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]