Blogging The Silmarillion: The breaking of the siege of Angband and other (myth) busting

Part five of Blogging the Silmarillion continues with chapters 16-20 of the Quenta Silmarillion.

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By the command of Morgoth the Orcs with great labour gathered all the bodies of those who had fallen in the great battle, and all their harness and weapons, and piled them in a great mound in the midst of Anfauglith; and it was like a hill that could be seen from afar. Haudh-en-Ndengin the Elves named it, the Hill of Slain, and Haudh-en-Nirnaeth, the Hill of Tears.

—J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion, “Of the Fifth Battle”

If you had but four words to describe the action of Chapters 16-20 of The Silmarillion, you could do worse than all hell’s breaking loose. It’s a section I equate to a great turning of the tide against the forces of good.

In fact, Hell breaking loose is almost a literal interpretation of what happens in the fourth great Battle of Beleriand, the Dagor Bragollach (Battle of Sudden Flame). From the deep pits and mines of hellish Angband issue great streams of fire, followed by hosts of orcs, Balrogs, and the dragon Glaurung. It’s very much as if Gehenna, on the orders of Satan, were to empty its bowels of fell spirits and demons. The Noldorin guarding Angband are destroyed or driven back as Morgoth, pent up in his fortress for nearly 400 years, breaks out with a fury and a vengeance.

Seventeen years after this eruption, the forces of good marshal for another great cast at overthrowing Morgoth and ending his reign of terror. The result is the Nirnaeth Arnoediad (Battle of Unnumbered Tears), whose enduring image is a great hill of corpses of Elves, Men, and Dwarves, captured magnificently in the above piece of art by the incomparable Ted Nasmith. The Doom of the Noldor comes home fully to roost as the grieving wives and children of the slain indeed shed “tears unnumbered.” With the defeat, Elven might in Beleriand, save in a defensive capacity only, is smashed. It’s one of the greatest and at the same time most heartbreaking scenes of battlefield ruin I’ve read.

And Morgoth came...

These two battles also contain two of the finest (I’m tempted to say the finest) passages in fantasy literature. The first is from the Dagor Bragollach when Fingolfin, overflowing with wrath and despair following the rout and destruction of his brethren, rides to the gates of Angband and challenges Morgoth to single combat:

He passed over Dor-nu-Fauglith like a wind amid the dust, and all that beheld his onset fled in amaze, thinking that Orome himself was come: for a great madness of rage was upon him, so that his eyes shone like the eyes of the Valar. Thus he came alone to Angband’s gates, and he sounded his horn, and smote once more upon the brazen doors, and challenged Morgoth to come forth to single combat. And Morgoth came.

The other passage that leaves me breathless is Hurin’s last stand at the Nirnaeth Arnoediad:

Last of all Hurin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and seized the axe of an orc-captain and wielded it two-handed; and it is sung that the axe smoked in the black blood of the troll-guard of Gothmog until it withered, and each time that he slew Hurin cried aloud: ‘Aure entuluva! Day shall come again!’ Seventy times he uttered that cry; but they took him at last alive, by the command of Morgoth, who thought thus to do him more evil than by death. Therefore the Orcs grappled Hurin with their hands, which clung to him still, though he hewed off their arms; and ever their numbers were renewed, till he fell buried beneath them.

If these passages don’t move, inspire, or astound you, I encourage you to have your pulse checked.

In addition to the death of its best and bravest leaders, and the slaughter and enslavement of a great number of the Noldor, the Nirnaeth Arnoediad begins a dark age that lasts roughly one hundred years until the return of the Valar for the War of Wrath. With the power of Elves and Men destroyed and scattered, Morgoth’s forces largely have free reign to plunder and pillage. Much of Beleriand is razed.

In other words, it’s a bad ending for the forces of good, and gets at the very essence of why short-sighted critiques offered by the likes of Elric author Michael Moorcock and Richard Morgan, author of The Steel Remains, bother me so much. These guys claim to understand Tolkien, yet never bothered to read The Silmarillion. I say that with confidence because once you’ve read about Fingolfin’s battle with Morgoth at the gates of Angband, or the account of Rian weeping over the Hill of Slain, how can you reconcile such ludicrous statements as:

• There is no happy ending to the Romance of Robin Hood, however, whereas Tolkien, going against the grain of his subject matter, forces one on us – as a matter of policy. (Moorcock)

• Ponderous epic tones of Towering Archetypal Evil pitted against Irritatingly Radiant Good (oh – and guess who wins). (Morgan)

Against these two claims, I place on the other side of the scale the twin deaths of Fingon and Fingolfin. Now, you can make the case that Fëanor with his overbearing pride and Silmaril fixation had death coming to him, and therefore he’s not really a “good guy.” No such argument exists with Fingon and Fingolfin. These are beneficent, forgiving, courageous leaders of the Noldor. Yes, they were dragged along in Fëanor’s train and complicit in his rebellion against the Valar. But both paid their dues on the ice-clad sea of Helcaraxë and went on to rule their peoples with fairness and justice. They deserved victory. They didn’t get it.

Not only are both to die on the battlefield, but the manner of their deaths is quite grim, even gruesome (or as gruesome as Tolkien gets). First, we have Fingon pounded into gristle by Gothmog and the maces of his Balrogs:

Then Gothmog hewed him with his black axe, and a white flame sprang up from the helm of Fingon as it was cloven. Thus fell the High King of the Noldor; and they beat him into the dust with their maces, and his banner, blue and silver, they trod into the mire of his blood.

Then we get Fingolfin, his neck and body broken by Morgoth:

Thrice he was crushed to his knees, and thrice arose again and bore up his broken shield and stricken helm. But the earth was all rent and pitted about him, and he stumbled and fell backward before the feet of Morgoth; and Morgoth set his left foot upon his neck, and the weight of it was like a fallen hill… And Morgoth took the body of the Elven-King and broke it.

It bears mentioning that the author of said carnage saw similar scenes played out on one of mankind’s grimmest stages. Two of Tolkien’s best friends, Rob Gilson and Geoffrey Smith, were killed on World War I battlefields. Both were smart, promising young men who should have lived long and fruitful existences. Neither they—nor Fingon or Fingolfin—deserved death. But to borrow a quote from Unforgiven’s William Munny: Deserve’s got nothing to do with it. Sometimes—often times, truth be told—evil wins. War spares no one the sword or the arrow (or the machine gun bullet or the burst of shrapnel). It cuts down the worst and best alike. Tolkien understood this fact far better than his critics give him credit for.

So again I ask, happy endings? Somebody better explain that to trod-in-the-mire Fingon, or broken-bodied Fingolfin: If you find them in the Halls of Mandos, they have a different story to tell. Somebody better tell that to the people of Hithlum, who for the next hundred years after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad are to lose everything—their possessions, their homes, even their children—to roving bands of orcs and Easterlings.

In addition, somebody forgot to tell Gwindor—a Noldorin Elf forced to watch as a group of orcs brutally hack the hands, feet, and finally the head from his brother, Gelmir—that Tolkien was all about happy endings, and that better times were coming. In most authors’ hands Gwindor would have gotten his revenge and found a measure of solace, but in not Tolkien’s, who knew the realities of the long defeat and the capriciousness of death on the battlefield. Gwindor kills his brother’s tormentors, but his mission of revenge fails—all his men are slain, and he is imprisoned, spending years in toil and torment. Later he manages to escape, only to die in a hopeless defense of the Elven city of Nargothrond.

That Tolkien was soft and guilty of spoon-feeding his readers happy endings is pure myth-making, and not the definition of myth that Tolkien employed (an ancient tale told through fictional creations, but with truth at its heart). Rather, this canard fits the modern definition of myth—a perpetrated hoax that needs to be put to rest. The truth is right there in the text, and Tolkien’s ledger—the body of his legendarium—supports sadness, uncertainty, and unhappiness in the main.

In short, Moorcock and Morgan might be good writers of fiction, but as Tolkien critics they’re rather poor and imperceptive, and they certainly haven’t done their homework.

While the great defeats of the Wars of Beleriand dominate this section, there’s much more to recommend in these chapters of The Silmarillion. Some highlights include:

• Eöl the dark Elf, a short-lived but memorable character who sires the ill-fated Maeglin. Initially loyal, Maeglin, through a series of unfortunate events (his father is executed, and his love for a beautiful Elf princess goes unrequited), becomes a dark seed of evil who will eventually betray hidden Gondolin.

The first Bard's song...

• The coming of Men into the west. Tolkien paints a great scene of Finrod traveling alone in Ossiriand and finding the first Men to cross the mountains of Ered Lindon. Finrod waits until they’re sleeping, then, sitting beside their dying fire, picks up a harp and begins to play songs of the making of Arda and the bliss of Aman beyond the shadows of the sea. Slowly the Men awake, and listen in amazement: “Each thought that he was in some fair dream, until he saw that his fellows were awake also beside him.” Tolkien notes that these Men have a “darkness behind them,” which seems to imply some Edenic Fall, though this is never fully explained.

• Guerilla warfare waged by the Elves and Men after the Battle of Sudden Flame. The most famous of these is Beren (see below).

Terrific Tolkien: The tale of Beren and Lúthien

Handed a book with the synopsis, “Hero attempts to steal a great treasure, is thrown into a dark pit in which his companion wrestles and kills a werewolf,” most fantasy readers would naturally ask, Sounds awesome: What Robert E. Howard story is that again?

That this is actually a scene from “Of Beren and Luthien,” chapter 19 of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, speaks to both Tolkien’s surprising range as an author (he did write about more than just Elves and Hobbits), but also the sheer otherworldliness of this remarkable tale. In the midst of the two horrible battles described above comes this tale of remarkable bravery, sacrifice, and a love so powerful that it literally transcends death. Of all Tolkien’s stories, “Of Beren and Lúthien” feels the most otherworldly to me, a myth within a myth. It’s a work of unparalleled imagination that I can’t possibly do justice to here. Read it yourself.

Beren is of the race of Men, a valiant warrior who fights on guerilla-style with a small group of survivors after the Battle of Sudden Flame. Beren gains notoriety for his ferocious attacks on Morgoth’s forces, drawing the attention of the dark lord himself. Sauron dispatches orcs to kill off this band of fighters (one of whom is Barahir, Beren’s father), and with the hunters on his trail Beren is forced to flee. In the woods of Doriath he finds Lúthien dancing and singing. The pair soon falls in love.

Unfortunately, Lúthien is the daughter of Thingol, suspicious Elven king of Doriath. Thingol considers Beren unworthy of his daughter and saddles him with a seemingly impossible task: He can have his daughter’s hand in marriage only if he wrests one of the Silmarils from Morgoth’s iron crown. Beren responds that “when we meet again my hand shall hold a Silmaril from the Iron Crown.” It does, of course; Beren’s hand just happens to be in the belly of a wolf at the time. But he does fulfill his vow.

Artwork by Ted Nasmith.