Eöl

[Lalwendë]

Looking at the chapter, it is clear it is a tale with a moral, and intended to demonstrate how easily tragedy can result from sins. In the figures of Eol and Turgon we have two males who are intensely proud, one of his independence as someone who has lived in that land all his life, and one proud of his heritage and the empire he has created in this land which he sees he must ’save’. In Maeglin we see someone who is desirous of renown, power and Idril; and in Aredhel, someone who appears to want her own freedom, but does not entirely know her own mind. Power, corruption and lies? Or more secrets and lies?

Firstly, Aredhel clearly was of an independent, enquiring mind, as it appears it was a struggle for her to break free of the bonds of her brother. His concern is that Gondolin is not discovered by way of ‘loose tongues’, and she is only concerned with wanting to see what lies beyond the walls. She defiantly says to Turgon:

“I am your sister and not your servant, and beyond your bounds I will go as seems good to me”

To his credit, Turgon allows her to go, but she then ends up with Eol, another male who does not wish her to wander. Yet that is not the whole tale seemingly. It is that he does not want her to mix with the Noldor, who he dislikes as ‘incomers’. Of the nature of the relationship between Eol and Aredhel the text says:

It is not said that Aredhel was wholly unwilling, nor that her life in Nan Elmoth was hateful to her for many years. For though at Eol’s command she must shun the sunlight, they wandered far together under the stars or by the light of the sickle moon;

This does not to me appear that she was forced into marriage, nor that she was unhappy, although she later became that way. Why? I think it was due to the influence of her son, and also to the loneliness she felt when they were away from her; possibly also due to not knowing her own mind all that well. Aredhel clearly went from one claustrophobic life to another, and she was clearly unsuited to this kind of life with her urges to explore.

Eol says to Turgon of Aredhel:

If in Aredhel your sister you have some claim, then let her remain; let the bird go back to the cage, where soon she will sicken again, as she sickened before.

Eol seemingly did little wrong in taking her as his wife. She was wandering alone, in his woodland, and he merely set an enchantment making it difficult for her to leave the wood; it does not say that he charmed her into the actual marriage so we must presume she was willing. This is very Little Red Riding Hood - the solitary maiden in the forest and the ’dark’ male seducing her.

As to what Eol did wrong in pursuing Aredhel and Maeglin to Gondolin, there is little that is wrong. He was away and came home to find his wife and child gone and so followed them, along the way having his pride hurt and provoked by Curufin:

Unless indeed you yourself have been deceived

This mocking would have cut Eol’s pride to the quick, especially coming from one of the Noldor he disliked so much. In the confrontation with Turgon, I see a power struggle. Eol is told he cannot leave Gondolin, which would have hurt a man who was proud, and one who loved his own world he had built. The confrontation is loaded with power struggles, between two proud men, one high born and one solitary and independent. Inevitably it ends with violence when Eol, probably by then utterly frustrated in the face of this power, hurls the javelin at his son, seeing that he is about to be ‘claimed’ by Turgon, who he sees as representative of the power which has annexed part of his own land.

I think part of the reason that Eol is put to death is due to Turgon’s own hurt pride; he must make ‘show’ of punishing the interloper, the one who has caused the death of his sister, albeit inadvertently. I do not think this was right applying my own morals to the tale, but it was inevitable, as were the resulting actions of Maeglin.