“It is the eve of St. George’s Day. Do you not know that to-night, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway? Do you know where you are going, and what you are going to?” She was in such evident distress that I tried to comfort her, but without effect. Finally she went down on her knees and implored me not to go; at least to wait a day or two before starting. It was all very ridiculous but I did not feel comfortable. However, there was business to be done, and I could allow nothing to interfere with it. I therefore tried to raise her up, and said, as gravely as I could, that I thanked her, but my duty was imperative, and that I must go. She then rose and dried her eyes, and taking a crucifix from her neck offered it to me. I did not know what to do, for, as an English Churchman, I have been taught to regard such things as in some measure idolatrous, and yet it seemed so ungracious to refuse an old lady meaning so well and in such a state of mind. She saw, I suppose, the doubt in my face, for she put the rosary round my neck, and said, 'For your mother's sake,' and went out of the room. I am writing up this part of the diary whilst I am waiting for the coach, which is, of course, late; and the crucifix is still round my neck. Whether it is the old lady's fear, I do not know, but I am not feeling nearly as easy in my mind as usual.

[Jonathan Harker's Journal]

"I suppose none of this makes sense to you, Charles, poor agnostic. I stayed there till he was gone, and then, suddenly, there wasn't any chapel there any more, just an oddly decorated room. I can't tell you what it felt like. You've never been to Tenebrae, I suppose?"

"Never."

"Well, if you had you'd know what the Jews felt about their temple. Quomodo sedet sola civitas ... it's a beautiful chant. You ought to go once, just to hear it."

['A Twitch Upon the Thread']

Yet there is at least one moment at which Revelation seems very close and allegory does all but break through - naturally enough, a moment of 'eucatastrophe', to use Tolkien's term for sudden moments of fairy-tale salvation. This appears to different characters in different ways. As has been said, Sam and Frodo experience it as thinking for a moment they have died and gone to Heaven, when they wake up on the field of Cormallen. Faramir, however, in the next chapter feels it more physically. He and Éowyn sense the earthquake that is the fall of Barad-dûr, and for a moment Faramir thinks of Númenor drowning. But then like the father in Pearl an irrational joy comes over him, to be explained by the eagle-messenger in a song:

Sing now, ye people of the Tower of Anor,
For the Realm of Sauron is ended for ever,
            and the Dark Tower is thrown down.

Sing and rejoice, ye people of the Tower of Guard,
For your watch hath not been in vain,
And the Black Gate is broken,
And your King hath passed through,
            and he is victorious.

Sing and be glad, all ye children of the West,
For your King shall come again,
And he shall dwell among you
            all the days of your life. 

(III, 241)

There is no doubt here about Tolkien's stylistic model, which is the Bible and particularly the Psalms. The use of 'ye' and 'hath' is enough to indicate that to most English readers, familiar with those words only from the Authorised Version. But 'Sing and rejoice' echoes Psalm 33, 'Rejoice in the Lord', while the whole of the poem is strongly reminiscent of Psalm 24, 'Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be yet lift up, ye everlasting doors, for the King of glory shall come in.' 'Who is the King of glory?' asks the Psalm, and one traditional answer is Christ, crucified but not yet ascended, come to the city of Hell to rescue from it those especially virtuous pre-Christians, Moses and Isaiah and the patriarchs and prophets. Of course the eagle's son is not about that. When it says 'the Black Gate is broken' it means the Morannon, a place in Middle-earth described in II, 244-5; when it says 'your King shall come again', it means Aragorn. Yet the first statement could very easily apply to Death and Hell (Matthew xvi, 18, 'and the gates of hell shall not prevail'), the second to Christ and the Second Coming. This is a layer of double meaning beyond that even of 'East or west all woods must fail' or 'The Road goes ever on and on'.

Approach to the edge of Christian reference was here deliberate, as one can tell from the date Gandalf so carefully gives for the fall of Sauron (III, 230), 'the twenty-fifth of March'. In Anglo-Saxon belief, and in European popular tradition both before and after that, 25 March is the date of the Crucifixion; also of the Annunciation (nine months before Christmas); also of the last day of Creation. By mentioning the date Tolkien was presenting his 'eucatastrophe' as a forerunner or 'type' of the greater one of Christian myth. It is possible to doubt whether this was a good idea. Almost no one notices the significance of 25 March; the high style of the eagle's song has not had much appeal; though Tolkien himself wept over the grandeur of the Field of Cormallen (Letters, p. 321), many other readers have found the delight, tears and laughter (of Sam especially) unconvincing. Tolkien did right normally to avoid allusions, to keep like the author of Beowulf to a middle path between Ingeld and Christ, between the Bible and pagan myth. The care with which he maintained this position (highly artificial, though usually passed over without mention) is evident, with hindsight, on practically every page of The Lord the Rings.

[T A Shippey, The Road to Middle-earth]

For [the Silmarils] were set in the Iron Crown, and treasured in Angband above all wealth; and Balrogs were about them, and countless swords, and strong bars, and unassailable walls, and the dark majesty of Morgoth. 

 

['Of Beren and Lúthien'] 

James Gillray, '“The Friend of the People” & his Petty-New-Tax-Gatherer, paying John Bull a visit' (28 May 1806)