The Fellowship of the Ring as an
Epic Fairytale
The Fellowship of the Ring
is at once an epic tale along the lines of Beowulf and Sir Gawain and
the Green Knight and a fairy tale about a simple hero thrust into the
turbulent currents of the world. The hero, Frodo Baggins of Bag End, a hobbit
of The Shire, is anything but the hero of an epic quest. Beowulf was said to
possess legendary strength, and Gawain, despite being the youngest in the
court, has a reputation as an accomplished knight. Frodo, on the other hand,
possess none of these qualities, at least it seems so. He considers himself a
simple hobbit of The Shire, he enjoys the company of friends, food and drink,
sleeping late, tramping through all the familiar paths of Hobbiton. As his
Uncle Bilbo puts it, “He [Frodo] would come with me, of course, if I asked him.
In fact he offered to once, just before the party. But he does not really want
to, yet. I want to see the wild country again before I die, and the Mountains;
but he is still in love with the Shire, with woods and fields and little
rivers.” (Fellowship of the Ring, pg. 32)
Not even Frodo can avoid hearing the
call to adventure forever, however. It comes to him, just as it came to Bilbo,
through the old wizard Gandalf. This estimable character arrives at Bag End one
day with disturbing news about Frodo’s gold ring. After a long conversation,
Gandalf gets to his most shocking bit of information: “This is the Master-ring,
the One Ring to rule them all. This is the One Ring that he lost many ages ago,
to the great lessening of his power. He greatly desires it – but he must not get it” (The Fellowship of the Ring,
pg. 49). This is Frodo’s call to adventure. He accepted it, reluctantly, and in
doing so began in a small way to show real heroic qualities sleeping under the
surface. As Nathalie Giraurd says, “It is also important to note that the hero
always accepts what Joseph Cambell calls ‘The Call to Adventure’”(Nathalie
Giraurd, J.R.R Tolkein’s The Hobbit: An Unlikely Hero Driven to Heroism). Later, Frodo hears the Call to Adventure
repeated by more voices at the Council of Elrond. He demonstrates even more
clearly heroic qualities lying beneath the surface by voluntarily accepting the
Quest of the Ring.
An epic hero as from the old tales
undertakes his quest alone. Bilbo, near the end of his own story accomplishes
this. He and the dwarves have arrived at the Mountain, but they do not know
what to do, and it is Bilbo who provides a solution. “Now I will make you an
offer,” he says, “I have got my ring and will creep down this very noon…and see
what he [Smaug] is up to,” (the Hobbit, pg.221). Frodo, from beginning to end has at least one
companion; though the breaking of the Fellowship is similar to continuing on
alone. For the majority of the journey, however, he has eight companions, one
of whom is rather important, and demonstrates another aspect of the mix between
epic and fairy tale in this book: Aragorn son of Arathorn. His life has been
spent in solitary wanderings, as he tells Boromir at the Council. “I have had a
hard life and a long; and the leagues that lie between here and Gondor are a
small part in the count of my journeys. I have crossed many mountains and many
rivers and trodden many plains, even into the far countries Rhun and Harad
where the stars are strange…Lonely men are we, Rangers of the wild, hunters-but
hunters ever of the servants of the Enemy,” (Fellowship of the Ring, pg. 242).
He is also the possessor of a
legendary sword: Narsil, blade of Elendil that broke beneath him when he died
in the Battle of the Last Alliance. Aragorn renamed it Anduril. Frodo also
carries a sword of legend inherited from Bilbo. The blade Sting that Bilbo acquired
on his journey made long ago by Elven smiths. A few of the other characters are
bearers of legendary weapons as well. Gandalf, who bears along with his staff,
the Elven sword Glamdring, once born by the king of the great city Gondolin in
the Elder Days. Even Pippin and Merry, the youngest of the Company have swords
that while unnamed, have legendary beginnings, made by the men of Westernesse;
Numenorians.
According to Giraurd another
“characteristic of the epic hero is his noble origin,” (Nathalie Giraurd, J.R.R
Tolkein’s The Hobbit: An Unlikely Hero Driven to Heroism). Frodo, however more
resembles the hero of a fairytale: An average man who becomes great. Aragorn
however is of noble lineage, as he proclaims to Eomer, on the fields of Rohan,
“ ‘Elendil’ he cried, ‘I am Aragorn son of Arathorn, and am called Elessar, the
Elfstone, Dunadan, the heir of Isildur Elendil’s son of Gondor. Here is the
Sword that was Broken and is forged again! Will you aid me or thwart me? Choose
swiftly!’” (The Two Towers, pg. 423). Legolas and Bormir are of noble birth as
well, though neither of them are the hero of the story. Boromir is the son and
heir of the steward of Gondor, and Legolas is the son of Thranduil, Elven king
of Mirkwood.
Loyalty is a virtue esteemed by
people of all kinds. There should be no
surprise then, in the fact that loyalty is one of the qualities in an epic
hero. Sir Gawain even lays his own life in danger in order to save King Arthur.
While this trait can be seen in the Fellowship of the Ring, it is not in the
hero that it is most profoundly demonstrated. Instead, Sam Gamgee, Frodo’s servant
shows true loyalty with poignant clarity. He recounts to Frodo a conversation
and says, “ ‘Leave him!’ I said, ‘I never mean to. I am going with him, if he
climbs to the Moon, and if any of those Black Riders try to stop him, they’ll
have Sam Gamgee to reckon with,” (The Fellowship of the Ring, pg. 85). Pippin
and Merry appear at first to simply be young, fun loving hobbits, but they
prove themselves to be much, much more. They voluntarily choose to leave the
Shire with Frodo, even though it would appear to be safer to stay home. Later
on, after seeing the dangers of the harsh world outside the Shire, they still
affirm the fact that they are willing to journey with Frodo all the way to
Mount Doom. Aragorn too, is loyal to Frodo. He demonstrates his loyalty before
he really even knows them, indeed it is in defending himself against Sam’s
doubts that he does so: “But I am the
real a Strider fortunately… I am Aragorn son of Arathorn, and if by life or
death I can save you, I will,” (Fellowship of the Ring, pg. 168). Like every other virtue, loyalty has an
opposite: Disloyalty. If Aragorn and the hobbits display loyalty, Boromir shows
disloyalty. This may seem an odd choice on Tolkien’s part, but the vice puts
the virtue in clear relief. By demonstrating disloyalty and the ensuing chaos,
the value of loyalty and the peace it provides becomes all the more clear.
Previously mentioned, an epic
hero takes on his quest alone, while a fairy tale hero does not necessarily go
alone. In this area, Tolkien blends the two. While characters often take on
their quests together, each character must undertake his or her own journey. Eowyn,
niece of Théoden king of the Riddermark, is just one example of this. Eowyn
sees what her uncle cannot: war is encroaching all around their land. She sees
that her father’s counselor, Grima, is a traitor, trying to destroy Rohan
through its own king. She feels impotent; longing to do something but unable.
She is not afraid of danger, and when Aragorn asks her what she does fear, she
answers, “A cage… To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and
all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire,” (Return of
the King, pg. 767). Afterwards, when her
uncle’s host has come, and prepares to depart, she disguises herself, and rides
with the company. In one sense, she is part of a company, in another she rides
alone. At the end of her journey, she
acts in true heroic fashion, and slays a great monster, the Witch King, chief
of the Nazgul. She has (unbeknownst to her) the assistance of Merry in this
feat, but she is the one who executes the killing blow; receiving a mortal
wound in the process. When she recovers, returning from the doors of death, she
finds she has learned wisdom.
Great
physical strength, coupled with courage and bravery are much admired traits of
epic heroes. Frodo is no possessor of great strength, though many of his
companions are. Legolas, an elf, Gimli, a stout dwarf, wields his axe with
great strokes, Aragorn and Boromir, both men of courage and valor, and Gandalf,
who possesses strength that belies the appearance of age. Frodo has not the
strength of these, but as Elrond said, “This quest may attempted by the weak
with as much hope as the strong,” (The Fellowship of the Ring, pg. 262). As for courage, it is not lacking in Frodo,
only it sleeps; waiting for the right moment to show itself. And when it is
revealed it is as great as that in the hearts of the strong. When he and the
other hobbits, led by Aragorn camp on Weathertop, Frodo’s courage wakes for the
first time. The Witch King attacked Frodo, and even though Frodo succumbed and
put the Ring on, he still acted bravely; shouting and slashing at the Nazgul.
Later, in Moria, Frodo’s courage is demonstrated again: “Suddenly, and to his
own surprise, Frodo felt a hot wrath blaze up in his heart. ‘The Shire’ he
cried, and springing beside Boromir, he stooped and stabbed with Sting at the
hideous foot,” (The Fellowship of the Ring, pg. 316). There is also courage to be found in
endurance. A lesser heart would not endure forever, and Frodo endured and
fought to the end. Even as they neared Mordor, and the Ring grew stronger, taking
over more of Frodo’s mind, he, with a great effort of will, forced himself to
keep going.
Frodo also learned wisdom, even
before his quest was finished. Before he left, he possessed some small wisdom
after a Shire-like fashion. He knew that there was a world outside the Shire,
and that no matter how isolated it seemed, the Shire would be affected by the
events that took place there. But as his journey progressed, he learned more
wisdom. Perhaps this is shown most poignantly in his views about Gollum. At the
beginning he tells Gandalf, “But I am frightened, and I do not feel any pity
for Gollum…Do you mean to say that you, and the Elves, have let him live on
after all those horrible deeds? Now, at any rate he is as bad as an Orc, and
just an enemy. He deserves death,” (Fellowship of the Ring, pg. 58). Later on,
he actually meets Gollum. In a new
answer to that previous conversation he says, “Very well…But I am still afraid.
And yet, as you see, I will not touch the creature. For now that I see him, I
do pity him,” (Two Towers, pg. 601).
In every part of the book,
aspects of both an epic and a fairy tale can be seen. There are many more
numerous demonstrations of this throughout the book. This mixture creates
something unique; a something that appeals to both the part of us that wants an
epic, something superhuman and awe-inspiring, and also to the part that wants a
fairy tale, something that we can relate to, a hero we can feel for, empathize
with. The Fellowship of the Ring pulls off this feat magnificently.
An there you have it, folks. The. End. Of. Timothy. Perhaps a social life will come to me now?
