Unfinished Tales - J. R. R. Tolkien [150]
Lórien had then long years of peace and obscurity under the rule of its own king Amdír, until the Downfall of Númenor and the sudden return of Sauron to Middle-earth. Amdír obeyed the summons of Gil-galad and brought as large a force as he could muster to the Last Alliance, but he was slain in the Battle of Dagorlad and most of his company with him. Amroth, his son, became king.
This account is of course greatly at variance with that contained in ‘Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn’. Amroth is no longer the son of Galadriel and Celeborn, but of Amdír, a prince of Sindarin origin. The older story of the relations of Galadriel and Celeborn with Eregion and Lórien seems to have been modified in many important respects, but how much of it would have been retained in any fully written narrative cannot be said. Celeborn’s association with Lórien is now placed much further back (for in ‘Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn’ he never went to Lórien at all during the Second Age); and we learn here that many Noldorin Elves passed through Moria to Lórien after the destruction of Eregion. In the earlier account there is no suggestion of this, and the movement of ‘Beleriandic’ Elves into Lórien took place under peaceful conditions many years before (p. 305). The implication of the extract just given is that after Eregion’s fall Celeborn led this migration to Lórien, while Galadriel joined Gil-galad in Lindon; but elsewhere, in a writing contemporary with this, it is said explicitly that they both at that time ‘passed through Moria with a considerable following of Noldorin exiles and dwelt for many years in Lórien’. It is neither asserted nor denied in these late writings that Galadriel (or Celeborn) had relations with Lórien before 1697, and there are no other references outside ‘Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn’ to Celebrimbor’s revolt (at some time between 1350 and 1400) against their rule in Eregion, nor to Galadriel’s departure at that time to Lórien and her taking up rule there, while Celeborn remained behind in Eregion. It is not made clear in the late accounts where Galadriel and Celeborn passed the long years of the Second Age after the defeat of Sauron in Eriador; there are at any rate no further mentions of their agelong sojourn in Belfalas (p. 310).
The discussion of Amroth continues:
But during the Third Age Galadriel became filled with foreboding, and with Celeborn she journeyed to Lórien and stayed there long with Amroth, being especially concerned to learn all news and rumours of the growing shadow in Mirkwood and the dark stronghold in Dol Guldur. But his people were content with Amroth; he was valiant and wise, and his little kingdom was yet prosperous and beautiful. Therefore after long journeys of enquiry in Rhovanion, from Gondor and the borders of Mordor to Thranduil in the north, Celeborn and Galadriel passed over the mountains to Imladris, and there dwelt for many years; for Elrond was their kinsman, since he had early in the Third Age [in the year 109, according to the Tale of Years] wedded their daughter Celebrían.
After the disaster in Moria [in the year 1980] and the sorrows of Lórien, which was now left without a ruler (for Amroth was drowned in the sea in the Bay of Belfalas and left no heir), Celeborn and Galadriel returned to Lórien, and were welcomed by the people. There they dwelt while the Third Age lasted, but they took no title of King or Queen;