![]() ![]() As Gandalf had said their coming to Fangorn “was like the falling of small stones that starts an avalanche in the mountains”. ![]() Then when he and Merry were carried by orcs to the eaves of Fangorn Forest in time to awaken the Ents from their long slumber and to destroy Isengard and Saruman’s power. First when he awoke the Balrog of Moria by dropping a stone into the guardroom well, driving Gandalf into a terrible conflict with a mighty foe and then through death itself before returning with power increased for the final struggle. And what Pippin does is to move the story forward time and again. As he wrote himself, “the tale grew in the telling”, not just in length but depth also. Tolkien himself had asked the question, “What more can hobbits do?” after his publishers had asked for more about them following the success of The Hobbit and it took him a long time to find out. Perhaps Bilbo was not the first attempt to put the Ring into the gentle hands of a hobbit but with Déagol all had ended tragically and for hundreds of years the Ring had lain hidden beneath the Misty Mountains. It was a hobbit that was meant to find the Ring and to watch over it for a while. What Gandalf meant by this was that he had a sense that he could discern the hand of God, of Eru Ilúvatar, in all the strange events that had led the Ring, first to Bilbo and then to Frodo. It was Gandalf who said to Frodo that he was meant to have the Ring and that this was an encouraging thought. Pippin is kind of divine agent-provocateur within the story and I choose the word, divine, with care here. I would argue that in this, as with all the history of Peregrin Took within The Lord of the Rings, we learn something much more profound. Soon, when Aragorn presents himself before Sauron he will learn his mistake but now for a little while he is filled with anticipation at what he will soon know, or even possess.Ī disaster has been averted and Gandalf repeats Gildor’s advice to Pippin but is that all we learn? He even assumes that what he sees is a prisoner in Orthanc being paraded in front of him for his inspection. Thankfully at this point Sauron knows nothing of this. ![]() Peter Xavier Price depicts Pippin’s eagerness to look into the Palantír. Maybe even where the Ring was and how he might find it. Had he done so he would soon have learned much of all his enemies’ plans. So confident was he that he would soon have Pippin before him in person that he did not continue his questioning at that moment. Sauron would send a Nazgûl to Orthanc to bring Pippin to him for further interrogation and, perhaps, to bring him the Ring itself. It was only because Sauron did not think he needed him that he was set free at all. What he saw terrified him because he saw the Dark Lord himself in Barad-dûr. And so when they all slept in a camp on the road from Isengard to Helm’s Deep he crept silently to where Gandalf lay, took it, and then settled down to take a good look at it.Īnke Eissman shows us the moment when Pippin steals the Palantír from Gandalf. Gandalf had taken it from him as quickly as possible but Pippin could not get it out of his mind. ![]() It was Pippin who first picked up the stone after Wormtongue threw it down from a window in Orthanc, hoping to kill one of the party that had parleyed with Saruman at its doors. About the wisdom found in The Lord of the Rings, but what wisdom do we learn from Peregrin Took in the matter of the Orthanc-stone except, perhaps, as Merry said to his friend, quoting Gildor Inglorion, “Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards for they are subtle and quick to anger”? This is supposed to be a blog about wisdom. The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. ![]()
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