Q: Is There Any Significance to the Number of Steps at Orthanc?
ANSWER: This is an interesting question and it is one for which I don’t have an authoritative source upon which to base an answer. A reader wrote in a few months ago to ask if I knew of a reason why Tolkien would have chosen to describe the steps leading up to Orthanc’s entrance as 27 in number.
I don’t believe J.R.R. Tolkien had any interest in numerology, except as there may be some Roman Catholic teachings about the significance of numbers. As I understand it, however, numerology is supposed to be a method of divining insight into one’s personal life or future based on certain types of numbers (such as the day of your birth). The Roman Catholic Church specifically forbids the study of numerology (as I have defined it here) and I believe that has always been the case.
Nonetheless, you’ll occasionally find online discussions about “Tolkien and numerology” that blend meanings, or associate Tolkien with a numeral-based in-story mysticism that is not classic numerology. I’m not even sure “number mysticism” would be an appropriate description for the significance of numbers in Tolkien’s fiction.
For the sake of this discussion, I shall use the Latin phrase Significationem Numerica Ficti to discuss the significance of numbers in Tolkien’s fiction. If anyone knows of a better phrase, please leave a comment below or contact me.
Tolkien did tend to reuse certain numbers and as such gave them a special significance within his stories. I don’t think he meant for that significance to be associated with much outside of his fiction. We can point to one or two possible exceptions, such as the date March 25.
The number “3” plays a major role in Tolkien’s in-world history. There were three kindreds of elves (Minyar, Tatyar, and Nelyar), three tribes of the Edain (usually denoted among fans as Beorians, Folk of Haleth, and Marachians), three primary ages (of the Sun), three sub-kingdoms into which Arnor was divided, and so on. Some kings had three sons or three children, often where two of them died tragically.
But one must be careful about assigning two much weight to a specific number in Tolkien’s fiction. Sometimes it was just a reasonable assertion based on real world experience. And we must number everything because that is part of how we perceive the world. We literally think in terms of “there are two people walking together over there” and “that family has three children”. You’re bound to encounter the same number over and over again throughout your life. There is no special meaning to that. It just happens. It falls under what mathematicians call a “Power Law” (although not every distribution of numbers is a power law, but we don’t need to digress too much here).
So Tolkien would frequently need numbers to describe things, and he would frequently add sub-elements to a character or place story that sometimes ended at two, at three, at four, etc. I think any conscious intent on his part to use a specific number was very rare. Even when he was originally composing the Ring Rhyme (“Three rings for the elven kings under the sky …”) he varied the numbers a bit until he finally settled on three, seven, nine, and one. And there you end up with a total of twenty Great Rings of Power. What should be the significance of twenty? Well, it’s a good score by traditional English counting and anyone who has read Howard Pym’s The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood has probably had the word score scored into their psyche.
I think the number of steps at Orthanc is really hard to fit into any sort of pattern. There was a 1915 novel titled The Thirty-Nine Steps, by John Buchan, which describes a pre-war espionage plot in which the significance of “the thirty-nine steps” is important to the story but not revealed until the end. This book was loosely adapted into a film in 1935 by Alfred Hitchcock. If one bends over backwards, looks around the corner with a broad mirror, and frightens a flight of birds at the right moment, one can find a vague similarity between Buchan’s story and Tolkien’s story. But I think it’s hard to justify the number of steps being set at 27 as anything other than a random number.
I can only find a few vague Biblical associations with the number 27.
If we look at the structure of the tower itself the number 27 tells us nothing. A typical step today (in the USA, at least) is supposed to be about 7 inches high. On that basis I calculate a height of 189 inches for the stairs at Orthanc, which translates to 15.75 feet.
People who believe that Tolkien would have used some sort of medieval measurement for Orthanc’s design might point to the fact that many medieval stairs were designed with uneven tread depths in order to make it difficult for attackers to rush up the stairs. In that case, Orthanc’s stair height would be impossible to calculate and also a significant challenge for anyone trying to storm the tower. I have no objection to such an interpretation (or projection) but there is no textual support for it.
There are some medieval castles in the British Isles (I have no idea of how many but I found several in the space of two minutes of searching the Web) that have staircases with 27 steps. Why 27? I have no idea. Someone who is knowledgeable in medieval architecture might be able to explain that. I know of at least one publication dating to 1889 that documents Ramburgh Castle, which describes at least one staircase with 27 steps. I infer from that fact that Tolkien could easily have read one or more texts describing castle staircases.
If the 27 steps structure is really common among medieval castles then I think that would be your most reasonable plausible explanation of Tolkien’s choice. Plausible explanations neither prove nor disprove anything but lacking anything else to latch onto I will humbly suggest that the number of steps may have been influenced by what was probably a common staircase design requirement, although I have no idea of what the architectural significance of 27 steps in a staircase is.
Have you read our other Tolkien and Middle-earth Questions and Answers articles?
I would guess this has been said many times before: I always assumed the nine Nazgul with the Witch-King at their head, juxtaposed the nine in the fellowship with Aragorn (king) as their leader.
27 is three cubic (3x3x3). Could there be a good hint here ? A hypothesis I find appropriate is that three is sometimes associated with perfection, so three times three times three is somewhat extra-perfection. And Orthanc is associated with such concept, as it is indestructible, for example, and smooth from bottom to top if I remember well, in Tolkien’s description. But this stays an hypothesis.
To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a staircase is just a staircase. One needs to know the intention of the architect (whether Gondorian, or authorial). Staircases have both practical use and symbolic meaning, with no need to resort to numerology (though that can certainly be a factor).
27 steps is roughly twice the height of a one-story staircase in a modern home (14 steps to the second floor in my home). To the reader, that could convey some of the scale, to the beholder, it would convey a bit of grandeur, but not too much (more than a typical residence, less than a Mayan pyramid). Why 27 rather than 28? Tolkien seems to prefer odd numbers (a topic for another essay, no doubt).
For the author, the staircase provided a useful stage; it separates the leaders approaching Saruman from their followers (especially Pippin); the image of the palantír bounding down 27 steps is colorful. While certainly not the only way Tolkien could have set that scene, it clearly serves the story well.
I think, to the Gondorian architect of Orthanc, the meaning of those stairs would be more symbolic than defensive or utilitarian: Pass the imposing gate in the ring wall. Travel a significant distance to reach the ultimate goal, the tower looming ever larger as you approach. Once you arrive at the goal, you must climb a grand staircase to finally gain entry. A ground-level entrance would be anticlimactic after all that build-up.
A staircase can have defensive value – it would prevent a siege engine such as Grond from making a direct approach to the doors, it gives defenders the advantage of the high ground. Yet there are better impediments to military attack (though Tolkien didn’t seem to be a big fan of moat-and-drawbridge).
There’s no particular, practical purpose for Orthanc to have exterior stairs. An interior staircase from ground level to level three is sheltered from the elements and enemies. It would be necessary, regardless of whether there was an external, ceremonial entry.
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As far as the Nine Walkers vs. the Nine Riders – that was a conscious choice by Elrond at the time Frodo’s companions were chosen. There was symbolism in matching, regardless of what number needed to be matched.
I’m more interested in another staircase the much more impressive one, the Endless Stair, leading up to Durin’s Tower, shame it’s so little about it. What purpose did it all serve? Was it simply engineering wonder build just to impress a sort of giant structure for splendour? Indeed it’s an amazing feat of construction, to rise a tower high on the mountain peak and enormous long spiral of stairs from deepest level to the peak.