The Nature of Middle-earth
Page 38
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fn4 Men also, and doubtless from them also much was learned. But no question of their “restoration” arose. For this was not in the power of the Valar. It is said that they too dwelt in the Halls of Waiting assigned to their kind, but they were not judged, and abode there only until summoned by Eru, and departed whither neither the Valar nor the Elves knew.
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IX Elvish Journeys on Horseback
fn1 Assuming a latitude of about 50° N, and an astronomical situation not greatly different from ours.
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fn2 At need he could, for at least 2 days together, cover 100 miles a day — and of course in desperate flight or pursuit go faster still, though this would be wearisome, and exhausting to his horse, even if watering was available.
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fn3 Now read Gevolon < Dwarf-name Gabilān (‘great river’).
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fn4 In Map [cf. XI:331] Sarn Athrad, but this must be changed to Harathrad ‘Southern Ford’ (or Athrad Daer) in contrast to the much-used northern Ford where the River was not yet very swift or deep, nearly due east of Eöl’s house (72 miles distant).
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XI Lives of the Númenóreans
fn1 The Númenóreans were monogamous, as is later said. No one, of whatever rank, could divorce a husband or wife, nor take another spouse in the lifetime of the first. Marriage was not entered into by all. There was (it appears from occasional statements in the few surviving tales or annals) a slightly less number of women than men, at any rate in the earlier centuries. But apart from this numerical limitation, there was always a small minority that refused marriage, either because they were engrossed in lore or other pursuits, or because they had failed to obtain the spouse whom they desired and would seek for no other.
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fn2 Since in matters of growth, which included the conception and bearing of children, the Númenórean development differed little in speed from that of ordinary Men, these intervals seem long. But as has been said their mental interests were dominant; and also they gave great and concentrated attention to any matter that they took up. The matter of children, therefore, being of highest importance, was one that occupied most of the attention of the mother during bearing and infancy, and except in great households cast a great deal of the daily labour upon the father. Both were glad for a while to return to other neglected pursuits. But also (it was said by the Númenóreans themselves) they were in this matter more like the Eldar than other kinds of Men: in the begetting and still more in the bearing of a child far more of their vigour both of body and mind was expended (for the longevity of the later generations was, though a grace or gift, transmitted mediately by the parents). A rest both of body and will was, therefore, needed, especially by the women. After the conception of a child indeed desire for union became dormant for a while, in both men and women, though longer among the mothers.
This dominance was seen in other matters. If the Númenóreans were not lustful, they did not think the love of men and women less important or of less delight than did other Men. On the contrary they were steadfast lovers; and any breaches in the bonds and affection between parents, or between them and their children were thought great evils and sorrows. So with the delights of eating and drinking. Until the Shadow came there were in Númenor few gluttons or drunkards. No one ate or drank to excess, or indeed much at any one time. They esteemed good food, which was plentiful, and expended care and art in its cooking and serving. But the distinction between a “Feast” and an ordinary meal consisted rather in this: in the adornments of the table, in the music, and in the merriment of many eating together, than in the food; though naturally at such feasts food and wines of more rare and choice sorts would sometimes appear.
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fn3 Thus to mention the case of Erendis, wife of Tar-Aldarion, concerning whom there were several tales made (one has survived), since the events were held important: both as a rare case of dissension between the married, and because they caused an alteration in the laws of succession. She was not of the Line of Elros, but came of a Bëorian family of the West, who though descended from a kinswoman of Beren, were among the relatively short-lived. Her marriage with Aldarion (then Heir to the Sceptre) was delayed by his voyages until S.A. 870. Since she was born in 771, she was then of 99 years: that is, nearly 36, or indeed with regard to the shorter life-span of her people 38. After the birth of their child, Ankalimë, Aldarion went again oversea; and on his return late in 882 she was of years 111; that is, just over 38 (or in her family nearly 41), her expectation of children, and her desire for them, thus fast waning. In her anger (for she thought his departures wilful and selfish, though this was not in the main true), she rejected Aldarion, and they did not again dwell together nor have any more children. It was for this reason, and to obtain control of their daughter Ankalimë, to whom Erendis clung, that Tar-Aldarion, soon after he became king, altered the Law of Succession, so that a king’s daughter, if he had no male heir (and later, if she were his eldest child and all her brothers younger) might, if she were willing, succeed to the Sceptre.
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fn4 Ankalimë, daughter of Tar-Aldarion, who became the first Ruling Queen of Númenor, was exceptional in many ways. She was extremely long-lived (413 years); she had the longest reign (205 years) of any Ruler of Númenor after Elros; and she married very late: in her 127th year (age about 41) producing a son, Anárion, in her 130th year. With regard to more normal successions, it may be noted that Tar-Meneldur, born in S.A. 543, succeeded in 740 in his 197th year. He would in the usual course have probably resigned about 925 (when 382 years old, and after a reign of 185 years); his heir Aldarion would then have been 225 years old. Actually for domestic and political reasons he resigned in 883, and lived on in retirement (engaged in his favourite pursuit of astronomy) until 942. Thus Aldarion succeeded when 183 years old (age about 52) and had a long reign of 192 years, resigning in 1075, and dying in 1098.
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fn5 Sicknesses or other bodily disorders were very rare in Númenor until the latter years. This was due both to the special grace of health and strength given to the race as a whole, but especially due to the blessing of the land itself; and also in some measure no doubt to its situation far out in the Great Sea: animals were also mostly free from disease. But the few cases of sickness provided a practical function, so far as one was needed, for the continued study of hröangolmë (or physiology and medicine) in which the practisers of simple leechcraft among the Edain had received much instruction from the Eldar, and in which they were able still to learn from the Eressëans, so long as they would. In the first days of the coming of Númenórean ships to the shores of Middle-earth it was indeed their skill in healing, and their willingness to give instruction to all who would receive it, that made the Númenóreans most welcomed and esteemed.
Since some of the Númenórean crews that went on the first long voyages of exploration (far south and east of Lindon) fell sick or contracted diseases prevalent in the lands that they visited, it was feared by many in Númenor that the Venturers or explorers might bring back disease to the land. It was this fear in especial that made Tar-Meneldur opposed to his son Tar-Aldarion’s longer voyages, and caused a coolness between father and son for a long time. But it was found that those of the sick who were brought back living (few in fact died abroad before the actual settlements of Númenóreans in Middle-earth) soon recovered fully in their own land, and their diseases were not propagated.
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XIII Of the Land and Beasts of Númenor
fn1 The lower slopes of the Menel-tarma were gentle and partly grass-covered, but the mountain grew ever steeper, and the last 500 feet were in places unscalable, save by the climbing road.
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fn2 It seems to have been long before the Númenóreans themselves ventured far to sea in ship, after the Elvish steersmen had returned, taking with them most of the original vessels of the migration. But they had shipwrights who had been instructed by the Eldar; and from these beginnings they soon devised vessels more suitable to their own uses. The first ships of heavier draught were made for the coastwise traffic between ports.
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fn3 The increase was slow, in spite of the absence of disease and the rarity of death by misadventure, because of the long lives of the Númenóreans in which they produced few children: the average in each “generation” being somewhat more than three times half the total number of the generation, less than four to each possible marriageable pair. At least one third of the original immigrants produced no children in Númenor.
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XVI Galadriel and Celeborn
fn1 The stouter and more spreading trees, such as oaks and beeches, were called in C.E. galadā ‘great growth’; though this distinction was not always observed in Quenya, and disappeared in Sindarin. In S. orn < *ornē fell out of common use and was used only in verse and songs, though it survived in many names, of trees and persons. All trees were called galað < *galadā.
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fn2 Derivatives were *nadmā > Q. nanwa ‘a (large) bowl’ or similar artefact; *nandā ‘hollow’ (not used of things empty inside but those open above); *nandē ‘a valley, bottom’, originally used only of not very large areas the sides of which were part of their own configuration. Vales or valleys of great extent, plains at the feet of mountains, etc. had other names. As also had the very steep-sided valleys in the mountains such as Rivendell. Those such as the valley of Gondolin which were more or less circular, but deeply concave, and had high mountains at the rim were called *tumbu. The vale of Gondolin was actually called iTumbo (in full i Tumbo Tarmacorto ‘the vale of the high-mountain circle’, in Sindarin Tum Orchorod) and usually in S. Tumlaðen ‘Wide valley’.
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XVII Silvan Elves and Silvan Elvish
fn1 Hence they were called by the Vanyar and Noldor the Teleri, the backward; but those who eventually reached Valinor retained their own name (Lindar, or in their tongue Lindai). Lindarin (L) is thus used for the language of the Teleri of Valinor, in many ways the most archaic and least changed of the Eldarin languages.
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fn2 These at that remote time appear to have been continuous with the White Mountains.
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fn3 Probably that mountain afterwards known as Caraðras; though unless its awe-inspiring peak was magnified in legend, it was then loftier than in later ages. “Under” plainly means “under the shadow of”; for there were as yet no Dwarves in those mountains, and the mines of Moria had not been begun. Neither, fortunately for the Eldar, had the Orks of Morgoth yet reached those regions.
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fn4 In Valinor the conditions were different. Change though it was imperceptibly slow proceeded even in the Blessed Realm; but unheeded change in speech was controlled by memory and design, and the chief changes, which were considerable, were due to changes in “taste” and to inventiveness both in vocabulary and the devices of language.
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fn5 Their divergence might be compared with that of the Scandinavian dialects from the English at the time of the Norse settlements in England, though it was in some respects somewhat greater, and in some regions (notably Lórien) mixed language developed, in which Sindarin was dominant but was infected by many words and names of Silvan origin.
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fn6 He was the father of Thranduil, father of Legolas.
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fn7 Oropher was of Sindarin origin (cf. LR III 363) and no doubt his son was following the example of King Thingol, long before in Doriath; though his halls were not to be compared with Menegroth. He had not the arts nor the wealth nor the aid of the Dwarves; and compared with the Elves of Doriath his Silvan folk were rude and rustic. He had come among them with only a handful of Sindar, and they were soon merged with the Silvan Elves, adopting their language and taking names of Silvan form and style. This they did deliberately; for they (and other similar adventurers forgotten in the legends or only briefly named) came from Doriath after its ruin, and had no desire to leave Middle-earth, nor to be merged with the other Sindar of Beleriand, dominated by the Noldorin Exiles for whom the folk of Doriath had no great love. They wished indeed to become Silvan folk and to return, as they said, to the simple life natural to the Elves before the invitation of the Valar had disturbed it. Thus already in the Second Age Oropher had withdrawn northward beyond the confluence of the Gladden and Anduin: to be free from the power and encroachments of the Dwarves of Moria, and still more, after the fall of Eregion, from the “domination” of Celeborn and Galadriel. They had passed through Moria with a considerable following of Noldorin Exiles and dwelt for many years in Lórien. Thither they returned twice before the Last Alliance and the end of the Second Age; and in the Third Age, when the Shadow of Sauron’s recovery arose, they dwelt there again for a long time. In her wisdom Galadriel foresaw that Lórien would be a stronghold and point of power to prevent the Shadow from crossing the Anduin in the war that must inevitably come before it was again defeated (if that were possible); but that it needed a rule of greater wisdom and strength than the Silvan folk possessed. Nonetheless, it was not until the disaster in Moria, when by means beyond the foresight of Galadriel Sauron’s power actually crossed the Anduin and Lórien was in great peril, its king lost, its people fleeing and likely to leave it deserted to be occupied by Orks, that Celeborn and Galadriel took up their permanent abode in Lórien, and its government. But they took no title of King or Queen, and were the guardians that in the event brought it unviolated through the War of the Ring.
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fn8 While Isildur stayed for a year or more in Gondor re-establishing its order and its bounds (as is told in the Tale of Cirion and Eorl, that drew on ancient chronicles now lost), the main forces of the realm of Elendil in Arnor had returned to Eriador by the Númenórean road from the Fords of Isen to Lake Evendim. When Isildur at last felt free to return to his own realm, he was in haste, and he wished to come first to Imladris where he had left his youngest son and his wife. The western road would take him far out of his way; for he could not strike north from the road because of the treacherous marshes of the Gwathló; he would have been obliged to follow the road to Evendim until it crossed the great East-West Road of Arnor, only some 40 miles east of the Baranduin. That led straight to Imladris, but it was more than 300 miles from the road-crossing to Imladris, as great a distance as from the inflow of the Celebrant to the high pass in the Mountains leading to Imladris, if one went north along the Anduin. (By that pass a great part of Gilgalad’s army had come on the way to Mordor.) He therefore determined to march north up the vales of Anduin.
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fn9 By which he does not (probably) refer far back to the end of the first millennium of the Third Age, when a shadow fell on Greenwood the Great and it began to be called Mirkwood: see Tale of Years, L.R. III 366 [i.e. LR:1085]; though it was no doubt this “Shadow” spreading from Dol Guldur that caused the Galadhrim who lived in the southern parts of Greenwood to retreat further and further north, and eventually made communication with those that remained west of Anduin rare and difficult. He is principally thinking of the end of the second millennium, when the power of Sauron, now revived, was felt in all the lands east of Anduin and was a growing threat to the narrow lands between it and the Misty Mountains. It is not recorded how long Amroth had been king of Lórien, but either as hereditary chieftain, associated with Galadriel and Celeborn as “advisers and guardians”, or alone in times of their absence, he must have dwelt ever since Third Age 1000 in growing disquiet, until the disaster (no do
ubt ultimately due to Sauron) of T.A. 1980 when a Balrog arose in Moria and it was abandoned by the Dwarves and became filled with the servants of Sauron. Nimrodel and many others of the Silvan folk fled south, and Amroth seeking for Nimrodel never returned. Lórien would no doubt have been deserted and left open to Sauron if Celeborn and Galadriel had not returned and taken over the rule, supported by the Elves of Noldorin and Sindarin origin, who were already a large part of the people of Lórien.
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fn10 In this task at one time the Elves had the assistance of the Dwarves of Moria. For these had had alliances and friendship with the Elves of Eregion, and they were well-disposed to Lórien, where many of the survivors of Eregion had taken refuge.
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fn11 Unless it was Nimrodel. Her motives were different. She loved the waters and the falls of Nimrodel from which she would not long be parted; but as times darkened the stream was too near the north borders and in a part where few of the Galadhrim now dwelt. Maybe it was from her that Amroth took the idea of living in a high flet.
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fn12 The stem RAT (of which RATH was probably an emphatic variation in Primitive Eldarin) meant ‘to find a way’, applied to persons journeying in the wild; to travel in roadless land; and also to streams and rivers and their courses. A derivative was P.E. *rantā, applied to the tracks and trails of travellers or explorers that had become habitual and could be followed by others. It was also, especially in Sindarin, applied to the courses of rivers, as in Celebrant (‘Silverlode’). Cf. also the Gondrant, the stone-trail of the great wains of the quarriers in the Stonewain Valley, Tum Gondregain, north of Minas Tirith.