Features/Galadriel
From Sedes Draconis
Tribute to Galadriel
Lady of the Golden Wood
Lived through
- The Years of the Trees 1362 - 1500
- 138 Valian Years * 9.582 = 1322 Sun Years
- The First Age 1 - 583
- The Second Age 1 - 3441
- The Third Age 1 - 3021
Crowned in gold as if the light of Laurelin lived on in her hair. Older than the Sun and Moon. Of all the royal house of Finwë who returned to Middle Earth following the Oath of Fëanor, only Galadriel outlived the Oath. Protegée of Melian the Maia in the days of the Hidden Kingdom. Powerful and world-wise when her son-in-law Elrond was just a callow youth. Bearer of Nenya, the Ring of Adamant. Of the Three Keepers, none had born her ring longer than Galadriel, only she had her Ring straight from the hands Celebrimbor the Ring-Maker, the son of her cousin, Curufin.
Galadriel was 8367 years old when, on September 29, in the 3021st and last year of the Third Age, she departed forever into the Uttermost West, and out of all reckoning of Men.
I've always though that very few characters, in Middle Earth or out of it, match Galadriel for sheer, unrelenting coolness (Tom doesn't so much match her, as just he's measured on a different scale from anyone else.) So I put together this set of notes. I was debating whether or not to use it as this months feature. I really should do something with a bit more depth soon.
But then I was reminded that Tuesday (2003.09.02) was the thirtieth anniversay of his death, and that he would, in fact, be eleventy-one years old if he still lived. So that clenched it.
To Tolkien! We stand on the back of a giant.
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973). The Fellowship of the Ring. 1954.
Galadriel's Song of Eldamar
I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew:
Of wind I sang, a wind there came and in the branches blew.
Beyond the Sun, beyond the Moon, the foam was on the Sea,
And by the strand of Ilmarin there grew a golden Tree.
Beneath the stars of Ever-eve in Eldamar it shone,
In Eldamar beside the walls of Elven Tirion.
There long the golden leaves have grown upon the branching years,
While here beyond the Sundering Seas now fall the Elven-tears.
O Lórien! The Winter comes, the bare and leafless Day;
The leaves are falling in the stream, the River flows away.
O Lórien! Too long I have dwelt upon this Hither Shore
And in a fading crown have twined the golden elanor.
But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me,
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?
