Links Between The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings, Part 4
Book IV
(avg. read time: 6–13 mins.)
Book IV has more hotspots of connections to The Silmarillion than Book III. These hotspots are two chapters in the first half of the Book—“The Black Gate Is Closed” and “The Window on the West”—and two chapters in the second half—“The Stairs of Cirith Ungol” and “Shelob’s Lair.” Many of these references are attributable to the narrator, but that is certainly not the case for all links in these hotspots.
Barad-dûr is naturally a major reference point throughout Book IV, but once again most of the references are not historical as such (IV/1; IV/2; IV/3; IV/4; IV/10). However, there is one exception, and it comes from the narrator. The narrator says that Shelob had resided in her place in the Ephel Dúath mountain range, “before Sauron, and before the first stone of Barad-dûr” (IV/9). This monster will be the occasion for many more links to The Silmarillion besides the foundation of Barad-dûr.
There are direct and indirect references to the great Battle of Dagorlad. The first is Frodo referring to the place as the “Battle Plain” (IV/1), which is informed by the fact that his battle narrated in The Silmarillion was fought here, as well as others. In the next chapter, Gollum says this of the battle, which reflects what one can find in The Silmarillion:
Elves and Men and Orcs. The Dead Marshes. There was a great battle long ago, yes, so they told him when Sméagol was young, when I was young before the Precious came. It was a great battle. Tall Men with long swords, and terrible Elves, and Orcses shrieking. They fought on the plain for days and months at the Black Gates. But the Marshes have grown since then, swallowed up the graves; always creeping, creeping. (IV/2)
The narrator makes direct reference to this battle in the same chapter. Faramir also refers to it directly when he tells Frodo of how Gandalf/Mithrandir would inquire most about the “Great Battle” fought upon Dagorlad, and presumably including the time after (IV/5).
As I have noted previously, there are also connections to The Silmarillion by how characters refer to the sun and moon. Namely, they refer to the moon as a “he,” whether simply as “the Moon” by Sam (IV/1) or as “Ithil” by Faramir (IV/6). Conversely, the narrator refers to the sun as “her” (IV/2).
Númenor and the Dúnedain also continue to be a point of reference, hereby ensuring that they will be referred to in all six Books of the main story. We have already seen Gollum refer to them as the Tall Men (IV/2; cf. IV/3). Frodo will also recognize the Rangers of Ithilien as, “Dúnedain of the South, men of the line of the Lords of Westernesse” (IV/4). Faramir calls Minas Tirith (which he wishes to see as Minas Anor, its ancient name, again) the “city of the Men of Númenor” (IV/5). The moment of silence the Rangers observe before their dinner involves them facing west “towards Númenor that was” (IV/5). As he recounts the history of Gondor to Frodo and Sam, he frequently makes reference to Númenor and Númenóreans (IV/5). At one point he describes its place as “the kingdom in the midst of the Sea” (IV/5). When Sam says Faramir has an Elvish air about him, Faramir says, “Maybe you discern from far away the air of Númenor” (IV/5). He says of the Nazgûl that they “men of Númenor” enslaved by “rings of power” Sauron gave them (IV/6). When he refers to the palantirí, he describes them as “the Seeing-stones of Númenor” (IV/6).
Frodo refers to Elendil as the father of Isildur, the one who built Minas Ithil (IV/3). He also tells Faramir of Aragorn, who is descended from Elendil by Isildur and that he bears Elendil’s sword (IV/5). Indeed, Narsil is described either as “the Sword That Was Broken” (IV/4) or as “the sword of Elendil” (IV/5). Faramir refers to Minas Tirith as the place “the sons of Elendil founded” (IV/5), and of Gondor as “the realm of the sons of Elendil” (IV/5).
One can already see the explicit and implicit references to Isildur above. There are also references to the Ring as “Isildur’s Bane” or as otherwise linked with Isildur as the one who cut the Ring from Sauron’s hand (IV/3; IV/4; IV/5). As a point of reference for how mighty the army of Minas Morgul is, the narrator says that no army so great had ever issued from what was now the Morgul Vale, “since the days of Isildur’s might” (IV/8).
Then, of course, there is the White Tree, linked in some way with both of them. Gollum himself said he heard tales of “the silver crown of their King and his White Tree” (IV/3). When Faramir declares what he wants most, he begins his wish with saying, “I would see the White Tree in flower again in the courts of the kings” (IV/5). The “again,” links it to its past, which is recounted in The Silmarillion (though, of course, something will be said of it in LOTR as well).
There are two somewhat incidental references to things we see in The Silmarillion that might as well be noted together. One, as a way to illustrate the extremity of how far away the moment was when Frodo decided to begin the Quest, the narrator says it was, “so remote now that it was like a chapter in a story of the world’s youth, when the Trees of Silver and Gold were still in bloom” (IV/3). Two, Damrod says of the charging Mûmak (or Oliphaunt), “May the Valar turn him aside” (IV/4). This is the first direct reference to the Valar as a group, and it shows that knowledge of them has been retained to some extent in Gondor.
Another incidental connection appears in one of Tolkien’s occasional synchronizations of his separate plotlines, “Yet even as he spoke his last words to Saruman, and the palantír crashed in fire upon the steps of Orthanc, his thought was ever upon Frodo and Samwise, over the long leagues his mind sought for them in hope and pity” (IV/3). A further incidental reference to the same is when Faramir refers to a time “beyond the vision of the Seeing-stones of Númenor” (IV/6).
Faramir also makes many singular references in one chapter to things elaborated upon in The Silmarillion. One, he refers to “Elvenhome” (IV/5) as part of what they honor in their dinner ritual, which is generally a reference to Eldamar, particularly with Tol Eressëa included (since he later says that Númenor was “within sight of Elvenhome”). Two, he refers to that which is “beyond Elvenhome and will ever be,” which is likely Valinor in Aman. Three, he makes an incidental connection by referring to the Balrog. Four, he speaks of the Elder Days, which is probably particularly about the First Age. Five, he also speaks of the “Elder People,” which is equivalent to the references to the Elves as the Firstborn. Six, he speaks of the Rohirrim as being from those same Three Houses of Men as were the Númenóreans. That is, they were of the Three Houses of the Edain who came into Beleriand (hence the latter element in the name “Dúnedain”). Seven, he specifies that the Rohirrim may not necessarily have been from the House of Hador the Goldenhaired, like the Númenóreans were. We have already noted Hador in Part 2. Eight, Faramir also speaks of the three kindreds of Men: “the High, or Men of the West, which were Númenóreans; and the Middle Peoples, Men of the Twilight, such as are the Rohirrim and their kin that dwell still far in the North; and the Wild, the Men of Darkness.” The Silmarillion explains what gives rise to such divisions. Nine, Faramir speaks of how his distant ancestors, the Edain, “fought beside the Elves in the first wars.” That is, they fought alongside them in the wars that defined the First Age, particularly after the breaking of the Siege of Angband in FA 455 (with the Dagor Bragollach).
There are then two clusters of connections in two of the last three chapters. Interestingly, both of these clusters feature Beren. In the first case, after Sam’s disquisition on story, he says something that should be quoted in full, with the connections numbered:
Beren [1] now, he never thought he was going to get that Silmaril [2] from the Iron Crown [3] in Thangorodrim [4], and yet he did, and that was a worse place and a blacker danger than ours [5]. But that’s a long tale, of course, and goes on past the happiness and into grief and beyond it – and the Silmaril [2] went on and came to Eärendil [6]. And why, sir, I never thought of that before! We’ve got – you’ve got some of the light of it in that star-glass that the Lady gave you! Why, to think of it, we’re in the same tale still! It’s going on. Don’t the great tales never end? (IV/8)
All of this serves to connect the story of The Silmarillion more directly to the story Sam and Frodo are involved in. I have noted most of these entities previously. One that I have only mentioned offhandedly and not as something directly connected to LOTR is the Iron Crown. This was Melkor’s/Morgoth’s crown in which he set the Silmarils that he stole. What I have highlighted as connection [5] is an indirect reference to Morgoth, Sauron’s lord.
Before we reach the second cluster, there is a point in which Frodo lights the seemingly impenetrable darkness of Shelob’s Lair with the Phial of Galadriel, which contains the light of the Star of Eärendil, which itself is the light of one of the Silmarils (IV/9). Frodo even invokes Eärendil’s name in bringing the light forth from the Phial. It can do this because it is a reflection of the Great Jewels that contained the light of the Two Trees.
The second of the aforementioned clusters is as follows:
There agelong she [Shelob] had dwelt, an evil thing in spider-form, even such as once of old had lived in the Land of the Elves in the West that is now under the Sea [1], such as Beren [2] fought in the Mountains of Terror [3] in Doriath [4], and so came to Lúthien [5] upon the green sward amid the hemlocks in the moonlight long ago. How Shelob came there, flying from ruin, no tale tells, for out of the Dark Years [6] few tales have come. But still she was there, who was there before Sauron, and before the first stone of Barad-dûr [7]; and she served none but herself, drinking the blood of Elves and Men, bloated and grown fat with endless brooding on her feasts, weaving webs of shadow; for all living things were her food, and her vomit darkness. Far and wide her lesser broods, bastards of the miserable mates, her own offspring, that she slew, spread from glen to glen, form the Ephel Dúath to the eastern hills, to Dol Guldur and the fastnesses of Mirkwood. But none could rival her, Shelob the Great, last child of Ungoliant [8] to trouble the unhappy world. (IV/9)
Again, almost all of these connections are ones I have mentioned elsewhere. The first one is an indirect way of referring to Beleriand. Most of the others continue with making connections specifically to the story of Beren and Lúthien, but this time in a less direct way, as Shelob was not necessarily involved even in Beren’s travels in the Mountains of Terror. The reference to the Dark Years is another way of referring to the Black Years or, primarily, the Second Age, as that would be when she would have been forced to make the trip to her current lair. The one connection I have not elaborated on elsewhere is the one to Ungoliant, Shelob’s ancestor. Ungoliant is a most curious character in The Silmarillion. She was a being of mysterious origin who lived as a giant spider in the south of Aman beyond the mountains with which the Valar encircled their realm. She fed on light and belched forth darkness, which she could use at times to cloak herself in a tangible and impenetrable darkness (even to the eyes of Manwë) called “the Unlight of Ungoliant.” Melkor found her and convinced her to help him destroy the Two Trees. She was the one who sucked the life and light out of the Two Trees, poisoned the Trees, and drained the Wells of Varda (which stored the light-bearing dew of the Two Trees). This made her grow massive in size and power, so that even Melkor feared her, as he had also given her some of his own power in the whole process (he accomplished what he did in Middle-earth by dissipating his own power to empower his own servants while also dominating them). When she used her Unlight to help her and Melkor escape across the Helcaraxë to Beleriand, she demanded that he give her what he took from Valinor, and he fed her jewels of great beauty, but withheld the Silmarils. She then tried to kill him until he let out a terrible cry that called forth the Balrogs who drove her away. She would go on to produce more of the great spiders, like Shelob, before she ended in as mysterious a fashion as she began, though it is not unlikely that she ate herself because of her insatiable appetite. Just as Sauron is a step below Melkor but is still a threat beyond the comprehension of the Hobbits, so too is Shelob a step below Ungoliant, her ancestor, but she is still a powerful threat beyond their comprehension.
The last chapter also references Beren, but in a more off-handed fashion as a way of illustrating how great the threat Sam faced was: “The blade scored it with a dreadful gash, but those hideous folds could not be pierced by any strength of men, not though Elf or Dwarf should forge the steel or the hand of Beren or of Túrin wield it” (IV/10). We have already noted in Part 2 that Túrin was one of the great heroes of Men in the First Age, indeed one of the mightiest warriors that the race ever produced, though he is also the subject of Tolkien’s most tragic story. Naturally, Beren was also accounted among these great heroes of Men, as we also saw these two appear in Elrond’s account of what heroes could not have availed the Fellowship.
That leaves only two more connections to mention. First, Sam stands against Shelob by holding the Phial and calling upon Elbereth/Varda “in a language which he did not know” (IV/10). That is, he is thinking back to his time among the Elves and the chants to Varda that he has heard, calling upon them in this darkest hour. Second, Gorbag mentions that whoever wounded Shelob is as dangerous as anyone that has been in that land since “the Great Siege” (IV/10). This is a reference to the Siege of Barad-dûr, which led to the conclusion of the War of the Last Alliance narrated with extra detail in The Silmarillion.