Gríma Wormtongue

Rise at Edoras

Gríma was a man of the Rohirrim, the son of Gálmód, pale-faced and heavy-lidded, and unlike his people in his cleverness with words and his dislike of the open plain. He rose to be the chief counsellor of King Théoden in the years before the War of the Ring, and at some point in that rise he was bought by Saruman. From then on he served two masters, and the second in secret. His counsel weakened the king. Théoden, who was not yet seventy, aged and drooped and sat bent in his hall, and it is likely that Gríma used some subtle poison of Saruman's making as well as the slow poison of his advice. He persuaded the king to ignore the raids on the Westfold and the theft of the Mark's horses, to close the borders to strangers, and to distrust his own marshals. Éomer saw through him and hated him; Gríma answered by turning the king against his nephew. He also watched Éowyn, who waited on the failing king, with a desire that Saruman had promised to satisfy when Rohan fell.

In September 3018 Gandalf came to Edoras after escaping from Orthanc and warned the king of Saruman's treachery; Gríma persuaded Théoden that the wizard was a troublemaker and had him sent away. When Théodred fell at the Fords of Isen in February 3019, Gríma kept the king passive, and when Éomer rode without leave against the Orcs and lent horses to Aragorn, Gríma had him imprisoned.

Exposed

On 2 March 3019 Gandalf came back to Meduseld with Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli. Gríma had ordered that no one be admitted armed and tried to keep Gandalf's staff from him; Háma let it pass. In the hall Gríma poured scorn on the visitors and the king echoed him, until Gandalf raised his staff, and the hall darkened, and Wormtongue was flung on his face. Gandalf then laid out his crimes before the king he had ruined. Théoden, restored, gave Gríma one chance: to ride to war with the Riders and prove his loyalty. Gríma crawled and begged to stay behind and mind the king's affairs, and when that failed he spat at Théoden's feet and fled down the hill. Éomer wanted him killed; Gandalf said to let him run to his master. He rode straight to Isengard.

Orthanc

He reached Isengard in time to be shut up in Orthanc with Saruman when the Ents broke the ring of stone and drowned the works. When Théoden and Gandalf came to the foot of the tower on 5 March to speak with Saruman, it was Gríma who hurled the palantír of Orthanc down at them from a window, whether at Gandalf or at his own master no one could say. Pippin picked it up. Gandalf remarked that Wormtongue had thrown away the one thing he might have been paid for keeping, and that Saruman would not forgive him.

The Shire

In August 3019 Treebeard let Saruman go, and Gríma went with him, on foot, cringing and cursing. The returning hobbits met them on the road in Dunland: Saruman now called him Worm and kicked him, and Gríma looked at his master with hatred and did not leave. They came to the Shire ahead of the travellers, and there Saruman, calling himself Sharkey, took over the ruffians who had already seized the land. Gríma was his creature at Bag End, sleeping on the floor and fetching what he was told. Lotho Sackville-Baggins, the puppet Chief of the Shire, disappeared, and it was Gríma who killed him in his bed, on Saruman's orders, though Saruman afterwards hinted with relish that Worm had done worse with the body.

On 3 November 3019, after the Battle of Bywater, Frodo confronted Saruman at the door of Bag End and let him go, and when Saruman turned on Gríma, Frodo offered the wretched man a chance to stay and be fed and to leave his master. It was Saruman's mockery, and his revelation of Lotho's murder, that broke Wormtongue at last. He sprang on Saruman's back, dragged his head back, and cut his throat with a hidden knife, and then ran down the lane. Three hobbit bows loosed before Frodo could stop them and he fell dead in the road.

Legacy

Gríma was the instrument by which Saruman nearly took Rohan without a battle, and his fall from the king's right hand to a beaten dog in the Shire is one of the plainest pictures in the tale of what service to the Shadow does to a man. Even so, both Théoden and Frodo offered him a way back, and he refused both. His last act was the only thing that ever freed him.

Cut Saruman's throat at Bag End on 3 November 3019 and was killed at once by hobbit archers.