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By Root 1618 0

sooner than Fëanor, and sailed into the haven where Círdan was lord. There they were welcomed with joy, as being of the kin of Elwë (Thingol). In the years after they did not join in the war against Angband, which they judged to be hopeless under the ban of the Valar and without their aid; and their counsel was to withdraw from Beleriand and to build up a power to the eastward (whence they feared that Morgoth would draw reinforcement), befriending and teaching the Dark Elves and Men of those regions. But such a policy having no hope of acceptance among the Elves of Beleriand, Galadriel and Celeborn departed over Ered Lindon before the end of the First Age; and when they received the permission of the Valar to return into the West they rejected it.

This story, withdrawing Galadriel from all association with the rebellion of Fëanor, even to the extent of giving her a separate departure (with Celeborn) from Aman, is profoundly at variance with all that is said elsewhere. It arose from ‘philosophical’ (rather than ‘historical’) considerations, concerning the precise nature of Galadriel’s disobedience in Valinor on the one hand, and her status and power in Middle-earth on the other. That it would have entailed a good deal of alteration in the narrative of The Silmarillion is evident; but that my father doubtless intended to do. It may be noted here that Galadriel did not appear in the original story of the rebellion and flight of the Noldor, which existed long before she did; and also, of course, that after her entry into the stories of the First Age her actions could still be transformed radically, since The Silmarillion had not been published. The book as published was however formed from completed narratives, and I could not take into account merely projected revisions.

On the other hand, the making of Celeborn into a Telerin Elf of Aman contradicts not only statements in The Silmarillion, but also those cited already (p. 294) from The Road Goes Ever On and Appendix B to The Lord of the Rings, where Celeborn is a Sindarin Elf of Beleriand. As to why this fundamental alteration in his history was to be made, it might be answered that it arose from the new narrative element of Galadriel’s departure from Aman separately from the hosts of the rebel Noldor; but Celeborn is already transformed into a Telerin Elf in the text cited on p. 298, where Galadriel did take part in Fëanor’s revolt and march from Valinor, and where there is no indication of how Celeborn came to Middle-earth.

The earlier story (apart from the question of the ban and the pardon), to which the statements in The Silmarillion, The Road Goes Ever On, and Appendix B to The Lord of the Rings refer, is fairly clear: Galadriel, coming to Middle-earth as one of the leaders of the second host of the Noldor, met Celeborn in Doriath, and was later wedded to him; he was the grandson of Thingol’s brother Elmo – a shadowy figure about whom nothing is told save that he was the younger brother of Elwë (Thingol) and Olwë, and was ‘beloved of Elwë with whom he remained’. (Elmo’s son was named Galadhon, and his sons were Celeborn and Galathil; Galathil was the father of Nimloth, who wedded Dior Thingol’s Heir and was the mother of Elwing. By this genealogy Celeborn was a kinsman of Galadriel, the granddaughter of Olwë of Alqualondë, but not so close as by that in which he became Olwë’s grandson.) It is a natural assumption that Celeborn and Galadriel were present at the ruin of Doriath (it is said in one place that Celeborn ‘escaped the sack of Doriath’), and perhaps aided the escape of Elwing to the Havens of Sirion with the Silmaril – but this is nowhere stated. Celeborn is mentioned in Appendix B to The Lord of the Rings as dwelling for a time in Lindon south of the Lune; 2 but early in the Second Age they passed over the Mountains into Eriador. Their subsequent history, in the same phase (so to call it) of my father’s writing, is told in the short narrative that follows here.

Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn

The text bearing this title is a short and hasty outline,