Emerald and Silver
An audio reading of the story of The Elessar, as found in "The History of Galadriel and Celeborn"
On September 2 2022, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premiered for a global audience. Ever since then, the second day of each month has been observed as a holiday of sorts by the show’s fans on Twitter (yes, we exist), commemorated by fan-made music videos, blog posts, appreciation tweets, and other forms of appreciation. For this month, I thought I would do something…a bit more involved than what I’ve done in the past. So, I present to you all…an audio recording of myself reading through the essay on the Elessar that we find in Unfinished Tales, in “The History of Galadriel and Celeborn:
There are a few reasons why I chose this extract from from this particular book. I have made no secret of the fact that Unfinished Tales and Morfydd Clark’s portrayal of Galadriel have been the two things that have really jumpstarted my rediscovery of Tolkien’s world. At one point I thought of trying a Twitter Space where myself and some of my other friends could read through “The History of Galadriel and Celeborn”; that idea hasn’t died, but I feel it would be best saved for a month when Rings of Power Day falls on a weekend. So I settled for a shorter extract from this chapter that I could read through myself.
So why did I settle for this one? A few reasons. It may be only about 3 pages, but there is so much to unpack here. Tolkien’s prose is on point as it always is, with its beauty and emotional power; the first time I read through that sentence describing Earendil’s longing to be reunited with Idril it cut me to the quick. And we can even learn a lot about the personalities of the main characters; Enerdhil’s love of growing things, Celebrimbor’s desire to help out his friends and fellow Elves, Gandalf’s altruism. But especially Galadriel. Her love of the natural world, her pride, her homesickness for Valinor, the toll taken on her by the loss of most of her family…these are all traits that Morfydd beautifully expressed in her depiction of Galadriel, and they come forth loud and clear in this brief essay. And finally…the character of The Stranger (Daniel Weyman) probably being Gandalf has aroused some concerns among even people who like the show. But this passage, which identifies Gandalf by his Valinorian name of Olorin (all his other numerous names such as Gandalf, Mithrandir, Incanus, were given to him by the inhabitants of Middle-earth) and has him meeting Galadriel during her wandering days before she settled down to guard and defend Lorien in the Third Age, made me at peace with the idea of Gandalf visiting Middle-earth “unofficially” before his stated arrival in TA 1000. And even if the Elessar itself doesn’t appear in Rings of Power, I wouldn’t be surprised if this story provides the inspiration for Galadriel meeting The Stranger at some point later in the show.
Happy Rings of Power Day.