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Hamfast Gamgee
Dor-Lomin
Wed, 9:59am
Post #1 of 5
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Merrys sword against the witch-king
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I was re-reading the Two Towers recently and reading the early chapters thought of something. I do occasionally. But when Merry and Pippin where captured by the Orcs in Rohan they had their weapons taken away. Including the swords from the Barrow-Downs. Now in the forthcoming chapters the weapons where not returned or I cant find anywhere in the text that they where maybe someone knows. Two knives where but not the Barrow-Down swords. So I don't quite understand how Merry could have had it to stab the Witch-King on the Pellenor Fields.
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squire
Gondolin
Wed, 12:52pm
Post #2 of 5
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What was called a knife earlier in the story is re-named as a sword at the climactic moment
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In the book there is a running theme that what Men call 'knives' will serve as 'swords' for Hobbits, due to their smaller size.
Here is where Tom gives the hobbits their weapons:
For each of the hobbits he chose a dagger, long, leaf-shaped, and keen, of marvellous workmanship, damasked with serpent-forms in red and gold. They gleamed as he drew them from their black sheaths, wrought of some strange metal, light and strong, and set with many fiery stones. Whether by some virtue in these sheaths or because of the spell that lay on the mound, the blades seemed untouched by time, unrusted, sharp, glittering in the sun.
‘Old knives are long enough as swords for hobbit-people,’ he said. ‘Sharp blades are good to have, if Shire-folk go walking, east, south, or far away into dark and danger.’ Then he told them that these blades were forged many long years ago by Men of Westernesse: they were foes of the Dark Lord, but they were overcome by the evil king of Carn Dûm in the Land of Angmar.
And here is where Aragorn returns their lost blades to Merry and Pippin:
‘Here are some treasures that you let fall,’ said Aragorn. ‘You will be glad to have them back.’ He loosened his belt from under his cloak and took from it the two sheathed knives.
‘Well!’ said Merry. ‘I never expected to see those again! I marked a few orcs with mine; but Uglúk took them from us. How he glared! At first I thought he was going to stab me, but he threw the things away as if they burned him.’
And here, finally, is the fatal scene on the Pelennor Fields. But we notice that what have been called knives or daggers or blades, is here called a 'sword'. But there is no doubt that the sword is simply the knife of the Barrowdowns that Merry has been carrying with him throughout the quest:
But suddenly he too stumbled forward with a cry of bitter pain, and his stroke went wide, driving into the ground. Merry’s sword had stabbed him from behind, shearing through the black mantle, and passing up beneath the hauberk had pierced the sinew behind his mighty knee.
This final passage confirms the connection, even as it continues to use the new word 'sword' rather than knife, dagger, or blade. Perhaps Tolkien wanted to elevate Merry's heroism by renaming the knife as a 'sword', such as heroic Men like Aragorn and Eowyn wield in their own heroic moments!
Then he looked for his sword that he had let fall; for even as he struck his blow his arm was numbed, and now he could only use his left hand. And behold! there lay his weapon, but the blade was smoking like a dry branch that has been thrust in a fire; and as he watched it, it writhed and withered and was consumed.
So passed the sword of the Barrow-downs, work of Westernesse. But glad would he have been to know its fate who wrought it slowly long ago in the North-kingdom when the Dúnedain were young, and chief among their foes was the dread realm of Angmar and its sorcerer king. No other blade, not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will.
squire online:
Unfortunately my longtime internet service provider abandoned its hosting operations last year. I no longer have any online materials to share with the TORn community.
 = Forum has no new posts. Forum needs no new posts.
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CuriousG
Gondolin
Wed, 8:17pm
Post #4 of 5
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In case someone with HOME at hand [i]doesn[/i]'t chime in, I do vaguely recall from past discussions that Frodo's sword was enchanted as well, and the fact that he missed the Wi-king still impressed on the latter that there was some magic present in the sword/knife that was harmful to him, which was part of the reason he withdrew so easily from the Weathertop fight (if you're like me and can't figure out why Aragorn and a burning stick can scare away 9 near-deathless sorcerers).
And someone cited Tolkien's musings on the topic somewhere that I forget ([i]The Hunt for the Ring[/i]? [i]Letters[/i]?).
As for the Wi-king breaking Frodo's sword at the Ford of Bruinen with a magical command, I think that does tie in with how easily Merry's sword/knife was destroyed even in carrying out its prime task. They weren't endowed with magic to overpower the Wi-king and/or block his spells, just break the spell that protected him from [i]another [/i]blade (like Eowyn's).
Just as a thought experiment: think of Merry stabbing Wi-king from behind, and the latter cries out in pain. Let's say Eowyn faints, leaving Merry alone. Could Merry either 1) run in circles and wait for the leg-wound to drain/kill the Wi-king, or 2) fight off the mace-bearing Wi-king with his short sword, even with its enchantment? YMMV, but I think Merry would be doomed to lose and die in either case.
**My point on #2 is that Merry was an inexperienced swordsman compared to Wi-king and would lose in combat for that reason. I bet if he could stab him again in some vital area he'd kill him, but that seems unlikely given who had more combat experience.
(This post was edited by CuriousG on Wed, 8:22pm)
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Silvered-glass
Nargothrond
Thu, 11:04pm
Post #5 of 5
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This final passage confirms the connection, even as it continues to use the new word 'sword' rather than knife, dagger, or blade. Perhaps Tolkien wanted to elevate Merry's heroism by renaming the knife as a 'sword', such as heroic Men like Aragorn and Eowyn wield in their own heroic moments!
Merry's weapon becoming a sword is one of the several tells that (in-world) Frodo did not in fact write the description of that battle in the book but the chapter was the work of a later Gondorian editor who wanted more focus on Gondor's important historical moment. This was probably the same editor who went and summarized Frodo's description of the Battle of Bywater, which had originally had an entire chapter in the Red Book of Westmarch.
The subject of fictional sub-authors is an interesting one. I don't think most people have really realized how much thought Tolkien put into his conceit and how well it holds up.
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