📖👀 Chapter 3 (📔Book III) The Uruk-Hai

[Rivendell_librarian]

We now see the events of the previous chapter through the eyes of Pippin and Merry and their captors, the orcs including the Uruk-Hai. The previous chapter introduced the Riders of the Mark and explained how they operated and were organised, and this chapter does the same with the orc band who had attacked the Company by the Anduin. We discover that the orc band consisted of three distinct groups from Isengard, Mordor and Moria and we are introduced to named characters with distinct personalities. Apparently the Moria orcs had been on a revenge mission and linked up with the others by chance, but the presence of orcs from both Mordor and Isengard suggests coordination between Sauron and Saruman, though this is not stated. Is there further information elsewhere?

There had been disagreement within the Riders of Rohan, for instance on whether to let Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas continue their search for Merry and Pippin, but the rivalry between the different orc groups led to some of them being killed by others. The orcs are apparently less disciplined than the Riders but their physical strength, speed and endurance make them a dangerous enemy. Even the most disciplined infantry would stand little chance against well armed cavalry in open country, hence their desire to reach the shelter of Fangorn forest, but were they aware of its own dangers?

The conflict between Grishnakh of Mordor and Ugluk of Isengard makes this a fascinating chapter. Merry has received a head injury so Pippin comes to the fore and manages to free his tied hands, yet he has the wit to conceal this until an opportunity for escape arises. With the approach of the Riders (who we learn were alerted to the orcs' presence by a scout). Pippin had also seen the danger of being killed along with the orc band. Pippin and Merry use the enticement of the Ring to to trick Grishnakh into a false move: Grishnakh clearly knows about the Ring and Gollum. Grishnakh runs off with them apparently hoping to take them to Mordor but is cut down. It is Pippin and Merry, not the orcs, who escape into Fangorn. When Merry's head wound is treated by some stinging black paste we are told that Merry will bear the scar to the "end of his days" which rather gives away his survival to the end of the main story. A first time reader could well think Merry and/or Pippin would soon be killed. Pippin expresses regret that he did not spend more time studying the maps of Middle Earth in Rivendell

On a personal note I recall that when I explained the library collection to Merry and Pippin, Pippin showed less interest than Merry and I never saw Pippin in the library after that.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

That last sentence made me depart from my normal "like" reaction to your entries! 😄

It's good that you point out the parallel nature of this chapter with the preceding one, and perhaps a little further delving into both parallels and contrasts is worthwhile.

Unlike the previous chapter, this one is told in terms of nightmare -- in fact it opens with Pippin waking from one, and the effect is reinforced with repeated references throughout the journey: "He shut his eyes and slipped back into evil dreams", "black dreams", and others.

Each chapter begins at dusk, but where "the sky was clear" for the Three Hunters, for Pippin "the sky above was growing dim". Indeed, the contrast is remarkable between the previous chapter's clarity of description, showing grass and stream, the "colours of the waking earth", and distant forest and mountain, and the almost total lack of this here, where the perspective is restricted and narrowed: "Evil dreams and evil waking were blended into a long tunnel of misery".

The contrast extends even to the sense of the passing of time: the careful delineation of days and nights for the Hunters becomes, for the hobbits, merely the "tough thick legs going up and down, up and down, unresting, as if they were made of wire and horn, beating out the nightmare seconds of an endless time". This sense of time as both unchanging and infinite fits the traditional picture of Hell.

As you mentioned the three groups of orcs, it's worth noting that the Hunters are also formed from the three races of Man, Elf, and Dwarf, and the contrasts of the interactions among them are striking: where there is indecision about what course to take, one party relies on their agreed leader, Aragorn; disagreements among the orcs are resolved by bullying and rolling heads.

A couple more points showing the demonic nature of the chapter: the stinging ointment applied to Merry's wound parodies the athelas Aragorn applies to Frodo; and the orc-draught and orc-food are the demonic parodies of miruvor and lembas. Indeed, Pippin's refusal to eat "the flesh of he dared not guess what creature" hints at the form they would take in a less undisplaced demonic mode: human blood and flesh.

Other parallels exist in the chapter, but I'll leave it there, except to quote a favorite line:

'That is a very interesting remark,' sneered a voice, softer than the others but more evil.

"Softer" but "more evil". Tolkien had a way with words.

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

Some fascinating insights Squint-eyed Southerner. I like your point about the three groups of orcs and the three races of the pursuers. There was violent disagrement between the different groups of orcs but not within them I think The softer spoken more evil Grishnakh comes across as older and more experienced than Ugluk. In a knife fight between them I favour Grishnakh as the victor.

I smiled when Tolkien explained why the orcs used the Common Speech: you can't take the philologist out of the novelist.
Note this means that orcs can be bilingual: they aren't stupid.

 

[Eljorahir]

As our amiable escapees, Merry and Pippin, reach the cover of the edge of Fangorn Forest at dawn, they pause to look back...

'Out of the shadows the hobbits peeped, gazing back down the slope: little furtive figures that in the dim light looked like elf-children in the deeps of time peering out of the Wild Wood in wonder at their first Dawn.'

Reading the chapter last night, this sentence really struck my fancy in a new way; it reminds me of two other places in the story where we're given a moment of thoughtful fantasy within our "real" fantasy story:

1. Here, the hobbits are not hobbits at all; they are 'elf-children in the deeps of time...'

2. In a previous chapter, Frodo wasn't floating away from the land of Lorien. Instead, Lorien was a ship sailing away from him into the West. The trees of Lorien were not trees. They were the masts supporting the sails.

3. In an upcoming chapter (spoiler alert), Pippin isn't on a horse racing across the surface of the earth. Instead, he's at rest, seated on a statue of a horse while the earth rolls by underneath.

Also, I have some questions regarding the capitalizations: "Wild Wood" and "Dawn".
1. Is Wild Wood meant to be a specific place? I see Karen Fonstad included it in her Atlas as a place name by Cuivienen, the birthplace of the elves, but I couldn't find it referenced in the text of The Silmarillion.
2. Is "Dawn" capitalized because we're meant to think of the first dawn?

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

I think you're very close to it. Maybe there's an allusion here to Paradise Lost which uses capitalisation quite a lot.