dhmontgomery
New Member
Hello all! Like many recent posts here, I'm working my way through the backlog, and am currently on Session 93, covering the confrontation between Frodo and the Nazgûl at the Ford of Bruinen. In this episode and the one prior, there was considerable discussion of Frodo's dialogue defying the Ringwraiths:
In particular, there was a lot of talk about whether "By Elbereth and Lúthien the Fair" was an oath, whether it was an invocation to these figures for protection (like a Catholic saint), or something else.
Though I won't likely hear any live discussion of this point for months or years, given my current position in the rewatch and the entire Council of Elrond looming ahead, I wanted to offer a different perspective now, both because it's fresh in my mind, and also because I think this insight could be helpful in interpreting future events in the book. (Unless someone else has already mentioned these insights in the years since this live discussion!)
What follows is drawing heavily on Agnieszka Tańczuk's article “The Language of Magic in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Works” from Arda Philology 3, as well as other works and my own reading.
Though magic in Tolkien is often depicted as the softest of "soft magic," his use of what I call Word-Magic seems like it follows some pretty clear, if entirely unstated, rules. The basic form is that someone makes a statement and, exerting their will and power, causes that statement to be true. For example, "Your staff is broken," and it was. Corey mentioned that example in particular in relation to this confrontation at the Ford, though he focused on the difference in tense between that present-tense declaration and Frodo's declaration about the future.
But there are other formulaic elements that seem important as well, in Tolkien's use of Word-Magic:
Not all of these appear every time someone uses Word-Magic in Tolkien, but we pretty consistently see several of them pop up — the speaker has to have the thing they want to make true, and they have to establish their power to make that thing happen.
The most classic example is Gandalf at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm:
Here we see Gandalf make a statement of reality (repeated a potent three times for good measure) — and of course the Balrog does not pass. Gandalf was not simply talking tough, he was working magic. Of course, the Balrog was a being of power, a Maia like Gandalf, so to prevent the Balrog from passing Gandalf invokes his own power (that he is a "servant of the Secret Fire" and "wielder of the flame of Anor") and denigrates the Balrog's own power (his "dark fire" will "not avail" him). This invocation seems crucially important to the success of what Gandalf is trying to do — he is not simply invoking his own power, but is drawing on the support of a mystical and divine power greater even than him.
I think that's the pattern we should read into Frodo's declaration at the Ford:
Frodo first attempts to defy the the Riders with a simple command — but of course he is not a being of great power; he "had not the power of Bombadil." They do halt, but only for a moment, then surge forward. Frodo then tries a second time, but this time he invokes a greater power to bolster his commands — Elbereth and Lúthien. And it works! The Nazgûl do not acquire either the Ring or Frodo! The fact that this is made true by an apparently unrelated outside force is entirely typical for Tolkien — in Return of the King, we have another confrontation where someone attempts to stop a Nazgûl from crossing a threshold; Gandalf tells the Witch-king "You cannot enter here" at the gates of Minas Tirith, and indeed he does not, called away by the sudden horns of the arriving Rohirrim.
But Frodo is no wizard. Why would he know the proper forms for working Word-Magic that is largely beyond his meager power, anyway? Well, it's possible this is the sort of thing an educated hobbit like Frodo would have picked up from reading classic stories — the sort of way the Heroes of Old are always talking in the face of great peril, even if he doesn't understand the significance behind the forms.
I'm not sure this guess is necessary, though, because Frodo has a direct example of how Word-Magic works, an example name-checked in this exact passage: Tom Bombadil. (Indeed, while the Bombadil chapters are a strange interlude in a lot of ways, one thing they do do is provide us with an excellent tutorial in how Word-Magic works in Tolkien, ahead of a number of much more subtle uses.)
The only power Tom Bombadil invokes here is his own, but of course Tom does not need an outside boost, not against the likes of Old Man Willow, anyway. Against the Barrow-wights, Tom exerts a little more effort:
I could cite other examples, but I've gone on long enough, especially if this post is going to end up excerpted on a slide! In short, I think the way Word-Magic works in Tolkien involves invoking either one's own power or an outside force to bolster the force of one's words. We can see that clearly in Frodo's defiance at the Ford of Bruinen, in Gandalf's stand at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, and lots of other examples throughout the books.
I look forward to finding out if this got discussed in a year or two!
In particular, there was a lot of talk about whether "By Elbereth and Lúthien the Fair" was an oath, whether it was an invocation to these figures for protection (like a Catholic saint), or something else.
Though I won't likely hear any live discussion of this point for months or years, given my current position in the rewatch and the entire Council of Elrond looming ahead, I wanted to offer a different perspective now, both because it's fresh in my mind, and also because I think this insight could be helpful in interpreting future events in the book. (Unless someone else has already mentioned these insights in the years since this live discussion!)
What follows is drawing heavily on Agnieszka Tańczuk's article “The Language of Magic in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Works” from Arda Philology 3, as well as other works and my own reading.
Though magic in Tolkien is often depicted as the softest of "soft magic," his use of what I call Word-Magic seems like it follows some pretty clear, if entirely unstated, rules. The basic form is that someone makes a statement and, exerting their will and power, causes that statement to be true. For example, "Your staff is broken," and it was. Corey mentioned that example in particular in relation to this confrontation at the Ford, though he focused on the difference in tense between that present-tense declaration and Frodo's declaration about the future.
But there are other formulaic elements that seem important as well, in Tolkien's use of Word-Magic:
- An assertion of reality that the speaker would make true
- Imperative commands to make someone else obey
- Invocation of the speaker's power and station
- Denigrations of the power and station of the speaker's opponent
Not all of these appear every time someone uses Word-Magic in Tolkien, but we pretty consistently see several of them pop up — the speaker has to have the thing they want to make true, and they have to establish their power to make that thing happen.
The most classic example is Gandalf at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm:
Here we see Gandalf make a statement of reality (repeated a potent three times for good measure) — and of course the Balrog does not pass. Gandalf was not simply talking tough, he was working magic. Of course, the Balrog was a being of power, a Maia like Gandalf, so to prevent the Balrog from passing Gandalf invokes his own power (that he is a "servant of the Secret Fire" and "wielder of the flame of Anor") and denigrates the Balrog's own power (his "dark fire" will "not avail" him). This invocation seems crucially important to the success of what Gandalf is trying to do — he is not simply invoking his own power, but is drawing on the support of a mystical and divine power greater even than him.
I think that's the pattern we should read into Frodo's declaration at the Ford:
Frodo first attempts to defy the the Riders with a simple command — but of course he is not a being of great power; he "had not the power of Bombadil." They do halt, but only for a moment, then surge forward. Frodo then tries a second time, but this time he invokes a greater power to bolster his commands — Elbereth and Lúthien. And it works! The Nazgûl do not acquire either the Ring or Frodo! The fact that this is made true by an apparently unrelated outside force is entirely typical for Tolkien — in Return of the King, we have another confrontation where someone attempts to stop a Nazgûl from crossing a threshold; Gandalf tells the Witch-king "You cannot enter here" at the gates of Minas Tirith, and indeed he does not, called away by the sudden horns of the arriving Rohirrim.
But Frodo is no wizard. Why would he know the proper forms for working Word-Magic that is largely beyond his meager power, anyway? Well, it's possible this is the sort of thing an educated hobbit like Frodo would have picked up from reading classic stories — the sort of way the Heroes of Old are always talking in the face of great peril, even if he doesn't understand the significance behind the forms.
I'm not sure this guess is necessary, though, because Frodo has a direct example of how Word-Magic works, an example name-checked in this exact passage: Tom Bombadil. (Indeed, while the Bombadil chapters are a strange interlude in a lot of ways, one thing they do do is provide us with an excellent tutorial in how Word-Magic works in Tolkien, ahead of a number of much more subtle uses.)
The only power Tom Bombadil invokes here is his own, but of course Tom does not need an outside boost, not against the likes of Old Man Willow, anyway. Against the Barrow-wights, Tom exerts a little more effort:
I could cite other examples, but I've gone on long enough, especially if this post is going to end up excerpted on a slide! In short, I think the way Word-Magic works in Tolkien involves invoking either one's own power or an outside force to bolster the force of one's words. We can see that clearly in Frodo's defiance at the Ford of Bruinen, in Gandalf's stand at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, and lots of other examples throughout the books.
I look forward to finding out if this got discussed in a year or two!
