IN THE SHIRE-RECKONING by Diane Finnis-Robb  

| | |

Part One; Chapter Ten "The Elves of the Western Lands"

*Author’s Note:

   As we move further into our history of the Shirefolk we must pause to consider the broader world which surrounded them. This chapter does not come from any of the writings found in the 1961 excavation of the Great Smials but out of the existing scholarship as it regards the long ages of the Elves. As these histories can be confusing to some readers, just as it would have been to hobbits, an attempt is made to focus on the people of northwestern Eriador where our story is set.

   This is, after all, a story of hobbits and the Elves, who will have some effect upon the lives of the Shirefolk, are not featured and remain almost entirely absent from the tale. But it is also a story of the Third Age of Middle-earth and must therefore be put into perspective with the Great Events of the World at that time.

-D.F.R.

 

   Whether or not Argeleb the Second had ever mentioned the elves of Lindon in conversation with the two hobbit ambassadors remains completely unknown. It is certain that he still had congress with the Fair Folk to the west of his lands and trade still moved between Fornost Erain and the Grey Havens during his reign. In fact Argeleb accepted, just as did the whole line of Númenórean kings since the days when Elendil himself came out of the sea, that the elves of Eriador had wandered freely in these lands and that all of his people were graced by their friendship.

   But not all people of the North felt this way.

   In ages past there were other Men who lived in this part of the world. They had come from the far east and out of a haunted place of which they recounted no tales. Some there were who traveled together in great clans and eventually they became noticed by the Elves, the Elder People, who claimed to care for them and offer them protection. There were three great clans that became the High Houses of Men and, pledging fealty to the Elder People, they followed them over faraway mountains and went with them to war against the Enemy in lands which are now drowned beneath the seas. But there were other Men not of those High Houses who lived and remained in this part of the world. These Men did not serve the Enemy then as many other creatures did but instead they hid themselves in the dark caves and woody places of the north. Their lives and their hopes were meager, for they had no ancient pacts of trust and friendship with the Elder People as their cousins of the High Houses did and therefore they were granted no gifts of learning and language and no lessons of honour other than those they taught to themselves. Some legends suggest that these Men had the favour of great people other than the Elder Folk; for they learned many things of importance such as toolmaking, animal husbandry, planting and reaping and even singing, though they performed them quite differently and apart from the way in which the Elves had taught the Men of the High Houses.1 The singing of these Men was queer, but it was nonetheless joyful. They were not lettered, but for many, many long generations they kept rich stories of their own which have now been mostly forgotten.

   Then the day came when the world was broken and the Great Powers went to war with the Enemy in those now sundered and sunken lands beyond the Blue mountains. These other tribes of Men, those who lived in this land and did not engage in open warfare, hid themselves in terror; for stars seemed to rush down from the sky to meet fire and billowing smokes which surged upward in the western lands. For many days the earth shook, lakes dried and rivers changed their courses. To the Men of Eriador (for that is what the elves called this part of Arda at this time, though those Men which lived here knew no such name) it seemed that the Great Powers and those Elder People and those High Houses of Men, had brought about the end of days and there was nothing to do but flee to cavern and wood and fear the coming darkness. No light but fire and storm could be seen for the skies had become ash, and there was the terrifying sound of a distant, continuous and deafening thunder.

   And then, after some amount of days which no one can account for, the skies returned and the earth stopped its shaking. The Sun showed Her bright face again and the air was newly filled with the scent of daylilies.2 Men walked out again into bright days of a peace which they had never yet known. They came out of their hiding places and, in these happier times, they found one another again. They began to collect themselves into small communities. They built houses of stone and timber and planted their crops and bred their animals. And so they lived, for a time, free from the worry of dark creatures.

   Somewhere in these early years of the Second Age these Men met the Dwarves and learned to trade with them. They were taught lessons in carving stone, the building of cities, the making of weapons and some of the art of metals. They would never hope to surpass the Dwarves in those arts of course, but good trade was established between these two Peoples even if trust remained unsure.

   But during the whole of this time in which Men came out of hiding, they knew that the Elves remained in the subtle and quiet places of the North and built their new homes on this side of the Blue mountains.

 

*****

 

   The War of Wrath, as that far off battle in the West was called, had resolved and (for a time) ended the dominion of Morgoth, the Great Enemy, and the Eldar (as the Elves call themselves) were given the boon of forgiveness and invited to come home to the Undying Lands in the West where all mortals are forbidden. There were many of the Eldar who had become greatly aggrieved by loss and battle and wished to leave this world as soon as they may. Of these, the Noldor were perhaps most prominent, for they had broken faith and done dark deeds even though they were among the few of their kind who knew the light of Oiolossë,3 the high peak of Aman. But the Avari of Middle-earth, Elvenfolk who had not yet seen the Undying Lands, were likewise grateful for this gift and there were many among them who also wished to leave a world which now seemed filled with grief and weariness.

   But there were many others who did not choose to depart.

   In the War of Wrath Beleriand, jewel of Arda and home to many of the Eldar, had fallen into the Sea and Morgoth’s great fortress of Thangorodrim was likewise shattered and destroyed. The whole of the world was remade in this conflict and the Elves, being old enough to remember everything which had been lost, believed that the scars of anger and battle would forever show on the skin of the world. There were many, many Eldar, lords of great lineage, who fell when that Great War was fought and would never again see the beauties of Arda. Those that remained were lamented by the loss of many of their folk and kin.

   Yet there were also many Eldar who chose to linger, mourning the loss and the changing of the world. They had been granted a great gift, but they lingered and did not yet wish to leave behind the lands which had captivated them for so many long years.

   But what does “lingering” mean to an immortal people?

   When Beleriand fell into the sea there were many great Elf-lords who stood away from the destruction on the western edge of the Blue Mountains in a land they called Lindon. The mountains had been broken here in the north and the coastlines of Middle-earth were new and uncertain, so the Eldar began to make a place for themselves by a great river which empties itself into the Gulf of Lhûn. It is from here that Círdan the Shipwright built the vessels which would carry his people over the sea and into the Undying Lands. And this port, set where the newly formed seas met ancient lands unfamiliar to many of the Eldar, was called the Grey Havens for it was a somber place where the Eldar might leave their love of Middle-earth behind and prepare to go into the light in the West. Here the greatest concentration of Elves in the northlands came for final passage. But there were many also who came there and chose not go forward into the west.

   Gil-galad was one. He was High King of the Eldar in the dawning of this new Age and he drew many who were left in Eriador about him to his court at the Grey Havens. Some were there with him who went south and east and set up new Elven kingdoms in Hollin and, further east, in the Greatwood.4 These lands seemed fresh and wonderful to them, for Eriador, where most of the Elves now dwelt, was open and empty and felt much like Beleriand the Lost had when first they came there in ages long past. The Eldar made great castles and dwellings after the War of Wrath, but they kept them secret from the Men of Eriador, for they did not trust these Men and wanted little to do with them. They accepted the Dwarves more readily, despite past conflicts, but considered Men who were not of the High Houses to be ignorant and clumsy and quite beneath their regard.

   The Men of Eriador knew of the Eldar, the “Fair Folk” they called them, and they feared them and kept a safe distance from their courts and markets. For the Men knew that it was the Fair Folk and their unceasing battles with the Great Enemy which had brought all of the most grievous past destruction to the world.

   So the Men and the Elves of Eriador lived willfully apart for many centuries during the Second Age of Middle-earth and both were, by all accounts, quite happy with that situation. If either people told tales of one another then those tales were certainly ignorant and misguided; they were but fables and childrens’ stories coloured by bias, fueled by contempt and proffered by imaginations which had been inspired to prejudgment. How can two peoples, sharing the same land for hundreds of years yet having no contact, be expected to tell tales of one another which are filled with compassion?5

   Six hundred years after the War of Wrath the Men of the High Houses, now calling themselves Númenóreans, began to return to Middle-earth on great ships fashioned to look like giant swans. They were feared by the Men of Eriador at first but were openly welcomed by the Elves of Lindon. They brought many great gifts with them and the Men of Eriador learned much from the Númenóreans; but the Sea-kings, as the Men of Eriador called them, took much from the exchange as well. Great forests were felled to build ships for their navies, mills and farmlands were put in these newly deforested areas, but they supplied grains and livestock mostly for the Númenórean tables. No castles were built at first, but great ports began to dot the western coasts so that the Númenóreans might easily supply themselves and continue their voyages into strange new lands.6

   But, just as the Men of Eriador had feared with the Elves, it was these Númenóreans who brought their old conflicts with the Great Enemy back to Middle-earth with them.

 

   Dark creatures were rising in the eastern lands almost from the day that the Númenóreans set foot again in Eriador. Orcs and Trolls had not troubled the land for many hundreds of years but now they appeared, quite suddenly, in great numbers. It was the Dwarves who met them first high in the Iron Hills, but soon they were raiding and pillaging all of the lands of Eriador. The Elves, as expected, rode out to meet them, but the towns and villages of the Men of Eriador were left to defend themselves.

   In this time it was Sauron the Deceiver who was the new Enemy and he claimed all of the inland territories of Eriador for his own. Hollin, the great Elven kingdom in the southern region fell and the Dwarves of Khazad-Dûm shut their gates against him. Elves of the Greatwood would not come forth and, for a time, Sauron held dominion over all the lands. It seemed that the Men of Eriador must again go into secret caves and woodlands to hide from the Dark Powers. But then, on a day unlooked for, the Númenóreans came in full force out of the Sea and Sauron was defeated. They took him prisoner and his great fortress in the south, the high tower of Baradûr, was destroyed.

   And so again the Men of Eriador came forth in hopefulness to bright skies and the scent of daylilies. But their joy did not last for long.

   For now, after the capture of Sauron, it was Númenor who became the uncontested Great Power in Middle-earth and even the Elves grew distrustful of the Sea-kings’ and their ways. Gifts the Númenóreans still gave, but many more resources were now simply taken and greater castles and fortresses were built in the western lands of Middle-earth. Colonial governments were established and, if the Men of Eriador did learn things from the High Houses of Númenor at this time they came at the great expense of their freedoms. It was said that the will of Sauron, even in bondage, had corrupted the king of Númenor. If the Elves of the region knew or cared about the troubles suffered by the Men of Eriador no record tells us. But within a few hundred years Eriador was ruled by the Sea-kings; the Men who were native to that land, who had lived there for so long, were now left with very few opportunities to control their own destinies; they were taxed heavily and, as a new darkness seemed to rise in designs of their Númenórean masters, many were taken into bondage or became the victims of sacrifice. The Men of Eriador, and presumably the Hobbits who came to wander in these lands at this time, learned to fear the Sea-kings and the Elder People nearly as much as they had feared Orcs and Trolls.

   And then, in some far distant land that the Men and Hobbits of Eriador had only remotely heard of, yet another War of Wrath was fought. The Sea-kings, or so later generations returned to tell it, in the darkness of their spirit and the arrogance of their condition, challenged the true Great Powers of the World and were summarily punished. Once again the skies grew dark so that no Sun nor Moon nor Stars could be seen and a tremendous sound, like a thunder and a cry of grief all in one, came from rock and tree and air so that no living creature did not cower at the noise of it. But then, after what was only moments of terrific suffering, the cataclysm was ended. Where it should have been day the Sun was returned. Where it should have been night the Moon also returned; but now the Stars were strange.

   It is true that Eriador itself was little affected by this changing of the World,7 but the souls of every People alive at this time felt and knew that a great change had come. There was no scent of daylilies then to offer forgetfulness and all of the Peoples who lived in that time were humbled, frightened and wary. Great Powers were at work in the world and all who lived in it were made to know that their actions had brought consequence that should be remembered.8

 

   It was at this time that Elendil and his people came out of the Sea to join with the faithful Númenóreans who still survived in that part of the world. With all of their skills and knowledge they built great kingdoms for themselves in Middle-earth. They were, to all Peoples of the land, fair and just and their government was based upon the loyalties and integrity formerly held by the High Houses of Men; they honored the Great Powers and held deep friendships with the Eldar. They forsook all of the darkness which Sauron had brought with him to Númenor and looked to build a peaceful home for themselves in new lands. But also they wisely created new friendships with the Men of Eriador and showed them ways to govern their own lands as autonomous fiefdoms. The Men of Eriador would never again be colonial servants of Dark Númenóreans but would now be offered protections by the Sea-kings. This practice of Elendil’s was very much what Argeleb the Second had on his mind when he gave the Shire to the displaced hobbits of Eriador over eighteen-hundred years later; For Elendil’s wisdom tells us that ‘to rule should be the great responsibility of the wise, should concern itself chiefly with lightening the burdens of all, and should never lead to its own reward.’

 

   But it was not far into Elendil’s reign that war with Sauron came once again to challenge the Peoples of Middle-earth. For Sauron was a corruption and a challenge whom the Great Powers had not chosen to destroy. His doom, it is said, must one day be written by the Peoples of Middle-earth and not through the acts of the Great Powers.9 And so it was that Sauron was returned to be their own Great Enemy for another age.

   Some Men of Eriador, drawn by Elendil’s justice and his lordliness, marched beside the Númenóreans and even alongside the Elves in the Last Alliance. These brave people went south to Mordor and many, many died before the Black Gate. If their time among the Elves was ever recorded it has been lost with their deaths and if any Elves lived to speak of the bravery of these Men it is also not a matter of record. For the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, as it is recorded by Elves, speaks mostly of their own folk and also of Elendil the Tall and the Númenóreans who followed him. They neglect to tell of the brave Men of Eriador who never returned home to their own lands and families. Comrades they may have been for a time, but the Men of Eriador had not outgrown their suspicion of the Elves of the West.

 

   Now, as Gondo and Twoody go west and investigate the borders of their land, it is sixteen hundred and four years into the Third Age of Middle-earth and those wars against Sauron the Enemy are well behind them. Tales are still told of the Last Alliance but they seem as fables or children’s stories may seem to the practically-minded people of Eriador in these later days. To the Big Folk and the Little Folk who gathered around Bree-hill, Elves are quite genuinely believed in but remain (quite happily) unseen. It is commonly believed that they hold great castles and estates in the wilderness areas of the North, but no one, certainly no hobbit of Gondo and Twoody’s generation, has ever journeyed there nor ever wished to. If hobbits of their own time and acquaintance have ever met one of the Elvenfolk we have no record before this one. If Elves had met hobbits by this time we also do not know; for while Elvish histories are quite detailed they do, as a matter of course, include only the Elves as their subject of study.

   Gondo and Twoody walked west to the edges of their land but did not realize that the edges of that land which the king had granted them was proscribed and defined by a long-standing pact with the Elves.

 

*****

 

   The two hobbits were very certain that they had been followed for many days. Gondo, always wary and keen in a wood, suspected it before Twoody had any idea. There were no footprints to be seen near their campsites, no glimpses of far away watchers and no sounds in the day or night which might give them evidence. Yet Gondo and Twoody were both very smart and suspicious hobbits and, as such hobbits do, quickly knew when they were under the eyes of a predator, dangerous our no.

   If Twoody’s grandfather, old Priamus Swiftwalk, had any memories of time spent among the Elves he had never shared them. The Big Folk living in the Bree-land all felt the Elves to be a danger, but we have no idea whatsoever about how other hobbits of the Northlands felt in those days. Perhaps Twoody and Gondo believed, as some other people did, that gaining the attention of the Fair Folk signaled an auspicious beginning. There were others of course who believed it prophesied a dangerous end. Perhaps the two explorers wondered, as generations had before them, whether the Elves may have their own claim of rights to these lands and therefore would refuse all newcomers. So, observed yet unapproached, they debated whether these western lands recently granted to them were by right their own or perhaps the current habitat of Elven lords whom the king had failed to mention. This discussion, held very quietly, came mostly at night, for the two had adopted new traveling habits once they realized they were under scrutiny; they would break camp after morning was nearly finished and walk the greater bulk of their time in the afternoons. This was a scouting mission after all, and so they wanted to follow the Road west as they may through daylight. They would occasionally stop to sketch a row of hills or large wooded area and Twoody made many notes while Gondo tried to orient these features into new maps. They made certain to appear to all watchful eyes as peaceful travelers moving at no great haste and upon no great mission. But it also allowed them to sit up long together in the night and under the stars, times when they felt that the eyes of the Fair Folk were certainly upon them. So, being noticed and still unapproached, they were themselves watchful for what may happen next; if this land belonged to the Elf-lords how would they ever come to settle here?

   Twoody and Gondo had left the developed area of Buckland some four months ago and were now engaged with mapping the lands in early June of this third Year of the Shire-reckoning. In the Bree-land (and in the Shire) this time of year was called Lithe,10 the days of the new Moon which we call the summer solstice. These Summerdays were considered by many Peoples as a time when the world was to be refreshed and renewed. If this time held any keen importance to the Elves of the Western lands the two hobbits could not say. So together Twoody and Gondo went cautiously forward on their task of discovery and cartography. They talked of good hillsides for settlements and fields for planting and, with the afternoon Sun on their faces, continued on west toward the mountains. They sat up late at night talking quietly, singing a little bit to keep their spirits up and, most importantly, looking for some glimpse of the Fair Folk under the bright starlight.

   The meeting which they eventually had did not end as expected.

 

end of chapter ten

Chapter End Notes

Notes

1)  This is an indication that the “Lesser Men” (a name I will staunchly avoid using) may have had contact with the Ents, the Ent-wives, the Púkel-men or other characters like Radagast or Tom Bombadil. It is difficult to write about these “Lesser Men” because I need to recognize all of the ways in which Tolkien was susceptible to the narrow ideas of race within his own time. It's an unfortunate characteristic which I prefer not to look at too closely but also cannot avoid. These are the indigenous people of any land that is not touched by Colonialism; he does not, I’m sorry to admit, treat them as well in his writing as I should like to in mine.

2)  The scientific name for daylily is “Hemerocallis” and I considered using some more Tolkienesque version of that word here. But I think this section runs a little long away from how hobbits might talk, so I went for the more colloquial name here. The important idea is that in Chinese culture the daylily symbolizes forgetfulness or memory loss.

3)  Taniquetil or Oiolossë is the Great Mountain in the Undying Lands where Manwe and Yavanna sit in judgment (or the just plain watching) of Middle-earth. Using that name here places the narrator’s voice as someone familiar with the broader Legendarium; it is a slightly more aware voice than in most of the preceding paragraphs and, I hope, makes this section more like how the elves might tell this part of the tale.

4)  At this time, the dawn of the Second Age, I’d like to suggest that the Great Wood included the lands which would later become Lothlórien and that kingdom would be established by Amroth and Nimrodel.

5)  Sometimes in writing I find I’m just fishing around for the big idea which has attracted me to the act of writing. In the note above I mentioned how I wished to write something from the narrative position of Tolkien’s “Lesser Men” without ever using that term. In point of fact, this whole chapter was meant as a link for talking about the Elves without including the Elves directly in this novel. To do that I spent quite a lot of time exploring how the Elves feel somewhat superior to everyone they meet in Arda. I genuinely do believe that is their great failing. But to be able to address the notion of “compassion”- the exercise which teaches us to never separate our hopes and concerns from those of others- seems like the big idea of writing this bit, and fuels a lot of how I write the Elves in the bigger tale of The Fall of Arnor.

6)  I’ve been hoping for some time now to fit a Star Trek line into this piece; this is the closest I’ve managed so far.

7)  Tolkien never really settled the idea of how much the lands of Middle-earth were changed after the fall of Númenor and the world became round. The big problem is that he wrote many stories of the Second Age which use much of the landscape for the Third. Just as Karen Wynn Fonstad does in her excellent The Atlas of Middle-earth I’d like to put forward the notion that the changing of the world from flat to round was not boundered by science but by Iluvatar’s will of how the world should now look. Therefore grace was afforded to the innocent folk of Western Middle-earth and greater upheavals occurred in the far south and east, lands still under Sauron’s control.

8)  Revisiting the history of The Silmarillion as I’m doing here it's impossible to not wrestle a bit with my own feelings on Christian ethos as it runs through the Legendarium. To my thinking the sinking of Númenor and the change in the shape of the world is not something which the divine will of Illúvatar wants us to ever forget.

9)  So. We come to that thing where people usually ask “why did the Valar let Sauron go?” Fair enough. Here’s my take; the Eldar were meant to overthrow Morgoth after great suffering and the realization that they and not just he, for all their hubris, were only part of the Greater Designs of Illúvatar. In the War of Wrath and destruction of Thangorodrim the Valar recognized their complicity in the work; they had some part to play as stewards of Arda in all the battles of the Quenta Silmaril and even in the choices of Fëanor and the Noldor. Eärendil returns the Silmaril and reminds them of this. The Valar go to war and change the shape of the world, but Illúvatar does not. And then, once more complicit or ignorant of the plan, they pardon Sauron expecting him to return to Valinor for “Higher Judgement”. In this moment the discordant music of Melkor is sustained. They believe that they are done with the work and the Elves believe they are also done with the work. Forgiveness is greatly given, new lands rise and everyone hopes that all will return to a state of happiness. No guidance from Illúvatar comes at this time. But the Music, of course, is still playing. When the Númenoreans assault the Undying Lands Manwë does not attack them; they are the Children of Illúvatar and it is Illúvatar’s decision. Manwë calls for the Higher Court and all of the world is remade. But Sauron, most surprisingly of all, was not destroyed in the height of Illúvatar’s wrath. Sauron was the new problem which would arise after Morgoth and it seemed that the Valar, unwilling to judge one of their own, let him slip through their courts. Further, it seems that Illúvatar himself, in the reshaping of the world, allows Sauron, the great architect of the Númenórean’s downfall, to escape and take some other form. But I’d put forth that Sauron was not meant to be overthrown by the Valar or even the Elves; he plays a later part in the Music. For Sauron needed to be overthrown by the wise choices of Men (and Hobbits, who are a subset of Men) so that Men might arise to take control of Middle-earth as the Elves leave. But, remember, Men could not overthrow Sauron in the Second Age; they listened to him and took his advise and therefore became separated from the Valar. He was not destroyed in the sinking of Númenor because Men had not yet fully learned to reject him. The Third Age is not so much about the disinvolvement of the Valar or the Elves as it is about the engagement of Men (and Hobbits) in their resistance of Sauron. Rant over.

10) Dedicated fans will know that this time had a different name in the Shire calendar, “Forelithe”, but that distinction had not yet been made yet in the time of this story.

Table of Contents | Leave a Comment