In the Sky far above the Shadows of Death

One of my absolute favourite passages in Lord of the Rings comes at the end of the chapter “The Siege of Gondor” in Return of the King. It is overwhelming in its darkness until, at the end, light and hope break in. It is a fantastic moment of eucatastrophe within the larger narrative, when all hope seems lost. I read this passage to my students in early February as an example of how literature can resonate with one’s personal life.

I’m going to try to unpack that here a little bit because my teaching semester has now ended, my seniors are off to graduate, and I sit in an empty classroom trying to pick up the threads of the year and make sense of what I have learnt as a person and a teacher in these past ten months. 

For context, my daughter was born in early November and spent 40 days in NICU (where I read Lord of the Rings to her every day). My wife was lamed during the birth, and unable to walk safely for several days, unable to drive for months, and a fall risk for a long, long time. This was the first Woe. The week that we finally got to bring our daughter home—Christmas week—I got sick with pneumonia. This forced me to isolate for two weeks from my own family. This was the second Woe. Then, finally, I returned to work in January having been absent since November 7, and faced a completely apathetic group of students who by and large had decided to cheat on every assignment. I am not exaggerating when I say that 30% of my students cheated—and not even very well or convincingly—on their first essay of the semester. The complete lack of interest, of apathy, of lack of respect was too much to handle. I began, finally, to break, sinking to a deep, deep depression. This was the third Woe. 

So when February rolled around, I felt well and truly like I had been under siege for three long months by all the forces of darkness in this world. And then I revisited this passage in Return of the King and was moved to literal tears, uncontrolled weeping, and decided to share it with each of my classes. 

It begins: Ever since the middle night the great assault had gone on. Relentlessly, the enemy kept on coming: armies of orcs, Haradrim on their mûmakil, all the foes of Gondor. And they simply did not care how many of their own might be slain. They came simply to test the strength of Gondor and keep the besieged defenders busy. To wear them down. I have often thought what the average orc must have felt, if they could feel anything at all beyond totalising hatred. Humans do not like knowing they are just canon fodder; do the orcs care, do they have any sense of individuality? A strange question, perhaps, but this passage really captures the senselessness of evil’s assault on the good.

The drums rolled louder. Fires leaped up. Great engines crawled across the field. And still the enemy comes, growing ever more threatening. The sequence of paragraphs that follows these words builds like the drumbeat that begins it, inexorable and unstoppable and without hope. The orcs bring forth an enormous ram named Grond, and we get a sequence of paragraphs that begin, Grond crawled on—even though the archers on the walls are shooting hundreds of arrows at the trolls and beasts that brought it forward, though they tried to set fire to the ram, it just rolled on, oblivious to all attacks.

Then to matters still worse, Over the hills of slain a hideous shape appeared: a horseman, tall, hooded, cloaked in black. A Ringwraith, the Lord of the Nazgûl, appears just to add to the totality of the darkness of this hour. And as he did so a great fear fell on all, defender and foe alike; and the hands of men drooped to their sides, and no bow sang. The entire battlefield goes quiet for a moment at the appearance of the demon, even the enemies of Gondor are shaken with terror. It is overwhelming, and still there is no relief.

In the next moment, in the silence—or out of it—Grond rattles forward with a final rush and a deep boom rumbled through the City like thunder running in the clouds. The gates of Minas Tirith hold firm, but not for long for the Black Captain rose in his stirrups and cried aloud in a dreadful voice, speaking in some forgotten tongue words of power and terror to rend both heart and stone. It is not the power of the battering ram that breaks the gates, not mere strength of trolls that batters the doors down. 

It is words of power. Words of hatred. Words capable not only of tearing the hearts of Men apart but of rending the very stones of Minas Tirith. 

The Nazgûl cries thus three times. Three times the great ram booms against the gate. And then suddenly the gates burst apart as if stricken by some blasting spell. They do not just crack and slowly break open, as a door would under natural force. They seem to explode. And it is on the third cry of the Dark Captain. Not the first, nor yet the second, but the third. There is something deeply symbolic about the number Three, more all-encompassing and totalising than the unity of One. In our superstitions, we look for bad things to come in Threes, not Ones and Twos—or even Fours and Fives. But good things come in Three as well. 

So now the doors lie in fragments. The hearts of Men, the hearty defenders of the City, are riven. In rode the Lord of the Nazgûl, identified here in this passage for the first time explicitly as one of the Nine. He enters the City first, ahead of the orcs and trolls that wait. And Gondor lies on the edge of ruin.

At this point, it is utterly hopeless. The way I felt at the end of January after three massive Booms! against the walls of my heart and sanity. 

And in the City, all defenders had fled. All save one. When I read the next words to my students, I choked up. In a few classes, tears leaked out. For not all hope had fled. A sliver remained to face the continued onslaught, the overwhelming evil that had crashed upon Minas Tirith:

There waiting, silent and still in the space before the Gate, sat Gandalf upon Shadowfax: Shadowfax who alone among the free horses of the earth endured the terror, unmoving, steadfast as a graven image in Rath Dínen. “You cannot enter here,” said Gandalf, and the huge shadow halted. “Go back to the abyss prepared for you! Go back! Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your Master! Go!”

Gandalf is magnificent. But Shadowfax! To stand and face everything that is about to come through those gates! That a beast could have more courage than the mighty men of Dol Amroth! 

But Gandalf’s defiance is met by the revelation that this Black Rider, the Lord of the Nazgûl, is a King, for he flings back his hood—the only such moment in Lord of the Rings—and we see a crown sitting on an invisible head, a flame burning between the crown and the mantled shoulders. It is one of the most delightfully creepy moments in all of Tolkien. We have been told that the black cloaks merely serve to give some semblance of shape to the Nazgûl, but we have never yet seen what lies beneath.

Nothingness lies beneath. And a fire that is never quenched. A fire of absolute, all-consuming hate.

“Old fool!” he said. “Old fool! This is my hour. Do you not know Death when you see it? Die now and curse in vain!” And with that he lifted high his sword and flames ran down the blade.

I love how the Witch-king here is made to personify Death, how he becomes Death itself—or so he claims to be. And the image of his sword burning with flames, as well, the ethereal fire that seeks to consume all life and burn it up. The Hellfire, quite literally. 

And then Tolkien gives us a break. A division in the text. A moment to pause and wonder what will come next. Will Gandalf falter? Will Shadowfax’s courage finally fail? Will the two horsemen duel?

None of that. After that pause for us to draw breath, the narrater says simply, “Gandalf did not move.” 

But then the most amazing thing happens—and here I could not contain my tears as I read this aloud, and I could sense the mood shift every class period as I read—then at this lowest point of all, we read:

And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the City, a cock crowed.

The most ordinary of morning rituals takes place. Dawn is come. That incredibly symbolic moment of new beginnings. That moment when the women discovered the empty tomb. That moment when hope recovers itself.

And as if in answer there came from far away another note. Horns, horns, horns. In dark Mindolluin’s sides they dimly echoed. Great horns of the North wildly blowing.

The cock’s crowing, at first a solitary sound very much out of place and time, completely oblivious to the looming end of Minas Tirith, to the end of all hope. That crowing is joined by horns that echo wildly off the mountains behind the City.

Rohan had come at last.

And thus ends the chapter. Minas Tirith lies open to conquest and death. The Lord of the Nazgûl has ridden in defiantly to claim this last bastion of hope for the Dark Lord. But he does not get to enjoy this moment of triumph. There is no death and slaughter of the citizens. Gandalf checks him for a moment, just long enough for the dawn to break. Just long enough for the City’s allies to arrive.

I am covered in goosebumps as I am writing this, shivering all over. 

At the end of January, it seemed like I could not go on, like I was about to be swept under a wave of despair and endless darkness of the soul. I don’t even recall that anything like real hope existed in my life just then. I couldn’t see an end to the overwhelming misery that had settled on my heart and my family for months.

But this passage provided a powerful reminder that there is always hope, even in the darkest moments. I cannot hope to be Gandalf, but I can stand like Shadowfax and face the enemy. I can await the dawn. We all can.