Isildur's Curse

[Valandil]

Originally Posted by ElemmÃ*rë

... You'd think that after the First Age, they'd have learned to do away with oaths altogether...

What - just like we've learned to do away with things like oppression, slavery, war, etc??

[Valandil]

This is weird... I wasn't able to get to the third page of this thread to see my last post. Plus - from the directory, this is shown to have 39 replies, which would be 40 posts - but when I check who posted, it totals 41 posts. And, like I said - it showed a third page, but I couldn't get to it.

It seems like this happened before to me. Were the rest of you able to get to page 3 before this? (can we even get there NOW? I'll soon find out! )

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

i wasnt able to see yur top post at all

[Telcontar_Dunedain]

Nor was I. It said You had the last post but the last one I could see was Blackheart's.

[Valandil]

Originally Posted by Valandil

BH - I would suggest that Wayfarer probably means that he was the Priest of Iluvatar to the Dunedain... by extension perhaps, to all men.

Actually though - Elendil was still top dog at this time. It's apparent that he had not yet fallen and that Isildur did not have the Ring when he received the Oath at Erech - for otherwise the Men who swore the Oath would have no opportunity to break it, since at that time, Sauron was evidently defeated and the trouble was past.

It seems that the Oath was the thing. It may have helped that Isildur had some sort of royal standing... it may have been something special about the Stone of Erech - but the taking of the Oath seems to have been the key.

Something just occured to me about this - so I tracked down this old thread.

Even though the Oath was made to Isildur at the Stone of Erech before the war at the end of the Second Age - perhaps Isildur consequently made a follow-up curse as to their fate, while he had The RING in his possession. He could have done this from afar, while brooding over the losses of war at Osgiliath - or, even better, he could have made a trip back to Erech, called the leaders of the oath-breakers together and pronounced his curse on them, backed up by the power of the Ring.

Since these men had formerly worshipped and served Sauron, a curse like this, in response to their failure to keep their oath, might have sealed their fates. The one laying down the curse held in his possession the Ring, which was to some extent the very embodiment of Sauron and his power.

[Serenoli]

On the definition of an oath being something that requires a divine witness - I don't think Tolkien ever stuck to that. Someone has already mentioned the case of the oath of Feanor, where taking the name of Eru was an 'even'

Also to the point is Tolkien's own letters, where he mentions that he wanted his legendary world to be outside of the Christian world even if he himself was a staunch believer. I believe he said something on the lines of 'Myth and fairy-story must reflect and contain parts of moral and religious truth or error, but not explicitly as in the real world.' That's one of the reasons he has the Valar, who are gods in the sense of pre-Christian mythology, but have no place in the Christian world. To me, there is then no need to see medieval practices of taking oaths - in Tolkien's world, Eru's name really seems enough to condemn them from leaving Arda.

Valandil If the potency is due to the power of the Ring and a result of the previous worship and service in the name of Sauron - how would Aragorn have the power to undo such a curse, even if he held their oath fulfilled? Would it not then be Frodo, the Ring-bearer, who could undo it, or only the destruction of the Ring which could accomplish it?

[Valandil]

I think the greatest part of the undoing came from the response of the oath-breakers... keeping their oath on their second chance, even after so long. It took the right time, the right person to require it of them, and the right circumstances (another fight against Sauron). Aragorn spoke their release as Isildur's Heir, but only when they had met Isildur's conditions... in a sense.

[Alcuin]

Just passing through… overwhelming busy (thank Heaven!), haven’t looked in for months… can’t stay.

A few things.

Númenóreans regarded their kings as priest-kings. The Biblical archetype, with which Tolkien was familiar, would be Melchizedek, king of Salem (Jerusalem), who “was a priest of God Most High” to whom Abraham made sacrifice. From Letters #156,

Elendil … and his sons Isildur and Anárion, … established a kind of … Númenor in Exile…, the friendship of the Elves, the knowledge of the True God, … the yearning for longevity, and the habit of embalming and the building of splendid tombs – their only “hallows”: or almost so. But the “hallow” of God and the Mountain had perished, and there was no real substitute. Also when the “Kings” came to an end there was no equivalent to a “priesthood”: the two being identical in Númenórean ideas. … [T]here had been a “hallow” on Mindolluin, only approachable by the King, where he had anciently offered thanks and praise on behalf of his people; but it had been forgotten. It was re-entered by Aragorn, and there he found a sapling of the White Tree, and replanted it in the Court of the Fountain. It is to be presumed that with the reemergence of the lineal priest kings … the worship of God would be renewed, and His Name (or title) be again more often heard.

But I am uncertain that Isildur wielded the authority to pronounce such a dreadful curse upon the Men of the Mountains (Elendil was almost certainly still alive when Isildur cursed them, meaning that Elendil was the “priest-king”, not Isildur), nor even if he had, would have dared to use it in such a way.

So let’s consider another avenue.

As regards the Stone of Erech, it must indeed have been quite peculiar, of especial importance to the Númenóreans. (Valandil and I have posted elsewhere on this subject.) Tolkien described it as “a black stone, round as a great globe, the height of a man, though its half was buried in the ground.” (RotK, “Passing of the Grey Company”). It was therefore 12–13 feet (3.7–4 m) in diameter, and must have been immensely heavy and unwieldy, on the order of several tons. That Elendil, Isildur, Anárion, and the Faithful Númenóreans with them should have considered it so valuable that they would haul it aboard ship – which might have been quite dangerous, since they were exiled to Rómenna, the royal harbor on the east of Númenor, with Sauron nearby in Armenelos and King’s Men watching them constantly – in place of the many other, smaller treasures they might have selected, is indicative of the great worth they attached to the stone. It could have been carved from the top of Meneltarma, for instance, since its description might indicate that it was volcanic in origin; but we should consider whether the stone was quarried and shaped in Valinor or Eldamar. This last is my personal opinion; the only supporting evidence I can cite is that Tolkien originally conceived of the Stone of Erech as one of the palantÃ*ri, which were of course from Eldamar. (HoME VIII War of the Ring, “IV Many Roads Lead Eastward (1)”)

More importantly, however, the Dead Men of the Mountains had refused to fight because “they had worshipped Sauron in the Dark Years.” (RotK, op. cit.) Sauron was a necromancer: from Morgoth’s Ring, “Laws and Customs among the Eldar”, “Of Re-Birth and Other Dooms of Those That Go to Mandos”, there is a discussion of one spirit unlawfully possessing the body of another

To attempt to master [the souls of deceased Elves] and make them servants of one’s own will is wickedness. Such practices are of Morgoth; and the necromancers are of the host of Sauron his servant. … It is said that Sauron did these things, and taught his followers how to achieve them.

Certainly the barrow-wights spring immediately to mind! But also the Dead Men of the Mountains: It may well be that their own false religion trapped them: Unwilling to give up their worship of Sauron, to break ties with “Sauron the Base Master of Treachery” (as Gandalf names him), they became ensnared by their own religious practices.

This last seems most appropriate to me. Here is the solution I propose:

• Sometime in the first half of the Second Age, the Eldar bring an enormous stone, their handiwork, from the Uttermost West as a gift to their friends the Dúnedain of Númenor.
• Just before the Downfall of Númenor, Isildur and his friends remove the stone from its resting place and somehow haul it aboard one of their ships.
• After landfall in Gondor, Isildur and his friends place the stone in a prominent position well inland. (One similar, perhaps, to its old position in Númenor?)
• The Men of the White Mountains swear allegiance to Isildur, promising to fight with him against his enemies, placing their hands on the stone (from the Uttermost West!) in witness of their oaths.
• Sauron returns and makes war upon the exiled Dúnedain. The Men of the Mountains break their oaths to fight for Isildur.
• Isildur curses them, binding them to their own necromantic religion that they themselves have chosen to keep instead of their oaths until they are able to repent.
• Aragorn summons them to Erech.
• The Dead Men repent, fight for the Heir of Isildur, and fulfill their oaths, so ending their allegiance to Sauron. They are set free from Sauron’s necromantic religion.

I might add in further support of this that 550 years earlier, the Dead Men of Dunharrow had not repented one whit. In his essay "Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor" (published in Vinyar Tengwar 42), Tolkien wrote (italics mine),

The special horror of the closed door before which the skeleton of Baldor was found was probably due to the fact that the door was the entrance to an evil temple hall to which Baldor had come, probably without opposition up to that point. But the door was shut in his face, and enemies that had followed him silently came up and broke his legs and left him to die in the darkness, unable to find any way out.

There, that is my tale. Others might be devised.

(Now I’ve spent far more time here than I should have. Best to all!)

[muddlewait]

Hello. New here. Very good discussions.

I'm not sure why there need be much resistance to the idea that the Ring, being an obvious immediate source of supernatural power rooted in cruelty, treachery, and domination, helped give Isildur's curse teeth just because he wasn't wearing it when the not-yet-Dead Men swore their oath. Spitefully cursing oathbreakers seems a very Ring-y thing to do, and, based on the text Alcuin quotes, messing with spirits was to some degree within Morgoth and Sauron's pervue, perhaps moreso because of the Dead Men's prior worship of Sauron.

Interestingly, Isildur worded his curse carefully enough to keep the bonds it created tied to himself and his line rather than the Ring, and while said phrasing didn't help him personally, it did, by giving his heirs rather than the Ring's current master ownership of the curse, inadvertently help undo the Ring's own evil. This kind of dynamic may actually help explain how Sauron retained so much of his power, and the "loyalty" of the Ringwraiths, after the loss of the Ring: many of the bonds Sauron created with it may have been similarly worded or otherwise designed to keep his slaves from being free of his influence even if he could no longer wield the Ring directly.

I would guess that, had the Ring been involved in the curse and were it somehow destroyed without the Dead Men first being freed, they would have been released (if perhaps slowly) from the curse after the fact, since what had been wrought with it would have then been undone.

Anyway, it seems to me that the Ring's power is perfectly suited to using a once-honorable, now-broken oath as a reason after the fact to cause centuries of suffering to an entire race, and it also seems like Tolkien's worldview would allow for such an action to eventually, in a roundabout way, contribute to the Ring's own destruction.

It's tolkens world... I gess it's the ring...

[Olmer]

At the time of the curse Isildur did not have a slightess idea about an existance of the Ring, and the ring was happily sitting on a finger of his rightfull owner - Sauron.

So, no. No evil ring was involved. Just ex-numenoreans themselves.
They were too reluctant to acknowledge that way back during happy days upon living in Numenor they, too, have learned some ways of sorcery from the very best friend and counsellor of their king, not just the cursed black numenoreans.

[Lefty Scaevola]

I do not recall that it is clear exactly when Isildur cursed them, and it might well have been after the victory, when he had the ring. Recall that his path did not approach the white mountains during the war. At the sudden outbreak, he was defending Minas Ithil, and when it was lost, he went down the Anduin and by sea to Arnor, while Anarion held Osgiliath. He then marched with the Host of the last alliance from near Amon Sul in Arnor, accross the Misty Mountains, and down the Anduin vallley to the Dagorlad, never comming near the White Mountains. I believe it most likely he applied the curse, after the war, during his sojuron in Gondor after the war.