Chapter 12: Flight to the Ford
After a day’s delay in my journey, I’m back on track, and oh my goodness, is this a wild chapter -- so many potential things to discuss! I’ve been really focused on the text itself for a couple of chapters, and I think I’d like to zoom out just a little to take in some extra-textual material again, as I did earlier with Gildor (and Bombadil). The reason for that is that I really need to look at the Nazgul this time around -- our only chance to see all nine of them together in one place -- and this chapter is one of our only glimpses of one of my favorite minor characters (yes, yes, after the fox, cheers to you if you read my Chapter 3 recap and remembered my woodland buddy): Glorfindel. Picking a piece of art for this dual focus today is tricky, but luckily there’s an artist online named Sebastian Giacobino who’s given me exactly what I want -- Glorfindel revealed in his glory, getting ready to lay a righteous elven smackdown on the Ringwraiths unfortunate enough to find themselves too close to the western bank of the Bruinen. https://i.imgur.com/74ieA2J.jpg So, who are the dudes pictured here?
The Nazgul, or Ringwraiths, we have of course heard of off and on for a while now -- Gandalf gave us a very brief description of them in summarizing millennia of Ring lore for Frodo in the study at Bag End back in Chapter 2 (wow, that feels like a long time ago -- for me and for them), and between glimpses of Black Riders in Chapters 3, 4, and 10, and their assault on Crickhollow followed by a way too up-close-and-personal encounter with them on the slopes of Weathertop in 11, we’ve gradually assimilated some understandings about them, but I haven’t bothered to stop and summarize them until this point. The Nazgul are in some ways the most haunting of Tolkien’s creations due to their origin story: as we slowly watch Frodo fade over the course of the novel, the spectral forms of the Ringwraiths will linger in our memory as a reminder of what happens to a mortal exposed too long to these arcane and terrible powers. We don’t know as much about them as you’d think -- we don’t even have vague identities for all nine, let alone names -- but we know they were mortal men, “kings” as they are generally referred to in shorthand, who desired power and were therefore easily bewitched by Sauron, who holds them now in thrall. One fun fact about them that you might not know -- I certainly didn’t at first -- is that the leader of the Nazgul got his name “the Witch-king of Angmar” AFTER he got wraithed. I grew up thinking that he’d been king of Angmar, taken the ring from Sauron, and got twisted by it, but nope. Centuries after they became wraiths, they actually set up their own “Witch-kingdom of Angmar” and the Lord of the Nazgul ruled that horrifying place, sending armies out from Angmar to destroy Arnor and Gondor (successful at one of the two aims) and slowly move towards restoring Sauron to power in Barad-dur, in Mordor. Yikes, right? You’ve got to figure Angmar was a creepy place to run a sandwich shop, is all I’m saying.
Anyway, what do we know about their terrible abilities? We know that in darkness they are especially powerful, and that at least to some extent they exist on an otherworldly plane in which they can, for instance, see Frodo even when he wears the Ring (in fact, ESPECIALLY when he wears the Ring). They seem to have the ability to throw their shadowy will onto others, given their hold on Frodo, and when Merry fell before one of them in the streets of Bree, Strider refers to it as him being overcome by the “Black Breath”, whatever that is. I find the sequence here at the end of the chapter really powerful in depicting their character -- they are certainly cunning, deploying their speed and numbers effectively to nearly cut off and surround Frodo (they clearly had not accounted for how important Glorfindel’s aid would be), and their harsh and chilling laughter at Frodo’s defiance is, to me, a real mix of confidence and arrogance and condescension. This is the power of the Ring -- spirits of men who should have long since taken the release of death, kept alive by their desire for control and their hatred of anyone whose strength is not bent in their service. Even their shattering at the Ford of Bruinen will not end their menace forever -- it will take the sacrifice that Frodo journeys to make in order to finally undo them. We have not seen our main antagonists very closely yet (nor will we, in Sauron’s case), but the Nazgul are a very effective stand-in, and the fear and horror they inspire will loom as a reminder to us and to those gathered in Rivendell of the consequences of failure.
Standing against the Nazgul in this chapter is our brave band of hobbits (who, we know, are really not equipped for that kind of conflict), Aragorn (who, though strong and skilled, is only human, after all), and Glorfindel, the Lord of the House of the Golden Flower. Whew. I would say don’t get me started about Glorfindel but this is my elf’s shining hour so you’d better believe I am going to get started about Glorfindel. In case this feels to you like me getting revved up about Gildor Inglorion, YEP, Glorfindel is older than the Sun itself, having been born in Valinor in the light of the Two Trees, and he left that place in the host of Turgon, alongside Gildor and the rest of the House of Finrod. So, when he rides up to Strider calling “Mae govannen” like it’s casual Friday, you’ve got to remember that this is a creature of almost impossible age and wisdom. But that doesn’t even tell half the story on Glorfindel.
Do you know about the fall of Gondolin? Of course you know, who am I kidding -- but let’s talk about it anyway. Way, way back in the First Age, Morgoth, Sauron’s boss from hell, learned of the secret location of the hidden city of Gondolin, and he rolled up on the place with a whole army of Balrogs (yes, dozens of them) leading in battalions of orcs and wolves. There was a pack of dragons -- a PACK of DRAGONS, I’m telling you -- in the mix too. And if you’re saying right now “Holy crap, The Silmarillion is metal as hell, why didn’t Amazon Prime spend a billion dollars putting THAT to film?” my answer is “I have no idea, I have been mailing copies of The Silmarillion to Jeff Bezos once a month for five years now.” Anyway. The attack hits Gondolin during a great festival, so the streets are full of children and the aged, etc., and the slaughter is horrifying. Fortunately there was a secret pathway out of the city up into the mountains, prepared by Idril, and she and Tuor led a whole bunch of civilians out that way, hidden in the smoke from the city’s ruin, and the people fled up into the pass of Cirith Thoronath, the Eagles’ Cleft, on a narrow path, when a Balrog and a big band of orcs ambushed them and were about to kill everybody.
Who steps up? That’s right, Glorfindel, Lord of the House of the Golden Flower, that’s who. Many are the songs that have been sung of the duel of Glorfindel with the Balrog upon a pinnacle of rock in that high place, and it is frankly baffling that Led Zeppelin didn’t write any of them because this seems made for them. Anyway, Glorfindel slew the Balrog by stabbing it in the gut, but in its fall the Balrog dragged him down to death also (this is a hazard of killing Balrogs, clearly) -- yet his sacrifice bought enough time for the people to escape, with a little help from some nearby eagles. “Wait, James,” you are saying to me, “I get that you’re excited here, but you’re mixed up, because Glorfindel can’t be dead at Gondolin in the First Age, he just showed up in the Third Age bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and very much alive.” Well yes, my friend, thank you for the segue, we are getting to another reason I love Glorfindel. Because, you see, he died, and Thorondor the Lord of the Eagles bore up his body from the ravine he had fallen into, and he was buried at Cirith Thoronath. His spirit passed, as the spirit of any dead elf does, to the Halls of Mandos. But the Valar were so moved by his sacrifice and the good deeds of his life that they decided to resurrect him -- they imbued him with even greater powers and sent him back to Middle-earth.
I know, I know, I promise not to retell passages of The Silmarillion too often here, because they do go on forever. But come on, right? Doesn’t that add a LOT to this moment? All I’m saying is that a lot of folks give Frodo Baggins help over the course of his journey, and I have plenty of respect for them all. But when Glorfindel looks into Frodo’s eyes and says, “you need not fear: my horse will not let any rider fall that I command him to bear”, a shiver goes up my spine. Because when Glorfindel tells you, “I am going to save your life,” he is not making a promise: he is telling the TRUTH. And when he calls “noro lim, noro lim, Asfaloth!” and the hair on my arms stands up, it’s because I see not only Frodo flung by those words towards the Ford of Bruinen atop a horse moving like a beam of light, I see also Idril and the shattered people of Gondolin hastening over the snow-swept pass, and Glorfindel turning with a terrible wrath in his eyes to oppose the flaming visage of a Balrog of Morgoth, alone. I get why Peter Jackson swapped him out for Arwen for the sake of establishing that Aragorn-Arwen relationship (and giving us at least one more meaningfully involved female character, which is awesome), but I hope you, in turn, get why there is a part of me that was seriously bummed out to lose Glorfindel. But I’ve got the books, so no shade, Liv Tyler -- your ride with Frodo aboard was exciting and your willing sacrifice to save him is also inspiring to me, and I love it every time.
Okay, I’ve already written way too much, but I do want to close with a little note or two about the relationship between Strider and the hobbits, which becomes even closer in this chapter. I love the little detail of Strider’s care for Frodo right after his stabbing at Weathertop, where he gives Merry and Pippin work to do getting a fire going, so that he can pull Sam aside and talk about how to care for Frodo, and what he thinks is happening. Strider’s attachment to Sam is especially sweet, to me, given how suspicious Sam has been of him -- honestly I feel as though his decision here to bring Sam into his counsel is one of the steps that makes Sam bolder, and more closely tied to Frodo and his quest. Sam clearly cares for Frodo, of course, but it’s Strider’s attention to him that allows him to feel more purposefully engaged. Strider could have done with Merry easily enough -- Merry’s more self-confident, a closer friend of Frodo’s (I think, initially), Merry even accompanied him up to the top of Weathertop along with Frodo, before. But in a crisis Strider seems to know who the bedrock of the group is -- he’s a smart leader, and he knows how to bring out the best in the people he’s leading. He also begins to open up to them -- when he talks to Pippin and Frodo a little about Rivendell, he tells them that “it is not my fate to sit in peace, even in the fair house of Elrond,” which is a pretty revealing admission in a lot of ways. It’s one of the questions Aragorn will have to face -- is his fate to remain a “Strider”, a shadow in the corner of the world, or might there be peace for him after all, and if so, where? So I like that it’s a subject he’s willing to raise with them. And I like that he laughs with them about the trolls -- the mood there, to me, is laughter at himself as much as at them, since he does chide them for not remembering that a troll would be stone in the sunlight, but he did forget this himself too, after all.
One book down -- five books to go. Tomorrow, Frodo will wake up in Book II, Chapter 1, for the first of Many Meetings.