By Oshun
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Most readers recognize Erestor from the role he plays in the chapter "The Council of Elrond" in The Fellowship of the Ring. The Fellowship has finally arrived in the Last Homely House in Rivendell and, after a short time allowing Frodo and the Hobbits to recuperate from their difficult and dangerous journey, Elrond convenes an important meeting to discuss what should be done with the One Ring.
Pulling Frodo to his side, Elrond
". . . then pointed out and named those whom Frodo had not met before. There was a younger dwarf at Glóin's side: his son Gimli. Beside Glorfindel there were several other counsellors of Elrond's household, of whom Erestor was the chief; and with him was Galdor, an Elf from the Grey Havens who had come on an errand from Círdan the Shipwright."1
To some readers, Erestor appears to play the role of an advocatus diabolic (devil's advocate) at the Council of Elrond. There is, however, no indication that Erestor is cast by the author as a grumpy contrarian or determined to stir up differences. One might as easily assume that Tolkien assigns to Erestor honest considerations which he allows other participants to answer, as a means of addressing questions that thoughtful readers might otherwise ask themselves later.
After listening to Elrond and Gandalf's descriptions of the history of the One Ring, many of those invited to the council contributed their recent experiences and reports, which point to movement on the part of the Enemy. These accounts led the attendees to conclude that the ring in Frodo's possession was indeed the One Ring, that Sauron was aware it had been found, and that their paramount responsibility included keeping him from taking possession of it. Finally, the attendees in their majority agree that the safety of their world depends upon its destruction. Only Boromir of Gondor suggests that it might be used against Sauron. Considerations of who might safely take possession of the Ring leads to the mention of Tom Bombadil:
'Could we not still send messages to him and obtain his help?' asked Erestor. 'It seems that he has a power even over the Ring.'
'No, I should not put it so,' said Gandalf. 'Say rather that the Ring has no power over him. He is his own master. But he cannot alter the Ring itself, nor break its power over others. And now he is withdrawn into a little land, within bounds that he has set, though none can see them, waiting perhaps for a change of days, and he will not step beyond them.'
'But within those bounds nothing seems to dismay him,' said Erestor. 'Would he not take the Ring and keep it there, forever harmless?'
'No,' said Gandalf, 'not willingly. He might do so, if all the free folk of the world begged him, but he would not understand the need. And if he were given the Ring, he would soon forget it, or most likely throw it away. Such things have no hold on his mind. He would be a most unsafe guardian; and that alone is answer enough.'2
Tom Bombadil might have seemed a plausible person to help dispose of the Ring without being tempted to use it as a source of power. He is described as otherworldly and good enough, ancient although of unclear origins. A few chapters back, when the Hobbits had ended up spending two nights in Tom Bombadil's house, Frodo had asked the Lady Goldberry, "Tell me, if my asking does not seem foolish, who is Tom Bombadil?" Goldberry, nearly as enigmatic as the Bombadil himself, responded, "'He is, as you have seen him …. He is the Master of wood, water, and hill.'"3 Tom Bombadil cannot be a guardian of the Ring. He is likely to misplace it because its usefulness is one that he does not value. Tolkien says that "Tom Bombadil represents the pursuit and love of selfless knowledge of the created world and its history, independent of any power or advantage that such knowledge might bring to the knower."4
Although Bombadil is viewed as benevolent, he possesses his own form of strange magic, which is more identified with nature than with power or craft.
Although some readers have posited the likelihood that Bombadil is of the Maiar or another of the great ones of Arda, Tolkien coyly writes, "even in a mythical Age there must be some enigmas, as there always are. Tom Bombadil is one (intentionally)."5 Meanwhile, Erestor has trouble imagining Tom's way of understanding the world. As Matthew Dickerson and Jonathan Evans write, "Bombadil gathers knowledge because he wants to know and to learn. He is a pure scientist, with no interest in technology; he has the desire to know and to understand, but without the desire to manipulate."6
Erestor, as one of the chief administrators of Rivendell, understands magic as technology. If Bombadil is the stereotypical example of living off-the-grid, the Rivendell of Erestor and Elrond demonstrates the opposite. The Last Homely House, powered and protected by Elrond's Vilya, "a ring of gold with a great blue stone . . . mightiest of the Three,"7 is arguably a manifestation of better living through technology.
Interestingly, Erestor's involvement with Elrond, Rivendell, and Vilya is this reader's basis from which to extrapolate that Elrond's chief counselor is most likely to be of the Noldor, although we are not told he is in The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien's trilogy, massive as it is, is filled with a multitude of loose ends and dropped threads. Erestor, like Bombadil, is one of those.
It is wise Erestor who explicitly summarizes for the council their only choices relating to the One Ring:
'Then,' said Erestor, 'there are but two courses, as Glorfindel already has declared: to hide the Ring for ever; or to unmake it. But both are beyond our power. Who will read this riddle for us?'
'None here can do so,' said Elrond gravely. 'At least none can foretell what will come to pass, if we take this road or that. But it seems to me now clear which is the road that we must take. The westward road seems easiest. Therefore it must be shunned. It will be watched. Too often the Elves have fled that way. Now at this last we must take a hard road, a road unforeseen. There lies our hope, if hope it be. To walk into peril – to Mordor. We must send the Ring to the Fire.'8
After a few more pages of circuitous discussion regarding the fate of the Ring and of the difficulty and danger surrounding their handling of it, it is once again Erestor who tries to herd the cats back into a semblance of order. He proves himself to be an able administrative assistant who has clearly endured other such meetings, although unlikely any more important ones.
'Thus we return once more to the destroying of the Ring,' said Erestor, 'and yet we come no nearer. What strength have we for the finding of the Fire in which it was made? That is the path of despair. Of folly I would say, if the long wisdom of Elrond did not forbid me.'
'Despair, or folly?' said Gandalf. 'It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not. It is wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope. Well, let folly be our cloak, a veil before the eyes of the Enemy!'9
Finally, Frodo pops up to utter his famous words: "'I will take the Ring,' he said, 'though I do not know the way.'"10 A decision is made that will not be changed.
Near the end of The Return of the King, we encounter Elrond's counselor for the final time. Erestor's closeness to Elrond and his family is reinforced. On the day "before Midsummer" messengers rode into the city of Minas Tirith bearing news "that there was a riding of fair folk out of the North."11 They bring Arwen to finally unite with Aragorn. The following prose is too lovely and too familiar and beloved by readers to be edited:
Upon the very Eve of Midsummer, when the sky was blue as sapphire and white stars opened in the East, but the West was still golden, and the air was cool and fragrant, the riders came down the North-way to the gates of Minas Tirith. First rode Elrohir and Elladan with a banner of silver, and then came Glorfindel and Erestor and all the household of Rivendell, and after them came the Lady Galadriel and Celeborn, Lord of Lothlórien, riding upon white steeds and with them many fair folk of their land, grey-cloaked with white gems in their hair; and last came Master Elrond, mighty among Elves and Men, bearing the sceptre of Annúminas, and beside him upon a grey palfrey rode Arwen his daughter, Evenstar of her people.12
Erestor is one of the extended family, informally at least, and also a most important aide to Elrond on his own merits.
I did not find a description of the Library of Rivendell or any description of Erestor as head librarian. The closest I came was this:
Yet the line of the kings was continued by the Chieftains of the Dúnedain, of whom Aranarth son of Arvedui was the first. Arahael his son was fostered in Rivendell, and so were all the sons of the chieftains after him; and there also were kept the heirlooms of their house: the ring of Barahir, the shards of Narsil, the star of Elendil, and the sceptre of Annúminas.13
Sounds like Rivendell had a library or an archive (of course they did!). However, the efficient and talented librarian beloved by so many Tolkien fans appears rooted only in fanon.
Erestor appears in Tolkien's legendarium as a character in the early drafts of The Lord of the Rings entitled The Return of the Shadow. He is identified there to be related, possibly by blood, to Elrond: "There were three counsellors of Elrond's own household: Erestor his kinsman (a man of the same half-elvish folk known as the children of Lúthien), and beside him two elflords of Rivendell."14 We are not told how he might in this early draft to have been considered one of these half-elven "children of Lúthien." This incarnation of him was abandoned too early for it to be worthy of further speculation within this essay. We simply do not have the records to prove what might have been in Tolkien's head.
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Oshun's Silmarillion-based stories may be found on the SWG archive.
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