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- [00:00]
A
I've been telling you about Lola blankets since early last summer and for good reason. I've never felt anything quite so soft and cozy as my Lola blanket. And mine's in the smoky skies color if you're checking out their website, honestly, I just think everybody should have one of these. They're made out of this. Really? I can't even begin to convince you how soft it is. You'll have to feel it for yourself. It's this ultra soft faux fur with a signature four way stretch. And it makes it just perfect to wrap yourself up in dozens of beautiful designs and colors, including limited edition collaboration drops with amazing designers. And Lola blankets stay flawless after repeated washing. I've had mine long enough to tell you that from direct experience, no pilling or shedding. I also like that you can get them in different sizes too. From baby blankets to the massive Lola xl, which is more than seven and a half feet long. You can get matching pillows and they even have a line of weighted blankets as well as. Now, for a limited time, our listeners can get 40% off select Lola blankets products with Code Pony at checkout. Just head to lolablankets.com and use code PONY to get 40% off your order. Now, after you purchase, they're going to ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and let them know we sent you. Wrap yourself in luxury with Lola blankets. Hey, Sal.
- [01:26]
B
Hank. What's going on? We haven't worked a case in years.
- [01:29]
A
I just bought my car at Carvana and it was so easy. Too easy.
- [01:33]
B
Think something's up?
- [01:34]
A
You tell me. They got thousands of options, found a great car at a great price, and it got delivered the next day.
- [01:41]
B
It sounds like Carvana just makes it
- [01:43]
A
easy to buy your car, Hank. Yeah, you're right. Case closed.
- [01:48]
B
Buy your car today on Carvana.
- [01:52]
A
Delivery fees may apply. Good evening, little masters, and welcome to episode 403 of the Prancing Pony podcast where I have learned of your revolt. James.
- [02:14]
B
Time for that wrath reveal then.
- [02:16]
A
Oh, yes. Look out,
- [02:20]
B
folks. Pull up a bench in the common room and join us. I'm James Stauber, the sage of the south, and I'm here with the man of the west who won't be grappled and taken captive by anyone. Alan's sister.
- [02:30]
A
Probably because I'd have run away bravely Bold Sir Robin ran away. Folks, join us as Celebrimbor makes a great banner and we too soon and we continue our six or. Well, no, we're going to do it in six. Our Six part look at the history of Gadriel and Celeborn.
- [02:47]
B
Yep. Folks, no matter whether you came to Middle Earth through the books, the films, the TV show, or something else, each of you is welcome here in our common room. The Prancing Pony podcast continues our 10th season of reading and talking our way through Middle Earth with conversations, digressions, and even speculations.
- [03:02]
A
By the way, I just meant that Caleb Brimbor sews a really nice banner. He assembles one really well.
- [03:07]
B
I see, I see. Of course, that's what you mean builds.
- [03:09]
A
He creates a really great banner.
- [03:10]
B
Okay.
- [03:13]
A
Sort of like to serve me.
- [03:14]
B
We'll go with that. We'll go with that.
- [03:16]
A
Why not? Well, not to mention, by the way, you said the conversations, aggressions and speculations. I should also point out that we'll have bad jokes and puns and other things like that, but our purpose is to dive deep into the lore to discuss the story, our favorite characters, themes, Tolkien's inspirations, things like that, whole lot more.
- [03:34]
B
And while we take the work seriously, the same can't be said about ourselves. As you can clearly already said, we're just a couple of friends chatting at the pub. And we're glad you've joined us.
- [03:43]
A
I'm sure you'll be glad you joined as well. But before we get started. Well, actually, in fact, before we even get to our intro segment, it's time for a quick correction, clarification, addendum session, something along those lines. When we opened the story of Tal Elmar a few weeks ago, I rather dismissed the idea of walking from Rome to York. Apparently, though, and I'm rather embarrassed to acknowledge this, you don't have to go all the way back to Pangea for this to be a thing.
- [04:10]
B
And the funny thing is, I didn't say anything at the time because I thought you were doing a bit. The whole bit about the Chunnel I thought was hilarious. I'm like, I'm just going to let him go with it because it's funny, but no, it actually is. Is true that there was a period in time where the land area of northern Europe stretched all the way from the coasts of Great Britain to northern France, Belgium, Netherlands, and parts of Germany and Denmark. It was what was called Doggerland.
- [04:37]
A
See, that's the thing. Somebody told me that. I thought that sounds fake.
- [04:40]
B
It does sound fake.
- [04:41]
A
And then I looked it up and I'm like, oh, I'm not smart. But is it a real thing that Tolkien would have been aware of?
- [04:49]
B
I believe so. I'm sure that's what? He was making a reference, certainly how I. I took it, that. That he was indicating how long ago this story was, because, remember, we've got to remember that when he wrote that, this might not have been Middle Earth. I mean, it might not have been what we now think of the legendarium.
- [05:05]
A
Yeah.
- [05:06]
B
Like, if you're trying to fit it into the Balerion, you know, had. Had Balerion sunk under the ocean yet and all that kind of stuff.
- [05:12]
A
I don't think so now, darlin's Valerian. Is that what you're saying?
- [05:15]
B
Yeah, maybe, but I don't think that's relevant because I think I. I think at the time that he wrote the Walking Dry Shod from Rome, from York to Rome or whatever it was, that he wasn't necessarily conceiving of it the same way that he would later do so. Sorry, not later do so. Because, of course, all the Balerian stuff was written earlier, decades before, but. Yeah, but he hadn't decided that this story was necessarily. Yet.
- [05:40]
A
Right. And that's fair. Yeah. I'm embarrassed to say that I did not know, but, I mean, of course, not a big surprise. Tolkien's much smarter and better educated than I am, so of course he knew about Doggerland. So apparently until about 10,000 years ago, give or take a millennium, one actually could walk from Rome to York, though those places did not yet exist. And I suppose, given that we are allegedly in the sixth or seventh age now, that could fit with the second Age of Middle Earth.
- [06:07]
B
Yeah. I mean, I don't know whether you can assume that the Balerian aspect of the story is part of this or not, but.
- [06:15]
A
No, and especially because he did change Rome to York or he changed that connection. Like, that wasn't part of the original text. That was the original draft. And he's like, no, no, no, let's change that.
- [06:28]
B
That's not. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
- [06:30]
A
Well, I am feeling sheepish.
- [06:34]
B
No, this was a learning opportunity for you, Alan. You did. Have you learned something today, Alan?
- [06:39]
A
Oh, I have definitely learned something today. I have definitely learned. I mean, you know, I do go down, as. People have noticed, a lot of rabbit holes. So one would think that I might have caught this, especially because I have to say, geography is actually kind of a fascination of mine. I live in California. I have earthquakes all the time. So I. I studied things like continental drift and tectonics and all of this. I certainly never knew anything about Dogger labor. That's because it's not about plates and shifting. It's about sea level change.
- [07:11]
B
So, anyway, oh, by the way, I just did. I just did a quick check of when we knew about Doggerland. So Doggerland, that was something that was known by the end of the 19th century.
- [07:20]
A
Okay. So Tolkien would have been quite a
- [07:23]
B
lot of archeological interest arose in sort of 1915 to 1930. So, I mean, obviously the stuff he's writing is in the 1950s when he's writing it. So it's much more established. But I can't help but wonder if it was something that he was maybe interested in, because it would have been something that was talked about while he was a student at Oxford. One almost imagines it was like one of the hot things.
- [07:48]
A
Well, that's the thing. It would have been connected to the language changes in all those Germanic languages, you know, so of course that makes sense. I mean, geography shapes the way languages change or don't change. You remember telling me just the other day about all the different language groups on Papua New guinea because of the isolation geographically.
- [08:09]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [08:10]
A
Well, and that's the thing here we. I'm thinking of the British Isles as being geographically isolated, but 10,000 years ago they weren't.
- [08:17]
B
Right.
- [08:18]
A
And that makes a difference linguistically.
- [08:19]
B
Right. Although. Although that. That's far enough back that it's before any. Before proto Indo European had split in.
- [08:28]
A
Oh, okay. So it's really early.
- [08:30]
B
Two different things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it might. It might explain how. I don't even know the answer to this, but it might explain how the, you know, the Celtic languages got there. But even that's too far away.
- [08:42]
A
Okay.
- [08:42]
B
I don't know. It's an interesting question.
- [08:43]
A
Things I don't know for 500, Alex. It's actually. That could fill a book. Before we start with today's chapter discussion, though, it's time for Fan Favorite Philology Fair.
- [08:57]
B
Always love a good Philology Fair. And this one shouldn't come as a surprise. Last week, we mentioned the long footnote that explains more about the Nandarin name Laurinand, and we said we'd cover it in this week's Philology Fair. So here we go.
- [09:11]
A
So in that footnote, we were told about one of Tolkien's notes to the text that explains the name given here, Loranand, telling us that it was the Nandarin name of this region afterwards called Lorien and Lothlorien, and that it uses the element lor or lori, for gold, as in golden light.
- [09:30]
B
Yeah. And I think it's important that it's the color gold. Yes.
- [09:34]
A
Not the metal gold.
- [09:35]
B
Not the metal gold, which is Malta by this time. But Prior to the 30s, that was the same word. But certainly by the 30s, there was a distinction between the substance gold, which is Malta, and this color. Yeah. And we're told that the queniform would be Laura Nande, that the Sindarin would be Glor Nan or Nan Laur. And that glow part with the G in the Sindarin is where we see that in like Glorfindel.
- [10:00]
A
Glorfindel.
- [10:01]
B
In Glor and stuff like that. But what's interesting about all this gold is that it's supposedly connected to the presence of the Marlown trees. As Christopher points out, they were brought there by Galadriel, so wouldn't have been called after them yet, Right? No.
- [10:18]
A
How could you call it after trees that weren't there? And then in another later discussion, the name Loranand is actually said to have been itself a transformation of a yet older name. So maybe now we're getting somewhere. That older name is given to us as Lindorenand, which is translated for us by Christopher as Veil of the Land of the Singers. Right.
- [10:42]
B
So it's got that Lind form that we see in Eine Lindale and even Linden. And so. Yeah, but remember that the elves that broke off the great journey, they were Tellary and quote, then one arose in the host of Alway who said, I'm out of here.
- [10:59]
A
Let's go south. I don't want to go over those mountains.
- [11:01]
B
Yeah. Christopher points out that there was no doubt present the name by which the Tellery called themselves Lindar, the Singers.
- [11:10]
A
There's that Lind prefix. So Lindar, the Singers, Eine Lindele, Lindon, all of that. Now, Christopher does acknowledge that some of the other discussions of the names of Lothlorien are to some extent at variance among themselves, but then tells us that all of those later names are very likely due to Galadriel herself. Those are the names that combine the following elements that Christopher tells Laura. Gold, Nan or Nand for valley, Ndor for land, and Lyn for Sing. And he points out that in what's My Favorite Name for this Place? It's the name that Treebeard gives as its earlier name, Laura Lindorenen. There is an echo of the name of the golden tree that grew in Valinor, of which Tolkien wrote, for which, as is plain, Galadriel's longing increased year by year to at last an overwhelming regret.
- [12:08]
B
Then we're told about the original use of the name Lorien, the Quenya name for the place of rest and dreams in Valinor where Irmo dwells. This leads Christopher to surmise that the further change from Lorinand Valley of Gold to Lorien may well be due to Galadriel herself, for the resemblance cannot be accidental. She had endeavored to make Lorien 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 was hastening to a grey awakening. End quote. And certainly this Dreamland idea was what Treebeard had in mind when he rendered Lothlorien as Dreamflower.
- [12:55]
A
Oh, yeah, that's right. I'd forgotten about that one.
- [12:57]
B
I mean, it's not literally dreamflower.
- [12:59]
A
It's interesting because Lothlorien is renderer, not a treebellow.
- [13:01]
B
Yeah. Loth is flower or blossom. And so Lothlorien just means a sort of blossom of Lorien or something. But he's obviously making that connection with Lorien being the place of dreams.
- [13:12]
A
Dream flower, yeah. The thing is, though, if we look at Parma Eldelambaran 17, the famous words, Phrases and Passages piece, Tolkien explains that while Loth is Sindarin for flower, Lorien in the meaning that Treebeard uses it here, the idea of dream or dreaming could not possibly be Sindarin.
- [13:31]
B
And he goes on to say that Lothlorien was known for its golden flowers, even called the Golden Wood by men of Rohan and by Legolas. And it was the Valley of Singing Gold, according to Trey Bead. Laurelin Dorainen.
- [13:45]
A
Any excuse to have Laurel and Doronen said multiple times. There's something so cool about just the. The way that flows. It's so Treebeard.
- [13:53]
B
Fun fact, the very first time I was on the Prancing Pony podcast, I mispronounced that word.
- [13:58]
A
No way.
- [13:59]
B
Yeah.
- [13:59]
A
How did you mispronounce it?
- [14:01]
B
I. I can't. I stumbled on it. I think I just struck. I wanted to say the word and I'm like.
- [14:06]
A
Okay, I thought. Like. Like you missed. Because you're so good at figuring out where the. On what syllable?
- [14:11]
B
Well, I have to think. Not necessarily. Not necessarily on the spot, but yeah, back in. I think it was 2020 or 2021 or something. I was on the show for the first time and. And yeah, Laura Lindor. And it is an easy one to
- [14:25]
A
trip up on, though. I mean, to. Because it's a bit of a tongue twister. But I just.
- [14:28]
B
Once you decide where the stress is, I think it comes a little more naturally.
- [14:31]
A
It's very sing songy. Which in Treebeard's voice just fits. Right. So Tolkien goes on to explain that the Nandor name for this place, either Loriand or Lorinand, is an alteration after the introduction of the Meliorn. That's the plural of Mallorn, and it's what we were talking about earlier. The trees aren't there yet, so it's after the introduction of the trees by Galadriel, but it's an alteration of the name that we talked about earlier. Lindorenand Veil of the Land of the Singers. Tolkien goes on to explain that Lorinand was deliberately later equated with Quenya Lorien, but was cinderized by the prefiction of Loth. So that's so interesting that we combine the cinderization with the. Ah, so that's how the name changed over the years from Vale of the Land of the Singers to all of these names related to gold or golden.
- [15:34]
B
Yeah. And in footnote five, Christopher says that he's used Laurinand throughout the Concerning Galadriel and Kanbord segment quote as the original and ancient Nandarin name for the region. And because the story of the introduction of the melons by Galadriel had not yet been devised.
- [15:53]
A
Yeah, exactly. I can't call it Lorien or Loflorien or any of these other later names, because it isn't those yet. And that makes sense.
- [16:01]
B
Fascinating stuff.
- [16:02]
A
It is.
- [16:03]
B
Anyway, we're now going to come back to continuing Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn, and this next section is something that we were originally planning to include in the last episode, but we ran out of time.
- [16:16]
A
That happens, doesn't it?
- [16:17]
B
We're going to do it in this episode.
- [16:18]
A
All right?
- [16:19]
B
Okay, so over to you, Alan.
- [16:20]
A
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 Halfelven. 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 with ruin and devastation, and captured the chief object of Sauron's assault, the house of the Mirdain. Where were their smithies and their treasures? Celebrimbor, desperate himself, withstood Sauron on the steps of the Great door of the Mirdain. But he was grappled and taken captive, and the house was ransacked. There Sauron took the nine rings and other lesser works of the Miradain, 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. And then we get a lengthy aside from Christopher here, who points out that 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 A3 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 Dum, 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. Now back to the tragic text 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 Dummy, and with them came elves of Lorinand led by Amroth. Elrond was able to extricate himself, but he was forced away northwards. And it was at this time, which, Christopher reminds us, is in the year 1697, according to the Tale of Years, that he established a refuge and stronghold At Imladris Rivendell.
- [19:45]
B
A long reading, sure. But could you expect anything else? I mean this is the story that includes the tragic fate of of Celebrimbor.
- [19:53]
A
Yeah, indeed it does. We might not have thought highly of every single part of the Rings of Power adaptation of this story but they sure did nail the Annatar Celebrimbor bit. I feel like.
- [20:03]
B
Oh yeah, that was.
- [20:04]
A
That was the best.
- [20:05]
B
Yep.
- [20:06]
A
Sauron here. No more Mr. Nice Guy. It is time to get down to business. He puts together an army. He travels across what we now know of as the Gap of Rohan. He invades Eriador from the south in 1695. I want to talk a little bit about the timeline and maybe get your thoughts on this. Right. We know he left eregion in 1500. So it was sometime after that that the three rings get made. 1600. The one ring is made.
- [20:29]
B
Yep.
- [20:29]
A
But it's not until 1695 that he invades. Almost 100 years after making the One Ring. Which in turn was 100 years after he left. Why so long?
- [20:40]
B
Yeah, I. Well, I presume there's a certain gathering of forces that he had to do. And the other thing that's not mentioned here occurs at the same time according to the Tale of Years is the completion of Barad Dur. So of course I'm wondering if there's a certain element of completing Barad Dur and gathering the forces that are. What's sort of taking the time here.
- [21:02]
A
Yeah.
- [21:02]
B
And I wonder though then what role did the One Ring play? Obviously we know it was involved in the finishing of Baradur.
- [21:12]
A
Right.
- [21:12]
B
Which was before.
- [21:14]
A
Right.
- [21:14]
B
He started Baradur beforehand but.
- [21:16]
A
Yeah. In fact before he was even in a regular.
- [21:18]
B
It's sort of. It's sort of weird though because it says that the foundations of Baradur were made with the One Ring. So they just drilled a hole. How do you make the foundations last? But anyway, I know maybe they were imbued with something after the fact. Whatever. But. But certainly there's a very close link between the completion of Baradur and the One Ring. I wonder if the One Ring then also had a role in the gathering of forces over those 95 years.
- [21:41]
A
Oh, I'm sure it did.
- [21:42]
B
I mean he didn't have any other rings of power to use to ensnare people. But the One Ring presumably still did.
- [21:50]
A
Especially. Especially on Orcs. I mean it would do a fantastic job I'm sure. It's just interesting. Yeah. I mean I guess taking almost 100 years from the. From the One Ring to. To create. To create or finish Badadour, except that it was finished at 1600. So 100 years to gather your forces, I suppose. I mean, my thinking is why allow the Elves so much time to prepare? Because they knew in 1600 that they'd been betrayed. Because that's when he puts on the One Ring and Celebrimbor's like, we're in trouble moment, you know, so at that point, you know, they've got to be getting ready for some sort of conflict. And yet Sauron takes a good hundred years before he does anything about it. Yeah, that's just interesting. But of course, it's not like the elves actually did get any stronger. They didn't. Well, you see, Gilgala does.
- [22:44]
B
That's the interesting thing. It seems like a long time to us. We know that. It probably didn't seem like a long time to the Elves.
- [22:50]
A
Not to the Elves, no.
- [22:51]
B
Although presumably it did for any.
- [22:53]
A
Any mortal.
- [22:54]
B
Any mortals. Any who presumably include the forces of Sauron.
- [22:59]
A
Yeah.
- [22:59]
B
I mean, how many generations? I don't know. It occurs to me I know nothing
- [23:03]
A
about the longevity of. Especially by this point, I would imagine it's. It's not. Even if we go with the corrupted elves origin, which is the published origin, but arguably not the one that Tolkien wanted to land on. I think he eventually wanted to land on them being corrupted men. If that's the case, they're definitely short lived.
- [23:22]
B
Yeah, I mean, we're talking maybe four generations past.
- [23:27]
A
So maybe it wasn't so much recruiting his army as literally making it.
- [23:30]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [23:31]
A
Like breeding it.
- [23:31]
B
Breeding, yeah.
- [23:32]
A
Ooh. Ooh. Oh. All right, moving on from that disturbing image. Yeah.
- [23:38]
B
So Gilgalad sends an army out under Elrond, but it's a long way from Linden. It's about 450 miles.
- [23:45]
A
Or there's a long way. We're going to likely dive into a really fun and detailed article on the movement of medieval armies from our good friend and PPP keynote speaker, Dr. Brett Devereux on the P5 for this, but for now, let's just say that eight to 12 miles a day, pretty much the max that a large body of infantry would be able to travel with. Logistics. That means they're at least 45 days out. So there's no way he gets to Eregion before Sauron, whose forces only have to travel about half that distance once they're spotted coming through Calenardhon.
- [24:17]
B
Yep. But as Sauron's vanguard approaches, Celeborn does the thing and drives them off.
- [24:23]
A
Right.
- [24:23]
B
It's not sure it's his city anymore, but hey, once. Once a lord, always a lord.
- [24:27]
A
That's right. I may be in semi retirement, but I'm still going to get on my horse and. And get out there.
- [24:32]
B
Yeah, yeah. So he's able to connect with Elrond's forces. So you know that. Yeah, that's fast.
- [24:38]
A
It did move fast. Yeah.
- [24:40]
B
But they couldn't get back to Eregion. Sauron could split his forces to both take Eregion and hold off the forces of Elrond and Celeborn.
- [24:49]
A
That's pretty impressive. I mean, he's obviously got a very large host at that point then. Because by the way, that's what the word invest means, folks, when it talks about that Eregion was invested.
- [24:58]
B
Yep.
- [24:59]
A
That just means that it was, you know, placed under siege. It's not like he's buying stock. Just want to make sure. So while Elrond and Celeborn basically look on helplessly, Sauron takes the region. He captures the local chapter of the ujw, the United Jewelry Workers. Doing his best, union busting by taking captive Celebrimbor himself. Himself. That's a brave guy, Celebrimbor.
- [25:23]
B
Yeah. This is. I mean, it's not quite up there with Fingolfin fighting Morgoth, but it is still a pretty big deal. This should be depicted in paintings.
- [25:33]
A
It really should, because, okay, Sauron's not Morgoth. He is a Maia, not a Vala, but he is still an Ainu and is a whole different class of being. And for Celebrimbor to take him on one on one.
- [25:46]
B
Yeah, this is.
- [25:47]
A
There's some serious bravery going on here. Massive admiration for his willingness to do this. I think a lot of it also was maybe driven by his recognition that, man, he got duped.
- [25:58]
B
Yep.
- [25:59]
A
How bad must he feel at this point?
- [26:01]
B
Yeah. And again, something that. I think the Amazon show did a good job.
- [26:06]
A
Yes, I think they really did. Yeah.
- [26:09]
B
So the place is wrecked. Sauron gets the 9, but can't find the 7 or the 3. And I. I just want to stop here to point out again, at least my thoughts on this. I may be wrong about this, that there's sort of an anachronism here, I think. Yeah. In that it's talking about the nine and the seven as if those categories were already established prior to this.
- [26:30]
A
Right.
- [26:31]
B
When my read is still that those categories only came about because of this.
- [26:37]
A
Correct. That's. That's my understanding.
- [26:38]
B
Although there is the. I guess it does Come aside from the three. The three is definitely different. Right? The three is definitely. I'm talking about the nine versus the the. Like. It never talks about the 16.
- [26:48]
A
No.
- [26:48]
B
I wonder if it should, but. But I wonder. It does occur to me it also depends on like when the Dwarves. What happened with it. We'll get to that in. That's true.
- [26:57]
A
Because if they were going to be distributed separately and had already been assigned and put in little boxes and on the. On the outbound mail shelf in for Durin. Yeah, exactly.
- [27:09]
B
But I still think that at this point, the fact that we talk about the nine is because it was nine that Sauron got the first time around. Anyway, he gets the nine, can't find the seven or the three. So he tortures Celebrimbor and eventually learns about the seven. And we learn why Celebrimbor is willing to give details on the seven. Right. It's because the 16, as I call them, the seven and the nine were made with Sauron's aid, unlike the three that were Celebrimbor's work only. And it says here they had an entirely different power and purpose. The three, that is.
- [27:45]
A
Yes. Which I think that was interesting.
- [27:47]
B
Really interesting. Yeah.
- [27:48]
A
So a different power and purpose. If we look at the nine and the seven or as you say, the 16. And I think you're right, the only reason we refer to them as the nine and the seven is because of the poem. And the poem is that way because that's how Sauron did the distribution. Right. Nine to the men and seven of the dwarves. I still think that was just him hedging his bets. So, I mean, really, like, you know, I. Maybe 10 and 6 would be better. I don't know. Let's see what we can get. But I'm not doing 8 and 8. I don't. I think the men are going to be easier.
- [28:16]
B
Yeah.
- [28:17]
A
I'm trying to think about the. The difference in power. I can think more about the purpose difference.
- [28:21]
B
Yeah, we. We touched on this, I think a little bit when we were talking about the three back in the. When we were discussing Lord of the Rings and. And that is I. I think we discussed that all of the Rings of power have an amplifying effect.
- [28:35]
A
Yes.
- [28:36]
B
And so regardless of what someone's desires are, whether it's for power or for money or whatever any of the Rings is, are going to amplify that.
- [28:46]
A
Correct. Which is why I think, you see, with men, it stretches their lives. They become more.
- [28:51]
B
Right.
- [28:51]
A
You know, they become essentially immortal. But in an Awful way Dwarves. Every one of the dwarf hordes are founded on a ring because the wealth and their desire. And I think that's reflected with the three.
- [29:04]
B
Yeah. Well, so the one thing that comes to mind that we did discuss before is there's definitely a preservation.
- [29:10]
A
Yes.
- [29:11]
B
Characteristic of the three. And I wonder if that is. I don't know that that can just be explained by amplifying an elves natural inclination or whether it's.
- [29:22]
A
They do seem to have that tendency. And Tolkien even talks about that in his letters. Right. The whole he refers to the word as embalming.
- [29:30]
B
Right.
- [29:30]
A
This sort of desire to keep almost in stasis.
- [29:35]
B
Right.
- [29:35]
A
What's the other analogy he uses? Like somebody reading a book and just keep rereading the same chapter over and over again.
- [29:40]
B
Right. I mean, and that makes a lot of sense in the sort of contrasting the serial longevity of elves from the. The true immortality of men. You know, humans transcending creation. As opposed to just continuing. Yeah. As opposed to just continuing within it. That sort of explains why elves might just want to continue.
- [30:01]
A
That's true.
- [30:03]
B
Continue. Ada. If that preservation property of the Three is just an amplification of the elves natural desire, then what is it talking about here about them having a different power and purpose?
- [30:15]
A
I feel like this is maybe it's more of a direction. The way I look at it. The Nine and the Seven gather. They pull in. They pull in power, they pull in wealth, they pull in influence, they pull in mortality. Whereas the three have this sort of outwardly pointed effect.
- [30:35]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. They contribute.
- [30:37]
A
Yeah.
- [30:37]
B
Rather than.
- [30:38]
A
Exactly. And outward. Their influence goes out rather than pointed out. Like a magnet pulling in. That's the only way I can sort of draw that analogy. But it is interesting. Like I wonder what the power is, if they have a different power as well. I mean, I don't think we're talking, you know, solar power versus diesel power or anything like that, or DC versus ac. Now I got to make some ac, DC titles. It's not obviously a different power source, but it's a different type of power. And that I think is more connected to the fact that Sauron had no hand in this. But we don't know, we're not told anymore. I just feel like that purpose thing was really important to dive into.
- [31:18]
B
Yeah, I think so too.
- [31:19]
A
Now we learn nothing specific about the fate of the Seven, but Christopher explains that the text strongly implies that he took them here. Now that does conflict, as Christopher points out, with what we hear in Appendix A3, but that's a dwarven belief, not a recorded fact. What do you think?
- [31:37]
B
Which is kind of convenient, isn't it? Right.
- [31:40]
A
Yeah.
- [31:40]
B
It sort of makes sense that they would go, oh, no, no, no. Durin got it from the elves. We didn't get. We didn't get it from Sauron.
- [31:46]
A
We never would have taken it from Sauron.
- [31:48]
B
Our guy got it from. From the elves.
- [31:49]
A
Yeah. Like, where did that story originate? Was it with Durin's, like, press crew? You know, how are we going to speed.
- [32:00]
B
We'll say we got it from that?
- [32:04]
A
It's an interesting question. Obviously we won't know what really happened, but Christopher is saying here pretty strongly, it looks like the seven were taken by Sauron at this point, in which case Durin would have gotten it from Sauron. Now, we all know that Sauron could have sent it in a way that made it seem like it had come from Cal. Like. Like he could have tricked Durin into thinking that it did come from Calibrimbor. So maybe both people are right. But that brings up the question of. Of ring distribution systems. Right? Like what. How did Sauron decide how to distribute these rings? And like we've talked about before, were there nine and seven at this point? In any other manner except just the total number, that is. Yeah, I think we've talked about this enough, but feels to me like there were just 16 and he made the decision at some point.
- [32:54]
B
If you go with the idea that maybe each of the Dwarf Lords got. So it's kind of. I've got 16, there are seven Dwarf Lords. Why don't I just give, yeah, one to each of the Dwarf Lords and that leaves 16. Minus seven.
- [33:06]
A
Zero.
- [33:07]
B
Still zero. I'll give nine to men.
- [33:12]
A
Okay, so it's less of a. Men are more weak. I'll give them nine. And the Dwarves. Seven is more like, how many have
- [33:18]
B
I got left over?
- [33:18]
A
Yeah, exactly. It's more like, let's do the Dwarves first. So there's seven of them. Let's just give them seven rings. What do I have left? Okay, great. Interesting. Okay. Now, as for the three Sauron figured out, obviously, because he's not dumb. He's a lot of things, but dumb is not one of them. He figured out that they'd been given to the obvious Elves, Galadriel and Gil. Galad. Interestingly, he doesn't think about Elrond or Kirdan, who end up being, you know, the. The holders of the rings later on.
- [33:44]
B
Yeah.
- [33:45]
A
And for all his strength to fight and to resist, Celebrimbor is rewarded with death. And not just death. I mean, in a way, I'm grateful that he was killed. You know, it seems like quickly, like he had him put to death, but then his body put on that pole, shot up with arrows and used as a battle banner. Whoa. What must Elrond and Gil Galad have thought when that banner is marching towards them? That's awful.
- [34:16]
B
It is awful.
- [34:16]
A
I do want to draw your attention, folks, though, to the incredible alliteration of that passage. Listen to it again. In black anger, he turned back to battle, and bearing as a banner Celebrimbor's body hung upon a pole. My goodness, that's. That is like a drum beat.
- [34:35]
B
It's like seven or eight.
- [34:36]
A
I mean, it depends on whether you want to call pole. You know, whether you count that as sort of like alliterative with the. With the P. With the B.
- [34:42]
B
You get the brimbor.
- [34:43]
A
Yeah, brimbor as well.
- [34:44]
B
Because of the.
- [34:45]
A
Certainly at least the one. So black back, battle bearing banner, brimbore body. So 7, 8. If you want to count brim and bore separately. But I don't think you can, because
- [34:56]
B
normally you only count stressed.
- [34:57]
A
Yeah, kill a brim, bore. So, yeah, seven in that first half of that sentence. That is amazing. Yeah, Absolutely amazing. It is.
- [35:07]
B
I'm glad you pointed that out. I'd not noticed that before.
- [35:11]
A
Another reason why. To read it out loud.
- [35:13]
B
Yeah, exactly. It's why you should read this. Read it out loud, folks. You heard it here first.
- [35:18]
A
Well, you didn't hear. You heard it here over and over and over.
- [35:20]
B
Over and over again. Exactly. You read it in Mike Drought's book. You've heard it here before. Read it out loud. So anyway, it's an ugly battle, even with a few folk that got out of Eregion. Elrond simply doesn't have the numbers. He'd have been crushed if Durin hadn't saved the day by sending a Dwarven army out from Khazadhu. And it's funny, just on the alliteration point, it's interesting. You get Elrond, who's an elf, and Eregion. And then you get Durin the dwarf. Yeah, there's all this little more alliteration.
- [35:52]
A
Exactly. It's something that just contributes to that overall musicality of the text earlier, by the way, we were talking about the attack on Eregion and, you know, how they sacked the city and everything, that the attackers broke into a Reggaon. I'm wondering if in order to do so, they had to. I don't know Shoot down a mountainside and dam up a river.
- [36:18]
B
For those of you who don't watch. Yeah. Who don't watch the Rings of Power, Amazon Prime TV show. That's how they did it.
- [36:25]
A
Yeah. That's one of the things we mocked them for, because that was silly. That was pure silliness. I know. Let's point our catapults at the mountain. Also. I would like to sit there and look at the. At the maths and figure out what kind of force they would have to use to dislodge entire mountainsides and to reach said mountainsides from the riverbed, from the floor down there by the river. That's a lot of force to shoot a rock high enough to knock off stuff off the mountain. But anyway, that's. That's more for Rings of Power. Wrap up, folks. Which the show will come back when. When season three drops this fall. Presumably James and I will be back with Sarah to properly laugh at things that should be laughed at and also praise the things that should be praised, like the Annatar Celebrimbor stuff from season two, which was truly breathtakingly good. Anyway, back to this text. In this version of the story, there is also a force of elves from the other side of the mountain in Lornand, led by their son Amroth. Is he their son? Yes, he's their son. In this version of the story.
- [37:36]
B
In this version. Yeah.
- [37:37]
A
It's so interesting. What if that had been the story? I don't know. I just.
- [37:42]
B
What?
- [37:43]
A
Do you have thoughts on this?
- [37:44]
B
In Lord of the Rings, the fact that Celebrian is their daughter isn't really significant to the story.
- [37:52]
A
Not directly. It connects in a couple of moments. The one I think of the most is. And even then, it's an indirect connection, is Galadriel giving Aragorn the Elessar basically in Celebrian's place, because that's. The bride's mother would give the gifts. Yeah, but that is such a deep cut, Right?
- [38:13]
B
Yeah. And you wouldn't have to change major plot points if that had changed. And I kind of feel the same way about Amroth. At least I'm talking in the context of Lord of the Rings.
- [38:24]
A
I see what you mean itself.
- [38:24]
B
I don't know that it would necessarily.
- [38:26]
A
Yeah, that makes. That makes good sense. I mean, the only thing, and I think we've touched on this before, is that it. It would increase the sense of loss given Amroth's ending, you know, certainly create even more desire on Galadriel's part. To go over the sea, you know.
- [38:42]
B
Yeah.
- [38:42]
A
So interesting stuff. But I love that, you know, my son comes to the rescue. Like, it's about time, son.
- [38:53]
B
Anyway, Elrond manages to escape. He heads north and of course establishes Imlargis Rivendell.
- [38:59]
A
Yeah. And it's about time. Right in the parts we skipped. Sauron does let him go. He's like, I'm not going to chase him. But he does turn on the Dwarves and on Amroth's elves. They in turn retreat back into Khazad Dum and shut the doors. All armed and nobody to fight. I love it. Like, it's a perfect little response. Of course, the idea that there's nobody to fight is not entirely true. It's just true here in Eregion, the rest of Eriador, Sauron's for the taking. And he does exactly that. Starts moving his way through the land, killing men and elves, with some escaping as they are able to Rivendell to join Elrond.
- [39:34]
B
Yeah. And Sauron's intent now is to travel west and take Linden. At least there he thinks he'll get one or maybe more of the three.
- [39:42]
A
Yeah. I mean, at this point he knows he would know that Gadriel is on the other side of the Misty Mountains. So he's not. He's going to put that on.
- [39:51]
B
He must just decide, I'm going to go there first. Yeah. If there are three, Linden first.
- [39:55]
A
There are three rings. And he's thinking Gadriel either has two and Gil Galad one, or Gilgalad two and Galadriel one. I've got my force already on this side of the mountains. Let's go. Take Lindon first.
- [40:05]
B
Gilgalad's the king.
- [40:07]
A
He would have two.
- [40:08]
B
So, yeah, he's the High King. He's the more important guy. Although not as powerful. No, ultimately, no.
- [40:15]
A
As we know, Galadriel being like the most. Yeah.
- [40:19]
B
So Sauron brings together his forces. They've been raiding and pillaging in smaller groups and he heads west.
- [40:25]
A
Of course, he did still have to leave a portion of his forces behind to keep Elrond and his forces from leaving Imladris. So there's a little bit of a siege going on there, but the last thing he wants is for Elrond to gather enough forces to then come and attack his flanks as he's going towards Lindon.
- [40:42]
B
Interesting speculation. I just want to make at this point. If Elrond had been given one of the three at this point to protect Imladris, that could have been disastrous.
- [40:52]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [40:53]
B
Because Sauron may have been able to
- [40:55]
A
swallow up right then.
- [40:57]
B
Presumably he didn't give any attention to Imladris because he didn't think that Elrond had a ring. If he thought Elrond had one of the three, he probably could have taken Ibladris at this point.
- [41:07]
A
Yeah. Oh, definitely. I mean, there's no way that it is as strong at this point as it would be later on. Yeah, I mean it's just, it's brand new, it's barely established.
- [41:15]
B
Well, it's just a bunch of people sitting around a waterfall if I recall Rings of Power at this time, which is probably not wrong.
- [41:22]
A
I mean, a bunch of refugees from Eregion with nothing but the shirts on
- [41:26]
B
their back, holding up their swords.
- [41:27]
A
Holding up their swords. Another reference to Rings of Power, folks. Hard not to do that in this chapter, that's for sure.
- [41:33]
B
In this chapter. Exactly. Yeah.
- [41:39]
A
One of the bits of wisdom I've learned over the years is that a quality wardrobe doesn't require a closet full of choices. You just need pieces that are flexible, mix well with each other. And last, that's been especially helpful over the last few years with how busy I've been with the podcast and all the related travel too. And that's where Quince really shines. Everyday essentials made with premium fabrics and designed to be versatile and dependable even when the seasons begin to change. I've been telling you about their clothes for a long time now, and for good reason. Quince has the day to day pieces that I love, built with quality that lasts from their lightweight cashmere sweaters to their really comfy jeans. From linen shorts for the summer to tees in 100% Pima cotton. I've worn my cashmere Henley throughout my cool California winter. Looks great. Feels like it costs twice as much as it really does. Quince works directly with the best factories, ones that meet their high standards. Not just for craftsmanship but ethical production practices. And they cut out the middleman so that you get high quality clothing at affordable prices. Right now go to quince.com pony for free shipping and 365 day returns. That's a full full year to build your wardrobe and love it. And you will. Now available in Canada too. Don't keep settling for clothes that don't last. Go to Q U I n c e.com pony for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com pony when you listen to Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone the comedy podcast, you learn stuff.
- [43:18]
B
I've been learning to throw a Boomerang. Cuz this is the kind of thing that really gets the listeners engaged.
- [43:23]
A
You know, interviews with people who will make you smarter. Does the amount that you learn protect
- [43:29]
B
you from cognitive decline? Can't people just listen to the show?
- [43:36]
A
Can't they just enjoy a delightful treehouse full of information and I think I'm bleeding Join us and be a nobody. Now. Soon we'll get back to the Numenoreans dropping the ball on Gil Galad's 911 call. But before we do, I want to take a minute to thank the amazing community that has grown up around this show over the past 10 years. After all, there's a lot more talk going on at the Prancing Pony Podcast than just us.
- [44:06]
B
Fortunately, the PPP really does have a warm and welcoming listener community. If you've got questions or just want to talk about how much you love Middle Earth, be sure to check out our common room on Facebook and across all social media. On Facebook, just look for the Prancing Pony Podcast. Yeah, there's a page, but you're going to want to join the group for that great fan community and on every
- [44:24]
A
social media platform other than Facebook. We're just at Prancing Pony Pod and you can find our subreddit at R. Prancing Ponypod. And be sure to check out my Daily show, today's Tolkien Times on YouTube and on your favorite podcast apps. Get your daily Middle Earth fix folks, everything from Tolkien Tuesdays to Third Age Thursdays. Be sure to watch or listen at YouTube.com rancingponypod James, we got some folks trying to come to the rescue, but I don't know. Did they just get sidetracked? Did they get lost? Did they digress?
- [45:00]
B
I think they digressed. Let's find out. All right now. For long years the Numenoreans 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 messengers to Numenor, and on the shores of Lindon, the Numenoreans began to build up a force and supplies for war. In 1695, when Sauron invaded Eriador, Gil Galad called on Numenor for aid. Then Tar Minasir 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 Hlun. He had summoned more forces which were approaching from the south east and were indeed in Enedwaith at the crossing of Tharbard, which was only lightly held. Gil Galad and the Numenoreans were holding the Hoon 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 hosts was heavily defeated and driven back. The Numenorean admiral Kira Tur sent part of his ships to make a landing further to the south. Sauron was driven away southeast after great slaughter at Sarn Ford, the crossing of the Baronduin. And though strengthened by his force at Tharbard, he suddenly found a host of the Numenoreans again in his rear. For Ciriatur had put a strong force ashore at the mouth of the Gwathlo, where there was a small Numenorean harbour. This was Vignalonde of Tar Eldarien, afterwards called Lon Dyr. In the battle of the Gwaithlo, 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 Plane, whence, broken and humiliated, he returned to Mordor and vowed vengeance upon Numenor. The army that was besieging Imladris was caught between Elrond and Gil Galad and utterly destroyed. Eriador was cleared of the enemy, but lay largely in ruins.
- [47:34]
A
Wow, that's. It's a victory. It's quite a turn, but it's a
- [47:39]
B
somewhat of a Pyrrhic victory.
- [47:40]
A
Yeah, a little bit. Lands all wrecked. Yeah. It's time for the Edain to come to the rescue. Right. They've been sailing to the Grey Havens now for nearly 1100 years. Remember that? Vientur was the first Numenorean to get back to Middle Earth. He got there in second age 600. Aldarion's first journey was in 725, where he began to establish that connection with Gil Galad. He went back over and over throughout his lifetime, with his last voyage around 985.
- [48:08]
B
Yeah, and keep in mind, he didn't just go to Mithlon, the Grey Havens, he sailed up the Gwathlo and even met with Galadriel at Tharbard. And while his daughter Ta Ankalame abandoned his policies, Numenor began the construction of their permanent havens around 1200 during her reign.
- [48:26]
A
And it's the year 1695. So about 500 years later, when Sauron invades Eriador. Before that, though, Gil Galad gets a bad feeling about Sauron, so he sends messages to Numenor saying, we've got a problem. Remember when I was talking to that king Eldarion about, you know, Sauron and rising in the east? It's happening, guys. So they start building up a force on the coasts.
- [48:51]
B
Yeah. But it's fascinating to think what the logistics for that may have been like. Right. First of all, any message must take months to get there, and likely the same for a reply.
- [49:00]
A
Yeah. Seriously, it's got to be at least, I would imagine, three months either way. Maybe two and four because of the. You're sailing into the wind or with the wind. I don't know.
- [49:10]
B
Prevailing winds.
- [49:11]
A
Yes, but there's more than that, right? I mean, they're said to be building up a force in supplies for a campaign, but it's the navy that comes later. So what are they building up? Are they building up an infantry force? Are they building up like a logistics supply chain? Speaking of which, I mean, what can they build up? Food's going to be mostly perishable. So I imagine at this point things like they're building up armor, weapons caches, maybe transport stuff like wagons, so that when the forces arrive, they don't have to bring all the logistics with them.
- [49:45]
B
It's almost as if it takes more than three ships to bring an army.
- [49:49]
A
Especially if you bring a cavalry force.
- [49:51]
B
Yeah.
- [49:51]
A
My goodness. Rings of Power isn't going to get a break in this episode, is it? I'll tell you what, though, this idea of building up a force is definitely a question I want to talk to Brett about the next time we can get him on. I mean, he would have the insight into, like, what this would actually look like, how long it would take, how complicated it would be. Ah, good stuff.
- [50:15]
B
Yeah. Now, we're not told when that takes place, but we're given the year that he directly asks for aid. 1695. That's the year that Sauron invades Eriador and Elrond is sent south from the Grey Havens with a force.
- [50:28]
A
Yeah, and. And the navy gets sent out, but it's somehow delayed and it took him five years to show up. What in the world happened to Tarministir's Navy?
- [50:42]
B
I don't know. I mean, maybe it took even longer than the two, three months to get there, the messages. But I mean, I guess there was. But they.
- [50:52]
A
Bermuda Triangle. And now I'm expecting a special episode of in search of.
- [51:01]
B
Yeah, I'm not sure why. I mean, presumably there was preparation that needed to be done on the Numenorean side.
- [51:08]
A
Building up a force on the coasts of Lindon.
- [51:11]
B
Yeah.
- [51:11]
A
Then they would also be building up a navy in Numenor. It just kind of surprises me that it takes them five years because the reminder and the problem why the five years is a problem is that it took Sauron only two years from the time he first attacked in 1695 to sack Eregion and kill Celebrimbor ransacking the Gwaiti Miradine. And another two years after that before he said to overrun all of Eriador. So what might have happened had the Numenorean navy arrived either before Eregion sacking or at least before Sauron overran Oliveria door? Yeah, I mean, a lot of lives get lost because they don't know how to get to Middle Earth. They had to stop for directions. They ran out of gas. I don't know. They stopped at a Buc EE's for some snacks. I mean, what. I don't know.
- [52:00]
B
Yeah, I don't know either. I mean, I'm thinking a little bit about, you know, playing sieve or something like that where you're like building up. You build up your forces before you do the invasion. I mean, we're going to talk about this in a moment. Obviously they were unbelievably successful once they got there.
- [52:17]
A
Yeah.
- [52:18]
B
I mean, insanely powerful. And who knows whether. Whether the time that it took was important.
- [52:24]
A
Yeah, you're right. If they built up, let's say 70% of that army, but sent it 30% sooner or I should say navy rather than army. Yeah. You wonder would they have been able.
- [52:37]
B
Who knows? I mean, it's one of. This must happen all the time in military campaigns, these what ifs.
- [52:42]
A
Yeah, the idea of, like you said, building up because. Yeah, I played enough civ in my time. More than enough.
- [52:49]
B
Yeah, you don't. Yeah, you don't want to go in early.
- [52:52]
A
I'm gonna send one ship at a time to ping away. I'm gonna wait until I have an overwhelming fleet.
- [52:58]
B
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- [52:59]
A
That's a good point.
- [53:00]
B
But by the time 1700 rolls around and the Numenorean navy shows up, Sauron's conquered all of Eridol except for Rivendell and Linda. Right. They're the only. Only two places. And he's got a siege going against Rivendell and he's at the River Lune threatening.
- [53:14]
A
I'm just going to say, by the way, you do a great job of pronouncing that river's name. I always just pronounce it loon because I'm terrible with that sort of. But. But the fact that you can actually get that H out before the L without it sounding like there's a vowel between them is really impressive.
- [53:30]
B
I'm not getting it exactly right. The, the Icelanders would probably be able to get it right. The Welsh would be able to get it right because it's.
- [53:38]
A
The Welsh could pronounce anything.
- [53:40]
B
Well, it's. It's what in Welsh is written as a double L. So anytime you see a double L in Welsh, it's that sound. And that's what's, that's what's going on there. So the ghetto Welsh speaker to say River Clune. And they'll, they'll get it better than I can. But still I try.
- [53:55]
A
Yeah, well, you do better than I do, so I thought I'd say thank you.
- [53:59]
B
Yeah. So he's bringing in the mop up forces, right. Coming again from the southeast via the Gap of Cullenar, presumably. And those forces are already at the crossing of Tharbad while Gil Galad and the force that Numenor had been building there are desperately trying to prevent passage of the Thum.
- [54:15]
A
Yeah. So that's finally five years later, thank you very much. When Tar Minister's navy arrives and Sauron is beaten badly. Now, importantly, at this moment of arrival, we read in the text that one of the Numenoreans, Admiral Kirjatur, whose name by the way means shipmaster, sends a force of his ships southward.
- [54:37]
B
It's a very similar name to Kir.
- [54:39]
A
It's the same Kir.
- [54:40]
B
Essentially the same. Yeah.
- [54:41]
A
And Tour is like Turin, Turambar. Right, the. Yeah, it's the same master.
- [54:46]
B
Yeah. Yep. And Sauron is retreating across Eridor and he gets beaten badly at Sarn Ford. And that's where there's a stone forge across the Brandywine at the southeastern corner of the Shire. Though it's the Branduin at this point, as the hobbits aren't gonna be there for 3,3000 Bral Daeneen or Bral Dahim.
- [55:07]
A
Sorry, going back to our episode on the. The language issues, but yeah, it's still the Branduin rather than the Brandywine. But Sauron gets reinforced by the army coming up from Tharabad. But now he's been flanked. We read that he's got Numenoreans in his rear and I think he should see a doctor about that.
- [55:29]
B
Talk to a doctor with a curiatura.
- [55:32]
A
Tour is right for you. So Kiryatur sent his forces up from where they'd landed at what had been Vignalande founded about 900 years before. We'll talk a lot more about that when we get to Appendix D in what should be our final episode in this chapter.
- [55:47]
B
And this battle nearly proves to be sound.
- [55:50]
A
There's another what if? Wasn't it?
- [55:52]
B
Another what if? Yeah, exactly.
- [55:54]
A
Killed it already.
- [55:55]
B
Yeah. He's said to have only narrowly escaped himself and his forces were crushed. Right. There's that remark about just him and his bodyguard.
- [56:05]
A
Yeah, yeah. That's later on.
- [56:06]
B
I mean, he really. And I want to touch on this, how incredible the Numenorean forces must have been, because prior to this, Sauron's having an easy time of it.
- [56:16]
A
It's a cakewalk. It's Siv on easy mode.
- [56:18]
B
Yeah, yeah. But now it's completely reversed. Now it seems like the Numenoreans are having an easy time of it.
- [56:24]
A
That's.
- [56:25]
B
They get down to Saren and his bodyguard.
- [56:27]
A
I know. Isn't that wild? I mean, he's got a force of soldiers still with him at this point, but not many. And then they get whittled down to just the literal bodyguard. And I was looking that up. Like, what would the, you know, the commander of the general of an army have in terms of a bodyguard? How big is a bodyguard? And it's probably around 24. I mean, it might be 36, it might be 16 or something, but it's probably a couple dozen Orcs. That's not much.
- [56:52]
B
It's amazing.
- [56:52]
A
The fact that he survives is even amazing. Like, and again, a big what if? Like, could they have taken him out now and changed world history? But, yeah, then what story would Tolkien have written in the Third Age?
- [57:06]
B
Right.
- [57:07]
A
I'm just going to tell a story about the Shire. It's a lovely place. Enjoy. So they make it across the Anduin onto the Daggerland. And by they, I mean Sauron and his couple dozen orcs, who've got to be scared out of their minds right now. Like, they've watched all their buddies die. They know Sauron's not happy. Anyway, this is. This is all bad. But they get onto the battle plane, the Dagger Lad, and then they retreat to Mordor, where Sauron vows revenge against the men of Numenor. I'll get you, my pretties.
- [57:37]
B
Yeah, well, that's the interesting thing. Just how much he. His focus now would turn to the Numenoreans, of course. They're the problem. The Elves aren't the issue for me. The Numenoreans are the issue for me.
- [57:49]
A
He even knew that early on, which is why he'd established Mordor. Right? That was the whole reason why he
- [57:53]
B
was worried that they could be a problem. Now they've proven themselves to be quite the problem.
- [57:59]
A
The problem. Yeah.
- [58:00]
B
Yeah, exactly. And so there's a small besieging force left near Rivendell on their own, and they get sandwiched between Elrond and Khalgal.
- [58:09]
A
Sorry, guys, you're on your own. Crunch.
- [58:11]
B
Yeah, crunch. Yeah, exactly. So Sauron and his army are finally out of Eriador after six years of waging war. But the land is said to be largely in ruins.
- [58:21]
A
That is sad. I mean, this is. The entire. This part of the world has just been wrecked, and every place that would have been a settlement of men, a settlement of Elves, has been destroyed.
- [58:34]
B
Yep.
- [58:35]
A
Yeah, the entire region has to start over.
- [58:39]
B
And so what did the Elves do next? Let's get back to the readings, Alan, and find out.
- [58:45]
A
At this time, the First Council was held, and it was there determined that an Elvish stronghold in the east of Eriador should be maintained at Imladris rather than in region 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 Cirdan when he set out from Lindon in the days of the Last Alliance. For many years, the Westlands had peace and time in which to heal their wounds. But the Numenoreans had tasted power in Middle Earth, and from that time forward, they began to make permanent settlements on the western coasts, dated circa 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 Lorinand and to dwell near the sea. She committed Lorranand to Amroth, and passing again through Moria with Celebrian, 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 Celebrian and loved her, though he said nothing of 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 Celebrian, departed from Imladris and went to the little inhabited lands between the mouth of the Gwathlo 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 Nandoran elves from Lorenant. It was not until far on in the Third Age, when Amroth was lost and Lornand was in peril, that Galadriel returned there in the year 1981. Here the text concerning Galadriel and Celeborn comes to an end.
- [61:03]
B
Yet another version of the movements of Galadriel and Celeborn. But we'll get to that. And the motivation. But we'll get to that. So we start here with a mention of the First Council. But Christopher adds something interesting in a footnote. He says the text was actually changed here so that it read the First White Council.
- [61:23]
A
And that's fascinating, because, of course, Appendix B, the Tale of Years, tells us that that first happened, oh, more than 4,000 years from this point in history in third age 2463. So what's the deal? Why would Tolkien amend this story about the Second Age to, say, the First White Council? Christopher speculates 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. Speaking of which, James, who's on this Council? Whose Council is it anyway?
- [62:01]
B
So, well, I was just going to say it's interesting because presumably this Council was formed in the aftermath of the battle and may not have had much to do after the Last Alliance. Right. So, I mean, it may not have had much to do for another thousand years. But presumably, once the battle of the Last alliance had happened, things were changed again. Yeah, right. They thought, okay, we're done with all this. So, what. When did you say that the second generation of the White Council started?
- [62:33]
A
That would have been third age, 2463. So long after the battle. But that's.
- [62:39]
B
Yeah, but was that roughly when the Necromancer was coming back to Dol Guldur?
- [62:44]
A
Yeah. In fact, the timeline tells us that Sauron returned to Dol Guldur three years prior. That's also when the Watchful Peace ended.
- [62:52]
B
So that's why they started it off. Again. So I think Christopher's probably right that they're basically like, we need to restore the White Council. A new White Council. Of course, Babylon 5 reference there, too. Of course, they call theirs the. Well, there's the Gray Council, but then there's the White. Yeah. There's also so many echoes in Babylon 5, from the Rangers to JMS, if
- [63:16]
A
you're listening, we love the show.
- [63:17]
B
We do. Absolutely. Absolutely. So you asked the question, who's. Who's on council, what's on second.
- [63:24]
A
Yeah.
- [63:28]
B
So who would have been in both?
- [63:31]
A
Oh, that's a good question, too. I mean, we know who's here at a minimum because they're named. Right. We know that Gil Galad's here because he gives rings to Elrond, but he doesn't give a ring to Ciridan. So Cirdan may or may not be there. We know Galadriel and Celeborn are there because the text says it was the year that she showed up, that they had this council. So they're there.
- [63:50]
B
So obviously in the second generation, the Third Age version edition of the White King was not there, but two of the Istaria there.
- [63:59]
A
Yeah. At least. Saruman and Gandalf.
- [64:02]
B
And Gandalf, yeah.
- [64:04]
A
Celeborn, interestingly, is likely a council member here. Is he a Council member in the Third Age? I don't think he's named, but I don't think we're.
- [64:13]
B
Presumably he would have. Yeah. No reason.
- [64:15]
A
He is the Wise. I mean, even Galadriel calls him Celeborn the Wise.
- [64:19]
B
Yeah.
- [64:19]
A
So I think he's on that. Yeah. Really? Only Gil Galad would not be on it.
- [64:23]
B
Yep.
- [64:24]
A
If Kirdan was in it the first time, he'd probably be in it the second time.
- [64:28]
B
Yep.
- [64:29]
A
I mean, you know, we're not.
- [64:30]
B
You get my vote.
- [64:31]
A
Yeah. Oh, absolutely.
- [64:32]
B
Well, he's.
- [64:33]
A
Get it out. Of course.
- [64:35]
B
Yeah. And then just. Just Gandalf and. And.
- [64:38]
A
And Saruman.
- [64:38]
B
Saruman. But in the new ones.
- [64:40]
A
Yeah. They didn't bother with. With Radicast. They're like, you know, let's. Let's not tell him we're meeting. We'll just send him an email. The agenda meeting for this council is basically, we need a new hq. And also, we should do something with some of these rings. So at the Council, the Wise folk realized that, I don't know, a hidden valley in the foothills might be easier to defend than, I don't know, a city on the plains near the fords of a river. Just a thought.
- [65:09]
B
Where there are mountains that you can throw rocks at. Sorry, and of course, it's also, as you said, the big ring giving party. So this is where Gil Gal gives Vilya to Elrond and gives him a promotion to Vice Regent. And it's interesting because not that long ago, Meneldor talked about a similar but different term. We read when the Valar gave to us the Land of Gift, they did not make us vicegerents. We were given the kingdom of Numenor, not of the world.
- [65:41]
A
And it's not like Tolkien skipped using the Regent variant as opposed to Garret in Aldarian and Arendus either, because both Halatan and Ankalame are said to have served as regent in Aldarion's absence. So just to kind of clarify the difference between a Vice Regent and a vicegerent, a Vice Regent is acting specifically for a ruling monarch, while a vicegerent is a broader term for someone authorized to exercise the power of an authority.
- [66:09]
B
So Vice Regent has to do with ruling in the place of. While the Vice Guarant is focused on the delegation of authority. And this is sort of indicated a little bit in the. In the different etymology. Not that etymology necessarily always tells you the modern understanding, but it's interesting that in Latin, regent comes from the verb brighere, which means to sort of got more the sense of steering or directing kind of rule, whereas gerant comes from the verb guerere, which is more to carry or to manage. It's a term that's used for when a woman's pregnant.
- [66:46]
A
That's right, yeah.
- [66:47]
B
They're taking something on that they're responsible for.
- [66:50]
A
And they both, of course, use the same prefix, which just means in place of.
- [66:55]
B
Yeah, exactly. And back to the rings. We also get a mention of Gil Galad keeping the red ring Naya, and only giving it to Cirdan about 1700 years from this moment when he heads out for the Last Alliance. But in the Silmarillion in of the Rings of Power in the Third Age, we read that at first that ring, the Red Ring of Fire, had been entrusted to Cirdan, Lord of the Havens.
- [67:21]
A
And we read something similar in Appendix B of the Lord of the Rings. But at the end, it became known that they had been held at first by the three greatest of the Eldar, Gil Galad, Galadriel and Ciridan. Gil Galad, before he died, gave his ring to Elrond. Cirdan later surrendered his to Mithrandir. That's interesting, because that makes it sound like Gilgalad didn't give Elrond the ring until he went off to the battle of the Last alliance, which is what we're told happens with Kiran's ring here.
- [67:50]
B
Right.
- [67:50]
A
So Christopher acknowledges this contradiction, pointing out that even in this story it's contradicted. He writes, earlier in this narrative, it is said that Gil Galad gave Nadia the red ring to Cirdan as soon as he himself received it from Celebrimbor. And this agrees with the statements in Appendix B and in of the Rings of Power that Cirdan held it from the beginning. The statement here at variance with the others was added in the margin of the text. So which is it? Was this a change or did Tolkien just forget?
- [68:19]
B
I think it's a, I think it's a change because this, this text is post Lord of the Rings.
- [68:24]
A
Lots of changes.
- [68:25]
B
I, I, I suspect he changed his mind. I suspect that the original version was that he gave Narya to Cirdan right away and Vilya later to Elon before the Last alliance, but then during the writing of this text. Yeah, changed his mind.
- [68:47]
A
Yeah, I think that makes sense. I mean, again, if the establishment of the Haven, you know, if the place is going to be Rivendell now in Ereador rather than Eregion, whoever's taking care of that place needs to have one of these rings. So certainly giving the ring to Elrond at this point makes sense. And then maybe the change to Kyrdan is related, but unnecessary. Like, I guess he didn't need to change that. He could have just had Gil Gallic.
- [69:19]
B
I wonder if. So whoever is giving the ring, whichever ring he's giving to whomever just before he goes to the battle of the Last alliance, that's obviously just for safekeeping in case he dies.
- [69:30]
A
That's.
- [69:30]
B
So it's not, he's got a whole lot his intention, it's never his intention
- [69:33]
A
to give both away. Right now that would.
- [69:35]
B
Right, so, so, so the question is, is really just who does he think needs the second one that he's got? And I think he changed his mind from Kirdan having it.
- [69:44]
A
Why does Kirdan need it when he's hanging out with me? But Elrond's got Rivendell to watch over.
- [69:50]
B
Right. So that's why I suspect that makes sense. He changed it, even though he'd already obviously the Lord of the Rings had been published and done one way around.
- [69:58]
A
So if he ever got around to a third edition, he could make some changes. Yeah, that makes sense.
- [70:03]
B
I mean, he wasn't above doing that.
- [70:06]
A
No, he certainly was quite happy to
- [70:07]
B
change, to rewrite things. Yeah. And then come up with some in world excuse for why it was Ciodan telling the Council of Elrond, I wasn't completely honest with you when I said,
- [70:18]
A
well, I can't be kidding when he
- [70:19]
B
said I got the ring.
- [70:20]
A
It can't be Kiridan.
- [70:21]
B
No, that's right.
- [70:22]
A
Kirad would never lie.
- [70:24]
B
Yeah, maybe Elrond.
- [70:25]
A
There you go. Elrond is only half Elven after all.
- [70:30]
B
We step back and we get the big picture. Right. The Westlands experiencing a long time of peace finally. Indeed, this Council took place in Second Age 1701. Middle Earth doesn't run into a whole lot of trouble until after the downfall of Numenor, when Sauron came back to Middle Earth. Right. It's not until more than 1700 years later, in 3429, that Sauron takes Minas Ithol in the lead to what will end up being the the last alliance. So 1700 years.
- [70:59]
A
Yeah. That's a long time. No wonder they have some time to rebuild. But while Middle Earth is enjoying some relative peace, we're also told, and I like the contrast in the way the text presents this, that the Numenoreans. It was sort of a. But the Numenoreans had tasted power and as a result they started to build their permanent settlements. And that's in the next century or so, since that starts around 1800. It's interesting because there's some positive aspects to their presence here that would have been a deterring effect against Sauron. Sauron, obviously they're so powerful that he can't move west from Mordor, so that's good. But there's some drawbacks to their presence, isn't there?
- [71:40]
B
Absolutely. And I think this is a really, really key moment that you don't get just reading the Tale of Years, because if you look at the Tale of Years in Appendix B of Lord of the Rings, it talks about the permanent settlements, it doesn't say why they did it.
- [71:58]
A
Yeah. It doesn't talk about the taste for
- [71:59]
B
power and it talks about a shadow falling on Numenor, but doesn't really say. It almost blames it on Sauron. So this is a really interesting thing. We've talked about this before. I gave a talk about this at Inc Leeds that the way that the Tale of Years presents it, it diminishes blame on the Numenoreans and makes it far more about Sauron. It suggests Sauron is the reason that the Numenoreans went bad. But it's clear here it's nothing to do with it's not Sauron's fault. It's quite the reverse. It was the victory over Sauron.
- [72:36]
A
Yeah. That sort of brought out this, this, this desire that had already been there. I mean, you look back to even Aldarion's time, you know, a thousand years before, and he's desiring to expand and grow and, you know, get out there and take more, you know.
- [72:53]
B
But this is really where I think starts to take a dark turn because they get this taste for power and that's going to lead to more exploitation. Exploitation. It's going to lead to their desire for gaining wealth, which is going to lead to their desire for a longer life, which is going to lead to their desire for immortality.
- [73:15]
A
This is the start of the dominoes,
- [73:17]
B
the pebble that starts the avalanche.
- [73:19]
A
Get another Bab5 reference in. I love it. It's too late for the pebbles to vote.
- [73:26]
B
Yeah. I think this is a really, really crucial moment.
- [73:29]
A
That it is.
- [73:31]
B
It's the tasting of power that they got from their victory because it was an amazing victory.
- [73:35]
A
It was an incredible victory. They wiped the map with these guys. They just absolutely trounced them. And they've got to feel invincible in a way.
- [73:44]
B
Yeah.
- [73:45]
A
And that's really a dangerous feeling when you're immortal. Yeah.
- [73:50]
B
Yeah. So Christopher finally tells us about the last portion of the narrative of Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn. And it starts with some sorrow.
- [73:58]
A
Yeah. Specifically that her longing for the sea has become so powerful, so overwhelming that she's decided to move and to live closer to the water. Everybody wants beachfront property if they can. I mean, why not? But remember what we read about what happened to her after receiving Nya last week? Not that she received Anya last week. What we read last week about what happened to her after she received Nunya, it increased her lateness, desire for the sea and for return into the west, so that her joy in Middle Earth was diminished. She's desperately trying to get some of that joy back.
- [74:33]
B
Yeah. And again, it's this idea that the joy is diminished when you have a desire for something that you don't have. Right. It's the desire that makes the joy.
- [74:46]
A
It's so sad, but it is so true. I mean, if all you can focus on is this thing that you want that you cannot have, then it almost doesn't matter. All the good that you do have, you can't find joy in it because all you're looking at is the absence of the thing that you want.
- [75:01]
B
Right.
- [75:02]
A
It's heartbreaking.
- [75:03]
B
Yeah. It's that old Thing about, you know, happiness is not having what you want, it's wanting what you have. Yeah. Yeah. And so we get another reason for why she's still there. It's not the ban. It's that she believes she has a duty to stay here until Sauron is finally defeated. So this is one of the versions that we have discussed before. It's interesting that she felt a duty to see Sauron's destruction completed.
- [75:30]
A
And you wonder sort of why that is. Does she feel some sort of sense of duty related to a failure early? You know, like something that she did earlier that. I mean, it just doesn't seem like. How is this connected to her in any way? Sauron, it's not like she was connected. I could see why Celebrimbor might feel like this if he were still alive,
- [75:52]
B
if he was,
- [75:55]
A
because he would feel like, ah, you know, I got suckered by this guy. I helped give this guy power. I have to stay until I get him defeated. Galadriel hasn't really had anything to do with Sauron. She knew that this guy was bad. I don't know. But she didn't kick him out either. Like, he couldn't get into Lindon, you know, Gil Galad was like, no, you're not even getting here. Galadriel didn't trust him, but she let him in. So maybe there's part of that I don't know.
- [76:21]
B
Yeah, well, I mean, in a version of the story where she was in Eregion, maybe she feels a certain guilt
- [76:26]
A
about sense of responsibility, what happened.
- [76:29]
B
Yeah.
- [76:29]
A
Like, okay, now it's my job to see this guy done.
- [76:33]
B
Yeah, yeah. I mean, if she wasn't in Eregion, if she wasn't the lady of Eregion, then why would she. It's not as big a deal.
- [76:40]
A
Right.
- [76:40]
B
But in this version, she was right. Yeah. So maybe that's a part of it. But she gives Lorinand or Lothlorien to her son Amroth in this version, and she takes her daughter Celebrian with her through Moria and heads back to Eriador.
- [76:57]
A
And it's important to remember, folks, that in this version of the story, Celeborn had remained behind. Remember, he sent out that sortie and, you know, was involved in there. He wanted absolutely nothing to do with the dwarves, so he remained behind in Eregion, even as an overthrown lord. Yeah.
- [77:13]
B
And of course, he's made it up to Rivendell with their own.
- [77:15]
A
Yeah, he's not going to be in region anymore.
- [77:17]
B
Yeah, exactly. So when Galadriel and Celebrian get up to the valley, they find good old California.
- [77:24]
A
So we get their long time no see reunion and it has been a long time. And we also get the Elrond Celebrian meet cute. Now, I'm not sure if Elrond was just shy or what, maybe it's the human part of him, but he didn't say anything, so nothing happened happens between them yet.
- [77:40]
B
Yeah, I do hope we we see that.
- [77:42]
A
I do too. I really do.
- [77:45]
B
And now deep into this section about Galadriel moving westward, we learn that it was during her time in Imladris that the Council took place. Therefore she must have left right after Sauron's defeat, since that was in 1700 and the council was in 1701.
- [77:59]
A
Yeah. Now, as for Elrond and Celebrian, the tale of years tells us they married in third age 109. But there's a bit of a sidebar on that, and since it's not directly Galadriel and Celeborn related, we're going to move that to the P5. But it is an interesting conversation about Elvish aging and Tolkien's continual efforts to get every detail right back to the text, though we don't know how long they stayed. But eventually they left Rivendell. The three of them this time, no, leaving Celeborn behind, and they headed to, well, what at first looks like a truly massive area. Oh, they went to the sparsely populated land between the mouths of the Guaflo and the Anduin. That's not exactly narrowing it down, is it, James?
- [78:40]
B
No, it's almost like tell Elmar. Where could he be? You know? Somewhere in Australia. Reminder that the the Guadhalo reaches the Great Sea and Vinyalonde quite a bit north of the mouth of the Isa, as well as north of the Cape of Andras. The mouths of Anduin. That's what Ethia Anduin means, are about 600 miles to the southeast of the mouth of the Gwaithloak, with all of what we know as Rohan and Gondor between them.
- [79:07]
A
Huge, huge traps of land.
- [79:12]
B
One day all this will be yours.
- [79:15]
A
They've already had a couple castles burned down and fall into the swamp.
- [79:18]
B
Well, I can't.
- [79:21]
A
Back when you were mentioning Where's Tal Elmar, I remember thinking briefly, and I wish I thought of this when we were doing the episodes. I'm picturing Tal Elmar now wearing a red and white horizontally striped shirt and a little hat. Where's Waldo? Where's Tal Omar? Oh, Man. All right, so they did not lay claim to this whole area. So, no, they don't want huge tracts of land. They settled down instead in Belfalas at what would later become known as Dol Amroth. And yes, Dol Amroth or Amroth is what we'll be talking about later this episode. Their son Amroth, now ruling Lornand, would come to visit them from time to time. He's a good son. And a lot of the Nandor Silvan elves came and settled there as well, swelling their numbers. The text says.
- [80:09]
B
Finally we learn that she stayed here until third age, 1981, and then returned to Lorina. And that was not only the year that Amroth died, and we'll get to that, but a lot of other things happened in Middle Earth around then that would have led to her land being in peril.
- [80:26]
A
A lot of things happened in 1981. I mean, that was when Reagan was shot. It was when John Paul Pope, John Paul II was shot. We had the launch of Columbia. I mean, Raiders of the Lost ark came out. 1981 was. I couldn't help it, but I hear years that happened in my lifetime, like 1977.
- [80:44]
B
They stand out a lot. They do stand out a lot more.
- [80:46]
A
And then my brain just connects them. But In Middle Earth, Third Age, 1981, the year prior Durin VI was killed by Durin's Bane and Moria Arnor had been destroyed just seven years before. So, I mean, this is really all coming to a head. And in 1981 itself, nine, the first was killed by Durin's Bane and the Dwarves left Moria. They're like, you take one king, that's fine. You take a second or out of here.
- [81:10]
B
Yeah. And just 19 years later, the Nazgul came out of Mordor and would take.
- [81:16]
A
Wow, lots of stuff happening. Yeah. James, in this version, then, where Amroth is her son and died, as we'll talk about later this episode. What drove her back to Lornand more? Was it the danger to her former realm or sorrow after the death of her son? I mean, she'd moved here to get that joy back, right. Because she wanted to be closer to the sea. But now her son's dead, so she's lost even more joy. Just wait. Calabrian's next. So is it that I can't be here anymore because my son's dead, or is it I can't be here anymore, My former realm is in danger. These people that I had led, my
- [81:54]
B
first leaning was towards the former yeah. That it was sorrow over Amrath's death more than anything else.
- [82:02]
A
I can imagine that being the case for sure. Yeah. It's just an interesting question. Obviously it's an unanswerable question, but.
- [82:08]
B
Yeah, I mean, some of the, like, the stuff in Arnor probably wouldn't have worried her as much as maybe Durin's
- [82:17]
A
Bane is the big one.
- [82:18]
B
The Balrog reemergence.
- [82:20]
A
Yeah. Because these were her allies, Right? The Dwarves of Khazad Dun.
- [82:23]
B
Yeah.
- [82:24]
A
They weren't killable.
- [82:25]
B
Balrog being next door is not. Yeah.
- [82:27]
A
Property values start sinking. You're wondering, I don't know if I want to go to the HOA meeting because the Balrog might be there. I mean, it's all sorts of problems. Yeah. He never puts up his Christmas lights. We keep telling him, please put up some Christmas lights.
- [82:43]
B
Anyway, that's the end of the text, as Christopher points out.
- [82:47]
A
That's right.
- [82:47]
B
The end of Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn.
- [82:49]
A
But in the paragraph that we skipped reading, he points out that since the Lord of the Rings is silent on where Galadriel and Celeborn lived after the defeat of Sauron, commentators were led to the natural assumption that they passed the latter half of the second Age and all the third in Lothlorien. But clearly that was not the case. Now, that said, this version gets changed, as we'll see next when we move into the story of Amroth and Nimrodel. Monster Energy. Everybody knows White Monster zero Ultron, that's the og it kicked off this whole zero sugar energy drink thing. But Ultra is a whole lineup now. You've got Strawberry Dreams, Blue Hawaiian Sunrise, and Vice Guava. And they all bring the Monster Energy punch.
- [83:40]
B
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A
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B
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- [84:12]
A
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- [84:21]
B
worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts to in time for this class, I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts.
- [84:26]
A
Oh, my gosh. They're so fast and breathe. Oh sorry.
- [84:30]
B
I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order.
- [84:34]
A
Oh sorry.
- [84:35]
B
Namaste. Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order. 1-800-contacts. We told you about the amazing PPP community after our earlier break. If you're part of that community and want to enjoy something even more special, come join the Fellowship of the Podcast on Patreon. You get to be in the best discord community around, one that includes host hangouts and even live episode recordings.
- [85:05]
A
And your support there is what enables me to work full time doing all the shows, the ppp, today's Tolkien Times, Rings of Power wrap up, and my streaming show the PPP plays. When you join, you also get episode postscripts, you can get AD free episodes, free merch and more.
- [85:20]
B
And you can join our questions after Nightfall episodes or even appear as a guest in the north wing. Go to patreon.com prancingponypod to show your support and join the Fellowship of the Podcast.
- [85:30]
A
Don't forget to rate and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. And please recommend us to your friends. And you can do that directly on Spotify now, just by sharing the show with them. All right, James, we're shifting gears now. We're moving on from Celeborn and Galadriel to Amroth and Nimrodel.
- [85:46]
B
Amroth was king of Lorien after his father Amdir 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 Keren 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 Lorien, and she dwelt alone beside the folds 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 Lorien. 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.
- [88:33]
A
Well, we started reading with the story itself. We actually skipped Christopher's introduction, but we should talk about a few of the bits and pieces that we learned there. And this is the quote that we've looked at a few times. The idea that if Amroth had been Galadriel and Celeborn's son at the time Tolkien wrote the Lord of the Rings, we would have known. As Christopher says, so important a connection could hardly have escaped mention.
- [88:55]
B
And that's, again, a reminder that the idea of Amroth as their son, as seen in the section we spent the last two weeks covering, was written after Lord of the Rings.
- [89:04]
A
That's right, and I want more info on this, because Christopher tells us that this view of his parentage was later rejected when and in what writing? I mean, clearly by the time of this 1969 story that we've now begun to read. But it's such a fascinating idea. He shifts the idea to, okay, Amroth's their son, but he does that after he finishes the Lord of the Rings, but then he shifts it again. By the time he writes this story in 1969, what was the trigger to change it in the first place and what caused him to change it back?
- [89:35]
B
Well, the interesting thing is the other example that immediately comes to mind of Tolkien changing his mind, then changing it back is the ban.
- [89:44]
A
Oh, yeah, you're right.
- [89:46]
B
There's no ban and then there's a ban and then there's no band. I don't know if there's any correlation between those two at all. But it's interesting that Tolkien did go back and forth on a couple of issues.
- [89:55]
A
He just completely goes back and forth. He niggles this story of Galadriel and her whole everything. Yeah, interesting stuff.
- [90:03]
B
And with that, we're straight into the story itself, where now Amroth is still the king of Lorien, not Lorinan. Yeah, interestingly, it is interesting that. I mean, that could just be. You're using the term for what people. Yeah, the readers might refer to it as. But he's now the son of an Amdir who died in The Last Alliance. Second Age 3434. So before we get into Amroth, what do we know about this Amdir fellow? Well, it turns out this is so often the case, we're talking not a lot.
- [90:33]
A
Not a lot at all.
- [90:34]
B
Not as much as we'd like.
- [90:35]
A
Nowhere near as much, though. I'll tell you what, after reading Galadriel and Celeborn and then opening up this story with Amauroth was king of Lorien after his father, AHU Amdir.
- [90:45]
B
Exactly. Record scratch.
- [90:47]
A
Yeah, it's a little bit of a what now? That's me. You might wonder how I got here. You know, that's how Amroth should start his story. So in a few episodes, when we get to Appendix B, in this chapter, we're going to read about another leader of Lorien by the name of Malgalad. He and his people followed Oropher, that's Thranduil's father, then king of the northern portion of the the Greenwood, to the last alliance.
- [91:10]
B
And these sylvan elves are described as being hardy and valiant, but also ill equipped, also independent, unwilling to be under Gil Galad's command. Then we read that Mal Galad and more than half his followers perished in the great battle of the de Gaulad.
- [91:28]
A
By the way, I thank you for correcting me. You didn't even say by the way. Alan, you're wrong. You could have. You're right, of course. De Gorlad, because you got the R
- [91:36]
B
and the L. I only realized that very recently.
- [91:39]
A
It's like Nargothrond because I've been saying Dagorlad, just like you used to say Nargothrond. But it's Nargothrond and it's Dagorlad because you got the rl, so you got the dual consonant sounds.
- [91:50]
B
Therefore, if you strictly follow the appendix
- [91:52]
A
E. Yeah, I might still slip now and then, but the official pronunciation should
- [91:57]
B
be de Gorlad, I think we don't know for sure, because that's true. Tolkien does.
- [92:02]
A
There are exceptions, and he does get some things wrong.
- [92:06]
B
So unless he explicitly says which it is.
- [92:08]
A
Yeah, that's fair.
- [92:09]
B
We can't be 100% sure. But I'm going with Dagorlad for now.
- [92:12]
A
All right, I'll do the other just to make people feel welcome. Christopher then explains that Malgalad of Lorien occurs nowhere else and is not said here to be the father of Amroth. On the other hand, Amdir, father of Amuroth, is twice said to have been slain in the battle of Dagorlad. And it seems, therefore, that Malgolad is. Can be simply equated with Amdir. But which name replaced the other? I cannot say. Yeah, interesting. So Malgalad and Amdir appear to be two names for the same character. That is to say, the father of Amaroth who was slain in the battle of Dagorlad. Yeah, but which name is which? Yeah, we don't know.
- [92:53]
B
On another note, while the word amdir without the long I is a word for hope, or looking up the long I hear amd in English, it's very hard to have a long vowel that isn't stressed. So the arm is stressed, but the dear has to be long. I apologize, I'm not getting it exactly right. But Amdir, the long vowel makes a difference.
- [93:15]
A
Right.
- [93:15]
B
The vowel length change. It's a different word if it's got a right.
- [93:18]
A
Because it's got a different element.
- [93:20]
B
Right, exactly. So it may actually be the deer that we find in a bunch of words an ending that means man or male. Yeah. So we get names like Barondir, Dirheil, Ameldir, and so on. Yeah.
- [93:36]
A
So it could just be something related to, you know, a male rather than a name for hope or looking up.
- [93:42]
B
Right, right.
- [93:43]
A
So having exhausted our vast stores of knowledge regarding Amaroth's father, we're done. Yeah, that's it.
- [93:49]
B
That's all.
- [93:50]
A
Whether it's Amdir or maybe Malgalad, we move to this now. King of Lorien and also not son of Galadriel and Celeborn.
- [93:57]
B
Right. And not surprisingly, after Sauron is defeated, Lorien enjoys an extended period of peace. And we're reminded that Amroth is Sindarin, while the people he rules are mostly Silvan.
- [94:09]
A
A reminder, of course, that both Sindarin and Silvan elves are originally of the tribe that you know of as the Teleri.
- [94:15]
B
And in fact, in today's mailbag, we'll. We'll answer a question that's specifically about that. I won't go into a bunch of detail now. Wait for the mailbag question. And we'll also, particularly linguistically dive into a little bit more of the differences in Appendix A of this chapter.
- [94:31]
A
Oh, yeah, yeah. Because that specifically deals with that. Right. So when in Rome, Amroth lives the way the Sylvan elves live, in the tall trees atop.
- [94:39]
B
Can you walk to Rome?
- [94:40]
A
Can you not? Dryshod from.
- [94:45]
B
Sorry.
- [94:45]
A
I love that. No, that's great. He lives up in the trees, because that's what the Sylvan elves do. But was this just a matter of living like a tree?
- [94:52]
B
Because Doggerland didn't exist, so the water table was too high. He had to go up in the trees.
- [94:58]
A
He had to walk all the way around. And then, of course, his feet got wet and. Yeah,
- [95:04]
B
okay.
- [95:06]
A
So was his idea of living in the tall trees just a matter of living like the people he ruled? No, the text makes it clear. He did that because he loves a woman named Nimrodel, and he'd loved her
- [95:19]
B
a very long time. So much so that he never married, since she would never marry him.
- [95:25]
A
Wow. And that's saying something. You're king, man.
- [95:27]
B
It's unrequited. Yeah, it's interesting, right?
- [95:30]
A
You need to produce an heir.
- [95:33]
B
Yeah.
- [95:33]
A
That's your obligation, dude. But he can't. He wants to marry her. And if she won't marry him, then if I can't have her, I won't have anybody. Yeah.
- [95:43]
B
This is interesting, though, because this is obviously one example of the female being of a lower status than the man.
- [95:52]
A
That's a good catch.
- [95:53]
B
Right? There's so many cases where almost always
- [95:56]
A
the man marries up.
- [95:57]
B
Yeah.
- [95:58]
A
But here they don't actually get married. They're going to, but they never pull it off. Which makes you wonder. Is that why? That's a very good catch. You're right, because we've got a Sindarin elf and a Sylvan elf. And it's not that she wasn't interested, by the way. It's not. She's like, ew, Amroth, ew. He's quite the catch. I mean, he's good looking, even for an elf. The text says he's also valiant. He's wise and he's the king.
- [96:22]
B
It's interesting that. Good looking even for an elf. Remember that said of Galadriel as well? Yes. I think in the first episode we talked about, she's described as even for an elf. And Amroth turns out to be the same, even though they're not related. Well, he's not.
- [96:36]
A
Not in this version. Right.
- [96:38]
B
In this version. But he's king and he's good looking and he's in love with her.
- [96:44]
A
He ticks all the boxes.
- [96:45]
B
He ticks all the boxes.
- [96:46]
A
The problem is he also ticks the Sindar box. And that is a deal breaker for her. She is hardcore Sylvan. She's angry at the Sindar who in her mind brought wars and destroyed the piece of old. And I gotta say, I found this really ironic because here you've got someone upset with the Gray Elves for bringing wars and destroying the piece of old when Thingol and the Gray Elves harbored that same animosity towards the Noltor.
- [97:12]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [97:13]
A
I mean, identical. Sort of blowing it out of proportion. Blaming all the ills on these newcomers. Oh, it's so fascinating to see this happen again.
- [97:24]
B
Yeah, yeah, exactly. She'll only speak the Sylvan tongue. And we're going to talk more about the language thing in a future episode because it's really interesting. The discussion we'll get into later covers both the Sylvan accent that we see in Lord of the Rings. So in Lord of the Rings, Frodo is an accent difference, but that's not the same thing.
- [97:47]
A
Right?
- [97:48]
B
Yeah. So that's Sindarin speaking. Sorry, that's Sylvan's speaking Sindarin with a. With an accent. Their accent, but not. Not their own language. Their own language largely died out.
- [97:59]
A
Yeah.
- [97:59]
B
But there are a few words. We'll get to this in, in a later episode. There are a few words that. That survived. So we have some words.
- [98:06]
A
There's not very many.
- [98:06]
B
Yeah, that came from Sylvan, which is actually a fun little trick I think, that Tolkien played, which is sometimes he really liked a word but couldn't make it work in the right language. And when that happens, he's like, oh, that's actually a Sylvan word. It can't be a Sindarin word. So I'm going to make it a silver word. But it's a great conceit that he has that he can do that.
- [98:30]
A
He would do that with some of the place names in Gondor too, changing them to being like, oh, this was a pre Numenorean element combined with a Sindarin name.
- [98:37]
B
Exactly. So it's the same sort of thing here.
- [98:40]
A
It's a great conceit.
- [98:42]
B
Sylvan word. And you get this. The same thing happens in ancient Greek. There are various words in ancient Greek that sort of don't work as Greek words coming from proto Indo European. And so it's speculated that they actually come from the language that was spoken in Greece prior to the Indo Europeans coming. So that there was a substrate. There were a group of people like the Silver Nails or the town of Agar. There's lots of analogies in Tolkien of people that were in a location and then outsiders come in and the language of the outsiders comes to dominate.
- [99:22]
A
Right. But there's a few little remnants here
- [99:24]
B
and there that stick around. Yeah. So you do get cases like that. And, you know, Tolkien would have been familiar with that, of course. And he's doing the same sort of thing here, saying there are these words that are spoken by the Sindar in the Third Age, but actually they come from the Silver language. And we'll get. We'll get into more of that in a couple of episodes.
- [99:43]
A
Looking forward to that. I just remember when we talked about this in the Lord of the Rings, when we mentioned Nimrodel, Sean and I laughed. We sort of made a joke about the. The fact that there's only like 15 words that we still have that are in Sylvan. So we talked about her basically having this really limited vocabulary. Like she could only tell him 15 words. Anyway, she lives alone apart from the rest of the people, probably because she can't talk to them. Just kidding. But that's also when we get a firm timestamp on when this story takes place. Third Age, 1981. That's the year the Dwarves abandoned Moria after the deaths of Durin VI and Nain I. Yeah.
- [100:19]
B
And in that year she flees from the Terror and. And heads south, followed by Amra. Yeah. And he finds it all the way down near the edge of Fongon Forest. And I say all the way down, but the text makes it clear. Fangorn used to be a lot closer to Lorien, so it was. Wasn't all that far. Right, more on this when we get to Appendix C. Lots of cool details in. In the appendices to this chapter.
- [100:41]
A
There really are. I mean, the appendices are actually where kind of a lot of the meat of the like really cool bits and pieces that you can connect to other stories are located. She, of course, did not want to go into Fangorn because the trees menaced her. And I thought this was interesting because here we are in third age, 1981, well over a thousand years before the War of the Ring. But Fangorn's already getting dark in that sense.
- [101:03]
B
Yeah.
- [101:04]
A
And it's just an interesting thought that they're already at that stage. So now we get what we get in every good rom com. A long debate. I love this. I absolutely love it. Like, I found you.
- [101:18]
B
Let's have a debate.
- [101:19]
A
But. But hey, whatever works, man. Because after the debate, you get a betrothal. It worked.
- [101:24]
B
But she puts a condition on it.
- [101:26]
A
She does.
- [101:26]
B
We'll get married. When you bring me to a land of peace. I'm wondering if that's a little bit of a single saying. You can marry a silver. I know it's not possible.
- [101:37]
A
It's literally an impossible task.
- [101:39]
B
Maybe it's harder than it sounds, apparently. And Amroth knows that, right? To do that, he has to leave lotion, even in the middle of a hard time. Right? The Balrog, the emptying of Moria, the stirring of dark things. Because there are now no lands of peace in Middle Earth.
- [101:54]
A
That's right. He knows the only answer is to sail west with her to the Undying Lands. And this does make me think that maybe indeed she was setting the impossible because she didn't necessarily know that she would be allowed to go. He's the one who has to explain to her.
- [102:08]
B
Right.
- [102:09]
A
Why that's the case. But yeah. So he mentions the haven in the south. That would be Ethelon, by the way. That's near the. The confluence of the Ringlow and the Morthon, possibly near where the hills of Agar were. Near where they empty into the sea.
- [102:22]
B
And he says we can go there and sail west because the Sindar remnant there still builds ships. It helps folks to sail. Right.
- [102:31]
A
And since she's not Sindar, he points out something I'd always wondered about. Which of the elves are allowed to sail west? So he says, it is said that the grace that the Valar gave to us. I don't know. I would want it in writing before I got onto a ship.
- [102:47]
B
I was going to say, is he telling the.
- [102:48]
A
I don't want to find out the hard way that he's wrong because I don't know what happens. Do they just send you back? Or do they just sort of like, end you? You can't be here.
- [102:59]
B
So Poof thrown off the boat and you have to swim.
- [103:07]
A
Well, luckily, all the Elves have that ability, except apparently for Amroth, which we'll get to the irony. Yeah. So he tells her that any of the Elves who made the Great Journey, that is to say who started the Great Journey, didn't necessarily complete it. Even those who didn't make it to the coast, and certainly even those who never made it to Valinor. Basically, he's saying what, all of the Eldar, Right?
- [103:31]
B
Yeah, yeah, pretty much. It's. It's. As long as they started. And we'll get a little bit into this in the mailbag question as well, this distinction. But as long as. As long as you weren't the group that refused to even begin the journey.
- [103:45]
A
Yeah.
- [103:46]
B
It doesn't matter if you stopped along the way. It's. It's okay. Which makes sense in as much. I mean, we can. Here's why I think that's fair. Why. Why make the. Cut off the cinder.
- [103:58]
A
Yeah.
- [103:58]
B
Because the cinder. So. Or Ciodan, or all of them stopped. They didn't go all the way. But why does. Where you stop. Why does that matter? Where's the line? Right.
- [104:09]
A
Yeah. Where's the line if the line isn't Valinor? If the line isn't only the Kahlokwendi can return. Well, then you have to decide.
- [104:16]
B
You've got to have made it over to Beleriand. Is it that Misty Mountains just past the Misty Mountains? No, it turns out to be. As long as you started. Just as long as you just started. You didn't refuse.
- [104:28]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [104:29]
B
Right from the outset.
- [104:30]
A
That's a fair division because. Yeah. Otherwise it's so arbitrary. Well, this group made it to Balerion, so they get to go. Your group stopped before the Misty Mountains, so they don't get to go.
- [104:40]
B
Right.
- [104:41]
A
Like, really? That's odd. We were still willing.
- [104:44]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [104:45]
A
It's an interesting.
- [104:46]
B
We were just scared of the mountains.
- [104:48]
A
Right. Yeah.
- [104:49]
B
Why is that a. Why would that be a.
- [104:51]
A
Why would you stop us? Just because.
- [104:52]
B
Disqualifying.
- [104:54]
A
Oh, well. Yep. She can go. So that seems reasonable. Especially when you realize that both the Sindar and the Sylvan Elves are of the same tribe. As we'll talk about in the mail book.
- [105:05]
B
Yeah. Yep. But, yeah. Would you like to continue reading, Alan?
- [105:09]
A
I will indeed. Elsewhere it is told and then Christopher interjects, but not in any extant writing. Can I just snicker at that? Because, man, that's funny. Tolkien writing elsewhere, it is told, and his son says, no it's not.
- [105:26]
B
You didn't. You didn't write it down, dear reader.
- [105:28]
A
Actually, it was not. Elsewhere it is told 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 shipload and they had only one seaworthy ship. In this they were now preparing to depart and to leave Middle Earth. 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 there, 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 Berfalas and lost the light. Elven ship was torn from its moorings and driven into the wild waters and 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 Edisea. 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. Oh, this is the sad story.
- [108:16]
B
It's a very sad story. Now we skipped a bit at the beginning where the narrative tells us there isn't room to talk about their trip to Gondor.
- [108:24]
A
That's right.
- [108:25]
B
But it gives us a vague timeline. Sometime during the rain of Earnil ii.
- [108:31]
A
And a reminder, he's the one that Gondor turned to after the death of Ondoher and his sons. And instead of Arvedui, the then king of Arthedain, Earnil II's reign was from third age 1945 to 2043. So it's nearly a century long window and a minimum of 42 years after Nimrodel fled and she and Amroth had their betrothal debate, which I just like. Do you hire a photographer for that?
- [109:04]
B
Do you send, do you send out invitations?
- [109:06]
A
I mean, I mean to a patrol the debates. Do you get a moderator? Actually, maybe.
- [109:12]
B
Maybe, yeah.
- [109:14]
A
So where we picked up was this spot where Tolkien writes elsewhere it is told and Christopher says, nah, it's not written anywhere. I love that
- [109:24]
B
we get a summary of the story then, since we don't get it elsewhere. Yeah, supposedly told. Yeah. Presumably this is a textual ruin, not something that Tolkien actually wrote and is referencing. I don't know. But they got separated somewhere during the journey. Yeah, Amroth, looking for her, went to Etherlond, which wasn't looking much like a haven anymore. A handful of people, one ship ready to leave. A little different than the way he pitched it to her. They're happy to see Amroth, but they're not going to wait for Nimrodel because they think she didn't make it. They say in the mountains are many unfriendly men and evil things.
- [110:00]
A
Well, that just leads me to ask, what was the route? Right. Well, if she'd gone through Gondor, she would have gotten help. The implication being that she probably didn't. I mean, how did they get there from Lorien? One would think sort of like the Fellowship. Right. Boats down the Anduin to the Iman Muil, then through Rohan on the west side of the Anduin and past Minas Tirith around the eastern end of the White Mountains, and then come across Gondor sort of in a southwesterly direction towards Belfalas. But what we learn of the Gil Rhine and the reason for its name suggests that she went straight across the mountains. Like straight from Fangorn through Calinar Than and then over the White Mountains. Yeah, and this must be where they got Separated? How in the world does that happen? How do they get separated?
- [110:47]
B
I don't know.
- [110:49]
A
It's such a sad story. We would know if elsewhere it had actually been told. Thank you, Christopher. So the year's winding down. It's about to get cold and stormy. These elves know, look, the time to get sailing is now. But they delay for a few weeks out of pity for this newcomer. Right. For Amroth as he waits. Still and importantly for the story. They are all staying on the ship because that's where their supplies are. Because their homes have been stripped so they can take their stuff with them.
- [111:20]
B
Yep. Yep. And finally a huge storm comes down from the north and causes major damage. Oh, yeah, right. The ships of Gondor were washed out to sea and sank. And even the small elven ship was also swept away. But it wouldn't have sunk because Elf. Elf.
- [111:37]
A
Yeah, pretty much. Elf. Ropes come down when you tell them. I mean, it's Elf.
- [111:41]
B
I mean, that's how Boromir.
- [111:43]
A
Yeah.
- [111:44]
B
Survived the Rauros.
- [111:45]
A
Goes down the Falls of Rauros. What? Still intact and still in the boat.
- [111:50]
B
Exactly.
- [111:52]
A
Folded up. Yeah.
- [111:54]
B
Instead it's washed south and never heard from again. But the narrative tells us it eventually made its way to Eressia.
- [112:01]
A
And that's good news for those folks. It's not great news for Amroth because in that heartbreaking ending, and I love that line, the way it tells us all this stuff, and then it just says, but it did not bring Amroth thither. Oh, I mean that. You just know right then, this story is now going bad. You know, the rest of this is just gonna make you sad. And it does. It didn't bring Amroth there, and it didn't bring Nimrodil either, because apparently Amroth slept a little bit through the beginning of the storm because by the time he wakes up, the ship is already out to sea. And out of desperation, he jumps off the ship into the water and starts swimming back to shore for Nimrodil Man.
- [112:42]
B
And the elves on the ship who'd welcomed Amroth and waited on his behalf could see him fighting and trying to get to shore. They couldn't do anything as they were at the mercy of the storm. But that's the last time he was ever seen in Middle Earth. It's interesting, they say in Middle Earth.
- [112:58]
A
Well, yeah, I mean, because his. His feo would be called to the Halls of Mandos and he would eventually get a new. A new body. He'd be rehoused. But It's a pretty rare thing to be rehoused and return to Middle Earth, I mean.
- [113:14]
B
Oh, extremely rare.
- [113:16]
A
I mean, to the point that
- [113:20]
B
kind
- [113:20]
A
of one finger, Pretty much just one finger. One finger named Glorfindel. But it is interesting because I thought elves could swim, man. I mean, that was certainly the implication I got from the Amazon show. Yeah.
- [113:37]
B
Why can't they just wear the stuff that the boats are made out of. If the boats can't think?
- [113:47]
A
Yeah, that's right. Just grab a couple pieces of wood.
- [113:51]
B
Life jackets.
- [113:52]
A
They must be that special wood. I wonder if they're the special wood
- [113:55]
B
that Kate Winslet was on the Titanic.
- [113:58]
A
No, no, no. My goodness. All right. Wow.
- [114:04]
B
You weren't expecting a Titanic.
- [114:05]
A
No, I was not expecting a Titanic reference. You caught me off guard. As for Nimrodel, we know nothing more of her, just legends. One of those legends, though it still says we don't know what happened to her, is the song of Nimrodel that Legolas sings when they cross the stream. Named after her in Lorien.
- [114:22]
B
So before we read that, I just want to ask that. Or maybe we can discuss it afterwards. Just the order of composition, given that this is in Lord of the Rings. Let's talk about that afterwards. We'll read it first and then we'll talk about when did Tolkien conceive of this story in his head, given that this poem existed.
- [114:39]
A
Exactly. James, take the first couple of stanzas. I'll pick up after that.
- [114:42]
B
Yeah. An elven maid there was of old a shining star by day her mantle white was hemmed with gold her shoes of silver gray A star was bound upon her brows A light was on her hair as sun upon the golden boughs In Lorien the fair her hair
- [115:02]
A
was long, her limbs were white and fair she was, and free and in the wind she went as light as leaf of linden tree Beside the falls of Nimrodel by wood water clear and cool her voice as falling silver fell into the shining pool where now she wanders none can tell in sunlight or in shade for lost of yore was Nimrodel and in the mountains strayed. Beautiful stuff, but. Yeah, that does bring into question time of composition of all of these elements.
- [115:37]
B
Well, especially that line as leaf of linden tree. That line itself goes back to Baron and Luthien.
- [115:47]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [115:49]
B
Doesn't it?
- [115:50]
A
I believe it does. I'm certain it does.
- [115:52]
B
Is it?
- [115:52]
A
Exactly.
- [115:53]
B
I mean, that idea, that leaf of that. That leaf of linden tree is one of the earliest version of the Baron and Luthien story. Yeah.
- [116:00]
A
I mean, what is the connection? Are we trying to draw a Baron Luthien to Amroth Nimrodil connection? I don't know. It is a beautiful phrase.
- [116:10]
B
I wonder if it's one of Tolkien's things of just. I'm gonna reuse. He does reuse an idea from the legendarium in Lord of the Rings, because of course, this is in. We're in Lord of the Rings here. He's bringing in bits of Beren and Luthien, I was gonna say.
- [116:26]
A
I mean, Beren and Luthien would be such an influential poem that poets later writing about Nimrodel would reuse those phrases.
- [116:35]
B
It's like people using phrases from the King James Bible or from Shakespeare or something like that. They just almost become fossilized. They're phrases.
- [116:43]
A
Exactly. They're part of. And they become language.
- [116:45]
B
Yeah.
- [116:46]
A
They become more than the words themselves because they carry the message that's been there for, you know, hundreds of years.
- [116:52]
B
Yeah. So I suspect that's what it is. If you want to say that somebody is. Is light, you say is light of Linda Tree.
- [117:01]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [117:02]
B
That was just the expression. But again, so coming back to the composition time, this is a story. We don't really get much of the story. This is just a description of a. Of a Elven maid. Right. There's really not a huge amount of story here other than the Shining, the mention of the shining pool and where she wanders. I wonder how much Tolkien had in mind of the larger story that we just read when he wrote this poem.
- [117:35]
A
That's a good question. I mean, I can tell from the collected poems that Hammond and Skull put out. Right. They edited the volume, the three volume set. They say that this was written in 1940, so. And then revisions follow. But. Yeah. How much of this.
- [117:51]
B
So during the writing of.
- [117:52]
A
Yeah, during the early writing of the Lord of the Rings. I mean, this is so.
- [117:56]
B
I wonder if it was later that he started thinking more about who was this Nimrodel and what was the deal that I was talking about in that poem.
- [118:03]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The leaf on linden tree was in the very first draft of the poem, though, as I'm looking at in the
- [118:09]
B
collected poems of the Nimmerdale poem.
- [118:12]
A
Yeah, yeah. So that was already in there from the. From the very first, you know, draft. Draft. A. But yeah, that is fascinating. What changes was he going to make? What changes did he make? Yeah, well, I did find something in their editorial notes on this poem that might be useful. They write the song or the larger Work from which Legolas supposedly drew is mentioned later in the Lord of the Rings when one from the principality of Dol Amroth, Hill of Amroth, named after the lost king, would sing amid the gloom some staves of the lay of Nimrodel or other songs of the Vale of the River Anduin out of vanished years. Tolkien later wrote a short tale concerning Nimrodel and Amroth published in Unfinished Tales. So talking about this version, but with no addition to the lay. So it's as though the story that he's writing here is a fleshed out prose version of the lay. He wasn't looking to make changes. It was in fact consistent with what he'd written in 1940.
- [119:10]
B
Yeah, so I guess in Return of the King we find out there was a lost king. Amroth. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [119:17]
A
We don't know who that Amroth is
- [119:19]
B
and that it's tied to this poem that Legolas recites part of. Yeah, that's all we get from Lord of the Rings.
- [119:25]
A
That is all we get.
- [119:26]
B
It's fleshed out in what we just read from unfinished and apparently the drafts
- [119:30]
A
dated from everywhere from 1938 to 1954. According to. According to Skull and Hammond. That is such a great resource by the way, folks, if you really enjoy the poetry and after having skipped it for the first decade, I can say that I have been enjoying it immensely since pick that set up. It's. It's absolutely worthwhile. I also have it in ebook form, which makes it really easy to research things. But the books themselves are lovely, absolutely lovely.
- [119:58]
B
And also I do have to give a plug for poems.digitaltalking.com yes, absolutely, please. Our nascent website that also provides an index to the. To the poems based largely on Skull and Hammond's work. But there'll be a lot more coming there in terms of searchability, not just for words, but things like rhyming schemes and alliteration and stuff like that. Oh, something that'll be good. Look forward to in the coming months and years.
- [120:25]
A
Fascinating. Where now he wanders, none can tell in storeroom or in publishing. For lost of yore was Barlamond and in the pony strayed. That doesn't rhyme. James. What does Barliman have in his bag for us today besides a new poet?
- [120:40]
B
Maybe it does in some. Maybe it does in Sylvan.
- [120:42]
A
That's right. In the original Sylvan.
- [120:44]
B
In the original Sylvan.
- [120:45]
A
In the original Klingon.
- [120:47]
B
So Jeff from Rhode island asks a question that I picked out Because I think it's relevant to a lot of what we've been discussing the last few episodes. Jeff asks us to explain the different branches of the Teleran elves.
- [120:59]
A
Oh, just of the Teleran elves. Okay, good. Well, that's an answerable question, because if you bring them all in, it's too confusing.
- [121:05]
B
Well, let me briefly say something about the larger group, just because it sort of helps. I think you need to know the bigger story to understand what was going on with the tellery. But basically the elves woke up in Cuivienen and they woke up in different locations around Cuivienen. And the first three elves to wake up started basically gathering the elves that they could find. And the. The names of these first three elves are very, very creatively. First, second and third is basically their names, right? Imin, Tata and Enel are their names. Yeah. And so Enel was the. The third elf to wake up and they went round gathering the other elves. There are 144 elves in total. And they ended up essentially grouped into three groups, depending on which of the first three elves found you.
- [121:57]
A
I wonder. I wonder, by the way, were they offended if you called them one Gross as offended?
- [122:04]
B
Yeah, probably not. They probably liked the number 144.
- [122:07]
A
Yeah.
- [122:07]
B
But the first group that were literally called the firsts, the Minyar, There are only 14 of those. The second group, the Tatya, there were 56. And the third group, the Nelya, there were 74. And Nelya literally means the thirds. That's what the Nelya means. So there were 74 of them. And there's a reference to these. So these are the major divisions of the elves right from the very beginning, right from the moment they woke up. And there's even reference to this in the Hobbit, which I love. This is one of the things that blows my mind about the Hobbit. Imagine reading in 1937 that there are three types of elves, light elves, deep elves and sea elves that got separated, having to wait 40 years to find out what on earth that was about. So what happened though, was, you know, Orme found them. They get invited to. Cutting a long story short, they get invited to move to Amman, basically.
- [123:02]
A
Yeah.
- [123:03]
B
And all of the Minyar decide to go. The firsts, most of the Tatyar decide to go, and just over half of the Nelyar decide to go. And they appoint. I don't know why. The appointment of the leaders to lead the journey were not the original elves that founded them. So they're not Imin, Tata and Enel, the leader of the Minyar was Ingwe. The leader of the Tatia was Finwe. And the Nelyar, the group of 46, they were a bigger group. So they got two brothers to lead them, Elwe and Olwe.
- [123:40]
A
Yep, yep, we know them exactly.
- [123:43]
B
So Ingwe, the group that Ingwe led became the Vanyar. The group that Finwe led were the Noldor. And the group that Elwe and Alwe led were called the Teleri. Yeah.
- [123:53]
A
And they were the more numerous tribe.
- [123:57]
B
Yeah, the more numerous tribe. Now, remember, not all of them went. So there was. There was a. The first sort of split happened when there was a group that decided not to go at all.
- [124:07]
A
Yeah. That said, no, we're not interested.
- [124:09]
B
The Avari. Right. The Unwilling, they weren't willing to go at all. And there were some. The Tatyar and quite a few of the Nelya. So that's sort of the first split. And we talked about those in the episode.
- [124:22]
A
Right.
- [124:22]
B
The Avari are not allowed to go on the ship, according to Amroth, because they never agreed to go anyway. So the term Teleri, which literally means the lasts, so it's not really much of an improvement from the thirds. They've gone from the thirds to the lasts. They didn't call themselves that. They called themselves the Lindar or the Singers, I guess. Yeah, they like to sing.
- [124:41]
A
There'll be no singing here.
- [124:45]
B
So the Vanyar went off, the Noldor went off, the Tellery went off, traveling west ultimately to go to Amman. Right.
- [124:51]
A
But the Tellary, they're the ones that had all the splits. And that's what his question's about.
- [124:56]
B
Right, Exactly. So what? All of the Vanya made it. All of the Noldor made it.
- [125:02]
A
Many of the Noldor returned. But that's a different story. That's another very different story.
- [125:06]
B
Exactly. So the first split amongst the Teleri happened when they got to the Anduin. Yeah, yeah, they got to the Anduin. They could see the Misty mountains off in the distance. And in one version of the story at least, Morgoth had actually built the Misty Mountains to basically stop them, stop this very journey that they're undertaking. But one group, and remember, we're only talking about 46. I forget this.
- [125:31]
A
I know that there was a small group.
- [125:33]
B
You imagine that there's this huge group. So the, The. I mean, there was only 14 Vanya. 14 Vanya. And then I. I can't remember the. How many of the 56 Noldor went. Most of them. And then. And then 46 of these. The Teller, but a smaller group of them led by Lenwe.
- [125:51]
A
Yep.
- [125:51]
B
And you notice all the names end in Wei.
- [125:53]
A
Right.
- [125:54]
B
At this point, Lenway split off. Didn't even want to cross the Anduin.
- [125:58]
A
No.
- [125:58]
B
And instead went south and they became the Nandor.
- [126:02]
A
Right.
- [126:03]
B
So when we talk about the Nandor, they are the. The first elves that split off at the Anduin.
- [126:08]
A
And remember, if we. If we talk about the names, you know, you said they just name them what they are, like the first, the second, the third. This is kind of the same. The Nandor's name means those who turn back exactly what it says on the tin.
- [126:19]
B
Then the next split happens when one of the brothers that are leading the tellery meets a girl, gets a little distracted in Nun. Elmoth meets Melian, of course, and is, you know, falls under a trance for many, many years. And a bunch of the Tellery decide to hang around and wait for him. A bunch of them decide to continue going on. So the people. There must have been some sort of split of the Alway versus Elway crowd. And Alway's subgroup continued. And Elway's group are like, we can't leave. We're gonna wait for him. Yeah, we're gonna wait for him.
- [127:02]
A
So how would you feel if part of your people went on without you? You might feel forsaken.
- [127:10]
B
Exactly.
- [127:10]
A
Which is what they are. They are the Eglaf.
- [127:12]
B
They are. So the Eglaf is one of the names for those people, the Sindar as well?
- [127:16]
A
Well, the Sindar is the overarching name of. Of all of those ones that never made it over. Right.
- [127:22]
B
Well, except for the Nandor.
- [127:24]
A
Well, of the. I'm sorry, of the. Of the ones that made it past the Misty Mountains.
- [127:29]
B
We'll get to that. So you've got. You've got a bunch of them that stay looking for Elwe, but then there was another group that continued on, didn't wait for Elwe. They made it to the coast. And then we get the third split, and the third split amongst the Teleri happened under Cirdan, or no way was his exactly Crania name. So they. They were the group that didn't stay waiting for Elway, but when they got to the shores, they really liked the shores and didn't want to actually make the trip west. They stayed on the. On the coastline. And so that's the Falathrim, who were led by Kirdan. And then you get 20 out of the 46 did actually go on the island ferry.
- [128:17]
A
The island ferry, yep.
- [128:18]
B
They'd Missed the boat, the. The island ferry. They'd missed Ulmo's island ferry that. That the Vanyar and the Noldor had taken. But they got a second chance. 20 of them went. So again, it's really fascinating to think about these. These numbers, the. The Teleri that made it all the way to. To Amman. Eventually they went. The island ferry ended up becoming Tola Essayr. And then they, after that, moved to Eldamar and built Alqualande. So the people that made it the Tellary, that. The original Tellary that made it to Alqualande were only 20 in number. Wow. Wow. And so you left at this stage with the Nandor who had broken off at the Anduin, the Sindar who had stayed for Thingal, the Falathrim who had stayed on the coast with Kirdan.
- [129:03]
A
Right.
- [129:03]
B
And then Falmari, they went all the way to Amman. And then what eventually happened, you know, Eloi, AKA Thingol, came out of his trance, essentially got appointed the king of the Sindar, and he united the Cirdan's group as well. So the Falathrim are still considered Sindar?
- [129:23]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [129:24]
B
And then the final twist of all
- [129:26]
A
this, because there's gotta be one more.
- [129:29]
B
Because it's complicated, right?
- [129:31]
A
It's very complicated.
- [129:32]
B
Some of the Nandor, led by a guy called Denethor, no relation, definitely no relation, traveled west to Assyrian.
- [129:41]
A
They're like, you know what? Let's go over there after all. Let's cross those mountains.
- [129:45]
B
Yeah, exactly. Eventually. And they got re. They didn't go all the way into Beleriand, but they stayed on the. On the. Certainly on the west coast of the Ereduan in Assyrian. And they became the Laiquendi, the green elves. The green elves. And then the remaining Nandor that stayed are the Sylvan elves or wood elves, the Tawarwaeth. So you've got the. So the Sylvan elves are those subpart of the Nandor that stayed east of the Misty Mountains. The Laiquendi, or Green elves, are the ones that eventually, the subset of the Nandor that eventually went to Balerion, you've got the Sindar proper that stayed in the forest with Thingol. You've got the Falathrum that are still technically a type of Sindar that went to the coast. And then you've got the Falmari that went to Al Kulandi.
- [130:37]
A
The ones who we think of when we think of the Teleri in Amman, like at Al Kalande, the ones that
- [130:42]
B
built the ships that were burned and so it's a little confusing because the term teleri can mean any one of those groups.
- [130:48]
A
I mean, because the teleri is the entire tribe. The teleri includes all of those.
- [130:52]
B
They're the 46 or the descendants of the 46 of the Nellya that went. That started the journey. As long as they started the journey, even if they stopped at the Anduin, they're. They're considered telling.
- [131:03]
A
That's a lot of splits. That is, well, a lot.
- [131:07]
B
I bet. I'm glad Jeff asked this question because it's a good chance to review it because we talk about this stuff all the time. We talk about somebody being Silvan Nandor
- [131:16]
A
or sort of laying it out and explaining how they got there is really helpful.
- [131:20]
B
Yeah. So thanks for that, Jeff.
- [131:22]
A
Thank you, James. You pretty much took that one by the horns. I just got to sit here. It was great.
- [131:28]
B
No, I appreciate.
- [131:28]
A
You do that anytime.
- [131:30]
B
I love this kind of stuff. So I gave one version of the story. As with everything in Tolkien, there are subtleties.
- [131:36]
A
Yeah, that is true, folks. Thank you for joining us for another episode of the Prancing Pony podcast. Please join us again next week when we'll discover that this entire narrative was the result of an etymological discussion about the names of rivers.
- [131:50]
B
Why doesn't that surprise me anymore?
- [131:51]
A
Seriously.
- [131:52]
B
Alan and I were want to thank the members of Team PPP editor Jordan Reynnels Barlow and Becca Davis, Social media manager Casey Hilsey, Event and Patreon, community coordinator Katie McKenna, graphic artist Megan Collins, video editor Yonatan Lazens and website guru Phil Dean.
- [132:07]
A
And please take a minute to check out the prancingponypodcast.com that's where you'll find show notes, outtakes, Prancing Pony ponderings, and our fully revamped PPP merch store where you can get all sorts of cool, cool PPP merch using the amazing chapter art that Megan's been doing for us for three plus seasons. Now, we're all about the books here
- [132:26]
B
at the Prancing Pony podcast, so be sure to also visit our library page. We try to make sure that any book we've mentioned on the show is linked there for you to purchase. We do get a small amount of compensation when you make your purchase, so
- [132:37]
A
thank you for that indeed. And we also want to thank our patrons at the Kirdan's contribution tier. I'll start with Demay in Alaska, Chad in Texas, Lance in New Jersey, Joseph in Michigan, Kathy from North Carolina, Brian in the uk, Jerry from Washington, Irwin from the Netherlands, Ben in Minnesota, Anthony in Texas, Zach, sue in Illinois, Joshua in Massachusetts, Lucy in Texas, Erica in Texas, Vivian in California, James in Massachusetts and Ann in Kentucky.
- [133:04]
B
There's also Sean in New Jersey, Mason in California, Maureen from Massachusetts, Olivia in London, Robert in Arizona, Nick in Wisconsin, Lewis in South Carolina, Thomas in Germany, Craig in California, Kevin in Massachusetts, Joe in Maryland, D Scott in California, Jeffrey in Michigan, Paul in Colorado, David from Connecticut, and Teresa from Texas. Thank you all so very much for your support indeed.
- [133:30]
A
Thank you.
- [133:31]
B
Make sure you don't miss any episodes of the Prancing Pony Podcast. Subscribe now throughout the Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast app.
- [133:39]
A
One last thing. As always, don't forget to send your thoughts, comments, and most of all, your legends concerning Nimrodel's fate to barliman@theprancingponypodcast.com Now,
- [133:50]
B
Barleyman does have a lot of mail to sort through, though, so we'll try to get to you just as soon as we're able.
- [133:54]
A
Indeed, as always, folks, this has been far too short a time to spend among such excellent and admirable listeners.
- [134:01]
B
But until next time, may you rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill.