Dark Have Been My Dreams of Late - LOTR: An Author's Journey, Bk 3 Ch 6

00:05 - Julia Golding (Host) Hello and welcome to Mythmakers. Mythmakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding. Now, this is one of our Sidecasts where we are reading our way through Lord of the Rings and we are already embarked quite deep into the two towers and we have reached chapter six, the King of the Golden Hall. As the name suggests, we are going to be riding into Rohan today. 00:37 So what would I say is the overarching organisation of this chapter? Well, I would say that the themes in it, if you look carefully, are about youth and age. That's the sort of theme that binds it. And it actually is a simpler chapter in many ways, because we have the approach as Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli approach the Golden Hall, Edoras. We have the confrontation and the change of heart of Théoden, and then we have a much shorter end piece, which is about saddling up, getting ready to go and finding a new leader for the people of Rohan as Theoden rides off to battle. So really, it's that central chunk. That's the main part of this chapter. 01:33 But before we get there, I just want to really pause on the very, very beginning of this chapter, because one of the things I'm doing here is it's almost like a how does Tolkien work? What makes his style? And it struck me that the very beginning of this chapter maybe provides a clue, as does the very end. There is something wonderfully poetic and strong and deep and resonant about his writing. So just let's take the first sentence. 02:16 They rode on through and gathering night, a three-part sentence which the pacing of it is deliberately slow. It's giving a sense of the sort of mimetic sense of the length of the journey. It's also a two-paragraph section which is full of silence. There's no dialogue in it, it's just full of, I guess, stuffed, full of atmosphere. You get wonderful details. You get the detail of Gandalf standing at night. You get the Aragorn. He's not sleeping either, he's sort of stretched out on his back. Legolas is sleeping here. That's rare. He normally is standing in thought. All was silent and there was no sign or sound of living thing. The night was barred, with long clouds fleeting on a chill wind. When they arose again Under the cold moon, they went on once more as swift as by the light of day. 03:30 So it's very hard to sort of completely unpack this, because once you unpack it you're left with a lot of bits, but I would say that this is like those master touches, deft touches, like an artist who can just bring an eye to life by putting a white dot in the right place. I feel as though that is somehow what you're seeing Tolkien doing with his writing. He just has these little deaf touches. And I think the other part of it is he is intensely there as a writer. He's feeling it, experiencing it, and that's why we feel immersed in it. He's feeling it, experiencing it, and that's why we feel immersed in it because he is able to envisage the whole thing and paint it out for us, right economically. So we go on from that on the approach to Edoras, and here he does one of his clever things where he gives us the broad description of the sort of mountain range and then he uses Legolas to provide us in speech the detail of what he wants us to notice. So it's like focusing in is like doing the close up through Legolas because of his superior vision. And there's a craft point here is it's a very good way of organize what we see in descriptions. If you're writing descriptions and you don't organize them, you're left with a confused reader, and so this is a cinematic technique he's using here, really, which is you go from the big background and you focus in on your, your main, uh well, point of focus isn't it in the picture, which is ederas itself? And we need this to help fire up the mind's eye, because if we get over, there is this and over there is that and up there is this. It just feels like we're being shot with buckshot. This is like an arrow of information as they approach again. These are these lovely passages which you don't get in any film version. 05:47 So read the book everyone. We've got details, details, details, and the one I want to pick out here is the one about willows. So they're going through a green land. The land was green in the wet meads and along the grassy borders of the stream grew many willow trees. Already in this southern land, they were blushing red at their fingertips, feeling the approach of spring. What's going on here? Blushing red at the fingertips is an accurate description of weeping willows as they get ready to grow their leaves for spring. So we've got a sense of where we are in the seasons. 06:19 Somebody who is a gardener and nature lover, like Tolkien, knows what the changing signs are. He probably goes out into his own garden and sees this, or down by the Chalwell River. But there's also did you notice this? An echo of the anthropomorphism of the willow, fronds being fingertips. What does that remind us of? It reminds us of the Ents. It reminds us of Old man Willow, this world where trees are charged with personality. So it's still there as a faint echo. Wonderful stuff. 06:53 Right as we approach Edoras, we get the introduction of this idea about time and perspective. It is the barrows where the white flowers are growing, the symbol muna, which is the first of these Rohan language words that come in. And Aragorn and Legolas both have a different reaction to the barrows. Aragorn is explaining how, in the mind of people of Rohan, these are ancient, ancient barrows in the landscape from generations after generations, whereas for Legolas that's 500 years, which is just the blink of an eye. And this is the beginning of this theme about how Rohan can be both ancient but also very young. And it picks up with the theme in this chapter, which is basically a struggle, a debate between age and youth, as we will go on to see. Aragorn is inspired to introduce the first of the poems in this chapter. It's the one that starts we're now the horse and the rider. 08:11 This was used very effectively in the film. They realize this is a great poem and I was interested to look into the history of this poem thanks to the collected poems of Tolkien which we now have, and in there the editors say that this was composed probably for the first time in between February and summer of 1942. So think where we are in the terms of the World War. Things weren't going pretty, you. You know, things weren't going that well. It was still a very dark time and this first iteration focused much more on EL the young, the founding father, shall we say, of the Rohan culture. 08:59 But it also has echoes in it and Tolkien talks about this in his letters of of the Wanderer and the tradition, which is an old English poem, and the Latin tradition of Ubisunt. Where is or where are those poems? So he's writing within a tradition, but he drafts away from that. By the third draft, which is what we've got here and it's the one which he recorded in 1952, if you want to hear his own voice reading it he's gone from having alliteration within the text, which was the old English form of poetry, to having end rhymes. So he's created his own version of. 09:49 You know the spirit of this poem. It's not a pastiche of the wanderer. He's not translating the wanderer at all and he very much rejects that suggestion in his letter about this. It's been inspired but he's gone and made his own thing and the letter goes on to actually connect this particular poem to his greater theory of creativity. He says I'm not recreating the wanderer, I am sub-creating a poem. I am making my own version in my own world. So it's a little microcosm of his thought process. So it's worth lingering over and having a look at. You do still get the sense of the driving rhythms of the Old English and there's a lot of alliteration in it. So it's still present but it's no longer the main poetic structure because you've got the very strong N rhymes. 10:41 This idea of language and this poem, which Aragorn is translating for us, continues on because the first confrontation with the first set of guards is all about language customs. We see here how Rohan has become very introverted. It's got its own sort of version of let's just concentrate on Rohan things and forget the rest of the world which you see going on around the world today, unfortunately, and one of the things they do is that they won't speak to foreigners in the common tongue, but they use their own language in the common tongue, but they use their own language. It's a kind of trap they're setting for people to come, and Aragorn dispenses with it quickly because he has spent time there and he can speak the language fluently. And this enters into the theme about how do you see? Do you look at people and see who they really are, or do you look at people and see them crookedly? And it's a sign that the rot hasn't set in that deeply within Rohan, in that these humble guards are able to work out that these are good people who are coming to the door, or at least people who are worthy of an interview with their king. So they do get entry into Edoras and they climb up Again. 12:10 It's well worth reading this to reset your brain from the very effective location they had in New Zealand. It was effective, brilliant place. I mean you can't find Edoras in reality. But there are some elements which they didn't have through location which are lovely to see here. It's not quite as bleak and windswept, I don't think, as that landscape there, but it also has an important fountain at the top of the hill. It reminded me of a recent visit I made to Siena. Of course, having a water source if you're not on a river, is absolutely vital, and Siena has a central fountain around which the rest of the city is organized and you get, this is what's going on here. You've got this fountain and just above it you've got the Golden Hall. They are the key sites in Edoras because, of course, course, they need water. One thing that I've always thought was a bit odd is the guards are seated as you approach. It seems quite a nice thing to allow your guards to sit down, but I'm used to people standing up on guard outside Buckingham Palace, so it always strikes me as a funny note. 13:24 But anyway, then we get the shenanigans over weapons, and of course it reminds us in this world that weapons have lineage. And so you've got the hint of the Legolas saying you know, these weapons have come from Galadriel, and that's a theme which is going to be picked up again a little bit later by Wormtongue when it's reported to him what's going on outside. And you've got Aragorn slapping back, shall we say, when he's challenged about his sword, and he is one who enters into this language about age he says my sword is made by Telchar. This language about age. He says my sword is made by Telchar, first rorted in the deeps of time. So compared to the barrows which he was arguing the case for them of being of important long lineage to the Rohan, he's actually at the door saying, ah yes, but look, this comes from even further back. There are things that predate your culture. So it's a bit of a diss there, but it's continuing that time theme and it turns out this is like a sort of test or a puzzle for them to solve, because they have to do the various steps to get through into the hall and while the most obvious weapons are surrendered, in a way, the visitors turn the door, ward the gate, and so it's a sort of traditional exchange going on here. 15:17 But we do see that Hummer isn't a dupe. He is actually using right judgment. In fact he's far more important in this chapter I realised as I re-read it than I had given him credit for, because he is actually doing this knowingly. He bends a rule because he's seeing straight. Tolkien absolutely loved describing the hall such as you would find in Beowulf and his favourite poems. So do read that. In my version it's on page 116. 16:06 He's just having huge fun imagining himself in these halls of kings, from a kind of old English world, and what we get at the far end is a triptych of three figures, all very important in this chapter. You've got the wizened dwarfish curled in on himself, king. You've got the young, beautiful, stoic beauty of Erwinyn and you've got cunning, heavy-lidded cunning, of Wormtongue. And that's sort of purposely given a sort of moment here so that we can work out how the is divided in this court. It's interesting or significant. You need to again ditch anything you've seen in the film, because Therdon here is much more. 16:59 He has much more agency than the under a spell version of Bernard Hill. He is discourteous. He's been brainwashed by Wormtongue and he is mouthing Wormtongue's words but he's giving his own kingly spin on it. He is also a grief-stricken father, which we learn from Wormtongue, who rubs it in by saying that Theodred has died Not news that necessarily the others would have known before coming into the room. And Wormtongue is quick to hand out titles Lathspell, which is another of these old words, rohan words based on old English Ill news. So he's also. If you look at how he speaks, he does punch back. 17:58 He's a very effective speaker. He's not so obviously a poor, terrible counsellor that you would immediately think why does theodine fall for him? He has his own dignity and sense of argument. Immediately think why does theodon fall for him? He has his own dignity and sense of argument. And he also has a nasty turn of phrase the spin doctor for the rohan court, three ragged wanderers in gray and you yourself, the most beggar-like of the four. So he's quite good at dishing it out. He also is the one to raise the term of Galadriel being the sorceress of the golden wood, which is obviously a red flag, particularly to Gimli who's about to take him on. 18:38 And this is the point where Gandalf steps up. He chants a poem which I couldn't find out anything. It's not in the collected works, so I assume it's just written for this. This purpose here hasn't got a longer um lineage. But he chants this poem which is a bit like a counter spell and it's sort of summoning up the idea of Lorien in this place. And he then steps forward and claims his authority and he speaks in a cold, clear voice and he stands up tall, casts aside his cloak and it completely shifts the balance. It's as though he's been trying to work out or sort of feeling his way and he thinks right, enough of this, I'm here, let's sort this out. And it's a great moment of release because there is a slight worry that he's going to be thrown out on his ear. 19:38 But no, he's much more powerful now and there's a combination here of potentially magic, potentially weather arriving at the right moment where there's flashes of light and a storm outside that comes from the east, so it could be a storm sent by Sauron, potentially. But it also falls at the time where Gandalf can manipulate it to project his power. So it's not a wizard battle that frees Therden, it is persuasion, so that Therden can sort of detox from Grima's words and go outside and breathe the fresh air with Gandalf. So it's actually in some ways there's more magic here because of this moment with the storm, but it's also less. There isn't a sense. Saruman's hand behind this is having sent Grima to whisper in Daedon's ear. It's not a physical curse in that filmic way. 20:45 And Gandalf this is another thing that characterizes this passage or this whole chapter is lots of very wise sayings. There's often people exchange like proverbs really, and Gandalf's one here. He says the wise speak only of what they know. A witless worm have you become? Therefore, be silent and keep your forked tongue behind your teeth, and this is like a tipping point. After this, the characterization of Grima Wormtongue becomes more and more serpent-like. 21:18 Note here also, there is a moment to set up the Erwin Aragorn unrequited love story, because we get a longer description of Erwin. She'd just been briefly mentioned, but the paragraph in my copy which is the bottom of page 119, sets up the main things we know about her. We hear her name Erwin's sister daughter. The woman turned and went slowly into the house. As she passed the doors she turned and looked back. Grave and thoughtful was her glance as she looked on the king with cool pity in her eyes. Pity is incredibly important. In Tolkien We'll see another moment of pity and of course there's that famous pity. It was that stayed his hand. That's decisive about Gollum, but she's got a coolness to her as well. So she has compassion, but she's also this hint of steel. 22:15 Very fair was her face and her long hair was like a river of gold. So she is white and gold, like the hall which has a golden roof. She has golden hair, slender and tall. She was in her white robe, girt with silver hair. Slender and tall she was, in her white robe, girt with silver, but strong she seemed and stern as steel, a daughter of kings. 22:35 And then we get the kind of drumbeat of thus Aragorn, for the first time in the full light of day, beheld Erwin, lady of Rohan, and thought her fair, fair and cold, like a morning of pale spring that is not yet come to womanhood. And she now was suddenly aware of him tall, heir of kings, wise, with many winters, grey-cloaked, hiding a power that yet she felt For a moment still as stone. She stood, then turning swiftly, she was gone. For a moment, still as stone, she stood, then turning swiftly, she was gone. So this is one of the themes of youth and age. So she's like pale spring, not yet come to womanhood, an Aragorn wise with many winters. It's obviously that coldness in her is what needs to melt and it takes a Faramir to melt it, not an Aragorn. 23:30 So the next section is the discussion between Gandalf and Théoden about the times. It's full of wonderful poetry. The language is almost like it could be in a poem. You could imagine this as a narrative verse, drama. This scene Therden says things like dark have been my dreams of late. I think that's a line that made it into a film, and if we're thinking of this being written in 1942, then it's very applicable to the sort of perspective of the British at this point in the war. It's been a very dark dream, with the Blitz and the defeat and the Dunkirk evacuation of the troops, the loss of mainland Europe. But we also get here a sense of Therian's wit. So when the king calls for Éomer, the king sends Hamer, who was the one who allowed the staff, into the audience chamber and he says the guilty shall bring the guilty to judgment with a twinkle in his eye. So we're getting to see the full grandfatherly humor that is Théoden, as well as his dignity. 24:53 We also have in this chapter other forms of. This is one of those chapters which is stuff full of highfalutin language, because Gandalf is saying things like verily, that way lies our hope, where sits our greatest fear. So he's full of this very dignified language of courts and kings. We don't really leave that behind until we have a brief scene a little bit later on with Legolas and Gimli getting ready to leave, and then Gimli starts saying a bit like he's in the place of the hobbits. He's the one who brings it down to the ground by saying we better get on with that kind of language, but we're still in this court and king language. Also, this is the second use in this chapter of legolas's superior sight, because whilst gandalf is talking about where their hope lies, there's this um sentence that goes it seemed to legolas, as he strained his far-seeing eyes, that he caught a glint of white. Far away, perchance, the sun twinkled on a pinnacle of the tower of guard and further still, endlessly remote and yet a present threat, there was a tiny tongue of flame. What we're seeing there is Minas Tirith and Mount Doom, so we can get the sense of the landscape in which the final acts of this drama are going to be played out over the next book and a half. 26:23 So I mentioned that we have a youth and age theme running through this chapter. It comes to a head when Eamon comes in, because he is the young man offering allegiance to the old man, eremir coming forward and offering his allegiance to an act which is copied by all the other warriors during this chapter reasserts the ancient king at the top and the youth coming to support and to take over. And this is turn takeover when the time comes, because he's named as heir. But we also get Wormtongue trying to use that youth and age to unpick it. That's what he's been doing. He's been saying you're too old for all of this. And that is his argument. He's saying you must put your feet up. They're trying to lure you to your death. That's the kind of poison. You can see how he's been feeding this poison to Theoden, but it's too late. Grima's poison is now leaving Theoden and what we get here is the moment when Aged realizes it isn't so old and the decision point is will you not take the sword? And being reminded of the strength of his youth and the fact that his, though his best days are behind him, he's still got it in him, therden turns into the warrior king at that point when he takes the sword. 27:57 And we get another little poem here. It's got the hint of the alliteration arise, now. Arise, riders of Théoden. Can you see the R sound? Arise, arise, riders. Dire deeds awake, dee-d. Dark is to eastward. Let the horse be bridled, horn be sounded. That's got H sounds combining the two parts of that literative verse forth eolingas. So that's probably the most. 28:32 That little ditty there, little war cry, is probably the most Old English style poem, actually in this section because of the alliteration and in response we get one of the first little snatches of Old English in this refrain, which is like a kind of greeting or praise phrase, which Eama says never again shall it be said, gandalf, that you come only with grief. So it's pushing back on all the things that Wormtongue has been saying. Things speed up now. I mean, there is a break for something to eat. But what is speeding up here is now things have been reversed. We start putting things right. 29:21 So Gandalf lays out the plan, and it's very quickly and deftly done. We've got to deal with Saruman, we've got to take the civilians to safety and then we've got to fight the next battle. That's really the story. There we go. Aragorn sort of says that we're coming too, and he gives the three friends a nice sort of warlike name axe, sword and bow. They stand in with their different weapon types, and then we get the question well, therdon isn't going to sit at home anymore, even though that's what Gandalf is expecting. But we're left with the problem about, well, who's going to reign in his stead if he goes off to war. And there is no immediate answer given. It's at this point where Theroden summons his counsellor. 30:16 I mentioned how Gríma's sort of status descends and goes from man-like to serpent-like in this chapter, and here he's pulled out into the sunlight. So when you see him straight he blinks in the sunlight like some kind of cavern-dwelling, rock-dwelling creature. He seems less and less impressive. So in the shadows he thrives. And then there's all these little touches about. He may have stolen from people and so on. And he is trying to produce the same effect on Theoden by repeating his counsel that people are trying to do him ill by making him active. But Theoden has now escaped that sort of counsel. If this is bewitchment, it seems to me more wholesome than your whispering. So I prefer their version of the truth than yours, and it's very clear here that it's by their choices that you know a person, not by their words. And he's given the chance to go to battle with his lord. But he actually is most interested in what happens to the treasure. 31:30 Gandalf again cuts through the faff, shall we say, by making everybody see what's really going on here. He says down snake. And he exposes the fact that Grima has not been an ordinary man of Rohan. He's been in the pay of Saruman. It's the first time this is exposed to daylight and he's been after Erwin, which Erwin had known but not been able to do anything about. 31:57 Wormtongue is roundly defeated in this debate and it's notable here that Gandalf still says still counsels pity. It is that quality which Gandalf keeps injecting into this world. He says once it was a man, though it's world. He says once it was a man, though it's like a snake now. Once it was a man. Similar thing he says about Gollum once it was a hobbit, a hobbit-like creature. So I don't think people have mentioned this as much. But that decision to spare Grima here actually has two important benefits down the line. One is the palantir is thrown out of the window. It's a mixed blessing but it turns out to be for the best. And the other is it means that the hobbits don't have to kill Saruman, because Grima does it for the hobbits at the very, very end of the story. So pity does have these unexpected benefits for workings out in this world. 33:07 I was interested to notice this time that Gandalf is interested on interesting here in the descent of Saruman. Interesting here in the descent of Saruman. He says yeah, he was your friend once, but his heart grew colder. So it's interesting here to see Saruman over time moving colder and colder and colder. There is a Hamlet echo here as well, if you're noticing, because he talks about how worm tongue whispering in your ear, poisoning your thoughts. Hamlet's father died because poison was dropped in his ear. 34:03 There is a sort of Hamlet feel here, with Ayrmer being the young king in waiting and Theoden being the king who was practically on his deathbed at this point. But it doesn't take the Hamlet direction to tragedy. It does the Tolkienew catastrophe, where there's a happy turn and Theoden actually rejects the poison and rides into battle. Thurden actually rejects the poison and rides into battle. And here we get as a result, when they're talking about looking correctly at the young people who may have been quite rash in how they express their feelings. I think that's the sort of feeling Emma hadn't been that diplomatic. Thurden says faithful heart may have a froward tongue, tongue that has a feeling of an old saying, and Gandalf counters that with to crooked eyes, truth may wear a wry face. 34:49 So after this exchange and the appointment of Eamir his heir, we get some gift giving and some arming for war. So it's notable here that Shadowfax is given because Gandalf said it was only lent before, though everybody knows it's already. It's gone far out of Théoden's control. And then we get the arming for war, where they get those who haven't come with armor get given some appropriate gear. And then we get a little bit of a change of tone here because we get Gimli joking that sooner would I bear a horse than be born by one, because his shield has a horse on it. So there's a sort of a lightening of the tone here as the preparations happen for war. 35:39 We get Aragorn having another moment with Erwin. There's three moments in this chapter, because there isn't actually much time for Erwin and Aragorn, so each one has to be used to the maximum. You get the sense that Aragorn knows things are going awry. She offers him the cup. Actually this was done extremely well in the film I think it's in the extended edition, but the look that Eowyn gives Aragorn at this moment is perfect for this and the answer here when he takes the cup. His face was now troubled and he did not smile. He knows there is trouble brewing there because the young woman who's never met a king before, of somebody of Aragon's stature, of course she's going to fall in love Can't blame her Right. So now remember I said that Hamer is incredibly powerful in this chapter. Not only did he decide about the staff, but he also gets to appoint who rules in Théod instead, because he is the one who says that they only trust in the house of Eorl and that that means Erwin should take her place leading the civilians to safety. 36:47 So good old Harmer. Unfortunately he doesn't make it through the, the in total war. But, um, he's pulling his weight here. He's pulling his weight here, one of those enjoyable minor characters in Tolkien's world. And Erwin now appears male-clad, so we're getting little hints of where her story is going to go. She is definitely the warrior maiden, not a bureaucrat organizing an evacuation. And now we get ready to go. 37:15 There's some little touches here, like how Tolkien describes very deftly what the gathered hordes of the cavalry look like. He says their spears were like a springing wood, the idea of a new wood, of saplings all springing up, too many to count. You also get a little refrain here. Tolkien is very good at remembering all his plot, little moments and threads, because we get Gimli and Ayrmer talking about the words they had about Galadriel, and that's the theme that goes all the way on to the end of the book and then we get the last moment as they ride out. 37:59 I love these moments of departure with Rohan, just the sort of energy that they have. And the energy here is given by Gandalf throwing aside his hat and his cloak and leaping upon Shadowfax, and Aragorn gives the cry Behold the White Rider. And that sort of war cry is how they leave. They all gallop away. But he's such a great writer because he gives it a little melancholy touch. At the end he plants the seed that's going to sprout into Erwin's story, because the last line is given to her. Far over the plain, Eowyn sought the glitter of their spears as she stood still alone before the doors of the silent house. That is poetry, wonderful poetry. I think this might be one of my favourite chapters from the way it's written, Not in terms of the action, but there is so much to enjoy and relish in this chapter. Do go back and read it, read it aloud, savour the words, chant the poetry. It's all there. Well done, Tolkien. 39:16 - Speaker 2 (None) That's a brilliant chapter thanks for listening to Mythmakers, podcast brought to you by the oxford center for fantasy. Visit oxfordcenterforfantasy.org to join in the fun. Find out about our online courses in person. Stays in oxford plus. Visit our shop for great gifts. Thank you.