and of Amroth King of Lórien
There is no part of the history of Middle-earth more full of problems than the story of Galadriel and Celeborn, and it must be admitted that there are severe inconsistencies ‘embedded in the traditions’; or, to look at the matter from another point of view, that the role and importance of Galadriel only emerged slowly, and that her story underwent continual refashionings.
Thus, at the outset, it is certain that the earlier conception was that Galadriel went east over the mountains from Beleriand alone, before the end of the First Age, and met Celeborn in his own land of Lórien; this is explicitly stated in unpublished writing, and the same idea underlies Galadriel’s words to Frodo in The Fellowship of the Ring II 7, where she says of Celeborn that ‘He has dwelt in the West since the days of dawn, and I have dwelt with him years uncounted; for ere the fall of Nargothrond or Gondolin I passed over the mountains, and together through ages of the world we have fought the long defeat.’ In all probability Celeborn was in this conception a Nandorin Elf (that is, one of the Teleri who refused to cross the Misty Mountains on the Great Journey from Cuiviénen).
On the other hand, in Appendix B to The Lord of the Rings appears a later version of the story; for it is stated there that at the beginning of the Second Age ‘In Lindon south of the Lune dwelt for a time Celeborn, kinsman of Thingol; his wife was Galadriel, greatest of Elven women.’ And in the notes to The Road Goes Ever On (1968, p. 60) it is said that Galadriel ‘passed over the Mountains of Eredluin with her husband Celeborn (one of the Sindar) and went to Eregion’.
In The Silmarillion there is mention of the meeting of Galadriel and Celeborn in Doriath, and of his kinship with Thingol (p. 115); and of their being among the Eldar who remained in Middle-earth after the end of the First Age (p. 254).
The reasons and motives given for Galadriel’s remaining in Middle-earth are various. The passage just cited from The Road Goes Ever On says explicitly: ‘After the overthrow of Morgoth at the end of the First Age a ban was set upon her return, and she had replied proudly that she had no wish to do so.’ There is no such explicit statement in The Lord of the Rings; but in a letter written in 1967 my father declared:
The Exiles were allowed to return – save for a few chief actors in the rebellion, of whom at the time of The Lord of the Rings only Galadriel remained. At the time of her Lament in Lórien she believed this to be perennial, as long as the Earth endured. Hence she concludes her lament with a wish or prayer that Frodo may as a special grace be granted a purgatorial (but not penal) sojourn in Eressëa, the solitary isle in sight of Aman, though for her the way is closed. Her prayer was granted – but also her personal ban was lifted, in reward for her services against Sauron, and above all for her rejection of the temptation to take the Ring when offered to her. So at the end we see her taking ship.
This statement, very positive in itself, does not however demonstrate that the conception of a ban on Galadriel’s return into the West was present when the chapter ‘Farewell to Lórien’ was composed, many years before; and I am inclined to think that it was not (see p. 302).
In a very late and primarily philological essay, certainly written after the publication of The Road Goes Ever On, the story is distinctively different:
Galadriel and her brother Finrod were the children of Finarfin, the second son of Indis. Finarfin was of his mother’s kind in mind and body, having the golden hair of the Vanyar, their noble and gentle temper, and their love of the Valar. As well as he could he kept aloof from the strife of his brothers and their estrangement from the Valar, and he often sought peace among the Teleri, whose language he learned. He wedded Ea¨rwen, the daughter of King Olwë of Alqualondë, and his children were thus the kin of King Elu Thingol of Doriath in Beleriand, for he was the brother of Olwë; and this kinship influenced their decision to join in the Exile, and proved of great importance later in Beleriand. Finrod was like his father in his fair face and golden hair, and also in noble and generous heart, though he had the high courage of the Noldor and in his youth their eagerness and unrest; and he had also from his Telerin mother a love of the sea and dreams of far lands that he had never seen. Galadriel was the greatest of the Noldor, except Fëanor maybe, though she was wiser than he, and her wisdom increased with the long years.
Her mother-name was Nerwen (‘man-maiden’), 1 and she grew to be tall beyond the measure even of the women of the Noldor; she was strong of body, mind, and will, a match for both the loremasters and the athletes of the Eldar in the days of their youth. Even among the Eldar she was accounted beautiful, and her hair was held a marvel unmatched. It was golden like the hair of her father and of her foremother Indis, but richer and more radiant, for its gold was touched by some memory of the starlike silver of her mother; and the Eldar said that the light of the Two Trees, Laurelin and Telperion, had been snared in her tresses. Many thought that this saying first gave to Fëanor the thought of imprisoning and blending the light of the Trees that later took shape in his hands as the Silmarils. For Fëanor beheld the hair of Galadriel with wonder and delight. He begged three times for a tress, but Galadriel would not give him even one hair. These two kinsfolk, the greatest of the Eldar of Valinor, were unfriends for ever.
Galadriel was born in the bliss of Valinor, but it was not long, in the reckoning of the Blessed Realm, before that was dimmed; and thereafter she had no peace within. For in that testing time amid the strife of the Noldor she was drawn this way and that. She was proud, strong, and selfwilled, as were all the descendants of Finwë save Finarfin; and like her brother Finrod, of all her kin the nearest to her heart, she had dreams of far lands and dominions that might be her own to order as she would without tutelage. Yet deeper still there dwelt in her the noble and generous spirit of the Vanyar, and a reverence for the Valar that she could not forget. From her earliest years she had a marvellous gift of insight into the minds of others, but judged them with mercy and understanding, and she withheld her goodwill from none save only Fëanor. In him she perceived a darkness that she hated and feared, though she did not perceive that the shadow of the same evil had fallen upon the minds of all the Noldor, and upon her own.
So it came to pass that when the light of Valinor failed, for ever as the Noldor thought, she joined the rebellion against the Valar who commanded them to stay; and once she had set foot upon that road of exile she would not relent, but rejected the last message of the Valar, and came under the Doom of Mandos. Even after the merciless assault upon the Teleri and the rape of their ships, though she fought fiercely against Fëanor in defence of her mother’s kin, she did not turn back. Her pride was unwilling to return, a defeated suppliant for pardon; but now she burned with desire to follow Fëanor with her anger to whatever lands he might come, and to thwart him in all ways that she could. Pride still moved her when, at the end of the Elder Days after the final overthrow of Morgoth, she refused the pardon of the Valar for all who had fought against him, and remained in Middle-earth. It was not until two long ages more had passed, when at last all that she had desired in her youth came to her hand, the Ring of Power and the dominion of Middle-earth of which she had dreamed, that her wisdom was full grown and she rejected it, and passing the last test departed from Middle-earth for ever.
This last sentence relates closely to the scene in Lothlórien when Frodo offered the One Ring to Galadriel (The Fellowship of the Ring II 7): ‘And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen.’
In The Silmarillion it is told (p. 84) that at the time of the rebellion of the Noldor in Valinor Galadriel
was eager to be gone. No oaths she swore, but the words of Fëanor concerning Middle-earth had kindled in her heart, for she yearned to see the wide unguarded lands and to rule there a realm at her own will.
There are however in the present account several features of which there is no trace in The Silmarillion: the kinship of Finarfin’s children with Thingol as a factor influencing their decision to join in Fëanor’s rebellion; Galadriel’s peculiar dislike and distrust of Fëanor from the beginning, and the effect she had on him; and the fighting at Alqualondë among the Noldor themselves – Angrod asserted to Thingol in Menegroth no more than that the kin of Finarfin were guiltless of the slaying of the Teleri (The Silmarillion p. 129). Most notable however in the passage just cited is the explicit statement that Galadriel refused the pardon of the Valar at the end of the First Age.
Later in this essay it is said that though called Nerwen by her mother and Artanis (‘noble woman’) by her father, the name she chose to be her Sindarin name was Galadriel, ‘for it was the most beautiful of her names, and had been given to her by her lover, Teleporno of the Teleri, whom she wedded later in Beleriand’. Teleporno is Celeborn, here given a different history, as discussed further below (pp. 300 – 1); on the name itself see Appendix E, p. 346.
A wholly different story, adumbrated but never told, of Galadriel’s conduct at the time of the rebellion of the Noldor appears in a very late and partly illegible note: the last writing of my father’s on the subject of Galadriel and Celeborn, and probably the last on Middle-earth and Valinor, set down in the last month of his life. In this he emphasized the commanding stature of Galadriel already in Valinor, the equal if unlike in endowments of Fëanor; and it is said here that so far from joining in Fëanor’s revolt she was in every way opposed to him. She did indeed wish to depart from Valinor and to go into the wide world of Middle-earth for the exercise of her talents; for ‘being brilliant in mind and swift in action she had early absorbed all of what she was capable of the teaching which the Valar thought fit to give the Eldar’, and she felt confined in the tutelage of Aman. This desire of Galadriel’s was, it seems, known to Manwë, and he had not forbidden her; but nor had she been given formal leave to depart. Pondering what she might do Galadriel’s thoughts turned to the ships of the Teleri, and she went for a while to dwell with her mother’s kindred in Alqualondë. There she met Celeborn, who is here again a Telerin prince, the grandson of Olwë of Alqualondë and thus her close kinsman. Together they planned to build a ship and sail in it to Middle-earth; and they were about to seek leave from the Valar for their venture when Melkor fled from Valmar and returning with Ungoliant destroyed the light of the Trees. In Fëanor’s revolt that followed the Darkening of Valinor Galadriel had no part: indeed she with Celeborn fought heroically in defence of Alqualondë against the assault of the Noldor, and Celeborn’s ship was saved from them. Galadriel, despairing now of Valinor and horrified by the violence and cruelty of Fëanor, set sail into the darkness without waiting for Manwë’s leave, which would undoubtedly have been withheld in that hour, however legitimate her desire in itself. It was thus that she came under the ban set upon all departure, and Valinor was shut against her return. But together with Cele-born she reached Middle-earth somewhat sooner than Fëanor, and sailed into the haven where Círdan was lord. There they were welcomed with joy, as being of the kin of Elwë (Thingol). In the years after they did not join in the war against Angband, which they judged to be hopeless under the ban of the Valar and without their aid; and their counsel was to withdraw from Beleriand and to build up a power to the eastward (whence they feared that Morgoth would draw reinforcement), befriending and teaching the Dark Elves and Men of those regions. But such a policy having no hope of acceptance among the Elves of Beleriand, Galadriel and Celeborn departed over Ered Lindon before the end of the First Age; and when they received the permission of the Valar to return into the West they rejected it.
This story, withdrawing Galadriel from all association with the rebellion of Fëanor, even to the extent of giving her a separate departure (with Celeborn) from Aman, is profoundly at variance with all that is said elsewhere. It arose from ‘philosophical’ (rather than ‘historical’) considerations, concerning the precise nature of Galadriel’s disobedience in Valinor on the one hand, and her status and power in Middle-earth on the other. That it would have entailed a good deal of alteration in the narrative of The Silmarillion is evident; but that my father doubtless intended to do. It may be noted here that Galadriel did not appear in the original story of the rebellion and flight of the Noldor, which existed long before she did; and also, of course, that after her entry into the stories of the First Age her actions could still be transformed radically, since The Silmarillion had not been published. The book as published was however formed from completed narratives, and I could not take into account merely projected revisions.
On the other hand, the making of Celeborn into a Telerin Elf of Aman contradicts not only statements in The Silmarillion, but also those cited already (p. 294) from The Road Goes Ever On and Appendix B to The Lord of the Rings, where Celeborn is a Sindarin Elf of Beleriand. As to why this fundamental alteration in his history was to be made, it might be answered that it arose from the new narrative element of Galadriel’s departure from Aman separately from the hosts of the rebel Noldor; but Celeborn is already transformed into a Telerin Elf in the text cited on p. 298, where Galadriel did take part in Fëanor’s revolt and march from Valinor, and where there is no indication of how Celeborn came to Middle-earth.
The earlier story (apart from the question of the ban and the pardon), to which the statements in The Silmarillion, The Road Goes Ever On, and Appendix B to The Lord of the Rings refer, is fairly clear: Galadriel, coming to Middle-earth as one of the leaders of the second host of the Noldor, met Celeborn in Doriath, and was later wedded to him; he was the grandson of Thingol’s brother Elmo – a shadowy figure about whom nothing is told save that he was the younger brother of Elwë (Thingol) and Olwë, and was ‘beloved of Elwë with whom he remained’. (Elmo’s son was named Galadhon, and his sons were Celeborn and Galathil; Galathil was the father of Nimloth, who wedded Dior Thingol’s Heir and was the mother of Elwing. By this genealogy Celeborn was a kinsman of Galadriel, the granddaughter of Olwë of Alqualondë, but not so close as by that in which he became Olwë’s grandson.) It is a natural assumption that Celeborn and Galadriel were present at the ruin of Doriath (it is said in one place that Celeborn ‘escaped the sack of Doriath’), and perhaps aided the escape of Elwing to the Havens of Sirion with the Silmaril – but this is nowhere stated. Celeborn is mentioned in Appendix B to The Lord of the Rings as dwelling for a time in Lindon south of the Lune; 2 but early in the Second Age they passed over the Mountains into Eriador. Their subsequent history, in the same phase (so to call it) of my father’s writing, is told in the short narrative that follows here.
Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn
The text bearing this title is a short and hasty outline, very roughly composed, which is nonetheless almost the sole narrative source for the events in the West of Middle-earth up to the defeat and expulsion of Sauron from Eriador in the year 1701 of the Second Age. Other than this there is little beyond the brief and infrequent entries in the Tale of Years, and the much more generalised and selective account in Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age (published in The Silmarillion). It is certain that this present text was composed after the publication of The Lord of the Rings, both from there being a reference to the book and from the fact that Galadriel is called the daughter of Finarfin and the sister of Finrod Felagund (for these are the later namesof those princes, introduced in the revised edition: see p. 330, note 20). The text is much emended, and it is not always possible to see what belongs to the time of composition of the manuscript and what is indefinitely later. This is the case with those references to Amroth that make him the son of Galadriel and Celeborn; but whenever these references were inserted, I think it is virtually certain that this was a new construction, later than the writing of The Lord of the Rings. Had he been supposed to be their son when it was written, the fact would surely have been mentioned.
It is very notable that not only is there no mention in this text of a ban on Galadriel’s return into the West, but it even seems from a passage at the beginning of the account that no such idea was present; while later in the narrative Galadriel’s remaining in Middle-earth after the defeat of Sauron in Eriador is ascribed to her sense that it was her duty not to depart while he was still finally unconquered. This is a chief support of the (hesitant) view expressed above (p. 295) that the story of the ban was later than the writing of The Lord of the Rings; cf. also a passage in the story of the Elessar, given on p. 323.
What follows here is retold from this text, with some interspersed comments, indicated by square brackets.
Galadriel was the daughter of Finarfin, and sister of Finrod Felagund. She was welcome in Doriath, because her mother Ea¨rwen, daughter of Olwë, was Telerin and the niece of Thingol, and because the people of Finarfin had had no part in the Kinslaying of Alqualondë; and she became a friend of Melian. In Doriath she met Celeborn, grandson of Elmo the brother of Thingol. For love of Celeborn, who would not leave Middle-earth (and probably with some pride of her own, for she had been one of those eager to adventure there), she did not go West at the Downfall of Melkor, but crossed Ered Lindon with Celeborn and came into Eriador. When they entered that region there were many Noldor in their following, together with Grey-elves and Green-elves; and for a while they dwelt in the country about Lake Nenuial (Evendim, north of the Shire). Celeborn and Galadriel came to be regarded as Lord and Lady of the Eldar in Eriador, including the wandering companies of Nandorin origin who had never passed west over Ered Lindon and come down into Ossiriand [see The Silmarillion p. 94]. During their sojourn near Nenuial was born, at some time between the years 350 and 400, their son Amroth. [The time and place of Celebrían’s birth, whether here or later in Eregion, or even later in Lórien, is not made definite.]
But eventually Galadriel became aware that Sauron again, as in the ancient days of the captivity of Melkor [see The Silmarillion p. 51], had been left behind. Or rather, since Sauron had as yet no single name, and his operations had not been perceived to proceed from a single evil spirit, prime servant of Melkor, she perceived that there was an evil controlling purpose abroad in the world, and that it seemed to proceed from a source further to the East, beyond Eriador and the Misty Mountains.
Celeborn and Galadriel therefore went eastwards, about the year 700 of the Second Age, and established the (primarily but by no means solely) Noldorin realm of Eregion. It may be that Galadriel chose it because she knew of the Dwarves of Khazaddûm (Moria). There were and always remained some Dwarves on the eastern side of Ered Lindon, 3 where the very ancient mansions of Nogrod and Belegost had been – not far from Nenuial; but they had transferred most of their strength to Khazad-dûm. Celeborn had no liking for Dwarves of any race (as he showed to Gimli in Lothlórien), and never forgave them for their part in the destruction of Doriath; but it was only the host of Nogrod that took part in that assault, and it was destroyed in the battle of Sarn Athrad [The Silmarillion pp. 233– 5]. The Dwarves of Belegost were filled with dismay at the calamity and fear for its outcome, and this hastened their departure eastwards to Khazad-dûm. 4 Thus the Dwarves of Moria may be presumed to have been innocent of the ruin of Doriath and not hostile to the Elves. In any case, Galadriel was more far-sighted in this than Celeborn; and she perceived from the beginning that Middle-earth could not be saved from ‘the residue of evil’ that Morgoth had left behind him save by a union of all the peoples who were in their way and in their measure opposed to him. She looked upon the Dwarves also with the eye of a commander, seeing in them the finest warriors to pit against the Orcs. Moreover Galadriel was a Noldo, and she had a natural sympathy with their minds and their passionate love of crafts of hand, sympathy much greater than that found among many of the Eldar: the Dwarves were ‘the Children of Aulë’, and Galadriel, like others of the Noldor, had been a pupil of Aulë and Yavanna in Valinor.
Galadriel and Celeborn had in their company a Noldorin craftsman named Celebrimbor. [He is here said to have been one of the survivors of Gondolin, who had been among Turgon’s greatest artificers; but the text is emended to the later story that made him a descendant of Fëanor, as is mentioned in Appendix Bto The Lord of the Rings (in the revised edition only), and more fully detailed in The Silmarillion (pp. 176, 286), where he is said to have been the son of Curufin, the fifth son of Fëanor, who was estranged from his father and remained in Nargothrond when Celegorm and Curufin were driven forth.] Celebrimbor had ‘an almost “dwarvish” obsession with crafts’; and he soon became the chief artificer of Eregion, entering into a close relationship with the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm, among whom his greatest friend was Narvi. [In the inscription on the West-gate of Moria Gandalf read the words: Im Narvi hain echant: Celebrimbor o Eregion teithant i thiw hin: ‘I, Narvi, made them. Celebrimbor of Hollin drew these signs.’ The Fellowship of the Ring II 4.] Both Elves and Dwarves had great profit from this association: so that Eregion became far stronger, and Khazad-dûm far more beautiful, than either would have done alone.
[This account of the origin of Eregion agrees with what is told in Of the Rings of Power (The Silmarillion p. 286), but neither there nor in the brief references in Appendix B to The Lord of the Rings is there any mention of the presence of Galadriel and Celeborn; indeed in the latter (again, in the revised edition only) Celebrimbor is called the Lord of Eregion.]
The building of the chief city of Eregion, Ost-in-Edhil, was begun in about the year 750 of the Second Age [the date that is given in the Tale of Years for the founding of Eregion by the Noldor]. News of these things came to the ears of Sauron, and increased the fears that he felt concerning the coming of the Númenóreans to Lindon and the coasts further south, and their friendship with Gil-galad; and he heard tell also of Aldarion, son of Tar-Meneldur the King of Númenor, now become a great ship-builder who brought his vessels to haven far down into the Harad. Sauron therefore left Eriador alone for a while, and he chose the land of Mordor, as it was afterwards called, for a stronghold as a counter to the threat of the Númenórean landings [this is dated c. 1000 in the Tale of Years]. When he felt himself to be secure he sent emissaries to Eriador, and finally, in about the year 1200 of the Second Age, came himself, wearing the fairest form that he could contrive.
But in the meantime the power of Galadriel and Celeborn had grown, and Galadriel, assisted in this by her friendship with the Dwarves of Moria, had come into contact with the Nandorin realm of Lórinand on the other side of the Misty Mountains. 5 This was peopled by those Elves who forsook the Great Journey of the Eldar from Cuiviénen and settled in the woods of the Vale of Anduin [The Silmarillion p. 94]; and it extended into the forests on both sides of the Great River, including the region where afterwards was Dol Guldur. These Elves had no princes or rulers, and led their lives free of care while all Morgoth’s power was concentrated in the North-west of Middle-earth; 6 ‘but many Sindar and Noldor came to dwell among them, and their “Sindarizing” under the impact of Beleriandic culture began’. [It is not made clear when this movement into Lórinand took place; it may be that they came from Eregion by way of Khazad-dûm and under the auspices of Galadriel.] Galadriel, striving to counteract the machinations of Sauron, was successful in Lórinand; while in Lindon Gil-galad shut out Sauron’s emissaries and even Sauron himself [as is more fully reported in Of the Rings of Power (The Silmarillion p. 287)]. But Sauron had better fortune with the Noldor of Eregion and especially with Celebrimbor, who desired in his heart to rival the skill and fame of Fëanor. [The cozening of the smiths of Eregion by Sauron, and his giving himself the name Annatar, Lord of Gifts, is told in Of the Rings of Power; but there is there no mention of Galadriel.]
In Eregion Sauron posed as an emissary of the Valar, sent by them to Middle-earth (‘thus anticipating the Istari’) or ordered by them to remain there to give aid to the Elves. He perceived at once that Galadriel would be his chief adversary and obstacle, and he endeavoured therefore to placate her, bearing her scorn with outward patience and courtesy. [No explanation is offered in this rapid outline of why Galadriel scorned Sauron, unless she saw through his disguise, or of why, if she did perceive his true nature, she permitted him to remain in Eregion.] 7 Sauron used all his arts upon Celebrimbor and his fellow-smiths, who had formed a society or brotherhood, very powerful in Eregion, the Gwaith-i-Mírdain; but he worked in secret, unknown to Galadriel and Celeborn. Before long Sauron had the Gwaith-i-Mírdain under his influence, for at first they had great profit from his instruction in secret matters of their craft. 8 So great became his hold on the Mírdain that at length he persuaded them to revolt against Galadriel and Celeborn and to seize power in Eregion; and that was at some time between 1350 and 1400 of the Second Age. Galadriel thereupon left Eregion and passed through Khazad-dûm to Lórinand, taking with her Amroth and Celebrían; but Celeborn would not enter the mansions of the Dwarves, and he remained behind in Eregion, disregarded by Celebrimbor. In Lórinand Galadriel took up rule, and defence against Sauron.
Sauron himself departed from Eregion about the year 1500, after the Mírdain had begun the making of the Rings of Power. Now Celebrimbor was not corrupted in heart or faith, but had accepted Sauron as what he posed to be; and when at length he discovered the existence of the One Ring he revolted against Sauron, and went to Lórinand to take counsel once more with Galadriel. They should have destroyed all the Rings of Power at this time, ‘but they failed to find the strength’. Galadriel counselled him that the Three Rings of the Elves should be hidden, never used, and dispersed, far from Eregion where Sauron believed them to be. It was at that time that she received Nenya, the White Ring, from Celebrimbor, and by its power the realm of Lórinand was strengthened and made beautiful; but its power upon her was great also and unforeseen, for it increased her latent desire for the Sea and for return into the West, so that her joy in Middle-earth was diminished. 9 Celebrimbor followed her counsel that the Ring of Air and the Ring of Fire should be sent out of Eregion; and he entrusted them to Gil-galad in Lindon. (It is said here that at this time Gil-galad gave Narya, the Red Ring, to Círdan Lord of the Havens, but later in the narrative there is a marginal note that he kept it himself until he set out for the War of the Last Alliance.)
When Sauron learned of the repentance and revolt of Celebrimbor his disguise fell and his wrath was revealed; and gathering a great force he moved over Calenardhon (Rohan) to the invasion of Eriador in the year 1695. When news of this reached Gil-galad he sent out a force under Elrond Half-elven; but Elrond had far to go, and Sauron turned north and made at once for Eregion. The scouts and vanguard of Sauron’s host were already approaching when Celeborn made a sortie and drove them back; but though he was able to join his force to that of Elrond they could not return to Eregion, for Sauron’s host was far greater than theirs, great enough both to hold them off and closely to invest Eregion. At last the attackers broke into Eregion with ruin and devastation, and captured the chief object of Sauron’s assault, the House of the Mírdain, where were their smithies and their treasures. Celebrimbor, desperate, himself withstood Sauron on the steps of the great door of the Mírdain; but he was grappled and taken captive, and the House was ransacked. There Sauron took the Nine Rings and other lesser works of the Mírdain; but the Seven and the Three he could not find. Then Celebrimbor was put to torment, and Sauron learned from him where the Seven were bestowed. This Celebrimbor revealed, because neither the Seven nor the Nine did he value as he valued the Three; the Seven and the Nine were made with Sauron’s aid, whereas the Three were made by Celebrimbor alone, with a different power and purpose. [It is not actually said here that Sauron at this time took possession of the Seven Rings, though the implication seems clear that he did so. In Appendix A (III) to The Lord of the Rings it is said that there was a belief among the Dwarves of Durin’s Folk that the Ring of Durin III, King of Khazad-dûm, was given to him by the Elven-smiths themselves, and not by Sauron; but nothing is said in the present text about the way in which the Seven Rings came into the possession of the Dwarves.] Concerning the Three Rings Sauron could learn nothing from Celebrimbor; and he had him put to death. But he guessed the truth, that the Three had been committed to Elvish guardians: and that must mean to Galadriel and Gil-galad.
In black anger he turned back to battle; and bearing as a banner Celebrimbor’s body hung upon a pole, shot through with Orc-arrows, he turned upon the forces of Elrond. Elrond had gathered such few of the Elves of Eregion as had escaped, but he had no force to withstand the onset. He would indeed have been overwhelmed had not Sauron’s host been attacked in the rear; for Durin sent out a force of Dwarves from Khazad-dûm, and with them came Elves of Lórinand led by Amroth. Elrond was able to extricate himself, but he was forced away northwards, and it was at that time [in the year 1697, according to the Tale of Years] that he established a refuge and stronghold at Imladris (Rivendell). Sauron withdrew the pursuit of Elrond and turned upon the Dwarves and the Elves of Lórinand, whom he drove back; but the Gates of Moria were shut, and he could not enter. Ever afterwards Moria had Sauron’s hate, and all Orcs were commanded to harry Dwarves whenever they might.
But now Sauron attempted to gain the mastery of Eriador: Lórinand could wait. But as he ravaged the lands, slaying or drawing off all the small groups of Men and hunting the remaining Elves, many fled to swell Elrond’s host to the northward. Now Sauron’s immediate purpose was to take Lindon, where he believed that he had most chance of seizing one, or more, of the Three Rings; and he called in therefore his scattered forces and marched west towards the land of Gil-galad, ravaging as he went. But his force was weakened by the necessity of leaving a strong detachment to contain Elrond and prevent him coming down upon his rear.
Now for long years the Númenóreans had brought in their ships to the Grey Havens, and there they were welcome. As soon as Gil-galad began to fear that Sauron would come with open war into Eriador he sent messages to Númenor; and on the shores of Lindon the Númenóreans began to build up a force and supplies for war. In 1695, when Sauron invaded Eriador, Gil-galad called on Númenor for aid. Then Tar-Minastir the King sent out a great navy; but it was delayed, and did not reach the coasts of Middle-earth until the year 1700. By that time Sauron had mastered all Eriador, save only besieged Imladris, and had reached the line of the River Lhûn. He had summoned more forces, which were approaching from the south-east, and were indeed in Enedwaith at the Crossing of Tharbad, which was only lightly held. Gil-galad and the Númenóreans were holding the Lhûn in desperate defence of the Grey Havens, when in the very nick of time the great armament of Tar-Minastir came in; and Sauron’s host was heavily defeated and driven back. The Númenórean admiral Ciryatur sent part of his ships to make a landing further to the south.
Sauron was driven away south-east after great slaughter at Sarn Ford (the crossing of the Baranduin); and though strengthened by his force at Tharbad he suddenly found a host of the Númenóreans again in his rear, for Ciryatur had put a strong force ashore at the mouth of the Gwathló (Greyflood), ‘where there was a small Númenórean harbour’. [This was Vinyalondë of Tar-Aldarion, afterwards called Lond Daer; see Appendix p. 338.] In the Battle of the Gwathló Sauron was routed utterly and he himself only narrowly escaped. His small remaining force was assailed in the east of Calenardhon, and he with no more than a bodyguard fled to the region afterwards called Dagorlad (Battle Plain), whence broken and humiliated he returned to Mordor, and vowed vengeance upon Númenor. The army that was besieging Imladris was caught between Elrond and Gilgalad, and utterly destroyed. Eriador was cleared of the enemy, but lay largely in ruins.
At this time the first Council was held, 10 and it was there determined that an Elvish stronghold in the east of Eriador should be maintained at Imladris rather than in Eregion. At that time also Gil-galad gave Vilya, the Blue Ring, to Elrond, and appointed him to be his vice-regent in Eriador; but the Red Ring he kept, until he gave it to Círdan when he set out from Lindon in the days of the Last Alliance. 11 For many years the Westlands had peace, and time in which to heal their wounds; but the Númenóreans had tasted power in Middle-earth, and from that time forward they began to make permanent settlements on the western coasts [dated ‘c. 1800’ in the Tale of Years], becoming too powerful for Sauron to attempt to move west out of Mordor for a long time.
In its concluding passage the narrative returns to Galadriel, telling that the sea-longing grew so strong in her that (though she deemed it her duty to remain in Middle-earth while Sauron was still unconquered) she determined to leave Lórinand and to dwell near the sea. She committed Lórinand to Amroth, and passing again through Moria with Celebrían she came to Imladris, seeking Celeborn. There (it seems) she found him, and there they dwelt together for a long time; and it was then that Elrond first saw Celebrían, and loved her, though he said nothing of it. It was while Galadriel was in Imladris that the Council referred to above was held. But at some later time [there is no indication of the date] Galadriel and Celeborn together with Celebrían departed from Imladris and went to the little-inhabited lands between the mouth of the Gwathló and Ethir Anduin. There they dwelt in Belfalas, at the place that was afterwards called Dol Amroth; there Amroth their son at times visited them, and their company was swelled by Nandorin Elves from Lórinand. It was not until far on in the Third Age, when Amroth was lost and Lórinand was in peril, that Galadriel returned there, in the year 1981. Here the text ‘Concerning Galadriel and Cele-born’ comes to an end.
It may be noted here that the absence of any indication to the contrary in The Lord of the Rings had led commentators to the natural assumption that Galadriel and Celeborn passed the latter half of the Second Age and all the Third in Lothlórien; but this was not so, though their story as outlined in ‘Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn’ was greatly modified afterwards, as will be shown below.
Amroth and Nimrodel
I have said earlier (p. 302) that if Amroth were indeed thought of as the son of Galadriel and Celeborn when The Lord of the Rings was written, so important a connection could hardly have escaped mention. But whether he was or not, this view of his parentage was later rejected. I give next a short tale (dating from 1969 or later) entitled ‘Part of the Legend of Amroth and Nimrodel recounted in brief’ .
Amroth was King of Lórien, after his father Amdír was slain in the Battle of Dagorlad [in the year 3434 of the Second Age]. His land had peace for many years after the defeat of Sauron. Though Sindarin in descent he lived after the manner of the Silvan Elves and housed in the tall trees of a great green mound, ever after called Cerin Amroth. This he did because of his love for Nimrodel. For long years he had loved her, and taken no wife, since she would not wed with him. She loved him indeed, for he was beautiful even for one of the Eldar, and valiant and wise; but she was of the Silvan Elves, and regretted the incoming of the Elves from the West, who (as she said) brought wars and destroyed the peace of old. She would speak only the Silvan tongue, even after it had fallen into disuse among the folk of Lórien; 12 and she dwelt alone beside the falls of the river Nimrodel to which she gave her name. But when the terror came out of Moria and the Dwarves were driven out, and in their stead Orcs crept in, she fled distraught alone south into empty lands [in the year 1981 of the Third Age]. Amroth followed her, and at last he found her under the eaves of Fangorn, which in those days drew much nearer to Lórien. 13 She dared not enter the wood, for the trees, she said, menaced her, and some moved to bar her way.
There Amroth and Nimrodel held a long debate; and at the last they plighted their troth. ‘To this I will be true,’ she said, ‘and we shall be wedded when you bring me to a land of peace.’ Amroth vowed that for her sake he would leave his people, even in their time of need, and with her seek for such a land. ‘But there is none now in Middle-earth,’ he said, ‘and will not be for the Elven-folk ever again. We must seek for a passage over the Great Sea to the ancient West.’ Then he told her of the haven in the south, where many of his own people had come long ago. ‘They are now diminished, for most have set sail into the West; but the remnant of them still build ships and offer passage to any of their kin that come to them, weary of Middle-earth. It is said that the grace that the Valar gave to us to pass over the Sea is granted also now to any of those who made the Great Journey, even if they did not come in ages past to the shores and have not yet beheld the Blessed Land.’
There is not here the place to tell of their journey into the land of Gondor. It was in the days of King Ea¨rnil the Second, the last but one of the Kings of the Southern Realm, and his lands were troubled. [Ea¨rnil II reigned in Gondor from 1945 to 2043.] Elsewhere it is told [but not in any extant writing] how they became separated, and how Amroth after seeking her in vain went to the Elf-haven and found that only a few still lingered there. Less than a ship-load; and they had only one seaworthy ship. In this they were now preparing to depart, and to leave Middle-earth. They welcomed Amroth, being glad to strengthen their small company; but they were unwilling to await Nimrodel, whose coming seemed to them now beyond hope. ‘If she came through the settled lands of Gondor,’ they said, ‘she would not be molested, and might receive help; for the Men of Gondor are good, and they are ruled by descendants of the Elf-friends of old who can still speak our tongue, after a fashion; but in the mountains are many unfriendly Men and evil things.’
The year was waning to autumn, and before long great winds were to be expected, hostile and dangerous, even to Elven-ships while they were still near to Middle-earth. But so great was the grief of Amroth that nonetheless they stayed their going for many weeks; and they lived on the ship, for their houses on the shore were stripped and empty. Then in the autumn there came a great night of storm, one of the fiercest in the annals of Gondor. It came from the cold Northern Waste, and roared down through Eriador into the lands of Gondor, doing great havoc; the White Mountains were no shield against it, and many of the ships of Men were swept out into the Bay of Belfalas and lost. The light Elven-ship was torn from its moorings and driven into the wild waters towards the coasts of Umbar. No tidings of it were ever heard in Middle-earth; but the Elven-ships made for this journey did not founder, and doubtless it left the Circles of the World and came at last to Eressëa. But it did not bring Amroth thither. The storm fell upon the coasts of Gondor just as dawn was peering through the flying clouds; but when Amroth woke the ship was already far from land. Crying aloud in despair Nimrodel! he leapt into the sea and swam towards the fading shore. The mariners with their Elvish sight for a long time could see him battling with the waves, until the rising sun gleamed through the clouds and far off lit his bright hair like a spark of gold. No eyes of Elves or Men ever saw him again in Middle-earth. Of what befell Nimrodel nothing is said here, though there were many legends concerning her fate.
The foregoing narrative was actually composed as an offshoot from an etymological discussion of the names of certain rivers in Middle-earth, in this case the Gilrain, a river of Lebennin in Gondor that flowed into the Bay of Belfalas west of Ethir Anduin, and another facet of the legend of Nimrodel emerges from the discussion of the element rain. This was probably derived from the stem ran - ‘wander, stray, go on uncertain course’ (as in Mithrandir, and in the name Rána of the Moon).
This would not seem suitable to any of the rivers of Gondor; but the names of rivers may often apply only to part of their course, to their source, or to their lower reaches, or to other features that struck explorers who named them. In this case, however, the fragments of the legend of Amroth and Nimrodel offer an explanation. The Gilrain came swiftly down from the mountains as did the other rivers of that region; but as it reached the end of the outlier of Ered Nimrais that separated it from the Celos [see the map accompanying Volume III of The Lord of the Rings] it ran into a wide shallow depression. In this it wandered for a while, and formed a small mere at the southern end before it cut through a ridge and went on swiftly again to join the Serni. When Nimrodel fled from Lórien it is said that seeking for the sea she became lost in the White Mountains, until at last (by what road or pass is not told) she came to a river that reminded her of her own stream in Lórien. Her heart was lightened, and she sat by a mere, seeing the stars reflected in its dim waters, and listening to the waterfalls by which the river went again on its journey down to the sea. There she fell into a deep sleep of weariness, and so long she slept that she did not come down into Belfalas until Amroth’s ship had been blown out to sea, and he was lost trying to swim back to Belfalas. This legend was well known in the Dor-en-Ernil (the Land of the Prince), 14 and no doubt the name was given in memory of it.
The essay continues with a brief explanation of how Amroth as King of Lórien related to the rule there of Celeborn and Galadriel:
The people of Lórien were even then [i.e. at the time of the loss of Amroth] much as they were at the end of the Third Age: Silvan Elves in origin, but ruled by princes of Sindarin descent (as was the realm of Thranduil in the northern parts of Mirkwood; though whether Thranduil and Amroth were akin is not now known.) 15 They had however been much mingled with Noldor (of Sindarin speech), who passed through Moria after the destruction of Eregion by Sauron in the year 1697 of the Second Age. At that time Elrond went westward [sic; probably meaning simply that he did not cross the Misty Mountains] and established the refuge of Imladris; but Celeborn went at first to Lórien and fortified it against any further attempts of Sauron to cross the Anduin. When however Sauron withdrew to Mordor, and was (as reported) wholly concerned with conquests in the East, Celeborn rejoined Galadriel in Lindon.
Lórien had then long years of peace and obscurity under the rule of its own king Amdír, until the Downfall of Númenor and the sudden return of Sauron to Middle-earth. Amdír obeyed the summons of Gil-galad and brought as large a force as he could muster to the Last Alliance, but he was slain in the Battle of Dagorlad and most of his company with him. Amroth, his son, became king.
This account is of course greatly at variance with that contained in ‘Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn’. Amroth is no longer the son of Galadriel and Celeborn, but of Amdír, a prince of Sindarin origin. The older story of the relations of Galadriel and Celeborn with Eregion and Lórien seems to have been modified in many important respects, but how much of it would have been retained in any fully written narrative cannot be said. Celeborn’s association with Lórien is now placed much further back (for in ‘Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn’ he never went to Lórien at all during the Second Age); and we learn here that many Noldorin Elves passed through Moria to Lórien after the destruction of Eregion. In the earlier account there is no suggestion of this, and the movement of ‘Beleriandic’ Elves into Lórien took place under peaceful conditions many years before (p. 305). The implication of the extract just given is that after Eregion’s fall Celeborn led this migration to Lórien, while Galadriel joined Gil-galad in Lindon; but elsewhere, in a writing contemporary with this, it is said explicitly that they both at that time ‘passed through Moria with a considerable following of Noldorin exiles and dwelt for many years in Lórien’. It is neither asserted nor denied in these late writings that Galadriel (or Celeborn) had relations with Lórien before 1697, and there are no other references outside ‘Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn’ to Celebrimbor’s revolt (at some time between 1350 and 1400) against their rule in Eregion, nor to Galadriel’s departure at that time to Lórien and her taking up rule there, while Celeborn remained behind in Eregion. It is not made clear in the late accounts where Galadriel and Celeborn passed the long years of the Second Age after the defeat of Sauron in Eriador; there are at any rate no further mentions of their agelong sojourn in Belfalas (p. 310).
The discussion of Amroth continues:
But during the Third Age Galadriel became filled with foreboding, and with Celeborn she journeyed to Lórien and stayed there long with Amroth, being especially concerned to learn all news and rumours of the growing shadow in Mirkwood and the dark stronghold in Dol Guldur. But his people were content with Amroth; he was valiant and wise, and his little kingdom was yet prosperous and beautiful. Therefore after long journeys of enquiry in Rhovanion, from Gondor and the borders of Mordor to Thranduil in the north, Celeborn and Galadriel passed over the mountains to Imladris, and there dwelt for many years; for Elrond was their kinsman, since he had early in the Third Age [in the year 109, according to the Tale of Years] wedded their daughter Celebrían.
After the disaster in Moria [in the year 1980] and the sorrows of Lórien, which was now left without a ruler (for Amroth was drowned in the sea in the Bay of Belfalas and left no heir), Celeborn and Galadriel returned to Lórien, and were welcomed by the people. There they dwelt while the Third Age lasted, but they took no title of King or Queen; for they said that they were only guardians of this small but fair realm, the last eastward outpost of the Elves.
Elsewhere there is one other reference to their movements during those years:
To Lórien Celeborn and Galadriel returned twice before the Last Alliance and the end of the Second Age; and in the Third Age, when the shadow of Sauron’s recovery arose, they dwelt there again for a long time. In her wisdom Galadriel saw that Lórien would be a stronghold and point of power to prevent the Shadow from crossing the Anduin in the war that must inevitably come before it was again defeated (if that were possible); but that it needed a rule of greater strength and wisdom than the Silvan folk possessed. Nevertheless, it was not until the disaster in Moria, when by means beyond the foresight of Galadriel Sauron’s power actually crossed the Anduin and Lórien was in great peril, its king lost, its people fleeing and likely to leave it deserted to be occupied by Orcs, that Galadriel and Celeborn took up their permanent abode in Lórien, and its government. But they took no title of King or Queen, and were the guardians that in the event brought it unviolated through the War of the Ring.
In another etymological discussion of the same period the name Amroth is explained as being a nickname derived from his living in a high talan or flet, the wooden platforms built high up in the trees of Lothlórien in which the Galadhrim dwelt (see The Fellowship of the Ring II 6): it meant ‘upclimber, high climber’. 16 It is said here that the custom of dwelling in trees was not a habit of the Silvan Elves in general, but was developed in Lórien by the nature and situation of the land: a flat land with no good stone, except what might be quarried in the mountains westward and brought with difficulty down the Silverlode. Its chief wealth was in its trees, a remnant of the great forests of the Elder Days. But the dwelling in trees was not universal even in Lórien, and the telain or flets were in origin either refuges to be used in the event of attack, or most often (especially those high up in great trees) outlook posts from which the land and its borders could be surveyed by Elvish eyes: for Lórien after the end of the first millennium of the Third Age became a land of uneasy vigilance, and Amroth must have dwelt in growing disquiet ever since Dol Guldur was established in Mirkwood.
Such an outlook post, used by the wardens of the north marches, was the flet in which Frodo spent the night. The abode of Celeborn in Caras Galadhon was also of the same origin: its highest flet, which the Fellowship of the Ring did not see, was the highest point in the land. Earlier the flet of Amroth at the top of the great mound or hill of Cerin Amroth, piled by the labour of many hands, had been the highest, and was principally designed to watch Dol Guldur across the Anduin. The conversion of these telain into permanent dwellings was a later development, and only in Caras Galadhon were such dwellings numerous. But Caras Galadhon was itself a fortress, and only a small part of the Galadhrim dwelt within its walls. Living in such lofty houses was no doubt at first thought remarkable, and Amroth was probably the first to do so. It was thus from his living in a high talan that his name – the only one that was later remembered in legend – was most probably derived.
A note to the words ‘Amroth was probably the first to do so’ states:
Unless it was Nimrodel. Her motives were different. She loved the waters and the falls of Nimrodel from which she would not long be parted; but as times darkened the stream was too near the north borders, and in a part where few of the Galadhrim now dwelt. Maybe it was from her that Amroth took the idea of living in a high flet. 17
Returning to the legend of Amroth and Nimrodel given above, what was the ‘haven in the south’ where Amroth waited for Nimrodel, and where (as he told her) ‘many of his own people had come long ago’ (p. 311)? Two passages in The Lord of the Rings bear on this question. One is in The Fellowship of the Ring II 6, where Legolas, after singing the song of Amroth and Nimrodel, speaks of ‘the Bay of Belfalas whence the Elves of Lórien set sail’. The other is in The Return of the King V 9, where Legolas, looking on Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth, saw that he was ‘one who had elven-blood in his veins’, and said to him: ‘It is long since the people of Nimrodel left the woodlands of Lórien, and yet still one may see that not all sailed from Amroth’s haven west over water.’ To which Prince Imrahil replied: ‘So it is said in the lore of my land.’
Late and fragmentary notes go some way to explaining these references. Thus in a discussion of linguistic and political interrelations in Middle-earth (dating from 1969 or later) there is a passing reference to the fact that in the days of the earlier settlements of Númenor the shores of the Bay of Belfalas were still mainly desolate ‘except for a haven and small settlement of Elves at the south of the confluence of Morthond and Ringló’ (i.e. just north of Dol Amroth).
This, according to the traditions of Dol Amroth, had been established by seafaring Sindar from the west havens of Beleriand who fled in three small ships when the power of Morgoth overwhelmed the Eldar and the Atani; but it was later increased by adventurers of the Silvan Elves seeking for the sea who came down Anduin.
The Silvan Elves (it is remarked here) ‘were never wholly free of an unquiet and a yearning for the Sea which at times drove some of them to wander from their homes’. To relate this story of the ‘three small ships’ to the traditions recorded in The Silmarillion we would probably have to assume that they escaped from Brithombar or Eglarest (the Havens of the Falas on the west coast of Beleriand) when they were destroyed in the year after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad (The Silmarillion p. 196), but that whereas Círdan and Gil-galad made a refuge on the Isle of Balar these three ships’ companies sailed far further south down the coasts, to Belfalas.
But a quite different account, making the establishment of the Elvish haven later, is given in an unfinished scrap on the origin of the name Belfalas. It is said here that while the element Bel is certainly derived from a pre-Númenórean name, its source was in fact Sindarin. The note peters out before any further information is given about Bel -, but the reason given for its Sindarin origin is that ‘there was one small but important element in Gondor of quite exceptional kind: an Eldarin settlement’. After the breaking of Thangorodrim the Elves of Beleriand, if they did not take ship over the Great Sea or remain in Lindon, wandered east over the Blue Mountains into Eriador; but there appears nonetheless to have been a group of Sindar who in the beginning of the Second Age went south. They were a remnant of the people of Doriath who harboured still their grudge against the Noldor; and having remained a while at the Grey Havens, where they learned the craft of shipbuilding, ‘they went in the course of years seeking a place for lives of their own, and at last they settled at the mouth of the Morthond. There was already a primitive harbour there of fisherfolk, but these in fear of the Eldar fled into the mountains.’ 18
In a note written in December 1972 or later, and among the last writings of my father’s on the subject of Middle-earth, there is a discussion of the Elvish strain in Men, as to its being observable in the beardlessness of those who were so descended (it was a characteristic of all Elves to be beardless); and it is here noted in connection with the princely house of Dol Amroth that ‘this line had a special Elvish strain, according to its own legends’ (with a reference to the speeches between Legolas and Imrahil in The Return of the King V 9, cited above).
As Legolas’ mention of Nimrodel shows, there was an ancient Elvish port near Dol Amroth, and a small settlement of Silvan Elves there from Lórien. The legend of the prince’s line was that one of their earliest fathers had wedded an Elf-maiden: in some versions it was indeed (evidently improbably) said to have been Nimrodel herself. In other tales, and more probably, it was one of Nimrodel’s companions who was lost in the upper mountain glens.
This latter version of the legend appears in more detailed form in a note appended to an unpublished genealogy of the line of Dol Amroth from Angelimar, the twentieth prince, father of Adrahil, father of Imrahil, prince of Dol Amroth at the time of the War of the Ring:
In the tradition of his house Angelimar was the twentieth in unbroken descent from Galador, first Lord of Dol Amroth (c. Third Age 2004 – 2129). According to the same traditions Galador was the son of Imrazôr the Númenórean, who dwelt in Belfalas, and the Elven-lady Mithrellas. She was one of the companions of Nimrodel, among many of the Elves that fled to the coast about the year 1980 of the Third Age, when evil arose in Moria; and Nimrodel and her maidens strayed in the wooded hills, and were lost. But in this tale it is said that Imrazôr harboured Mithrellas, and took her to wife. But when she had borne him a son, Galador, and a daughter, Gilmith, she slipped away by night and he saw her no more. But though Mithrellas was of the lesser Silvan race (and not of the High Elves or the Grey) it was ever held that the house and kin of the Lords of Dol Amroth was noble by blood as they were fair in face and mind.
The Elessar
In unpublished writing there is little else to be found concerning the history of Celeborn and Galadriel, save for a very rough manuscript of four pages titled ‘The Elessar’. It is in the first stage of composition, but bears a few pencilled emendations; there are no other versions. It reads, with some very slight editorial emendation, as follows:
There was in Gondolin a jewel-smith named Enerdhil, the greatest of that craft among the Noldor after the death of Fëanor. Enerdhil loved all green things that grew, and his greatest joy was to see the sunlight through the leaves of trees. And it came into his heart to make a jewel within which the clear light of the sun should be imprisoned, but the jewel should be green as leaves. And he made this thing, and even the Noldor marvelled at it. For it is said that those who looked through this stone saw things that were withered or burned healed again or as they were in the grace of their youth, and that the hands of one who held it brought to all that they touched healing from hurt. This gem Enerdhil gave to Idril the King’s daughter, and she wore it upon her breast; and so it was saved from the burning of Gondolin. And before Idril set sail she said to Eärendil her son: ‘The Elessar I leave with thee, for there are grievous hurts to Middle-earth which thou maybe shalt heal. But to none other shalt thou deliver it.’ And indeed at Sirion’s Haven there were many hurts to heal both of Men and Elves, and of beasts that fled thither from the horror of the North; and while Eärendil dwelt there they were healed and prospered, and all things were for a while green and fair. But when Eärendil began his great voyages upon the Sea he wore the Elessar upon his breast, for amongst all his searchings the thought was always before him: that he might perhaps find Idril again; and his first memory of Middle-earth was the green stone above her breast, as she sang above his cradle while Gondolin was still in flower. So it was that the Elessar passed away, when Eärendil returned no more to Middle-earth.
In ages after there was again an Elessar, and of this two things are said, though which is true only those Wise could say who now are gone. For some say that the second was indeed only the first returned, by the grace of the Valar; and that Olórin (who was known in Middle-earth as Mithrandir) brought it with him out of the West. And on a time Olórin came to Galadriel, who dwelt now under the trees of Greenwood the Great; and they had long speech together. For the years of her exile began to lie heavy on the Lady of the Noldor, and she longed for news of her kin and for the blessed land of her birth, and yet was unwilling to forsake Middle-earth [this sentence was changed to read: but was not permitted yet to forsake Middle-earth]. And when Olórin had told her many tidings she sighed, and said: ‘I grieve in Middle-earth, for leaves fall and flowers fade; and my heart yearns, remembering trees and grass that do not die. I would have these in my home.’ Then Olórin said: ‘Would you then have the Elessar?’
And Galadriel said: ‘Where now is the Stone of Eärendil? And Enerdhil is gone who made it.’ ‘Who knows?’ said Olórin. ‘Surely,’ said Galadriel, ‘they have passed over Sea, as almost all fair things beside. And must Middle-earth then fade and perish for ever?’ ‘That is its fate,’ said Olórin. ‘Yet for a little while that might be amended, if the Elessar should return. For a little, until the Days of Men are come.’ ‘If – and yet how could that be,’ said Galadriel. ‘For surely the Valar are now removed and Middle-earth is far from their thought, and all who cling to it are under a shadow.’
‘It is not so,’ said Olórin. ‘Their eyes are not dimmed nor their hearts hardened. In token of which look upon this!’ And he held before her the Elessar, and she looked on it and wondered. And Olórin said: ‘This I bring to you from Yavanna. Use it as you may, and for a while you shall make the land of your dwelling the fairest place in Middle-earth. But it is not for you to possess. You shall hand it on when the time comes. For before you grow weary, and at last forsake Middle-earth one shall come who is to receive it, and his name shall be that of the stone: Elessar he shall be called.’ 19
The other tale runs so: that long ago, ere Sauron deluded the smiths of Eregion, Galadriel came there, and she said to Celebrimbor, the chief of the Elven-smiths: ‘I am grieved in Middle-earth, for leaves fall and flowers fade that I have loved, so that the land of my dwelling is filled with regret that no Spring can redress.’
‘How otherwise can it be for the Eldar, if they cling to Middle-earth?’ said Celebrimbor. ‘Will you then pass over Sea?’
‘Nay,’ she said. ‘Angrod is gone, and Aegnor is gone, and Felagund is no more. Of Finarfin’s children I am the last. 20 But my heart is still proud. What wrong did the golden house of Finarfin do that I should ask the pardon of the Valar, or be content with an isle in the sea whose native land was Aman the Blessed? Here I am mightier.’
‘What would you then?’ said Celebrimbor.
‘I would have trees and grass about me that do not die – here in the land that is mine,’ she answered. ‘What has become of the skill of the Eldar?’ And Celebrimbor said: ‘Where now is the Stone of Eärendil? And Enerdhil who made it is gone.’ ‘They have passed over Sea,’ said Galadriel, ‘with almost all fair things else. But must then Middle-earth fade and perish for ever?’
‘That is its fate, I deem,’ said Celebrimbor. ‘But you know that I love you (though you turned to Celeborn of the Trees), and for that love I will do what I can, if haply by my art your grief can be lessened.’ But he did not say to Galadriel that he himself was of Gondolin long ago, and a friend of Enerdhil, though his friend in most things outrivalled him. Yet if Enerdhil had not been then Celebrimbor would have been more renowned. Therefore he took thought, and began a long and delicate labour, and so for Galadriel he made the greatest of his works (save the Three Rings only). And it is said that more subtle and clear was the green gem that he made than that of Enerdhil, but yet its light had less power. For whereas that of Enerdhil was lit by the Sun in its youth, already many years had passed ere Celebrimbor began his work, and nowhere in Middle-earth was the light as clear as it had been, for though Morgoth had been thrust out into the Void and could not enter again, his far shadow lay upon it. Radiant nonetheless was the Elessar of Celebrimbor; and he set it within a great brooch of silver in the likeness of an eagle rising upon outspread wings. 21 Wielding the Elessar all things grew fair about Galadriel, until the coming of the Shadow to the Forest. But afterwards when Nenya, chief of the Three, 22 was sent to her by Celebrimbor, she needed it (as she thought) no more, and she gave it to Celebrían her daughter, and so it came to Arwen and to Aragorn who was called Elessar.
At the end is written:
The Elessar was made in Gondolin by Celebrimbor, and so came to Idril and so to Eärendil. But that passed away. But the second Elessar was made also by Celebrimbor in Eregion at the request of the Lady Galadriel (whom he loved), and it was not under the One, being made before Sauron rose again.
This narrative goes with ‘Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn’ in certain features, and was probably written at about the same time, or a little earlier. Celebrimbor is here again a jewel-smith of Gondolin, rather than one of the Fëanorians (cf. p. 304); and Galadriel is spoken of as being unwilling to forsake Middle-earth (cf. p. 302) – though the text was later emended and the conception of the ban introduced, and at a later point in the narrative she speaks of the pardon of the Valar.
Enerdhil appears in no other writing; and the concluding words of the text show that Celebrimbor was to displace him as the maker of the Elessar in Gondolin. Of Celebrimbor’s love for Galadriel there is no trace elsewhere. In ‘Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn’ the suggestion is that he came to Eregion with them (p. 302); but in that text, as in The Silmarillion, Galadriel met Celeborn in Doriath, and it is difficult to understand Celebrimbor’s words ‘though you turned to Celeborn of the Trees’. Obscure also is the reference to Galadriel’s dwelling ‘under the trees of Greenwood the Great’. This might be taken as a loose use (nowhere else evidenced) of the expression to include the woods of Lórien, on the other side of Anduin; but ‘the coming of the Shadow to the Forest’ undoubtedly refers to the arising of Sauron in Dol Guldur, which in Appendix A (III) to The Lord of the Rings is called ‘the Shadow in the Forest’. This may imply that Galadriel’s power at one time extended into the southern parts of Greenwood the Great; and support for this may be found in ‘Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn’, p. 305, where the realm of Lórinand (Lórien) is said to have ‘extended into the forests on both sides of the Great River, including the region where afterwards was Dol Guldur’. It is possible, also, that the same conception underlay the statement in Appendix B to The Lord of the Rings, in the headnote to the Tale of Years of the Second Age, as it appeared in the first edition: ‘many of the Sindar passed eastward and established realms in the forests far away. The chief of these were Thranduil in the north of Greenwood the Great, and Celeborn in the south of the forest.’ In the revised edition this remark about Celeborn was omitted, and instead there appears a reference to his dwelling in Lindon (cited above, p. 294).
Lastly, it may be remarked that the healing power here ascribed to the Elessar at the Havens of Sirion is in The Silmarillion (p. 247) attributed to the Silmaril.
NOTES
2 In a note in unpublished material the Elves of Harlindon, or Lindon south of the Lune, are said to have been largely of Sindarin origin, and the region to have been a fief under the rule of Celeborn. It is natural to associate this with the statement in Appendix B; but the reference may possibly be to a later period, for the movements and dwelling-places of Celeborn and Galadriel after the fall of Eregion in 1697 are extremely obscure.
3 Cf. The Fellowship of the Ring I 2: ‘The ancient East-West Road ran through the Shire to its end at the Grey Havens, and dwarves had always used it on their way to their mines in the Blue Mountains.’
4 It is said in Appendix A (III) to The Lord of the Rings that the ancient cities of Nogrod and Belegost were ruined in the breaking of Thangorodrim; but in the Tale of Years in Appendix B: ‘c. 40 Many Dwarves leaving their old cities in Ered Luin go to Moria and swell its numbers.’
5 In a note to the text it is explained that Lórinand was the Nandorin name of this region (afterwards called Lórien and Lothlórien), and contained the Elvish word meaning ‘golden light’: ‘valley of gold’. The Quenya form would be Lauren-andë, the Sindarin Glornan or Nan Laur. Both here and elsewhere the meaning of the name is explained by reference to the golden mallorn-trees of Lothlórien; but they were brought there by Galadriel (for the story of their origin see pp. 216 – 17), and in another, later, discussion the name Lórinand is said to have been itself a transformation, after the introduction of the mallorns, of a yet older name Lindórinand, ‘Vale of the Land of the Singers’. Since the Elves of this land were in origin Teleri, there is here no doubt present the name by which the Teleri called themselves, Lindar, ‘the Singers’. From many other discussions of the names of Lothlórien, to some extent at variance among themselves, it emerges that all the later names were probably due to Galadriel herself, combining different elements: laurë ‘gold’, nan(d) ‘valley’, ndor ‘land’, lin- ‘sing’ and in Laurelindórinan ‘Valley of Singing Gold’ (which Treebeard told the Hobbits was the earlier name) deliberately echoing the name of the Golden Tree that grew in Valinor, ‘for which, as is plain, Galadriel’s longing increased year by year to, at last, an overwhelming regret’.
Lórien itself was originally the Quenya name of a region in Valinor, often used as the name of the Vala (Irmo) to whom it belonged: ‘a place of rest and shadowy trees and fountains, a retreat from cares and griefs’. The further change from Lórinand ‘Valley of Gold’ to Lórien ‘may well be due to Galadriel herself’ , for ‘the resemblance cannot be accidental. She had endeavoured to make Lórien a refuge and an island of peace and beauty, a memorial of ancient days, but was now filled with regret and misgiving, knowing that the golden dream was hastening to a grey awakening. It may be noted that Treebeard interpreted Lothlórien as “Dreamflower”.’
In ‘Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn’ I have retained the name Lórinand throughout, although when it was written Lórinand was intended as the original and ancient Nandorin name of the region, and the story of the introduction of the mallorns by Galadriel had not yet been devised.
6 This is a later emendation; the text as originally written stated that Lórinand was ruled by native princes.
7 In an isolated and undateable note it is said that although the name Sauron is used earlier than this in the Tale of Years, his name, implying identity with the great lieutenant of Morgoth in The Silmarillion, was not actually known until about the year 1600 of the Second Age, the time of the forging of the One Ring. The mysterious power of hostility, to Elves and Edain, was perceived soon after the year 500, and among the Númenóreans first by Aldarion towards the end of the eighth century (about the time when he established the haven of Vinyalondë,p. 228). But it had no known centre. Sauron endeavoured to keep distinct his two sides: enemy and tempter. When he came among the Noldor he adopted a specious fair form (a kind of simulated anticipation of the later Istari), and a fair name: Artano ‘high-smith’, or Aulendil, meaning one who is devoted to the service of the Vala Aulë. (In Of the Rings of Power,p. 287, the name that Sauron gave to himself at this time was Annatar, the Lord of Gifts; but that name is not mentioned here.) The note goes on to say that Galadriel was not deceived, saying that this Aulendil was not in the train of Aulë in Valinor; ‘but this is not decisive, since Aulë existed before the “Building of Arda”, and the probability is that Sauron was in fact one of the Aulëan Maiar, corrupted “before Arda began” by Melkor’. With this compare the opening sentences in Of the Rings of Power: ‘Of old there was Sauron the Maia.... In the beginning of Arda Melkor seduced him to his allegiance’.
8 In a letter written in September 1954 my father said: ‘At the beginning of the Second Age he [Sauron] was still beautiful to look at, or could still assume a beautiful visible shape – and was not indeed wholly evil, not unless all “reformers” who want to hurry up with “reconstruction” and “reorganization” are wholly evil, even before pride and the lust to exert their will eat them up. The particular branch of the High Elves concerned, the Noldor or Loremasters, were always vulnerable on the side of “science and technology”, as we should call it: they wanted to have the knowledge that Sauron genuinely had, and those of Eregion refused the warnings of Gil-galad and Elrond. The particular “desire” of the Eregion Elves – an “allegory” if you like of a love of machinery, and technical devices – is also symbolized by their special friendship with the Dwarves of Moria.’
9 Galadriel cannot have made use of the powers of Nenya until a much later time, after the loss of the Ruling Ring; but it must be admitted that the text does not at all suggest this (although she is said just above to have advised Celebrimbor that the Elven Rings should never be used).
10 The text was emended to read ‘the first White Council’. In the Tale of Years the formation of the White Council is given under the year 2463 of the Third Age; but it may be that the name of the Council of the Third Age deliberately echoed that of this Council held long before, the more especially as several of the chief members of the one had been members of the other.
11 Earlier in this narrative (p. 306) it is said that Gil-galad gave Narya, the Red Ring, to Círdan as soon as he himself received it from Celebrimbor, and this agrees with the statements in Appendix B to The Lord of the Rings and in Of the Rings of Power, that Círdan held it from the beginning. The statement here, at variance with the others, was added in the margin of the text.
12 On the Silvan Elves and their speech see Appendix A, p. 331.
14 The origin of the name Dor-en-Ernil is nowhere given; its only other occurrence is on the large map of Rohan, Gondor, and Mordor in The Lord of the Rings. On that map it is placed on the other side of the mountains from Dol Amroth, but its occurrence in the present context suggests that Ernil was the Prince of Dol Amroth (which might be supposed in any case).
15 See Appendix B, p. 333, on the Sindarin princes of the Silvan Elves.
16 The explanation supposes that the first element in the name Amroth is the same Elvish word as Quenya amba ‘up’, found also in Sindarin amon, a hill or mountain with steep sides; while the second element is a derivative from a stem rath- meaning ‘climb’ (whence also the noun rath, which in the Númenórean Sindarin used in Gondor in the naming of places and persons was applied to all the longer roadways and streets of Minas Tirith, nearly all of which were on an incline: so Rath Dínen, the Silent Street, leading down from the Citadel to the Tombs of the Kings).
17 In the ‘Brief Recounting’ of the legend of Amroth and Nimrodel it is said that Amroth dwelt in the trees of Cerin Amroth ‘because of his love for Nimrodel’ (p. 311).
18 The place of the Elvish haven in Belfalas is marked with the name Edhellond (‘Elf-haven’, see the Appendix to The Silmarillion under edhel and londë) on the decorated map of Middle-earth by Pauline Baynes; but I have found no other occurrence of this name. See Appendix D, p. 339. Cf. The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (1962), p. 8: ‘In the Langstrand and Dol Amroth there were many traditions of the ancient Elvish dwellings, and of the haven at the mouth of the Morthond from which “westward ships” had sailed as far back as the fall of Eregion in the Second Age.’
19 This chimes with the passage in The Fellewship of the Ring II 8, where Galadriel, giving the green stone to Aragorn, said: ‘In this hour take the name that was foretold for you, Elessar, the Elfstone of the house of Elendil!’
20 The text here and again immediately below has Finrod, which I have changed to Finarfin to avoid confusion. Before the revised edition of The Lord of the Rings was published in 1966 my father changed Finrod to Finarfin, while his son Felagund, previously called Inglor Felagund, became Finrod Felagund. Two passages in the Appendices B and F were accordingly emended for the revised edition. – It is noteworthy that Orodreth, King of Nargothrond after Finrod Felagund, is not here named by Galadriel among her brothers. For a reason unknown to me, my father displaced the second King of Nargothrond and made him a member of the same family in the next generation; but this and associated genealogical changes were never incorporated in the narratives of The Silmarillion.
21 Compare the description of the Elfstone in The Fellowship of the Ring II 8: ‘Then [Galadriel] lifted from her lap a great stone of a clear green, set in a silver brooch that was wrought in the likeness of an eagle with outspread wings; and as she held it up the gem flashed like the sun shining through the leaves of spring.’
22 But in The Return of the King VI 9, where the Blue Ring is seen on Elrond’s finger, it is called ‘Vilya, mightiest of the Three’.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
THE SILVAN ELVES AND THEIR SPEECH
According to The Silmarillion (p. 94) some of the Nandor, the Telerin Elves who abandoned the march of the Eldar on the eastern side of the Misty Mountains, ‘dwelt age-long in the woods of the Vale of the Great River’ (while others, it is said, went down Anduin to its mouths, and yet others entered Eriador: from these last came the Green-elves of Ossiriand).
In a late etymological discussion of the names Galadriel, Cele-born, and Lórien the Silvan Elves of Mirkwood and Lórien are specifically declared to be descended from the Telerin Elves who remained in the Vale of Anduin:
The Silvan Elves (Tawarwaith) were in origin Teleri, and so remoter kin of the Sindar, though even longer separated from them than the Teleri of Valinor. They were descended from those of the Teleri who, on the Great Journey, were daunted by the Misty Mountains and lingered in the Vale of Anduin, and so never reached Beleriand or the Sea. They were thus closer akin to the Nandor (otherwise called the Green-elves) of Ossiriand, who eventually crossed the mountains and came at last into Beleriand.
The Silvan Elves hid themselves in woodland fastnesses beyond the Misty Mountains, and became small and scattered peoples, hardly to be distinguished from Avari;
but they still remembered that they were in origin Eldar, members of the Third Clan, and they welcomed those of the Noldor and especially the Sindar who did not pass over the Sea but migrated eastward [i.e. at the beginning of the Second Age]. Under the leadership of these they became again ordered folk and increased in wisdom. Thranduil father of Legolas of the Nine Walkers was Sindarin, and that tongue was used in his house, though not by all his folk.
In Lórien, where many of the people were Sindar in origin, or Noldor, survivors from Eregion [see p. 314], Sindarin had become the language of all the people. In what way their Sindarin differed from the forms of Beleriand – see The Fellowship of the Ring II 6, where Frodo reports that the speech of the Silvan folk that they used among themselves was unlike that of the West – is not of course now known. It probably differed in little more than what would now be popularly called ‘accent’: mainly differences of vowel-sounds and intonation sufficient to mislead one who, as Frodo, was not well acquainted with purer Sindarin. There may of course also have been some local words and other features ultimately due to the influence of the former Silvan tongue. Lórien had long been much isolated from the outside world. Certainly some names preserved from its past, such as Amroth and Nimrodel, cannot be fully explained from Sindarin, though fitting it in form. Caras seems to be an old word for a moated fortress, not found in Sindarin. Lórien is probably an alteration of an older name now lost [though earlier the original Silvan or Nandorin name was stated to be Lórinand; see p. 327, note 5].
With these remarks on Silvan names compare Appendix F (I) to The Lord of the Rings, section ‘Of the Elves’, footnote (appearing only in the revised edition).
Another general statement concerning Silvan Elvish is found in a linguistic-historical discussion dating from the same late period as that just cited:
Although the dialects of the Silvan Elves, when they again met their long separated kindred, had so far diverged from Sindarin as to be hardly intelligible, little study was needed to reveal their kinship as Eldarin tongues. Though the comparison of the Silvan dialects with their own speech greatly interested the loremasters, especially those of Noldorin origin, little is now known of the Silvan Elvish. The Silvan Elves had invented no forms of writing, and those who learned this art from the Sindar wrote in Sindarin as well as they could. By the end of the Third Age the Silvan tongues had probably ceased to be spoken in the two regions that had importance at the time of the War of the Ring: Lórien and the realm of Thranduil in northern Mirkwood. All that survived of them in the records was a few words and several names of persons and places.
APPENDIX B
THE SINDARIN PRINCES
OF THE SILVAN ELVES
In Appendix B to The Lord of the Rings, in the headnote to the Tale of Years of the Second Age, it is said that ‘before the building of the Barad-dûr many of the Sindar passed eastward, and some established realms in the forests far away, where their people were mostly Silvan Elves. Thranduil, king in the north of Greenwood the Great, was one of these.’
Something more of the history of these Sindarin princes of the Silvan Elves is found in my father’s late philological writings. Thus in one essay Thranduil’s realm is said to have
extended into the woods surrounding the Lonely Mountain and growing along the west shores of the Long Lake, before the coming of the Dwarves exiled from Moria and the invasion of the Dragon. The Elvish folk of this realm had migrated from the south, being the kin and neighbours of the Elves of Lórien; but they had dwelt in Greenwood the Great east of Anduin. In the Second Age their king, Oropher [the father of Thranduil, father of Legolas], had withdrawn northward beyond the Gladden Fields. This he did to be free from the power and encroachments of the Dwarves of Moria, which had grown to be the greatest of the mansions of the Dwarves recorded in history; and also he resented the intrusions of Celeborn and Galadriel into Lórien. But as yet there was little to fear between the Greenwood and the Mountains and there was constant intercourse between his people and their kin across the River, until the War of the Last Alliance.
Despite the desire of the Silvan Elves to meddle as little as might be in the affairs of the Noldor and Sindar, or of any other peoples, Dwarves, Men, or Orcs, Oropher had the wisdom to foresee that peace would not return unless Sauron was overcome. He therefore assembled a great army of his now numerous people, and joining with the lesser army of Malgalad of Lórien he led the host of the Silvan Elves to battle. The Silvan Elves were hardy and valiant, but ill-equipped with armour or weapons in comparison with the Eldar of the West; also they were independent, and not disposed to place themselves under the supreme command of Gil-galad. Their losses were thus more grievous than they need have been, even in that terrible war. Malgalad and more than half his following perished in the great battle of the Dagorlad, being cut off from the main host and driven into the Dead Marshes. Oropher was slain in the first assault upon Mordor, rushing forward at the head of his most doughty warriors before Gilgalad had given the signal for the advance. Thranduil his son survived, but when the war ended and Sauron was slain (as it seemed) he led back home barely a third of the army that had marched to war.
Malgalad of Lórien occurs nowhere else, and is not said here to be the father of Amroth. On the other hand, Amdír father of Amroth is twice (pp. 311 and 315 above) said to have been slain in the Battle of Dagorlad, and it seems therefore that Malgalad can be simply equated with Amdír. But which name replaced the other I cannot say. This essay continues:
A long peace followed in which the numbers of the Silvan Elves grew again; but they were unquiet and anxious, feeling the change of the world that the Third Age would bring. Men also were increasing in numbers and in power. The dominion of the Númenórean kings of Gondor was reaching out northwards towards the borders of Lórien and the Greenwood. The Free Men of the North (so called by the Elves because they were not under the rule of the Dúnedain, and had not for the most part been subjected by Sauron or his servants) were spreading southwards: mostly east of the Green-wood, though some were establishing themselves in the eaves of the forest and the grasslands of the Vales of Anduin. More ominous were rumours from the further East: the Wild Men were restless. Former servants and worshippers of Sauron, they were released now from his tyranny, but not from the evil and darkness that he had set in their hearts. Cruel wars raged among them, from which some were withdrawing westward, with minds filled with hatred, regarding all that dwelt in the West as enemies to be slain and plundered. But there was in Thranduil’s heart a still deeper shadow. He had seen the horror of Mordor and could not forget it. If ever he looked south its memory dimmed the light of the Sun, and though he knew that it was now broken and deserted and under the vigilance of the Kings of Men, fear spoke in his heart that it was not conquered for ever: it would arise again.
In another passage written at the same time as the foregoing it is said that when a thousand years of the Third Age had passed and the Shadow fell upon Greenwood the Great, the Silvan Elves ruled by Thranduil
retreated before it as it spread ever northward, until at last Thranduil established his realm in the north-east of the forest and delved there a fortress and great halls underground. Oropher was of Sindarin origin, and no doubt Thranduil his son was following the example of King Thingol long before, in Doriath; though his halls were not to be compared with Menegroth. He had not the arts nor the wealth nor the aid of the Dwarves; and compared with the Elves of Doriath his Silvan folk were rude and rustic. Oropher had come among them with only a handful of Sindar, and they were soon merged with the Silvan Elves, adopting their language and taking names of Silvan form and style. This they did deliberately; for they (and other similar adventurers forgotten in the legends or only briefly named) came from Doriath after its ruin, and had no desire to leave Middle-earth, nor to be merged with the other Sindar of Beleriand, dominated by the Noldorin Exiles for whom the folk of Doriath had no great love. They wished indeed to become Silvan folk and to return, as they said, to the simple life natural to the Elves before the invitation of the Valar had disturbed it.
Nowhere (I believe) is it made clear how the adoption of the Silvan speech by the Sindarin rulers of the Silvan Elves of Mirkwood, as described here, is to be related to the statement cited on p. 333 that by the end of the Third Age Silvan Elvish had ceased to be spoken in Thranduil’s realm.
See further note 14 to ‘The Disaster of the Gladden Fields’,p. 363.
APPENDIX C
THE BOUNDARIES OF LÓRIEN
In Appendix A (I, iv) to The Lord of the Rings the kingdom of Gondor at the summit of its power in the days of King Hyarmendacil I (Third Age 1015 – 1149) is said to have extended northwards ‘to Celebrant and the southern eaves of Mirkwood’. This my father stated several times to be in error: the correct reading should be ‘to the Field of Celebrant’. According to his late writing on the interrelations of the languages of Middle-earth,
The river Celebrant (Silverlode) was within the borders of the realm of Lórien, and the effective bounds of the kingdom of Gondor in the north (west of Anduin) was the river Limlight. The whole of the grasslands between Silverlode and Limlight, into which the woods of Lórien formerly extended further south, were known in Lórien as Parth Celebrant (i.e. the field, or enclosed grassland, of Silverlode) and regarded as part of its realm, though not inhabited by its Elvish folk beyond the eaves of the woods. In later days Gondor built a bridge over the upper Limlight, and often occupied the narrow land between the lower Limlight and Anduin as part of its eastern defences, since the great loops of the Anduin (where it came down swiftly past Lórien and entered low flat lands before its descent again into the chasm of the Emyn Muil) had many shallows and wide shoals over which a determined and well-equipped enemy could force a crossing by rafts or pontoons, especially in the two westward bends, known as the North and South Undeeps. It was to this land that the name Parth Celebrant was applied in Gondor; hence its use in defining the ancient northern boundary. In the time of the War of the Ring, when all the land north of the White Mountains (save Anórien) as far as the Limlight had become part of the Kingdom of Rohan, the name Parth (Field of ) Celebrant was only used of the great battle in which Eorl the Young destroyed the invaders of Gondor [see pp. 387– 8].
In another essay my father noted that whereas east and west the land of Lórien was bounded by Anduin and by the mountains (and he says nothing about any extension of the realm of Lórien across the Anduin, see p. 326), it had no clearly defined borders northward and southward.
Of old the Galadhrim had claimed to govern the woods as far as the falls in the Silverlode where Frodo was bathed; southward it had extended far beyond the Silverlode into more open woodland of smaller trees that merged into Fangorn Forest, though the heart of the realm had always been in the angle between Silverlode and Anduin where Caras Galadhon stood. There were no visible borders between Lórien and Fangorn, but neither the Ents nor the Galadhrim ever passed them. For legend reported that Fangorn himself had met the King of the Galadhrim in ancient days, and Fangorn had said: ‘I know mine, and you know yours; let neither side molest what is the other’s. But if an Elf should wish to walk in my land for his pleasure he will be welcome; and if an Ent should be seen in your land fear no evil.’ Long years had passed, however, since Ent or Elf had set foot in the other land.
APPENDIX D
THE PORT OF LOND DAER
It was told in ‘Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn’ that in the war against Sauron in Eriador at the end of the seventeenth century of the Second Age the Númenórean admiral Ciryatur put a strong force ashore at the mouth of the Gwathló (Greyflood), where there was ‘a small Númenórean harbour’ (p. 309). This seems to be the first reference to that port, of which a good deal is told in later writings.
The fullest account is in the philological essay concerning the names of rivers which has already been cited in connection with the legend of Amroth and Nimrodel (pp. 313 ff.). In this essay the name Gwathló is discussed as follows:
The river Gwathló is translated ‘Greyflood’. But gwath is a Sindarin word for ‘shadow’, in the sense of dim light, owing to cloud or mist, or in deep valleys. This does not seem to fit the geography. The wide lands divided by the Gwathló into the regions called by the Númenóreans Minhiriath (‘Between the Rivers’, Baranduin and Gwathló) and Enedwaith (‘Middle-folk’) were mainly plains, open and mountainless. At the point of the confluence of Glanduin and Mitheithel [Hoarwell] the land was almost flat, and the waters became sluggish and tended to spread into fenland. * But some hundred miles below Tharbad the slope increased. The Gwathló, however, never became swift, and ships of smaller draught could without dif?culty sail or be rowed as far as Tharbad.
The origin of the name Gwathló must be sought in history. In the time of the War of the Ring the lands were still in places well-wooded, especially in Minhiriath and in the south-east of Enedwaith; but most of the plains were grasslands. Since the Great Plague of the year 1636 of the Third Age Minhiriath had been almost entirely deserted, though a few secretive hunter-folk lived in the woods. In Enedwaith the remnants of the Dunlendings lived in the east, in the foothills of the Misty Mountains; and a fairly numerous but barbarous fisher-folk dwelt between the mouths of the Gwathló and the Angren (Isen).
But in the earlier days, at the time of the first explorations of the Númenóreans, the situation was quite different. Minhiriath and Enedwaith were occupied by vast and almost continuous forests, except in the central region of the Great Fens. The changes that followed were largely due to the operations of Tar-Aldarion, the Mariner-king, who formed a friendship and alliance with Gil-galad. Aldarion had a great hunger for timber, desiring to make Númenor into a great naval power; his felling of trees in Númenor had caused great dissensions. In voyages down the coasts he saw with wonder the great forests, and he chose the estuary of the Gwathló for the site of a new haven entirely under Númenórean control (Gondor of course did not yet exist). There he began great works, that continued to be extended after his days. This entry into Eriador later proved of great importance in the war against Sauron (Second Age 1693– 1701); but it was in origin a timber-port and ship-building harbour. The native people were fairly numerous and warlike, but they were forest-dwellers, scattered communities without central leadership. They were in awe of the Númenóreans, but they did not become hostile until the tree-felling became devastating. Then they attacked and ambushed the Númenóreans when they could, and the Númenóreans treated them as enemies, and became ruthless in their fellings, giving no thought to husbandry or replanting. The fellings had at first been along both banks of the Gwathló, and timber had been floated down to the haven (Lond Daer); but now the Númenóreans drove great tracks and roads into the forests northwards and southwards from the Gwathló, and the native folk that survived fled from Minhiriath into the dark woods of the great Cape of Eryn Vorn, south of the mouth of the Baranduin, which they dared not cross, even if they could, for fear of the Elvenfolk. From Enedwaith they took refuge in the eastern mountains where afterwards was Dunland; they did not cross the Isen nor take refuge in the great promontory between Isen and Lefnui that formed the north arm of the Bay of Belfalas [Ras Morthil or Andrast: see p. 276, note 6], because of the ‘Púkel-men’.... [For the continuation of this passage see p. 495.]
The devastation wrought by the Númenóreans was incalculable. For long years these lands were their chief source of timber, not only for their ship-yards at Lond Daer and elsewhere, but also for Númenor itself. Ship-loads innumerable passed west over the sea. The denuding of the lands was increased during the war in Eriador; for the exiled natives welcomed Sauron and hoped for his victory over the Men of the Sea. Sauron knew of the importance to his enemies of the Great Haven and its ship-yards, and he used these haters of Númenor as spies and guides for his raiders. He had not enough force to spare for any assault upon the forts at the Haven or along the banks of the Gwathló, but his raiders made much havoc on the fringe of the forests, setting fire in the woods and burning many of the great wood-stores of the Númenóreans.
When Sauron was at last defeated and driven east out of Eriador most of the old forests had been destroyed. The Gwathló flowed through a land that was far and wide on either bank a desert, treeless but untilled. That was not so when it first received its name from the hardy explorers of Tar-Aldarion’s ship who ventured to pass up the river in small boats. As soon as the seaward region of salt airs and great winds was passed the forest drew down to the river-banks, and wide though the waters were the huge trees cast great shadows on the river, under which the boats of the adventurers crept silently up into the unknown land. So the first name they gave to it was ‘River of Shadow’, Gwath-hîr, Gwathir. But later they penetrated northward as far as the beginning of the great fenlands; though it was still long before they had the need or sufficient men to undertake the great works of drainage and dyke-building that made a great port on the site where Tharbad stood in the days of the Two Kingdoms. The Sindarin word that they used for the fenland was lô, earlier loga [from a stern log - meaning ‘wet, soaked, swampy’]; and they thought at first that it was the source of the forest-river, not yet knowing the Mitheithel that came down out of the mountains in the north, and gathering the waters of the Bruinen [Loud-water] and Glanduin poured flood-waters into the plain. The name Gwathir was thus changed to Gwathló, the shadowy river from the fens.
The Gwathló was one of the few geographical names that became generally known to others than mariners in Númenor, and received an Adûnaic translation. This was Agathurush.
The history of Lond Daer and Tharbad is also mentioned in this same essay in a discussion of the name Glanduin:
Glanduin means ‘border-river’. It was the name first given (in the Second Age), since the river was the southern boundary of Eregion, beyond which pre Númenórean and generally unfriendly peoples lived, such as the ancestors of the Dunlendings. Later it, with the Gwathló formed by its confluence with the Mitheithel, formed the southern boundary of the North Kingdom. The land beyond, between the Gwathló and the Isen (Sîr Angren) was called Enedwaith (‘Middle-folk’); it belonged to neither kingdom and received no permanent settlements of men of Númenórean origin. But the great North-South Road, which was the chief route of communication between the Two Kingdoms except by sea, ran through it from Tharbad to the Fords of Isen (Ethraid Engrin). Before the decay of the North Kingdom and the disasters that befell Gondor, indeed until the coming of the Great Plague in Third Age 1636, both kingdoms shared an interest in this region, and together built and maintained the Bridge of Tharbad and the long causeways that carried the road to it on either side of the Gwathló and Mitheithel across the fens in the plains of Minhiriath and Enedwaith. * A consierable garrison of soldiers, mariners and engineers had been kept there until the seventeenth century of the Third Age. But from then onwards the region fell quickly into decay; and long before the time of The Lord of the Rings had gone back into wild fen-lands. When Boromir made his great journey from Gondor to Rivendell – the courage and hardihood required is not fully recognized in the narrative – the North-South Road no longer existed except for the crumbling remains of the causeways, by which a hazardous approach to Tharbad might be achieved, only to find ruins on dwindling mounds, and a dangerous ford formed by the ruins of the bridge, impassable if the river had not been there slow and shallow – but wide.
If the name Glanduin was remembered at all it would only be in Rivendell; and it would apply only to the upper course of the river where it still ran swiftly, soon to be lost in the plains and disappear in the fens: a network of swamps, pools, and eyots, where the only inhabitants were hosts of swans, and many other water-birds. If the river had any name it was in the language of the Dunlendings. In The Return of the King VI 6 it is called the Swanfleet river (not River), simply as being the river that went down into Nîn-in-Eilph, ‘the Waterlands of the Swans’. *
It was my father’s intention to enter, in a revised map of The Lord of the Rings, Glanduin as the name of the upper course of the river, and to mark the fens as such, with the name Nîn-in-Eilph (or Swanfleet). In the event his intention came to be misunderstood, for on Pauline Baynes’ map the lower course is marked as ‘R.Swanfleet’, while on the map in the book, as noted above (p. 339), the names are placed against the wrong river.
It may be noted that Tharbad is referred to as ‘a ruined town’ in The Fellowship of the Ring II 3, and that Boromir in Lothlórien told that he lost his horse at Tharbad, at the fording of the Greyflood (ibid. II 8). In the Tale of Years the ruining and desertion of Tharbad is dated to the year 2912 of the Third Age, when great floods devastated Enedwaith and Minhiriath.
From these discussions it can be seen that the conception of the Númenórean harbour at the mouth of the Gwathló had been expanded since the time when ‘Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn’ was written, from ‘a small Númenórean harbour’ to Lond Daer, the Great Haven. It is of course the Vinyalondë or New Haven of ‘Aldarion and Erendis’(p. 228), though that name does not appear in the discussions just cited. It is said in ‘Aldarion and Erendis’ (p. 265) that the works that Aldarion began again at Vinyalondë after he became King ‘were never completed’. This probably means no more than that they were never completed by him; for the later history of Lond Daer presupposes that the haven was at length restored, and made secure from the assaults of the sea, and indeed the same passage in ‘Aldarion and Erendis’ goes on to say that Aldarion ‘laid the foundation for the achievement of Tar-Minastir long years after, in the first war with Sauron, and but for his works the fleets of Númenor could not have brought their power in time to the right place – as he foresaw’.
The statement in the discussion of Glanduin above that the port was called Lond Daer Enedh ‘the Great Middle Haven’, as being between the havens of Lindon in the North and Pelargir on the Anduin, must refer to a time long after the Númenórean intervention in the war against Sauron in Eriador; for according to the Tale of Years Pelargir was not built until the year 2350 of the Second Age, and became the chief haven of the Faithful Númenóreans.
APPENDIX E
THE NAMES OF CELEBORN AND GALADRIEL
It is said in an essay concerning the customs of name-giving among the Eldar in Valinor that they had two ‘given names’ (essi), of which the first was given at birth by the father; and this one usually recalled the father’s own name, resembling it in sense or form, or might even be actually the same as the father’s, to which some distinguishing prefix might be added later, when the child was full-grown. The second name was given later, sometimes much later but sometimes soon after the birth, by the mother; and these mother-names had great significance, for the mothers of the Eldar had insight into the characters and abilities of their children, and many also had the gift of prophetic foresight. In addition, any of the Eldar might acquire an epessë (‘after-name’), not necessarily given by their own kin, a nickname – mostly given as a title of admiration or honour; and an epessë might become the name generally used and recognised in later song and history (as was the case, for instance, with Ereinion, always known by his epessë Gil-galad).
Thus the name Alatáriel, which, according to the late version of the story of their relationship (p. 298), was given to Galadriel by Celeborn in Aman, was an epessë (for its etymology see the Appendix to The Silmarillion, entry kal-), which she chose to use in Middle-earth, rendered into Sindarin as Galadriel, rather than her ‘father-name’ Artanis, or her ‘mother-name’ Nerwen.
It is only of course in the late version that Celeborn appears with a High-elven, rather than Sindarin, name: Teleporno. This is stated to be actually Telerin in form; the ancient stem of the Elvish word for ‘silver’ was kyelep-, becoming celeb in Sindarin, telep-, telpe in Telerin, and tyelep-, tyelpe in Quenya. But in Quenya the form telpe became usual, through the influence of Telerin; for the Teleri prized silver above gold, and their skill as silversmiths was esteemed even by the Noldor. Thus Telperion was more commonly used than Tyelperion as the name of the White Tree of Valinor. (Alatáriel was also Telerin; its Quenya form was Altáriel. )
The name Celeborn when first devised was intended to mean ‘Silver Tree’; it was also the name of the Tree of Tol Eressëa (The Silmarillion p. 59). Celeborn’s close kin had ‘tree-names’ (p. 301): Galadhon his father, Galathil his brother, and Nimloth his niece, who bore the same name as the White Tree of Númenor. In my father’s latest philological writings, however, the meaning ‘Silver Tree’ was abandoned: the second element of Celeborn (as the name of a person) was derived from the ancient adjectival form orna ‘uprising, tall’, rather than from the related noun orne ‘tree’. (Orne was originally applied to straighter and more slender trees such as birches, whereas stouter, more spreading trees such as oaks and beeches were called in the ancient language galada ‘great growth’ but this distinction was not always observed in Quenya and disappeared in Sindarin, where all trees came to be called galadh, and orn fell out of common use, surviving only in verse and songs and in many names both of persons and of trees.) That Celeborn was tall is mentioned in a note to the discussion of Númenórean Linear Measures, p. 371.
On occasional confusion of Galadriel’s name with the word galadh my father wrote:
When Celeborn and Galadriel became the rulers of the Elves of Lórien (who were mainly in origin Silvan Elves and called themselves the Galadhrim) the name of Galadriel became associated with trees, an association that was aided by the name of her husband, which also appeared to contain a tree-word; so that outside Lórien among those whose memories of the ancient days and Galadriel’s history had grown dim her name was often altered to Galadhriel. Not in Lórien itself.
It may be mentioned here that Galadhrim is the correct spelling of the name of the Elves of Lórien, and similarly Caras Galadhon. My father originally altered the voiced form of th (as in Modern English then) in Elvish names to d, since (as he wrote) dh is not used in English and looks uncouth. Afterwards he changed his mind on the point, but Galadrim and Caras Galadon remained uncorrected until after the appearance of the revised edition of The Lord of the Rings (in recent reprints the change has been made). These names are wrongly spelt in the entry alda in the Appendix to The Silmarillion.