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[rake-the-leaves]

[rake-the-leaves]

Analysis of Ring-Verse

I’ve been thinking about the Ring-verse, which opens most copies of Lord of the Rings, and I can’t stress how MUCH of a good opening it is.

Again, it runs thus:

“Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,

Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,

Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,

One for the Dark Lord on his Dark Throne

In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,

One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them

In the Land of Mordor where the shadows lie.”

It sets a perfect tone for the book and for many of its central themes. Chief among these is the sense of the darkness (which the rest of the book seeks to contrast with light), an overpowering force, one which is in many ways greater than the forces of light. And in the context of it being a sequel to the Hobbit, where the ring there was nothing more than a neat treasure, it adds importance and seriousness to the fantasy (a thing Tolkien has personally noted many scholars don’t do in their approach to reading what might be called “mere” “fairy-stories”). It feels like stumbling into a vast conflict with background, and it instills peril and gravitas.

I find it interesting how it provides characterization for the fantastical races of his world. The numbers of the rings themselves displaying the amount of magic, power, and enchantment lies with each of the races. Elves are named first (which sidenote funnily enough follows his cosmological order for when each race woke up before or after the others) and only need 3 Rings of Power to strive for magic they have and still do possess; the Dwarves need 7 Rings, a greater number for perhaps a less magically “graceful” group; and the most rings, 9, is given to Men, because they for the most part approach our current age, being mostly unmagical. The beauty of Men is not one that has passed out of this world, like it has gone with Elves and even Dwarves; needing more Rings to equal the same strength, and showing how that power is more further divided than the others displays how it is in some degree a lesser, non-magical existence that we live in reality (an almost encroachment of reality within the fantastical, at least so far as it is a remnant of what in his cosmology leads us to today’s age). Anyways, they’re characterized in more than just hierarchy; the ending part of each displays their aspects and to a degree the themes that go with them. Elves are “under the sky”, in the open air amongst that all-important thing to Tolkien: nature. Them being “under” it also suggests the nature elves to be tied to the circles of the world. Dwarves are also located in “halls of stone”; this shows their craftiwork, their striving for grandeur and home in great works of statue and construction. For Men, they are “doomed to die”, which is a peak into Tolkien’s philosophy that a story dealing with men by its nature deals with mortality; and it’s a concept he explores further in Lord of the Rings.

It’s also partly important to look at Tolkien’s theories on fantasy, specifically one idea, in which fantasy and the use of monsters as enemies rather than other men brings a story to a higher, more glorious display of human light fighting darkness. Its monsters aren’t just ideas or wholly symbolical, but also real and incarnate, a higher ambition for what can be fought. And in this verse, Tolkien introduces the origin of and the incarnation of all darkness and high evil; he makes it incarnate with a name, Mordor. It’s where “the Shadows lie”, capital S, the evil that lurks within and outside of people becoming one incarnate, the Enemy, the Foe.

The definition of who this evil is is also interesting, the lord of the dark, the “Dark Lord” with his “Dark Throne” who make One Ring. One because that is as much room that power and selfishness will allow, and because to Tolkien, darkness is more powerful than light even if the latter is more good; “history is but a long defeat” as he says. This evil seeks to control every other (every other ring), “rule them all”, and it has a terror to pursue one (it does not wait, but grows should one live through the world as static and inactive against it) to “find them” to get its hands on power however necessary. Then, the ultimate goal of all evil hearts, domination of all, “bring them”, “bind them”. The repetition of “One Ring” puts stress on it obviously, yet as each step is a progression in the plans of evil, it feels as though the peril grows in each. Whoever ends up controlling the Ring, will give themselves up wholly to evil ends, and whoever stands in their way will be made to suffer too before the end. And the other repeated word makes clear that what stands against them is “all”, everyone and everything. This is the destruction that will be brought on earth and people utterly in the success of the Ring. The final repetition, of “In the Land of Mordor, where the Shadows lie”, shows in some sense a sorrow and contempt for the gravity that this origin of evil made physical has unleashed upon the world. A darkness growing in the poem as much as it will be seen to be growing in the world through the reading of the story. Despair, that later in the story, the miraculous hope that’s held on to seems noble to fight against.

One last element to talk about is its place within the world he created. It reads in rhyme to balance the rhythm of what is given stress, as could be useful in lore, as it is a rhyme meant for memory of the history of the Rings by the Elves. This can be guessed at, as a warning of sorts by some inhabitant of the world for first time viewers. And the fact that the One Ring part is a quote from the inscription on the ring itself, places it further as a poem residing in Tolkien’s created world. The One Ring part shows Sauron’s intent for evil with the ring…

this also gives a commentary on language later. These words are through the enchantment of magic given power over the rest of the power structures within the world of Middle-Earth at the genesis of the Rings in the Second Age. Language has power, and as the inscription isn’t in English but in Sauron’s Black Speech created by him and him alone, we see how this power put in the hands of a unitary figure (who has room for only One, themself) erases the beauty of history and of living goodness that can reside in their meanings and diversity.

So… from this one short verse, it introduces themes of nature, mortality vs. immortality, ordinary light vs. overpowering darkness; as well as vital concepts outside the work, such as language, the importance and effect of fantasy. As well as introducing the reader to the rules of his world and the plot to unfold, and setting tone.

[rake-the-leaves]

Potential play on words with “Prince of the Halflings”?

I have a possible suspicion, but which seems probably totally wrong. In Return of the King, Chapter 1 ‘Minas Tirith’, it’s said of Pippin’s favor amongst some Soldiers of Gondor: “There had already been much talk in the citadel about Mithrandir’s companion and his long closeting with the Lord; and rumor declared that a Prince of the Halflings had come out of the North to offer allegiance to Gondor and fiver thousand swords.”

Now, many reasons for the such a rumor perpetuating are already known, such as Pippin’s language with the king being informal, the desperate times meaning new arrivals often meant more numbers to follow, etc. But I was recently interested in Old English and I came across the word ‘æþeling’, meaning prince. And it is pronounced (you could say) like eye-thling, or if you smooshed the pronunciation afling. I wonder if Tolkien saw a similarity between æþeling and halfling and decided to play around with it.

This is somewhat faulty though, since the rumor wasn’t spread by the Old English-speaking Rohirrim, nor would it account for why they wouldn’t just call him “prince” (why would it in their minds be æþeling of the æþelings, they’d likely just assume you mean halfling when you say the word just by looking at him). The similarity could’ve been an inspiration, though it definitely doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in the text itself. Still got me kinda curious.