Biblical and Theological Commentary on The Silmarillion, Part 3

Quenta Silmarillion (Second Half)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 4

(avg. read time: 54–108 mins.)

A Courageous Rescue and the Fruit of Pity

Fëanor and his host are beset by Morgoth’s forces not long after landing in Middle-earth. They rout their enemies rather swiftly, being far superior in strength to the Orcs who outnumbered them. But the fiery Fëanor presses his advantage too fast and too far, and he eventually finds himself surrounded by Balrogs with only a few of his people around him. Although he fought valiantly, he could not overcome such an overwhelming advantage from his enemies, and Gothmog, the Lord of Balrogs, smote him to the ground. They withdraw when the rest of Fëanor’s host arrives, and his sons bear him away. Even as he realizes the Noldor can never overcome Morgoth’s fortress of Angband beneath the peaks of Thangorodrim, he stubbornly pushes his sons to fight on and hold to their oath with his dying breaths.

Morgoth soon sent an embassy offering to discuss terms of surrender of a Silmaril. Neither side trusted the other, and both came with larger force than the other expected. But Morgoth’s force had the advantage in numbers and power, for there were Balrogs with them. Thus Maedhros, Fëanor’s eldest son, is captured and hung by the wrist from Thangorodrim.

Fingolfin’s host arrived in Middle-earth with the first rising of the Moon. Although most of Fëanor’s people repented of the burning of the ships in betrayal of their brethren, Fingolfin’s people were not in a forgiving mood. As I have noted previously in this series, there can be no reconciliation if forgiveness does not meet repentance. And thus it is here.

Still, Fingon, being among the people sinned against, attempts to heal the feud of the Noldor. To accomplish this goal, he seeks out Maedhros, his cousin and dear friend, for no one else among Fëanor’s people would be more willing to make amends. Unbeknownst to Fingon, Maedhros had actually wanted to send the ships back, particularly so as to speed Fingon on his way to Middle-earth. In his quest born of friendship, Fingon climbs Thangorodrim and eventually finds Maedhros hanging without any hope of rescue. In his despair, he asks for his cousin and friend to grant him a coup de grâce with an arrow.

Fingon tearfully acknowledges his friend’s desperate plea. But at the same time, “seeing no better hope he cried to Manwë, saying: ‘O King to whom all birds are dear, speed now this feathered shaft, and recall some pity for the Noldor in their need’” (13). We are then told, “His prayer was answered swiftly. For Manwë to whom all birds are dear, and to whom they bring news upon Taniquetil from Middle-earth, had sent forth the race of Eagles, commanding them to dwell in the crags of the North, and to keep watch upon Morgoth; for Manwë still had pity for the exiled Elves” (13). This is apparently not a technical violation of the doom pronounced previously that aid would not come from Valinor, as the Eagles already surveilled Middle-earth. But their aid still shows Manwë exemplifying the divine virtue of pity, in spite of what the Noldor had done.

More generally, as we have seen in The Hobbit and LOTR, the Eagles are among the most concrete manifestations of the work of Providence in these stories. After all, they are incarnate spiritual beings serving the will of Manwë, the King of Arda and chief servant of Eru Ilúvatar. Tolkien even speaks of them in Letter #210 as being “a dangerous machine,” a reference to their operation as plot devices that he did not want to rely on too much, but which could also be taken as deus ex machina, which is hardly out of place in a mythological setting in which divine beings are concretely involved. In this instance, Thorondor, the greatest of all Eagles, is the one to come to Fingon and Maedhros’s aid when no others could have done so.

As for describing this in terms of prayer, this is reminiscent of what Tolkien had said in Letter #153 about the relation of the Free Peoples of Middle-earth to the Valar:

For help they may call on a Vala (as Elbereth), as a Catholic might on a Saint, though no doubt knowing in theory as well as he that the power of the Vala was limited and derivative. But this is a ‘primitive age’: and these folk may be said to view the Valar as children view their parents or immediate adult superiors, and though they know they are subjects of the King he does not live in their country nor have there any dwelling. (emphases original)

By the instrument of the Eagles, Providence thus takes up Fingon’s courageous deed and directs it to the salvation his courage could not accomplish by itself. It is thus akin to many deeds we have observed in LOTR. He would not be in a position to rescue Maedhros but for his courage. But he could not have actually accomplished the rescue but for the providential presence and action of the Eagles. Thus, Fingon does not need to mercy kill his friend, but he rescues him, albeit at the cost of Maedhros’s right hand by which he had hung from the mountain, and reconciliation between their peoples is achieved. In gratitude for this rescue and in repentance of his father’s betrayal of Fingolfin, he acknowledges that the kingship of the Noldor rightly passes to Fingolfin as the eldest of Finwë’s descendants, and he will not press any claim to the contrary out of recognition of him.

Prophecy and Hope

As the Noldor disperse and establish their realms thereafter, one Noldorin lord receives special revelation. As in the Bible, there are various modes of special revelation in Tolkien’s stories, including prophecy, visions, hearing voices (as Frodo does in a vision, as well as at a decisive moment with Gollum in recalling his conversation with Gandalf), dreams, inspired speech/tongues, and various moments of providential divine guidance.¹ In The Silmarillion particular individuals, particularly among the Elves, are given gifts of foresight, which reflect ever so slightly the foresight of the Valar like Manwë and Mandos. Each of these modes of special revelation have correspondence in the Bible, though to be fair there are also examples from pagan stories that Tolkien was familiar with.

In the case that is of interest here, though, Tolkien’s biblical and theological framework is a more prominent inspiration. For the prophecy that Turgon receives is one of hope provided to him by Ulmo. And it is not the amdir kind of hope but the estel kind of hope, a distinction we observed many times over in the LOTR commentary. It is trust beyond what can be seen in that it is trust in Ilúvatar’s willing the good for his children. Here, Ulmo tells Turgon first of all that “Longest of all the realms of the Eldalië shall Gondolin stand against Melkor. But love not too well the work of thy hands and the devices of thy heart; and remember that the true hope of the Noldor lieth in the West and cometh from the Sea” (15). Ulmo warns Turgon that he is also subject to the Doom of the Noldor, and Ulmo has no power to change that. That is one reason why Turgon should remember that his hope lies outside himself and outside of his own people. His secret kingdom will be the longest lasting and most glorious of the kingdoms of the Noldor in Beleriand, but it too may fall by treachery and fire. Yet Ulmo promises Turgon, “if this peril draweth nigh indeed, then even from Nevrast one shall come to warn thee, and from him beyond ruin and fire hope shall be born for Elves and Men” (15). He even describes the build of the person in question so that Turgon can leave armor for him.

This is the first foreshadowing of Tuor. Another will come from his own father, who himself will not be born for hundreds of years hence. But of Tuor will be born Eärendil, the one who will secure the salvation of Middle-earth from the tyranny of Morgoth.

Biblical prophecies are often calls to action, as this one is. They may be so explicitly and/or implicitly (one may notice, for example, that there is no explicit call to action in the prophecy of Jonah, but it is taken as implicit by the Ninevites). Many instances of prophecy are warnings or declarations of condemnation and wrath to come. But many others declare promises of hope. Only in relatively few cases is the subject one of God raising up someone from within the people prophesied to in order to accomplish his promise(s). Most of the time, especially among the Latter Prophets, the hope has such a clearly transcendent source that it is something Israel could not accomplish for themselves. Thus it is also with prophecies of hope in Revelation and elsewhere in the NT. But though the delivering action will come as from outside, the people can still prepare themselves for it and be vigilant in their conduct until hope arrives (for some examples, see here, here, and here).

Indeed, the chink in the armor of Gondolin will be introduced by a lack of vigilance of one particular person. The next chapter foreshadows how doom will come to it. We are told the story of how Turgon’s sister, Aredhel, had ventured out beyond the bounds of Turgon’s kingdom. Although her own people feared she was dead, she had in fact restlessly continued wandering until she met Eöl the Dark Elf, who took her to wife. She bore him a son named Maeglin. As she told her son the tales of her house and of Gondolin, she found that she desired to return, and Maeglin also wished to go with her.

Of course, Eöl had no love for the other Noldor, blaming them for Morgoth’s return to Middle-earth, and he had no wish to live among them. Thus, Aredhel and Maeglin fled from him while he was away from the house feasting with the Dwarves. Yet in his anger of discovering their flight, he followed in hot pursuit. He was thus able to discover the secret way into Gondolin that Aredhel knew and led her son through.

By the family tragedy, doom was assured for Gondolin by two ways. One, Eöl slew (albeit unintentionally) his wife while attempting to slay Maeglin in his rage at his son’s betrayal. This removed her influence from Maeglin as he grew in stature in Gondolin. Two, Maeglin became covetous of Idril, Turgon’s daughter. Yes, she was his first cousin, but that did not quell his desire. The other Eldar had not wed such close kin, and there was no such desire to do so until Maeglin became infatuated with Idril. And it is said that “his love turned to darkness in his heart. And he sought the more to have his will in other matters, shirking no toil or burden, if he might thereby have power” (16). This portends that he would seek to have her by force if he could not have her by love, since she did not love him at all.

This seed of evil being sown amongst them shows one reason why Gondolin could not ultimately have amdir hope for its deliverance from Morgoth. They were not vigilant enough to squelch his desire or to realize he was hiding his mind from them. They could not fathom that such desire as he had for both Idril and for power, if left unchecked, would bring the fall of their mighty city from within. Perhaps pride also clouded such sense, thinking that one person could surely not do so much damage to this great city. They particularly failed in their vigilance by failing to see the problem with one seeking power like Maeglin did. As Tolkien’s theological framework presented throughout LOTR and his letters (see here and here) should make clear, this ought to have been seen as a sign of darkness. Fortunately, they do not need to rely on themselves for hope. This oversight is still a reminder of their need for estel.

The Shadow of the Fall of Men

Tolkien had said of the setting of LOTR in Letter #297, “The Fall of Man is in the past and off stage; the Redemption of Man in the far future. We are in a time when the One God, Eru, is known to exist by the wise, but is not approachable save by or through the Valar, though He is still remembered in (unspoken) prayer by those of Númenórean descent” (emphasis original). This fits with other statements of his that I note in Chapter Two of my Hobbit book, Chapter Three of my forthcoming LOTR book, and those mentioned here. Obviously, some of The Silmarillion is set in a time even before the Fall. But the link to the story of the Fall and of its being offstage and shrouded in shadow comes with the story of the entrance of Men into the lands of Beleriand, where they make contact with the Elves therein. The narrator tells us:

But when he [Finrod] questioned him [Bëor] concerning the arising of Men and their journeys, Bëor would say little; and indeed he knew little, for the fathers of his people had told few tales of their past and a silence had fallen upon their memory. ‘A darkness lies behind us,’ Bëor said; ‘and we have turned our backs upon it, and we do not desire to return thither even in thought. Westwards our hearts have been turned, and we believe that there we shall find Light.’

But it was said afterwards among the Eldar that when Men awoke in Hildórien at the rising of the Sun the spies of Morgoth were watchful, and tidings were soon brought to him; and this seemed to him so great a matter that secretly under the shadow he himself departed from Angband, and went forth into Middle-earth, leaving to Sauron the command of the War. Of his dealings with Men the Eldar indeed knew nothing, at that time, and learnt but little afterwards; but that a darkness lay upon the hearts of Men (as the shadow of the Kinslaying and the Doom of Mandos lay upon the Noldor) they perceived clearly even in the people of the Elf-friends whom they first knew. To corrupt or destroy whatsoever arose new and fair was ever the chief desire of Morgoth; and doubtless he had this purpose also in his errand: by fear and lies to make Men the foes of the Eldar, and bring them up out of the east against Beleriand. But this design was slow to ripen, and was never wholly achieved; for Men (it is said) were at first very few in number, whereas Morgoth grew afraid of the growing power and union of the Eldar and came back to Angband, leaving behind at that time but few servants, and those of less might and cunning. (17)

As with the traditional story of the Fall, the Satanic figure in this mythos is said to be involved. And the basic function of what he sought to achieve is as is in the traditional story. But again, Tolkien is not simply re-presenting the biblical story that happens offstage. It is simply there, and its influence remains by the shadow that has fallen upon the hearts of Men, a shadow that all people carry to this day. Tolkien himself said in Letter #96 that, unlike many Christians in his day (and in ours), he did not feel ashamed or dubious about the Eden “myth”:

It has not of course, historicity of the same kind as the NT, which are virtually contemporary documents, while Genesis is separated by we do not know how many sad exiled generations from the Fall, but certainly there was an Eden on this very unhappy earth. We all long for it, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most humane, is still soaked with the sense of ‘exile’…. As far as we can go back the nobler part of the human mind is filled with the thoughts of sibb, peace and goodwill, and with the thought of its loss. (emphases original)

This is a similar argument to that of Lewis and his notion that the deepest feeling of nostalgia (or rather, “longing”) ultimately has its roots in Eden and the sense of loss of peace and goodwill that suffuses so much of human thought ultimately stems from the exile from the same. Indeed, as I have noted in my series on resurrection in the OT, the Bible establishes a strong conceptual link between exile and death, as well as return and resurrection. Of course, in line with how Revelation ends, Tolkien’s expectation is not simply to return to or recover Eden, “For that is not the way of repentance, which works spirally and not in a closed circle; we may recover something like it, but on a higher plane.” That is indeed how the new Jerusalem is described in Rev 21–22, as Eden fulfilled, not merely as Eden revived.

In this particular story of Finrod and Bëor, we see a sign of Providence also in this meeting. Bëor, one of the leaders of Men, speaks of their hearts being turned in the passive voice. It is seemingly not of their own doing, but some external force has turned their hearts to the West. And so the internal work of Providence, akin to what we have observed in both The Hobbit and LOTR, has guided them here, where they will learn more of him in accord with what the Elves have learned. Indeed, in preparation, they had heard rumors of the Valar already (17).

The Power of Doom

Finrod was the first of the great Elf lords to encounter Men, but the most significant of these encounters is not contained in the published Silmarilllion. That will be a subject to return to for Morgoth’s Ring. For now, we still see that Finrod becomes peculiarly engaged with the race of Men, and they learned much from him, for which reason they called him Nóm, “Wisdom,” and his people Nómin, “the Wise,” whence comes the other spelling of how they referred to Elves, “Gnomes.” Perhaps Finrod is drawn to them because senses that it is from them that his words of foresight to Galadriel concerning why he did not marry will be fulfilled, “An oath I too shall swear, and must be free to fulfil it, and go into darkness. Nor shall anything of my realm endure that a son should inherit” (15). Thus it shall prove that Finrod’s “chance meeting” with Men will prove providentially beneficial for them in more ways than one, and his fate will be intertwined with them in more ways than one by the complex orchestrations of Providence.

Thingol also has a dark foreboding about Men. And so, at first, he forbids any of them to enter his realm or to dwell anywhere near it. But Melian, as usual, has the greater insight and foresight: “Now the world runs on swiftly to great tidings. And one of Men, even of Bëor’s house, shall indeed come, and the Girdle of Melian shall not restrain him, for doom greater than my power shall send him; and the songs that shall spring from that coming shall endure when all Middle-earth is changed” (17). The Girdle of Melian guards the realm of Doriath so that none can enter her realm but by her leave, unless one bears a power greater than hers. And she is a Maia of great power indeed, as we had seen previously that Ungoliant could not pass beyond this protection of Doriath. But the power of doom is greater still.

This “doom” is apparently not a reference to the Doom of the Noldor as such. It is not entirely impossible, of course, that this Doom could exert that kind of an influence, and if one thus wished to see it as an exertion of Mandos’s power, that would certainly be greater than Melian’s. But Beren does not clearly become enwrapped with the Doom of the Noldor until after he passed beyond the Girdle of Melian, whereby Thingol and the realm of Doriath also became ensnared with this doom and the curse of Mandos. The doom that will send Beren is another way of referring to the expression of the divine will of none other than Eru Ilúvatar. For in many ways Beren will prove to be an agent of divine providence within this story.

Providential Provision of Men for Good and for Ill

Moreover, the coming of Men into Beleriand is itself providential. The Elf-friends first suggest this in a great debate among Men as to whether to remain in Beleriand or move away to once again flee Morgoth: “Truly from the Dark King come all the evils from which we fled; but he seeks dominion over all Middle-earth, and whither now shall we turn and he will not pursue us? Unless he be vanquished here, or at least held in leaguer. Only by the valour of the Eldar is he restrained, and maybe it was for this purpose, to aid them at need, that we were brought into this land” (17). Yet again, the Men are presented as passive in the action here. They were “brought” here by an unnamed agent, and they perceive it was for the purpose of helping the Elves to hold Morgoth at bay. This purpose is further buttressed for them when they shortly realize that one of Morgoth’s agents has sought to use deception to sow seeds of doubt about the Elves, the Valar, and so on. They must be on the right track and where they should be if the devil is putting forth this much effort to divert them.

At the same time, the coming of Men did not bear only good fruit for themselves or for everyone else. Many of the Easterlings who would come later would prove treacherous and helped to assure the Doom of the Noldor. But the Edain currently in Beleriand were still “caught in the net of the Doom of the Noldor” (17). Many would die in service to the Noldor or because of the wrath they provoked from Morgoth. Still, events surely would have been much worse but for their presence, and many great deeds would not have been done. A Silmaril would have never been recovered from Morgoth and salvation would never have come from the Uttermost West to Middle-earth if not for the presence and action of Men.

The Strangeness of Mortality

The Edain had longer lifespans in Beleriand, but still they met their mortal ends. And when Bëor died at 93, the Elves wondered at this:

And when he lay dead, of no wound or grief, but stricken by age, the Eldar saw for the first time the swift waning of the life of Men, and the death of weariness which they knew not in themselves; and they grieved greatly for the loss of their friends. But Bëor at the last had relinquished his life willingly and passed in peace; and the Eldar wondered much at the strange fate of Men, for in all their lore there was no account of it, and its end was hidden from them. (17)

Much of this repeats what we have already seen elsewhere, but there are some notable additions. Obviously, the Elves’ immortality was simply longevity on par with the Earth whence they came, not invincibility. They could die from unnatural causes, and many, many of them did in the First Age. But to die in the fashion of Men was something the Elves of Beleriand had no experience with. Some of them were already thousands of years old, and so to die before reaching 100 without any perceivable cause was to them a strange thing.

Furthermore, there is significance to Tolkien’s larger mythos in the statement that Bëor relinquished his life willingly. This is also how Aragorn is described as dying. Both of these deaths point to a paradigm of what is expected of good Men in this world. Tolkien mentions in a footnote to Letter #156 that “A good Númenórean died of free will when he felt it to be time to do so.” Bëor provides the precedent for them as well as for the Elves, as Tolkien similarly notes in Letter #212, “It was also the Elvish (and uncorrupted Númenórean) view that a ‘good’ Man would or should die voluntarily by surrender with trust before being compelled (as did Aragorn). This may have been the nature of unfallen Man; though compulsion would not threaten him: he would desire and ask to be allowed to ‘go on’ to a higher state” (emphases original). For Men in Tolkien’s story, the acceptance of creaturely limitation transcribed in the reality of mortality is what ultimately separates those among Men who describe death as the Gift of Men and those who describe death as the Doom of Men. We also see here how death might have been approached from an “unfallen” perspective as Tolkien presents it. Although compulsion would not have been an issue for unfallen humans, Tolkien thought this same attitude would have characterized the unfallen, for whom death would have signified only the end of transient, mortal existence and not that condition of Godforsakeness under the power of death united with sin.

And here Tolkien showed the distinct influence of his Catholic theology in how he linked this idea with Catholic Mariology. On the one hand, the Immaculate Conception in Catholic theology insists that Mary was an unfallen human (as Tolkien said in this same letter), particularly in the sense that she was exempt from the stain of original sin. On the other hand, the assumption of Mary is considered to be the appropriate end-of-life complement to her conception, whereby she voluntarily gave up continuing her earthly existence and was taken up into heaven. But lest there be any confusion about Mary’s status or any sense that she was in any way not dependent on Christ (for Mary is exalted by her relation to Christ and participation in the Incarnation), Tolkien clarifies, “The Assumption was in any case as distinct from the Ascension as the raising of Lazarus from the (self) Resurrection.”

It is true that the story of The Silmarillion is told from an Elvish perspective. Thus, death is also presented from that perspective. It is not meant to be a direct presentation of how to understand the origins of death in line with Tolkien’s Primary World beliefs. But what is in line with those beliefs is the approach to death regardless of how it came about that Tolkien inscribes as a righteous perspective. Even if one thinks of death primarily as a punishment, that is not the end of the matter:

A divine ‘punishment’ is also a divine ‘gift’, if accepted, since its object is ultimate blessing, and the supreme inventiveness of the Creator will make ‘punishments’ (that is changes of design) produce a good not otherwise to be attained: a ‘mortal’ Man has probably (an Elf would say) a higher if unrevealed destiny than a longeval one. To attempt by device or ‘magic’ to recover longevity is thus a supreme folly and wickedness of ‘mortals’. Longevity or counterfeit ‘immortality’ (true immortality is beyond Eä) is the chief bait of Sauron – it leads the small to a Gollum, and the great to a Ringwraith. (Letter #212)

On the one hand, one can see throughout Scripture that such acceptance of divine punishment can turn to acceptance of divine gift. This is essential to the dynamic of sin-repentance-salvation, which is itself interwoven with rebellious humans coming to accept the creature/Creator distinction. Adam and Eve’s punishment for trying to be as gods on their own terms in Gen 3 rather than to be like God on God’s terms (as he is the One who made them in his image and likeness to begin with) could have been an occasion for the acceptance of the same to turn into a gift as they could realize the grace given to them even in this time. The similar exile of Israelites from their land presented similar opportunity for reflection, repentance, and the greater revelation of the glory of God in salvation from the same. We see this in texts like Isa 40; Jer 29 (particularly with the note about seeking the peace of the city where one has been exiled); 31; Dan 9; Hos 2; 11; Mic 7; Zech 8; and many others,² most dramatically in Ezek 37 where the death of the people is turned to resurrection.³

Likewise, Tolkien said of the Eucharist in Letter #43:

There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth, and more than that: Death: by the divine paradox, that which ends life, and demands the surrender of all, and yet by the taste (or foretaste) of which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained, or take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, which every man’s heart desires.

In a similar vein we can see the application in Letter #212 of Rom 8:28 and other texts (such as teachings on discipline in Heb 12:2–13, joy in suffering in Jas 1:2–4, and suffering for doing right in texts such as 1 Pet 3:14–22) that suffering which one might see as divine punishment instead is reframed as divine gift for more good than could be imagined at the time.

Failing to Account for Valor and the Strange Ways of Providence

To this point, Morgoth had sought to undermine Men and keep them from strengthening the resistance of the Elves, but he had not made them a major part of his calculations. There is the story of the Fall, of course, that the narrator has hinted at. And he certainly found them annoying at times to his scouts and any sorties that he otherwise might have sent out after they entered Beleriand. But he still largely underestimated them. He had thought that what he had brewing in his fortress during the centuries of tense peace since the last major battle was mighty enough to destroy his enemies in one fell swoop. For centuries, he nursed his spite for how his foes had humiliated his forces, for how they had made the lands of Beleriand beautiful under the light of the Sun he hated, and for other grudges he held against the leaders for various reasons.

Then one night in FA 455, Morgoth unleashed great torrents of fire to consume the fields before Angband and the Elves and Men occupying them, which he then followed with sending the vast forces he had amassed in the intervening centuries. The forces were led by Glaurung, the first of the Dragons Morgoth bred, followed by the Balrogs, followed by more Orcs than any of the Free Peoples could have imagined Morgoth had.

But even with this force, Morgoth could only succeed in breaking the Siege of Angband, but he could not succeed in utterly destroying his foes. For it is said, “on his part he esteemed too lightly the valour of the Elves, and of Men he took yet no account” (18). Although many Men died in this battle known as Dagor Bragollach, they gave their lives in stymying Morgoth’s charge and in ensuring that many of his most hated foes would survive this fiery onslaught.

Among them was Finrod. He had been caught out of his kingdom of Nargothrond that was presently hidden from Morgoth. And he was so vastly outnumbered that he would have been slain by the forces that surrounded him. That is, if not for Barahir and his men coming to his rescue at great cost to themselves. Their presence and action in the right place at the right time, when they were not even tasked with guarding Finrod, ensured not only his survival, but also his bond with Barahir’s people. He swears an oath to come to Barahir’s aid, if ever he asks for it. In token of this promise, he gave him his ring, which would come to be known as the Ring of Barahir and would be an heirloom of Barahir’s descendants for many centuries thereafter, being in the possession of Aragorn at the time of LOTR over six-and-a-half millennia later. We will also see in the next chapter the kind of effects this action will have in the course of the story of The Silmarillion, all because Barahir and his men were providentially in the right place and the right time, and because Morgoth had given no consideration of the valor of Men.

The valor of Elves and Men also held the land of Hithlum unconquered, even by the great host Morgoth sent against it to remove this threat from his flank. But the assault was still great enough to cut off Hithlum from other realms that were less fortunate. Angrod and Aegnor, the sons of Finarfin, perished with their forces. The sons of Fëanor took great losses, but the sons themselves survived and went hither and thither. Maedhros is said to have acted as “one that returns from the dead” (18) for how vigorously he fought with such a fire coursing through him since his torment on Thangorodrim. But it was only enough to greatly damage Morgoth’s forces, not to turn them about or to reclaim the lands that were lost.

Morgoth underestimated the courage and strength, the valor that was the gift of Ilúvatar to his children for the life they must live in this world. As we have noted elsewhere, such valor is presented as a divine gift in the Old English stories Tolkien loved and which influenced him so significantly. These works also hold on to the memory of the northern spirit of courage expressed in the indomitable will chafing against inevitable defeat.

We see this also in various other figures described in this chapter. They offer what resistance they can to Morgoth, even though there is no hope of final victory by such means as they have. But the improbability of prevailing does not prevent them from offering resistance all the same. Regardless of the chance of victory, resistance to evil is still necessary, and to do what one must do regardless of outcome is an exercise of the crucial virtue of perseverance. This virtue would be, in turn, a key aspect of the Christian life, and it is not until the Christian framework meets this spirit of courage that the latter is given its proper telos as it provides the final victory that completes it. But long before the gospel story was revealed to the world, God gave gifts of strength and courage to people to prepare them for the story and the kind of life it would bring. It thus makes sense that the devil underestimates this divine gift in this story, particularly as he himself was inclined to cowardice.

Fey Fingolfin and His Final Deed of Courage

Perhaps the most remarkable illustration of this spirit of courage in an environment devoid of hope, of the indomitable will chafing against inevitable defeat, is none other than Fingolfin. I will not be so indulgent here as to quote the entirety of one of my favorite pieces Tolkien ever wrote. But the description is truly compelling, so that even one who has not read the likes of Beowulf or The Battle of Maldon can perceive the vivid illustration of that same spirit of courage and how admirable it is, even when not put to the best end.

Fingolfin rides forth, thinking the Noldor to be utterly ruined, and he rides with such despondent and defiant rage that none on either side will dare to hinder him, and he beats upon the very doors of Angband to challenge Morgoth himself to single combat. The narrator tells us, “That was the last time in those wars that he passed the doors of his stronghold, and it is said that he took not the challenge willingly; for though his might was greatest of all things in this world, alone of the Valar he knew fear” (18). Morgoth is, in fact, diminished by his ages of exerting domination, having to expend himself to dominate the wills of others, to corrupt other things and beings to his will, and to empower his servants to do his bidding. But Fingolfin knows none of this. For all he knows, he is simply striding forth to challenge the mightiest being in Arda, more powerful than any of the Valar he had known in his long ages in Aman. But the fact remains that he does not care. His chances of defeating this menace of Middle-earth who towers before him are not promising, but like Beowulf against the dragon, he has a death wish to perish in the attempt anyway.

And so begins the most incredible scene of single combat in The Silmarillion. Fingolfin outmaneuvers Morgoth many times and wounds him seven times. Nor were these minor wounds, for Morgoth cried in anguish each time, and he would bear the pain of them for the rest of his time in Middle-earth. But in the outmaneuvering and because of the surpassing durability of Morgoth, Fingolfin eventually wore himself out, and that is when Morgoth beat him into the ground and set his foot upon his enemy’s neck in triumph. And with his last strength as he lay dying, Fingolfin hews that foot, leaving the worst permanent mark on Morgoth any foe ever dealt him before the end of the First Age. The only reason this story could be told is that one of the foremost agents of Providence, Thorondor, prevents Morgoth from throwing Fingolfin’s broken body to his wolves by clawing him in the face (leaving yet another mark upon him) and rescuing Fingolfin’s corpse for a proper burial.

As I said, there is something compelling about seeing such a gift of courage and strength being put to use of uttermost resistance to overwhelming evil. But as with the presentations of heroism in Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon, Tolkien could also criticize this model of heroism as being tarnished. While Beowulf and Beorhtnoth performed their deeds in service to self-destructive pride, this deed of Fingolfin’s, as incredible as it is, was motivated by overweening despair. He thought there was no future for his people, and so he ensured that they would be without their High King. This is not to say that Fingon did terribly in his absence, but obviously Fingolfin would have been immensely helpful in his people’s continued resistance. Instead, like Denethor, he gave himself over to despair and threw his life away selfishly, albeit not in precisely the same manner as Denethor.

Even so, it is remarkable how he is shown grace. In this case, it is by an agent of Providence rescuing his body from Morgoth. The Eagles are the most concrete reminder that there is still hope, even for a cursed people like the Noldor, but it lies beyond them. Even one so great as Fingolfin, just like his brother Fëanor before him, could not achieve it on his own. Rather than giving into despair and throwing their lives away as Fingolfin did, the Noldor are supposed to remember that the Lords of the West have not entirely abandoned them, but they will need to be humbled and reckon with the implications of estel, including the source of their hope being beyond themselves.

Yet the Note of Joy Resounds

Not all is lost in Beleriand, but the situation obviously looks rather bleak at the moment. Yet it is at this moment that we are told one of the great tales that Tolkien revisited so many times over the years. As the opening to the chapter says, “Among the tales of sorrow and of ruin that come down to us from the darkness of those days there are yet some in which amid weeping there is joy and under the shadow of death light that endures” (19). This story of Beren and Lúthien is a fairy-story within a fairy-story, complete with eucatastrophe that provides a glimpse of final victory and of the Primary fairy-story whereby it will be accomplished. Tolkien even said of this story, in language drawn from LOTR, that:

Here we meet, among other things, the first example of the motive (to become dominant in Hobbits) that the great policies of world history, ‘the wheels of the world’, are often turned not by the Lords and Governors, even gods, but by the seemingly unknown and weak – owing to the secret life in creation, and the part unknowable to all wisdom but One, that resides in the intrusions of the Children of God into the Drama. (Letter #131)

The language drawn from LOTR is Elrond’s key statement at the Council after it has been decided that the One Ring must be taken to Mount Doom, “This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere” (II/2). This is a text Tolkien points to as exemplifying one of the main points of the story (Letter #186). It is a point that fits with Tolkien’s philosophy of history as articulated in Letter #69 to his son Christopher during WW2. While he had some sense of the enormity of human iniquity in the course of history, he could still say, “at the same time one knows that there is always good: much more hidden, much less clearly discerned, seldom breaking out into recognizable, visible, beauties of word or deed or face – not even when in fact sanctity, far greater than the visible advertised wickedness, is really there” (Letter #69).

And the significance of Elrond’s statement is also highlighted for how it resonates with a key framing statement that Tolkien supplies in the Prologue of LOTR:

Yet it is clear that Hobbits had, in fact, lived quietly in Middle-earth for many long years before other folk became even aware of them. And the world being after all full of strange creatures beyond count, these little people seemed of very little importance. But in the days of Bilbo, and of Frodo his heir, they suddenly became, by no wish of their own, both important and renowned and troubled the counsels of the Wise and the Great.

The importance of this theme to Tolkien is clear not only from how it functions in his story, but also from how he returns to it again and again in exposition in his letters, as in Letters #131, #163, #165, #181, and #281. Perhaps the most notable of these statements of the theme comes from the use of a biblical quotation in Letter #163 that shows the biblical roots of the theme itself:

Anyway I myself saw the value of Hobbits, in putting earth under the feet of ‘romance’, and in providing subjects for ‘ennoblement’ and heroes more praiseworthy than the professionals: nolo heroizari [I do not wish to be a hero] is of course as good a start for a hero, as nolo episcopari [I do not wish to be a bishop] for a bishop. Not that I am a ‘democrat’ in any of its current uses; except that I suppose, to speak in literary terms, we are all equal before the Great Author, qui deposuit potentes de sede et exaltavit humiles.

The Latin quote is from Mary’s Magnificat (specifically, Luke 1:52), which Tolkien had heard in Mass for most of his life, and it puts a fine point on the character of Tolkien’s story as one of ennoblement. It is a story that imitates God’s action as Creator, Judge, King, and Redeemer in humbling the exalted and exalting the humble (besides the rest of the Christmas story, cf. 1 Sam 2:1–10; Pss 9:11–14, 17–20; 10:1–4; 12:1–5; 14:6; 18:25–29; 22:26; 25:9, 16–18; 37:14; 69:30–33; 140:12; 147:6; 149:4; Isa 11:4; 29:19; 61:1; Zeph 2:3; Matt 5:3, 5; 18:4; 23:12; Luke 6:20; 14:11; 18:14; Phil 2:1–11; 3:21; Jas 1:9; 4:6–10; 1 Pet 5:5–6).

In part, this is why the Hobbits, and Beren and Lúthien before them, trouble the counsels of the Wise and the Great who thought they knew best how to resist and even defeat the forces of evil. This fundamental narrative dynamic has much noteworthy biblical resonance. As observed already, it is a key theme of Mary’s Magnificat, reflecting her own situation as a humble virgin exalted to be the mother of the Messiah and God Incarnate, as well as reflecting the expectations of the coming eschatological future (Luke 1:46–55), which has made this text so fitting for Advent. Beyond the many, many cases of the Bible declaring God’s vindication and exaltation of the humble and humbling of the exalted, there are some other texts worth noting. For example, one is reminded of Jesus’s praise of the Father that he has hidden the things of the kingdom from the wise and learned, instead revealing them to little children (Matt 11:25–26 // Luke 10:21), the opposite of what many might have expected, and all the more remarkable because of how lowly children were held in this regard. Likewise, Paul reminds the Corinthians that the message of the cross is considered utter foolishness to those who ignore it, and yet through this message and through those who have accepted it, God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise and the weak things of the world to shame the strong (1 Cor 1:18–31). Thus, Paul instructs the Corinthians:

Let no one deceive himself; if anyone thinks he is wise among you in this age, let that one become foolish, so that this one should be made wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God; for it is written, “He is the one who catches the wise in their craftiness,” and again, “The Lord knows the reasonings of the wise, that they are futile.” Therefore, let no one boast in humans; for all things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things about to be, all of them are yours, but you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. (1 Cor 3:18–23, personal translation)

Although this story is set in an imaginary time thousands of years before Israel, we see how God is represented in this Secondary World as being at work in ways that anticipate much greater things in the Primary World, as shown many times throughout the OT and NT.

Courage and Providence

The early part of Beren’s story illustrates how courage alone may not always achieve victory, but enacting the will to do what must be done, even in extreme circumstances, can put one in position to receive help beyond expectation. This is seen in him taking bold action to pursue a band of Orcs by himself. These Orcs had slain his father, Barahir, and his band of outlaws after catching them in a surprise attack. Beren had escaped this fate because his father had sent him away to do something else. But when what had happened was revealed to him in a dream, he set his own ambush for the Orc company, as we are told, “Then Beren sprang from behind a rock, and slew the captain, and taking the hand and the ring he escaped, being defended by fate; for the Orcs were dismayed, and their arrows wild” (19).

This is among the clearer cases wherein “fate” refers to the operations of Providence. The way this story ends will be especially demonstrative of the divine interest in it, and therefore of the direction of that story to its end foreseen only by the One. Beren’s courage had put him in this position, but he well could have lost his life in this dangerous pursuit, but One who is working beyond Beren’s sight is defending him so that not even a stray arrow will bring him down.

Likewise, it will be his courage and strength, themselves gifts of common and special grace from his Creator, that will guide him on the path of Providence and enable him to do what must be done for his story to reach its end. The narrator tells us that he does not fear death, but he did fear captivity, and so he avoids it rather well in all his courageous exploits. But after years of lonely work and the land of Dorthonion he wandered in becoming filled by Sauron’s armies, he descried the land of Doriath from afar, and we are told, “There it was put into his heart that he would go down into the Hidden Kingdom, where no mortal foot had yet trodden” (19).

This is one of several examples we have seen from The Hobbit and LOTR, as well as briefly in this story of the internal work of Providence. In such cases, God’s providence comes by internal influence, where something can come upon a character as if from within. Yet the description of that influence maintains the impression that its ultimate source is from something or someone other than the character. As with earlier in this story, it can be conveyed by the suggestive use of the passive voice, as here where “it was put into his heart” to go where he will go. Such a reading also makes sense in light of the providential framing of this story and knowing that Eru Ilúvatar himself will need to intervene in a special way to bring this story to its conclusion. And here we see him subtly at work at earlier junctures in the story.

Thus it is again that we see divine guidance work with the divine gift of courage to bring Beren through the horrors of Nan Dungortheb to make his way to Doriath. The horror and madness of that way was such that Beren never spoke of it, lest he dredge up the trauma once more. All that is known is that he came by a path no one had ever survived before. He passed through here and was able to pass beyond the Girdle of Melian for the same reason: “a great doom lay upon him” (19). As noted earlier, this is another way of referring to “fate” and to the operation of divine providence, to that force that is beyond Melian’s power to resist, which she had previously foretold would drive one from among Men to enter the Hidden Kingdom.

The reason for doom driving him here where no one else could enter is soon revealed, as Beren is providentially brought to meet Lúthien, whom he called Tinúviel (“Daughter of Twilight”). If not for the terrible road he took, he may have been far on the other side of the realm from her and would not have met her in the wilderness so as to be enchanted by her song and dance. At the same time, Lúthien was also brought here so that, “as she looked on him, doom fell upon her, and she loved him” (19).

But for the moment, she slips away from him, and both are overwhelmed by all that has come upon them in that moment. Beren is described “as one slain at once by bliss and grief” (19). That mix is similar to that quality of response produced by eucatastrophe, as we have seen elsewhere. And the narrator also tells us, “Thus he began the payment of anguish for the fate that was laid on him; and in his fate Lúthien was caught, and being immortal she shared in his mortality, and being free received his chain; and her anguish was greater than any other of the Eldalië has known” (19). Again, this foreshadows the end of the story, which will require the intervention of the One, the “finger of God,” to bring it about (Letter #156). Tolkien himself will frame this story in the following way in Letter #153: “The entering into Men of the Elven-strain is indeed represented as part of a Divine Plan for the ennoblement of the Human Race, from the beginning destined to replace the Elves” (cf. Letter #156).

Thereafter, they met secretly on many occasions in the woods, until they were discovered and Beren was brought before Thingol and Melian. This is a perilous situation, considering that Thingol had already established as law in his land that Men were forbidden from entering. But when Beren explains himself to the king, “it seemed to him that words were put into his mouth” (19), and thus he declared, “My fate, O King, led me hither, through perils such as few even of the Elves would dare. And here I have found what I sought not indeed, but finding I would possess for ever” (19). Thus Beren speaks to the father of the one he would marry. And it is notable that there is another reference here not only to the internal operations of Providence, but also that Beren explicitly acknowledges that “fate” led him here, thereby acknowledging that his coming here was not born of his own will, and he only discovered why he was led here after he arrived. A higher power is at work who everyone in this room should know. Melian likewise acknowledges this in response to Thingol’s threat of death against Beren, “For not by you … shall Beren be slain; and far and free does his fate lead him in the end, yet it is wound with yours” (19).

Still, no matter how proud, how great, or how mighty Beren may present himself (rightly) as being, Thingol will not give his daughter to him in marriage for anything that he or his father have done heretofore. Rather, he demands of Beren an impossible task that he thinks will rid him of Beren once and for all: he wants a Silmaril from the Iron Crown of Morgoth. Only then, he says, will he permit Lúthien to marry him, if she so desires. And by this means, Thingol ensnares himself and his great kingdom in the Doom of the Noldor that Mandos cursed them with. But Beren is unperturbed, showing bravery and hardihood to assure Thingol that he will return and that his hand will being holding a Silmaril when they meet again.

The Magic Duel of Finrod and Sauron

Of course, while Beren is hardy, he is not foolhardy so as to think that he can realistically accomplish his mission alone. Thus, he seeks out Finrod to call upon him to fulfill his oath to his father. Finrod fully intends to keep his oath, but when he declares his will to his people, he finds that the seeds have been sown for the doom of his realm. For two of the sons of Fëanor, Celegorm and Curufin, spoke against Beren and Finrod should they dare to keep a Silmaril from them, recalling the severe words of their oath, and they cast such dark visions with their warnings for the people of Nargothrond that, save for one occasion, practically all the Elves of that realm did not dare enter open battle ever again, not even for the sake of their brethren. Indeed, Celegorm and Curufin sought to usurp Finrod, assuming that he would not survive this adventure.

When Finrod thus sees the foreboding of his words coming near that he would die for his oath and that his kingdom would not last, he casts his crown from his head in spite of his people who turned their backs on him, saying, “Your oaths of faith to me you may break, but I must hold my bond” (19). The verbiage is notable for how the term “faith” is used. The terms for “faith” in the NT and OT primarily signify “trust,” “loyalty,” “fidelity,” “faithfulness,” “allegiance,” and so on.⁴ This is a virtue necessary to the purer form of heroism that Tolkien observed in Beorhtnoth’s retinue in The Battle of Maldon and Wiglaf in Beowulf, which was also embodied in Samwise Gamgee in Tolkien’s story. Through this kind of virtue, servants embody courage in the forms of fidelity, allegiance, and steadfast loyalty. In Tolkien’s words, “It is the heroism of obedience and love not of pride or wilfulness that is the most heroic and the most moving.”⁵ Such servants in question, even more than the more well-known heroes, thus showed how this virtue was preparation for the gospel and the perseverance called for among the faithful to embody the gospel story.

By contrast, one who acts treasonously is one who once enacted these qualities and then despised them, as is one who swore an oath of faith to a king and then forsook the king. Theirs is a worse action than one who never had these qualities in the first place. Judgment Day is said to be worse for those who actively rejected Jesus and the gospel than for those the supposed faithful condemned on other grounds (Matt 10:15; 11:22, 24; Luke 10:12, 14), and Jesus says the one who handed him over to Pilate is guilty of a greater sin (John 19:11). Finrod scorns his servants in saying that they can take this shameful course, but his word is his bond, and so he will keep it.

In the end, ten Elves of Nargothrond accompany him and Beren on their quest. The company comes upon an encampment of Orcs and slays them, whereby they disguise themselves as Orcs, aided by Finrod’s magic to make the appearance more convincing. But when they came within sight of Sauron’s tower, he espies them and becomes suspicious when they fail to report to him.

This served as the occasion of a mighty duel of magic through songs of power between Finrod and Sauron. While Finrod is an Elven lord of great power and wisdom, Sauron is among the mightiest of the Maiar. It was never going to be an even contest, despite how valiantly Finrod strove.

Still, something should be said about this magic duel. The use of magic and the terminology of magic have naturally set off alarms for some Christian readers over the years. The curiousness of the term’s usage is something one of Tolkien’s characters acknowledges. When Frodo and Sam come to see Galadriel at her Mirror, she offers them the chance to look into the Mirror: “‘And you?’ she said, turning to Sam. ‘For this is what your folk would call magic, I believe; though I do not understand clearly what they mean; and they seem to use the same word of the deceits of the Enemy. But this, if you will, is the magic of Galadriel. Did you not say that you wished to see Elf-magic’” (II/7). By Tolkien’s own admission (esp. Letters #131 and #155), he has not used the term “magic” consistently. This inevitably means that there is no distinct terminology used for the devices of Melkor, Sauron, and others as opposed to the works of Gandalf, Elrond, Finrod, Galadriel, and others. There is also no different terminology used for when the work is the result of inherent power (such as angelic beings like Gandalf or Elves like Finrod have) or when the work is the result of invocation of another power by spells or some other kind of manipulation. Thus, in Tolkien’s fictional work, the term can have a positive connotation or a negative connotation, depending on such factors as the action’s motivation, purpose, or whether it comes from a capacity of the being or something they are using some illicit manipulation to achieve. It is really a combination of these factors, since those like Melkor and Sauron can use inherent capacities for evil ends, and others can use magical manipulation for at least seemingly good or initially good ends.

In the Bible the matter is more straightforward simply because all things associated with “magic,” “sorcery,” “witchcraft,” and so on are attempts to go outside of the covenantally established means of appealing to God (which would generally be by prayer and/or casting lots, or even using the Urim and Thummim in certain situations), usually as a shortcut or workaround to achieving one’s own ends and in one’s own sense of the proper time, rather than waiting upon the Lord, seeking his will, and waiting for his timing, all of which are essential exercises of faith, as we see throughout the Bible. Magic, in this condemned sense, operates on the notion that one is not only appealing to a supernormal power other than God (or occasionally attempting to manipulate God by such formulas of power), but that that power is to render service to oneself for some purpose of transgressing creaturely limitations. This is in stark contrast to the expectation that those who are faithful to God are to humble themselves before him. There is much more that could be said here on the subject of “magic” in the ancient world and today, its varieties, and the motivations, but this basically indicates what is at issue. And it is not what is at issue here or in other cases in Tolkien’s story when he refers to “magic” that has a potentially beneficent sense.

We can explore further in comments Tolkien made in his letters on the matter of magic. When he explained to Milton Waldman in Letter #131 how his mythology fundamentally conveys and addresses the problem of the relationship between Art (and sub-creation) and Primary Reality, he divided this fundamental concern into three categories of problems: Fall, Mortality, and Machine:

With Fall inevitably, and that motive occurs in several modes. With Mortality, especially as it affects art and the creative (or as I should say, sub-creative) desire which seems to have no biological function, and to be apart from the satisfactions of plain ordinary biological life, with which, in our world, it is indeed usually at strife. This desire is at once wedded to a passionate love of the real primary world, and hence filled with the sense of mortality, and yet unsatisfied by it. It has various opportunities of ‘Fall’. It may become possessive, clinging to the things made as its own, the sub-creator wishes to be the Lord and God of his private creation. He will rebel against the laws of the Creator – especially against mortality. Both of these (alone or together) will lead to the desire for Power, for making the will more quickly effective, – and so the Machine (or Magic). By the last I intend all use of external plans or devices (apparatus) instead of developments of the inherent inner powers or talents – or even the use of these talents with the corrupted motive of dominating: bulldozing the real world, or coercing other wills. The Machine is our more obvious modern form though more closely related to Magic than is usually recognised.

In this context, it is clear that Magic in this specific sense concerns the same matter as the One Ring of transgressing creaturely limitation. “Magic” in this negative sense certainly does intersect with biblical condemnations of magic and practitioners thereof.

Despite what he wrote of Magic and Machine, he did not use the former consistently, even in his mythology. He noted that there is a regular confusion in human stories in terminology for what the Enemy does and for what the Elves do, but what he could say was:

But the Elves are there (in my tales) to demonstrate the difference. Their ‘magic’ is Art, delivered from many of its human limitations: more effortless, more quick, more complete (product, and vision in unflawed correspondence). And its object is Art not Power, sub-creation not domination and tyrannous re-forming of Creation. The ‘Elves’ are ‘immortal’, at least as far as this world goes: and hence are concerned rather with the griefs and burdens of deathlessness in time and change, than with death. The Enemy in successive forms is always ‘naturally’ concerned with sheer Domination, and so the Lord of magic and machines; but the problem: that this frightful evil can and does arise from an apparently good root, the desire to benefit the world and others – speedily and according to the benefactor’s own plans – is a recurrent motive. (Letter #131)

This is especially applicable to Finrod. He shows capabilities similar to humans, but his sub-creative capacities transcend human limitations.

He also focused on the specific problem with the terminology of magic in the unsent Letter #155, which is an expansion of Letter #154 addressed to Naomi Mitchison. He noted the old distinction between magia (which was more often regarded positively) and goeteia (which was more often regarded negatively) as an analogous one to the distinctions between kinds of magic in his story. Ultimately, the distinction of good and bad in the case of magic in his world does not have to do so much with the power itself as with the motive, purpose, or use thereof. Furthermore, the distinction between the two kinds of magic, as he continued to use the terms, is that magia is some inherent power, such as both Gandalf and Sauron have by virtue of their being Maiar, or that Finrod has by his Elvish gifts combined with his cultivation under the tutelage of the angelic Powers in the West, while goeteia is not inherent and usually involves external manipulation, often on the level of creating visions or illusions.

What, then, sets what one might consider “good” magic in Tolkien’s story apart from the biblical prohibitions against sorcery and such was that the cases of the latter 1) do not concern some inherent powers on the part of humans and 2) involve appeal to and attempted manipulation (using formulae and divine names) of other powers to transgress creaturely limitations, rather than going to God in prayer. Magic in this framework, where it does not concern inherent powers of superhuman or Elvish creatures (or descendants sharing in the gifts thereof like Aragorn and his Númenórean ancestors), is a two-faced form of idolatry and pride. On the one hand, one generally seeks a power apart from God to accomplish a given purpose, either because they know it is improper to ask this of God or because they expect better, quicker results by going to another power than the one God they are supposed to worship. On the other hand, even as it involves appeal to another god as the supposedly more dependable power, magic also works on the presumed ability to manipulate the deity to one’s own ends. Sometimes this presumption even involves YHWH, as there are magical texts that include this name. As such, magic operates on the conceit that one is not only appealing to a supernormal power, but that that power is to render service to oneself, and this for some purpose of transgressing creaturely limitation.

Beren’s Fate

The company is thus imprisoned and progressively executed as they are unwilling to tell Sauron what their purpose is. Meanwhile, Lúthien sneaks away from Doriath to search for Beren herself. Thereby she encountered Huan, the goodest of good boys, Hound of Valinor and companion of Celegorm as a gift from Oromë long ago. He brought her to the attention of Celegorm and Curufin, who speak fairly to her, but end up holding her fast in Nargothrond. But Huan helps her to escape, and they head to Sauron’s fortress together.

There, after the rest of the company had been fed to a werewolf released into their pit, Finrod and Beren are left alone. When the werewolf comes for Beren, Finrod bursts his bonds and slays the beast with his bare hands and teeth, but at the cost of his own life. He says his farewell to Beren, thinking they shall never see each other again, even after he becomes re-embodied, for he knows their kindreds have separate fates.

Lúthien destroys Sauron’s fortress with her magical song when she learns that Beren still lives. After Sauron’s wolves fall one by one to Huan, he himself issues forth in wolf form, knowing that Huan is fated to face death only by the mightiest wolf who would ever walk the world. Sauron thought to fulfill this decree himself, but Huan overcame him. As a result, Sauron ceded mastery of his place to Lúthien and he fled to hide himself from Morgoth and all others for the rest of the war.

While Beren still mourns for Finrod, he is reunited with Lúthien, and they wander together in joy for a time, forsaking all else. Huan returns to Celegorm in Nargothrond, but so too do other Elves return to Nargothrond to report what had happened. Celegorm and Curufin are thus shamed by the conduct of Lúthien who dared a danger they refused to, which they rightly suspected was out of treachery rather than fear. They are thus driven forth from the kingdom alone, as even their own people (including Curufin’s own son, Celebrimbor) repudiated them.

The paths of Beren and Lúthien cross with Celegorm and Curufin as the former journey close to Doriath and Beren has to consider whether or not to abandon his quest. This confrontation leads to Beren taking Curufin’s knife from him that he will put to renowned use and Huan leaving Celegorm to ally himself with Beren and Lúthien. Beren thought to leave Lúthien in the care of Huan in order to try to finish the quest without putting anyone else in danger. But he soon learned that she would not part from him. And Huan, speaking for only the second of three times in his life, affirms this: “From the shadow of death you can no longer save Lúthien, for by her love she is now subject to it. You can turn from your fate and lead her into exile, seeking peace in vain while your life lasts. But if you will not deny your doom, then either Lúthien, being forsaken, must assuredly die alone, or she must with you challenge the fate that lies before you—hopeless, yet not certain” (19).

As with Melian earlier and Beren’s own words in Doriath, Huan recognizes that Providence, described in terms of fate, is guiding Beren to a certain end. Whether Beren really could have forsaken this quest or would somehow be directed to it again if he should refuse it now is never made clear by the narrator who is not in the story. But for the people within the story, this is presented as a real choice. Huan also reckons with the real possibility, within the story, of failure, as he speaks of the achievement of the goal as being “hopeless, yet not certain.” This is “hopeless” in the sense of a lack of amdir, as there is no clear perceptible reason to think the quest will be successful. But this is not certain, and so there is no room for despair either. That is, this is an implicit reminder of the need of the higher kind of hope, of estel, to trust in the guidance of the One who has operated by “fate” to guide Beren thus far.

Evil Will Shall Evil Mar

Beren and Lúthien therefore proceed in disguise to Angband itself while Huan leaves them to it, knowing that he cannot accompany them further without potentially compromising the quest. At the gates, Beren and Lúthien encounter Carcharoth, the Red Maw, Morgoth’s guard wolf bred and empowered by Morgoth himself to overcome Huan. But Lúthien puts him to sleep with a word of command, and she proceeds with Beren to Morgoth’s very throne. She is allowed even to dance and sing before Morgoth precisely because Morgoth’s own evil will betrays him:

Then Morgoth looking upon her beauty conceived in his thought an evil lust, and a design more dark than any that had yet come into his heart since he fled from Valinor. Thus he was beguiled by his own malice, for he watched her, leaving her free for a while, and taking secret pleasure in his thought. Then suddenly she eluded his sight, and out of the shadows began a song of such surpassing loveliness, and of such blinding power, that he listened perforce; and a blindness came upon him, as his eyes roamed to and fro, seeking her. (19)

As Théoden says in LOTR, quoting a proverb, “oft evil will shall evil mar” (III/11). Evil is ultimately self-destructive, being parasitic of the good and leading to destruction and death. And so it happens often in the course of history that evil betrays evil and undermines itself. This is one way that acts of an evil will can be taken up and directed to a good end it never intended. And so it is here as Morgoth’s lustful designs work to his own undoing and allow for the achievement of one of the greatest deeds of the First Age. He is thereby lulled to sleep, along with all others in his court, and the Iron Crown falls from his head.

Doom Falls

Beren is thus able to pry one of the Silmarils from the Iron Crown. Although this would be enough to fulfill his promise, he thinks to attempt to take the others, since he will never have another opportunity like this. Unfortunately for him, this proves too daring, and his wish was not in line with the doom of the Silmarils. The knife snaps and hits Morgoth on the cheek. It does not wake him, but that kind of close call is enough to warn Beren and Lúthien of their precarious situation. They make a break for the exit, but they now find it held against them by Carcharoth awoken to wrath. Lúthien no longer had the strength to attempt putting him to sleep again, but Beren tries to daunt him with the light of the Silmaril. Undaunted, Carcharoth bites off Beren’s hand with the Silmaril in it. This produces a new fire in him that will burn unremittingly until the day he dies.

Thorondor and his Eagles would rescue Beren and Lúthien, acting once again as agents of Providence, because Huan had alerted them and other beasts to the need for vigilance. With their help, Beren and Lúthien return to Doriath to face Thingol. He assures Thingol that he has completed his quest, but when Thingol tells him to show his evidence, he can only show the stump where his hand used to be, informing him that his hand does contain the Silmaril, but it is in the great wolf’s stomach. Thingol’s mood softened, and after hearing the full tale, he was in wonder at Beren and he recognized the depths of Lúthien’s love for him, “and he perceived that their doom might not be withstood by any power of the world” (19). This is a way of saying that he recognized the hand of Providence in this union, and so he supports it by giving her in marriage to Beren before his very throne.

But not all is well. Carcharoth had also entered Doriath in the madness of his wrath, and none could hinder him. The narrator tells us that even the Girdle of Melian “stayed him not; for fate drove him, and the power of the Silmaril that he bore to his torment” (19). And so Providence once again overrides the power of Melian. Providence thus drives together to the appointed end Carcharoth, Beren, Lúthien, and Huan. As Thingol and his company hunt the beast, Carcharoth attempts to spring upon Thingol, only for Beren to save him. But this means that Carcharoth mortally wounds Beren. Then Huan springs upon Carcharoth and they kill each other in the struggle. Thus do the two beasts meet their doom. The Silmaril is cut from Carcharoth’s belly, and is given to Beren while he yet lives, causing him to exclaim as he lays dying, “Now is the Quest achieved … and my doom full-wrought” (19).

The Moving of Mandos and the Will of Ilúvatar

Not long thereafter, Lúthien dies of grief. Before Beren’s spirit departs the Halls of Mandos to the destiny of Men beyond the walls of the world, her own spirit entreats Mandos. She sings to him a song of unparalleled grief, “For Lúthien wove two themes of words, of the sorrow of the Eldar and the grief of Men, of the Two Kindreds that were made by Ilúvatar to dwell in Arda, the Kingdom of Earth amid the innumerable stars. And as she knelt before him her tears fell upon his feet like rain upon the stones; and Mandos was moved to pity, who never before was so moved, nor has been since” (19).

Mandos in this regard is nearly on the opposite side of the spectrum from Nienna. Whereas pity is one of her central characteristics, Mandos is known for showing it only in this case. But this unique movement of Mandos to show the divine virtue of pity will be precisely for the purposes of enacting the divine will for this unique situation. Only Ilúvatar’s action can provide relief because, as the narrator reminds us, “Mandos had no power to withhold the spirits of Men that were dead within the confines of the world, after their time of waiting; nor could he change the fates of the Children of Ilúvatar” (19). He thus must consult Manwë, “who governed the world under the hand of Ilúvatar; and Manwë sought counsel in his inmost thought, where the will of Ilúvatar was revealed” (19).

Thus, the will of Ilúvatar is followed by all involved, for only his power can provide the intervention necessary. Lúthien is given a choice either to stay the course of her people and remain in Valinor or to be reunited with Beren in life via a temporary resurrection, whereafter they both must succumb to mortality, “For it was not permitted to the Valar to withhold Death from him, which is the gift of Ilúvatar to Men” (19). While it should be quite obvious what she would choose, the choice is still presented to her, and it is taken up by Providence directed to an incredible end no one else could have anticipated. And so it is that Ilúvatar’s purpose for this story is fulfilled, as articulated earlier, and the providential framing of it all is made clear.

Tolkien’s Great Tale of Love

The story of Beren and Lúthien is one of Tolkien’s “Great Tales,” as the series is called that presents the histories of the three great stories whence emerged his larger mythos, along with the stories of the Fall of Gondolin and the Children of Húrin. He mentions in Letter #165 how he had begun writing The Fall of Gondolin while he was in hospital after surviving the Battle of the Somme, and he likewise says, “The kernel of the mythology, the matter of Lúthien Tinúviel and Beren, arose from a small woodland glade filled with ‘hemlocks’ (or other white umbellifers) near Roos on the Holderness peninsula – to which I occasionally went when free from regimental duties while in the Humber Garrison in 1918.” He reiterates this as well in Letter #257, and he also speaks later of meeting “the Lúthien Tinúviel of my own personal ‘romance’ with her long dark hair, fair face and starry eyes, and beautiful voice” (Letter #332), but in his case, Lúthien has gone before him. He makes these points all the clearer in Letter #340 to Christopher Tolkien to say that he wants “Lúthien” to be on her gravestone, for he says, “she was (and knew she was) my Lúthien.” Moreover, he says:

I never called Edith Lúthien – but she was the source of the story that in time became the chief pan of the Silmarillion. It was first conceived in a small woodland glade filled with hemlocks at Roos in Yorkshire (where I was for a brief time in command of an outpost of the Humber Garrison in 1917, and she was able to live with me for a while). In those days her hair was raven, her skin clear, her eyes brighter than you have seen them, and she could sing – and dance. But the story has gone crooked, & I am left, and I cannot plead before the inexorable Mandos. (emphases original)

Tolkien obviously has primarily in mind the scene of Beren and Lúthien meeting, and so one should not draw too many and too precise of parallels between this story and Tolkien’s own story. Still, something can be said of how this story embodies the virtues of love and marriage that Tolkien held as a devout Catholic and sought to pass on to his children. This is clearest in Letter #43 to Michael Tolkien.

Since I have commented on this letter quite extensively elsewhere, I will not reiterate everything here, as that would be to add a few thousand words before we return to the course of the story of The Silmarillion. What is most pertinent, though, is the latter portion of the letter, as Tolkien expresses what it means to love in a fallen world, as Beren and Lúthien also exemplify:

However, the essence of a fallen world is that the best cannot be attained by free enjoyment, or by what is called ‘self-realization’ (usually a nice name for self-indulgence, wholly inimical to the realization of other selves); but by denial, by suffering. Faithfulness in Christian marriage entails that: great mortification. For a Christian man there is no escape. Marriage may help to sanctify & direct to its proper object his sexual desires; its grace may help him in the struggle; but the struggle remains. It will not satisfy him – as hunger may be kept off by regular meals. It will offer as many difficulties to the purity proper to that state, as it provides easements. No man, however truly he loved his betrothed and bride as a young man, has lived faithful to her as a wife in mind and body without deliberate conscious exercise of the will, without self-denial. Too few are told that – even those brought up ‘in the Church’. Those outside seem seldom to have heard it. When the glamour wears off, or merely works a bit thin, they think they have made a mistake, and that the real soul-mate is still to find. The real soul-mate too often proves to be the next sexually attractive person that comes along. Someone whom they might indeed very profitably have married, if only —. Hence divorce, to provide the ‘if only’. And of course they are as a rule quite right: they did make a mistake. Only a very wise man at the end of his life could make a sound judgement concerning whom, amongst the total possible chances, he ought most profitably to have married! Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might have found more suitable mates. But the ‘real soul-mate’ is the one you are actually married to. You really do very little choosing: life and circumstance do most of it (though if there is a God these must be His instruments, or His appearances). (emphases original)

We see here the crucial lessons that Tolkien has learned of the cruciform life that he mentions many times in his letters. It is often mistakenly thought on an implicit level (even if it may not be explicitly articulated) that love is the path of least resistance, that it should necessarily be an easy thing to love someone, that it is something you must feel, and if there are times when it seems difficult, that in itself is an indication that something has gone wrong. But love is an exercise of the will; this we see when we look to the One who became incarnate, was crucified, buried, raised, and exalted for us. And in this fallen world, it is backwards to think that love is the path of least resistance or that it is the easiest thing in the world to do. That is why when Jesus summarizes what it means to be his disciple, to show love as he has shown love, he marks the path of faithfulness as the one of self-denial, of taking up one’s cross, and in that way following he who was going to take up his cross for the sake of the world. Faithfulness in the fallen world requires struggle, for the world is not right, and so much of it inclines us to infidelity, whether in terms of our faithfulness to God or our faithfulness to one another (and the world can often deceive us as to what is the path of least resistance anyway). Love is neither a force that simply operates from without upon oneself or a kind of inertia of unconscious/subconscious impulses with which one must move. Love is an exercise of the will; this is why love is a command made throughout Scripture, for it is precisely the exercise of the will that can be commanded.

One of the chief exercises of the will in love is that of commitment. This is what defines long-term relationships that truly live out the vow that is completed with “till death do us part,” not that of finding “the [idealized] one,” “the soul-mate,” or the best fit. Looking for such is again defining love by feeling, rather than by will. In fact, the decisions made to exercise love in commitment are those decisions that are most in our control to make. It is true that with technology being what it is, especially with the Internet, the pool of potential mates could be larger for any given individual today than in Tolkien’s time (even as that technology and the society it forms makes the modern dating scene even more of a hellscape). But his fundamental point about how little choosing we actually do in the whole process of forming these relationships remains resonant. He recognized that it is a matter of God’s providence that we are brought into contact with these people that we come to love. Any number of things could have happened, any number of decisions could have been made that would have prevented us from meeting them, but in the hands of God’s providence they worked together so that we meet these people.

And it is to the content of his faith that Tolkien ultimately points his son as the supreme guide in love, including for these questions of relations between man and woman that he has talked with his father about. Here he shows what it means to him to make love theocentric by looking to the Eucharist, the center of Catholic liturgy:

There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth, and more than that: Death: by the divine paradox, that which ends life, and demands the surrender of all, and yet by the taste (or foretaste) of which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained, or take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, which every man’s heart desires.

So it is by looking to the cross that one finds the substance of what Tolkien has been saying about the nature of love. When others participate in this gospel pattern, including by signifying such with partaking of the Eucharist, they too find that in this death to self and to the fallen world that there is resurrection life on the other side, where all that is sought in human relationships—love, faithfulness, and joy—is found embodied in the crucified, risen, and exalted Christ (Gal 2:19–20). Even the greatest of all human relationships in marriage can and will be dissolved by death, but that love shown forth in the Eucharist has already overcome death by God’s resurrecting power, for this is the love that death cannot hinder, for it was impossible for death to keep its hold on the Risen One (Acts 2:24).

This is what we see in the story of Beren and Lúthien, as both of them, though enraptured with each other upon their first meeting, can only maintain their love through constant acts of will in self-denial and self-sacrifice. Of course, as noted at many points, we see the role of Providence in their story of bringing them together and guiding them to their end. They exemplify love, faithfulness, and joy unto death, and even beyond death, so that by these ways, as well as by their temporary resurrections, they point forward to the gospel story thousands of years hence. For theirs was a love that not even death could break, and it reunited them on the other side of it, taking them beyond the walls of the world together.

The Battle of Unnumbered Tears

As the story of Beren and Lúthien spread throughout the realms of Beleriand, Maedhros took inspiration from the realization that Morgoth was not unassailable. He thought to make a united attack against him, lest he should surely triumph by conquering each realm separately. But the fact that it was him and his brothers who were key engineers of this union only hurt the cause. While he could rely on Fingon’s support of the Elves and Men under his command, given their deep friendship, few ever came from the mighty realms of Doriath or Nargothrond to their aid. But there were many others who did join besides Fingon’s forces, including the Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost, the Easterling Men, and, beyond all expectation, a great host of 10,000 strong from Gondolin.

The narration of the tragic battle that follows is some of the most enthralling in all of Tolkien’s fiction, as far as I am concerned. We see many displays of great courage, that gift of Ilúvatar, which becomes all the more remarkable as defeat in this battle becomes inevitable for the Union of Maedhros. In the end, the Union is overthrown not by any of Morgoth’s forces, but by their own allies, as most of the Easterlings betray them (I say most because some did keep faith and slew the leaders of the traitors, but there were not enough of them to overthrow the traitors). But even so, the Dwarves of Belegost show their valor in holding fast against Glaurung and even severely wounding him before he withdraws from the battlefield. There are also the Men of Dor-lómin, led by Húrin and Huor, who defend the withdrawal of the Elves of Gondolin, so that Morgoth might not discover where that city is. Their last stand is described as redressing the treachery of Uldor and his Easterlings in a way that is reminiscent of how the retinue of Beorhtnoth stands firm to the end after many others broke faith and left the battlefield upon Beorthnoth’s death. Húrin stood last of all and killed seventy more before he himself was captured, all along declaring his estel by saying, “Aurë entuluva! Day shall come again” (20). Húrin’s estel is also shown in the story of The Children of Húrin, but that is beyond our scope here, as the story of The Silmarillion does not quote nearly as much of his conversation with Morgoth.

As it is, the battle is noted for being a great triumph of Morgoth, “and his design was accomplished in a manner after his own heart; for Men took the lives of Men, and betrayed the Eldar, and fear and hatred were aroused among those that should have been united against him” (20). This is reminiscent of some key quotes noted in my LOTR commentary, including the following:

Indeed in nothing is the power of the Dark Lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all those who still oppose him. (II/6)

We are all friends here. Or should be; for the laughter of Mordor will be our only reward, if we quarrel. (III/6)

But it’s a pity that folk as talk about fighting the Enemy can’t let others do their bit in their own way without interfering. He’d be mighty pleased, if he could see you now. Think he’d got a new friend, he would. (IV/5)

Such deeds he loves: friend at war with friend; loyalty divided in confusion of hearts. (V/7)

On the one hand, this illustrates well how treason is the opposite of faith, and so is beloved by the devil, the first apostate. On the other hand, it illustrates a truth with which Tolkien was all too familiar in the Primary World as a Catholic living in a context where Catholicism was often denigrated and that largely by other Christians.⁶ He had even once planned to write a history of the Church in England, and if his work had extended into the era of the Reformation and beyond, this denigration would have been a recurrent theme.⁷ He had even had the personal experience of his widowed mother being cut off by her family when she became Catholic. Of course, many of his friends over the course of his life were Protestants, and he did support ecumenical efforts to some degree (Letter #306), but he knew all too well how even some of his friends harbored strong anti-Catholic biases. Even as he saw God’s saving grace extending to the Protestants, he saw the devil and his minions at work in the enmity between them and the Catholic Church.⁸ Indeed, the ecumenical efforts of his day were overlooking the harm that had been done to the Catholics by the Protestants, but in the end he said, “But charity must cover a multitude of sins! There are dangers (of course), but a Church militant cannot afford to shut up all its soldiers in a fortress. It had as bad effects on the Maginot Line” (Letter #306). This principle comes from 1 Pet 4:8, and its context further suggests what is necessary for Christian unity in being hospitable to one another (4:9), serving one another with the gifts God has given each person (4:10), and glorifying God in all things by speaking as one who speaks the words of God and serving as one who serves with the strength God supplies (4:11).

The Tragedy of Túrin

There is more of interest for biblical and theological resonance in Tolkien’s expanded story of the Children of Húrin in the titular volume and in longer renditions of this story elsewhere than there is in the condensed version of The Silmarillion as such. Still, some comments should be made about it here.

First, something should be said about its inspiration. The story of Beren and Lúthien bore some slight resemblance to the Orpheus myth, albeit reversed in several ways. This story bears more resemblance in multiple ways to elements of Sigurd the Volsung, Oedipus, and most notably the story of Kullervo from the Finnish Kalevala (Letter #131). Tolkien noted the last story as inspiration on multiple other occasions (Letters #163, #165), though in the latest such letter he emphasized that “it is entirely changed except in the tragic ending.” In the larger mythos, there will be a redemptive ending for Túrin and, by extension, his family, but that is beyond the scope of The Silmarillion as published. We will thus need to return to that matter another time, as the ending for the story right now is utterly tragic.

Second, while the element of “curse” is prominent in The Silmarillion primarily through reference to the Doom of the Noldor from Mandos, it is also especially strong in this story, as Morgoth has cursed Húrin’s family, and Túrin bears the brunt of that curse. His “doom” is thus presented in an entirely adverse sense that was not the case for the story of Beren and Lúthien. The element of Providence is conversely muted relative to stories like that of Beren and Lúthien. But that is not to say it is absent altogether. Indeed, Providence provides multiple ways for him to be protected from the curse of Morgoth. After he considered himself an outlaw for inadvertently causing the death of an Elf he fought with, Thingol pardoned him when the story was full-told and bid him to return. He thus would have been in place to reunite with his mother and sister. Instead, Túrin continued on the run as an outlaw, even after the offer was given to him. At Nargothrond, he could have either stayed there in hiding, resisting in secrecy, or left them behind to continue his wandering so as not to push them into war. Instead, Túrin eventually pushed the kingdom into an open war they could not win. In the Forest of Brethil, Túrin could have lived more openly, learning from the mistakes of his past. Instead, he changed his name as he had at multiple junctures, thinking therefore to escape his dark doom, rather than facing it with the courage he otherwise shows in battle, and he rashly murders a man for, in part, revealing his secret. In his attempts to run away from various situations to escape his troubles, he ran deeper into trouble, rather than taking the ways out that were offered to him, since he did not recognize them for the opportunities of grace that they were.

Third, Túrin is undeniably courageous in battle, and that is not nothing. His valor is on par with the greatest heroes of the First Age in the resistance he offers against the forces of Morgoth, despite all the odds against him. He is even undaunted by Glaurung, although after their first encounter he realizes that courage alone will not defeat the Dragon. But he is also an example of how it can look when courage is not balanced by other virtues. I have noted before in my LOTR commentary how Faramir shows how to avoid valor becoming vanity by balancing the virtue of courage with other virtues like truthfulness, humility, wisdom, and a genuine love for peace. Túrin, on the other hand, has several destructive tendencies, especially in being rash and wrathful, lacking in self-control. He is not especially truthful either, especially given how often he tries to hide his identity and in his maladaptive thinking by which he lies to himself. As such, he is never presented as wise, and he lacks in humility necessary to become wise. While he attempts to live peacefully for a time in Brethil, he never takes the time to match his superlative mastery in battle with pursuit of the things that make for peace. This he might have learned in Doriath under the tutelage of Thingol, Melian, and others, if he had been able to humble himself to return there.

Fourth, Túrin himself is still an instrument of Providence. His actions in resisting Morgoth help more people than he realizes. That includes, most prominently, the cousin he never knew: Tuor. In having the Enemy’s attention focused on him and being able to withstand so much from him, he unwittingly allowed the way to be open for Tuor to find his way to fulfill his purpose in being a messenger for Ulmo and providing hope for Gondolin. Túrin is also the instrument used to slay Glaurung, which he himself acknowledged could only happen by a combination of “cunning and good fortune” (21). And this is exactly what he has to his benefit when it comes to slaying Glaurung.

Fifth, this is the story in which we are introduced to lembas. Melian gave it as a gift to Beleg for him and Túrin to use when Beleg thinks to go to Túrin in the wilds and guide and protect him as he can. As the narrator tells us:

And she gave him store of lembas, the waybread of the Elves, wrapped in leaves of silver, and the threads that bound it were sealed at the knots with the seal of the Queen, a wafer of white wax shaped as a single flower of Telperion; for according to the customs of the Eldalië the keeping and giving of lembas belong to the Queen alone. In nothing did Melian show greater favour to Túrin than in this gift; for the Eldar had never before allowed Men to use this waybread, and seldom did so again. (21)

More detail is given about this waybread in LOTR, so I will reiterate what I wrote on the subject there, given its significance for our interests. In the most significant quote about lembas in LOTR, the narrator tells us:

The lembas had a virtue without which they would long ago have lain down to die. It did not satisfy desire, and at times Sam’s mind was filled with the memories of food, and the longing for simple bread and meats. And yet this waybread of the Elves had a potency that increased as travelers relied on it alone and did not mingle it with other foods. It fed the will, and it gave strength to endure, and to master sinew and limb beyond the measure of mortal kind. (VI/3)

This is consistent with how the waybread was described in its introduction (after Gimli had scarfed down a cake of it) as being strengthening beyond the food made by Men, even when one ate only a little at a time (II/8). It had served the Three Hunters well in strengthening them even as they ran (III/2). When Merry and Pippin ate of it, “The taste brought back to them the memory of fair faces, and laughter, and wholesome food in quiet days now far away” (III/3), and Merry remarked, “Lembas does put heart into you! A more wholesome sort of feeling, too, than the heat of that orc-draught” (III/3). But it is particularly in this chapter that this strengthening aspect has a larger significance that Tolkien says, “one might hesitatingly call a ‘religious’ kind” (Letter #210).

Holly Ordway observes how Tolkien fundamentally changed the way the term “waybread” was used through his fiction and his letters:

Before Tolkien’s writing of The Lord of the Rings, “waybread” had only one meaning: it was the medieval common name for plantain, a wide-leaved plant growing beside the “way” (i.e., the road). The suffix “-bread” had nothing to do with food but rather comes from the Old English word for “broad” (referring to the leaves). Tolkien’s repurposing of “waybread” to mean “food for a journey” converts it into an English equivalent of the Latin viaticum, which comes from via (“way”) and, as the Oxford English Dictionary notes, means literally “provision for a journey.”⁹

Tolkien further confirms this connection with his religious beliefs when he notes with approval the comments of a reader linking the lembas with viaticum, “and the reference to its feeding the will … and being more potent when fasting, a derivation from the Eucharist” (Letter #213; emphasis original). The sense of the Latin term noted in the quote above makes it all the more apt a comparison with lembas’s function in the story, although it should be noted that this term is particularly applied to the Eucharist when given in Last Rites as preparation for death. That would make it an apropos analogy for the lembas as Frodo and Sam make the final approach to Mount Doom, expecting their deaths at the end.

This is not to say that the lembas simply is the Eucharist. It is not. Nor is it an allegory of the same. It is merely the Secondary World’s anticipation of it, being the nearest analogy in the “order of nature” of what will come to be in the “order of grace.” The Eucharist derives its effect from the work of Christ. Tolkien would not imagine that there could be a true Eucharist, as such, before Christ’s incarnation, even if there might be an anticipatory one (like the manna from heaven). But the description of lembas is partially derived from the Eucharist’s secondary effects, which, one could reason, might be anticipated in the order of nature, as its primary effects are the direct result of the redemptive work of Christ.

Húrin’s Long Defeat

After Túrin meets his tragic end by his own hand, only then does Morgoth release his father, Húrin. His mind had been darkened by decades of propaganda on Morgoth’s part, “for all that Morgoth knew of the working of his malice Húrin knew also, but lies were mingled with the truth, and aught that was good was hidden or distorted” (22). His situation was like Denethor’s but much more severe and long-lasting in its extent. He did not have the benefit of getting periods of relief from the propaganda designed to demoralize him. He had no one else there to help him. His situation is thus comparable to the brainwashed that Tolkien referenced in Letters #191 and #192. Of such people, he warns not to be judgmental or to expect of them impossible feats of will. Thus he would say also of Húrin.

But that is not all there is to say about him. Húrin would not lay down to die with rest of his family at their gravesite, where he also found Morwen, for it is said, “his doom drove him on, and the Shadow still followed him” (22). Morgoth was already watching him even after he released him, and so he came to learn of the region where Gondolin was, as Húrin shouted entreaties to Turgon to let him in. Turgon was suspicious and did not open his heart to Húrin again until it was too late for him to welcome him again. Instead, he went on to the ruined Nargothrond and found there the Nauglamír, the Necklace of the Dwarves that was made for Finrod long ago. In his despair, he still served as an instrument of Providence in bringing this necklace to Doriath, for he threw it at Thingol’s feet as bitter payment for keeping his family, though now all of them are dead.

Thingol shows pity to Húrin, as is fitting for what we noted earlier about Tolkien’s approach to the brainwashed. At the same time, his bitterness will not be left unaddressed, as Melian speaks in rebuke:

‘Húrin Thalion, Morgoth hath bewitched thee; for he that seeth through Morgoth’s eyes, willing or unwilling, seeth all things crooked. Long was Túrin thy son fostered in the halls of Menegroth, and shown love and honour as the son of the King; and it was not by the King’s will nor by mine that he came never back to Doriath. And afterwards thy wife and thy daughter were harboured here with honour and goodwill; and we sought by all means that we might to dissuade Morwen from the road to Nargothrond. With the voice of Morgoth thou dost now upbraid thy friends.’

And hearing the words of Melian Húrin stood moveless, and he gazed long into the eyes of the Queen; and there in Menegroth, defended still by the Girdle of Melian from the darkness of the Enemy, he read the truth of all that was done, and tasted at last the fullness of woe that was measured for him by Morgoth Bauglir. (22)

This is a loving rebuke that falls in severity just below Jesus referring to Peter as Satan when he responded to his rebuke of Jesus’s first passion prediction. She does not call him Morgoth, but she still rightly says he is speaking with the voice of Morgoth. The severity of this warning combined with the truthful account of what had happened in Doriath was enough to make clear to Húrin where he had gone wrong, so that he now offers Thingol the Nauglamír with more respect and honor. Melian thus also shows with clarity how deception is Morgoth’s native tongue. It stems from the same anti-creative tendencies that characterize him more broadly. To rebel against his Creator means to reject reality as defined by that Creator, and so he prefers to live in a world of deception where his preferences are always right, and he is the one who defines reality in place of the Creator. It is not for nothing that Satan is referred to as the father of lies (John 8:44).

Even as Húrin’s bringing the Nauglamír to Doriath will bring about the Dwarves’ rebellion and the fall of Doriath, this action of Húrin will prove providential in another way. The Silmaril being set in the Nauglamír brings together the greatest craft of the Elves with the greatest craft of the Dwarves and magnifies the beauty of both. But it also leads the Dwarves to rebel, kill Thingol, and sack Doriath to claim both treasures. As a result of this, Beren, Lúthien, and Dior, with help from the Elves of Ossiriand and the Ents, destroy the Dwarf rebels and reclaim the Silmaril. The Silmaril will then pass on to Dior and his daughter Elwing, who will bring it to the son of our next figure to discuss.

Tuor, the Instrument of Ulmo and of Providence

At long last, Tuor, son of Huor, arises to fulfill Ulmo’s prophecy. Indeed, it is said that Ulmo himself “set it in his heart to depart from the land of his fathers, for he had chosen Tuor as the instrument of his designs” (23). He therefore brings him to Vinyamar to claim the implements Ulmo instructed Turgon to set aside for the prophesied one. Ulmo then sends him as a messenger to Turgon to inform him that the time has come and that the fall of Gondolin will not be long delayed. Turgon will not heed Ulmo’s counsel to leave, but he does welcome Tuor and recognized him as being one with whom the fate of the Noldor was wound (23). He also did not forget the words of Huor that “from you and from me a new star shall arise” (20). And so it would prove true that in giving his daughter Idril to Tuor in marriage yet again the will of Providence would be realized in intertwining the Kindreds for a second time, and by this union to bring salvation to Middle-earth in Eärendil, their son. Huor’s words would also prove to be more literally true than he might have expected, but that will be a detail to discuss later.

But because Turgon would not heed Ulmo’s counsel to abandon his city, and thus ignored his counsel from centuries ago not to love it too dearly, his fate could not be avoided. And thus, as Maeglin wandered outside of the hills surrounding Gondolin, it happened, “as fate willed, that Maeglin was taken prisoner by Orcs, and brought to Angband” (23). He revealed to Morgoth the secret ways to come to Gondolin and assault it. Thus Maeglin betrayed the kingdom that adopted him because of his envious hatred of Turgon and Tuor as the latter had Idril’s affection and was permitted to marry her whom Maeglin illicitly desired. In turn, Morgoth promised to deliver her into his hands once Gondolin was taken.

But he would not live to have such a reward, as Tuor would also be the instrument of providential judgment against Maeglin the betrayer. He would cast him to the same death as his father Eöl, who was thrown from a precipice in execution for his crime. Providence also aided the escape of Tuor, his family, and the other refugees of Gondolin in its fall because the very smoke of the city’s burning and the steam that arose from the fountains whence Gothmog fell in his battle with Ecthelion also provided cover for their escape.

Glorfindel

This escape is also aided by the Eagles of Thorondor, once again acting as agents of Providence, and by Glorfindel’s act of heroism in sacrificing his life in single combat against a Balrog guarding the high pass taken out of Gondolin. This is, of course, the same Glorfindel we encounter in LOTR, and so I will reiterate commentary I have made about him and his reincarnation here.¹⁰ Although he was among the Exiles who was condemned for his part in the Kinslaying the Noldor carried out while leaving Aman, he was pardoned for his sacrificial action, which proved crucial to Tuor and Idril’s escape, and thus to Eärendil’s voyage, which was, in turn, crucial to the salvation of Middle-earth by the Host of Valinor. After a time of purgatory, he was allowed to reincarnate in Aman and there his spiritual power was greatly increased by virtue of his self-sacrifice, and he became a follower and friend of Olórin (which was the name Gandalf was known by in Aman). He must have returned to Middle-earth before the Change of the World, and his return must have been for the purpose of strengthening Gil-galad and Elrond in their resistance of Sauron. He is thus an instrument of Providence like Gandalf, being empowered by his time with Gandalf/Olórin and others for the work Ilúvatar still willed for him to do.¹¹

Unsurprisingly, some have taken issue with such a presentation of reincarnation in Tolkien’s fiction. Peter Hastings even wrote to him that he thought it was bad metaphysics and theologically problematic: “God has not used that device in any of the creations of which we have knowledge, and it seems to me to be stepping beyond the position of a sub-creator to produce it as an actual working thing, because a sub-creator, when dealing with the relations between creator and created, should use those channels which he knows the creator to have used already” (preface to Letter #153). Of course, Tolkien wrote in reply in Letter #153 that he categorically disagreed, since a sub-creator should, as part of the fundamental function of the work, be able to pay tribute to the infinity of God’s creativity by exploring counterfactuals and “channels” he did not use. Specifically concerning the reincarnation of the Elves, he said,

‘Reincarnation’ may be bad theology (that surely, rather than metaphysics) as applied to Humanity; and my legendarium, especially the ‘Downfall of Númenor’ which lies immediately behind The Lord of the Rings, is based on my view: that Men are essentially mortal and must not try to become ‘immortal’ in the flesh. But I do not see how even in the Primary World any theologian or philosopher, unless very much better informed about the relation of spirit and body than I believe anyone to be, could deny the possibility of re-incarnation as a mode of existence, prescribed for certain kinds of rational incarnate creatures [i.e., not humans]. (emphases original)

The framework for reincarnation in Tolkien’s work is also fundamentally different than what is shared by the various Indian religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism) and their offshoots, as well as the theories of metempsychosis professed by Pythagoras, Plato, and their followers. For all the differences between these different philosophies, the cycle of reincarnation (called samsara in Hindu religions and other beliefs) is a problem for which the solution is liberation (called moksha). Again, all of these belief systems vary in how they conceive of reincarnation, what causes the cycle and the particular forms it can take, and how liberation is achieved, yet none of those elements apply to Tolkien’s presentation of the Elves. In contrast to Men, who are part of the created world for a relatively brief time and then after death pass beyond it to the Timeless Halls of Eru Ilúvatar, Elves are immortal in the sense that their lives are bound to the created world of Eä. They live, whether embodied or not, for as long as it lives. Thus, an Elf could live in perpetuity without ever once experiencing death. But if they do die, they are sent to the Halls of Mandos, which was once in Arda and is still in the scope of the created world, where after a time of purgatory their spirits are allowed to reincarnate if they choose (although they rarely do so more than once).¹²

Eärendil, Herald of Hope

In any case, with the fall of Gondolin came the fall of the last remaining kingdom of the Noldor in Middle-earth. There remained pockets of resistance among Elves, Men, and Dwarves dotted across Beleriand, but none were of such might that Morgoth considered them a true threat. Nor was he threatened by most of the sons of Fëanor still being at large (three of them had died in a failed attempt to take the Silmaril from Dior). Although their oath had been taken against him as their target, it had always helped him and never hurt him.

But in his being contented with his destruction of his enemies, and thinking them forever forsaken by the Valar, he made a grave mistake in calculation. He had extinguished Turgon, whom his heart had foreboded would bring his doom, but he did not realize one of his descendants still lived and still posed a threat to him. And he would prove to be the ultimate instrument of Providence among the Children of Ilúvatar in the First Age. Providence will take up his desire to bring the message of Elves and Men to the Valar in the West for pity into grander designs even than he planned in order to fulfill not only his desire but also the fate of the Silmarils, the defeat of Morgoth, and the provision of a lasting sign of hope among the stars of the heavens. Thus we see Providence at work internally when in the midst of an unsuccessful journey to the West, he turns about when he longed for Elwing, who was now his wife, “And his heart bade him in haste, for a sudden fear had fallen on him out of dreams; and the winds that before he had striven with might not now bear him back as swift as his desire” (24).

And thus he returns in time to reunite with Elwing, who was miraculously saved from the attack of the sons of Fëanor on the Havens of Sirion. They had learned that this is where the Silmaril had come, and per their oath, they sought to slay anyone who hindered them. Two more of the sons, Amrod and Amras, were killed in the attack, leaving only Maedhros and Maglor to reflect on the futility of their entire centuries-long quest, now that Elwing had thrown herself into the Sea only to be saved by Ulmo and be borne forever beyond their reach. Maglor will, for a time, take Elrond and Elros into his care in pity of them and in regret of the dreadful oath.

As for Eärendil, he uses the light of the Silmaril to guide him across the western waters no other mariner of Middle-earth could traverse. He himself will recognize Providence’s hand in this journey (not least because of the miracle whereby he came to reunite with Elwing), by telling Elwing when they land in Eldamar of Aman, “Await me here; for one only may bring the message that it is my fate to bear” (24). Ulmo will likewise affirm before the other Valar, “For this he was born into the world” (24; cf. John 18:37). Eönwë, the Maia herald of Manwë, will even greet him as follows: “Hail Eärendil, of mariners most renowned, the looked for that cometh at unawares, the longed for that cometh beyond hope! Hail Eärendil, bearer of light before the Sun and Moon! Splendour of the Children of Earth, star in the darkness, jewel in the sunset, radiant in the morning” (24).

It is not without reason that this language resembles the wording of the lines from the Crist A (or Christ I) poem once thought to be by Cynewulf. The key lines, particularly lines 104–106, originally referred to John the Baptist as the star that preceded the Sun/Son. Christ himself was often referred to in Advent/Christmas contexts as the Sun of Righteousness from Mal 4:2. Tolkien attests to this inspiration in Letter #297 and he quotes lines 104–106 in a letter to Deirdre Levinson. This is indeed one of the roots of Tolkien’s whole sub-creative work, as reflected in the poem The Voyage of Eärendel the Evening Star, which he wrote in September 1914 (as recounted in The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two). This is not to say that the earendel of the poem and the Eärendil of Tolkien’s work refer to the same thing. He acknowledges the inspiration but not the similarity of meaning in Letter #297, but it does further demonstrate the fundamentally linguistic inspiration of Tolkien’s stories, as well as the Christian framework for his linguistic inspiration.

It is also notable that after the Valar adjudicate on what should be done about Eärendil and his family—so that Ilúvatar by Manwë passes on the unique grace for them to choose their fates among Elves or Men—Eärendil and his ship are set to sail among the heavens. And thus one of the Silmarils is set to shine as a star in the heavens, and Eärendil fulfills the word of Huor in a way Huor might not have expected. This star is referred to as Gil-Estel, “the Star of High Hope” (24). We have noted the significance of the term estel previously, and so it also refers here to the heavenly, transcendent hope that the Children of Ilúvatar are to have in Ilúvatar and the good he wills for them. After all, estel is one of the Elvish words that can be translated as “hope” (the other being amdir). But this particular variety is a deeper, more significant one that has the sense of “trust.” It is not some vague optimism trusting that things will go well in the end. Rather, it is trust in Eru Ilúvatar and that his designs will be for the good of his Children, whom he loves.¹³ This is a paraphrase of how Finrod explains the concept in “Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth.”¹⁴ The aforementioned paraphrase and the quote it comes from are similar to Rom 8:28: “Now we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to [his] purpose” (personal translation).

No Accounting for Pity

The message Eärendil is able to bring on behalf of all the Children of Ilúvatar in Middle-earth moves the Valar to pity and to proper action arising from that pity. As noted previously, Morgoth could not imagine this happening, “for to him that is pitiless the deeds of pity are ever strange and beyond reckoning” (24). Such is the result of his rebellion against Ilúvatar that he can neither embody nor imagine the divine virtue of pity. He has benefited from it, as with Nienna at his trial after his imprisonment, but he cannot fathom doing the same for someone else or that it should be done for the Noldor in spite of all that they had done. And through the Valar’s pity will come the destruction of Morgoth and his kingdom as the greatest army ever assembled, the Host of Valinor, will cross over into Middle-earth and lay waste to Beleriand itself and all of Morgoth’s minions in the War of Wrath.

A Hint of Eschatology

After this great battle wipes out Morgoth’s army, including Eärendil leading an army of Eagles against the winged dragons in a battle in the air, Morgoth himself is subdued, and the other two Silmarils are reclaimed. The oath rears its ugly influence again as Maedhros and Maglor argue about what should be done. Maedhros ultimately wins out and they slay the guards and take the Silmarils, which burn their hands as they burned Morgoth’s because their evil deeds had made their claims on the Silmarils forfeit. And so Maedhros cast himself and the Silmaril into a chasm of fire while Maglor threw his Silmaril into the Sea. Thus was fulfilled their fate to be bound to Arda in heaven, earth, and sea, and so we are told, “they knew that those jewels could not be found or brought together again unless the world be broken and remade” (24). As has been told earlier, the eschatological expectation is precisely that the world will be broken to retrieve and reunite the Silmarils in the new creation of Arda Remade.

The Lingering Fruit of Melkor

As for Morgoth, his final (eschatological) end is beyond the scope of the published Silmarillion, but his end in the story for now is told as follows:

But Morgoth himself the Valar thrust through the Door of Night beyond the Walls of the World, into the Timeless Void; and a guard is set for ever on those walls, and Eärendil keeps watch upon the ramparts of the sky. Yet the lies that Melkor, the mighty and accursed, Morgoth Bauglir, the Power of Terror and of Hate, sowed in the hearts of Elves and Men are a deed that does not die and cannot be destroyed; and ever and anon it sprouts anew, and will bear dark fruit even unto the latest days. (24)

This is a condensed version of what has likewise been described in Morgoth’s Ring, to which we will return when we come to that volume. This particular statement is reminiscent of a comment Gandalf makes early in LOTR that “Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again” (I/2). It is also reminiscent of something he says later in the story, “The evil of Sauron cannot be wholly cured, nor made as if it had not been. But to such days we are doomed. Let us now go on with the journey we have begun” (III/8). These statements well exemplify Tolkien’s philosophy of history. In the normal course of history, there is no final victory. All of that waits for the eschaton, and Tolkien’s hope is eschatologically informed by the Christian expectation of the Lord’s coming again and all the other events that will follow thereafter. There are hints of eschatology in Tolkien’s work, and he struggled with how to balance articulating such expectation with the setting of this work in an imaginary time before the coming of Christ and even before Israel. But the fact remains that something which does resonate with Tolkien’s Primary World beliefs is that until that final victory, every person of every time has the same responsibility of deciding what to do with the time given to them.

A similar principle is behind the commands to be vigilant in the NT (Matt 24:42–43; 25:13; Mark 13:34–35, 37; Luke 12:37–39; 21:34–36; 1 Thess 5:2–6; 1 Pet 5:8). As I have argued elsewhere, the point of such instructions is not about looking for signs to see if the time is near. After all, Jesus himself said to his disciples before his ascension, “It is not yours to know times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:7–8, personal translation). Vigilance has to do with being vigilant about one’s conduct in doing what needs to be done regardless of the time one finds oneself in. Final victory is not in our hands, but what is in our hands is the same responsibility to decide what to do with the time that is given to us and to be vigilant in doing what is right. And as with the heroes of this story, we may participate in “samples or glimpses of final victory” (Letter #195) by this vigilance.

1. For a survey of means of special revelation in Middle-earth, see Freeman, Tolkien Dogmatics, 49–55.

2. On this theme, see my posts here: https://krharriman.substack.com/p/israel-and-the-exile-part-2; https://krharriman.substack.com/p/israel-and-the-exile-part-3.

3. For more on this particular text, see here: https://krharriman.substack.com/p/resurrection-in-the-ot-part-8.

4. These include πίστις in the noun form, πιστός in the adjective form, or πιστεύω in the verb form. For more on these terms and the constructions in which they appear in the NT, see here: https://krharriman.substack.com/p/grammatical-constructions-of-faith. The Hebrew equivalents include חסיד, אמן, אמת, and אמונה. For both languages, other terms not listed here have overlapping semantic domains. Cf. J. R. R. Tolkien, Sauron Defeated: The End of the Third Age; The History of the Lord of the Rings Part Four, The History of Middle-earth 9, ed. Christopher Tolkien (London: HarperCollins, 1992), 341, 358, where the faithful relationship with Eru is defined as “allegiance.”

5. Tolkien, Battle of Maldon, 32.

6. For more on this, see Ordway, Tolkien’s Faith, 17–30.

7. The incomplete manuscript of the work titled Church in Ancient England is in the special collections of the Bodleian Library.

8. For more on the subject of Tolkien and Christians of other traditions, see Ordway, Tolkien’s Faith, 267–74.

9. Ordway, Tolkien’s Faith, 114.

10. Christopher Tolkien notes that Tolkien once thought of the use of Glorfindel in LOTR as “one of the cases of the somewhat random use of the names found in the older legends, now referred to as The Silmarillion, which escaped reconsideration in the final published form of The Lord of the Rings.” Tolkien, Return of the Shadow, 214. But he still came to the conclusion early in the process that the Glorfindels of both stories were the same person (Return of the Shadow, 214–15).

11. For all of this, see J. R. R. Tolkien, The Peoples of Middle-earth, The History of Middle-earth 12, ed. Christopher Tolkien (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1996), 379–82.

12. For more on this matter, see Tolkien, Morgoth’s Ring, 217–46.

13. Cf. Tolkien, Sauron Defeated, 346.

14. “Estel we call it, that is ‘trust’. It is not defeated by the ways of the world, for it does not come from experience, but from our nature and first being. If we are indeed the Eruhini, the Children of the One, then He will not suffer Himself to be deprived of His own, not by any Enemy, not even by ourselves. This is the last foundation of Estel, which we keep even when we contemplate the End: of all His designs the issue must be for His Children’s joy” (Tolkien, Morgoth’s Ring, 320).