The Lord of the Rings: The Council of Elrond (Part One)

The Tale

The next day Frodo and Sam go walking in the morning, reveling in the beauty of Rivendell. They come upon Bilbo and Gandalf talking, and Bilbo asks if Frodo is ready for the great council today? A single clear bell rings out, summoning them to the gathering. Gandalf ushers Bilbo and Frodo along as they are wanted at the Council. Sam follows along unobtrusively.

They find most of the Council already gathered on a large porch, facing East, loud with the sound of falling waters and bathed in the light of the clear autumn morning. There are many that Frodo already knows, including Elrond, Glorfindel, Gloin, and Aragorn, who is dressed again in his old travel-worn clothes. Elrond sits Frodo at his side, then introduces him to those he does not know. There is Gloin’s son Gimli by his side. Of the Elves there is Erestor, Elrond’s chief counsellor, Galdor, on an errand for Cirdan of the Grey Havens, and ‘a strange Elf clad in green and brown’, Legolas, son of Thranduil the king of the Mirkwood Elves. There is also a tall man with a fair and noble face if stern of glance. His clothes are rich but travel-stained and on his knees rests a great horn tipped with silver. This is ‘Boromir, a man from the South’. He looks at the Hobbits with wonder.

Many things are debated at the Council. Gloin reveals that a shadow of disquiet has fallen on the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain. Nearly thirty years ago Balin left with a group to re-colonize the fabled Mines of Moria, their ancient home of Khazad-dum and the only place in Middle-earth to find mithril, a fabled metal of strength and beauty. At first things seemed to go well, then Moria fell silent and there has been no word since.

Then a year ago a messenger came to Dain from Mordor. The Lord Sauron the Great, he said, wanted Dain’s friendship. In return he asked for news of Hobbits, especially of a thief who stole ‘a little ring, the least of rings’, a ‘trifle that Sauron fancies.’ Return it, and Dain will have back three rings of the Dwarf-sires and Moria again forever. Dain puts the messenger off twice, but he will return for the last time, soon. The Dwarves will never fall for Sauron’s tricks again, but Dain fears King Brand might fold under the pressure. Gloin has come to warn Bilbo that the Enemy is seeking him, and to ask counsel of Elrond.

“The Ring! What shall we do with the Ring, the least of rings, the trifle that Sauron fancies?” Elrond exclaims. “That is the doom we must deem.

“That is the purpose for which you are called hither. Called, I say, though I have not called you to me, strangers from distant lands. You are come and are here met, in this very nick of time, by chance as it may seem. But it is not so. Believe rather that it is so ordered that we, who sit here, and none others, must now find counsel for the peril of the world.”

He begins by telling of the Elven-smiths of Eregion and their friendship with Moria, and how they were snared by Sauron by their eagerness for knowledge. For then he was not evil to behold and few suspected his new guise. The Elven-smiths and their lord Celebrimbor grew mighty in their craft but Sauron learned all their secrets, and forged at Mt. Doom the One Ring to rule all the other Rings of Power. But becoming aware of him Celebrimbor hid the Three Rings of the Elves, and there was war.

Then Elrond tells of how Elendil and his sons came out of the ruin of Numenor with their people and established a kingdom in Middle-earth, made of Arnor in the North and Gondor in the South. But in time Sauron attacked them, and the Last Alliance of Men and Elves was made with Gil-galad, High King of the Elves. Their hosts were mustered in Arnor and were brave and fair to look upon.

Elrond pauses and sighs. He remembers the splendor of their banners. ‘It recalled to me the glory of the Elder Days and the hosts of Beleriand … when Thangorodrim was broken, and the Elves deemed that evil was ended forever, and it was not so.’

Frodo exclaims in astonishment. The fall of Gil-galad was a long age ago. Elrond tells him he was alive even in the days before the Second Age. He was the herald of Gil-galad and was there when Gil-galad and Elendil together overthrew Sauron, though they perished in the attempt and Elendil’s sword Narsil broke beneath him. Elrond was there when Isildur, Elendil’s son, cut the Ring from Sauron’s defeated hand and took it for his own, though Elrond and Cirdan advised against it.

Boromir speaks up. They do not know this tale in Gondor. So Isildur took the Ring! That is tidings indeed.

Elrond sighs and says yes, but he shouldn’t have; it soon betrayed the King’s son to his death. ‘Yet maybe death was better than what else might have befallen him.’ Of his company only three returned with the shards of Narsil to Rivendell where Isildur’s own young son Valandil stayed.

So in that war Gil-galad was slain, and Elendil and his sons Isildur and Anarion, but Sauron was not destroyed but only diminished. The Ring was lost but not unmade, and the Dark Tower was broken but its foundation remained, for it was made by the power of the Ring. The North Kingdom dwindled and vanished, though Isildur’s line endures in exile, while in the South, Gondor remains, but has lost their kings and are ruled now by stewards.

That is the end of Elrond’s tale, for in that part of the history of the Ring he played a portion. It is now for others to take up the story, to speak of how the Ring was found again.

Bits and Bobs

As I said before, this chapter is so lore-heavy that even to sum it up would be to practically just write it down again. And it will definitely need to be taken in smaller slices.

In an early draft, the young dwarf that accompanies Gloin is not his son Gimli, but ‘Burin, son of Balin’, and the Mirkwood Elf who would become Legolas son of Thranduil was named ‘Galdor’ first.

Once more the concept of ‘chance, if chance you call it’ is emphasized. Elrond has not summoned this council himself, but this meeting is in ‘the nick of time’, in the last possible moment that it could have occurred, and with just the right people. There is a special providence at work here.

In looking for a good picture of Celebrimbor I found mostly pictures of him in an uncanonical wraith-form from the game Middle-Earth: Shadow of War, in the knurled image of the actor from The Rings of Power, and an inordinate amount of fan art shipping him with Sauron in his fair form of Annatar, Lord of Gifts, which take the seducing of the Elven-smiths in a far too sexual direction. This is all part of dragging down the Legendarium from High Fantasy to the level of erotic fantasy which, I suppose, must be expected when any ‘franchise’ enters into the common mind.  They did it to Kirk and Spock in Star Trek. The Fair Folk dwindle into ‘Hot Elves’ in popular mentality.

It should be noted that Isildur uses the broken Narsil to cut the Ring from Sauron’s already dead body. Ever after, even when he ‘re-forms’, Sauron cannot grow back that lost finger. Gollum later reveals from personal knowledge that the Dark Lord has only nine, ‘But they are enough.’ Isildur takes the Ring as ‘weregild’ (literally ‘man-gold’) as the price for his father’s death, an idea and word based on an old Anglo-Saxon law about compensation for taking a human life.

Hm. A land without a king. A king without a land. How can we possibly resolve this situation?

Toffee, another finger-missing 'Big Bad', from Star vs. The Forces of Evil. Cultural influences?