[davem]

Now all roads were running together to the East to meet the coming of war and the onset of the Shadow.

I remember my first reading & I think the opening sentence of this chapter struck me most strongly. Its so ‘dynamic’ - for want of a better word. Suddenly things are moving. The ‘roads’ mentioned are obviously not actual roads so much as the ‘roads’ or paths that the people involved are on - these ‘roads’ are not so much being ‘followed’ as made. In a sense we are dealing with the Road -

‘Pursuing it with eager/weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths & errands meet,
And whither then, I cannot say.’

Many paths, many errands, many roads, because many individuals, all drawn together to meeet the coming of war & the onset of the Shadow.

Merry’s thoughts on this journey come across powerfully:

Merry looked out in wonder upon this strange country, of which he had heard many tales upon their long road. It was a skyless world, in which his eye, through dim gulfs of shadowy air, saw only ever-mounting slopes, great walls of stone behind great walls, and frowning precipices wreathed with mist. He sat for a moment half dreaming, listening to the noise of water, the whisper of dark trees, the crack of stone, and the vast waiting silence that brooded behind all sound. He loved mountains, or he had loved the thought of them marching on the edge of stories brought from far away; but now he was borne down by the insupportable weight of Middle-earth. He longed to shut out the immensity in a quiet room by a fire.

Why did he feel this way suddenly - this wasn’t the first time he had seen mountains? But its as though he has seen them for the first time, as though he has suddenly awakened to his own littleness in a very big world. Now, he is ‘borne down by the insupportable weight of Middle-earth.’ & he wants to shut it out. This is a kind of ‘mystical’ experience - seeing through the surface & experiencing the world as it is. These are not ‘storybook’ mountains made up of words, they are hard, solid rock, & they are threatening to crush him.

Of course, Merry is prone to these kind of ‘mystical’ experiences - we recall his ‘dream’ in the Barrow:

'What in the name of wonder?' began Merry, feeling the golden circlet that had slipped over one eye. Then he stopped, and a shadow came over his face, and he closed his eyes. 'Of course, I remember!' he said. 'The men of Carn Dum came on us at night, and we were worsted. Ah! the spear in my heart!' He clutched at his breast. 'No! No!' he said, opening his eyes. 'What am I saying? I have been dreaming. Where did you get to, Frodo?'

& his encounter with the Black Riders at Bree, where he ‘thought he had fallen into deep water’. He has come on this journey for a reason - one maybe which he himself did not fullly understand at the start. He was (he probably believed this himself) the ‘practical’ one, the one who would organise things & make sure it all went well. But there was another Merry buried down deep inside him, & it is this other Merry who has suddenly awakened, just for a moment, & seen the world for what it is. Then, the ‘old’ Merry reasserts itself, & he wants to run away to somewhere safe. There seems to be this ‘conflict’ going on in Merry all through the story so far, the ‘rational’ in conflict with the ‘non-rational’. It will take a traumatic experience on the fields of the Pelennor to produce ‘synthesis’ from this ‘thesis vs antithesis’, & he will tell Pippin that he has realised that he can honour the ‘great’ (the ‘weight of Middle-earth’ no longer ‘insupportable’) but that it is best to love first what one is fitted to love.

Turning to Theoden, We see that he has seen & accepted his destiny:

'This journey is over, maybe,' said Theoden, 'but I have far yet to go. Last night the moon was full, and in the morning I shall ride to Edoras to the gathering of the Mark.'
'But if you would take my counsel,' said Eomer in a low voice, 'you would then return hither, until the war is over, lost or won.'
Theoden smiled. 'Nay, my son, for so I will call you, speak not the soft words of Wormtongue in my old ears!' He drew himself up and looked back at the long line of his men fading into the dusk behind. 'Long years in the space of days it seems since I rode west; but never will I lean on a staff again. If the war is lost, what good will be my hiding in the hills? And if it is won, what grief will it be, even if I fall, spending my last strength? But we will leave this now. Tonight I will lie in the Hold of Dunharrow. One evening of peace at least is left us. Let us ride on!'

He has also accepted the loss of his son. Now Eomer is to be his ‘son’ & heir. Even as he acknowledges that he will not come through the forthcoming battle, he is looking to the future of his people. There are echoes of the ending of Beowulf - for those who wish to see them - in Theoden’s acceptance of his doom (& in the manner of his death), but I don’t think it is necessary to have read Beowulf to understand Theoden’s state of mind. His companions love him & wish to protect him, but like many old people what he wants most is to be useful, to serve his people. He has accepted his coming death, & only wishes it to be a ‘good’ death. He can even talk easily about it, his thoughts only for others, not for himself:

]'Greatly changed he seemed to me since I saw him first in the king's house,' said Eowyn: 'grimmer, older. Fey I thought him, and like one whom the Dead call.'
'Maybe he was called,' said Theoden; 'and my heart tells me that I shall not see him again.

Moving on. We are told, almost in passing, about the people who had lived in this land before the Rohirrim came there. Little is known of them. Why, because their tales have been lost. Like that of Rohan, there’s was an oral culture. When their stories were forgotten, so were they. Only the stones mark their passing, show that once they existed:

At each turn of the road there were great standing stones that had been carved in the likeness of men, huge and clumsy-limbed, squatting cross-legged with their stumpy arms folded on fat bellies. Some in the wearing of the years had lost all features save the dark holes of their eyes that still stared sadly at the passers-by. The Riders hardly glanced at them. The Pukel-men they called them, and heeded them little: no power or terror was left in them; but Merry gazed at them with wonder and a feeling almost of pity, as they loomed up mournfully in the dusk.

How long before these carvings are worn away to lumps of stone, & then those lumps of stone to nothing? Even now, while they are still recognisable, the Riders pay no attention to them;

Such was the dark Dunharrow, the work of long-forgotten men. Their name was lost and no song or legend remembered it. For what purpose they had made this place, as a town or secret temple or a tomb of kings, none in Rohan could say. Here they laboured in the Dark Years, before ever a ship came to the western shores, or Gondor of the Dunedain was built; and now they had vanished, and only the old Pukel-men were left, still sitting at the turnings of the road.