So now we escape the Orcs, and Gollum shows up, and we move into the hidden Elven realm of Lothlorien, and we mourn Gandalf. And I want instead to look at Elves the way I just looked at Dwarves: in the round. And so, I want you to look at one single instant in this part: The moment when Aragorn turns to Frodo on Cerin Amroth and says, “This is the heart of Elvendom on Earth.”
What, this hill? Not the city of the Galadhrim or the great Tree that is at its core? Not the haven of Rivendell that represents Elves in all their variations? And why are you associating it with Amroth?
Recently, I had a chance to read The Fall of Gondolin, the reworking of Tolkien’s tale by Christopher Tolkien. And while it answered quite a few questions I had about the end of the First Age, what really struck me about it was the feeling it gave me that Tolkien viewed the First Age and the rest of the history of Middle-Earth (more or less) as two separate and completely equal, complete worlds. And the First Age is really the complete world, the completed story, of the Elves. Yes, Men are in there; but the focus, the completed story, is that of the Elves. And the story of the Elves in the First Age, more than anything else, is a story of great Elven passion.
The passion of Feanor, when he answered the Doom of Mandos with a justification so powerful, so passionate, that Death himself “bowed to him as if fully answered.” The passion of Eol, the Dark Elf, seeking his fleeing wife before the unfriendly and fatal gates of Gondolin. The passion of Elwing and Earendil, that neither the Sea nor the Ban of the Gods could deny its final resting place in the Undying Lands. Deep passion. Long passion. Rarely visible to us in LOTR. But always, neither light nor mediocre.
And now we can round out what I believe is the trio of differentiations, the unique things that mark the Elves for what they are. Almost immortality, allied with deep memory, perfect memory, memory that can be lived in as a waking dream, with all its pluses and minuses. A deep love for and desire to understand nature. And now the third element, great passion.
And now, I believe, with this background we begin to understand why this hill. Who is Amroth? An Elf whose mutual passion with Nimrodel led him to deny and defy even that other great passion of the Elves, the Sea, in seeking to be reunited. Nimrodel, whose musical voice embodied all the Elven passion for Elven love and love of Nature’s rivers.
And what do we see on Amroth’s hill? A ring of mallorn trees. The essence of Elven passion for trees and Nature.
And what do we hear on Amroth’s hill? “The wailing of gulls on shores long ago and far away”. The great Elven passion for the Sea, preserved by Elven memory.
And what does Aragorn say about Amroth’s hill? “The heart of Elvendom on Earth.” On Earth, not in the Undying Lands or the Lands Under the Wave. Its passionate heart, not its mind or its core. Now the dwelling place of the Elven heart’s passion, for as long as Elves remain on Middle Earth.
If I understand Tolkien correctly, each of the Races of Middle Earth are at least partially reflections of parts of his own personality, isolated and taken to their logical conclusion. That would seem to make them in some sense equal in Tolkien’s mind, and equal possible reflections of our own personalities in our own minds. But The Fall of Gondolin seems to suggest something else: that the Elves are in some ways greater than the rest; that what we are seeing in LOTR is still only a pale reflection of the deepness and richness of Elves. Of that aspect of our own personalities, perhaps.
And so what do you do if you are Aragorn, offspring and lover and inheritor through Numenor and Gondor and Arnor of all things Elven and especially Elven passion for Arwen? You honor those three parts of the fundamental Elf. You commit Cerin Amroth to memory, its passion, and its Nature, as they are before it fades.
And then you walk away from Cerin Amroth. And you come there nevermore as living Man. But your heart dwells there forever.
Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Like You’ve Never Heard It:
- The First of a Series of Ramblings About JRR Tolkien
- Part II. Pre-Psychology Writing, Poetry, and a New Hero
- Part III. Torture, Enlightenment
- Part IV. Weather, Mushrooms, Leaders
- Part V. In the Moment, Sam the Obscure
- Part VI. Folk Songs, Master, First, Fair
- Part VII. Hiking, Curses, Noble Language
- Part VIII. The Hiker’s Extrasensory Writing
- Part IX. Torture, Elves, Endings
- Part X. Your Highness
- Part XI. Business Meetings, Dwarves
- Part XII. Horns of Wild Memory
- Part XIII. Ecstasies of the Dwarves
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