On the slopes of Caradhras, the Fellowship is not merely uncomfortable. Snow is piling around them, the hobbits are succumbing to cold and exhaustion, and Boromir warns that unless something is done they may die where they sit. Gandalf reaches into his pack and produces a leather flask. Inside is miruvor, the precious Cordial of … Read more
Celeborn is one of the most familiar Elves in The Lord of the Rings and one of the most difficult to place securely in the deeper history of Middle-earth. When the Fellowship enters Lothlórien, there is little ambiguity about who he is in the Third Age: he is the Lord of the Galadhrim, the husband … Read more
Before the Black Riders attack at Weathertop, Aragorn gives the hobbits a grim estimate. On his own feet, in fair weather and without misfortune, he could reach the Ford of Bruinen in about twelve days. With four hobbits, avoiding the Road because of the Nazgûl, he expects the journey to take at least a fortnight. … Read more
Why the Noldor Could Not Simply Reproduce the Ships of the Teleri When Fëanor led the rebellious Noldor toward Middle-earth, one practical problem stood between his people and their destination: the Sea. The answer seemed to be waiting at Alqualondë. The Teleri possessed their famous white ships, vessels shaped in the likeness of swans and … Read more
Sam Gamgee enters the Tower of Cirith Ungol as almost the least likely figure imaginable to terrify a fortress of Orcs. He is a gardener from the Shire, alone in Mordor, frightened, exhausted, and searching desperately for Frodo. Yet by the time he climbs the Tower, the surviving Orcs are convinced that something far more … Read more
Among all the gifts carried out of Lothlórien, the cloaks are easy to underestimate. They are not as dramatic as Galadriel’s phial, not as precious as the three strands of hair given to Gimli, and not as obviously essential as the lembas that keeps the travellers moving when ordinary provisions would fail. They look, at … Read more
Gondolin is remembered as the Hidden City, but its secrecy depended on something more complicated than simply hiding a road. There really was a road into Tumladen. It could be discovered. It could be followed. People who knew it could even return by it. Yet none of those things meant that a traveller possessed the … Read more
Athelas should have been one of the most valuable medicines in Minas Tirith. When the wounded of the Pelennor are carried into the Houses of Healing, Faramir is slipping beneath the Black Shadow, Éowyn lies gravely stricken after confronting the Lord of the Nazgûl, and Merry has also been touched by that same deadly darkness. … Read more
Númenor received something that sounds almost like the answer to mortality. Its people were granted lives far longer than those of ordinary Men. The royal House of Elros enjoyed an even more extraordinary span, beginning with Elros himself, who lived for five hundred years. The early Númenóreans possessed health, knowledge, strength, wealth, and a beautiful … Read more
When Frodo leaves Henneth Annûn, he is no longer simply a lost traveller following the only guide who claims to know a road into Mordor. Faramir has changed that. Before their meeting, Frodo knows that Gollum is dangerous, unstable, and divided against himself. But he does not know the name of the mountain pass toward … Read more