not all those who wander are lost but i sure am

POV : You’re visiting Tirion’s palace with lady Celebrìan and there is a portrait of lady Galadriel as a very serious baby on the wall.

knot talk

(Disclaimer: It's possible someone has come to these exact same conclusions before. Because this essay was just for funsies, i didn't check.)

When Éowyn confronts the Witch King of Angmar on the Pelennor fields, the first thing she says to him is, “Begone, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion! Leave the dead in peace!”

We can assume that, with “dwimmerlaik,” she has slipped into the Rohirric language, if only because of its similarity to the place name “Dwimorberg,” the location of the door to the Paths of the Dead that Tolkien translates as “Haunted Mountain.” And indeed, dwimor/dwimer is an Old English word (Tolkien uses Old English as a stand-in for the language of Rohan) meaning, according to the Bosworth Toller Old English Dictionary, “illusion, delusion, apparition; phantom; error.”

But what stood out to me most is the second half of the compound, “laik.” On first seeing it, I thought, “hey, I know that word,” and I know that word because it isn’t Old English, it’s Middle English (and specifically because it shows up a lot in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which I’ll come back to later).

In fact, the whole compound word shows up in the Middle English Dictionary as dweomerlak or demerlayk, so it seems very likely that Tolkien came across it in a Middle English text before deciding to use it as the Witch King’s epithet. But while he “Rohiricizes” Middle English dweomer/demer to something more like a standard Old English form, “dwimmer,” he does not do the same with laik. The “ai” or “ay” vowel combination isn’t typical of Old English.

Why break with the fairly straightforward use of Old English for Rohirric with this specific word? After all, “laik” has an Old English root—the word “lac.”

Both “laik” and “lac” have a number of possible definitions. I think the Witch King is a dwimmerlaik instead of a dwimmerlac to point us toward which one Tolkien intends.

Bosworth Toller states that “the idea which lies at the root of the various meanings” of lac “seems to be that of motion.” According to the dictionary entry, while the Icelandic cognate leikr came to more often indicate games or play—a connotation the word retained in “the dialect of the North of England”—and relatedly, both Icelandic and English used the word to mean “battle,” the most common definitions of Old English lac are related to gifts and offerings.

But Tolkien didn’t want the Witch King to be interpreted as a phantom gift or a phantom offering, so he couldn’t “retroliterate” laik into his typical Rohirric/ Old English.

The Middle English “laik,” on the other hand, in all its various spellings, is derived from both lac and the Scandinavian leik/leikr, and its most common uses by far are related to games, sport, play, and amusement. In retaining the Middle English here, Tolkien points us toward a definition of “dwimmerlaik” that has Éowyn calling the Witch King a kind of phantom/illusion play/game.

The connotation of this is epic mockery. “Dwimmer” underlines that the Witch King is a wraith, yes, but it also identifies him as insubstantial, not real. And as a laik, he is something not to be taken seriously. He is a phantom play, an illusion game. Something that will dissipate if you wave your hand and say the right magic words.

Also note that the Witch King is not the producer of the illusion here, he is the product, the illusion itself. “Dwimmerlaik” implies that, although he may take the name of “Witch King,” he is not the sorcerer behind his own manifestation. His form has been manipulated into existence by the real big bad, Sauron. This is a “shadow of Morgoth”-level insult.

The Middle English dweomerlak/demerlayk backs this up—the Middle English Dictionary defines this word as “magic art, witchcraft.” So the Witch King is not in fact the witch, he is the craft. He is not the magician, he is the magic trick.

Just a trick. A trick inside the mind of the beholder, perhaps—a reminder that despair, which is the Witch King’s greatest weapon, is a lie.

And the thing about tricks is that they can be figured out, and then the illusion is undone.

This is exactly what Éowyn does on the Pelennor. When the Witch King tells her, “No living man may hinder me!” she points out the loophole: “But no living man am I! You look upon a woman.”

For the first time, doubt enters the Witch King’s mind, giving Merry (also not a man) the opportunity to stab him in the leg with the sword he got from the barrow wight (not a living man). Éowyn (a woman) seizes the opening to stab him in the face, and poof! Like any decent magic trick or phantom or illusion, the Witch King vanishes.

In calling him a dwimmerlaik, then, Tolkien clues us in to something essential about the Witch King’s nature and hints at the means of his imminent defeat: he is a trick to decipher, a game to play.

More specifically, he is a word game—the chink Éowyn finds in his armor is a linguistic one, making the means of his death the solution to a riddle. “What can kill something invulnerable to living men?” I think Tolkien’s use of dwimmerlaik tips us off about this, too, if we look at where he might have encountered both “laik” and “dwimmerlaik” before.

More analysis involving specific Middle English texts, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Cleanness, below the cut.

Everyone brings a dish to share. A table full of endless choices stands before you. Some dishes are labeled correctly, others arnt. Some are extra spicy so read notes and tags about the dishes.

But as you go down the table, you have the choice for what you put on your plate. Don't pick up the pasta if you're gluten-free. Avoid the stew if you don't like onions.

You have a choice again when you sit down and take a bite. Was the tater tot casserole not really what you wanted anymore? Cool, stop eating it.

Fandom is a potluck and you have a choice to not consume the things you don't like. You don't get a choice over what others bring to the potluck. You don't get to police others for what they want to eat either.

Don't be mad that we brought egg salad when you hate it. You're the one that is forcing yourself to eat it when we told you exactly what it is.

Don't like something? Don't put it on your plate and eat it. You do not get to be a bully and be mad that someone brought it and someone else likes it.

The fandom isn't all about you and your likes. We don't have to cater to you.