Master of Middle Earth

by Paul H. Kocher

  In Appendix G of the same essay Tolkien is moved to lay upon modern dogmas of evolution the blame for improperly blurring this sense of separation "by the hypotheses (or dogmatic guesses) of scientific writers who classed Man not only as 'an animal'—that correct classification is ancient—but as 'only an animal.' " In this view of man as possessing a rational soul, which other creatures do not have, Tolkien is again, of course, Christian. He is not opposing evolutionary theories but he is definitely objecting to any interpretation of them that dogmatically denies that at some point the human being has been given faculties which transcend the evolutionary process.

  There is nothing at all in The Lord of the Rings to hint that any of the free peoples has evolved from other creatures or from one another. On the contrary, allusions keep cropping up to their special creation by some nebulous divine act or to some kind of life they are to enjoy after death, or to both. What Tolkien does in the epic is to broaden the traditional concepts of Man's primacy into the primacy of a group of free peoples who are more or less on a par with Man. But having made the times pre-Christian, he has freed himself from the need to deal with them in a Christian context, which would be awkward if applied to elves, ents, dwarves, and the rest. He can and does retain, however, a general foundation of natural theology in the areas of moral norms and the working out of a providential cosmic order. Combining these with intimations of divine origins and destinations, Tolkien achieves for his free peoples a status on Middle-earth which if not precisely Christian is still very much like it in overall tone.

  So much is true of them as a group. Tolkien's real mastery as a writer, though, consists in his power to establish for each individual race a personality that is unmistakably its own.6 A dwarf is as different from an elf as an ent from a hobbit, and all from a man and from one another. Further, each race has not only its gifts but also its private tragedy, which it must try to overcome as best it can. And it must work out its own often difficult way of living with its peers. All this imparts great variety and drama to the epic within the broader movement of events. It is worth watching in each race in turn.

  Since Treebeard awards the elves pride of place, we shall make no mistake in doing the same. Besides, Tolkien has given them his heart.

  1. Elves: The People of the Stars

  As if challenging those modern sophisticates who scorn all tales about elves as childish fancies, Tolkien takes delight in drawing them as the most superlatively gifted race ever to walk Middle-earth. They are "eldest of all, the elf-children," in Treebeard's catalogue of free peoples. According to The Hobbit they came out of "the twilight before the raising of the Sun and Moon" to wander in the forests. Their desire "always ... to talk to everything," as Treebeard recalls, is a sign of their curiosity and keen original sympathy for other living beings. In order to speak with ents, elves taught them the "great gift" of language, the first act in their long career as teachers of the other peoples of Middle-earth. It was an elf who, deeply sensing the tragedy of the ents, composed the sad dialogue ballad between them and their departing mates which Treebeard sings to Merry and Pippin. As compared with men, he ruminates, elves are "less interested in themselves . . . and better at getting inside other things." Some of these remarkable people stayed on in the forests of the continent to become Silvan elves, but three of their tribes became "the People of the Great Journey" by sailing far westward across the sea to find the Valar in Valinor. There they "lived for ages, and grew fairer and wiser and more learned, and invented their magic and their cunning craft in the making of beautiful and marvellous things before they came back into the Wide World."6

  Why the demiurgic Valar should choose the elves alone from all the other intelligent species on Middle-earth Tolkien does not explain in so many words. But it is a fair inference that the choice was connected with the one salient characteristic that sets them apart from other beings—their immortality of body. Not that they are altogether invulnerable. They can be wounded and killed, as are Gil-galad and many of his elfin warriors in the joint assault with Elendil on Sauron's tower of Barad-dûr at the end of the Second Age. Short of violent death, however, elves live forever, aging slowly but never growing old, knowing no sickness or other ills of the flesh. In a world where everything else is always dying such deathlessness can prove to be a fatal privilege. Endless life can turn into endless boredom and stagnation, or assert itself in cruel domination over other species, who do not live long enough to acquire equal power and knowledge. Tolkien is setting up some interesting dilemmas here. The Valar being aware of these, it would seem, undertake to teach the elves how to endure their immortality. They are given a home in the Undying Lands, an environment suited to their case because in it nothing ever grows old or dies. Their intellects and artistic sensibilities are afforded every stimulation so that they may always have inexhaustible fields for the highest sorts of mental activity. Religious longings are assuaged by their love for Elbereth, who kindled the stars. And surely, as wards of the Valar appointed by the One as guardians of all Middle-earth, they come to apprehend those differences between good and evil that are written into the cosmic order. For, as we know, the laws of morality bind elves as much as they bind all the other free peoples, and do not vary with place or time.

  These laws the elves, like all other intelligent races, retain free will to obey or disobey. Fëanor's feat of imprisoning in three jewels, the Silmarilli, the light of the Two Trees that illuminates Valinor, required genuis, but it is criminal. It is a theft of beauty, an act of selfish "possessiveness" which makes the jewels " precious" to him and his follower in the same bad sense that the one Ring is "precious" to Gollum, to Bilbo, to Isildur, and its other victims. Unhappily, they also become precious to Morgoth—a renegade Valar?—who steals them in his turn and escapes with them to his fortress on Middle-earth. So the history of the First Age begins. Pursuit of him by the elves is expressly forbidden by the Valar as being motivated not by a desire to undo a wrong but to recover the baubles for themselves. For their "pride" in violating this edict the Noldor elves are exiled from Valinor and allowed for centuries to wage hopeless wars against Morgoth in which "they were at last utterly defeated."7 In one sense only are their fall and subsequent misery in a world of miseries a felix culpa, a fortunate fall. They at least civilize the first primitive tribes of mankind whom they enlist as allies. But all have to be rescued from disaster together at the end of the First Age by the armies of the relenting Valar.

  Although many elves then return to the Undying Lands, many others have become too interested in the affairs of Middle-earth to leave it. They spread their culture among neighboring races. Halfway through the Second Age, however, the elven smiths of Eregion, tricked by Sauron, commit a second grievous error, this time with the noblest intentions but nonetheless fraught with doom for Middle-earth and for their own future on it. The three rings of power which they forge to enlarge the powers of elves are all meant for good uses, as Elrond explains at the Council in Rivendell. They were not made as weapons of war or conquest. "Those who made them did not desire strength or domination or hoarded wealth, but understanding, making, and healing, to preserve all things unstained." No purposes could be loftier. In part they are attained. Through one of the three Elrond becomes "a master of healing," and through a second Galadriel "makes" the lovely light of Lothlórien, which opposes Sauron's darkness. But the trouble is that the elf rings, like the others forged for dwarves and men, are ultimately dependent on the master Ring secretly manufactured by Sauron. So, says Elrond, ". . . all that has been wrought by those who wield the Three will turn to their undoing, and their minds and hearts will become revealed to Sauron, if he regains the One." Well may he add grimly, "It would be better if the Three had never been."

  More, and worse, about the predicament into which the elves have stumbled is disclosed to Frodo and Sam by Galadriel during their stay in Lórien: ". . . if you fail, then we are laid bare to the Enemy. Yet if you succeed, then our power is diminished, and Lot
hlórien will fade . . . We must depart into the West, or dwindle to a rustic folk of dell and cave, slowly to forget and be forgotten." That is, the destruction of Sauron's one Ring, which is Frodo's mission, will also annul the power of the elf ring she wears, through which she created Lórien and sustains it in existence. That power gone, Lórien must fade, as Barad-dûr immediately dissolves when Gollum falls into the fire of the Cracks of Doom wearing the one Ring that built it. So must go all other works performed by the other two elf rings.

  But why must the elves dwindle if they do not then forthwith return to Valinor? The answer can only be guessed at. Yet in the very nature of a ring of power it may possibly be found. A ring can have only such power as its maker gives it, and that power must come from somewhere. In the case of the one Ring Sauron had to instill much of his own native vigor into it to produce the awesome thing it was, thereby weakening what was left in himself. The legitimate inference is that the elven smiths of Eregion likewise had to infuse a large portion of elf vitality into the three. These smiths were, after all, descendants of Fëanor, who knew how to entomb the supernal light of the Two Trees in his Silmarilli. Though enfeebled in themselves by the making of their three rings, the elves suffered no loss in the total sum of their vigor while the three remained active. Yet when these went dead upon the melting of the one Ring their stored energy was dissipated, never to be regained. The loss of energy in Sauron's Ring renders his will too weak to hold his body together. He is deprived of his grasp on physical existence on Middle-earth, though not of spiritual existence elsewhere. By analogy the elves lose vital energy which can be replenished only in Valinor.

  Galadriel foresees all this long in advance. Her age and wisdom are extraordinary even for her race, however. It does not follow that all elves recognize the full ramifications of their predicament as the epic opens. Before Frodo left the Shire, elves could be seen passing westward on their way out of Middle-earth, but their reason for leaving was simply that they "were no longer concerned with its troubles." They are obeying the homing impulse for Valinor deeply implanted in all their race.

  Gildor and his band, too, are feeling this homesickness when they meet the hobbits in the Shire woods. "We are Exiles," he tells them, "and most of our kindred have long ago departed, and we too are now only tarrying here a while, ere we return over the Great Sea." The lovely hymn these elves chant to Elbereth is full of nostalgia for the Undying Lands. They have lost interest in earthly affairs. Sauron is not in their thoughts. They seem surprised when Frodo asks them about the Black Riders tracking him, but respond by safeguarding the hobbits with their company for that one night. Asked by Frodo for advice how to proceed, Gildor complies reluctantly and not very helpfully: "Now you should be grateful, for I do not give this counsel gladly. The Elves have their own labours and their own sorrows, and they are little concerned with the ways of hobbits or of any other creatures on earth. Our paths cross theirs seldom, by chance or purpose."8 Gildor cares enough for the hobbits to send word of their danger ahead to the Wandering Companies, to Bombadil, Aragorn, and Elrond. But he does not offer to escort them to Rivendell, nor does he turn up there to take part in Elrond's Council.

  Whether he even helps in the actual fighting against Sauron is doubtful. This withdrawal inward, coupled with a strong sense of isolation from all other creatures, is not characteristic of all elves, naturally, or the Ring-bearer would have found no help at Riven-dell or Lórien. Yet it can be met with even in Elrond's household, when Lindir laughingly tells Bilbo it is not easy for him to tell the difference between a hobbit and a man because "Mortals have not been our study. We have other business."

  There lies the key to that body of elf opinion represented by Gildor and Lindir and latent even in those others who help to rally the West against Sauron. Hobbits and such are "mortals," very different from the immortals who watch their brief generations blurring by. Mortals are "creatures on earth"; at heart elves are of the Undying Lands. Gone in most elves is the childlike curiosity of the firstborn who wanted to talk to everything alive. Well, the elves are older now by many Ages and have acquired "their own labours and sorrows." Sam has noticed this in Gildor's elves: ". . . so old and young, and so gay and sad, as it were." When asked by Frodo how he likes them, he replies wistfully, "They seem a bit above my likes and dislikes, so to speak." He feels the distance between the species too.

  Tolkien keeps probing into various facets of the differences between elf and mortal as the epic runs its course. But he knows he must keep showing the resemblances, too, if we are to believe in elves. Besides, Tolkien has a bone to pick with the view now current among us that elves are tiny and quaint, either in appearance or behavior. Physically the elves of Middle-earth look much like men: "They were tall, fair of skin and grey-eyed, though their locks were dark, save in the golden house of Finrod; and their voices had more melodies than any mortal voice that now is heard." Their clothes are not in any way peculiar, except the elven cloaks designed for camouflage. Elves have a particularly sustaining kind of bread and drink for wayfarers traveling far and light, but otherwise they eat the common foods. The banquet Elrond serves at Rivendell is eaten by elves, dwarves, hobbits, and men alike. Legolas needs no special diet while traveling with the Company. Gildor and his band may walk the dark woods in "a shimmer, like the light of the moon," but there is nothing ethereally unphysical about them. "Now is the time for speech and merriment!" he calls out, as bread, fruits, and liquor are passed around to elves and hobbits.

  Jokes and laughter are often on elves' lips, and their singing wrings the heart with mingled joy and sadness. They have the vitality of everlasting youth and the melancholy of their centuries. Legolas enjoys an endurance that never tires in the long chase after the ores, as well as a lightness of body that allows him to skim along on the crust of the snow of Caradhras when even the smaller hobbits break through the surface. He can always see farther than anybody else, and can hear the very stones of Eregion lamenting the passing of their elven masters many years before: " '. . . deep they delved us, fair they forged us, high they builded us; but they are gone . . . They sought the Havens long ago.' " Elf senses are keener, bodies more perfectly composed, than ours, as befits immortals, but they are still physical senses and bodies raised only a notch above the human, and not beyond the reach of our understanding. Elves are not immaterial spirits. They are not supernatural but "natural, far more natural" than man, Tolkien insists in the essay "On Fairy-stories."

  Over against the many elves who have abandoned Middle-earth, or who linger on uncaring, Tolkien sets the many others, past and present, who assume the burdens of its history. On Weathertop, where Elendil and his host once awaited his elfin allies led by Gil-galad in the Last Alliance, Sam chants the ballad of that last of the elvenkings, "whose realm was fair and free/between the Mountains and the Sea." Those were the days of elfin power and leadership. Gil-galad cared enough for the fate of Middle-earth to give up his otherwise immortal life for it in battle. The elves are far weaker in the Third Age and cannot take the offensive to oppose the reincarnated Sauron, but their tradition of concern is carried on by Elrond, who makes Rivendell a rallying point for all the races of Middle-earth endangered by the impending war. Born half-man, half-elf from the union of Eärendil the man with the elfin princess Elwing, and subsequently made all elf by the Valar, a veteran also of past battles against the Enemy, Elrond is the logical chairman, his house the inevitable place, for the Council of Free Peoples, which debates what to do with the Ring Frodo has just brought there. Yet the sorrow is that, whether Sauron wins or loses, Elrond and his elves will lose. If Sauron wins, they must flee Middle-earth or become his slaves. If Sauron loses, by the destruction of his Ring and theirs they must still flee, or diminish from their elf natures to a lesser breed. What holds Elrond to his task is what holds Galadriel, a moral choice that "what should be, shall be." It is enough.

  The Council at Rivendell is guided by "the long wisdom of Elrond." It is clear from the st
art that in his opinion the Ring should be melted down in the fires of Mount Doom, into which he long ago vainly urged Isildur to throw it. But with Gandalf s help, and Aragorn's, he skillfully nudges the discussion of the various speakers along in directions that will lead them to reach that decision for themselves. He is adamant that he himself will not handle the Ring in any way: "I fear to take the Ring to hide it. I will not take the Ring to wield it." If nothing else, this self-distrust of one of the noblest among the elves should prove that elves are not incapable of evil.9 Elrond's assent to Frodo's offer to take the Ring to Mordor arises from his faith that a higher providence is guiding the deliberations of the Council. Accordingly, in the search for a Ring-bearer he is not inclined to rely on the more obvious selection of candidates who axe wise and strong. The task may well be one for the weak, aided by the strength that is not of earth, for "such is the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must..."

  The same principle, together with a wise political expediency, seems to govern his choice of members of the Company that will go south with Frodo. Sauron has sowed distrust among the free peoples. Therefore each of these (save the ents, who are forestbound) must have a representative who, by living daily with the others, will help to constitute a community of mutual trust. Moreover, each will serve as an ambassador of good will to the different species he will meet along the road. No less than Gimli for the dwarves is Legolas an emissary for the elves, both races being now suspected by each other and by other races, especially men. Elrond might have picked a mighty elf lord like Glorfindel or an older, more experienced dwarf. Instead he prefers young and adaptable unknowns. Tolkien's point about Legolas, for instance, surely is that he is a rather typical young elf in whom the essential qualities of his people shine out most visibly. The close friendship that develops between Legolas and Gimli is exactly what Elrond hopes for.