LotR -- Book 3 - Chapter 06 - The King of the Golden Hall

[Bêthberry]

Fascinating thoughts, all, on the actions of Aragorn and of Eowyn also. If I may, I would like to forgo talking about them and return to Estelyn's initial question.

What parts of this chapter do you find interesting, informative, or moving? What is important to the development of the story?

Perhaps I am not as 'into' the characters as many of you are, but one of main things I find stirring and intriguing about this chapter is how Tolkien portrays the Rohirrim culture. In fantasy, where the creation of an alternate world or universe depends crucially upon the consistency of that world, I find I am often drawn to Tolkien's methods of presentation and descriptions.

This chapter takes us from the dark concerns of the forest, one of the primeval places of faerie, and leads us out onto the wide, broad plains of Rohan and up to a geography I know as foothills. For me, Tolkien has presented a geography very close to my own experience: from the pre-Cambrian forests of north-central Canada, across the grasslands of the prairies, right up to the foothills. I even know of towns built on the edge of the mountains as Edoras is, courageous outposts of culture and civilization skirting the edge of near-empty or unmapped terrain. Now, I'm not saying Tolkien deliberately itended to describe Canada here, but that his depiction of the geography is important to our understanding of the Rohirrim people, perched precariously against the elements of land, weather, and beset on both sides by dark forces, of Saruman on the west and Mordor on the east.

"I see a white stream that comes down from the snows," he [Legolas] said. "Where it issues from the shadow of the vale a green hill rises upon the east. A dike and mighty wall and thorny fence encircle it. Within there rise the roofs of houses; and in the midst, set upon a green terrace, there stands aloft a great hall of Men. And it seems to my eyes that it is thatched with gold. The light of it shines far over the land. Golden, too, are the posts of its doors. There men in bright mail stand; but all else within the courts are yet asleep."

"Edoras those courts are called," said Gandalf, "and Meduseld is that golden hall. There dwells Théoden son of Thengel, King of the Mark of Rohan. We are come with the rising of the day. Now the road lies plain to see before us. But we must ride more warily; for war is abroad, and the Rohirrim, the horse-lords, do not sleep, even if it seem so from afar. Draw no weapon, speak no haughty word, I counsel you, until we ae ocme before Thédden's seat."

We are here far beyond the gentle land of The Shire, the mystical marvels of Imladris and Lothlorien, the dark mysteries of Fangorn. What I see Tolkien creating for my imagination is the style of the Old English epics, married with the cossacks of the eastern European steppes.

It is the style, though, that I find particularly interesting, for here begins I think some of the strongest evidences of Tolkien's efforts to reimagine some of the features of archaic English in modern English form. The two paragraphs I have quoted have many sentences which begin not with their sugjects, but with subordinate clauses or prepositional phrases, or inversions. Tolkien uses style to begin to characterise this ancient culture. It is a stirring style, replete with an almost ritualistic formality which seems very suitable. Perhaps the most prominent of the specifically Old English style is the poem "Where now the horse and the rider?", with its high rate of alliteration and prominent, staccado-like rhythm. The short, pithy lines of this chapter, so many of which Estelyn has quoted in the first post here, also harken back to the kennings of Old English literature.

The other characteristic I find intriguing also has to do with the description of entry to Edoras. In the simbelmynë which flowers over the barrows of the kings we learn something of the theme of Lord of the Rings, the doom of man, and of what time's passing and the importance of song means to a people. "a memory of song" says Aragorn. .