7] Their underground quality connects them to other subterranean symbols, such as secrets, snakes/dragons, and hidden treasures. In our context, we recognize this from The Hobbit, where the dwarves desire the great treasure lying beneath the mountain, guarded by a dragon. We can also note that, in the story, they have a secret language they do not teach to others. Dwarves (dactyls, cabeiri, etc.) finally have a phallic aspect, and the phallus is, not least, a symbol of creative creation. They are thus phallic figures belonging to the Chthonic Mother.
These aspects in the story make the dwarf a natural compensation for the elf. Both have a maternal bond, but of entirely different natures; while the elf is feminine, spiritual, and inflationary in its relationship with the Good Mother, the dwarf is masculine, materialistic, and grounded in its relationship with the Cthonic Mother. As we know, the story strives to unite even these initially antagonistic contents, allowing the relationship to develop into friendship and loyalty between Legolas and Gimli through mutual trials.
Footnotes
[1] Marie-Louise von Franz, Individuation in Fairy Tales (Boston: Shambhala, 1990), p. 16.
[2] In the story, the characters refer to the sun as “she” and the moon as “he,” just as the Vikings did, but there is no doubt that the moon is a feminine symbol and the sun masculine in the story’s universe.
[3] This is not detailed in the story itself, but we have used other Tolkien sources ("Tolkien Gateway").
[4] Erich Neumann, The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype, trans. Ralph Manheim (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 28.
[5] Marie-Louise von Franz, The Interpretation of Fairy Tales (Boston: Shambhala, 1996), p. 1.
[6] Neumann, The History and Origins of Consciousness, p. 125 and 127.
[7] Jung, Visions, p. 277.