sign in sign up
<<
Home , Celebrimbor, Cirth, Elf (Middle-earth), Noldor

Volume 4 Number 3 1

3-15-1977

The Tale of the

Paul Kocher

Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore

Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons

Recommended Citation Kocher, Paul (1977) "The Tale of the Noldor," : A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 4 : No. 3 , Article 1. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol4/iss3/1

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm

Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm

Abstract Reviews the history of the Noldor, of the First Age, and their continuing influence in the affairs of the Third Age. A retelling rather than a scholarly analysis, based on sources published before the availability of .

Additional Keywords Tolkien, J.R.R.—Characters—Elves, Noldorian—History; Bonnie GoodKnight

This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol4/iss3/1 THE TALE OF THE NOLDOR by Paul Kocher

The Valar were pure, immaterial sp irits without making, and healing to preserve all things un­ bodies but capable of incarnating themselves in s t a i n e d " (LOTR I I , 2 8 2 ) . any forms they pleased. In the beginning, at the command of the One (Eru), they turned their "angel­ The coming of , however, sets in motion ic," "demiurgic" powers to the making of a world a chain of events which ruins all such hopes and later called Middle-Earth. Nevertheless, they were begins the history of M iddle-Earth. The fact that not given the task of creating elves, men, dwarves he enters "from the Outside," to use 's and its other intelligent denizens. This was the words, probably means that he is not a but a work of Eru himself. Instead, after forming the m alignant Enemy of Eru wielding unprecedented power planet, they dwelled in , an island in its (LOTR I, 142). What drew him to this particular farthest western seas, there to await the coming of planet? Since Tolkien does not specify, we can elves and men, "the children of God (Erusen)," and only conjecture. Perhaps a general lust to destroy to prepare Valinor for their reception. In this its beauty and its promise. If not before his ar­ way they became the guardians of the new world un­ rival, then soon after, a more specific greed for der Eru. As part of their guardianship they were the light of the Two Trees which illum ine Valinor, charged with the duty of civilizing its peoples, coupled with a perception that in the arrogant bringing them to a state of thought and conduct genius of Feanor he had found an instrum . pleasing to him (LOTR III, 415; R o a d , p. 66; Foster, Some scene of tem ptation and fa ll seems to have p . 2 6 5 ) . occurred. How Morgoth may have flattered Feanor, The elves, who d rift westward from their birth­ or may perhaps have convinced him that the stealing place somewhere in the east long before the F irst of the light was merely a technical problem which Age begins, have been given qualities of mind and challenged his scientific genius, can easily be body especially suitable to help this process. imagined. Anyway, Feanor devised a substance called They are born teachers, an inquiring, eager, and s ilm a capable of attracting and imprisoning the helpful race. Finding that the trees, which then light of the Two Trees. With it he fashioned three wholly cover the land, have a capacity for speech splendid jewels, or s i l m a r i l l i . S e i z i n g th e m , but no language, the elves linger long enough to Morgoth fled to his vast fortress of Thangorodrim teach them the elvish tongues. Better yet, they on M iddle-Earth, where he set them in his iron inspire the tree-herds to develop their own inher­ crown. Behind him he left Valinor darkened, and ent entish way of speaking. In so doing they win Feanor hum iliated and enraged. the everlasting gratitude of , the oldest As a prince of the Noldor Feanor rallied his of them. Since he is himself one of the first elves to pursue the thief. "In his pride," writes living dwellers on M iddle-Earth, he sees them affec­ Tolkien, he foolishly expected "to recover the tionately as children still, "the -children," Jewels from Morgoth by force,” and to that end led though among the non-arboreal peoples they are the with him from Valinor "a great part of his people" "eldest of all," the first to be created. He appre­ (LOTR III, 314). Foreseeing the wastage of their ciates the quick sympathies which make them "less lives, King Manwe of the Valar forbad them to go. interested in themselves than men are," and he ad­ When the Noldor disobeyed his command, the Valar mires their invention of language: "Elves made all passed on them a sentence of exile. In order to the old words: they began it" (LOTR II, 67-71). make return to Valinor physically impossible Among these migrant tribes the Noldor far out­ Elbereth, Manwe's Queen, "lifted up her hands in shine the rest. Endowed with every good g ift of obedience to the decree of Manwe, and summoned up mind and body (including im m ortality), they also the dark shadows which engulfed the shores and the have extraordinary leaders in Feanor, the most mountains" and, last of all, her own figure, "with brilliant and imaginative scientist the elf race her hands turned eastward in rejection, standing has ever produced, and in G aladriel "the greatest white nn O ilosse," highest peak of Valinor (R oad. of elfin women,” as Tolkien does not hesitate to p . 6 0 ) . describe her. Because Treebeard does not mention Against a power like M orgoth's, bolstered by any of his teachers by name we cannot be sure that the ores and trolls which his cross-breeding exper­ Feanor took any part in giving speech to the . iments produce, the Noldor and their allies, the Considering his deep interest in language, however, Edain, the barbaric tribes of men who reach the it is a fair inference that he did so, and that his western sea, cannot prevail. They suffer defeat later invention of the Feanorian was one after defeat. Like many of his kinsmen Feanor is fruit of this experience. slain in battle (Foster, p. 95). Only when the The Noldor, like several other elf-tribes, do Valar themselves intervene on behalf of the Noldor not stop after reaching the west coast of the land does the tide turn against Morgoth. They are in­ surface of M iddle-Earth. Drawn by a homing instinct duced to do so at last only when Earendil, a mar­ already deeply implanted by their Creator, they iner elf, sails his ship to Valinor to beg their sail on across the sea to Valinor and the neigh­ help. He is enabled to cross Elbereth's barrier boring island of Eressea, where they are to be shadows lay the light of one of the s i l m a r i l l i trained by the Valar as tutors of the barbaric given him by his wife Elwing. She in turn has re­ peoples of the mainland. What the Valar hoped to ceived it from her grandparents, the Beren and make of them can be seen in 's summary of the the elf maiden Luthien, who "wrested" it from motives of the smiths of Eregion (themselves Noldor Morgoth's crown after their escape from his dun­ elves) in forging the three Elf Rings in the Second g e o n s (LOTR I, 206; III, 314). Age: "Those who made them did not desire strength The Valar do not allow Earendil to go home but or domination or hoarded wealth, but understanding. set him in his ship bearing the s i l m a r i l a t i t s 3 masthead to sail the skies forever as a star, a manding every other unit, one at a time (LOTR I I , sign of hope to the peoples of M iddle-Earth op­ 203). Their advantages for planning and executing pressed by Morgoth and his slaves (LOTR I, 246-49). a coordinated maneuver are obvious. But one p a la n ­ So Feanor's offense in stealing the light of the t i r , the one placed by under the Dome of Two Trees does not go altogether unredeemed. The Stars at O sgiliath, was "the chief and master" of Vala most likely to have created this new star is them all. Through it he "could survey them all to­ Elbereth herself, known as Queen of the Stars, and gether at one tim e." Very convenient indeed for a also as Star-Kindler (LOTR I , 88-89). general headquarters, from which a commander-in­ The physical forces let loose on M iddle-Earth chief could hold a conference with all his unit by the Valar and by Morgoth in their battles for commanders at the same time, plan strategy with supremacy are so gigantic that the ocean overruns them, and survey the whole field of battle at once, large areas in the northwest of the mainland, retaining the power to alter such plans as unfold­ drowning not only Thangorodrim but also a number ing events might require. Since Feanor had made of neighboring elf and kingdoms. "Lying the decision to wage war for the s i l m a r i l l i a n d under the wave" after "the seas are bent" are such was all too well aware of his own genius and, fur­ elvish realms as Doriath, Gondolin and Nargothrond thermore, was looked up to by the Noldor, he evi­ (Foster, pp. 61, 115, 182) and the dwarvish cities dently expected to be that commander-in-chief, and of Belegost and Nogrod (Foster, pp. 28, 187). But fashioned the master stone for his own use in that at least Morgoth him self has been completely and c a p a c i t y . finally overthrown. What is made for war is sometimes (though not Because Feanor died in the F irst Age we w ill do often) equally well suited for peace. When Elandil well to remember that all of his achievements date distributed the seven stones along the borders of back to that period, even though they may appear the North and South Kingdoms in the year of their for the first time in the Second or Third Ages. foundation, 3320 of the Second Age, he thought of Notable among these are the p a l a n t i r i . I n The L o rd them prim arily as a means of tying the two realms, of the Rings we first hear of them when and their parts, together. No Dark Lord was then eagerly recovers from the Orthanc stone, in sight. But as the War of the Rings moves to­ t h e p a l a n t i r placed there by Elendil when he estab­ wards a climax some three thousand years later, lished the North and South Kingdoms at the end of t h e p a l a n t i r i — those of them that are left — the Second Age. Pippin hears Gandalf humming a have reverted to instruments of warfare (LOTR I I , song which describes the coming of Elendil and his 203). has seized the Ithil-stone, placed company of the Faithful to Middle-Earth after the by Elendil at Minas Ith il (ominously renamed Minas drowning of Numenor: Morgul). Speaking through this stone to Saruman, now in possession of the p a l a n t i r at Orthanc, he Tall ships and tall kings has corrupted and enslaved the wizard. And Dene- Three times three, thor, holder of the stone at Minas Anor, Sauron What brought they from the foundered land has reduced to a state of despair which leads to Over the flowing sea? suicide. The master stone at O sgiliath perished Seven stars and seven stones in the ruin of that once lovely city. The three And one white tree. northern stones at Annuminas, Amon Sul, and the (LOTR I I , 202) Tower H ills lie outside the action of the epic. These developments bear out Gandalf's rueful The stones are the seven p a l a n t i r i . 'S o t h e remark to Pippin that "there is nothing that Sau­ likelihood is that after the defeat of Morgoth the ron cannot turn to evil uses" (LOTR II, 203). But Noldor elves gave them to the human Edain who they also reveal that the p a l a n t i r i have inherent fought as their allies. By the latter they were powers far beyond those proper to a mere means of taken to the island of Numenor when the Valar pre­ open communication. If the owners of two of these sented it to them at the beginning of the Second stones can "see far off and converse in thought," Age as a reward for bringing Morgoth down. the plain meaning is that they can not only see Asked by Pippin whether the p a l a n t i r i w e re each other's faces but also read each other's made by Sauron, Gandalf replies that they were thoughts without words, if desired. More signif­ "beyond his art....T he Noldor made them. Feanor icantly, if one of them has a strong enough w ill he him self, maybe, wrought them, in days so long ago can, through the stone, "catch" the other, as Sau­ that the time cannot be measured in years" ( LOTR ron caught Saruman, and dominate him wholly. In II, 203). Gandalf confesses that the Orthanc such a case the stronger can so "bend” the p a l a n t i r p a l a n t i r "draws one to itself." He longs "to look of the weaker that it can no longer reach any other across the wide seas of water and of time to Tirion than his own (LOTR II, 204). As a preliminary, the the Fair, and perceive the unimaginable hand and weaker finds that he has no power to withdraw him­ mind of Feanor at their work, while both the White self from contact between the two stones. Gandalf, Tree and the Golden were in flower;" (LOTR II, 204). for example, is afraid to confront Sauron in the Inasmuch as the wizard has him self "many powers of Orthanc stone: "I am not ready for such a trial," mind and hand" his tribute to Feanor's as "unimag­ he confesses, "if indeed I shall ever be so. But inable" is all the more astounding (LOTR III, 365). even if I found the power to withdraw myself, it Taken all together, Gandalf's comments amount to would be disastrous for him to see me y et...." saying that the Noldor made the stones under Fea­ (LOTR II, 200). Also, when Pippin foolishly looks nor's direction. into the stone he exposes himself to questions The second statem ent just spoken by Gandalf re­ which Sauron could have forced him to answer had fers to a date before the s i l m a r i l l i were made, Sauron not been over-anxious to capture and torture since after they lost their radiance the Two Trees h im (LOTR II, 199). Both Pippin and Gandalf feel would be unlikely to flower. But it does not spe­ the strong magnetic pull of the p a l a n t i r o n t h e i r cify the work then busying Feanor's hand and mind. w ills, and once Pippin gives in to it he cannot The first statement is clearly about the p a l a n t i r i , look away until Sauron dism isses him. but it is vague about the time of their making. The one person who intentionally sets himself The properties built into these stones, however, to challenge Sauron for control of the Orthanc render them so suitable for use as a means of com­ p a l a n t i r is , its rightful owner by descent munication between armies that it is hard to resist from Elendil. He has confidence in his strength a belief in Feanor's designing them for that pur­ of mind to break Sauron's hold over it. What fol­ pose just before, or perhaps during, the war against lows is a struggle of w ills, long and bitter, which Morgoth. For example, "each p a l a n t i r s p o k e t o Aragorn is just barely strong enough to win. "In each," thereby allowing the commander of each unit the end," he tells and at Helm's of a large or scattered body of troops to "see far Deep, "I wrenched the Stone to my w ill" (LOTR I I I , off and converse in thought" with the officer com­ 53). This victory has important results. Sauron's 4 seif-confidence is so shaken that he launches his civilization of Middle-Earth. Ironically, he served armies against Minas T irith before they are ready. the Valar well in this, without intending any such And Aragorn sees, by means of the Stone, great result, while at the same time disobeying them in armies of the Karadrim and whole navies of pirates the whole m atter of Morgoth. from Umbar coming up from the south to join Sauron Feanor had been dead for many centuries when in attacking Minas T irith. These he has to counter the Elven-Smiths of Eregion began forging the Rings immediately by summoning up the ghosts of the oath- of Power for Sauron about the year 1500 of the Sec­ breakers after daring to traverse the Paths of the ond Age, but Feanor's ghost was there. The elves D ead . were Noldor, carrying on the traditions of their Add the fact that the gazer into a p a l a n t i r i s tribe. , their lord, "the greatest of able to scan events happening at any time in the their craftsm en.. .was descended from Feanor" (LOTR past, however remote, and we begin to realize just III, 363-64). and her husband Celeborn how "unimaginable" are the hand and mind of Feanor. had passed through Eregion on their way to found I n t h e p a l a n t i r i he and his Noldor smiths have pro­ Lothlorien. But not until the Elven-Smiths settled duced a wonder more complex and altogether wonder­ there about the year 750 to form an independent com­ ful than even the silm arilli. The Seven Stones can munity had it become permanently occupied. explore space as well as time. Like the Rings of Elrond summarizes at his Council what happened Power they exert a hypnotic spell on all the people when Sauron came to the smiths there. The Noldor near them. They confer an ability to read minds. smiths, he says, had the same "eagerness for know­ Yet they can be shaped and molded by the w ill of an ledge" which had distinguished their ancestor Fea­ owner, so as to trap and enslave weaker w ills. If nor, and by it "Sauron ensnared them. For in that such ownership is challenged they can become b attle­ time he was not yet evil to behold, and they re­ fields of w ills representing good and evil. On ceived his aid and grew mighty in craft, whereas these occasions they serve as symbols in m iniature he learned all their secrets, and betrayed them, of the main theme of , w h ic h and forged secretly in the Mountain of Fire the One is the contest between good and evil, centering in Ring to be their master" (LOTR I , 2 2 5 ) . the w ills of those who take part in it. This summary contains some obscurities which Another of the mighty achievements of the Nol­ need to be cleared up. On the surface it seems to dor in the First Age was a script. Like other High describe a more or less equal exchange between Elves they spoke a language called when they Sauron and the sm iths, from which both sides grew first came to Valinor, but they had as yet no sys­ more skilful. But this is not what happened. tematic way of writing it. The first attempt at Sauron did not know how to make a Ring of Power. inventing one came from a Noldor elf Rumil ( LOTR The elves did, by inheritance of Feanor's "secrets," III, 395). But the Noldor did not consider "the learned in his making the sil m a r i l l i . This is what of Rumil," as they called it, flexible Sauron was after, of course. In exchange he could enough to take with them to M iddle-Earth when they give them only pointers in craft — that is, in the pursued Morgoth there. For use on the mainland technique of forging, as compared with knowledge of Feanor originated "the Tengwar of Feanor" whose the theory and method of enclosing vital energies letters, while owing something to Rumil's "were i n s ilm a . Not the energies of trees, this time, largely a new invention." These were the letters but of whole races of elves, dwarves, and men; and which the Noldor brought with them into exile on not jewels, but Rings. M iddle-Earth, and which became known to their hu­ The crucial distinction between c r a f t a n d know ­ man (Edain) allies. By the Third Age, wherever le d g e here is the same which Gandalf makes in the Common Speech was spoken it was w ritten in speaking for Feanor's "unimaginable hand and mind": Feanor's script. skill in forging ( c r a f t o f hand) as against basic But it had a rival. The Sindar, the generic id e a s and methods { m in d ). Morgoth, it seems, could name for those tribes of elves who never crossed not, or at least did not, make the silm arilli. He the sea to Valinor and Eressea.but founded king­ could only steal them after Feanor had discovered doms on the continent of M iddle-Earth, spoke a lan­ how by the insight of his m in d . Sim ilarly, Sauron guage called , which was not Quenya but did not know how to make the p a l a n t i r i . He c o u ld which resembled it in essentials. In their king­ only use them after they had been made. And in dom of the Sindar developed a form of Eregion the were likewise "beyond writing known as "the ." Its letters, being his art" until he filched from the Elven-Smiths by rune-like and angular, best suited to incised in­ treachery the secrets of the art. Morgoth and scriptions by sharp tools, lacked a cursive quality. Sauron are supreme only in evil, which is negative. Not so the Feanorian script. Its cursive letters, They lack the mental power to create anything posi­ w ritten with brush or pen, lent themselves easily tively new. to all ordinary occasions. So Feanor's Tengwar Sauron had served Morgoth as the turnkey in influenced the Cirth, not vice versa (LOTR I I I , charge of his dungeons in the F irst Age. We must 397). The outcome was a rearrangement and develop­ assume that the Eregion elves did not know this or, ment of the C irth, culminating in the of no m atter how strong their appetite for knowledge, Daeron, the m instrel to a Sindar ruler, King they would never have let him in on their potential­ of Doriath. It did not supplant Feanor's Tengwar, ly dangerous secrets. To them he was the suave, however, as the standard form of w riting among affable stranger who "was not yet evil to behold." elves. Only in Eregion did the Noldor smiths use Celebrimbor alone seems to have had some inkling Daeron's Alphabet, perhaps because it appealed to of Sauron's treacherous schemes {LOTR I, 255, 266; the dwarves with whom they were friendly. III, 364). On that fatal day in the year 1600 when Whatever the cause, they passed that Alphabet on Sauron secretly finished forging his in the to the dwarves, who favored it above all others and fires of and slipped it on his finger, expanded it into the Angerthas Moria. the elf leader in Eregion somehow become "aware of The almost adoption of Feanor's script him." He heard the harsh clangor of Sauron's shows the many-sided genius of its inventor oper­ reciting the words inscribed in the Ring in the ating in a field far removed from physical science, , commencing, "One Ring to rule them that of his other triumphs. The superiority of a ll...." Then Celebrimbor and his smiths "knew his Tengwar seems to reside not only in its cur- that they had been betrayed." The Rings for Men siveness but also in the economy of its letters and and those for Dwarves they had already delivered their ready adaptability to phonetic variations. to their appointed recipients. But the Three Elf Conceivably, Feanor may have devised his script as Rings they still had. Celebrimbor hid these until a factor helping to attract allies among the Sindar after Sauron lost the One Ring, when the Three were and the Edain to join the Noldor in the wars against distributed, one to G aladriel, one to King Gil- Morgoth. Whatever his motive, his script is his galad (given by him before his death to Elrond), most enduring and most unifying contribution to the and one to Cirdan the shipwright at the Grey Havens 6 (who later gave it to Gandalf when he first set y e a r 2 4 1 (LOTR III, 366). She is thus Galadriel's foot on Middle-Earth) (LOTR III, 366). granddaughter and through her has Noldor blood. In As the Noldor smiths discovered, the affable 2509, ores ambushed Celebrian, tortured her, and Sauron, whom they had welcomed and trusted, turned inflicted a poisoned wound. Weary of the pain and out to be an implacable enemy. In the year 1695, turmoil of M iddle-Earth, she took ship for the U tter­ Second Age, his forces invaded Eregion, laid it most West. spent many of her youthful years waste, and slew Celebrimbor ( LOTR III, 364). Sent in Lorien with G aladriel, being schooled by her. by King Gil-galad of Beleriand, the young Elrond Although G aladriel has great respect and loyalty then retreated with the remnants of the Noldor to for Celeborn, she obviously exceeds him in wisdom , where he established a refuge for them. and power, as the Fellowship of the Ring quickly Gil-galad, himself a Noldor, indeed the "last heir d i s c o v e r (LOTR I, 347-95). Being the wearer of of the Noldor in exile" could be in a just cause Nenya, one of the three Elf Rings, she has in a quite as implacable as Sauron in an evil one (LOTR real sense created Lorien by its power, and through III, 363). To his own host of Sindar elves he it now sustains the land in being. More, she has joined, by alliance with Elendil, an army of men made it the source of the light which not only illum ­ assembled from the North and South kingdoms. This inates Lorien but also shines out from it against became known as the Last Alliance between Elves and the darkness emanating from , Sauron's Men. The two leaders fought their way into stronghold nearby. In effect she makes of her Elf itself and there, in an assault on Barad-dur, killed Ring a minor s i l m a r i l and turns it against evil. Sauron at the cost of their own lives. Never again She has not been a kinswoman of Feanor for nothing. were the elves left on M iddle-Earth strong enough She has the true Noldor preoccupation with light -- to attack the Enemy by arms. its propagation, its containment, and its projection. One final word about Celebrimbor and his in­ The phial which she gives to Frodo as a farewell scriptions on the western door of Moria. Although gift to be "a light to you in dark places, when all the door as such was made by Narvi the dwarf, the other lights go out" is another example of this Noldor leader carved on it words and emblems of knowledge and skill of hers. "In this," she tells h i s own (LOTR I, 318-19; III, 398, 400). When the Frodo, "is caught the light of Earendil's star, set Fellowship of the Ring see the door, two columns amid the waters of my fountain" (LOTR I, 393). That support "an arch of interlacing letters in an Elv­ star, we recall, blazes with the fire of one of the ish character." Around each column twines a tree three great silm arilli. She has known how to cap­ "bearing crescent moons." In the center shines a ture it in her M irror and to make it an aid to single large star with many rays, which Gandalf Frodo's physical and spiritual safety in Mordor. identifies as "the Star of the House of Feanor." Legolas recognizes each tree as "the Tree of the High Elves." The words inscribed by Celebrimbor under the two supporting columns reveal the script which he has used: "Here is w ritten in the Feanor- ian characters according to the mode of Beleriand" followed by the words in those characters: "The Doors of Durin, Lord of M oria....I Narvi made them. Celebrimbor of Hollin (Eregion) drew these signs." Although the script is Feanorian, the language it writes is Sindarin, as Gandalf says in effect in remarking that "the words are in the elven- tongue of the West of M iddle-Earth in the Eldar days." Tolkien says the same thing in Appendix E (pp. 398-400), with specific reference to "the West- gate of Moria." But what are these trees, and what is this one central star which has become the emblem of the House of Feanor? Can the trees rep­ resent the from whose radiance Out of her greater understanding G aladriel is Feanor fashioned the silm arilli? The latter ques­ much more certain than Elrond that destruction of tion provokes another. What else could they be? the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom w ill immedi­ And if the trees are reminders of that great ex­ ately rob all three Elf Rings of their power and ploit of Feanor's why may not the star symbolize w ill undo the works accomplished with their aid. Earendil's star composed of a recaptured s i l m a r i l ? "Lothlorien w ill fade" and the elves must either If the guesses im plicit in these questions are leave M iddle-Earth or remain to "forget and be for­ right, the retention of these symbols by a descend­ gotten," she assures Frodo sadly (LOTR I , 3 8 0 ) . ant of Feanor many years after his death suggests Yet if the One Ring is not destroyed, Sauron w ill not guilt but tribal pride in the ancestral feat. enslave the world. This predicament lay hidden in It may also explain why these Noldor smiths have the very making of the Elf Rings, and Sauron's not returned to Valinor like most of their tribe. secret subjection of them to the One Ring he has forged for himself. But the full implications of In the Third Age the tale of the Noldor is pri­ their entrapment are only now becoming clear to the marily the tale of Galadriel. She was, says Tolkien, elves. None of the others w ill be so badly hurt "the last survivor of the princes and queens who as w ill G aladriel, however, for she alone w ill lose had led the revolting Noldor to exile in Middle- the marvel that is Lothlorien. Hers then is the Earth" in pursuit of Morgoth in the F irst Age (R oad, greatest temptation when Frodo offers her the One p. 60). After his overthrow "most of the Noldor Ring, for by accepting and using it she would be­ returned into the Far West" but these were the come ruler of M iddle-Earth and preserver of Lorien. common folk of the tribe. Evidently distrusting By refusing it she gives to the Valar such proof Galadriel as their queen, the Valar imposed a spe­ of her loyalty that they revoke their ban against cial ban forbidding her to come back to the Undying her return to Valinor (R oad, p. 60). As the epic Lands. She proudly replied that she had no wish to ends she takes ship from the Grey Havens with do so. Instead, she married Celeborn, a prince of Gandalf, Elrond, Gildor, and her own Lorien elves. the Sindar, and with him traveled eastward (in the In retrospect, Tolkien has made the deeds of year 750, Second Age) through Eregion and other the Noldor a continuing major thread in the whole lands looking for a place to settle, presumably in fabric of his trilogy. What would the F irst Age order to found Lothlorien. They had a daughter be without the silm arilli, the Second without the named Celebrian, who m arried Elrond in the year 109 p a l a n t i r i and the Rings of Power, and the Third of the Third Age (LOTR III, 323). Arwen, future without the wonder that is Lothlorien? Very differ­ wife of Aragorn, was born of this marriage in the ent and, one suspects, not nearly so enthralling. 7