And yet, when the Nazgul, servants of Sauron, Ringwraiths, attack Aragorn, Frodo, and their companions on Weathertop, Frodo lunges out at the Lord of the Nazgul as the Ringwraith seeks to strike him with a deadly Morgul-blade. Frodo cries out, O Elbereth! Gilthoniel! A shrill cry is heard in the night. When all is over and the Nazgul have withdrawn Aragorn finds that Frodo’s sword has only cut the Lord of the Nazgul’s cloak. “More deadly to him was the name of Elbereth”, Aragorn tells the Hobbit. Did the name of Elbereth cause the Nazgul to cry out? When Frodo utters the name of Elbereth again at the Ford of Bruinen it has no apparent effect. But here he has nearly faded due to the Morgul-wound he has received, and his will and strength are greatly diminished. Frodo is on the border of the wraiths’ own world, the Unseen world. Nor is he wearing the One Ring as at Weathertop. It may be that Elbereth’s name indeed could hurt the Nazgul under the right circumstances. As he journeys Frodo becomes stronger of will, greater than he had been before, and Sam perceives him with other vision as a shining figure robed in white. There may be considerable benefit to wearing the One Ring, even for a Hobbit, when calling on great powers, despite the peril of succumbing to the Ring’s evil nature.
The Valar did not wholly abandon Middle-earth after the First Age. They sent the Istari, the Wizards, to counsel Men and Elves and aid them to resist Sauron. When Saruman was slain his spirit rose above his body as a fine mist, and appeared to look toward the West, but a wind blew it away to the East. One gets the impression that Manwe was paying attention to events in Middle-earth all the time, unwilling to take direct action, yet refusing to abandon the Free Peoples to the evils unleashed by his own people, the Ainur. When the Rohirrim were poised to swoop down upon the Pelennor fields, and as Aragorn was leading the captured fleet of the Corsairs up the river Anduin, a strong wind began blowing out of the west, pushing back the immense cloud Sauron had sent to cover Gondor and Rohan. If Manwe could have pressed back the darkness at any time, he must have waited until the forces of the West were in a position to drive back Sauron’s army. The Corsairs had already been defeated, and Saruman was no longer a threat to Rohan — the Battle of the Pelennor Fields was a turning point in the War of the Ring.
During the Battle of the Pelennor Fields two forms of magic clash when Merry strikes the Lord of the Nazgul from behind with the blade Tom Bombadil gave him. Bombadil, when he rescued Merry and his companions from the Barrow-wight, took the Wight’s treasure and piled it outside the mound where it had lain for so long. He took from it four knives which had been fashioned by the Dunedain of Cardolan many centuries before. Even at first sight, “the blades seemed untouched by time, unrusted, sharp, glittering in the sun.”
The weapons are clearly special, and later on Aragorn says of Merry and Pippin’s blades that the Orcs who took the Hobbits recognized them as “work of Westernesse, wound about with spells for the bane of Mordor.” With his blade Merry struck out blindly at the Lord of the Nazgul as the latter stood before Eowyn of Rohan. “No other blade,” Tolkien writes, “not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undeed flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will.”
Numenorean spell against Sauronian magic. For thousands of years the Lord of the Nazgul had served Sauron faithfully. He could, when his master was strong (and perhaps at other times), “take shape” and walk among the living again, wielding Morgul-blade and mace, riding horses, commanding armies. How can a wraith take shape? The nature of the “spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will” is not explained, but Gandalf explains to Frodo in Rivendell that “the black robes are real robes that [the Nazgul] wear to give shape to their nothingness when they have dealings with the living.”
It is not enough that Merry strike the robe of the Nazgul. After the encounter on Weathertop Aragorn finds a piece of tattered robe which Frodo’s blade had cut from the Lord of the Nazgul’s attire. “All blades perish that pierce that dreadful King” he tells the Hobbits. Frodo’s sword is still whole and usable. His stroke had missed the wraith. The robes may be magical artifacts, or they may simply be robes, used as ingrediants in some spell which gives the Nazgul the ability to move among the living. Shorn of their robes they must “return as best they could to their Master in Mordor, empty and shapeless” Gandalf concludes soon after the Nazgul have been defeated at the Ford of Bruinen. If the robes give them shape, they do not “knit [their] unseen sinews to [the Nazguls'] will”. The unseen sinews are the sinews of a wraith, but a wraith unnaturally retained in Middle-earth by some power. When they die, Men must leave the world. Their spirits must go elsewhere. Sauron has contravened this natural principle by imprisoning the Nazgul’s spirits in the world, and yet they act and function as independent beings still. They are slaves to his will, but their own wills remain intact, merely subverted to Sauron’s purposes but not replaced by his own.
So the spell that Merry’s blade breaks is the spell of Sauron’s devising, the power of the Nazgul’s Ring. In that much the Numenorean lore achieved a great deal against the power of the perverted Elven Rings. And yet the Lord of the Nazgul’s spirit does not leave Middle-earth immediately when it is defeated. Upon Eowyn’s mortal stroke the Lord of the Nazgul rises up into the air and his spirit flies wailing to Mordor, passing over Sam and Frodo on its way, no doubt, to its Master in the Barad-dur. A weak and impotent spirit, the Lord of the Nazgul no longer serves any useful purpose for Sauron, but it remains subject to his power nonetheless until that power is destroyed with the One Ring.
The Rings of Power are indeed the greatest magical artifacts made in Middle-earth. Sauron teaches the Elves of Eregion priniciples of sub-creation they have not yet learned, and one must wonder if these would not therefore be “forbidden arts”. Why did the Valar and Maiar not share this knowledge with the Elves in Aman? A key ingredient in the power of the Rings is the Morgothian element diffused throughout Arda, and especially that portion of the element which exists in gold. With these Rings the Elves hoped for “understanding, making, and healing” according to Elrond as he addresses his Council. Of the Three, Tolkien writes “those who had them in their keeping could ward off the decays of time and postpone the weariness of the world.” And “after the fall of Sauron [at the end of the Second Age] their power was ever at work, and where they abode there mirth also dwelt, and all things were unstained by the griefs of time.”
Tolkien explained the powers of the Rings more fully when writing to the publisher Milton Waldman:
“The chief power (of all the rings alike) was the prevention or slowing of decay (i.e., ‘change’ viewed as a regrettable thing), the preservation of what is desired or loved, or its semblance — this is more or less an Elvish motive. But also they enhanced the natural powers of a possessor — thus approaching ‘magic’, a motive more easily corruptible into evil, a lust for domination. And finally they had other powers, more directly derived from Sauron (’the Necromancer’: so he is called as he casts a fleeting shadow and presage on the pages of THE HOBBIT): such as rendering invisible the material body, and making things of the invisible world visible.
“The Elves of Eregion made Three supremely beautiful and powerful rings, almost solely of their own imagination, and directed to the preservation of beauty: they did not confer invisibility. But secretly in the subterranean Fire, in his own Black Land, Sauron made One Ring, the Ruling Ring that contained the powers of all the others, and controlled them, so that its wearer could see the thoughts of all those that used the lesser rings, could govern all that they did, and in the end could utterly enslave them. He reckoned, however, without the wisdom and subtle perceptions of the Elves. The moment he assumed the One, they were aware of it, and of his secret purpose, and were afraid. They hid the Three Rings, so that not even Sauron ever discovered where they were and they remained unsullied. The others they tried to destroy.”
(Tolkien, “Letters”, Letter 131)
According to “Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age”, “Sauron gathered into his hands all the remaining Rings of Power; and he dealt them out to the other peoples of Middle-earth, hoping thus to bring under his sway all those that desired secret power beyond their measure of their kind….And all those Rings that he governed he perverted, the more easily since he had a part in their making, and they were accursed….” (Tolkien, “Silmarillion”, p. 288)
Sauron’s motives are in some ways only a perversion of the Elves’. In Letter 131 Tolkien says “the Three Rings of the Elves, wielded by secret guardians, are operative in preserving the memory of the beauty of old, maintaining enchanted enclaves of peace where Time seems to stand still and decay is restrained, a semblance of the bliss of the True West.” The Elves, Tolkien says in Letter 154, “wanted to have their cake and eat it: to live in the mortal historical Middle-earth because they had become fond of it (and perhaps because they there had the advantages of a superior caste), and to so tried to stop its change and history, stop its growth, keep it as a pleasuance, even largely a desert, where they could be ‘artists’ — and they were overburdened with sadness and nostalgic regret.”
In Letter 181 Tolkien notes that “[the Elves] fell in a measure to Sauron’s deceits: they desired some ‘power’ over things as they are (which is quite distinct from art), to make their particular will to preservation effective: to arrest change, and keep things always fresh and fair.” And in Letter 144 he says “Though unsullied, because they were not made by Sauron nor touched by him, [the Three] were nonetheless partly products of his instruction, and ultimately under the control of the One. Thus…when the One goes, the last defenders of High-elven lore and beauty are shorn of power to hold back time, and depart.”
The magnitude of the Elvish achievement, and their arrogance, is thus quite immense. As the World itself is measured by Time and Space, the Elves hoped “to hold back time”, to “stop [Middle-earth's] change and history, stop its growth”, merely so that they could be “artists”, practicing their magics, revelling in the beauty of their youth and the youth of the world which had given birth to them. Could Celebrimbor alone have brought about this effect? Undoubtedly not. He was utilizing the knowledge Sauron had given him, and though only Celebrimbor forged the Three Rings, what were the Gwaith-i-Mirdain doing as he worked? They may indeed have gathered around him, singing and shedding of themselves such of their strength and power as they could spare.
The defeat of Eregion in war may not have been due simply to the overwhelming forces Sauron brought against the Elves. The Elves had beaten superior forces in the past. Sauron’s forces went up against more than just Eregion, as well: he attacked other Elven land in the east, and the Edainic peoples of Rhovanion and the Vales of Anduin. An entire civilization east of the Misty Mountains was destroyed and the lands of Eriador laid waste. The Elvenfolk of Eregion may have been drained of much strength, for their power outlived them and continued to work through the Three (and even through the Seven and the Nine, which they helped make). The Elves had found a way to contravene the natural order of the World. They worked a most potent magic indeed.
In the original material on languages which Tolkien composed for the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings, he included the following paragraph:
“$12 Moreover, those were the days of the Three Rings. Now, as is elsewhere told, these rings were hidden, and the Eldar did not use them for the making of any new thing while Sauron still wore the Ruling Ring; yet their chief virtue was ever secretly at work, and that virture was to defend the Eldar who abode in Middle-earth [added: and all things pertaining to them] from change and withering and weariness. So it was that in all the long time from the forging of the Rings to their ending, when the Third Age was over, the Eldar even upon Middle-earth changed no more in a thousand years than do Men in ten; and their language likewise.”
(Tolkien, “Peoples”, p. 33)
The holding back of Time thus worked even while the Rings were not worn by the Elves, and as the Seven and the Nine were made with similar goals they, too, must have had an effect on Time wherever they were kept. But the Three were immensely more powerful than the other Rings, and Celebrimbor valued the Three so highly that he died rather than reveal their locations to Sauron, though under great torment he gave up knowledge of the Seven.
Yet great though the power of the Elven Rings must be, that power had its limits. The effects seem to have been localized rather than completely diffused throughout Middle-earth. Perhaps if the Elves had been able to retain (and use) all the Great Rings they would have accomplished their goal on a broader scale. But in the Third Age we find evidence that the full effects of the Rings were felt in only two places: Rivendell and Lorien. When Bilbo and Frodo are speaking in Rivendell, Frodo asks Bilbo how long it will be before Frodo must leave on the Quest of Mount Doom. “Oh, I don’t know. I can’t count days in Rivdendell,” Bilbo tells him. Months later, after the Fellowship has departed from Lorien and been on the Anduin for some days, Sam becomes confused:
Sam sat tapping the hilt of his sword as if he were counting on his fingers, and looking up at the sky. ‘It’s very strange,’ he murmured. ‘The Moon’s the same in the Shire and in Wilderland, or it ought to be. But either’s out of its running, or I’m all wrong in my reckoning. You’ll remember, Mr. Frodo, the Moon was waning as we lay on the flet up in that tree: a week from the full, I reckon. And we’d been a week on the way last night, when up pops a New Moon as thing as a nail-paring, as if we had never stayed no time in the Elvish country.
‘Well, I can remember three nights there for certain, and I seem to remember several more, but I would take my oath it was never a whole month. Anyone would think that time did not count there!’
‘And perhaps that was the way of it,’ said Frodo. ‘In that land, maybe, we were in a time that has elsewhere long gone by. It was not, I think, until Silverlode bore us back to Anduin that we returned to the time that flows through mortal lands to the Great Sea. And I don’t remember any moon, either new or old, in Caras Galadon: only stars by night and sun by day.’
Legolas stirred in his boat. ‘Nay, time does not tarry every,’ he said, ‘but change and growth is not in all things and places alike. For the Elves the world moves, and it moves both very swift and very slow. Swift, because they themselves change little, and all else fleets by: it is a grief to them. Slow, because they do not count the running years, not for themselves. The passing seasons are but ripples ever repeated in the long long stream. Yet beneath the Sun all things must wear to an end at last.’
‘But the wearing is slow in Lorien,’ said Frodo. ‘The power of the Lady is on it. Rich are the hours, though short they seem, in Caras Galadon, where Galadriel wields the Elven-ring.’
‘That should not have been said outside Lorien, not even to me,’ said Aragorn. ‘Speak no more of it! But so it is, Sam: in that land you lost your count. There time flowed swiftly by us, as for the Elves. The old moon passed, and a new moon waxed and waned in the world outside, while we tarried there. And yestereve a new moon came again. Winter is nearly gone. Time flows on to a spring of little hope.’
(Tolkien, “Fellowship”, pp. 404-5)
Although Legolas here seems to disagree with Frodo’s assessment, he notes that “change and growth is not in all things and places alike.” Is Legolas perhaps dissimilating a little to protect an Elvish secret? Or is it simply that, being from Thranduil’s realm in northern Mirkwood, Legolas has too seldom experienced the power of the Three Rings in close proximity to recognize their effects? Aragorn confirms Frodo’s deduction: “There time flowed swiftly by us, as for the Elves.” The difference was more noticeable to Mortals than to Legolas.
The Rings of Power are the greatest artifacts of magic in all Tolkien’s works. Even the holy Silmarils made by F anor, though far more ancient and long-lasting than the Rings, do not actively work upon their environment. They preserve the light of the Two Trees and do not tolerate the touch of any evil creature. By the power of a Silmaril E rendil sailed through the Shadowy Seas and past the Enchanted Isles and so reached the shores of Aman despite the considerable power of the Valar. But F anor did not seek to pervert the natural order of the World. He merely sought to bring into being a new Beauty, and though his pride and arrogance caused him to withhold that Beauty from all others, it was not wholly his own creation (or, sub-creation). Varda hallowed the Silmarils, and without that special Ainurian blessing they would have been less than they became. They might not have been the key to the resolution of the great and terrible war which was fought over them.