The Lord of the Rings: The Mirror of Galadriel

 

The Tale

The sun is setting and the shadows deepening when the Fellowship and their guides move on. The Elves uncover their silver lamps. They finally reach an open area, in the middle of which is a deep fosse [ditch or moat] surrounding a green wall encircling a green hill thronged with mallorn-trees taller than any they’ve yet seen. They must walk around to the south to find the gate. They take a road paved with white stone that runs along the outer edge of the fosse. Finally, they reach a white bridge where the walls overlap, and they pass through a gate hung with many lamps.

They pass through the city of trees, along paths and up stairs. They see no-one down below, but hear voices, talking and singing, up in the many flets in the mallorns. Finally they reach the tallest tree of all, before which a shimmering fountain falls. As they approach, three armor-mailed guards spring up. ‘Here dwell Celeborn and Galadriel,’ said Haldir. ‘It is their wish that you ascend and speak with them.’ One of the guards blows a horn and it is answered from above. They begin to climb the ladder before them, first Haldir, then Frodo, then Legolas, followed the rest of the company.

As they climb, they pass many other large talans (flets). They come at last to the topmost talan, like the deck of a great ship, a chamber filled with soft light with walls of green and silver and a golden roof. Many Elves are seated there, and on chairs against the bole of the tree are Celeborn and Galadriel. They rise to greet their guests. They are tall and beautiful, and dressed in white. Celeborn has silver hair while that of Galadriel is a deep gold, while their eyes are keen yet profound, ‘the wells of deep memory.’ Celeborn sits Frodo next to him until the others have arrived and are seated before him.

He greats Aragorn as a welcome guest, returned after thirty-eight years, Legolas as kindred, and even Gimli as a sign that friendship shall be renewed between their peoples. He wonders why there are only eight of them, when they heard there would be nine. Has there been a change of counsel?

Galadriel speaks; her voice is somewhat deeper than woman’s wont, but clear and musical. She knows Gandalf set off with the Company but has not entered Lothlorien. ‘[A] grey mist is about him, and the ways of his feet and of his mind are hidden from me.’

Aragorn reveals that he fell in Moria, saving them, and all the elves in the hall cry out in grief and amazement. At Celeborn’s request he tells the whole tale, until he comes to the bridge and the Terror there, ‘both a shadow and a flame, strong and terrible.’ ‘A Balrog of Morgoth,’ Legolas confirms, ‘of all Elf-Banes the most deadly, save the One who sits in the Dark Tower.’ ‘Durin’s Bane,’ says Gimli, and dread is in his eyes at the memory.

Celeborn laments that the evil in the Mines had been stirred up by the dwarves, and wonders if Gandalf had fallen into folly, going needlessly into the net of Moria. He wonders if he should have let the dwarf into Lorien, after all.

Galadriel gravely rebukes him; ‘Needless were none of the deeds of Gandalf in life… Do not repent of your welcome to the Dwarf. If our folk had been exiled long and far from Lothlorien, who of the Galadrim, even Celeborn the Wise, would pass nigh and would not wish to look upon their ancient home, though it had become an abode of dragons?  Dark is the water of Kheled-zaram, and cold are the springs of Kibil-nala, and fair were the many-pillared halls of Khazad-dum in Elder Days before the fall of mighty deeds beneath the stone.’

She looks at Gimli and smiles. And Gimli, ‘hearing the names given in his own ancient tongue’, looks up and sees love and understanding in the eyes of the elven Lady. He rises and bows in Dwarf-fashion. ‘Yet more fair is the living land of Lorien, and the Lady Galadriel is above all the jewels that lie in the earth!’

Celeborn begs Gimli’s pardon for his hasty words, and promises them all aid. Galadriel reveals that their quest is known to them and that they will help them with counsel and such gifts as they can give. She and Celeborn have dwelt together since before even the Fall of Gondolin or Nargothrond, and ‘fought the long defeat.’ Even with Gandalf gone, there is hope left, but the ‘Quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while all the Company is true.’

She looks deeply into their eyes, which none save Aragorn and Legolas can stand long. Sam actually blushes. When she releases them, they are as tired as if they have been questioned long and hard. Celeborn bids them go and rest now and forget for a while their sorrow and toil.

The Elves spread a pavilion for them near the fountain below. The hobbits are glad to be on the ground again. Before they go to sleep, the Company discuss the happenings of the last couple of days, and especially their meeting with the Lord and Lady of Lorien. Each reveal that when Galadriel searched their eyes they felt tested, offered a chance to turn aside. Boromir feels it was a temptation and not a test. ‘I do not feel too sure of this Elvish Lady and her purposes.’

‘Speak no evil of the Lady Galadriel!’ said Aragorn sternly. ‘You know not what you say. There is in her and in this land no evil, unless a man bring it hither himself. Then let him beware!’ As for him, he shall sleep for the first time without care since they left Rivendell. He lays down and goes to sleep and soon the rest follow suit, and when they awake it is already broad daylight.

The Company spends some time in Lothlorien, but they can never quite keep track of the days. The weather is a perfect blend of all the best qualities of every season, with only a mild rain now and then that passes leaving everything fresh and clean. All they do is eat and drink and rest and walk under the trees, but few of the Elven-folk they meet know the Common Speech. Legolas is away much abroad in the land and often he takes Gimli with him now. The others wonder at the change.

Now that they have more time, they grieve for Gandalf, remembering much of what they knew or had heard about him. They can hear the Elves singing songs lamenting him, using their name for Gandalf, Mithrandir (‘Grey Pilgrim’). Frodo tries to make his own song about Gandalf, and though Sam praises it and tries to cap it with a verse about the wizard’s fireworks, it seems to Frodo that what he produces is just ‘a handful of withered leaves’ compared to what he had in his mind. He dreads having to tell Bilbo the news.

One evening Frodo and Sam are walking and discussing matters. They both feel that somehow their time in Lothlorien is coming to an end. Frodo asks Sam what he thinks of Elves now. Sam says that these Elves are no wanderers and seem to belong to the land even more than Hobbits belong to the Shire. But ‘If there’s magic about, it’s right down deep.’ He hasn’t seen anything like old Gandalf used to do, but he fancies that the Lady could do some wonderful things if she had a mind to. Frodo doesn’t care about any tricks, but he hopes that they’ll see the Lady of the Elves again before they leave.

As if called by the thought, Galadriel appears and beckons them to follow her. They pass through a high hedge into an enclosed garden, open to the sky. The Evening Star shines high above. They take some stairs into a deep green hollow, with a stream flowing through the bottom. ‘At the bottom, upon a low pedestal carved like a branching tree, stood a basin of silver, wide and shallow, and beside it stood a silver ewer.’ She dips the ewer  [a large-mouthed pitcher with a handle] in the stream, fills the basin, and breathes upon it. ‘Here is the Mirror of Galadriel,’ she said. ‘I have brought you here so that you may look in it, if you will.’

Frodo asks what they will see, and she says she can command it to show them what they wish. But also it can show visions of things unbidden, and they are often more profitable. If he leaves the Mirror free to work, she cannot tell what he will see, for it shows the past, and the present, and things that yet may be, and it can be hard to discern which is which.

Frodo hesitates, and she turns to Sam. ‘And you?’ she said …’For this is what your folk would call magic, I believe; though I do not understand clearly what they mean; and they seem also the same word for the deceits of the Enemy … Did you not say that you wished to see Elf-magic?’

Sam says that he’d like a peep, though he figures he’ll only see stars, or something he won’t understand. He looks in and he does see stars, but he gasps when the Mirror changes. He sees waving branches, then Frodo lying fast asleep with a pale face under a dark cliff. He sees himself climbing an endless winding stair looking for something, though he doesn’t know what. He sees the waving branches again, and then is outraged to see it is trees that are being cut down in the Shire, and the old Mill replaced with a red brick building. Chimneys belch black smoke. Then he sees the Gaffer turned out of Bagshot Row. With cry he says that he must go home!

Galadriel calms him, saying that some of the visions never come true unless some turn aside to try to prevent them. Sam knew there might be trouble before he saw the visions. Does he mean to abandon his Master? Sam, though still angry, settles down. Then she asks if Frodo wants to look?

After a few questions, he agrees to try it. He sees a figure that he thinks at first is Gandalf, until a glimpse of white robes makes him think it’s Saruman. He sees Bilbo pacing restlessly about his cluttered room. Then he sees brief glimpses of scenes he knows must be connected with the history of the Ring: the Sea, and black sails coming from the storm-wracked West, and a white city with seven towers, and a banner bearing a white tree. There is a smoke as of fire and battle that fades into a grey mist and a small ship, twinkling with lights, that passes into the West. Frodo sighs and starts to draw away.

But the Mirror suddenly goes dark, like a hole into an abyss. Then an Eye appears, that grows until it nearly fills the Mirror. Frodo is transfixed. ‘The Eye was rimmed with fire, but was itself glazed, yellow as a cat’s, watchful and intent, and the black slit of its pupil opened on a pit, a window into nothing.’ The Eye begins to rove, searching this way and that; and Frodo knows with certainty and horror that one of the things it is seeking for is him. But it cannot see him yet, not unless he reveals himself.

The Ring hanging around his neck grows heavier than a stone and starts to pull him down toward the vision. Curls of steam rise from the water. ‘Do not touch the water!’ said the Lady Galadriel softly.’ And the vision fades, and he is looking at stars reflecting in the silver basin.

Galadriel knows what he has seen, for it is also in her thoughts. Lothlorien is maintained by more than singing and slender bows. ‘I say to you, Frodo, that even as I speak to you, I perceive the Dark Lord and know his mind, or all of his mind that concerns the Elves. And he gropes ever to see my thoughts. But the door is closed!’

She raises her arm in defiance to the East, and by the burning light of Earendil, the Evening Star, Frodo sees the ring upon her finger, a ring that glitters like gold overlaid with silver, set with a white stone. He looks on it in awe and seems to understand.

Galadriel tells him yes, it is one of the Three Elven Rings. Sam cannot see it, but it can no longer be hidden from the Ring-bearer, and one who has seen the Eye. It is Nenya, the Ring of Adamant. Sauron suspects she has it, but he does not know. Galadriel sustains the beauty and timelessness of the Golden Wood with it, but whether Frodo succeeds or fails, Lothlorien is doomed. If Sauron gets the Ring all will be lost, but if it is destroyed all that has been done by the power of the Three will fade and fail. But the Elves would rather have that happen than for the Dark Lord to conquer.

Frodo, suddenly moved by her wisdom and bravery, offers her the Ring. ‘It is too great a matter for me.’ Galadriel laughs, and says that now he is revenged for her testing of his heart. She admits she has greatly desired the power of the One Ring and long wondered what she would do if it came to her.

‘You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! a Queen! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!’

For a moment the light of her ring on her upraised hand blazes forth and all else is in shadow. She seems to Frodo a terrible and beautiful icon of power and majesty. Then she lets her hand fall and laughs, just a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white.

‘I pass the test,’ she said. ‘I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.’

They stand for a long while in silence, then Galadriel says they should return. They have both made their decisions, and Frodo shall depart tomorrow. Before they leave the garden, Frodo asks why he can’t see the others who wear the Three Rings? Galadriel says he has not worn the Ring often since he knew what it was, and has never tried to use it in domination. He shouldn’t try; it is too dangerous and he is yet too weak. Sam tells her that she should still take the Ring. ‘You’d put things to rights … You’d make some folks pay for their dirty work.’

“I would,’ she said. ‘That is how it would begin. But it would not stop with that, alas! We will not speak more of it. Let us go!’

 

Bits and Bobs

When Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings, he already had the legends of the First Age largely set down. Galadriel was undreamt of; in fact in the first notes for the story it was a ‘King Galdaran’ who was to show them the Mirror. Once Galadriel was established in the story, however, Tolkien had to ‘discover’ her history and in fact create a place for her ‘backdated to the beginning of time,’ as it were. He created several ‘timelines’ for her, never exactly settling on one, although several factors remained consistent. One was her marriage to Celeborn, although what kind of an Elf he was changed now and then. Elves only marry once, even if their partner dies, because they will be reborn and reunited in Valinor. (Take that, Rings of Power!)

One story goes that Feanor, the maker of the Silmarils, wanted to marry her but was rejected. Supposedly he was inspired by the mingled gold and silver of her hair to catch the blended light of the Two Trees into the three holy jewels.

Aspects of Galadriel were inspired by Tolkien’s devotion to the Virgin Mary.  He confesses as much in several of his letters to religious persons. Not least is her giving the provision of lembas, waybread for the journey, that strengthens not only the body but the spirit, in the same way that Mary gave to the world the Bread of Heaven.

In later writings, Tolkien says there are mallorn trees in Eldamar, the Elvish part of Valinor, and that they once grew in one area of Numenor.

While Sauron’s power produces deceits (lies, phantoms, distortions, and destruction), the power of Galadriel provides visions, counsel, growth, and preservation. She cannot completely understand how some folk can call such opposites by one term, ‘magic’. But if you define magic as ‘the production of effects by the exertion of power’, it is a term vague enough.

The visions the Mirror gives become plain enough in time. Strangely enough, it is not foreknowledge of what will happen that helps the viewers, because they are hard to interpret. It is only recalling them retroactively that makes one ponder their significance and come to a conclusion, and therefore, a resolve.

The power of the ring Nenya keeps Lothlorien free from stain or ‘shadow’, protected from unsightly decay or blighted growth, and time ceases to lay a heavy hand on things. In that way, for a while it preserves a vision of how things are in the Undying Lands.

Although Frodo presents Galadriel with the greater temptation which she refuses, Sam’s little wish for her to take the Ring anyway can be seen as one last nudge, like offering one a cookie after one has successfully resisted a feast. Galadriel says they must leave soon. Perhaps so the temptation will finally be out of her reach.