Links Between The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings, Part 6
Book VI
(avg. read time: 5–10 mins.)
Book VI, containing as it does the resolution of the grand story, still features many connections with The Silmarillion. The functions of the connections vary, but many serve to present the culmination of LOTR as the culmination of a story that had been going on for much longer. The hotspots of connections reside in three consecutive chapters: “The Field of Cormallen,” “The Steward and the King,” and “Many Partings.”
Naturally, one of those storylines is the storyline of the Men of Númenor and their coming to Middle-earth. The narrator says of Cirith Ungol that it was originally, “an eastern outpost of the defences of Ithilien, made when, after the Last Alliance, Men of Westernesse kept watch on the evil land of Sauron where his creatures still lurked” (VI/1). All these many years later, this and the Towers of the Teeth, what had been the last works of the Last Alliance, have been turned to Sauron’s purposes. Of course, the Dúnedain are also present in this story, led by Aragorn, as partaking in the battle to allow Frodo time to vanquish their old enemy once and for all (VI/4), and they later participate in Aragorn’s royal procession (VI/5). Faramir also speaks to Éowyn about Númenor and its fall that he often dreams of (VI/5). The last reference in Book VI is a dense web of connections in the presentation of Aragorn: “Here is Aragorn son of Arathorn, chieftain of the Dúnedain of Arnor, Captain of the Host of the West, bearer of the Star of the North, wielder of the Sword Reforged, victorious in battle, whose hands bring healing, the Elfstone, Elessar of the line of Valandil, Isildur’s son, Elendil’s son of Númenor” (VI/5). Indeed, when Aragorn receives his crown he will recite the words of Elendil when he came out of the Sea: “Out of the Great Sea to Middle-earth I am come. In this place will I abide, and my heirs, unto the ending of the world” (VI/5). All of this signifies the many ways in which Aragorn has brought renewal, reunited the divided realms of the survivors of Númenor, and brought their hopes to fruition, even if he was not the one to destroy the Ring. Aragorn has been the one who has made the broken whole and who puts right what long ago went wrong. This is why, though he himself would only be briefly mentioned in The Silmarillion, he is something of a living link with the story as the one who brings the storyline of Númenor to its resolution in the present time.
In the darkest of places, Elbereth/Varda’s name is once again invoked. First, Sam uses her name as a password for when he comes back to Frodo, for no Orc would mutter her name (VI/1). Sam will again invoke her name to get past the Two Watchers at the gate of Cirith Ungol (VI/1), since the song that invoked Elbereth in the Shire by Gildor and his Elves also drove away the Black Rider. He will hear the song dedicated to Elbereth again from Gildor and other Elves on the road from the Shire to the Grey Havens (VI/9).
As earlier, even though Sauron is the main concern, the Hobbits also mention his predecessor. Frodo says of the Orcs, “No, they eat and drink, Sam. The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own. I don’t think it gave life to the orcs, it only ruined them and twisted them; and if they are to live at all, they have to live like other living creatures. Foul waters and foul meats they’ll take, if they can get no better, but not poison” (VI/ 1). This is a reminder not only of what Melkor did in The Silmarillion as perhaps his most spiteful act of rebellion against his Creator, but also of the fact that evil cannot truly create; it can only corrupt. If it was true for the most powerful evil being to ever exist, that is rather powerful demonstration that it is true in general.
The narrator will connect the Eagles who arrive at the Black Gates to The Silmarillion, saying, “There came Gwaihir the Windlord, and Landroval his borther, greatest of all the Eagles of the North, mightiest of the descendants of old Thorondor, who built his eyries in the inaccessible peaks of the Encircling Mountains when Middle-earth was young” (VI/4). Thorondor, the Lord of the Eagles who were the messengers of Manwë, was the largest and mightiest of Eagles ever to live. He and his people resided in the Crissaegrim, the southern part of the Echoriath (the Encircling Mountains), which surrounded where Gondolin would be built. Thorondor himself had a part in several stories of the First Age, from the rescue of Maedhros to the War of Wrath (where he led the Eagles against the winged dragons).
Sam will once again speak of Beren and his story in thinking of the kind of story he and Frodo have been involved in:
“What a tale we have been in, Mr. Frodo, haven’t we?” he said. “I wish I could hear it told! Do you think they’ll say: Now comes the story of Nine-fingered Frodo and the Ring of Doom? And then everyone will hush, like we did, when in Rivendell they told us the tale of Beren One-hand and the Great Jewel. I wish I could hear it! And I wonder how it will go on after our part.” (VI/4)
Sam had already directly connected that story to their own story as a continuation of the same. Now he wonders if their own story will pass into lore recited by others like Beren’s. As Sam will learn later in the same chapter, indeed it shall.
In a song near the end of the chapter, Legolas will once again declare his sea-longing. He will refer to the “Last Shore” as a way of naming the Uttermost West of Aman. He will also name the “Lost Isle” and “Eressëa,” as well as Elvenhome, all of which have been noted already. Of course, Frodo himself will see the Uttermost West before Legolas, as Arwen gives Frodo her own seat on a ship headed to Aman, where he will ultimately find his rest that he can no longer find in Middle-earth (VI/6).
The White Tree comes back into prominence when the scene returns to Minas Tirith. First, the Eagle that comes to Minas Tirith declares, “the Tree that was withered shall be renewed” (V/5). It will be so because Aragorn and Gandalf will go to a secret place in a high hallow of Mount Mindolluin. There is a brief dialogue here wherein we are told the line of the White Tree, which I have recited elsewhere, but before that Gandalf makes clear that this beginning of Aragorn’s reign is not without its bittersweetness, for Gandalf’s task is completed and he will depart Middle-earth, even as the “Elder Kindred” shall fade or depart (V/5). The Silmarillion provides the detail that makes sense of this reference to the Elves. What follow this remark will be a long quote, but it deserves to be quoted in full for its masterful interweaving both of the stories first told in The Silmarillion with LOTR and of the line of the White Tree with Aragorn’s line:
“But I shall die,” said Aragorn. “For I am a mortal man, and though being what I am and of the race of the West unmingled, I shall have life far longer than other men, yet that is but a little while; and when those who are now in the wombs of women are born and have grown old, I too shall grow old. And who then shall govern Gondor and those who look to this City as to their queen, if my desire be not granted? The Tree in the Court of the Fountain is still withered and barren. When shall I see a sign that it will ever be otherwise?”
“Turn your face from the green world, and look where all seems barren and cold!” said Gandalf.
Then Aragorn turned, and there was a stony slope behind him running down from the skirts of the snow; and as he looked he was aware that alone there in the waste a growing thing stood. And he climbed to it, and saw that out of the very edge of the snow there sprang a sapling tree no more than three foot high. Already it had put forth young leaves long and shapely, dark above and silver beneath, and upon its slender crown it bore one small cluster of flowers whose white petals shone like the sunlit snow.
Then Aragorn cried: “Ye! utúvienyes! I have found it! Lo! here is a scion of the Eldest of Trees! But how comes it here? For it is not itself yet seven years old.”
And Gandalf coming looked at it, and said: “Verily this is a sapling of the lien of Nimloth the fair; and that was a seedling of Galathilion, and that a fruit of Telperion of many names, Eldest of Trees. Who shall say how it comes here in the appointed hour? But this is an ancient hallow, and ere the kings failed or the Tree withered in the court, a fruit must have been set here. For it is said that, though the fruit of the Tree comes seldom to ripeness, yet the life within may then lie sleeping through many long years, and none can foretell the time in which it will awake. Remember this. For if ever a fruit ripens, it should be planted, lest the line die out of the world. Here it has lain hidden on the mountain, even as the race of Elendil lay hidden in the wastes of the North. Yet the line of Nimloth is older far than your line, King Elessar.” (VI/5)
Of course, the line of Elendil itself ultimately has part of its origin in the same land the Tree ultimately came from, as one of their ancestors is Melian, a Maia, the mother of Lúthien, though that point is never mentioned in the main story of LOTR. (The line of the tree is considered older than his line because Thingol, who had no parents, and Melian, who had no parents, were the beginning of his line.) This line has persevered in unexpected ways, even as the line of the White Tree has. This sapling will itself become the new White Tree after the old one is uprooted and laid to rest with the kings and stewards in the Hallows of Minas Tirith. Arwen herself would later sing, “a song of Valinor, while the Tree grew and blossomed” (VI/6).
The last hotspot chapter also features a few more connections, beyond those already noted, that do not appear later in the main story. One, Arwen says she is making “the choice of Lúthien” (VI/6). This is true both on the level of an Elf falling in love with a Man and of her choice to have a mortal life for the sake of this love (as The Silmarillion also tells the much shorter story of Beren and Lúthien’s return to life). Two, when Galadriel responds to Treebeard saying that he does not think they shall meet again, “Not in Middle-earth, nor until the lands that lie under the wave are lifted up again. Then in the willow-meads of Tasarinan we may meet in the Spring” (VI/6). This is actually a double reference to the land that Treebeard had mentioned in his earlier song and to the eschatological hope for the mending of the world in Arda Remade. Three, of course, Aragorn mentions that he will continue to use the Stone of Orthanc. While the Seven Stones can no longer be used as they once were, this use is part of Aragorn’s work to restore Gondor and Arnor to the kingdoms the Númenóreans had founded.