The Second Age Read Along - Part 2 - Week 4: UT: The History of Galadriel and Celeborn - Appendices

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#What we’re reading today

We are continuing from last week’s reading with the appendices from that section. You can find it in Unfinished Tales, at the end of the fourth section of Part Two: “The History of Galadriel and Celeborn and of Amroth King of Lorien” (which we read last weak). The Appendices are labelled A-E, and we are reading all of them..

#Resources

Maps:

• Atlas of Middle-earth, Relocation of Refugees
• Atlas of Middle-earth, Advent of the Dark Years
• Atlas of Middle-earth, Last Alliance
• From Amazon, Late Second Age

Family Trees from The Silmarillion:

• The Elf Kindreds
• The House of Finwë (Galadriel’s family)
• The Descendants of Olwë and Elwë (Galadriel is one)

#Before you read

The appendices cover the history of Galadriel and Celeborn as well as the history of elves and their territories. There is not a lot of storytelling in these passages, but rather a world-building set of appendices for better visualization of the world of Middle Earth. The most important thing to note here is that if you have not read last week’s readings, this week’s will have less context for you and will be less meaningful. However, unlike most of our readings so far, you could technically pick this up with no prior knowledge.

In addition to the groups of the Elves from last week (if you’ve forgotten them, feel free to look back at that post), there are a few more terms to note for these appendices:

Avari = ‘the Unwilling’; all Elves that refused the initial summons of the Valar to go on the journey to Valinor

Third Clan = this is another way of saying the Teleri, of which both the Sindar and Silvan Elves originally were a part of

#After you read

Here’s a summary for each of the appendices:

• Appendix A covers a brief background of the Silvan Elves and their relation to the other groups of Elves, their response to the return of their kindreds, the Sindar and the Noldor, during the Second Age (generally, the response was welcoming to long lost kin), and some thoughts on the changes of the languages of all those people during those times (such as the lack of a written language for Silvan leading to its slow disappearance, the only remnants being some words and names).
• Appendix B takes a look at some of the Sindaran princes that came to rule primarily Silvan realms during the Second Age. Thranduil and his father, Oropher, are the first to be mentioned, regarding their realm in Greenwood the Great (which later became Mirkwood). A passage is given describing their massive losses during the War of the Last Alliance at the end of the Second Age and Oropher’s death. Following them is Malgalad of Lórien, who is mentioned nowhere else, but Christopher Tolkien thinks he seems to have similarities to the father of Amroth in the versions where Amroth is not the son of Celeborn (remember from last week’s readings, Amroth had several different versions concerning his parentage). The reading then turns back to discussing the aftermath of the War of the Last Alliance in Thranduil’s kingdom, primarily looking at his fear and motivations for making his realm gradually more closed-off (which coincide with the motivations of the Silvan people he rules).
• Appendix C deals with the location of the borders of Lórien and correcting an error in The Lord of the Rings appendices regarding the northernmost border of Gondor in the height of its power. The Lórien borders approximate to this: westward was the boundary of the mountains, eastward the river Anduin, south there was no clear border with Fangorn (the Ents and Elves seldom mingled, but were not hostile towards each other or their movements within their realms), and northward it is unclear, except that they claimed to “govern the woods as far as the falls in the Silverlode where Frodo was bathed”.
• Appendix D details the history of the river Gwathló and how it received its name (there used to be tall forests on either side, covering the river in shadow), and about the important Númenórean port there.
• Appendix E is concerned with elvish naming practices as well as the etymological history of Galadriel and Celeborn’s names.

#Discussion questions

• Until now, the readings have pretty much been presented as finished pieces, but these past two weeks have been more disjointed with Christpher quoting various short excerpts from philological writings amidst his own commentary. Do you feel that more editing should have been done here to form a more complete narrative or do you feel that less should have been done and that the excerpts would be better in the context of the original unedited essays they were taken from? (We’ll some examples of that in a few weeks.)
• Does the concept of the Sindarin princes among the Silvan elves (and all the other Elvish factions we’ve been reading about) enrich your understanding of Tolkien’s universe or does it seem to be unnecessary information?
• Now that we understand how elves get their names, what do you think of Galadriel’s father-name Artanis (“noble woman”), her mother name Nerwen (“manly maiden”), or her chosen after-name Alatáriel/Galadriel (“maiden crowned with radiant garland”)? Which do you think is most appropriate?