the elessar

[Ivriniel]

I'm highly disinclined to imagine that the Olorin we knew as Gandalf, "...known as Olorin in the West...", bore any Elessar anywhere as a pre-Istari Maian Spirit. It's too obscure, though a theoretical, I suppose. Low likelihood one.

He did not manufacture it, and irrespective of the competing narratives on the darned Elessar we knew he did not manufacture it. As a lesser artefact (certainly not as groovy or with as much goo goo as the Palantiri or The Rings), it makes much more sense that it was an Elfy making. That has implications for inferences about it, its keeper, who held it, distributed it and why.

We knew Galadriel had it, TA. Celebrimbor gifted it to her, in one of the variations of its origin while he stalked her to gettiton with him. I believe he asked for a lock of her hair, in fact, which she denied him, (which on an aside, adds to the significance of Gimli's request. Looks like good ole Galadriel kept her affections for Durin's Folk in tact, after SA). Then there was all that stuff about Celebrimbor and Galadriel hanging out together in the Ost-In-Edhil as they worked towards preserving Elvendom in Middle Earth. He knew she wanted Elvendom-y things in Middle Earth and so, during his stalking, made the Elessar. Love buying - creepy man, erm, I mean Elf . Seems like a consistent narrative thread, at that time he was hot for her. As I understood the emphasis in why it was crafted (a pre-Ring assay in attempts to do what The Rings did, but better), it is also consistent with the improvements upon the Elessar in the Gwaith-i-Mirdain's artefacts--the Rings of Power. That kind of narrative consistency is absent from competing models of inference.

That's why the competing narrative, with an odd name--Enerdhil--in an obscure footnote, firstly, and then the retina-burning idea of Celebrimbor in Gondolin. Not. Once Celebrimbor is tied to Feanor's line, there's no way in any abstraction that his presence makes sense in Gondolin. The Seven Sons of Feanor were to Gondolin (the estrangement between Fingolfin, his line, and Feanor's) what chalk is to cheese, which I think is what Galin is emphasising.