Elves and Gondor

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

A very interesting quote. I find the full passage even more intriguing.

It indeed is! Actually, quite surprising, and it makes me think that I should really try to get myself to re-read all of the LotR again and properly, because I haven't managed to do so for some time now and things like this surprise me! Actually, this quote looks almost fantastic - it looks so strange, so un-Middle-Earthish. Generally, I contribute all ideas of such inter-racial contact by the end of TA only to fanfictions and RPGs where people desperately want to introduce several races at once and so come up with tales of a lonely Gondorian wandering to Lórien or about an Elven scout going to Gondor, but obviously this quote from the very book moves the idea from the realm of pure fiction into, so to say, "canonical reality".

Personally, I believe the idea about people like Haldir going to Gondor makes lot of sense in the light of this. Also, I think we can imagine some Elf-obsessed Gondorians wandering North. The only thing I would argue against is this:

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Perhaps those who went in search of it either were killed in the wild by various means, or were stopped from entering the Wood by Galadriel's power and turned back home.

I think this is actually a very limited view. I actually believe there will be a large portion of people who would just go into the forest... and disappear. Lórien is a dangerous place, place of "Elven magic", and I think that with many people it could indeed turn so that they enter the woods and then spend the rest of their life with sitting in a glade, gazing at the sun and literally losing themselves in the spell of Lórien. This is the way, I believe, in which Lórien would be protected against intruders - they would not go further into the woods, they would not reach Caras Galadhon, but they will be enchanted and simply remain there. Remember Bombur and the forest river. Isn't this the dangerous Elvish magic which made Elven woods so feared in the tales of Men?

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

I actually believe there will be a large portion of people who would just go into the forest... and disappear. Lórien is a dangerous place, place of "Elven magic", and I think that with many people it could indeed turn so that they enter the woods and then spend the rest of their life with sitting in a glade, gazing at the sun and literally losing themselves in the spell of Lórien. This is the way, I believe, in which Lórien would be protected against intruders - they would not go further into the woods, they would not reach Caras Galadhon, but they will be enchanted and simply remain there. Remember Bombur and the forest river. Isn't this the dangerous Elvish magic which made Elven woods so feared in the tales of Men?

In that case, would Faramir saying they 'seldom returned' mean those who did come back simply didn't make it to Lórien, or that they somehow were immune to the effect? Come to think of it, if most who arrived uninvited to Lórien simply dreamt the rest of their lives away, why were Haldir, Rumil, and Oropher so concerned about the orcs who crossed Nimrodel in pursuit of the Fellowship? Wouldn't it be a simple matter of hiding and letting them come under the spell, if that was Lórien's primary defense?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

In that case, would Faramir saying they 'seldom returned' mean those who did come back simply didn't make it to Lórien, or that they somehow were immune to the effect? Come to think of it, if most who arrived uninvited to Lórien simply dreamt the rest of their lives away, why were Haldir, Rumil, and Oropher so concerned about the orcs who crossed Nimrodel in pursuit of the Fellowship? Wouldn't it be a simple matter of hiding and letting them come under the spell, if that was Lórien's primary defense?

But of course you deal differently with one or two wandering Men and a warband of pursuing Orcs. Lórien had various means of defense, and each of them worked best in certain way on certain cases (and above all of that there was Galadriel's Ring).

[mark12_30]

This is fascinating. Melian enchanted Thingol (stood together with him, tis true) for years while the Teleri wandered in search of him; she protected Thingol's realm with her "girdle" of enchantment; Beren was, if I recall correctly, *allowed* through because Melian realized he had a great doom on him, otherwise he would have been bewidlered on the borders?

How creepy, to wander the borders of Lorien and meet enchanted mortals gazing into the treetops, hair and beard grown long and wild... Brrr.

A very fey interpretation, and good thinking.

--mark12_30

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by mark12_30

How creepy, to wander the borders of Lorien and meet enchanted mortals gazing into the treetops, hair and beard grown long and wild... Brrr.

At least some, however, apparently escaped that fate, according to men of different countries. Boromir:

'And now we must enter the Golden Wood, you say. But of that perilous land we have heard in Gondor, and it is said that few come out who once go in; and of that few none have escaped unscathed.'

FOTR Lothlórien

And Éomer:

'Then there is a Lady in the Golden Wood, as old tales tell!' he said. 'Few escape her nets, they say.'

TTT The Riders of Rohan

From that it certainly appears that some men did enter the Wood from time to time, else the stories those two had heard and the wording they used to describe them would not be so similar.
My question now is if an enchanted dream-state awaited the uninvited and the overly curious man, why were some apparently able to return to their fellows and tell them of the experience?
Again, I can't see sovereign rulers of either Gondor or Rohan sending anyone to Lórien on any sort of official business. So why would escapees be allowed?

[The Mouth of Sauron]

As they were leaving Lorien Celeborn spoke to the Company - and it was obvious he was well informed about events in Middle-Earth. For example, he knew about the bridges at Osgiliath being down and the eastern bank of Anduin being held by the Enemy. He must have got his info somehow.

And as the Company was approaching Rauros Aragorn did state that boats in recent times had travelled down Anduin from Wilderland to Osgiliath - Boromir confirmed this, although he said it had happened "seldom". Might these boats have carried Elves from Lorien and also possibly from the Woodland Realm in Mirkwood ? Anborn knew about black squirrels in Mirkwood.

Another possibility I suppose would be Gondorian ships sometimes going to the Gulf of Lune, and/or Cirdan's mariners visiting Pelargir.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by The Mouth of Sauron

As they were leaving Lorien Celeborn spoke to the Company - and it was obvious he was well informed about events in Middle-Earth. For example, he knew about the bridges at Osgiliath being down and the eastern bank of Anduin being held by the Enemy. He must have got his info somehow..

Celeborn probably knew about that long before the Company arrived at Lórien. Boromir had told the Council of Elrond about it, having witnessed it himself.

Originally Posted by The Mouth of Sauron

And as the Company was approaching Rauros Aragorn did state that boats in recent times had travelled down Anduin from Wilderland to Osgiliath - Boromir confirmed this, although he said it had happened "seldom". Might these boats have carried Elves from Lorien and also possibly from the Woodland Realm in Mirkwood ? Anborn knew about black squirrels in Mirkwood..

Aragorn could have travelled the River by boat on many occasions during his journeys. The same goes for Boromir, though I'm not sure what reason he might have had for being in a boat approaching Rauros from the north prior to the Company of the Ring.
That was also the probable means of Lórien elves to rendezvous with any men of Gondor they would speak with, but I know of no evidence Thranduil's elves from Mirkwood ever did the same. Anborn's words about the black squirrels were probably just from folklore he had heard.

Originally Posted by The Mouth of Sauron

Another possibility I suppose would be Gondorian ships sometimes going to the Gulf of Lune, and/or Cirdan's mariners visiting Pelargir.

I wouldn't think either would have been likely, at least not for many years prior to the War of the Ring.
The last instance of ships from Gondor going to Mithlond that I know of was in the year 1975 of the Third Age, when Eärnur brought the army that defeated the Witch-king. I think Gondor became entirely engrossed in their own affairs after that, and would have seen no profit in such a journey.
Círdan, too, would have had no call that I know of that would bring his ships to Pelargir. He and his people were pretty well confined to Mithlond and Lindon by that point. I get the impression Galdor's trip to Rivendell was a rare event.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

I would side with Rumil here. And as for the points above, I would agree with Inziladun that we have to approach all the thoughts carefully and not with too daring fantasies. The Wood-Elves of Mirkwood were a "barbaric" and remote people, being friendly only with the folk of Lake-Town and being divided even from their cousins in Lórien by dangerous country. The less would they need to meddle into any Gondorian affairs. I would believe that Anborn's remark about black squirrels was indeed just an old folk story, something like a wise remark passed down among the hunter masters and their apprentices as a curiosity about the outside world: "Good shot, son! Now you see, it's not that hard to shoot a squirrel from this distance. Next time, we can try with mice. Ha, only you remember, if you ever came to Mirkwood, son, they have black squirrels there, and it's dark there, so you won't actually see them! Ho Ho Ho! Okay, we're done for today, take your bow and let us go home."

Originally Posted by Inziladun

From that it certainly appears that some men did enter the Wood from time to time, else the stories those two had heard and the wording they used to describe them would not be so similar.
My question now is if an enchanted dream-state awaited the uninvited and the overly curious man, why were some apparently able to return to their fellows and tell them of the experience?
Again, I can't see sovereign rulers of either Gondor or Rohan sending anyone to Lórien on any sort of official business. So why would escapees be allowed?

As for this, Boromir's and Éomer's knowledge might have been as well derived from the same source. Having a real basis, for sure, but what makes you believe that actually people would enter the Wood and return? They would not pass into any more "important" places and return, for certain. I think if anybody returned, it would be just so that he was the reluctant one from the company, and just saw his companions disappear in the forest and they did not return, and when he was looking for them, he didn't find them, perhaps only something they dropped or left in the wood (like for example some guy's most prized cloak, which he just left lying in the woods, because it hindered him when chasing some phantasm, but finding the cloak was enough for the one who came looking after him to convince him that his friend was lost, for it was well known he would never drop the cloak on his own will). Or you can imagine it, once again, akin to Bilbo's experience. A group of adventurous Rohanians camps by the woods, suddenly they see eerie lights flickering behind the trees, two of them say "ooh, look, let's go there and see!" and the third one, less brave, wants to remain there, but his friends go and are never heard of again. The third guy returns to Rohan with a tale about another claim by the Elven Lady of the Golden Wood.

[The Mouth of Sauron]

The River Limlight, the northern border of Rohan, was only about 100 miles from Lorien.

There surely must have been SOME occasional contact between Elves from Lorien and men from the Wold.

In addition, men (Beornings and others) still lived on the banks of the Anduin north of Lorien, down to maybe the Gladden Fields. Here again, they might have had some contact with Lorien and would most certainly have had contact with Elves from Mirkwood. I say that because there was certainly interaction between the Mirkwood Elves, the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain and the Men of Esgaroth. In turn, these people (particularly Dwarves) travelled into Eriador via the High Pass that was guarded by the Beornings.

All these comings and goings must have led to some residual contacts at least with Gondor, not least by way of the Anduin and via Rohan.