What on earth put that song into your mind? Wonderful parody :-)
I don't have anything earthshaking (ha!) to add to the great answers below. I
do love the sound of "Grond crawled on" - say it aloud and you can hear the
movement.
I think it does contain spells of ruin; Sauron was no slouch at making spells,
and perhaps the Witch-king supervised this forging. The account reads as
if it's only when the Witch-king calls his orders to it that Grond manages to
bring down the gates (and this, to me, adds to the spooky sense of
personification of Grond. It's a little like the Silent Watchers; one can
almost imagine an imprisoned spirit in Grond). It would, of course, be simply
that it took that many blows to weaken the gates, but I think this may be one
of those times when Tolkien deliberately leaves it ambiguous just how much
magic is being displayed.
The Gates come from a time when the Numenoreans had a high level of technology
- or magic, if you prefer
:-)
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Do we find happiness so often that we should turn it off the box when it happens to sit there?
- A Room With a View
