LotR -- Book 1 - Chapter 04 – A Short Cut to Mushrooms

[Aiwendil]

Davem wrote:

Eowyn is an oath breaker, & she nearly dies as a consequence, but she survives, probably because she was backed into a corner, & didn't swear the oath freely.

Indeed, things would probably have turned out far worse had she not broken it - the slaying of the Witch-king was one of the critical points in the battle. And Merry broke the same oath she did, did he not? He did swear fealty to Theoden and then disobey Theoden's command. I'm not sure what that says about oaths and oath-breakers, but it can't be ignored.

It's certainly true that oaths are a major theme within the Legendarium as a whole; Feanor's oath motivates most of the Silmarillion. Tolkien's other great oath-story, I've always thought, is Beren and Luthien. The obvious oath there is Beren's to Thingol. For a passage with a great deal of bearing on the whole matter of oaths, see the debate of Beren with Luthien in the Lay of Leithien in HoMe III, where Luthien urges Beren to forget his oath and he refuses. There are other oaths here as well - Gorlim's to Barahir (which is broken), Thingol's to Luthien (which is nominally kept but twisted in spirit), and Finrod's to Beren (which is fulfilled, resulting in the death of Finrod). This probably isn't the place to enter into a discussion of those oaths, but it's an interesting story to consider in connection with the oaths of LotR.

Fordim wrote:

The Nazgul are bound to their Lord by the strongest of all 'oaths' -- the power of the Ring. In this respect I would argue that Sam's ability to break his oath to Frodo sets him apart from the Nazgul insofar as their 'oath' is not freely given at all

I wonder whether this is true. We could ask the same questions concerning the Nine Rings as we have concerning the One - is their power external or internal? Do they impose Sauron's will on the Nazgul, or do they amplify the evil tendencies of the Nazgul but leave their free will essentially intact?

Davem wrote:

Now, maybe (Holmes doesn't offer this possibility) that's down to fear of the precious (Precious will be angry), but we have to consider that even Smeagol will not go so far as oath breaking (though he's definitely working his way through Wulfstan's list of sins!). Support fo this would be his sticking to the rules of the Riddle Game.

I think it's in between. It's certainly not simply fear of the precious - at least I don't think so. But I don't think that Gollum would have thought twice about breaking most other oaths. I think the important point is that he swore by the Ring. That was the only kind of oath that had any power over him, and certainly the only kind of oath from him that Frodo would trust. For Tolkien, the person or thing by which you swear an oath is of critical importance. Remember that Feanor's oath was sworn in the name of Iluvatar.

On a far lighter note, I was flipping through Letters the other day and remembered an anecdote of Tolkien's with some connection to this chapter. In 1958 he attended a "Hobbit Dinner" in Holland, held by a Dutch bookseller. One of the items on the menu was a mushroom soup. Apparently, by way of alluding to the book and as they did not know "all the names of the English vermins", they called it "Maggot Soup".

Not profound, I know, but it does make me wonder whether any squeamish hobbits preferred not to eat the mushrooms from our good farmer's fields.