S.R. 1419

S.R. 1419 is the hinge of the Third Age, the single year in Shire-reckoning that contains the entire War of the Ring. It is the year Frodo Baggins carries the One Ring from the quiet lanes of the Shire to the fires of Mount Doom, the year the Ents wake from their long slumber, the year the Witch-king of Angmar falls before the gates of Gondor, and the year the hobbits come home to find their own country under the heel of ruffians. Measured by the calendar of the Hobbits, this one year holds the whole catastrophe and deliverance of the age: the breaking of the Fellowship, the death of Boromir, the crowning of Aragorn, and the final departure of the Ring-bearers. It is the year in which the long defeat of the Elder Days is finally reversed, and the year in which the Shire, which had tried to fence itself out of the wide world, discovers that the world has come to it anyway.

The Year of the Quest

The year opens with the Fellowship already in flight, and its events are marked by the desperate choices of its bearers. It is in S.R. 1419 that Frodo, pierced by the Morgul-knife at Weathertop, learns from Gandalf the full horror of what was attempted against him. The Riders had tried to pierce his heart with a blade that would remain in the wound; had they succeeded, he would have become like them, only weaker and under their command, a wraith under the dominion of the Dark Lord, tormented for having tried to keep the Ring. Gandalf tells him that fortune or fate helped him, not to mention courage, for his heart was not touched and only his shoulder was pierced, because he resisted to the last. It was a terribly narrow shave, Gandalf says, for while Frodo wore the Ring he was half in the wraith-world himself, and the Riders might have seized him; he could see them, and they could see him. This revelation frames the entire year: the Quest is not a march across a map but a passage through a shadow that touches the soul of its bearer.

The Awakening of the Ents

In this same year, the ancient world itself stirs. Gandalf, returned as the White Rider, speaks of Fangorn Forest and its master with a new gravity. He tells Gimli that the forest is perilous, not least to those too ready with their axes, and that Fangorn himself is perilous too, yet wise and kindly nonetheless. But now, Gandalf says, the long slow wrath of the forest is brimming over, and all the forest is filled with it. The coming of the hobbits and the tidings they brought have spilled it; it will soon be running like a flood, and its tide is turned against Saruman and the axes of Isengard. A thing is about to happen which has not happened since the Elder Days: the Ents are going to wake up and find that they are strong. When Legolas asks in astonishment what they will do, Gandalf admits he does not know, and does not think they know themselves. This is the year in which the oldest guardians of Middle-earth abandon their patient watch and take up the cause of the living wood against the machines of Saruman.

The Fall of the Witch-king

S.R. 1419 is also the year of the great battle on the Pelennor Fields, and of the strangest deed of the war. There, on the field before Minas Tirith, the Witch-king of Angmar confronts the wounded Théoden, and a figure called Dernhelm stands between them. When the Lord of the Nazgûl declares that no living man may hinder him, the helm of secrecy falls away, and the clear voice rings like steel: "But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund's daughter." She stands between the Witch-king and her lord and kin, and vows to smite him, living or dark undead, if he touches the king. The winged creature screams at her, but the Ringwraith makes no answer, silent as if in sudden doubt. Merry, watching, sees her bright hair gleam with pale gold upon her shoulders, her eyes grey as the sea hard and fell, and yet tears on her cheek. When the Witch-king shatters her shield and breaks her arm, and raises his mace to kill, Merry's sword stabs him from behind, shearing through the black mantle and piercing the sinew behind his mighty knee. With her last strength Éowyn drives her sword between crown and mantle, and the sword breaks sparkling into many shards. The crown rolls away with a clang, and the mantle and hauberk lie empty on the ground, torn and tumbled, while a cry goes up into the shuddering air and fades to a shrill wailing, a voice bodiless and thin that dies and is swallowed up, never heard again in that age of this world. It is the year the Witch-king of Angmar, the dread of the North, is undone by a hobbit and a woman of Rohan.

The Scouring of the Shire

The year closes not with the victory at the Black Gate but with the return of the hobbits to a Shire they no longer recognize. Frodo, looking on the ruin that Lotho Sackville-Baggins has brought upon the land, refuses to condemn him outright. He tells Pippin that Lotho never meant things to come to this pass; he has been a wicked fool, but he is caught now, a prisoner in Bag End, very frightened, while the ruffians gather, rob, and bully in his name. Frodo insists they ought to try and rescue him. When Pippin is staggered at the thought of fighting half-orcs and ruffians in the Shire itself, Frodo gives the law of the year's ending: there is to be no slaying of hobbits, not even if they have gone over to the other side, and nobody is to be killed at all if it can be helped. Keep your tempers and hold your hands to the last possible moment. Yet when the Battle of Bywater comes, the ruffian leader rushes at the ring with a long knife and a club, aiming a savage blow at Merry, and falls dead with four arrows in him. That is enough for the others; they give in, their weapons are taken, and they are roped together and marched off to an empty hut they had built themselves, tied hand and foot and locked up under guard. The dead leader is dragged off and buried. It seems almost too easy after all, as Farmer Cotton says, but Merry warns there is more to be done still, and that the next stroke must wait until morning, when they must call on the Chief.

The Year's Significance

S.R. 1419 is the year in which the Shire-reckoning, the homely calendar of a people who measured time by harvests and birthdays, becomes the measure of the world's fate. It is the year the hobbits learn that the wide world is all about them, that they cannot fence themselves in forever, and that courage is found in the most unlikely places. It is the year of the long defeat's reversal, the year the Shadow is revealed as a passing thing, and the year the Ring-bearers set out and return, changed beyond the telling. In the annals of the Third Age, no other year holds so much: the fall of Sauron, the crowning of King Elessar, and the beginning of the dominion of Men. For the hobbits, it is the year their innocence ends and their history begins, the year the Shire is scoured and rebuilt, and the year they learn that the peace they return to is one they must make themselves.