4. The Field of Cormallen; 5. The Steward and the King
We leave the dismembered Frodo and his faithful companion in the midst of ”the end of the world,” turning back to Gandalf and Aragorn. Their army awaits the numerically superior enemy swarming around the hills. The foe is so vast that ” The Captains of the West were foundering in a gathering sea,” ”the onslaught of Mordor broke like a wave ... voices roaring like a tide” – descriptions that once again lead us to experience the threat as drowning and dissolution (in contrast to, for example, the thrusting of cold steel).
The narrative turns its gaze to Gandalf, underscoring his spiritual quality: he stands at the top of a hill, ”white and cold,” looking toward the sky. ”The Eagles are coming!” he cries, and they sweep down like a ”rushing wind” upon the Nazgûl. It is now, as the eagles come soaring over Gandalf and Aragorn, that the Ring is destroyed in the fires of the ”furnace”. ”This is the hour of doom!” cries Gandalf. A darkness rises from Mordor, the creatures grow restless and confused, the Black Gate and its towers collapse and they hear Barad-dûr fall. The wind sweeps away the vast black shape upon the sky. The enemy is seized by panic and flees.
Gwaihir lands beside Gandalf together with two other eagles and lifts off with the wizard to find the hobbits. Meanwhile Frodo and Sam stand looking out over the ongoing devastation, ”here at the end of all things.” Sam refuses to give up – that would not be like him, he says. (Now that Gollum/the shadow is gone Sam has accordingly returned to his usual self.) But Frodo says: ”Hopes fail. An end comes. We have only a little time to wait now. We are lost in ruin and downfall, and there is no escape.” Sam persuades him to make one last attempt nonetheless. They make their way downward but after a while come to a halt on a rock surrounded by lava. At last they lose consciousness, but the eagles find them and carry them out of ”darkness and fire.” Gandalf is thus the one who leads Frodo out on his adventure, while he himself is absent, and the one who leads him back from the adventure that Frodo – with regard to the Ring – has completed without him. In this respect Gandalf as Frodo's daimon is underscored; the wise old man is the hero’s calling, his driving force, inner voice, and so forth.
There is not much of symbolic significance occurring now that the Ring has been destroyed, beyond repetitions of previously established symbols (such as the one just mentioned). The hobbits are brought to the fair and fragrant Ithilien, where they wake to find Gandalf standing behind them. It is not stated explicitly, but they appear to be naked beneath the blankets, as expected, since their clothes lie to one side. They survived ”the ruin” only thanks to the king and the healer, Gandalf tells them. Had the king not ”called them back” they would have died.
This is followed by a series of images illustrating fertility as they make their way toward the encampment – it is unclear why the hobbits were kept some distance from it – and receive the homage of Aragorn and knights; indeed, the tributes know no bounds.
Curiously, the Ring is referred to on two occasions as the ”Ring of Doom,” once by Sam and once by a bard. The Ring has never been named thus before, but it is a further indication of the uroboros symbolism we have discussed – the Ring and Mount Doom with its spiraling path are identified with one another. Yet it is, as we can see, only with the experience in Mordor that this aspect of the symbol comes to light.
We noted in the opening of this commentary that Gandalf proclaimed that ”this is the hour of Doom.” Thus the mountain is called ”Doom,” the moment is linked to ”Doom,” and now the Ring too is ”Doom.” The word should surely be understood in the sense of ”decisive moment” or ”fate”; that is to say, something the tale strives toward, something that must and shall come to pass. We are thus returned to the necessity that compels a resolution.
From this perspective it is interesting that Frodo here – and only here – is twice referred to as the Nine-fingered, once again by Sam on the one hand and the bard on the other, independently of each other. We have spoken of necessity’s connection to the number nine, in relation to the Fellowship of the Ring and the Black Riders. That Frodo has nine fingers is of course to be expected, but that this should already constitute an honorable epithet is far from self-evident. In all likelihood Frodo's new epithet is simply a manifestation of the fact that his adventure and sacrifice were an expression of necessity – which is worthy of celebration, since necessity implies divine agency.
Before the feast Gandalf gives Frodo his mithril coat, his elven cloak and his sword. Frodo initially declines to wear the sword. He has already castrated himself, in the sense of having relinquished one-sidedness, and the blade is too powerful a symbol of precisely what he left behind in the Crack of Doom. Gandalf persuades him to make an exception for this one evening, in all likelihood because as the center of the festivities he ought to bear the attributes that carried him through the adventure now brought to its close. (Despite the battles in the Shire, for instance, Frodo never again takes up a weapon.) Gandalf then places a silver circlet upon the heads of Frodo and Sam. This circle signifies that through their adventure and their sacrifices they have attained royal status – in the sense of having distinguished themselves from the aimless multitude – and that the completion of the quest entails a conscious relationship to yin.
5. The Steward and the King
The tale then returns to Éowyn. She finds herself in the Houses of Healing but has grown restless and requests to be released from her sickbed. The Lord of the Houses of Healing brings her to Faramir, who is walking in a garden adjoining the building. It is he who now governs Minas Tirith, his father the Steward having died and King Elessar not yet crowned. Éowyn says she wishes to ride out to war – she refuses to be kept in this ”cage.” In conversation with Faramir, however, she softens, and they begin to spend time together.
A great eagle comes flying over Minas Tirith and cries out the tidings that the king has prevailed. The scene may perhaps strain the imagination a bit, but the symbolic reason is that the eagle represents the heavens and, like sky gods such as Zeus, the cosmic order. In our tale Gandalf embodies this content – among other things – not least through his closeness to the great eagles themselves. Just as he crowned the hobbits with circlets, so he will crown Aragorn. He represents the cosmic order just as Sauron represented cosmic chaos.
In any case Éowyn undergoes a change of heart, her attitude toward life shifting as her relationship with Faramir deepens. With this influx of eros Éowyn is healed. The Lord of the Houses of Healing, who has ”cared for” her but in doing so also kept her confined – as she had come to experience her stay – declares that now she has recovered he entrusts her to ”Faramir's care.” One might imagine that had Éowyn not become Faramir's betrothed, she would have been ”entrusted” to Éomer's care instead, given that King Théoden is dead. The shieldvirgin of Rohan is thus unable to govern herself according to the prevailing order – she must always be understood in relation to a man.
Those who have read the tale may be surprised to find the Witch-king's bane treated thus. It is of course socio-culturally consistent – traditionally it was the father's duty to provide for his daughter until the day she married, at which point responsibility passed to her husband. Both in the medieval world the tale culturally reflects and the culture into which its author was born, this was the general expectation. And yet the story is a work of fantasy in which the author gives free rein to his imagination. Would it have been contrary to its inner logic had Éowyn, rather than beginning and ending in a traditional female role, manifested the virgin archetype? We would suggest that it might in fact have been the more consistent course; yet at the same time there is a gap to be filled – not least by Faramir – which may have constituted an intuitive force of attraction between the two; both of whom found themselves in the Houses of Healing having each, in their respective ways and according to their respective characters, expressed the potential union of opposites. From an intuitive perspective their eventual marriage was in all likelihood inevitable once fate had brought them together. Nevertheless it is worth noting that even when the Ring is destroyed and all is over, there is no woman who represents a conscious, independent femininity.
Throughout Frodo's adventure, from the moment he leaves the Shire until he re-enters his homeland, independent femininity appears only in the guise of monsters – from the Old Woman Willow to Shelob. Or else the archetype manifests in abstract form, as Nature’s revenge in ”The Road to Isengard.” The figure who comes closest to the archetypal virgin image is Galadriel, but she is Celeborn’s wife and thus by definition not a virgin. The absence of the virgin image is to be expected, given the masculinity of Middle-earth as we discussed in the earliest commentaries. Our point is that once order has been restored one might on the other hand have hoped to see her emerge – and among the figures we know, none would have been better suited to that role than Éowyn; she takes independent, decisive initiatives in the war, regardless of what her guardians think. She also bears certain resemblances to Artemis – who, as noted in that discussion, was represented by Nature's revenge – in that both are nurturing yet capable of becoming aggressive, and both lack a relationship with their father while remaining close to their brother.
In this context ”virgin” should not be understood in its sexual sense, which may be the first association to come to mind, nor as an expression of chastity; rather, a virgin in the mythic sense is a woman who is not dependent upon a man. Artemis is, as suggested, an excellent example, but in Greek mythology we also find other prominent goddesses in this category, such as Athena and Persephone. Even mother goddesses may be ”virgins” – it is, as noted, a question not of sexuality but of independence.[1]
Since the tale teems with archetypal figures – hero, fool, wise old man, wanderer, guide, mother, witch, savior, ”she-monsters” and so forth – it is in any case noteworthy that the positive virgin archetype is never personified. We caught a glimpse of her in Éowyn, and we shall catch another toward the end, but the virgin has no lasting place in this tale's pantheon. It may be worth contemplating why, though one reason may be that the virgin is anomalous.
The only truly independent woman has traditionally been the widow. This anomaly renders her somewhat unsettling – not only does she deviate from the patriarchal system, but she does so as a consequence of a man's death. One may find oneself haunted by certain fantasies arising from this circumstance. From the widow as symbol the step to the witch is not a long one – she too lives alone and answers to no one. In the prism of this archetypal image we also find the harlot, and in mythological contexts the Sacred Harlot – as in Gnosticism [2] – a designation alchemists sometimes applied to the ”arcane substance.”[3] The widow, the witch and the harlot are recurring images of independent femininity. They are symbolically virgins, each in her own way unsettling from the masculine standpoint, their presence disturbing its order. This may be the reason the virgin is given no lasting place in Middle-earth once ”the king of heaven” has been crowned and his sacred time begins. Her presence is disruptive, like a stepmother in fairy tales. And indeed the Widow lives on in Cirith Ungol, and as far as we can tell the Old Woman Willow is still lulling hobbits to sleep who stray into the Old Forest – that is to say, while the tale reaches its completion with fertilization as a consequence of the union of opposites, significant aspects of the mother archetype remain displaced. One may see this as a reflection of our culture, or of our ”collective conscious.”
Be that as it may, the king returns, clad in black and white metal, with green jewels and a star upon his brow. Everyone has good reason to rejoice. Faramir proclaims the return of the king to the assembled people, declaring that Aragorn is among other things ”bearer of the Star of the North, wielder of the Sword Reforged, whose hands bring healing, the Elfstone, Elessar.” Just as it is hardly coincidental that Frodo was given an epithet – ”the Nine-fingered” – and Sam was called ”Ring-bearer” (even though no one could have known that Sam had borne the Ring), and that the Ring was for the first time named the ”Ring of Doom” on the field of Cormallen, so it is noteworthy that Aragorn is identified as a star, an elfstone, a healer, and the bearer of the reforged sword. These attributes, to which we have also given some significance along the way, are central to the Aragorn symbol: destiny, purpose, divinity, distinction and reunification. Faramir also calls him finally Elessar – ”Elfstone” – since, as we have discussed, he received a new name after his transformation. The author too now generally refers to him as Elessar, for he is other than he once was – he now manifests a higher value than ”merely” man and king. Through ”Elfstone” the tale gives us to understand that the new king represents eternal life – both elf and stone are immortal. The eternal, as an image – like the diamond or the Philosopher's Stone – can represent the supreme, indestructible value.
Faramir proffers the crown, adorned with wings of mithril and seven adamants. But Aragorn requests that Frodo take the crown and deliver it to Gandalf, so that he may crown him. This ”circulation” of the crown underscores that Frodo, Gandalf and Aragorn are not merely the tale's three central figures but also aspects of the wholeness of the personality. (We may note once again that ”the fourth” is absent.) Aragorn declares that Gandalf has been the mover behind all that has been accomplished – an acknowledgment that sits well with our earlier discussions of the daimon and so forth.
And so Gondor has its king, and Minas Tirith will be ”full of trees and fountains” – that is to say, the feminine returns with the sacred marriage. Once again the text takes on a biblical quality as it speaks of Aragorn’s wisdom, illustrates his compassion and reflects the love that flows into the new king’s realm.
One night Gandalf takes Aragorn out of the city and they climb high into the mountain. They stand looking out over the land as morning breaks. Gandalf proclaims that this is Aragorn’s kingdom, and that it is his duty to ”govern its beginnings” and ”preserve what can be preserved.” The time of Men has come, says the wizard. In accordance with our earlier discussions this may be understood as ”the time of consciousness.” (Humans represent consciousness to a higher degree than, say, elves and monsters.) The powers of darkness have been defeated, the elves are departing from the world, the wizards have fulfilled their purpose and the bond of the Ring is broken. But perhaps Gandalf's appeal to preserve what can be preserved in ”the time of consciousness” is in truth an admonition not to forget its preconditions – the dark soil from which it grows, so to speak.
Aragorn laments that he risks remaining childless – he is not yet certain of Arwen’s coming – and appears troubled that the tree is still withered and bare. ”When shall I see a sign that it will ever be otherwise?” Gandalf replies: ”Turn away from the green world and look where all seems barren and cold!” Aragorn turns and sees above them a young tree bearing white blossoms. ”I have found it!” he exclaims – the living White Tree.
If we accept the hypothesis that Gandalf's appeal – to preserve what can be preserved in the time of Men – is in truth an urging not to forget the precious things that grow within the human being while the ego governs the outer world, then this scene is remarkable. As they stand looking out over Aragorn’s kingdom – consciousness – the king grieves that he has not yet been united with the feminine, and that the tree is consequently still withered. (The tree, according to Jung, always denotes an inner process of development.[4]) Gandalf then bids him turn away from the outer world and ”look where all seems barren and cold” – that is, the inner world, the underworld, the unconscious. For it is there that the process of development unfolds, more or less autonomously, and it is this world that must not be forgotten. Aragorn takes the sapling and carries it carefully down to the citadel, planting it in place of the dead tree, beside the fountain – a detail the text takes particular care to note. When it begins to flower some weeks later Aragorn takes it as a sign and commands the guards to keep watch from the walls.
On Midsummer's Eve itself – a moment strongly associated with fertility, as is well known – the elves arrive from Rivendell and Lothlórien. Elrond delivers Arwen to Aragorn – in keeping with the prevailing order discussed above – beneath the star-strewn sky, and on Midsummer's Day they are wed, manifesting the union of opposites toward which the tale has striven throughout.
Footnotes
[1] Neumann, The Origins, p. 54
[2] Jung, Psychological Types, par. 317.
[3] Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, par. 609.
[4] Jung, Dream Symbols of the Individuation Process, p. 272.