Maedhros, grandfather of Feanor

[Huinesoron]

Now that we've done the easy one... how do we feel about Meril, mother of Gil-Galad?

Originally Posted by HoME XI - The Later Quenta

"[Felagund] sent away his wife Meril to her own folk in Eglorest, and with her went their son, yet an elvenchild, and Gilgalad Starlight he was called for the brightness of his eye."

Felagund's wife Meril has not been named before, nor any child of his; and this is the first appearance of Gil-Galad from The Lord of the Rings.

From the first, Gil-Galad was put in the story to become High King, and Meril was clearly created to be his mother, rather than Finrod's wife. Evidence of this comes from the fact that "Meril wife of Finrod" was summarily discarded to allow for "Amarie who Finrod loved", while "Gil-Galad sent away from Nargothrond" remained through the reassignment of his parentage to Orodreth.

So... if Meril was created to be Gil-Galad's mother, and was never replaced or directly rejected, does that mean the "Sindarin lady of the North" who is Gil-Galad's mother in the Shibboleth can legitimately take the name Meril?

(To slightly argue against this: Meril was from Eglarest, one of the Havens of the Falas. The unnamed woman was "of the North", which I would naturally read to mean Hithlum/Mithrim/Dorthonion, the home of North Sindarin speakers. But it could equally mean "the North" as in Beleriand - I think Tolkien uses the term that way when contrasting it with Middle-earth of the Third Age.)

hS

[Arvegil145]

Before I respond to the 'Meril issue', I have to make my protest against the use of a (modified; or really any) name of Bruithwir's father! I don't mind padding the post-LOTR legendarium with earlier texts - however, the thing about Bruithwir is that he existed alongside Finwe in the texts he is mentioned in!

To combine Bruithwir with Finwe wouldn't just be a case of infusing the early legendarium into the later, it would be tantamount to fanfic where the two never existed side by side.

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Now that we've done the easy one... how do we feel about Meril, mother of Gil-Galad?



From the first, Gil-Galad was put in the story to become High King, and Meril was clearly created to be his mother, rather than Finrod's wife. Evidence of this comes from the fact that "Meril wife of Finrod" was summarily discarded to allow for "Amarie who Finrod loved", while "Gil-Galad sent away from Nargothrond" remained through the reassignment of his parentage to Orodreth.

So... if Meril was created to be Gil-Galad's mother, and was never replaced or directly rejected, does that mean the "Sindarin lady of the North" who is Gil-Galad's mother in the Shibboleth can legitimately take the name Meril?

(To slightly argue against this: Meril was from Eglarest, one of the Havens of the Falas. The unnamed woman was "of the North", which I would naturally read to mean Hithlum/Mithrim/Dorthonion, the home of North Sindarin speakers. But it could equally mean "the North" as in Beleriand - I think Tolkien uses the term that way when contrasting it with Middle-earth of the Third Age.)

The thing about the name 'Meril' as the mother of Gil-galad/wife of Felagund was quickly abandoned.

Yes, sure, you could use the name as that of Orodreth's wife (Sindarin lady from the North), but that would be inventing stuff that isn't there.


In fact, as I argued before on numerous platforms, I'm c. 70% sure that Tolkien returned to the 'Gil-galad, son of Felagund' idea in the late '60s, early '70s.

Why? For one, Gil-galad spent most of his literary history as Felagund's son.

Second, Tolkien most surely wanted Gil-galad in the House of Finarfin.

And in that House, there's only a limited number of possible parentages: Aegnor and Galadriel are out of the question, leaving only Angrod and Finrod.

Angrod, as per the 'Shibboleth', is the father of Orodreth, who in turn was the father of Finduilas - in fact, in c. 1965 or so, that is what Tolkien decided as Gil-galad's parentage - he was to be a son of Orodreth.

Finrod, however, is another matter - from c. 1951/2 (GA) he was supposed to be single, leaving his beloved in Aman - in fact, that is a major motivating factor in 'Beren and Luthien' and the 'Silmarillion'.

However, in a c. mid-60's note to a copy of the LOTR, Tolkien wrote this:

During their dwelling in Nargothrond as refugees he had grown to love Finrod and ^ his wife, and was aghast at the behaviour of his father and would not go with him. He later became a great friend of Celeborn and Galadriel.

- PoME, 'Of Dwarves and Men', note 7, pp. 317-8

Showing, at least at that time, that Tolkien considered a wife for Finrod (in Beleriand!).

Now, I can't possibly see any reason why Tolkien would willingly butcher the story of Finrod/Amarie at the time unless he had some other end in mind - as in, why bother explicitly writing that this character has a wife (in Beleriand, who is not even given a name) unless he meant for them to have children (or a child)?

And what other character is there in such a limbo as that of Gil-galad? What other character spent as long as a son of Felagund if not Gil-galad?

EDIT: This is without mentioning Gil-galad's father/mother names in the late '60s - Ereinion ('scion of kings') and Finwain ('young Finwe') - these names might work with Orodreth as his father, but since Angrod his father wasn't a king, I'm not completely sure about it.

But Finrod was a king, and the eldest son of a king. And the 'Finarfin - Finrod - Finwain' line would hold much better than 'Finarfin - Angrod - Orodreth - Finwain' line IMO.

Of course, this is utter speculation, but my senses are strongly tingling in this particular direction.