Timeline Event
Gwaihir rescues Frodo and Sam from the eruption of Mount Doom
Event Type: Environment/Disease
Age: 3rd Age - Ring War
Date: March 25, 3019
Description:
An event in the aftermath of the Destruction of the One Ring; see that entry for an overview:
Then Gandalf ... stood upon the hill-top and called; and down to him came the great eagle, Gwaihir the Windlord, and stood before him.
'Twice you have borne me, Gwaihir my friend,' said Gandalf. 'Thrice shall pay for all, if you are willing. You will not find me a burden much greater than when you bore me from Zirakzigil, where my old life burned away.'
'I would bear you,' answered Gwaihir, 'whither you will, even were you made of stone.'
'Then come, and let your brother go with us, and some other of your folk who is most swift! For we have need of speed greater than any wind, outmatching the wings of the Nazgûl.'
'The North Wind blows, but we shall outfly it,' said Gwaihir. And he lifted up Gandalf and sped away south, and with him went Landroval, and Meneldor young and swift. And they passed over Udûn and Gorgoroth and saw all the land in ruin and tumult beneath them, and before them Mount Doom blazing, pouring out its fire. ...
Frodo and Sam could go no further. ... They had reached a low ashen hill piled at the Mountain's foot ... All about it the earth gaped, and from deep rifts and pits smoke and fumes leaped up. ... A rain of hot ash was falling. ...
[Sam's] eyes still strayed north ... into the eye of the wind..., as the cold blast ... drove back the darkness and the ruin of the clouds.
And so it was that Gwaihir saw them with his keen far-seeing eyes, as down the wild wind he came, and daring the great peril of the skies he circled in the air: two small dark figures, forlorn, hand in hand upon a little hill, while the world shook under them, and gasped, and rivers of fire drew near. And even as he espied them and came swooping down, he saw them fall....
Side by side they lay; and down swept Gwaihir, and down came Landroval and Meneldor the swift; and in a dream, not knowing what fate had befallen them, the wanderers were lifted up and borne far away out of the darkness and the fire.The Return of the King, LoTR Book 6, Ch 4, The Field of Cormallen
Contributors:
Elena Tiriel 31Jul06
