Originally published as:
Gallant, Richard Z. (2020) "Galadriel and Wyrd: Interlace, Exempla and the Passing of Northern Courage in the History of the Eldar," Journal of Tolkien Research: Vol. 10 : Iss. 2 , Article 5.
Available for free at: scholar.valpo.edu/…
So, we continue from last week...
4. Exemplum of Redemption
Recall that “Not all of the Eldalië were willing to forsake the Hither Lands” (S, 305-6), which may suggest that the effects, or at least a taint, of the Oath lingered with them when they refused the Valar’s summons. Maedhros himself seems to believe that the Oath would linger even if the Noldor submitted and returned to Aman, if they did not gain the favour of the Valar, “ their oath would still remain, but its fulfilment be beyond hope…” (ibid., 304). We may regard this as an evil, as alluded to last week, devised long ago that is not of Sauron’s making and does not depend on his rise or fall. The Noldor who remained behind could never fully wash themselves of their particular original sin and the Oath, as evidenced by their wyrd. In a sense, Fëanor’s choice and the Doom of Mandos lingers into the Third Age. After the War of Wrath, Maedhros asks his brother Maglor:
‘But how shall our voices reach to Ilúvatar beyond the Circles of the World? And by Ilúvatar we swore in our madness, and called the Everlasting Darkness upon us, if we not keep our word. Who shall release us?’
‘If none can release us,’ said Maglor, ‘then indeed the Everlasting Darkness shall be our lot, whether we keep our oath or break it; but less evil shall we do in the breaking’ (ibid. emphasis mine).
This question, ‘who shall release us’, like the Eldar’s wyrd, slumbers and lingers. Because she is the last of the Noldorin rebel leaders, Galadriel’s choice therefore plays an additional synecdochical function relative to the release, or redemption, of the remnant Noldor. Galadriel is a penitent. In 1971, Tolkien (Letters, 407) wrote to Ruth Austin that
… actually Galadriel was a penitent: in her youth a leader in the rebellion against the Valar (the angelic guardians). At the end of the First Age she proudly refused forgiveness or permission to return. She was pardoned because of her resistance to the final and overwhelming temptation to take the Ring for herself.
Galadriel, from this particular letter at least, was not only a leader in the rebellion but also seems to exhibit a degree of ofermōd, one of the vices of Northern courage Tolkien criticised (TL, 144). Additionally, Galadriel, through her choice to resist the Ring at the end of the Elvish history, is thematically juxtaposed to Fëanor’s choice to refuse Yavanna at the beginning: ad bonum exemplum and ad malum exemplum, respectively. There is a trace of the penitential tradition at work here especially if one recalls that wyrd also serves a penitential function.
The penitential tale, as exemplum, has a long history in medieval literature, where it was used to present a specific form of clerical authority to elicit the voice of the laity (Scanlon 1994, 12). The subject of the exemplum, the ‘confessional subject’
… confronts Christian authority in an individuated, secularized, and most importantly, eminently secularizable form. Christian authority as an ideal is simple, total, and unchanging; it resides in the ultimate auctor, God. But by its very nature it is also an ideal which demands to be put into practice. (ibid.)
Galadriel, the ‘confessional subject’ of her narrative, also confronts ‘Authority’ – a metaphor for Eru Ilúvatar within the Legendarium, in a highly individualized and secularized form. She doesn’t ‘confess’ as one would in a confessional, Galadriel acts her confession out, ‘puts it into practice’. It is dramatized in the scene in much the same way that the theory of Northern courage is dramatized in the tales of the Legendarium (Gallant 2020c, 42), in the manner of an illustrative narrative, or exemplum.
Galadriel’s task, in her role as the last of the rebellious Eldalië rulers, is to lead her people: either into salvation or into shadow. If we accept that firstly, Frodo’s example of humility and caritas (Chance 2004, 213), perhaps through the work of providence, demonstrates to Galadriel that the way to redemption is renunciation through his offer of the Ring — and secondly, if we accept that the Silmaril serves as a thematic reminder of High Hope to Galadriel to strengthen her resolve, then through her rejection, ‘confession’ and absolution (diminishing and passing into the West) she is herself acting like Eärendil in the role of a redeemer or saviour for the remnant Noldor. Eric Schweicher (1992, 169) also notes that for the Noldor “[T]o achieve some sort of Redemption, the Elves need to overcome their pride and to be able to surrender the object of their pride to the Valar, namely the Silmarils.” Galadriel’s act of contrition and renunciation, therefore, is vital for Elvish redemption as “. . . the oath of Fëanor perhaps even Manwë could not loose, until it found its end, and the sons of Fëanor relinquished the Silmarils, upon which they had laid their ruthless claim” (S, 293).
‘Who shall release us?’ resembles an ancient prayer that has now been answered: Galadriel does. She will not, as so many of her royal house, be defined by demise and defeat like the Germanic hero but rather by grace and humility. Thus, the Oath comes to rest with Galadriel’s refusal of wrongful desire and her redemption.
Galadriel is now operating outside the framework of Northern courage. She begins the scene with the endurance and resistance of Northern courage, but the pivotal actions are not of a Germanic character. Within the framework of Northern courage, the hero:
“… in a moment of crises, has to resolve the ambiguous tensions in such invariable fortune [wyrd]. His task is to transform the uncertainties of fate and fortune (which are never clearly distinguished from each other in the Germanic tradition) into good fortune, fame, and enduring glory for himself. For a time, at least, he is able to achieve this, but eventually he succumbs to the ill fortune that threatens in all tests of his courage. He is at last unable to impose his will on events, and becomes the prisoner of a malignant fate which allows him only a choice between two evils by dying an honourable death, and inflicting dishonour upon his enemies: but before that final catastrophe, other options are open to him.” (Gilbert 1992, 1)
While it may be superficially unsurprising that Galadriel refuses the Ring and operates in this scene outside the Germanic ethos, the significance of her decision is much deeper than it appears on its surface. It follows that if Galadriel had chosen within the Northern courage framework, she would have chosen between the two evil choices of either refusing the One Ring and dooming Elvendom to the machinations of Sauron or accepting it and ensuring a (malignant) glory for herself and Elvendom. However, as Gilbert notes, there are other choices before catastrophe and Galadriel makes a choice outside of the heroic ethos that results in eucatastrophe. That is, she accepts the corrective and penitential function of the Eldar’s wyrd and forsakes any stake or claim in Middle-earth (i.e. her kingdom and the preservation of Elvendom). She chooses to lead her people, as a penitent and not a Germanic hero, into the West according to the divine plan, which seems to be one of change rather than static preservation of what once was.
5. Hail and Farewell
With the tension released in the previous chapter, we now come to a closure of the Germanic narrative of the Elves in the chapter, titled appropriately, ‘Farewell to Lórien’. Elvish history, the Germanic narrative that has shifted, leaves us with the intense emotion of regret:
[T]hemes of a golden or heroic age in the past,… of the wheel of fortune in social affairs, of the ubi sunt elegy, of mediations over ruins, of nostalgia for a lost pastoral simplicity, or regret or exultation over the collapse of an empire…” (Frye 2000, 160)
This is a scene of Autumn: of myth conceptually linked to tragedy and elegy (Meletinsky 2000, 82-3). It is death (in Middle-earth), a passage over the western ocean, and rebirth (in Aman). The narrative is closed by ritual, in this case with elegy, a farewell feast and gift-giving (woruldsælða) that emphasizes Tolkien’s ‘mood’ of intense sadness for the imminent departure of the Elves from Middle-earth.
As the Fellowship begins to paddle away from Lórien and turns a sharp bend, a boat in the shape of a large swan appears with Galadriel and Celeborn on board. Galadriel sings, sad and sweet, the Namárië. The lament expresses the ubi sunt motif, a melancholy of kings, glories, and a world gone by (Ai! láurië lántar lássi sūrinèn, yēni ūnōtime ve aldaron rāmar: Ah! like gold leaves fall on the wind, long years numberless as the wings of trees!) and of a lost paradise (lumbule undulāve ilye tiër: all paths are drowned deep in shadow) (lines 1-2, 11). Particularly poignant is the eighth line sung by Galadriel ‘Sī man i yulma nin enquantuva?’ (‘Who now shall refill the cup for me?’).
Here a ritualistic and ceremonial cup-bearer role, a tradition of Germanic halls, becomes prominent and its theme potentially reminds us of the similar lamentation in ‘The Wanderer’. A Germanic past, a time of horses, mead halls, treasure-givers and gleaming chalices, that “grows dark under the helm of night” with no more cupbearers to serve their lord. Tolkien (BMC, 23) wrote “[A]s the poet looks back into the past, surveying the history of kings and warriors in the old traditions, he sees that all glory (or as we might say ‘culture’ or ‘civilization’) ends in night.”
The ‘Namárië’ looks back at this glorious past of the Eldar with its ‘intense emotion of regret’ and its imagery reinforces the concept of an end of heroic Northern courage, the Germanic narrative of the Elves and its defining wyrd.
J. R. R. Tolkien Singing The Namárië
The ritual of gift-giving, which can be found in a plethora of heroic epics including Beowulf helps reinforce the Silmaril metaphor discussed above. It also, in this context, reinforces the wise use of gifts (again, in opposition to Fëanor’s unwise use – his possessiveness). In the Alfredian Consolatione, Wisdom states
But though it may be good and precious, one who gives it is more renown and popular than one who gathers it and plunders it from others. And also riches are more renown and pleasing when they are given than they are gathered and kept. Indeed, avarice makes coveters hateful to God and mortals, and generosity makes those who love it always more popular and renowned and honoured by both God and mortals. (ADCP, II, prs. 7, ii, 67)
Galadriel, of course, is renowned for her wisdom. In light of Wisdom’s words, the giving of the light of Eärendil, rather than coveting and hoarding it in her mirror, emphasizes Galadriel, as ad bonum exemplum to Fëanor’s ad malum exemplum. The wisdom of choosing and giving this gift becomes apparent later in the story as it also allows for providential intervention (Frodo’s sudden use of Quenya in Shelob’s Lair). The phial is not the Silmaril, per se, it is merely a reflection of its holy light. Nevertheless, the reflection of holy light captured in a glass phial, (echoes of Fëanor capturing the light of the Trees in jewels) is still holy enough to repel evil:
… and hope grew in Frodo’s mind, it began to burn, and kindled to a silvery flame, a minute heart of dazzling light, as though Eärendil had himself come down from the high sunset paths with the last Silmarilupon his brow” (TT, IV, ix, 329 italics mine).
The imagery of Galadriel’s gift further reinforces the interlacing of the Silmaril/Evening Star theme; this time interwoven with the phial not only as a weapon but also again as a sign of High Hope.
Secondly, the gift-giving ritual interlaces yet another, perhaps final, instance of the Fëanor/Galadriel exempla juxtaposition. We may recall that in the Legendarium, Fëanor begged Galadriel “three times for a tress, but Galadriel would not give him one hair. These two kinsfolk, the greatest of the Eldar of Valinor, were unfriends forever” (UT, 296, emphasis mine). Yet in this scene, Gimli courteously asks for “‘a single strand of your hair…’ [T]hen the Lady unbraided one of her long tresses, and cut off three golden hairs, and laid them in Gimli’s hand…” While witnessing this exchange “[T]he Elves stirred and murmured with astonishment, and Celeborn gazed at the dwarf in wonder, but the Lady smiled…” (FR, II, viii, 392, emphasis mine).
Recognizing the interlacing theme, it is no wonder that the Elves were astonished and, in a clear rebuke to Galadriel’s former ‘unfriend’, the number of hairs is reversed, and Gimli receives three rather than one strand of hair.
It is a closure, of sorts, in the Germanic gift-giving ritual of the Fëanor /Galadriel opposition, a closure of the Elvish malum exemplum – bonum exemplum.
6. Conclusion
Galadriel is a pivotal character firstly in The Lord of the Rings and secondly in the overall Legendarium as she (not always consistently) developed further. Like Fëanor before her, she is faced with literally a fateful decision. Galadriel’s choice to refuse the One Ring gains greater significance in the context of the events of the First Age. Through spatial imagery, tonality and character action, First Age themes of free will, banishment and exile, doom and providence all interweave together to form a rich tapestry. Galadriel redeems herself and the remnant Noldor in Middle-earth in an instantaneous moment of eucatastrophe.
In her wisdom, with the help of Frodo (and perhaps providence) and the salient symbol of high hope, her choice of free will ‘corrects’ the wyrd invoked by Fëanor’s similar, but unwise choice to refuse Yavanna. Wyrd is indeed conjured by the Noldor through Fëanor’s choice, and it seems that “what is done is done, with which there is no arguing.” Unless, as Galadriel has shown, “one should discover the way out of the exile of this world and into eternal life” (Haug 2006, 53). The way out of exile, of course, was another choice of free will that corrected and satisfied the Germanic wyrd. Galadriel, with her own redemption and consequently the redemption of the remnant Noldor, ends that Germanic narrative in the Lord of the Rings. On the cusp of the Fourth Age, the fatalistic Germanic ethos of Northern courage and the Germanic narrative that began with the Noldo prince Fëanor fades into the mist with the Noldor’s redemption and emancipation from exile.
No one character personifies this transition more than the Elven Lady Galadriel.
**And that wraps up my work on Fate, Wyrd, the Germanic Heroic narrative and the Eldar**
Currently, I’m writing the last chapter (or two if I split it up) of my book:
Discontinuity of Heroic Ethos: Northern Courage, its Abandonment in Númenor, and its Revitalization in the Dúnedain Successor States
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