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Hello and welcome to Mythmakers. Mythmakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding.

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I'm an author but I also adore Lord of the Rings and I have been reading my way through Lord of the Rings, taking an author's look at what's going on. And we have reached in Two Towers, Chapter 7, which is the one called Helm's Deep. Now, what is going on in this chapter? Well, it falls into two parts.

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The first is the journey to Helm's Deep and then the second most involved part is the battle. And one of the questions I want to focus on here is the question that any author faces is how do you write something as complicated as a battle with action going on in lots of places on the battlefield? And we're going to be looking at Tolkien's use of metaphor and simile as a way of capturing that particular battle. So the first section, we are on our way to Helm's Deep.

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Note here that there's an interesting point of view that Tolkien used to start with. He actually has a combined point of view, the host, that are joined together to reach Helm's Deep. And the way it's written is foreshadowing some of the things Tolkien does, particularly in the Battle of Pelennor Fields.

(1:47 - 2:09)
And that is, it's very close to the poetry that he will later use to recount the battle, which is done as if it is written by a bard of Rohan. What do I mean by this? Well, just have a look at the second paragraph right at the beginning of this chapter. He uses the tradition of alliterative verse here.

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And it's sort of just bubbling away underneath the sentence structure. You'll hear it if I start reading. So he writes, The host rode on, need drove them.

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Fearing to come too late, they rode with all the speed they could, pausing seldom. Swift and enduring were the steeds of Rohan, but there were many leagues to go. You could slightly rearrange those words and put them into the verse form and it'd be very close to the kind of poetry that we later see.

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So you've got speed, swift, steeds, all those sort of S sounds. And you've got those sort of short sentences, the host rode on, need drove them. Those are the kind of patterns that are echoed in the poetry of the Pelennor Field section.

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Anyway, here it's written as prose, but you can't help but hear it. When you're reading it, if you are able to read so that you can sound out the words, it's very evident. And of course, if you listen to the audio versions, it will pop out of how it is spoken and you'll see what I mean.

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First little gloss that you might be interested in, which is an unusual word. I don't remember it anywhere else in Lord of the Rings. And that's the word bivouac, which means a camp without tents.

(3:38 - 3:55)
It does seem a word that is quite modern, not used to seeing it in Middle Earth. But actually, when I dug into this, it's actually a Swiss German word, which then went into French. So it's sort of done that journey.

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So there's a passage here just after the section break about shadows. And this is a very interesting passage because shadows in Tolkien's world are usually either the sign of the bad or the sign of the ambivalent. So we've got both of those here.

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So we've got a sort of darkness coming from the east, a heaviness and a darkness from the east. We've got something similar coming from the wizard's veil, which is associated with Saruman. But then Gandalf, who knows what's going on in deeper ways than anybody else, he asks Legolas what he can see in the shadows.

(4:43 - 5:06)
And Legolas gives a poetic description of these figures he can see in the shadows. It is as if the twilight under endless trees were flowing downwards from the hills. So that's a hint of the allies of the Ents, who are the Horns, H-U-O-R-N-S.

(5:07 - 7:00)
And it's evident from the way they are described by Treebeard that they are not always on the side of mankind or elfkind. So they're also in this shadowy shades of grey area. And it also is a way of connecting this part of the story, of course, with the Merry and Pippin part of the story.

So we're getting a hint of what's going on there, but we don't know. And that is one of the techniques authors use, is you delay the gratification. You raise the question, but you hold on to the answer so people read on.

So we can imagine that there's something going on with Treebeard and the Ents and the Horns over in the wizard's veil, but we don't know what at this stage. The journey on the way to Helm's Deep, there is some beautiful bits of natural description. And one of the things that I wanted to highlight here as part of Tolkien's style and some of the things that make him a particularly fine writer is by saying, let's stop and admire the clouds with him.

He gets many occasions when he's talking about sunrises, sunsets, but what he does is he always makes them different. So I think he has noticed, he has stood in his garden at Northmoor Road, he has stood on the top of one of the buildings when he was on fire watch during the Second World War, or when he's walking with his friends before the time of writing that, and he's noticed the difference. So if you want to write good descriptions of nature, make sure not when you're sitting at your computer or writing with a pen, when you're out and about that you're actually noting down exactly what it really looks like.

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So let's admire his clouds. It's described like this, a sombre canopy with great billowing edges, flecked with dazzling light. So no lazy generalization here about clouds like cauliflowers or that kind of stuff.

He has seen it, noted it and put it down. But it also, of course, has the ominous aspect to it, which fits with the mood that he's trying to create. What they see in the distance is a mountain called Thryhirne, which is from Old English.

(7:41 - 9:56)
We're in a world where Rohan language predominates and that's Old English, which means three-cornered. It's a three-peaked mountain. And coming towards them, we get the drama and he's given quite a bit of space in the narrative of a single horseman coming towards them.

It's like some sort of epic filmic moment as he comes towards them across this plain with the sun setting behind him and so on. This moment, I think, was transferred in the film to Aragorn. If you remember, they've added in a whole kind of little extra adventure for Aragorn.

Perhaps they felt there wasn't enough happening to him where he falls off a cliff and then he gets rescued by the horse and then he rides towards Helm's Deep. And those wide shots with Aragorn on his horse, which is why they wanted to do that to sort of locate the place and give it the epic scale, is actually given to this single survivor of a battle at the Fords of Eisen. Anyway, there is a brief account of what happened at the Fords of Eisen.

If you want to read the larger version of this, just look in the Unfinished Tales, where the strategy behind the leaders of Rohan is actually explored in much fuller form. We're also told that part of the Rohan culture of fighting isn't just cavalry charges. It's described here that they used a shield wall.

A shield wall is literally shields held in a wall. So the front people hold the shields in front, the next row behind put the shields over the top to protect their heads and the person in front of them. And this is something which is associated with the Anglo-Saxon tactics for fighting.

So they're not always on horses. They are sometimes on foot, as would have been an Anglo-Saxon fighter, someone like King Alfred. One of the interesting things at this point is the hopelessness that is felt by Rohan.

(9:57 - 11:54)
It feels battered. It feels like it's losing. And we know that much of this was written in the 40s, when perhaps Tolkien himself was feeling something very similar about the mood about the war in England at the time.

But in that darkness, the presence of the king acts as a sort of light, a return of hope. And the king in this case is Théoden, though of course, he's also with the greater king, Aragorn as well, whose return does similar things to Minas Tirith and to Gondor. We also get hidden heroes in this chapter.

There is clearly lots more behind this than Tolkien puts into the book, which is why the Unfinished Tale has quite a large section which never made it into this part. And the person who sort of specifies this really, or represents this, is Irkenbrand. Irkenbrand, if you've only watched the films, you won't know who on earth Irkenbrand is.

His name is from Old English and possibly it is from Irken, which is like Arken stone. Remember the hobbit stone? It means precious and brand means flame. And the notes say that Tolkien briefly considered it as a name for Aragorn.

Of course, it wouldn't fit with Aragorn's origins if they went for an Old English name, but you can see why it would be attractive, precious flame. And this Irkenbrand gets a lot of time being discussed in his absence, but yet only really appears on stage, as it were, very briefly. So he's one of those hidden heroes.

(11:54 - 13:30)
The person coming with this message from the defeat at the Fords of Isen is called Siol. Now, Siol isn't really a name, it's a social rank, and it means a freeman, someone who isn't one of nobility. But it's used as though it could be a name, which I imagine lots of people have just read straight past, but it's actually more saying he's just an ordinary soldier.

This message from Siol precipitates Gandalf suddenly taking off. Again, this is where if you've watched the film, you'll think he says something dramatic about on the third day, you know, look for me at sunrise. None of that is here.

He doesn't give a timeline. He just says, you go to Helm's Deep. I've got other things to do.

And off he dashes. And his departure is one of those lovely poetic moments. In fact, reading these closely have made me realise just how much poetry there is hidden underneath the prose here.

So here it is. Even as they looked, he was gone, a flash of silver in the sunset, a wind over the grass, a shadow that fled and passed from sight. You have to now turn to the Unfinished Tales if you want to find out exactly what he does, because we learn from that, that he goes to Isengard and spends 20 minutes there.

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We get a sort of version of this later from Merry and Pippin, but there's a sort of longer form version of it in the Unfinished Tales. So Gandalf going is a bit of a shock to everybody. And we get a moment here where Tolkien is dipping into, I think, his knowledge of Shakespeare, because we get something very familiar from plays like Henry V, where you get the voices of the ordinary soldiers discussing the doings of the great ones.

And in this case, it's an unnamed guard speaking to Harmer, who you remember is one of the main movers back at Meduseld, the man on the door. And the guard is fearful, but Harmer defends Gandalf Greyhane. And he says, I will wait until I see Gandalf again.

He's not judging the outcome like the other guard is. But it's that little moment where you see into the host. We were talking about the being like a collective.

We have now focused on some of the feelings going on in one part of that. So now we are reaching Helm's Deep. We get quite a long description, involved description of Helm's Deep.

And that's important, I think, for the seriousness with which Tolkien takes the whole idea of battle plans and strategy. Because if we've laid it out to us, we can then follow the various moves that later follow as the waves of the attack happen. It's like a military survey with little poetic flashes in it.

For example, within the survey, you get the idea of there being crow-haunted cliffs, which obviously, if you were purely military, you wouldn't include. This is one of the chapters where Tolkien is trying to calculate distances. And there is apparently a contradiction between what the map shows and what Tolkien is working on in terms of his own calculation as to how far, how many leagues there are.

(15:52 - 16:38)
The distance in Tolkien's calculation isn't as big as the distance on the map. So sometimes there are little discrepancies. But anyway, you get the sense that the important point, because obviously we're in a fictional world, the important point is the remaining forces under Erkenbrand have been scattered.

And so they don't know how many there's going to be and who is going to make it back to the base Helm's Deep. We do get an odd sentence here, which always will strike a modern reader as being a bit bizarre, which is Aragorn and Legolas went now with Emma in the van. Emma is presumably still with Gimli behind him.

(16:38 - 18:04)
Van is short for vanguard, slightly unfortunate, I think. Might have been better having the whole word there. And as they are approaching Helm's Deep, we get a look over the shoulder to what's going on behind.

And here we get one of those moments of the terrible beauty of war that Tolkien excels in. He talks about the enemy torches being like red flowers. And Theoden says, they are burning as they come, rick, cot and tree.

Those of you who know the films well will recognise this as being transferred to Erwin in the film. But here it's actually Theoden who says it. And so they are retreating knowing that the land behind them is being subjected to a scorched earth policy.

So we get a second enjoyable little cameo here of another character who comes to represent the ordinary soldier. This is why we've got Henry V in our mind in this chapter. And that is Gambling, the elderly fighter.

And he is the one who tells it straight, is manning the outer defences. And he's saying, we haven't got enough people. And those that we do have are too old or too young.

(18:04 - 19:25)
But he says it like this. Most of them, that's the fighters, have seen too many winters as I have, or too few as my son's son here. Again, this is a line which Peter Jackson's team moved over to somebody else.

And it's lovely to have it back in the mouth of an ordinary Rohan soldier because he's still defending, even though he knows that it's pretty hopeless, he is still defending. And they go on picking up Erkenbrand in this discussion. In a way, Erkenbrand is one of the dogs that doesn't bark in this story.

I feel that with all this time giving Erkenbrand, perhaps at some point Tolkien thought he was going to be a bigger character. It feels as though he should be. He does appear as we'll see, but it's sort of odd that he doesn't really have more of a role.

But anyway, what is clear, though, is the defiance of Gambling, who says to Théoden and his followers that he is going to defend. If they come to bargain for our goods at Helmsgate, they will pay a high price. So that's sort of turning into a haggle, the sort of black humor of the situation that he's picking up there.

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So we've been spending a lot of time in this chapter in the host, in the minds of Rohan, people, the king, the ordinary soldier, and it's time to check in on our heroes. And Tolkien does that by going to Legolas and Gimli, discussing the merits of the fortification which they find themselves. We also get a reminder of their cultures because there is mention of the bow and the axe.

And that bow and axe combo is now going to be one of the main things referred to during the battle that follows. So it's set up nicely here. We probably don't need reminding, but it just underlines how they both would proceed in a battle.

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So the question here for an author who's about to fight a battle at night, how do you control the narrative? And what Tolkien is showing here is a master class in how to describe it in waves, in stages. So you'll see through the metaphors I'm going to pick out, and sometimes it's a simile, how he does that. Anyway, so we get the enemy is at hand.

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So this is a tidying up of all the reports coming in from all the different sources. It's given as a unison report. It's as though it's amalgamated in HQ.

So the enemy is at hand, they said. We loosed every arrow that we had and filled the dike with orcs, but it will not halt them long. Already they are scaling the bank at many points, thick as marching ants, but we have taught them not to carry torches.

So it's a joint report from the people right at the last exposed flank who are now retreated behind the walls. And so we get here the first of the metaphors that come into this, which is the idea of the enemy being so numerous that they're like a swarm of ants. And the other way Tolkien controls what we see is we see it by having the blackness there, it kind of shuts down most sensory options.

And then he reveals dramatically suddenly in flashes because he has a thunderstorm which he brings on. That's the sort of you know, the atmospherics are even more pumped up by having thunder and lightning and rain. But you get glimpses of the enemy, not long surveys.

And he continues with the idea of them being like a massive invading insects, because you've got a description of the space, which is the battlefield area, boiling and crawling with black shapes. So it's definitely this idea of a horrible, horrible invasion of insects. But then he switches, which is one of the lexical switches he makes.

And he moves from talking about them as individual insects to talking about them like a great field of corn, the idea of it being a whole, a unitary, like an awful harvest that has come to their door. He says this, the men of the mark amazed looked out as it seemed to them upon a great field of dark corn tossed by a tempest of war and every ear linted with barbed light. That ear there is the ear of corn.

And he's able by using this metaphor to move from a sort of invasion of ants that's going everywhere to suggest something which is actually more regimented, more standing in rows, literally, and following a single order. It seems to moderate from the confusion of an insect invasion to a field of corn, which is still vast, but it is also still. And it gets the idea that they are poised, waiting.

(23:54 - 25:10)
In this chapter, the first moves in this battle are made by the enemy. Again, in the film, again, dramatic license, of course, they can. The first arrow is shot from an ill-disciplined member of the Rohan defenders.

Nothing like that here. The men of the mark are quiet, they hold their fire until the moment when they are ready to reply when they're within range of the weapons. And so after the initial attack from the enemy, then at last an answer came, a storm of arrows met them and a hail of stones.

So Rohan is much more disciplined in this version than in the film version. So we've had insects, we've had corn, and then the imagery changes again. It changes to the sea.

So we're working our way through sort of elemental forces, and this is the most powerful. This is the wave, which literally a wave, which is the most forceful. And this is where Tolkien is creating the idea of it being a really powerful enemy.

(25:10 - 26:12)
This is the enemy. They wavered, broke and fled back, and then charged again, broke and charged again. And each time, like the incoming sea, they halted at a higher point.

If you just look at that sentence, it's towards the end of page 138 in my edition, you can see that there is a mimetic quality about the sentence. So the punctuation gets, there's sort of short sub-clauses and then a longer one, like a sweeping in of the waves going higher. As you read it, you're carried on the momentum.

So I'll read it again. They wavered, broke and fled back. So that's the retreat.

And then charged again, broke and charged again. And each time, like the incoming sea, they halted at a higher point. So it sort of sweeps forward.

(26:13 - 28:54)
After describing the battle in terms of these great forces, you have to focus on the actions of individuals to get any grasp of what's going on. And the action here moves to Aragorn and Aemir who are fighting together. There's a nice little simile about Aragorn as he runs to deal with a problem.

It talks about him running like fire. It sounds a bit like the flame on a fuse to a bomb. So it's that kind of idea that he's shooting along to have an explosive encounter with the orcs at the very gates of Helm's Deep.

And we get the two swords unsheathed, of course, Aragorn's and Duril. But we also get Aemir's sword, which is called Guthwine. And that's another Old English word, which basically means battle friend.

So they're coming to deter the people using the battering ram or trying to attack the gates. They are echoed by what's happening in the weather around them. A keen wind was blowing from the north again.

Aragorn's from the north. The clouds were torn and drifting and stars peaked out. And above the hills of the west wing moon road, glimmering yellow in the storm rack.

So the overwhelming clouds are breaking up. And there's a sort of subtle echo of the little activity that's been going on at the gates. There's a final bite in this attack though.

And Aemir almost goes to meet his maker at this point because some orcs have been playing dead and they jump up. And it's only the hidden presence of Gimli, who is their backup, though they didn't know it, who prevents them killing Aemir. And he shouts, Baruk Khazad, Khazad Aimenu.

It's not glossed here, but apparently that means axes of dwarves. The dwarves are upon you. So Khazad meaning dwarf, Baruk presumably axes.

But it's quite nice that you get these little war cries with no explanation whatsoever, but they sound right, don't they? Anyway, he saves Aemir. And then that gives us a chance for a little banter, which Gimli does with Aemir. And then he carries on, Gimli does with Legolas in the game of how many they're managing to kill, that thing that was carried over into the film.

(28:54 - 29:16)
But here it's used as a way of marking the passage of time in the battle. So you get the human or the dwarf touch here to remind us that battles are about the individuals fighting them. So as this battle progresses, we're still in the enemy as the elemental force of the sea here.

(29:17 - 32:22)
But it's not going so well in some ways. They are like a relentless storm battering, but they're also losing lots of their own number. And the image here is that of shingle in a storm.

So we've got a storm going on. It's all fits together. Before the wolf's foot, the dead and broken were piled like shingle in a storm, ever higher rose the hideous mounds, and still the enemy came on.

So they're still like the sea battering away at Helm's Deep. We get changing groupings in this battle, which is part of keeping it fresh, keeping our interest. So after having Aemir and Aragorn as a fighting pair, and Gimli and Legolas, we now get an unexpected pairing of Gamling and Gimli, which is great fun because they go to head off an incursion amongst the horses and to mend a weakness in the walls, which is under this culvert, which some of the orcs have crept through.

This wouldn't have worked if we hadn't already got an idea of what gambling is like earlier. So the ground for this was set as they approach Helm's Deep earlier in the chapter. Helm's Deep has now moved from being described as a castle at Nistel.

It's now described as a island in the sea, carrying on this extended metaphor of it being battered by seas. And Aragorn, understandably, as are many of the other fighters, is wearied by it all. And he says, this is a night as long as years.

And again, thinking about the moment when this was written, it does feel like something that somebody might have said if they were on fire watch during World War Two, watching the rooftops of Oxford, as Tolkien would have done to check fires were or no bombs were being dropped to start fires. But he also must have done night watches like this in World War One when he was much more in the front line of battle himself. But I think it's good to remember the cost and the strain of war and that's what Tolkien never forgets.

And there's a pause here where Gambling, who is our old Rohan man, fills in on some of the politics of the Dunlendings who are amongst the orcs who are attacking. Those of you who have watched the film that came up about War of the Rohirrim, they involve the Dunlendings from earlier on in the history of Rohan. But we do get here, the only word of Dunlending speech that's in Lord of the Rings and Gambling says it.

(32:22 - 34:29)
It's the word forgoil. So, if you want to make a really hard quiz on Lord of the Rings, you can use that one. What's the only word of Dunlending speech? Forgoil, which seems to be a term of abuse for the people of Rohan.

And Gambling says that they are there, the Dunlendings, because that is an old hatred Saruman has inflamed. Just look at the history of modern warfare and you'll see that despots can use existing fractures, existing resentments and bring them back to the hot heat of fire again. That's what Tolkien would have observed going on in Europe, of course, during the Second World War.

And here it's used to give this sense of what's going on in the politics of this battle, more reality really. It's not just a horde of fantasy creatures. There is also human agendas that have got mixed up in the mix.

And I think that always makes it feel a thicker, more realistic world. Aragorn's hope that the day will bring new hope does seem to be false because it's very rudely interrupted by an explosion. Probably not the first time you've heard that Saruman is noted for his use of what seems to be gunpowder, bombs, fireworks of that sort, as opposed to the friendly fireworks that Gandalf stands for.

And it is called by Aragorn, Devilry of Saruman. Now, devilry seems a bit of an odd word in a Middle Earth world, which doesn't really do with theology so much. But there is also this idea that it's a form of translation.

(34:30 - 34:58)
So anyway, we get the idea that it is demonic. It is very dark arts to use this kind of weapon, cowardly perhaps, because it's not a one-on-one fight, which is the way our heroes are fighting. And the explosion is the last of the great sea images that we get in this battle.

(34:59 - 36:18)
And it's the very, very high point. Over the wall and under the wall, the last assault came sweeping like a dark wave upon a hill of sand. So as we've been watching the rise in power of one side, by nature, the other side descends.

And so from being an island in a rock, Helm's Deep is now a sandcastle, very fragile. Surely it's going to fall. And to add to the excitement of this chapter, which is full of action and full of set pieces and little skirmishes here and there, we get Aragorn in peril.

But he shows his courage because he responds to his own personal danger to deciding to go and talk to the enemy, Holder Parley. He speaks first to Theoden, who is held in reserve. He's protected up in the tower.

And the king is determined to ride out. And he says, but I will not end it here, taken like an old badger in a trap. It's very much in the spirit of this is my final throw.

(36:18 - 37:00)
He's not actually like a kind of almost suicidal bid. And Aragorn, first of all, before we reach that point, will go and see what words will do. And he goes and talks to the people beyond the gates.

This particular scene is very well done in the BBC audio version of it from the 80s. If you want to hear a dramatic rendering of it. And he says the words, you do not know your peril, which seems at this point, like a form of bluster because Aragorn doesn't really have anything to back up this threat with.

(37:00 - 39:10)
But it also turns out to be prophetic because as he is saying that, other forces are mustering behind the enemy to cut them off. And it ends up that the great sea of enemies becomes surrounded by a three pronged assault. So we have Theoden riding out as he promised he would do.

We've got the arrival of the horns, who we saw right in the distance early on in this chapter. We don't know at this point, but they've been summoned by Gandalf and they've cut off the retreat. And the only other way out, finally, finally, finally, Erkenbrand, who we spent a lot of time anticipating, he and his people have been rounded up by Gandalf and they cut off that retreat.

And it is truly a majestic moment when they all come out together. So I'll just read a little bit of that. Helm, Helm, the riders shouted.

Helm is arisen and comes back to war. Helm for Theoden king. And with that shout, the king came.

His horse was white as snow, golden was his shield, and his spear was long. At his right hand was Aragorn, Elendil's heir. Behind him rode the lords of the house of Eorl the Young.

Light sprang in the sky. Night departed. So great drama out they sweep.

And the enemy who want to flee are brought face to face with something which is just called a nameless wood. Forests and woods are the things which scared our ancestors. And of course, it seems to be there by wizardry.

It just suddenly appeared. But the darkness under the wood is understood to be a threat. And so that they are forced to go into what is a primeval terror.

(39:11 - 40:03)
They don't want to go, of course. So the enemy is now back to how it started, but much weaker. They've gone back to being like insects.

The enemy is now packed like swarming flies. So do you remember they were invading like ants, they're now swarming flies. And they've changed from the scale of being elementally strong like the sea to being tiny little creatures who can be swatted, I suppose.

And then we get Erkenbrand and his men on foot arriving. No, it's not a cavalry charge. So forget the film.

This is people arriving on foot, no doubt, with their shield wall intact. And with them is a rider clad in white, with the rising sun behind him. So Gandalf making a dramatic entrance with the light behind him.

(40:04 - 40:44)
And here we get Tolkien really indulging in wonderful rhetoric of battle. He uses a strategy here called anaphora, which means a repetition. So here we get it.

I'll read that bit and you'll see what I mean. Listen for the word down. Down through the breach of the dyke charged the king's company.

Down from the hills leaped Erkenbrand, lord of Westfold. Down leaped Shadowfax, like a deer that runs sure-footed in the mountains. So they're coming at the enemy from all sides.

(40:47 - 41:19)
So you would have thought that maybe we end with flies. But no, Tolkien has yet one more simile to dispel, to get rid of this enemy. And it's a simile where they're compared to being like a black smoke.

They've become insubstantial. And the last thing we hear about them is wailing they passed under the waiting shadow of the trees. And from that shadow, none ever came again.

(41:22 - 43:08)
End of chapter. So how to write a battle? Control your imagery. See how Tolkien moves through different groups from insects to ears of corn to the sea elemental forces and then retreats back again to it being flies and finally smoke.

Keep the humanising element going by checking in with your main characters but also with the soldiers. And also lay out the battlefield when you're in a building like that or a sort of castle complex. Make sure the reader can follow where the different encounters are happening so that you don't lose track of a vast battle because you can see where the key assaults are happening.

I do think it feels like a chapter written by someone who's been to war. And I think that gives it added poignancy but also reality. So that is the first of the big set piece battles in The Two Towers.

And the next chapter will see us on our way to Isengard to find out what's been happening there. Thank you for listening. Thanks for listening to Mythmakers Podcast.

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