Thálatta! Thálatta! by Simon J. Cook

Thálatta! Thálatta!

From where does Frodo first see the sea? Not from the topmost chamber of a tower. In the house at Crickhollow he dreams of Elostirion, the western Elf-tower on Emyn Beraid. Within the dream, he desires to climb the stairs and look on the sea, but awakes before reaching the tower. Leaving the Shire a second time, Frodo encounters Elves in the Woody End and rides with them west to the Havens: Skirting the White Downs and passing the Far Downs and the Towers, the Hobbit sees the sea, but not for the first time. According to the Red Book, Frodo first sees the sea after descending a long flight of steps into a hollow. Orientating ourselves by attending to the view from a high place and to the Lady that he also sees in Lórien, this post frames the sea-view beheld by Frodo Baggins of the Shire.

The View from Cerin Amroth

As the Company walk blindfolded into Lothlórien they seem to step out of the Third Age and into another Time. On crossing the Silverlode, it seems to Frodo that he had 'stepped over a bridge of time into a corner of the Elder Days, and was now walking in a world that was no more.' Rivendell holds memory of ancient things, but 'in Lórien the ancient things still lived on in the waking world.' On reaching the mound of Cerin Amroth, the blindfolds are removed:

Frodo stood awhile still lost in wonder. It seemed to him that he had stepped through a high window that looked on a vanished world.¹

A strange seeming, when you reflect on it. For stepping out of a high window usually precipitates a fall. A high tower with a view offers vision without touch; and as such is like the gift of Númenor, which island in the ocean provided mortals with a place to gaze upon the shores of an immortal realm to which they were prohibited to sail. Naturally, they broke the ban, and Númenor fell. Yet in the last years of the Second Age, after the Straight Road was lost, the Stone in Elostirion gifted to Elendil 'straight sight' over the sea all the way from our Middle-earth to the shores of Eressëa. To enter Lothlórien, however, seems almost to travel the Straight Road. Frodo is not looking on a view of a vanished past from a high window, he has stepped through the window and (safely) entered the view.

With Haldir as their guide, Frodo and Sam climb the hill of Cerin Amroth. In the wind in the trees Frodo hears 'far off great seas upon beaches that had long ago been washed away, and sea-birds crying whose race had perished from the earth.' He ascends a ladder to reach a white flet in a towering mallorn tree. From this viewing station high in an Elvish tower, Haldir shows Frodo an inland panorama that reveals a mythical opposition, though no sign of the sea.

'Look this way first!' Haldir turns Frodo to face South, where his gaze meets 'a hill of many mighty trees, or a city of green towers: which it was he could not tell.' This is Caras Galadhon, where Galadriel dwells, and from which seems to come a power and light that holds all the land in sway. Turning now to the East, Frodo's vision extends down to the Great River, Anduin, on the other side of which all the light goes out, and beyond, far in the distance, is Southern Mirkwood, where upon a stony height stands Dol Guldur:

'In this high place you may see the two powers that are opposed one to another; and ever they strive now in thought, but whereas the light perceives the very heart of the darkness, its own secret has not been discovered. Not yet.'

The view of the two sides of the Anduin as seen from the flet discloses a mythical struggle between the light and the darkness, recommenced from an earlier age of Middle-earth. Forged before Númenor fell, the Rings of Power hold back Time. Everyone knows this of the One Ring, from the longevity of Gollum, and also Bilbo, and the deathlessness of the Ringwraiths, who endure a counterfeit immortality. But in Lórien we perceive the original design of the already immortal Elvish smiths of Eregion. The dream of Celebrimbor was to hold back the passing of Time so that the Elves might remain dwelling in a mythical, pre-historical age of Middle-earth. The Lady Galadriel is keeper of Nenya, the Ring of Adamant, and in the Third Age it is through the Elvish magic of this Ring that Lothlórien is. The Lady and the Ring conjure into being an Elvish dream of another Time. Lórien is as if Númenor never was and all the days of our world remained mythical. Inside Lórien, the Hobbits walk within a vanished view, as might be seen from the high window of some tower far away beyond the borders of the Golden Wood.

An Elvish Ring can bridge the space between a high window and the far away ground, allowing even a Hobbit to enter the view and touch a realization of mythical enchantment. But Celebrimbor was betrayed by Sauron, who forged the Ruling Ring. With the victory of the Last Alliance, the Second Age comes to an end. The Ring was cut from Sauron's hand, but then lost. The sequel to The Hobbit posits that the riddle-game played between Gollum and Bilbo Baggins in a nasty, wet hole deep down at the roots of the Misty Mountains popped the One Ring into the late Third Age, heralding a legendary sequel to the mythical Wars of the Rings of the previous age of the world. As Ring-bearer, the path trodden by Frodo Baggins, heir of Bilbo, stitches the central thread in the unfolding history of the War of the Ring, a thread that – one way or another – must lead to the end of the Third Age of Middle-earth.

The Lady Galadriel

From the flet high in the mallorn tree on Cerin Amroth, Frodo Baggins looks out on a mythical equilibrium within Middle-earth that he is doomed to disturb. The darkness is blind because Sauron has not the One Ring, and so the light may still hide itself. But as Galadriel will soon explain, Frodo is the Ring-bearer, and if his quest fails and Sauron regains his Ring, then the minds of those who hold the Three will open to the controlling vision of the Eye in the Dark Tower. But when Frodo's quest succeeds and the One Ring is destroyed, the Three Rings lose their power and the light of Lothlórien fades and the Elves diminish; the dream of Celebrimbor comes to an end. Of course, for Galadriel a third choice is open—she could take the One Ring from this small Hobbit.

Three times Frodo Baggins and the Lady Galadriel meet in Lothlórien. In Caras Galadhon, the Company ascend a very long ladder to a very large flet, where Galadriel silently tests each by eye contact, a sort of palantír-communication performed without a Stone. We are focused on each member of the Company squirming and do not pause to consider the desire in the heart of the Fairy Queen. The third time is when the Company depart, and Galadriel gifts to Frodo the phial of starlight that proves so useful on the Ephel Dúath. The keystone of The Lord of the Rings is the second encounter when, of his own free will, Frodo Baggins offers the One Ring to the Lady Galadriel.

Just as Galadriel had perceived Frodo's mind on their first meeting, now Frodo sees what Galadriel is about deep down inside. Offered the one chance that could maintain her Elvish dream of Lothlórien within Middle-earth, the inner desire as well as power of this immortal queen are revealed before Frodo's keen eye. Both now know what the other wishes: Elvish and mortal eyes meet in that mutual vision that is communication, temptation, and trial.

This is the test of the Lady Galadriel. Yet moments earlier in their conversation, she had 'lifted up her white arms, and spread out her hands towards the East in a gesture of rejection and denial.'² Now she declines the gift in the hand of this small mortal. This ancient Elf, who long ago defied the Valar, passes the test set by a Hobbit of the Shire. As observed in my last post, Crossroads, Elbereth soon changes her body-language to Galadriel.

Galadriel's trial takes place immediately after Sam and Frodo have looked out on Middle-earth from the window that is her Mirror. Frodo turns from the Eye in the Mirror, which seeks to see him, to the eyes of Galadriel, and with his keen eye he perceives her inner thought. The scene is about renunciation and concludes in anti-climax—no Ring changes hands. Yet Frodo has offered to give up the One Ring (he will not do so again) and Galadriel has refused it. The Hobbit's unexpected offer of a gift to the Lady of the Golden Wood opens up the possibility of a radical realignment in the hidden, behind the scenes realms of the story, and Galadriel shows her quality. Primarily because of her refusal of the Ring, the Valar are reconciled to Galadriel, whose status on Middle-earth now changes. As traced in Crossroads, the name of Galadriel will be spoken by Gandalf the White in Edoras, while the phial that she will give to Frodo subsequently aligns with the hidden watch of Elbereth as Samwise Gamgee climbs up and down the stairs (and ladder) of the Tower of Cirith Ungol.

Elvish Magic

Just before the Eye appears on the surface of the water of the Mirror of Galadriel, Frodo sees three ships, one sailing out of the sea, a second sailing upstream on a river, and a third departing into the sea. Let's take a step back.

Speaking no word, the Lady Galadriel has led two Hobbits into an enclosed garden, down a long flight of steps, and into a green hollow. A silver basin stands on a carved pedestal. Pouring water into the basin and breathing over the surface, Galadriel invites the Hobbits to look, if they will. Sam steps up and at first sees only reflected stars, then the Mirror grows grey, then clear, and visions shift and return as in a dream; in one, Sam is climbing an endless winding stair, urgently seeking something.

Frodo chooses to look. Several distinct visions appear on the water: the white pilgrim whose identity confuses him, Bilbo inside as it rains outside, a pause, and then, just before the Eye appears in the Mirror, 'many swift scenes followed that Frodo in some way knew to be parts of a great history in which he had become involved':

The mist cleared and he saw a sight which he had never seen before but knew at once: the Sea. Darkness fell. The sea rose and raged in a great storm. Then he saw against the Sun, sinking blood-red into a wrack of clouds, the black outline of a tall ship with torn sails riding up out of the West. Then a wide river flowing through a populous city. Then a white fortress with seven towers. And then again a ship with black sails, but now it was morning again, and the water rippled with light, and a banner bearing the emblem of a white tree shone in the sun. A smoke as of fire and battle arose, and again the sun went down in a burning red that faded into a grey mist; and into the mist a small ship passed away, twinkling with lights.³

Each ship may be identified with some confidence. The tall ship with torn sails riding a storm out of the West surely bears Elendil out of the ruin of Númenor. The river flowing past the white fortress is the Anduin and the ship with the emblem of a white tree brings Aragorn, the heir of Elendil, 'upon a wind from the Sea to the kingdom of Gondor'.⁴ Finally, the small ship with twinkling lights that passes into the grey mist is surely the white ship that bears into the uttermost West two Hobbits, one wizard and some Elves bearing three Rings, and one Stone.

Presuming this identification correct, observe first and foremost the curious echoes of the exordium to Beowulf. As described in my first post in this series, Beleriand in Beowulf, the Anglo-Saxon poem commences with the ancient myth of Scyld Scefing, the good king who is sent to his people by mysterious others who dwell on the further shore of the shoreless sea. This exordium concludes with the heathen heroes of old gazing out over the western ocean, unsure as to the final destination of the funeral-ship on which the late king is returned into the west. Between these two passages over the ocean in the exordium to Beowulf, Tolkien has inserted an entire age of the world and another ship, which sails upstream as it returns the heir of the king to his throne, and he has replaced a dead king with a living Hobbit (and companions) in the final ship. Some untangling is required before we can make sense of how Tolkien turned this exordium inside-out to make the tale of Númenor-in-exile, the history into which Frodo Baggins has become a part. We are not yet in a position to undertake a direct comparison between Elostirion and the Anglo-Saxon tower that is Tolkien's image of Beowulf.

What we are in a position to discern is that this great history glimpsed in Galadriel's Mirror marks the progressive disenchantment of our world. Each ship carries at least one palantír, for Aragorn surely has with him the Orthanc Stone. But Elendil brings to Middle-earth three palantíri, including the singular Stone that he sets up in the tallest of the three Elf-towers gifted to him by Gil-galad, and 'Elendil's Stone' is placed by Círdan on the last ship that Frodo sees, on which he too will sail. The two ships that sail on the sea—the first and the last—bracket the years that the singular Stone of Elendil—the palantír that looks only to the sea—is housed in Elostirion on Emyn Beraid. Aragorn is the heir of Elendil, wields his sword, and reclaims the Orthanc Stone; but while his name means 'Elfstone', neither the King Elessar nor any of his heirs reclaim the Stone of Elendil as an heirloom of the restored royal house of Númenor.

The first Four Ages of Middle-earth are conceived in relation to the light of Valinor, and the Second is that time when an elect mortal people—a nation of Elf-friends—are permitted to see this light. The Second Age continues even after Númenor falls and the Straight Road is lost because Elendil, the Elf-friend, may still in Elostirion cast his gaze upon the shores of Eressëa. In these twilight years of the Second Age, the two kingdoms of Elendil are founded on Middle-earth and the seven Seeing Stones are set up in seven towers, six newly built by the recently arrived Númenórean exiles.

The Second Age ends with the Last Alliance. To climb the two external staircases from Minas Morgul to Cirith Ungol is to step from a (late) Second to an (early) Third Age Númenórean tower. The story of Isildur imprints this ending with the image of the One Ring cut from Sauron's hand, and then lost. From the point of view of Valinor, however, the passage from one age to another is marked by Elvish reoccupation of Emyn Beraid after the death of Elendil. Possibly during the long years of the Third Age some bedraggled Ranger might have turned up on the doorstep and been allowed entrance by the Elves, for singularities and dubious marches are intrinsic to Tolkien's universe.⁵ From the records that have come down to us, however, it seems that in the Third Age of Middle-earth the light of Valinor was still perceived by keen eyes (if the seer stood before the Stone of Elendil in the Elf-tower of Elostirion), but no longer by mortal eyes.

The Third Age of Middle-earth, the time of the story of Frodo Baggins, is the last in which the light of Valinor might still be seen in Middle-earth. At the Council of Elrond, for example, we may suspect that Galdor of the Grey Havens, sent to Rivendell by Círdan the Shipwright, speaks for those who perceive the thought of those beyond the Sea, or at least those who use the Masterstone in Eressëa. The Third Age does not end with the destruction of the Ring and the fall of Barad-dûr, nor even with the crowning of Aragorn. The Third Age comes to an end on September 29, 3021, as the third ship that Frodo sees in the Mirror of Galadriel sails into the uttermost West.

The Third Age is disenchanted, yet not utterly so. History as we know it commences at the dawn of the Fourth Age, as the last, residual, flame of hidden enchantment in our world is extinguished. This fully disenchanted age dawns while evening deepens to darkness as three heroic Hobbits stand together under the northwestern sky, watching from the Haven as the ship that bears Frodo Baggins, and the Stone of Elendil, disappears from view. As Sam looks out on the grey sea, he sees only a shadow on the water that is soon lost in the West. In a world that is no longer a fairy-story, the Hobbits of the Shire will build houses under the three Elf-towers of Emyn Beraid; and in Undertowers, in the house of the Fairbairns, Sam’s heirs will read aloud from the Red Book of Westmarch.

Straight Sight

The Red Book was written by and for Hobbits, and what in the Third Age of Middle-earth may be seen from the high window that is the Stone in Elostirion is not for the eyes of Hobbits. Yet before Frodo Baggins sails over the Sea he seems to step into the view from a high window. Within this enchanted view, two Hobbits descend a flight of steps, Samwise Gamgee glimpses himself climbing an endless winding stair, and Frodo Baggins sees the sea. Elements of the allusive Elf-tower on the northwest margin of the map of Middle-earth flicker into view at key moments of the journey of Frodo and Sam, like scattered recollections in waking life of some forgotten dream. But inside Lothlórien all the threads are gathered, albeit behind the scenes. Within the hollow with the Mirror, readers of the Red Book may begin to feel their way into an image of what the Stone-in-the-Elf-tower is really about.

Lórien realizes an untouchable view as might be seen from a high tower, yet what is realized is but a semblance of that view open to Elves in the palantír of Elostirion. Elves of the Third Age who look in the Stone of Elendil may gaze upon the further shore, receive a remote but clear image of Elbereth, and communicate silently with one within the tower of Avallónë on Eressëa. Frodo Baggins is in Lothlórien, not Elostirion, and the view from a high window through which he seems to have stepped into is not of Valinor beyond the sundering sea. Frodo stands within the Golden Wood, a dreamlike enchantment of another Time woven with a Ring of Power. The Hobbit merely looks into the Mirror of Galadriel and sees the Sea, turns to the Lady of the Mirror and courteously offers an unexpected gift, and on perceiving the hidden thought and Ring of this very ancient Elf, accepts her will. A semblance only, and yet we seem to catch a glimpse of an impossible dream, like to that in the house at Crickhollow, only in this other dream, unrecorded and unrecordable, a Hobbit climbs the stairs and looks into the view that is hidden.

Here by the Mirror of Galadriel all the threads are woven. Yet even the keen eye of this Hobbit does not appear to fully comprehend the conclusion of the oldest of the stories into which he has stepped. The story of Fëanor's rebellion comes to an end when Galadriel is reconciled with the Valar and so returns into the West. That reconciliation is hidden in The Lord of the Rings because vision of Elbereth is hidden, even to Frodo Baggins; yet it marks the real turning of the tide in the battle for Middle-earth that is told in the Red Book. We who have glimpsed the Elvish gift that Frodo receives from Gildor Inglorion at the crossroads of the Woody End, and discerned Varda standing on the mountain of Valinor way beyond the western margin of the map of the story, may also perceive how the choice that Frodo gives to the Lady Galadriel decides the fate of the War of the Ring and the end of the Third Age.

One might think that after publication of The Silmarillion in 1977 this keystone in the design of The Lord of the Rings would have been spotted and delineated. Yet I am certain that it has never been clearly perceived, at least by Tolkien scholars, and the reason for my certainty is the dire state of the secondary literature on the 1936 allegory of the tower. Careful inspection of the descriptions of the visions in the Mirror and subsequent mutual vision between Galadriel and Frodo suggests a strange ekphrasis, disclosing something otherwise hidden behind the scenes of this Elvish drama: a Hobbit's ultimate adventure, up the stairs of a high tower to look on the Sea, and back down again. Had any Tolkien scholar worked out the deal with Frodo Baggins and Elostirion it would no longer have been possible to read the 1936 story of the Anglo-Saxon tower as had Jane Chance (1979) and Tom Shippey (1982). This consensus reading of the 1936 allegory of Beowulf falls apart as the image of Elostirion is captured within the shadowy corners of a sprawling Hobbit narrative.

One conclusion I draw from this is that criticism, the heart of scholarly practice, is not working within the house built by Tolkien scholars. While earlier posts last year were sharply critical of the readings of the allegory by Chance and Shippey, I take the opportunity to underline that their respective monographs made valuable contributions. The problem is that what should have been stepping stones were taken as dogmas, and everyone who henceforth talked with borrowed authority on towers and views of the sea, as also of Beowulf, presumed that all that was to be explained had been explained.⁶ Tolkien criticism went on holiday. Illumination ceased.

Of course, there is another side of the coin: Tolkien was a master of distraction. From first almost to last, the narrative of The Lord of the Rings directs our gaze inland, to the Eye in the Dark Tower that appears as the mythical center of this great rock garden: the Eye that is the opposite, an inversion (or perversion) of the eye of the Anglo-Saxon artist of the 1936 allegory, who from the top of his tower gazes on the sea. Sauron looks to control all of Middle-earth; and as readers we are caught within the limitations of the Necromancer's gaze—hardly pausing to consider how the real map of the story extends beyond the Sea. The Rings of Power are held up before us, and we are wholly captured by their glittering spell. Within what is read as epic fantasy, the Seeing Stones appear merely another marvel of Elvish craft. Even to the most dedicated readers, the western Elf-tower alluded to in Prologue and glimpsed in dream is passed over as just one curiosity among many within the astonishing riches of this secondary world.

Dedication

For Yotam, who teaches me all the stuff that my parents never did.

Works Cited

¹ All quotes in this section from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, "Lothlórien."

²The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, "The Mirror of Galadriel."

³ Ibid. If this is Frodo's first sight of the sea, then there must be this difference between the far-seeing vision of Valinor on the second night in the house of Bombadil and his sight of those shores from the ship on which he sails—in the house of Bombadil, Frodo does not see the sea.

⁴The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, "The Battle of the Pelennor Fields."

⁵ This possibility is raised in Unfinished Tales, "The Palantíri," note 16.

⁶ Hence this series of posts is published on the SWG—a good house, wherein as a Tolkien scholar, I do not feel alone, yet a house built and maintained by and for fanfiction writers. If any Tolkien scholars have replicated whatever it is that works here, I have yet to find it.