Ashes in The Lord of the Rings

For Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, I had the idea to share some thoughts on the references to “ashes” in The Lord of the Rings. Ashes are referred to about twenty times in The Lord of the Rings. Two of those references are the line from “The Riddle of Strider”: “from the ashes a fire shall be woken.” More on this line later. 

Four of the references are mere landscape descriptions: describing the desolation before Mordor, the burned aftermath of the Pelennor after the battle before Minas Tirith, the “mass of ash” at the foot of Mt. Doom, and the “hot ash” falling after the destruction of Mt. Doom.

Four references are used when describing the remnants of fires: the fire on Caradhras, falling ash from the burning trees after Gandalf saves the Fellowship from Wargs, the ashes of the orcs’ watch-fire near Fangorn when Aragorn is searching for traces of Merry and Pippin, and the ashes of Sam’s ill-conceived fire in Ithilien.

The other references can be separated into three groups: Gollum, Denethor, and the orc-burning by Eomer’s men. Let’s look at Gollum first. 

Gollum is connected to ashes three times. First, when he offers to be their guide, Frodo tells him they are going to Mordor. Gollum tries to dissuade him:

‘We are going to Mordor, of course. And you know the way there, I believe.’
‘Ach! sss!’ said Gollum, covering his ears with his hands, as if such frankness, and the open speaking of the names, hurt him. ‘We guessed, yes we guessed,’ he whispered; ‘and we didn’t want them to go, did we? No, precious, not the nice hobbits. Ashes, ashes, and dust, and thirst there is; and pits, pits, pits, and Orcs, thousands of Orcses. Nice hobbits mustn’t go to – sss – those places.’
‘So you have been there?’ Frodo insisted. ‘And you’re being drawn back there, aren’t you?’

“Ashes and dust” is an accurate description of Mordor’s environment, of course (ashes from Mount Doom’s volcanic activity and dust from the desert atmosphere where water is scarce). But this description also immediately calls to mind the Anglican phrase from the Book of Common Prayer on burials: “ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” a phrase about death with which Tolkien, even as a Catholic, would have been familiar.

Gollum fears to return to Mordor, not just because of its dangers and Sauron’s presence, but also because there are “ashes” and “dust.” These are a reminder of the fate he has evaded for five hundred years as the Ring has stretched out his life: death.

Gollum, as Gandalf tells Frodo, deserves death. And therefore deserves to be returned to dust. Each Ash Wednesday, Tolkien would’ve been reminded in Catholic liturgy of the reference to Genesis 3:19, being told: “Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shall return.” A proper Christian understanding of human life is to remember death and prepare for it. Just as within Tolkien’s Legendarium, the proper response to death is Aragorn’s – to be prepared for its arrival and embrace it as a Gift from God.

But Gollum is not prepared for death. The Ring has forestalled his death, even though he deserves it (both ontologically as a being who is meant to die and also as a matter of justice, as an evildoer whose punishment is merited). Thus Gollum’s exchange with Frodo can be read on a different level. Mordor, for Gollum, reminds him of death. Frodo says, “so you have been there”? Yes, Gollum has experienced death. The day he took the Ring after murdering his friend Deagol. And he has killed many times since.

Frodo says, “and you’re being drawn back there, aren’t you?” Gollum says “Yess. No!” They are talking about Mordor of course, but on two different levels also about death. On the first level, Gollum is being drawn back toward murder again – the intended murder of Frodo (and Sam) that he will attempt first through Shelob, and then again on Mount Doom. On the second level, Gollum is being drawn back to death itself. As long as he does not possess the Ring, he will die at some point, and certainly he will die if the Ring is destroyed.

This takes us to the third time Gollum is connected to ashes (yes, I’ve skipped the second time and will return to it): after he has tried to surprise Frodo and Sam on the slopes of Mount Doom. Held at bay by Sting, Gollum begs Sam to spare his life: “when Precious goes we’ll die, yes, die into the dust.’ He clawed up the ashes of the path…’Dusst!’”

Here we see the explicit connection drawn by Tolkien: death is about “ashes” and “dust.” Gollum knows once the Ring is destroyed he will die. Only the Ring’s power has sustained him this long. Once it is gone, he will die and return to dust. Yet, defeated once again, he still seeks to forestall death. Here, he is wholly ruined and unrepentantly evil. And in seeking to cheat death and steal back the Ring, he himself is cast into the fire and dies – the very end he sought to avoid.

Gollum’s moral ruin and physical demise is foreshadowed the second time he is mentioned in connection with ashes: when Frodo offers him lembas. Gollum tries to eat the lembas and spits it out. He cannot eat it:

Dropping the leaf, he took a corner of the lembas and nibbled it. He spat, and a fit of coughing shook him. ‘Ach! No!’ he spluttered. ‘You try to choke poor Smeagol. Dust and ashes, he can’t eat that. He must starve.

Once again, we see the connection Tolkien draws between “dust” and “ashes.” In this scene, lembas is evocative of the Eucharist, which Catholics believe is the Body and Blood of Christ. Tolkien mentions in Letter 213 that a reader noticed similarities between lembas and viaticum (the last Eucharist received before death), and Tolkien admitted in Letter 210 that lembas has a “religious” significance. In Eucharistic theology, Paul admonishes the Corinthians (1 Cor. 11:27-32):

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves. For this reason many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged. 

Tolkien knew well the Catholic practice of going to Confession (“examin[ing] yourselves”) to have grave and mortal sins forgiven before receiving the Eucharist “in an unworthy manner.” At this point Gollum, though still retaining the opportunity to repent later, has committed many acts of evil. He has not yet repented or been forgiven. Yet he tries to eat the lembas, the holy bread of the Elves. Tolkien references this exact passage in Letter 328:

If sanctity inhabits his work or as a pervading light illumines it then it does not come from him but through him. And neither of you would perceive it in these terms unless it was with you also. Otherwise you would see and feel nothing, or (if some other spirit was present) you would be filled with contempt, nausea, hatred. “Leaves out of the elf-country, gah!” “Lembas – dust and ashes, we don’t eat that.”

Gollum does not share the sanctified spirit of the Elves. He tastes the lembas as dust and ashes and recoils. It is the bitter fruit of his moral turpitude.

Yet, it is more than that. The Eucharist in Tolkien’s Catholic belief is the Body and Blood of Christ. And therefore, it is a reminder of Christ’s death. But it does not taste like dust and ashes to those who believe, because Christ is resurrected and glorified. But to those who eat unworthily, like Gollum, they “eat judgment against themselves.” Thus Gollum’s demise is prefigured: his rejection of the lembas shows he will return to dust and ashes and die, both physically, but more importantly morally as a result of judgment for his evil.

Now let’s turn to the references to ashes related to the orc-burning by the forces of Eomer on the borders of Fangorn Forest. When the Three Hunters arrive at the scene of the burning, “the ashes were still hot and smoking.” But there was no trace of Merry or Pippin. Aragorn, always Estel, retains hope and refuses to search “among the ashes” until after searching for signs of their being alive. Aragorn asks Eomer if they found hobbit bodies among the slain orcs. Eomer says we counted them and burned them “as is our custom. The ashes are smoking still.” Note Eomer’s comment about it being “custom” to burn bodies. He is not talking about a societal custom of cremation.

The Kings of the Mark were buried in special mounds outside Edoras, where simbelmyne flowers (“Evermind”) grow as a perpetual reminder of the lives of the kings of the past. After the Battle of Helm’s Deep, the dead Rohirrim are buried in a mound. And the Men of the Mark killed by Saruman at the Fords of Isen are also buried in a mound that Gandalf, Theoden, et al. pass on the way to Orthanc.

We also know that the Men of Dunland who served Saruman at Helm’s Deep were buried in a mound. So it must have been the “custom” of the Rohirrim only to burn orc bodies, not human bodies. We see this in Tolkien’s description of the battle between Eomer’s forces and the orcs near Fangorn: “when they had laid their fallen comrades in a mound…the Riders made a great fire and scattered the ashes of their enemies.” They buried their comrades and burned the orcs.

Then Tolkien writes: “So ended the raid, and no news of it came ever back either to Mordor or to Isengard; but the smoke of the burning rose high to heaven.” The smoke of the burning rising to “heaven” suggests (in my mind) a religious connection at play here.

In Catholicism, cremation as a funerary practice was basically prohibited until 1963, and was seen as an act that denied the doctrine of the Resurrection of the Dead. At the time Tolkien was writing The Lord of the Rings, cremation was estimated to be used as a funerary practice in less than 10% of U.K. deaths, so it was not a common British practice generally.

And we know that Tolkien specifically opposed cremation on moral grounds. C.S. Lewis, in a February 25, 1940 letter to his brother Warnie, noted the “Papist dislike” of cremation and argued with Tolkien about it:

At our Thursday meeting we had a furious argument about cremation. I had never realised the violence of the Papist dislike of the practice, which they forbid. Neither Tolkien nor Havard, to my mind, produced a real argument against it, but only said ‘you’d find in fact’ that it was always supported by atheists; and that a human corpse was the temple of the Holy Ghost. I said ‘but a vacated temple’ and said it [would] be reasonable to blow up a Church to prevent it being defiled by Communists. They denied this, and said if you destroyed a chalice to prevent it being used for Black Mass you [would] be mortally guilty: for it was your business to reverence it and what the magicians did to it afterwards was theirs. I was surprised at the degree of passion the subject awoke in us all.

The Rohirrim’s distinction between burying and burning can thus be seen as an implicitly moral one. Irredeemably evil beings are burned – they have no hope of redemption. Good, fallen comrades are buried, implicitly having the hopes of the resurrection of their bodies. But even the Dunlendings are buried, not burned. It appears the Rohirrim choose to not judge the ultimate moral fate of these men, who may still, perhaps, be redeemed at the end of time. This decision calls to mind Sam’s thoughts about the Southron in Ithilien: “he wondered what the man’s name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart.”

Finally, for the last two references to “ashes” in The Lord of the Rings, let’s take a look at Denethor. Denethor connects the intended cremation of Faramir with the burning of Minas Tirith: “it shall all go up in a great fire, and all shall be ended. Ash! Ash and smoke blown away on the wind!” Not only does Denethor connect the two in a burning death, but he specifically invokes the negative moral aspect of cremation in relation to Minas Tirith: the scattering of ashes (“ash and smoke blown away on the wind”).

It is possible to interpret this passage as having religious significance as Denethor says, “We will burn like heathen kings.” Gandalf makes the same connection: “Authority is not given to you, Steward of Gondor, to order the hour of your death. And only the heathen kings, under the domination of the Dark Power, did thus, slaying themselves in pride and despair.”

The heathen kings not only refused burial of their bodies but burned them. This, Gandalf says was an act of “pride and despair,” linking this action by contrast with the burial practices of the Rohirrim and the Numenoreans. The Rohirrim bury their dead, implicitly in hopes of resurrection. The heathen kings (and Denethor) burned themselves in the ultimate acts of despair, showing they lacked any hope in the future.

By contrast, we see Aragorn’s response to death in the Numenorean fashion. Aragorn does not burn even the dead White Tree of Gondor, but lays it to rest in Rath Dinen. And Aragorn embraces the Gift of Death from Iluvatar. While he does die willingly, he only does so at his appointed time, and he does so with hope – in the promise of life with Iluvatar beyond the Circles of the World, rather than the despair of Denethor.

As a result, Aragorn’s body is preserved for the resurrection: “Then a great beauty was revealed in him…for they saw that the grace of his youth, and the valour of his manhood, and the wisdom and majesty of his age were blended together…And long there he lay, an image of the splendour of the Kings of Men in glory undimmed before the breaking of the world.” Aragorn’s fate recalls the Catholic tradition of saintly incorruptibility, traditionally believed to be a representation in death of saints’ holiness in life.

After the battle on the Pelennor, Gandalf says “Denethor has departed, and his house is in ashes.” He is talking about the “house” of Denethor’s spirit: his body has been burned into ashes. And though Faramir lives, Denethor’s death also marks the end of a different house in ashes, his genealogical line, as the Ruling Stewards of Gondor.

Thus we return to the line from “The Riddle of Strider.” Bilbo’s prophetic poem says “from the ashes a fire shall be woken.” As the house of Denethor burns into ashes, Aragorn begins the process of claiming his kingship, arriving with the standard of Elendil with stars that “flamed in the sunlight.” Aragorn is the “fire” woken from the ashes of Denethor’s house: “before all went Aragorn with the Flame of the West, Anduril like a new fire kindled.”

Ashes in The Lord of the Rings remind us of death and the proper way to approach it: not with Denethor’s despair or Gollum’s fear but with the Rohirrim’s and Aragorn’s hope for the future resurrection of the body and with humility with respect to judging others’ spiritual salvation.