The Fall of Lórien

Of all the magical places Tolkien created the woodland realm of Lothlórien is the one I love the most. It is both exotic and ancient, full of wisdom and concealed power but also mirth and love even though ’in all lands love is now mingled with grief.’  Before Christmas I wrote an essay about the themes of absence, fading and evanescence in Tolkien’s poems. The poems I analysed were The Song of Beren and Lúthien, Galadriel’s Song of Eldamar and The Lay of Nimrodel and I pondered their place as a significant part of the mythological tradition and continuum of Middle-Earth. Each of these poems – in my opinion – is impregnated with deep longing and grief though not only because they all speak of something that is lost of yore.

Especially Galadriel’s Song of Eldamar made me think of Lórien, fairest of all remaining elven realms on the eastern shores of the Sundering Seas. It is uncommonly graceful and beautiful and yet (speaking of The Lord of the Rings since that is where the poem appears) we readers only get to see it near to its passing in the days when its glory grows lesser. Alongside the Fellowship we wander under the fading mellyrn that, despite their lingering beauty, have already been touched by frost. This process of diminishing also concerns one of the most essential paradoxes of the novel: destroying the One Ring is the only way to save Middle-Earth and its peoples. However, when the Ring is destroyed also the power of the Three Rings fades away. Nenya, the Ring of Adamant wielded by Galadriel is the Ring of preservation and protection. Destroying the One Ring inevitably causes Lothlórien, the very place the Ring of Adamant was used to guard, to diminish when the protective power of Nenya ceases.

The Fall of Lórien literally is the fall of Lórien; as so often in the works of Tolkien (and probably generally in literature) here too autumn is associated with passing and change. It also causes Galadriel to miss the Undying Lands she left so long ago:

‘O Lórien! The Winter comes, the bare and leafless Day;
The leaves are falling in the stream, the River flows away.
O Lórien! Too long I have dwelt upon this Hither Shore
And in a fading crown have twined the golden elanor.’

Winter is on its way and the spring and summer of Lothlórien are gone by ‘and they will never be seen on earth again save in memory’. In this quote (The Fellowship of the Ring; Farewell to Lórien p. 396) the very core of my essay can be seen: most of the poems and songs, especially those of the Elves, are signs of something ancient, something lost, something treasured. When the Third Age comes near to its end there are more than one major changes going on in Middle-Earth and many things will fall into oblivion. Much of the folklore and history of Middle-Earth has survived in Elven poems and songs, but now the ones that still remember the ancient tales are leaving the Hither Shore in order to return to the Undying Lands. Instead of being the singers themselves the Elves now become the ones sung about, they no longer are the storytellers but parts of the stories. With them also fades the oral tradition of Middle-Earth – for instance in Elrond’s Hall of Fire in Rivendell thousands of poems and tales were told throughout the years. That tradition is coming to its end when the Fourth Age comes nearer.

The mythological tradition itself (again, in my opinion) is not fading even though oral tradition might; Bilbo Baggins collected countless songs, poems and tales in the Red Book of Westmarch, including translations from Elvish. The turn of the Third Age into the Fourth is also a turning point for the mythological tradition since it becomes written (and also translated which is not meaningless whenever speaking about Tolkien) instead of oral.

Back to Lórien. The mellyrn are fading, winter has come and the realm is slowly deserted. When I first read The Lord of the Rings 12 years ago I was sad to see that happen – in fact, I still am. However, I’m starting to understand why that had to happen. Besides, even though Lórien as it was in its summer is gone it doesn’t mean it has completely left those who loved it. The spring and summer won’t be seen again save in memory – and even though those who remembered are gone there luckily were those who wrote down the memories. Luckily there was Bilbo Baggins.