“A Healer’s Geste”?

Healer

I’m an English major, not a doctor — why is this Red Book a “Healer’s” Geste?

First, one must understand the setting of Pelennor Fields — a field on which one rebellious daughter fought with the men against the forces of darkness. God used her rebellion for His purposes, however, and she slew the Witch King, Sauron’s most powerful rider, who could not be slain by men. Afterwards, this daughter of the steward repented of her lust for battle and manhood and for her desire for Aragorn and glory. After her heart was made plain to her, she repented, “I stand in Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun, and behold! the Shadow has departed! I will be a shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.” Faramir (a Ranger) then proposes to her, saying, “Let us dwell in fair Ithilien and there make a garden. All things will grow with joy there, if the White Lady comes” (Tolkein, Return of the King, 271).

Thus, I heal not in the typical sense, but in the second sense “to set right” or in the intransitive meaning “to become whole or sound.” I myself am becoming whole, and I, as a woman, am called to make things grow with joy. I am an Eowyn, saved from my natural self and called to do the good deeds which God has prepared beforehand for me to walk in.

Geste

No, I did not make this word up, nor did I have it filed away in my personal vocabulary. While searching for ideas for my parallel Red Book title, I found it in my Handbook to Literature.

Gest or Geste is a Middle English word pronounced ‘jest.’ In fact, the two words are from the same etymological root. How they are connected is a subject I must research in the OED.

Geste came into Middle English from Old French, with the meaning of “tale.” Chaucer is cited with using the word to mean “Something done or achieved; a deed or an action; an adventure.” However, the word’s roots go back further, to Latin. Old French got the word geste from Latin’s gesta, which means “deeds,” from the neuter plural past participle of the verb gerere, to perform.

Thus, my Red Book is my tale, a record of my deeds, or, as the dictionary also defines it, my own prose romance — in the historic sense of the word.