Silmarillion - Chapter 04 - Of Thingol and Melian

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Blind Guardian

Maybe it's not literal, maybe it felt like time slowed down.

Probably this is true.

I was thinking what could it symbolize, if anything. What I came up with was that they understood each other without words. Also, their whole life their relationship didn't change, and it was as if they were still standing in Nan Emloth.

(yeah, that's a bit of a stretch)

[Elmo]

It must have been literally years, why else would Olwe abandon his brother? Unless the Elves decided to abandon for all eternity anyone they didn't see for a couple of hours.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Elmo

It must have been literally years, why else would Olwe abandon his brother? Unless the Elves decided to abandon for all eternity anyone they didn't see for a couple of hours.

It could have been that they were away for actual years, but not necessarily that they didn't move all that time.

[Galadriel55]

Melian and Thingol's meeting is mentioned again in The Ruin of Doriath. What do you think of this passage compared to this chapter?

Upon Doriath a heavy change had fallen. Melian sat long in silence besibe Thingol the King, and her thought passed back into the starlit years and to their first meeting among the nightingales of Nan Elmoth in ages past; and she knew that her parting from Thingol was the forerunner of a greater parting, and that the doom of Doriath was drawing nigh.