4. A Journey in the Dark
As the fellowship wanders through the winter landscape, they hear wolves howling. The Fellowship of the Ring ascends a hill “surrounded by boulders in an uneven circle.” The place, with its height and ring of stones, resembles Weathertop. Indeed, a repetition of that situation occurs – during the night, they are attacked by the monsters of the Terrible Mother. We have previously discussed situations as archetypes, how, for example, a ford implies a transition that provokes danger. Archetypal images are manifestations colored by circumstances; while the core of the content remains the same, the experience of it – the image itself – varies. Consequently, it is not the Black Riders who attack the fellowship in the winter night, but wolves.
The wolf, like the Terrible Mother, is devouring. Odin’s wolves were named Gere and Freke, “the ravenous” and “the greedy,” respectively; the sun was chased across the sky by a wolf born of a giantess, which devours it at Ragnarök. We recognize the wolf’s devouring nature from countless myths and folktales, the most famous being how the wolf in “Little Red Riding Hood” swallows both the girl and her grandmother.
But the wolf is also associated with winter, night, and the moon, making it a particularly fitting “mother-monster” for this situation. Furthermore, the wolf is linked to sorcery and the underworld. The Norse death goddess Hel, for instance, was called “the wolf’s pale sister.” It is thus evident that the wolf pack in our story is sent by the Terrible Mother to devour the protagonist.
A battle ensues on the hill until Gandalf drives the beasts away with sorcery and fires. By morning, the wolves are gone, not even their bodies remain. “These were no ordinary wolves,” Gandalf notes, just as the riders at Weathertop were no ordinary riders – not physical manifestations but rather spiritual, that is, psychological.
We might mention a detail about the hill. Like Weathertop, it has a stone ring around its summit, but unlike Weathertop, there is also a grove here. The image has thus evolved slightly, through another attempt at uniting opposites. We have seen how stones represent the father and trees the mother in this story.
As mentioned, the adventurers wish at all costs to avoid Moria, either by crossing over the mountains or going around them. But Moria is a vast complex they must pass through, just as Frodo had to face the horrors of the Barrow-downs. Just as the Good Father, in the guise of Tom Bombadil, understood that Frodo could not be spared the barrow, he, in the guise of Gandalf, knows they cannot avoid Moria without missing the entire point. Consequently, the wizard leads the reluctant fellowship to the mines of Moria.
The environment around the path to the dwarves’ abandoned tunnel system is masculine and dead – dry, bleak, rocky; no water, no living animals. They search for a stream that should lead them to Moria’s gates but find only a dry channel. Still, they locate the stone stairs they were seeking and ascend. The environment is characterized by a negative masculinity surrounding the negative femininity on the other side of Moria’s gates. We have a union of opposites at a low, sterile level. This is the dwarves’ environment. As far as we know – according to the story’s text – dwarves have no children; it is unclear if dwarf women even exist (though we must rationally conclude they do). In the previous chapter, it was noted that dwarves, like the environment the fellowship now finds itself in, have a dual quality as masculine men with phallic attributes, belonging to the Mother’s underworld. But again, this dual quality is at a low level; dwarves, as far as we can judge, are not particularly fertile and seem entirely devoid of spiritual qualities. Like the elves, they are one-sided.
Where, then, is the Mother in this environment? Well, when they ascend the stone stairs, a deep and completely stagnant lake stretches out between them and the gate on the other side. The water that once flowed through the channel has been dammed and stands still. The energy the stream represents is, as a result, inaccessible. The environment illustrates a common psychological state where life becomes like the surrounding setting in the story – dry, lifeless, uninteresting – when one’s inner energy is absorbed by a complex while consciousness hardens in an outdated attitude through habits and repetitions. Other images expressing this state in dreams and stories are the dry well and the waterless fountain. The water is somewhere, it hasn’t vanished, but it lies inaccessible in one’s inner underworld, stagnant, dammed. The one who primarily personifies this psychological state in the story is Denethor in Minas Tirith, the ruler of the stone city with the dead tree. But we will come to him.
The fellowship makes its way around the lake along a narrow ledge and reaches the rock wall and its gates on the other side. In fact, the gates are invisible – compare the chief quality of the One Ring – but Gandalf knows they are hidden here between two great trees.
Indeed, two holly trees stand along the rock wall, their “mighty roots stretching from the mountain to the water.” The trees were planted by elves outside the gate to the dwarf kingdom, connecting the rock (the father) with the water (the mother). Attempts at uniting opposites continue, in other words, but here too, they lead to nothing fruitful.
We should linger a moment on the holly trees. The choice of species is not entirely obvious and must hold symbolic significance. The rational reason for holly trees might be that they were planted by elves when peace prevailed between the peoples – the tree is evergreen and has red berries, which in Tolkien’s culture are associated with festive celebrations around Christmas, a time of joy, peace, and community. The species suggests that harmony once prevailed. But that was then; now the world has become one-sided and thus sterile and stagnant. The trees, however, remain, for the species is particularly hardy and robust. The ancient Germanic word for holly means “iron tree.” (In Swedish, it is still järnek, “iron oak“.) “Iron” likely refers to the wood’s hardness and its equally hard, spiky leaves. The English word holly comes from the same root as holy, and indeed, the tree has had a sacred character in the Anglo-Saxon world (of which our modern Christmas decorations are a faint echo). Finally, from our perspective, it is an interesting coincidence that these trees are dioecious, meaning they are either “female” or “male.” Unfortunately, we do not know which of the two stand here, or if there is one of each.
Returning to the gate, it is noteworthy that it was actually built by the elves. Given this people’s close connection to the Great Mother, it is symbolically significant that the gate is elvish, not a dwarvish work. The mines of Moria on the other side are, of course, a symbol of her dark side.
Gandalf whispers a secret word to the gate, making it visible as a pattern of silver veins appears in the moonlight, initially faint like “spider webs.” The images themselves are symbolically eloquent: seven stars (as on Aragorn’s sword), the moon, the elves’ tree, and the dwarves’ hammer and anvil. Once again, an attempt at uniting opposites appears, but since the elves belong to the Mother and the dwarves to the underworld, there is no sun here – as there is on Aragorn’s sword – so the union remains incomplete.
To open the gate, a password must be spoken, but the question is, which word? It is a riddle that Gandalf, with growing desperation, tries to solve. Riddles have almost vanished from our modern culture but were once a common pastime – and sometimes a deeply serious matter – in human history. We see this reflected in folktales, where riddles are frequent. In the Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend, the entry on riddles spans no less than six verbose pages. But we also recall that riddles are central to our story, as when Bilbo traded riddles with Gollum in connection with finding the ring. They did not do so for amusement; much was at stake: if Bilbo won, Gollum would show him the way out, but if Gollum won, he would eat Bilbo. The wager illustrates how serious the riddle tends to be as a symbol. (Compare also Oedipus and the Sphinx.) One party knows the answer, while the other does not. The answer is thus unconscious to the latter, and knowing the answer to the unknown signifies becoming conscious. Consequently, the guessing party must use intellect, reason, but perhaps also playfulness and associative ability. The riddle game becomes a matter of consciousness versus unconsciousness, something life-altering. In Bilbo’s case, it is about either escaping the cave system he is lost in (i.e., becoming conscious) or being devoured by the unconscious, which Gollum represents.
In our scene, the situation is different. The answer to the riddle determines whether the heroes can continue their adventure. To move forward, they must muster specific psychological capacities. If they fail, the game is lost, for this is the only path ahead. But regardless of the situation’s circumstances, the riddle still concerns consciousness versus unconsciousness. As if to underscore this, in Gandalf’s case, it is about uttering “the word” or “the words” (which is repeated in the text) – that is, logos.
Finally, Gandalf gives up his attempts, throws his staff to the ground, and sits down silently. Then they hear the howling of wolves, a reminder that they cannot turn back. Boromir, irritated by “the foul pool,” throws a stone into the water; Frodo is upset by this and expresses fear of the pool – we understand they cannot retreat along the stagnant water.
Suddenly, Gandalf rises and exclaims that he has found the answer. He speaks the password, and the gate opens to the pitch-black interior. Gandalf notes that Merry, “strangely enough,” was on the right track, while he himself was not. Merry, as a hobbit, represents the playfulness and spontaneity that must complement the rational to bring creativity into the process. (The answer to the riddle is “friend“, i.e. eros in contrast to logos.)
Regarding Boromir’s disgust for the murky pool, he was the only one who did not want to follow Gandalf into Moria’s mines after the wizard argued for it. He expressed contempt when Gandalf later hinted they would go to “deep places.” While no one looked forward to Moria’s darkness, only Boromir voiced negative feelings toward it. One might imagine this is because he is a man from Gondor, an extremely masculine land at war with Mordor. Where he comes from, there is no regard for the feminine, as he makes clear. Yet we have seen that Boromir carries certain feminine attributes (he is also the only one carrying a shield, which we didn’t mention in “Elrond’s Council,” i.e., a protective, receptive tool) and noted that, like all prominent members of the fellowship, he is motherless. One cannot both have an actual mother and go with the ring. Boromir plays the role of the conflicted figure in the story, which is why, even during Elrond’s Council, he arouses a hint of suspicion in the reader. No other good character in the story evokes distrust. We will, of course, return to Boromir.
So, the gate opens to the Terrible Mother’s black, almost impenetrable interior. “Now we go,” says Gandalf and steps inside. But just as the others are about to follow, something dreadful happens. From the water, a tentacle shoots out and grabs Frodo around the ankle. The snake-like tentacle has fingers at its end, with which it seizes him. He falls and is dragged toward the depths. Something unexpected follows: everyone sees it, but no one acts – except Sam…! He attacks the “arm,” which releases its grip.
Despite the drama, we must pause for a moment. The arm that grabs Frodo with its fingers corresponds not only to the arm in the barrow that walked on its fingers but also to the Old Forest’s branches that grasped with their “fingers.” It is entirely clear that this is the same symbol of the Terrible Mother, taking a new form due to its new context.
All these monsters, like the significant ones to come, are “ancient,” more or less prehistoric. This indicates that we are dealing with archetypes, which, as far as humanity is concerned, have always existed. The archetype of the Terrible Mother is not in itself Frodo’s personal problem but, like the ring, a collective problem that has become actualized in Frodo’s life in a way that forces him to confront it. The hobbits back at the inn in the Shire need not take a stand on this archetype, nor do they need to muster the moral courage we discussed earlier, nor hear the call to break the archetype’s spell. But it is Frodo’s fate to confront the core of the issue – he has no choice, and now he is here, between Moria’s dark caverns and the bottomless monster-lake.
The second thing we want to highlight is Sam. We previously noted that Sam represents Frodo’s grounded, positively “primitive” side, which is utterly indispensable during the adventure/individuation. Another word for these qualities is instinct. With Sam, Frodo has access to his instincts. (By instincts, we mean, in brief, the deepest, autonomous, impersonal psyche, which Sam does not represent but is in contact with.) This is neither the first nor the last time the humble Sam saves his “master.” We recall that the Old Woman Willow (as we prefer to call this monster, since it is decidedly maternal) lulled and grabbed Frodo, pulling him into the water, and Sam saved him; and we will see that the most terrible of all monsters paralyzes Frodo, and Sam kills it. Were it not for a good relationship with his instincts (the relationship Sam is representing), Frodo would have long ago drowned in the Terrible Mother in the Old Forest; and had he lost Sam along the way, he would have drowned in the Terrible Mother outside Moria’s gates instead. The only thing that can save Frodo when it truly matters is Sam, his own instincts. Gandalf, Aragorn, Boromir, Gimli, and Legolas, who in the above scene merely stand and stare, never save him. They protect Frodo, true, they help and guide him, absolutely, but when the Terrible Mother truly grabs Frodo in a matter of life and death, only Sam can save him.
We have discussed this before, but while snakes do not literally appear in the story, the snake symbol appears multiple times. Here it is explicit, and Sam even repeatedly calls the tentacles “snakes.” When the “snake” releases Frodo, twenty “writhing” ones pursue him. Meanwhile, the water “boils” and “stinks” in a way that evokes a witch’s cauldron, further emphasizing the Terrible Mother’s presence. The adventurers make it into the darkness behind the gates.
Then something unexpected happens: not only do the writhing “arms” grab the doors and slam them shut behind the fellowship, but they also uproot the holly trees and place them in front of the gate, and pull down rocks to further block it. This creates a destructive blend of the feminine trees and the masculine rocks, another “negative” union or coniunctio. We mentioned earlier how the wolves’ howling and the pool’s threat indicated that the fellowship could not turn back. It is their fate, especially Gandalf’s, to enter the caverns. Now that the monster has blocked the gate, they have no choice. From a rational standpoint, it is hard to understand why the monster would block the gate after them, but it symbolizes the necessity that the nine continue into the darkness.
As the fellowship enters “the depths,” as they call it, they actually ascend stairs. This is unexpected. Gandalf had emphasized “depths” when speaking of Moria, yet they immediately go upward. Once again, we have a question of uniting opposites at a low level. As they wander through corridors and halls, they hear the sound of “surging water,” as if a “millwheel spun in the depths.” At the risk of being repetitive, the water is, of course, feminine, and the millwheel masculine, so the story’s striving for, and failure to achieve, a fruitful union of opposites repeats again and again.
But eventually, they do begin to descend. Gandalf leads with his knowledge and the light on his staff, amidst darkness, chasms, caverns, wells, cracks, and associated symbols on all sides.
We conclude this chapter with Frodo hearing that they are being followed in the underworld. He doesn’t tell anyone, as if it were a private matter, but a barefoot creature pursues them. It is, of course, Gollum, and it is symbolically significant that Frodo first encounters his shadow in the underworld, in the innermost domain of the Terrible Mother, to which Gollum is bound.