Unfinished Tales - J. R. R. Tolkien [141]
This last sentence relates closely to the scene in Lothlórien when Frodo offered the One Ring to Galadriel (The Fellowship of the Ring II 7): ‘And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen.’
In The Silmarillion it is told (p. 84) that at the time of the rebellion of the Noldor in Valinor Galadriel
was eager to be gone. No oaths she swore, but the words of Fëanor concerning Middle-earth had kindled in her heart, for she yearned to see the wide unguarded lands and to rule there a realm at her own will.
There are however in the present account several features of which there is no trace in The Silmarillion: the kinship of Finarfin’s children with Thingol as a factor influencing their decision to join in Fëanor’s rebellion; Galadriel’s peculiar dislike and distrust of Fëanor from the beginning, and the effect she had on him; and the fighting at Alqualondë among the Noldor themselves – Angrod asserted to Thingol in Menegroth no more than that the kin of Finarfin were guiltless of the slaying of the Teleri (The Silmarillion p. 129). Most notable however in the passage just cited is the explicit statement that Galadriel refused the pardon of the Valar at the end of the First Age.
Later in this essay it is said that though called Nerwen by her mother and Artanis (‘noble woman’) by her father, the name she chose to be her Sindarin name was Galadriel, ‘for it was the most beautiful of her names, and had been given to her by her lover, Teleporno of the Teleri, whom she wedded later in Beleriand’. Teleporno is Celeborn, here given a different history, as discussed further below (pp. 300 – 1); on the name itself see Appendix E, p. 346.
A wholly different story, adumbrated but never told, of Galadriel’s conduct at the time of the rebellion of the Noldor appears in a very late and partly illegible note: the last writing of my father’s on the subject of Galadriel and Celeborn, and probably the last on Middle-earth and Valinor, set down in the last month of his life. In this he emphasized the commanding stature of Galadriel already in Valinor, the equal if unlike in endowments of Fëanor; and it is said here that so far from joining in Fëanor’s revolt she was in every way opposed to him. She did indeed wish to depart from Valinor and to go into the wide world of Middle-earth for the exercise of her talents; for ‘being brilliant in mind and swift in action she had early absorbed all of what she was capable of the teaching which the Valar thought fit to give the Eldar’, and she felt confined in the tutelage of Aman. This desire of Galadriel’s was, it seems, known to Manwë, and he had not forbidden her; but nor had she been given formal leave to depart. Pondering what she might do Galadriel’s thoughts turned to the ships of the Teleri, and she went for a while to dwell with her mother’s kindred in Alqualondë. There she met Celeborn, who is here again a Telerin prince, the grandson of Olwë of Alqualondë and thus her close kinsman. Together they planned to build a ship and sail in it to Middle-earth; and they were about to seek leave from the Valar for their venture when Melkor fled from Valmar and returning with Ungoliant destroyed the light of the Trees. In Fëanor’s revolt that followed the Darkening of Valinor Galadriel had no part: indeed she with Celeborn fought heroically in defence of Alqualondë against the assault of the Noldor, and Celeborn’s ship was saved from them. Galadriel, despairing now of Valinor and horrified by the violence and cruelty of Fëanor, set sail into the darkness without waiting for Manwë’s leave, which would undoubtedly have been withheld in that hour, however legitimate her desire in itself. It was thus that she came under the ban set upon all departure, and Valinor was shut against her return. But together with Cele-born she reached Middle-earth somewhat