Blogging my way through The Lord of the Rings. Now reading The Return of the King.
It’s a moving scene in the book, and moving in the movie too – the scene with the “healing hands of the king.”
“For it is said in old lore: The hands of the king are the hands of a healer. And so the rightful king could ever be known.’
Then Aragorn exercises his healing arts on Eowyn and Merry and Faramir. It’s beautiful in itself, and an evocative image of Christ as King and Healer. Lovely.
I don’t know where Tolkien first came across the idea of the king having healing hands, but I’m pretty sure I know one place where he read about it – Snorri Sturlusson’s Heimskringla. But in Snorri it’s a far darker story. Snorri generally shows conventional reverence for Olaf Haraldsson as the patron saint of Norway. But his treatment can be ambivalent, and it’s at this point in Olaf’s saga, not long before his exile to Russia, that Olaf loses the sympathy of a lot of readers. Historically, it certain lost him some allies.
The situation is this: Thorir Olvesson, a young man with important family connections, is getting married, and King Olaf and his entourage are invited. The hospitality is splendid. Food and drink are plentiful, and everyone is having a good time. But one of Olaf’s men whispers to him that Thorir, the bridegroom, has been bribed by King Canute of England/Denmark to murder the king.
From Lee Hollander’s translation:
When the king sat at table and the men had drunk for a while and were very merry, while Thorir went about, serving the people, the king had Thorir called before him. He came up to the king’s table and rested his elbows on it.
“How old a man are you, Thorir?” asked the king.
“I am eighteen years old,” he replied.
The king said, “A big man you are for your age, Thorir, and a fine fellow.” Then the king put his hand around Thorir’s right arm and stroked it above the elbow.
Thorir, said, “Gently, sire! I have a boil on my arm.” The king held on to his arm and felt something hard underneath.
The king said, “Haven’t you heard that I am a healer? Let me see that boil.” Then Thorir saw that it would not do to conceal it any longer and took off the ring and showed it to the king. The king asked whether it was a gift from King Knut. Thorir said he would not deny it.
The king had Thorir seized and put in chains. Then Kalf [Arnesson] came forward and asked for mercy, offering money for him. Many supported him and offered compensation. The king was so furious that no one dared to address him. He declared that Thorir was to have the same sentence [of death] which Thorir had intended for him, and had him killed afterwards. But that deed created the greatest ill-will….