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Wendell Berry writes that he has “too little faith in the long-term e cacy of public stewardship” but much more faith in “the long-term e cacy of private stewardship,” meaning in part that individuals and communi-ties, and not just vague corporate or political enticommuni-ties, must be involved in stewardship. He sees as a major component of our modern ecological problems “the lack of a general culture of land stewardship.”⁴ e sur-vival of our world, our country, or our society rests on our understand-ing of our roles as stewards—or, one might say, on competunderstand-ing visions of what a steward should be and should do.

One of the most significant aspects of Tolkien’s environmental vision, and one informing all areas of his ecology, is his clarification of the real role of a steward. In the specific context of environmental stewardship, and especially the stewardship of wilderness and trees, he provides the model of the Ents, already mentioned briefly and explored more thoroughly in chapter 5. More generally, he gives us Gandalf—both the wizard’s words about stewardship and his explicit model of stewardship.

is is especially important in today’s culture. In contemporary envi-ronmental discourse, the words steward and stewardship have acquired negative connotations; for some, it is as if their main understanding of stewardship has come from Denethor rather than from Gandalf.

Although the problem is not universal, and there are hopeful signs for a positive revaluation of the term,⁵ even within the context of Christianity the terms have been misused. Jim Ball outlines four widely divergent ways in which the term stewardship has been used in the evangelical Protestant communities.⁶ At one extreme, the rhetoric of so-called wise-use stewardship has been used to justify the exploitation of nature with an attitude of what Ball calls “extreme arrogance.” is is akin to the approach of Denethor, who seldom even uses the word steward to describe himself, preferring the title Lord. Denethor does not hesitate to use exploitative methods to achieve his goals. Gandalf would

not describe such an attitude as stewardship, and he certainly would not call it wise. Nonetheless, there are some who approach the world in this way, using the word stewardship arrogantly to describe what they are or are not doing and seeking to justify their behavior in Christian terms—a false justification, in Tolkien’s understanding of Christianity.

It is understandable, therefore, that proponents of environmental responsibility sometimes react negatively to ideas of stewardship that seem to be borrowed from Christian doctrines or to the word steward-ship itself. Because of such misuse, it is tempting to simply look for a dif-ferent term altogether to describe what Gandalf is modeling. In a book whose subject is Tolkien’s environmental ethic, however, stewardship is the appropriate term: it is the term Tolkien used in his writing, and it is a term he used with full awareness of its implications for Christian belief.⁷ We must therefore make the e ort to understand what that term means. Tolkien does this through the contrast between Gandalf and Denethor; he makes it clear that the true model of stewardship is that which is sometimes called Christian stewardship, which we define sim-ply as stewardship of the kind modeled by Gandalf.

What is this Christian, or Gandalfian, concept of stewardship?

One approach to understanding the word, appropriate to the study of Tolkien the philologist, is the historical and etymological approach. e word steward comes from two Old English words, stig and weard. A stig is a hall; in the Germanic tradition, it is a medieval mead hall, the place where a ruling chie ain gathered his followers for feasting and reward a er success in battle. Later, the meaning of stig broadened to include inns and other forms of lodging.⁸ A weard is a “lord,” “keeper,”

or “guardian,” and it has a modern derivative in warden. Today, when a child becomes someone’s ward, that person is responsible for protect-ing and nurturprotect-ing the child until he or she comes of age or until the child’s parents become capable of caring for the child. us, a stigweard, or steward, is the keeper or warden of the mead hall. e word implies a set of responsibilities, and medieval law and social custom specified a number of things that a good steward could and could not do. e Anglo-Saxon stigweard was a host in charge of taking care of the guests of the hall; he was not, however, the king of the hall. Rather, the stew-ard was responsible to a higher authority, namely, the king or chie ain.

Later medieval codes required a steward to oversee the agriculture and husbandry of a feudal estate in his lord’s absence—a frequent situation,

owing to the widely disparate locations of the manors under a feudal lord’s demesne. us the steward’s responsibility included an explicit environmental component. In the realm of Gondor in the ird Age of Middle-earth—a realm modeled closely on feudal European civilization⁹— a steward was the one le in charge of a kingdom when a king went o to war. e steward had authority in the king’s name until the king returned, but ultimately he was accountable to the rightful king for all his actions.

e gospels record several parables concerning stewards, includ-ing a “faithful and wise steward” who is ready and waitinclud-ing for his lord’s return from a journey afar (Luke 12:42–44), a bad steward who oppresses those under his care (Luke 12:45–46), and an “unjust steward” accused of wasting his lord’s goods (Luke 16:1–2). ough the bad steward is a stock figure in medieval narrative, medieval literature provides at least one impressive example of a good steward, and it is one that we know Tolkien was intimately acquainted with. e Middle English romance titled “Sir Orfeo” tells the story of Sir Orfeo, the king of Tracience, whose wife Eurydice is spirited away by the king of the underworld. Leaving his kingdom in the hands of a steward, Orfeo goes on a ten-year search for his wife. Arriving at last in the underworld, he pleases its king by his harp-playing and thereby recovers his wife. Returning to Tracience in disguise, Orfeo discovers that the steward is still loyal to the absent king;

overjoyed to find Sir Orfeo still alive, he gladly surrenders the throne to its rightful ruler with magnificent ceremony. When Orfeo and Eurydice die a er a long and happy reign, the throne reverts to the steward—now designated its rightful successor.

e supernatural elements of the “Sir Orfeo” story may derive from undocumented Celtic sources, but most scholars recognize biblical sym-bolism in the idea of an absent but returning king and a faithful steward.

e story survives in a number of versions in Old and Middle English, but what is interesting about this particular rendition is its happy end-ing, which is unique among the English versions and represents a sig-nificant departure from the classical legend of Orpheus on which it is based. Further, it is of interest to us here because Tolkien prepared a modern English translation of the story that—along with his transla-tions of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl—was edited by his son Christopher and published in 1975. ough no other writing by Tolkien survives on the subject, we can be certain that Tolkien regarded

it as an example of a story marked by “eucatastrophe”—a “sudden joy-ous turn,” a “miraculjoy-ous grace” at the climax of a good fairy story—in which he perceives “a far-o gleam or echo of evangelium [good news]

in the real world” (TL, 62–64). Clearly, Tolkien had examples of both good and bad stewards to work from in composing his own works.

In the political sense, there are three important aspects of steward-ship: (1) responsibility for taking good care of the kingdom in the king’s absence, (2) ultimate accountability to the king for carrying out that responsibility, and (3) surrender to the king’s authority upon his return.

e second and third aspects require explicit acknowledgment of the king’s authority over the steward, and the third is central to the title of the final book in e Lord of the Rings.

Returning to Ball’s discussion of the four uses of the term steward-ship in the Christian community, we have the second use, or what he calls “anthropocentric stewardship.” is acknowledges the lordship of God but still views nature as merely a resource; it does not acknowledge the world’s intrinsic worth as the good handiwork of a good creator.

Although this is perhaps not as blatant a misuse of the term as the first case, in that it at least acknowledges some responsibility, it is still a long way from how Tolkien used the word himself and understood its mean-ing in the Christian sense.

A third use of the word steward gets at the notion of “caring man-agement,” which sees humans in the roles of both lord and servant, as gardeners and managers, with the rest of creation having intrinsic value apart from that bestowed on it by those who tend and nurture it. In e Silmarillion, the Elves seem to be called to this model of stewardship.

When Ulmo argues against summoning the Elves to Valinor, he speaks of using “their gi s of skill to order all the lands and heal their hurts.”

is implies a perspective in which the Elves are seen as servants; how-ever, the idea of “ordering” the land also suggests the exercise of author-ity over it or the imposition of some structure that might not otherwise naturally exist. As we explore in chapter 4, in their relationship to the natural world, the Elves are perhaps best described not as agricultural-ists or conservationagricultural-ists but as horticulturalagricultural-ists. Even when it is under-taken rightly and lovingly, horticulture implies some rule over the land and its products—some aspect of a ruler choosing what the land will produce and how it will be arranged.

If we judge by the fruits of their labors, Tom Bombadil and Beorn

both seem to fit this model as well. Both are gardeners of some note, both act as managers of their respective domains, and both show great loving care for the realms under their dominion. Tom is said to be a

“master,” and though he never tries to change the character of Old Man Willow or destroy him, he does take steps to keep him under control.

He has also carved out a small area of the Old Forest for his cottage and garden, and this involves the imposition of order and structure on part of the woods. e edge of the Old Forest bordering on his cottage is said to be “clipped and trim as a hedge,” and he has various trails through the woods (I/vi). Likewise, Beorn, a wonderful caregiver for the crea-tures in his household, is clearly the ruler of his realm—and a powerful one at that. e animals follow his commands, but woe to anyone who attempts to tamper with the animals he tends.

Ball’s fourth use of the term steward is what he calls “servanthood stewardship.” is idea not only sees the intrinsic value of creation but also conceives of humans as servants within it. Any notion of human rule or authority is gone altogether. When Gandalf says, “For I also am a steward,” his vision comes closer to this model of stewardship than to the third. He is there to o er aid; he will give any aid that Denethor asks for. He is not there to exercise authority and claims the rule of no realm, great or small. Nor is this empty rhetoric: Gandalf ’s actions lend credence to his words. Putting these two together, we might say that he exists for others, but others do not exist for him.

For what others does Gandalf exist? Asked another way, what is Gandalf ’s purpose? He answers the question himself when he says, “All worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, those are my care.” In this way, Gandalf identifies himself with Ilúvatar’s mission for his Children, implying too the essential goodness of creation. In the first chapter, we discuss the fundamental concept that Ilúvatar creates a world with inherent value and goodness—that is, of inherent worth, or full of “worthy things.” Gandalf sees this as clearly as anyone in Middle-earth and understands the value—even the necessity—of working to protect it. We might consider, for example, Gandalf ’s treatment of Shadowfax and the other horses. He addresses them not as beasts of burden but as friends and fellow laborers—partners in the war against Sauron—even asking permission to ride. “Time presses, so with your leave, my friends, we will ride. We beg you to use all the speed that you can. . . . I will set Gimli before me, and by his leave Shadowfax shall

bear us both” (III/v, emphasis added). When he rides, Gandalf uses no saddle. He does not “ride” Shadowfax in the ordinary sense: the horse consents to bear him. “He has come for me: the horse and the White Rider. We are going to battle together” (III/v).

Gandalf as steward models what Steven Bouma-Prediger describes as the ecological virtue of respect for creation, which relates to the value of creation—the second principle listed in the previous chapter. “Respect names an understanding of and proper regard for the integrity and well-being of other creatures. A respectful person shows both esteem and deference to the other, because of the unique nature of that other. at which has intrinsic value calls forth a looking back—a respecting—

which acknowledges and regards that God-given value.”¹⁰ Gandalf ’s definition of success in this role is equally telling. Even if Gondor should perish in the war, he will not have wholly failed if anything survives that can “still grow fair or bear fruit and flower again in days to come.” is is a powerful statement, and the nature imagery is neither incidental nor gratuitous. Gandalf explicitly includes all life—everything that can grow fair and bear fruit or flower—as being under his care; everything alive is considered a valuable component of the whole created order that must be defended from harm. And if any part of Ilúvatar’s created world of Middle-earth is imperiled, that part falls especially within Gandalf ’s domain. Although most of Gandalf ’s e orts are aimed at marshaling the Elf, Dwarf, Human, and Hobbit opponents of Sauron,¹¹ the ulti-mate purpose of his work is the protection and preservation of all life in Middle-earth. He knows that if his e orts are unsuccessful, those who care for the land as good stewards will be replaced by those who despoil it (the harmful work of such malevolent agencies is explored in chapter 8), and this will have environmental consequences for all of creation, not merely for the Children of Ilúvatar.

It is implied that if Gondor or any good thing within it should per-ish, then Gandalf ’s mission will have failed—at least in part. His desire is for the survival and the flourishing of all such things, and the loss of any of them would be costly. When éoden asks Gandalf whether it is inevitable that “much that was fair and wonderful shall pass for ever out of Middle-earth,” Gandalf replies somberly, “ e evil of Sauron cannot be wholly cured, nor made as if it had not been. But to such days we are doomed” (III/viii). Any loss of life is to be grieved; all things that grow fair are to be protected.