The Man Who Remembers

By guest author Patrick Harper.

It would be a vast understatement merely to say that the world of J.R.R. Tolkien is known and respected by almost everyone on the Right. More than 100 years after Professor Tolkien began to lay the groundwork for his expansive legendarium, his body of work remains globally acclaimed for its tremendous breadth of vision, its deep roots in the Western mythos, and the transcendent Christian morality that suffuses its every story. As such, Tolkien’s fictional world of Arda has frequently served as both a place of refuge and an enduring source of inspiration for so many of us against the darkening skies of the modern world.

As millions of fans have come to know, Tolkien’s stories often diagnose the problems of modernity with surprising accuracy and candor, but also manage to resist the black pill that many of his would-be successors have so eagerly imbibed. A devout Catholic, Tolkien directly witnessed the horrors of the Great War as a young man, and remarkably came through them without flinching in his faith or convictions. Resultantly, his characters are deeply human in their portrayals, making so many of them both instructive and highly aspirational.

Tolkien’s fictional universe formally launched in 1937, with his first published novel and bestseller, The Hobbit. Based on bedtime stories he had told to his young sons, it is widely considered his most accessible story — and for good reason. To this day, I’ll never forget spending my summer vacation at age 7 taking it on as my first-ever “real book” in the basement of my parents’ home. And while the novel remains much more open to younger readers than many of Tolkien’s subsequent works, its themes and characters are no less inspiring for a more mature audience.

To set the stage for those who still haven’t read it (you uncultured swine), the plot of The Hobbit revolves around the Quest of the Lonely Mountain in the high fantasy setting of Middle-Earth. Some 150 years before the story begins, a thriving kingdom of dwarves dwelt peacefully beneath the great mountain of Erebor (a.k.a., the Lonely Mountain), winning enormous wealth through the mining of precious stones and metals. But predictably, these good times were not to last. Indeed, they came to a violent end when the wicked dragon Smaug descended upon the dwarven kingdom, killing hundreds and conquering the Mountain and its great hoard of treasure for himself.

After many decades, a small contingent of the surviving dwarves resolve to retake the Mountain, in a forlorn effort to reclaim both their wealth and their pride. With the help of the wizard Gandalf and unlikely protagonist Bilbo Baggins, they brave many dangers before ultimately reaching the Mountain. In the final stage of their long journey, they are aided by the men of Lake-town (or Esgaroth), a city built on the Long Lake that sits a short way south of the Mountain — just beyond the boundaries of the dragon’s desolate realm. And although the narrative remains brief in its treatment of the Lakemen, it is one among them who will ultimately emerge as the story’s truly heroic figure.

Eventually, of course, Bilbo comes into direct conflict with Smaug, who cleverly deduces that his enemies have received help from the Men of the Lake and resolves to repay them for their insolence. Soon, he leaves the Mountain in wrath, and wings his way toward Esgaroth with murder in his heart. It is at the very precipice of his onslaught that we first encounter the epic hero of the story: Bard the Bowman.

Bard is notable among Tolkien’s many heroes for his rapid introduction and his remarkably brief character arc. Unlike the epic figures of Middle-Earth’s legendary past (whose lives and stories often span many centuries), we meet Bard only a few moments before he is put to the ultimate test. But despite the rushed nature of his appearance, he is far from lacking in depth as an aspirational figure.

Just as the dragon sets off to exact his vengeance, Bard stands with other men on the quays of Esgaroth, no doubt engaged in the dull monotony of their daily routine. The sight of a sudden burst of fire on the mountaintop rouses them from their tedium, leading most to speculate about the happy improvements they believe are sure to come when the dwarves inevitably return southward with the treasure in tow.

But in grim tones, Bard cautions them to remember the danger of their situation so close to the dragon’s lair, much to their derision. His fellows mockingly accuse him of being a prophet of doom, always warning of dangers that never seem to materialize.

But as the dragon rushes toward Esgaroth, his fire becomes more visible, leading the more foolish to become excited that something interesting finally seems to be penetrating into their usual humdrum. Bard, however, immediately recognizes the situation for what it is and rushes to alert the Master of the town, a bureaucrat concerned only with the maintenance of the town’s economy. Bard manages to convince the Master to sound the alarm, but only just before the cowardly man flees the town in his personal boat, leaving the people leaderless and unprepared to face the coming attack.

As the dragon sweeps over the town, he kindles it to fire, killing many. Homes are destroyed, and the people are driven from their homes, desperately piling into boats to flee wherever they can. The Master is nowhere to be found; the townsmen are left disorganized and without a chieftain to lead them.

But amid this scene of destruction and despair, all is not lost. To quote directly from the text:

But there was still a company of archers who held their ground among the burning houses. Their captain was Bard, grim-voiced and grim-faced, whose friends had accused him of prophesying floods and poisoned fish, though they knew his worth and courage. He was a descendant in long line of Girion, Lord of Dale, whose wife and child had escaped down the Running River from the ruin long ago.

Unlike the fools and money-keepers who predominate among the Lakemen, Bard is a man of action — one of great lineage who has not forgotten his people’s past, or his own duties to them. Readers will know that Dale was once a great city of men, built in the vales outside the Lonely Mountain, that was also destroyed during the dragon’s sack of the dwarven kingdom.

Though we learn nothing of the steadfast companions who fight alongside him, Bard is clearly a man capable of inspiring others to fight for what they believe in, even during a time when sincere conviction is very much out of fashion. When faced with an existential threat, they rise to the occasion with courage and discipline, in a display of consummate martial prowess. Their captain’s organizational capacity very clearly extends beyond simple inspiration.

In the end, though, even this cohort of brave men are no match for the power of the dragon. As flames spring up all around them, Bard’s valiant companions are forced to flee with the rest of the more timid townsmen. But even as his home and his world collapse around him, Bard stands alone, singularly resolved to fight to the bitter end.

At last, all but one of his arrows are spent in defense of his people. Further resistance seems futile. But just as defeat seems imminent, something quite unexpected happens:

Suddenly out of the dark something fluttered to his shoulder. He started — but it was only an old thrush. Unafraid it perched by his ear and it brought him news. Marvelling he found he could understand its tongue, for he was of the race and line of Dale.

At his moment of greatest despair, Bard receives an almost divinely-ordained messenger in the form of the Thrush. The bird reveals a critical piece of information to perhaps the only man in Esgaroth with ears to hear its message. Prior chapters describe how the Thrush came to know of the dragon’s vulnerability, but Bard knows only what he hears from it in the moment:

“Wait! Wait!” it said to him. “The moon is rising. Look for the hollow of the left breast as he flies and turns above you!”

Bard does not comprehend how or why he can understand the Thrush’s speech, or how it came to know of the dragon’s weakness. He simply seizes the moment and presses his slim advantage for all that it is worth:

Then Bard drew his bow-string to his ear. The dragon was circling back, flying low, and as he came the moon rose above the eastern shore and silvered his great wings.

“Arrow!” said the Bowman. “Black arrow! I have saved you to the last. You have never failed me and always I have recovered you. I had you from my father and he from of old. If ever you came from the forges of the true king under the Mountain, go now and speed well!”

At this ultimate strait, Bard places all his trust in the weapon of his forebears. When the dragon swoops low over the town, he releases the black arrow in one final, desperate stroke. It finds its mark with perfect precision:

The black arrow sped straight from the string, straight for the hollow by the left breast where the foreleg was flung wide. In it smote and vanished, barb, shaft and feather, so fierce was its flight. With a shriek that deafened men, felled trees and split stone, Smaug shot spouting into the air, turned over and crashed down from on high in ruin.

Full on the town he fell. His last throes splintered it to sparks and gledes. The lake roared in. A vast steam leaped up, white in the sudden dark under the moon. There was a hiss, a gushing whirl, and then silence. And that was the end of Smaug and Esgaroth, but not of Bard.

After the dramatic death of the dragon and the destruction of their town, the survivors are understandably left in a state of greatly heightened emotion. They reach the shores of the Lake as refugees — simultaneously elated by their deliverance from the dragon’s wrath and distraught over the loss of their town and what it will mean for their futures. Many begin to look for someone to blame, and (quite reasonably) focus their ire on the Master, who cravenly abandoned them in their moment of dire need. Others bemoan the apparent demise of the great man who stubbornly held the line when others would not. But just at this moment of mourning and doubt, the hero reemerges to stand tall once more:

And in the very midst of their talk a tall figure stepped from the shadows. He was drenched with water, his black hair hung wet over his face and shoulders, and a fierce light was in his eyes.

“Bard is not lost!” he cried. “He dived from Esgaroth, when the enemy was slain. I am Bard, of the line of Girion; I am the slayer of the dragon!”

Bard’s sudden reappearance throws the crowd into a state of frenzy, with many demanding that the Master be instantly deposed and that Bard be proclaimed king on the spot. But even when the politically adept Master manages to redirect the townsmen’s outrage toward the dwarves for awakening the dragon, Bard remains unflappable to the rash impulses of the crowd or to any distraction from the people’s immediate needs following the disaster.

True to his noble lineage, Bard gracefully diffuses the escalating tension and leads by example, personally caring for the wounded at a time of tremendous uncertainty. These actions quickly win him an even greater respect, priming him for direct leadership in the unprecedented events that are to follow. And when the suddenly unguarded treasure of the Mountain triggers a new and multidimensional conflict, Bard once again proves himself a capable leader, securing both a military victory and a just settlement for the people he defends.

We presently find ourselves in a moment not entirely unlike Bard’s own before the dragon’s attack on Esgaroth. Much like him, we foresee civilizational threats looming on the horizon, and often find ourselves simply standing by in quiet desperation, while fools and liars insist that deeply troubling realities are of no consequence.

This is not a historically uncommon place in which to find oneself. As Oswald Spengler famously observed in The Decline of the West, once-great civilizations commonly tend toward entropy and decay when they begin to favor apathy over the hard-won wisdom of the past.

But Tolkien offers us a compelling counterexample in the figure of Bard the Bowman. Unlike so many of his fellow townsmen, he remains keenly aware of his lineage and stubbornly refuses to acquiesce to the shallow materialism of the age. We learn that he is not well-liked by most of the townsmen for this attitude, yet he still manages to command their respect for his undeniable reputation as a courageous and competent man.

The existence of his small band of companions reveals that his words must not have fallen on entirely deaf ears, and we can only surmise how these more perceptive men must have rallied around him to prepare for an uncertain future. When the dragon comes at last, they valiantly spring into action with Bard at the helm, readily filling a void left by the cowards and dotards who have hitherto governed their town. A prior episode in the story reveals that the town’s designated watchmen are embarrassingly lax in their duties; we can reasonably infer that Bard must have identified this failure and quietly prepared his fellows to serve as an unofficial bulwark against future threats.

The Hobbit provides no indication that either Bard or his followers are experienced warriors prior to the coming of the dragon, and indeed much of their resistance proves ineffective. But while they fail to harm the enemy (at least initially), they crucially provide the people with a vital window to escape the town’s ruin, enabling a great majority of them to survive the devastation.

And even when all seems finally to be lost, it is Bard’s recalcitrant belief in his own duty and his heritage that enables the ultimate victory. Only at his most desperate moment does he encounter a mythic figure of fate in the form of the Thrush, who offers him an outside chance to right the colossal wrong he faces down. With his people’s fate hanging in the balance, he does not flinch, and succeeds in winning a stunning victory against the direst of odds.

As such, Bard offers us a template for the type of man that we all must aspire to become amid our own culture’s decline. He is clear-eyed, shrugging off the derision of those who foolishly forget the harsher realities of life. He is capable, observing weakness and independently devising informal solutions. And most importantly, he is fearless, modeling his own actions on the heroes of the past and willing to gamble his very life for what he believes in most strongly.

Tolkien’s contemporary, G.K. Chesterton, once wrote: “Fairy tells do not teach children that dragons exist — children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales teach children that dragons can be killed.”

Bard is a man who internalized a similar wisdom, and who stubbornly refused to cast it aside in the name of politeness, fashion, or comfort. Such resolute men frequently echo throughout Tolkien’s works, from the ancient Rangers of the North to the steadfast Riders of Rohan, neither of whom would give up the fight even when their kings had already failed them. They were men who remembered exactly what they stood for, regardless of what their circumstances might have seemed to portend. To quote Tolkien once more, “The old that is strong does not wither.”

As we survey the storm clouds on our present horizon, we must endeavor to uphold our own duties as men who remember the ancient truths, and who doggedly stand by our people’s history, traditions, and culture. And within this struggle, we must never forget the vital truth at the very center of Bard the Bowman’s story: even dragons can be killed.

Thumbnail image: Bard and Smaug, tolkiensofficial on Instagram