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Excerpt from the book "The Lay of Leithian: a Historiographical Approach" by Líwë Ríniel of the University of Tirion

Chapter 5 — Thingol, Doriath, and the Leithian's Intent

While there was very little change to the cantos preoccupied with what happened directly within Doriath and the Quest for the Silmaril, there are several points within the cantos VI, VIII, and X—which describe the Fëanorions and Lúthien's time in Nargothrond—which saw alteration and can be regarded as versions 'in dispute' of each other. An examination of the variations across the cantos can be pinpointed to different regions in Beleriand as well as showing a general timeline of how the Leithian spread from Doriath after it was written and before the Second Kinslaying, and then reaching saturation across Beleriand by the end of the First Age†. As the lay spread, anachronisms and incongruities were slowly revised: showing that as the Leithian left Doriath and began to be encountered by peoples whom would have better known the Sons of Fëanor and been more familiar with events outside Doriath they 'corrected' the verse to reflect this.

The neatest illustration of this point is the original Iathrim version of the Leithian asserting that Curufin Fëanorion was the brother who became enamored of Lúthien, and indeed, that it was Curufin who shot arrows at Lúthien during their purported encounter. In all other versions of the Leithian—specifically, those versions that spread beyond Doriath and were thus subject to the 'correction' of the verses—it is Celegorm Fëanorion who is given the role of the rebuffed suitor.

It is not to say that the Iathrim's isolation is what caused the transposition of names, as Celegorm had been long known to them as Prince of Himlad and ruler of the lands to the immediate east of Doriath, and Curufin while less well-known would also have been a name familiar to them††.

It has been long-considered that the goals of the Leithian's writing were twofold: the first, to act as an account of Beren and Lúthien's deeds and their defiance of Morgoth, and the second, to affirm the Iathrim's isolationism and refusal of aid to the various groups of Noldorin refugees created by the Nirnaeth and, furthermore, establish a moral claim to ownership of the Silmaril.

This however, cannot be taken as entirely accurate.

In the wake of the Nirnaeth and the decade that followed, Doriath had emerged in Beleriand as perhaps the last and largest politically and militarily intact kingdom†††. Elu Thingol was not foolish, nor particularly sentimental in his maneuvering. His long-held disdain for the Kinslayers, as well as the increasing lack of any checks on his power from outside sources, combined to fuel his efforts to ensure that the Noldor—and the Fëanorions specifically—were unable to reestablish practical or political power in Beleriand.

Contrary to the popular image of First Age Doriath, Thingol's court was not as isolated from the political and cultural changes that had been ongoing across Beleriand as the presence of the Girdle would suggest. While there were few who directly treated with the Noldor—beyond those few Arafinweans who were welcomed into Doriath as diplomats and guests—Doriath's Marchwardens regularly brought both news as well as correspondence from neighboring rulers to Thingol, and Thingol wielded this information as a weapon in his court.

The Iathrim would have known perfectly well the identities of the rulers of the Noldor and had a general understanding of current events outside Menegroth. Thingol would have been pressingly aware of the waning of his power as the Sindar outside of Doriath pledged fealty to their new Noldorin overlords††††.

The Leithian's disputed cantos, then, in the original Iathrim text, cannot be dismissed as a mere case of mistaken identity. In this vein also, the specified cantos can be questioned for accuracy in terms of their portrayal of the political situation in Nargothrond at the time, as first-hand accounts from within the hidden kingdom directly diverge from the text of the Leithian.

† See Appendix XVI: Map of Beleriand at the end of the First Age — The Spread of the Leithian. There was a notable stall in how far the Leithian had spread beyond Doriath before the Second Kinslaying. In contrast to the twenty-nine years prior to the Kinslaying, it took merely ten years for the Leithian to spread to the furthest corners of Beleriand afterwards; likely helped along by Iathrim refugees.

†† The border that Doriath and Himlad shared can be estimated at more than sixty leagues, and was, in fact, the only direct border shared between the Fëanorion holdings in Beleriand and Doriath. There have been many questions raised during debate of the history of the First Age as to why Maedhros Fëanorion either deliberately placed or allowed Celegorm and Curufin to claim Himlad, but such debate rarely seems to consider proximity. Celegorm Fëanorion's position as ruling Prince of Himlad would have made him the direct diplomatic connection between the Fëanorions as a whole and Thingol's court, merely through the sheer necessity of communication that such a long border would require.

††† Nargothrond and Gondolin still existed at the time, but neither was a match for Doriath. Both relied on their nature as hidden kingdoms for safety, and suffered materially and politically because of this. While Gondolin was ostensibly the current seat of the High King of the Noldor in Beleriand, Turgon's general ignorance of goings-on outside the city meant that the throne was effectively empty. Nargothrond, which by the point of the Leithian's spread would have begun to act more boldly, would fall within a few years. There is argument that Orodreth had not fully understood the devastation that had been wrought upon the Noldor when he committed to bolder action. There is also argument that Túrin had greatly overestimated his adoptive father Thingol's interest in defending the world outside Doriath's borders.

†††† See Index XXIV Transcript of an interview with Helethon of Doriath, from among the Returned, former minister in Thingol's court, circa FA 115 - 460 — Thingol is accounted as being well aware that the bargain he made in allowing the Noldor to settle Beleriand was a loss of personal influence in exchange for putting their swords between Angband and Doriath. However, as the First Age stretched on, it became clear that he had not, perhaps, anticipated the long-held bitterness that existed within the Northern Sindar and those outside of Doriath in regard to his purported rule as High King of Beleriand.

Index VIII — Transcript of an interview with Artaresto, called Orodreth, the Returned, late King of Nargothrond

[We are seated in a small parlor in the Palace of Finwë]

Orodreth: You do know that Finrod has started giving interviews as well, right?

LR: Yes, and I do have an appointment to speak with him, but first I have questions for you.

Orodreth: [He sighs, shoulders loosening a bit as he sits back in his chair] Alright, I admit the brief of your research did intrigue me when you sent it.

LR: I'm flattered, what stood out to you? I know this is a sensitive subject.

Orodreth: It's not really sensitive anymore, I'd say. Like an old scar, it's gone a bit numb no matter how much I prod at it. The song though [he pauses, staring toward the hearth for a long moment] I admit I'd never considered the political implications of the Leithian. We didn't even hear it until after the Nirnaeth, in Nargothrond.

LR: Which version was it? Nargothrond was quite close to Doriath…

Orodreth: We were. It was Túrin who brought us the whole thing, but we'd heard bits and pieces before. I remember being bemused, hearing it the first time, to hear about Beren and Lúthien's great adventure, and their fates, and then… [he pauses again, frowning] right in the middle of it all, my cousins.

LR: It must have been direct from Doriath, if Túrin was the one who…

Orodreth: What's awful is, he was singing for us so seriously, this tragic ballad of love and triumph, and then he got to the verses about Curvo and Celeg and I almost started laughing. It seemed almost comical, at the time, I thought surely whoever had written the song had gotten their names confused.

LR: Could you tell me about what actually happened? I presume the song is incorrect but the point is how much?

Orodreth: Tyelpë was very upset by it, we all knew how dearly Curvo loved his wife, and how poorly he dealt with her death. [He shakes his head] I remember all of it, and yet it had seemed so long-gone already, and then the song brought it all back. I was upset by it myself, once the shock had worn off, because I couldn't believe Lúthien might condone such a warped depiction of what had happened.

[Silence, for a long moment. I check the level of ink in my pen. Orodreth stares into the hearth, watching the fire.]

Orodreth: I never hated them. I should start with that. When Curvo and Celeg came to Tol Sirion they saved my life, and I was never so grateful to see them again as when they fell back to Nargothrond. Finrod honored them both tremendously, and both of them were gracious and ready to offer their support as thanks for being taken in. Neither of them [he gestures expansively, frowning again] neither of them truly had the intent for kingship, you know?

LR: No, please, explain it to me. There's a lot of varying accounts about both of them.

Orodreth: Curvo's will to power ran about as far as being acknowledged as Master of whatever forge and company of smiths he happened to find himself among. Celeg was a brilliant General and capable Prince, and had an extremely devoted following, but his tolerance for being among other people before he tired of them was always rather low. It was something of a joke, before, that Celeg seemed to magnetize people and yet he was constantly roaming off to be on his own with only Huan for company.

LR: Before?

Orodreth: You've heard, surely, of what Celeg's followers ended up doing in his name?

[He gives me a very pointed look. He is, of course, referring to the Second Kinslaying and Sack of Doriath, specifically the deaths of its Twin Princes.]

LR: Of course, I'm sorry.

[He makes an errant gesture, dismissing my apology.]

Orodreth: The point is, neither of them were interested in ruling Nargothrond. They served Maedhros as though he were still their King, and they knew it and were happy to do so. Their followers might have wished otherwise, but even they understood that Himlad had been a client principality to Himring. Celeg as the ruling Prince led the administration and military readiness of Aglon, as well as the muster, and the management of the flow of resources and supply chains through Himlad, specifically, the movement of provision and arms northward to Himring. Curvo was in charge of prospecting and mining in the mountains, iterating on designs for siege weaponry, and management of the great forges and companies of smiths that he'd established. [He looks vaguely wistful for a moment] Caranthir gets all the credit among them for it, but Celeg was a genius about provision and supply management. I missed him terribly, at times, during my rule.

LR: How did they come to be banished? If they weren't vying for the throne?

Orodreth: Part of it was in memory of Finrod. Part of it was the Doom, truly, I think. By treason of kin unto kin, and the fear of treason. And I felt it, after a time. I did begin to fear treason from them, they were powerful and well-loved by their people, and had become well-loved by mine as well. In part I think because of my own guilt. But they weren't banished. That's part of the story that follows the song around. Celeg had actually left shortly after Lúthien did, riding for Himring to tell Maedhros what had happened, what Thingol had done. Curvo left later. I'd made it clear that I mistrusted him, and Finrod's memory loomed large. He left to follow Celeg, and Tyelpë decided to stay. I know they argued, and Tyelpë disavowed him for what he saw as Curvo's role in Finrod's death. But I didn't turn them out. We didn't even really hate them for it all, they were clear about their motives.

LR: What were their motives? How did it really happen?

Orodreth: Beren showed up and pronounced before the whole court that Elu Thingol had bid him bring a Silmaril as a bride-price for his daughter, and that he'd sworn to do it.

[He laughs, bitterly.]

Orodreth: It was shocking. Thingol couldn't have struck a better blow against us if he'd tried, and I truly don't believe he was really trying to cause any of what happened. He'd meant to scare off this unwanted suitor, and it led to all this. Celeg and Curvo were there of course. If Curvo did any coup at all it was in taking command of Nargothrond's forges, and Celeg had slotted into place as a supply-master we hadn't realized we were lacking. They both sat on Finrod's council. They both were there when Beren declared. I remember the looks on their faces, as though they'd both been vaguely stunned, and then something dark had lit in both their eyes, something dangerous. I remember Celeg leaning over to Curvo and I could just barely hear him whisper, So, that's what we felt. But they weren't surprised. Neither of them seemed surprised. As though they'd known, in some way, as though the Oath had felt Thingol call for the Silmaril.

LR: So they spoke against the quest?

Orodreth: Finrod revealed that he'd sworn an oath himself, to aid the line of Barahir, and that he must give Beren his aid. Beren had made it clear that he'd sworn to return with a Silmaril in hand to Thingol. Celeg didn't waste any time calling Finrod an idiot for swearing an oath, nor in making it clear that their own Oath would require them to at best deny Beren aid and at worst slay him. It's hard to explain Celeg to people who've never met him, but he was magnetic in the truest sense. It was difficult to look away from him. To be in his presence was like being caught in a storm, with lightning striking all around you. I've heard accounts that claim he was loud and boisterous but he wasn't, he was soft-spoken and so incredibly perceptive…

LR: They say he was very persuasive.

Orodreth: He was compelling, certainly, and staggeringly charismatic. He had an excellent sense of cause and effect. He understood before any of us did what the intersection of all these Oaths would lead to: Finrod could not bring all of Nargothrond's strength to bear to help Beren, especially not at what was essentially Thingol's behest. And Curvo and Celeg were bound to slay Beren should he succeed.

LR: You emphasize Thingol's involvement…

Orodreth: He was tremendously unpopular among us. Among almost everyone, outside of Doriath. He was powerful, and held what was perhaps the last truly secure territory, and his forces were intact and at full strength behind the Girdle. And he'd let refugees, women and children, die outside his borders during the Bragollach. And before, of course, but during the Bragollach…it was like a hammer coming down on an anvil. Morgoth's forces pinning trains and caravans trying to flee the battle against the Girdle's borders and slaughtering them.

LR: And now here was a Man trying to gain Thingol's favor, and on a quest that was issued by him.

Orodreth: Yes. Exactly. Beren was a good man, what little I saw of him. He seemed honorable, and knew he asked for a great deal. And knew too that he would likely die. But I still resented him somewhat, later, for coming to us to ask for Finrod's aid in the first place. For dying and then being brought back by Lúthien's grace, when Finrod was slain on their behalf. But. It wasn't just the power of Celeg's voice that persuaded people, nor the vitriol with which Curvo piled on to his brother's denunciation of Beren. We all understood, as clearly as Celeg, that regardless of Thingol's intent, he'd caused Beren to come into our midst to ask for our strength, when Thingol himself had never seemed to have a single care for those outside the Girdle who'd fought and died insulating his lands from Morgoth.

LR: So Finrod left with his company?

Orodreth: No, not right away. Things moved faster and slower than people think. Celeg spoke his piece, obviously at the end of his ability to hold his temper in any sort of civil manner, and had swept out of the gates with Huan and enough supply to get himself to wherever he'd meant to go before the day was done. It was his way, to erupt and then leave to cool down, and we thought little of it. Curvo, also, lost his temper and then retreated to the forges, as was typical for him. We'd adjourned, after Beren's first pronouncement, into the council chambers. Celeg and Curvo spoke there, not before the whole city, and while their words were heavy and frightening, their temperaments were known to us and both were clearly aggrieved by the entirety of the situation and the way their own hands were being forced. Celeg had something to say about that, before he left, of Thingol seeking to turn the House of Fëanor into his assassins.

LR: Who was on the council?

Orodreth: Finrod and myself, and Celeg and Curvo of course. Lords from the houses. A few officers and guild-masters. It was a small group. We fell into serious and grim debate, after Celeg and Curvo had both left. Beren seemed afraid of both of them, which was sensible of him, and did little to hide his dislike, but didn't try and refute that he'd placed us in a difficult position. It was there that Finrod decided he'd go with Beren himself, and take only a small company of volunteers.

LR: Many of the accounts include the detail that Celegorm and Curufin were the deciding factor in Finrod leaving Nargothrond with little support. With some even framing their denouncing Beren's quest as a deliberate effort to send Finrod to his death.

Orodreth: One thing I've rather disliked about Returning is the number of people who've heard the Leithian and the stories that follow it and try and commiserate with me about how awful it must have been dealing with my own cousins.

LR: Has this been a consistent issue?

Orodreth: More than one would think. I lived the events and remember them perfectly and yet it's been insisted to me that they were secretly undermining me, or plotting, or that I have just naively failed to understand how they murdered Finrod. Or the problems come from the other direction. I once had a very irate group of Returned Iathrim seek a meeting with me to ask how I stood by and did nothing as Lúthien was held prisoner. She was never a prisoner.

LR: The amount of misapprehensions that surround the Leithian are what drew me to this project in the first place. There are a great many treatises and scholarly works dissecting Maglor's songs from the First Age, getting into incredibly granular detail about the intended audience, the events that would have been happening during the song's composition, and the direction he was attempting to steer public perception with them. But none of this exists for the Leithian. The song spread across Beleriand and beyond the First Age, and yet it has never properly been treated as the historical document it is.

[Orodreth is silent for several minutes, clearly lost in thought. I refill the ink cartridge of my pen.]

LR: So Finrod left Nargothrond with his volunteers.

Orodreth: Yes. Yes—they'd waited perhaps a month, laying in supplies and preparing their gear. Finrod had the foresight to know there was a slim chance of survival, but he also had the complete conviction that this was necessary. I asked him, in a moment of grief, if he couldn't just break his oath and send Beren on his way. He rebuked me, gently. He felt that things had aligned in such a way because of fate, although he didn't call it that. A confluence. Thingol is striking in the dark, he said, he has no way of knowing what his request has set in motion, but I cannot stand aside when I feel so strongly that it will be of importance.

LR: Thingol's request, which led to his own death.

Orodreth: His own death, and the destruction of Doriath, and everything that came after that. Including Gil-Estel. Including the War of Wrath and Morgoth's fall. Including Elrond, who is the most tolerable person the House of Fëanor has even incidentally managed to produce. I say this lovingly, to be clear, I care about my cousins a great deal. They're just insufferable if taken more than one or two at a time.

LR: Have you spoken to Elrond about this? Considering the family history.

Orodreth: Once, in passing. He had a few questions to ask me, actually, much in the same vein as your own. When I asked him about it he would only say that when he'd cleared Amon Ereb he'd found and kept a great deal of personal correspondence belonging to all of them and it had made him curious.

LR: That's very interesting. I'm not sure I can believe that this was all meant to be. I've studied enough theology to be familiar with the Music, but….

Orodreth: Don't let me give the impression that we were at all calm. Or that we had any idea of what we were doing. In hindsight, it does seem like there was a pattern working itself out, and Finrod was convinced—which I'm sure you can discuss with him, during your interview—that there was something greater that would be achieved by lending his aid. But at the time it was quite a mess. Finrod spent the month organizing everything to pass on to me. Curvo retreated entirely to the forges and would only come out for dinner, and then he and Finrod would spend the whole time arguing. Tyelpë was tremendously upset, both at Finrod and his father. Celeg had swept out of Nargothrond like a storm passing, leaving behind his increasingly anxious followers. Tension began to rise, all of us aware that it was Thingol who'd set this in motion. No one ever confronted Beren about it, although I was almost worried that Curvo would, but he sulked around looking increasingly grim.

LR: And then they left.

Orodreth: Yes. It was a little longer than a month, from when Beren had arrived to when they left, but they left. It was almost festive, in a funereal sense. The whole city came to see them off. Finrod had taken only volunteers, and from among that number he had only accepted those who were so obviously ruined by grief from the Bragollach that they'd go mad if they couldn't strike some blow at Morgoth.

LR: Did anyone survive? The Leithian's stories of course say there were no survivors, but was that accurate?

Orodreth: That part was accurate. None of them ever returned, although we did get a few of those who were freed by Lúthien. They were mostly terrified and confused. All they could tell us is that a Great Lady had triumphed in a battle of song over the one who'd held them captive, and bid them find shelter with us. Of course. Celeg and Curvo had both already left Nargothrond by the time any of them arrived. So the news was mostly met with a grim vindication. I got very drunk and wrote several drafts of an absolutely awful letter to Thingol I thankfully never managed to actually finish and send.

LR: You said that Lúthien was never a prisoner, how did she come to Nargothrond?

Orodreth: With Celeg. I only got a very brief recounting, but they'd apparently run into each other. Celeg intended to skirt the Girdle, to reach Maedhros to tell him the insult Thingol had dealt them. It was one of the more interesting quirks of his temper, developed or encouraged either in part or entirely by Maedhros when they were younger: if Celeg could share his outrage with someone he felt was more suited to deal with whatever had upset him than himself, then he'd calm down. Huan, saint that he was, filled this role a great deal.

LR: He considered Huan more capable of dealing with things than himself?

Orodreth: Huan's principle duty for the entire time I knew him was to keep Celeg out of whatever bizarre new trouble he could find for himself at any given time. He was phenomenally lucky, and his luck was usually good, but sometimes the luck was simply that the most unlikely circumstances would arrange themselves around him.

LR: Like, say, running into the Princess of Doriath while she was escaping Doriath, by chance, along a border that was hundreds of leagues long?

Orodreth: Exactly. Lúthien had a premonition that Beren was in danger, but the exact details eluded her beyond a sense of increasing pressure. She told Celeg her story when they met, and asked if he'd heard or seen anything of Beren, and Celeg told her that he'd last seen Beren in Nargothrond.

LR: So Lúthien went.

Orodreth: We were pleased to host her, and obviously surprised, but that's the way it was around Celeg. You accustomed yourself to him turning up in the strangest of circumstances, with the strangest people, or having found the most improbable things.

LR: Most of the stories attached to the Leithian claim that Celegorm was false with her, and that he and Curufin delayed her in Nargothrond purposefully.

Orodreth: [He snorts, a rude noise of exasperation] She spent less than a fortnight with us. It was…if there was any simple way to describe Lúthien and Celeg it would be to call them kindred spirits. They'd barely known each other for the time they'd traveled together but seemed to have instantly become fast friends. It was actually extremely irritating.

LR: How so? Most contemporary accounts of Lúthien seem as different from the way Celegorm is described as possible to be.

Orodreth: I've said already but I find most accounts of Celeg to be inaccurate at best, but to be blunt about it, they were both extremely beautiful, both wildly charismatic, both Eru-blessedly lucky, both deeply preoccupied with nature, and both could be almost physically painful to interact with. Together they were horrible. Every night they'd come to dinner, after spending the day somewhere in the caves, or Celeg's rooms, or out along the Narog, or among the trees, and have an absolutely impenetrable conversation about some sort of lichen they'd found, or about unique Iathrim beetles, or brood parasites, or rare birds.

[He sighs, deeply, and a harrowed look comes over his face.]

Orodreth: You cannot imagine. The both of them together. Lúthien was achingly beautiful. Her eyes were the same velvet gray-purple as deep twilight and it seemed as though the stars themselves were caught in them. Her hair was like a cloud of smoke, thick dark curls that billowed around her as though caught in their own breeze. To have her attention on you was like bearing a physical weight. You could feel her laugh like silk dragging along the inside of your skull. And Celeg. We had all been told our whole lives that he was the very picture of Míriel, but I didn't believe it until I was in the halls and actually met her. The resemblance is uncanny. I struggle to describe him. Moonlight, starlight, Telperion's own silver gleam. His hair was like polished silver in one moment and glowing white pearl in the next. His eyes were piercing black, like glittering obsidian. The air around him almost seemed to spark at times. His voice was a low, smooth thing. Resonant. When he smiled you couldn't help but feel as though he was about to dig his teeth into you.

[He scrubs a hand over his face, seemingly at a loss for words.]

LR: Maedhros is accounted as the most beautiful of them, would you say that's incorrect, then?

Orodreth: No. It's—difficult. Maedhros—Maitimo, to call him properly in those days—his beauty was a living thing. He was all warm tones and banked fire. His beauty was overwhelming but never painful. Celeg was different. It hurt to look at him sometimes. He was white fire and lightning from the start. Maedhros could manage himself, could dampen his presence down or stoke it up at will, but Celeg never seemed to settle unless he was out in the wilds.

Orodreth: Lúthien and Celeg together was like a storm at night. I have no better way of describing it. Both of them had such powerful personalities, both of them seemed to never have accustomed themselves to restraining their presence. I remember one night they spent the entirety of dinner, a minor feast, talking rapturously about different species of bats. The sheer charisma of them together. The sparkle. Just sitting near them when they were both animated could make the skin crawl. They were too much. Fae and beautiful and madly intense.

LR: That is…extremely descriptive.

[Orodreth laughs, his voice sounding strained.]

Orodreth: You have to have beheld them to understand fully, I think. I was concerned myself, at first. I'd never seen Celeg so deeply engaged with another person who wasn't one of his brothers, or a cousin, or a fellow member of the Hunt. I rather embarrassed myself a few times, hearing that they'd shut themselves up in Celeg's room and worrying that something untoward was happening. It was…Lúthien was beautiful and charming, but to see her there in Nargothrond, shunning most company aside from that of Celeg and his household—None of us had disliked Beren.

LR: People disapproved of their relationship?

Orodreth: There was a suspicion. A suspicion that Lúthien's affections had transferred to Celeg. That Beren's quest was not only an excuse by Thingol to be rid of him but in vain as well. And to even countenance the thought that Finrod had gone to his death—we all knew they were going to die—in service of such a fickle affection…

LR: Are you saying Lúthien was unpopular in Nargothrond?

Orodreth: Not unpopular. [He winces]. Scrutinized is a better word, perhaps.

LR: You said that she and Celeg would shut themselves in his rooms? Alone?

Orodreth: No. Not alone. She had chaperones, of course, Celeg's hospitality was too great for him to have not provided everything she might have needed, for a guest of her station. And his particular habits, which were well-known in Nargothrond by that point, were a saving grace for their reputations.

LR: Particular habits?

Orodreth: He never locked his doors, and would tie ribbons to the door handles so Huan could open them as he pleased. He was very close to those of his immediate household and while their circumstances were reduced while in Nargothrond, he was still a Prince to his people. He had a small but very tightly-knit circle of captains, most of them women who had been assigned as Lúthien's chaperones, and held few boundaries between himself and them. Those in his service came and went from his rooms at all hours of the day and night on whatever business they had, and he was always quick to receive them. In my own paranoia, hearing the newest rumor or insinuation, there were several times I went to Celeg's rooms expecting the worst, only to find Lúthien sitting amongst two or three of Celeg's huntswomen as they entertained her while Celeg was off attending to whatever business required his presence.

LR: There are several accounts that Curufin suggested Celegorm marry Lúthien, or had intentions toward her himself. Was there any truth to that?

[Orodreth laughs.]

Orodreth: Curvo was burningly jealous of Lúthien actually. I said before that I'd never seen Celeg so engaged with someone who wasn't one of his brothers, a cousin, or a fellow adherent of the Hunt, but neither had anyone else either, including Curvo. He was spitting mad with it. Lúthien was taking up his time. Lúthien was sitting next to him at dinner. Lúthien was monopolizing all his conversation. Curvo hated her for it. If there was anyone in Nargothrond who was truly suspicious of Lúthien it was him. In his heart, I think, he would have broken every tool he owned and never stepped foot in a forge again rather than see Celeg wed Lúthien. But one night at dinner his temper got the best of him and he and Celeg argued.

LR: What was the response?

Orodreth: Curvo stood up, shouting in front of everyone If you favor her so much, why don't you marry her, then? before he stormed out. Celeg shouted back—his own temper roused by Curvo's accusations—You don't understand anything, then stormed out as well. Lúthien for her part seemed bemused by it all, but stayed at the table through the rest of the meal, although she was mostly quiet.

LR: Did you ever speak to either of them about it?

Orodreth: I tried to. I had been trying to be discreet, but it was impossible to catch either of them alone, so eventually I just invited myself into Celeg's rooms and the seemingly ever-present Hunter's symposium he hosted.

LR: What happened?

Orodreth: I didn't realize it at the time, but it was the end of Lúthien's time with us. Celeg was particular about furniture, and had made a great low table that took up most of the drawing room, and Celeg and three of his huntswomen and Lúthien were all sitting around it on cushions and pillows. Huan was there too, of course, flopped down over Celeg's lap. They were all playing cards, and I remember forming the impression that Celeg was losing, which was a rare enough occurrence as to be particularly notable. There was a mess of gear spread over the rest of the table: maps; fresh bundles of lembas; packed camping gear.

[He pauses, frowning.]

Orodreth: I sat down just as Celeg lost the hand, which he took with good enough grace, but then Lúthien spoke and said You more than anyone knows how demanding it is to heed the wisdom of Vána, can you not see the shape of it in this? And Celeg scowled at her and said I know too that My Lady's wisdom cannot be had without My Lord's, for they are ever intertwined, are you certain you wish to court such a fate? and Lúthien smiled at him, and bid him to shuffle for the next round.

LR: They were speaking of the Valar?

Orodreth: Celeg had a deep faith in Oromë and Vána. The other Valar he rarely spoke of, but to his Lord and Lady, as he called them, he was entirely devoted. Many of us Exiles struggled with faith. Finrod's charge from Ulmo was seen as a rare and precious acknowledgement that perhaps we were not irretrievably Doomed. But Celeg never wavered, as far as I knew, and held to the rites and rituals of their worship as strictly as he had in Aman. It was one of the thing that made his followers seem strange to the rest of us, the fervent way they clung to Celeg's unshakeable belief, they viewed him not just as their Prince but as a religious authority.

LR: I must admit, I've been a unrepentant Tirionite my entire life. What is the wisdom of Oromë and Vána?

Orodreth: According to Celeg, who spoke of it with great reverence, their wisdom intertwined is alike the killing frost that coats the bare branches of winter that turns to the dew that wets the first green buds of leaves renewed in spring.

LR: That's very poetic. Life and death, then? Expiration and emergence?

Orodreth: He was often very poetic.

[Orodreth stares again into the fire, before rising to tend it. I refill my pen with more ink. There is a lingering silence that stretches until he takes his seat again.]

LR: To speak of life and death, especially Lúthien's life and death, makes it sound like she knew…

Orodreth: I don't think so. At least. That wasn't the sense I had at the time…

[Orodreth clears his throat.]

Orodreth: At the time, I was half afraid that our suspicions were correct, and that there had been some sort of romance growing between them. I don't think either of them knew, truly or entirely, although looking back now I am certain they both understood some aspect of what was to come. Lúthien's foresight was too keen, and Celeg himself, while not having any foresight as far as I knew, had always been possessed of an exceptionally clear and piercing vision.

LR: You thought he was trying to sway her?

Orodreth: It was what made sense to me, as I sat down, hearing their conversation as I did. Celeg's huntswomen were playing as well, but none of them spoke, and all three seemed quite grave, although that wasn't an unusual disposition for any of them, from what I had seen. I think I tried to lighten the atmosphere, and asked to be dealt in to their game, but Celeg's mood had become stormy and he refused me. I remember him staring straight at Lúthien and saying, If you are certain, then let this be the last, and then he drew Angrist out from behind his back and laid it on the table.

LR: How did Celegorm have Angrist?

Orodreth: He and Curvo often shared knives between them, swapping each other's favored blades back and forth. It was a habit of theirs, bourne of their closeness. I didn't even realize he was carrying it, and I had walked behind him to sit at his side, but there it was. The blade was clad in a thin sheath, and must have been on his belt behind him—he usually carried a long knife secured across the small of his back, and several others besides. I realized, at that point, that all the traveling supplies laid out on the table—maps and gear and lembas, which looked like Celeg's own recipe, and now Angrist—were the pot they were playing for, and I was even more confused. My previous fear that he had intentions toward her was allayed, and so I asked what was going on.

LR: What did they say?

Orodreth: It was Lúthien who answered me, and she said, We have argued back and forth for many days now, Celeg and I, of hope and other things, and I think I have swayed him to my point of view, else he would not have agreed to our game at all, for we play by luck and chance, to let Eru himself decide things, and to excuse as well what aid he gives me from the bindings of the Oath that turns his heart unwillingly toward hardness. And I could think of nothing to say to that, and so I sat silently as the cards were shuffled and dealt, and the hand played.

LR: Celegorm lost again?

Orodreth: He did. You must understand, I had never seen Celeg lose a game of chance as long as I had known him, and now I had seen him lose twice in a row with my own eyes, and more, he must have lost every round they'd played because there was a wealth of gear and supplies on that table; expertly prepared, much of it by Celeg's own hands, and more certainly by the huntswomen who had been Lúthien's chaperones. His mood was stormy with discontent, but not anger, and as the cards were swept all into a pile and shuffled back into the deck he said, You have tarried here and I have been glad to call you friend, but now I must urge you, take what you have won from me and use it to make your way back to Doriath ere some great ill befalls you, for that which binds me will not allow me to grant mercy even to a dearest friend should they seek what Thingol bid for thy bride-price.

[Orodreth pauses a moment, a solemn expression on his face.]

Orodreth: Lúthien took on an expression of great sadness, and said As I am gladdened that you call me friend, so too am I grieved that you are bound so, but I will ask a further boon from you, a guide to take me from here and help me along the road. And that. [He pauses, mouth twisting.] And that, is when Huan lifted his head from Celeg's lap, and spoke. I didn't know Huan could actually talk. Well. He talked to Celeg all the time, because Celeg spoke Dog, and could understand him. I didn't know Huan could speak, but he did, he said I will go with you, for fate acts upon your journey, and mine is intertwined with it.

LR: I am going to admit that I wasn't sure if Huan speaking was real.

Orodreth: It was real. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't heard it for myself, but it was real. That was one of the things that bothered me the most, about the Leithian. Huan. After he spoke, Celeg made a noise like I have never heard. Like a man being gutted in battle. A sound of pure pain tearing from deep inside him. He began to weep, and threaded his arms around Huan's great shoulders to bury his face in his neck. They spoke to each other for several long minutes, in the language of dogs. It was always strange to hear Celeg speak to animals, making noises that one would never imagine could come from an elf's throat…but they spoke, and Celeg wept, and Huan licked his face and butted his great head against Celeg's chest.

[Orodreth pauses, blinking wetness from his eyes.]

Orodreth: The huntswomen had begun to weep as well, all of them crowding around Huan to pet him and speak to him. Lúthien looked quite alarmed by all this, and asked what had happened, sympathetic tears rising in her own eyes as a mourning pall cast itself over the group. I didn't understand what was happening either, at the time, but Celeg raised his head from where he'd bent over Huan, and told us There is a prophecy, that Huan may only speak thrice ere he dies, in battle with the mightiest wolf that would ever walk the world. And then his tears choked him again, and Lúthien fell to weeping as well, stretching out her hands to pet Huan's flank.

LR: I feel almost in tears myself.

Orodreth: I felt shocked, when I heard the Leithian. It was almost comical, but so wretched as well. I felt certain that it was written without Lúthien's leave, for I cannot imagine that she would have allowed what happened to be so misrepresented, not least for Huan's sake. He loved Celeg, and I do believe was Celeg's dearest friend. I think that's ultimately why I agreed to speak to you.

LR: As best I can pin it down, based on my research, the Leithian was written, or at least finished and performed in Doriath, somewhere between 475 and 480. Lúthien and Beren had, by that point, already left Doriath to live on Tol Galen. It's likely she never even heard the Leithian performed, and whatever accounting of her adventures that informed its writing would have been given in perhaps 467 or 468—

Orodreth: When Maedhros was solidifying the Union, and then the Leithian was written afterwards, when it had failed, and the Nirnaeth had broken the Fëanorians' strength and ties to the rest of the Noldor. It makes sense, I dislike the thought of it, but I cannot deny that whoever authored the song would not have dared to write something so openly slanderous while Maedhros' power as Lord of the Marches was intact.

LR: My working theory, as I've researched, has been that the primary motive of the Fëanorion portrayal was to establish moral claim to the Silmaril. Illustrating them as both turned to evil ends and faithless to Lúthien would support claiming of the Silmaril as weregild for mistreatment, as well as striking against them politically as tried to rebuild power after the Nirnaeth. But I am curious, why did you not put Nargothrond's strength into the Union, if the tale of Curufin and Celegorm attempting to undermine you is false?

Orodreth: There are a dozen excuses I could make, I suppose. We were tired, all of us, and still grieving Finrod. It hadn't even been a decade since he'd died. I told you Celeg and Curvo had left shortly after Lúthien did, but they didn't leave alone. Most of their followers went with them, although some stayed behind, ostensibly as Tyelpë's guard and household but mostly, I think, to watch over him at his father and uncle's request. I had a dream one night, shortly after we'd received notice that Fingon and Maedhros were marshaling the Noldor and all their allies. It was…

[He pauses, expression growing grim.]

Orodreth: It was the real reason. I said before, I'd begun to grow paranoid. There was a fear rising in me, even as I knew my cousins had done nothing to warrant my reproach.

LR: A dream of foresight?

Orodreth: Yes, although I didn't understand fully until it was too late. I was…I was standing on the banks of the Narog, with all Nargothrond's forces massed behind me, and across the river a battle was raging, but we couldn't cross. The river had overrun its banks, and as the water rose the distance between the two sides seemed to stretch further and further apart. I could see them, distantly, not exact banners, or identities, but I could see warriors being cut down in battle, being overrun. When I woke I was gripped with the certainty that to join the Union would be to bring our ruin. I never explained. Tyelpë challenged me on it, for although he'd disavowed his father he still loved him and couldn't understand why I'd withhold our aid when the High King was calling for all who would come.

LR: You dreamed of the Narog being impassible….I don't want to tread on a sore subject, but….

[Orodreth laughs, bitterly.]

Orodreth: The bridge. Yes.

[Orodreth falls silent, a quiet that stretches on through several minutes.]

LR: How did Lúthien leave Nargothrond?

[Orodreth remains silent.]

Orodreth: My apologies…I—I hadn't truly thought of this in so long.

LR: If you'd like to stop—

Orodreth: No. No. We've come far enough I'd like to finish. [He pauses again, glancing away into the fire and then back.] Lúthien left that very day. As soon as Celeg stopped weeping, he sprung to his feet, gave terse instructions to his huntswomen to assist Lúthien with her packing, and disappeared. He hesitated over Huan, speaking to him in Dog again to say what I'm sure were his farewells, and then simply left. I remember thinking to myself that I'd best get up and stop him—he'd gone out without any shoes, and with his tunic unfastened, and his hair was a mess of partial braids and escaped curls—but by the time I got out into the corridor he was gone, and I didn't see him again until days later.

LR: He left Nargothrond?

Orodreth: I'll never be sure what he did. But he returned filthy and blooded, with wildness and wrath in his eyes. Curvo had been beside himself, first that no one could find Celeg and then with the news that Lúthien had left. We'd seen her off, Celeg's huntswomen and I, out the gates with Huan beside her. Curvo had been increasingly convinced that Celeg had gone with her, and it made his temper unbearable.

LR: But he didn't.

Orodreth: No. As soon as Celeg returned he commanded his followers to make ready to leave Nargothrond. I think…

[Orodreth is silent for a moment, a considering expression on his face.]

Orodreth: I'm sorry. I've just realized.

LR: Yes? What is it?

Orodreth: What might have been Celeg's last gift of friendship to Lúthien. She'd set out alone with Huan, who could run tirelessly, but there were still a great many of the Enemy's forces between Nargothrond and Minas Tirith. Celeg's people were restless in Nargothrond, although they had worked diligently at the tasks he'd set them to support the city. They were prepared to leave within a few days, and I suspect Celeg's huntswomen had begun to give the orders even before he'd returned. They were always very closely attuned to his will. I had gone to greet him as soon as I got word that Celeg had returned, and Curvo was there as well, shouting at his brother for worrying him. I followed him and Curvo back to Celeg's rooms.

LR: Curufin was that upset?

Orodreth: More than upset. Curvo was of a temperament that the more worried he was about you the sharper his tongue became. He'd spent the entire time Celeg was gone brooding over his absence, and as soon as he saw him again he'd launched into his harangue. Celeg took it stoically, himself even more keenly aware of Curvo's temper, but he was obviously unbalanced himself, and soon began to respond to Curvo's barbs, until finally he entirely lost his patience and demanded Curvo be silent. Celeg was in one of his high, fae turns of temper. I remember there was blood on his teeth, and his eyes flashed with white fire. He was immovably stubborn, once he'd decided on something, and he told Curvo and I that he meant to take his followers and ride for Himring immediately, on the northern road past Doriath, and that Curvo should prepare his own followers and set out as soon as they were ready to circle around toward Amon Ereb on the southern road.

LR: How was this a gift to Lúthien?

Orodreth: Celeg's forces were cavalry, armed with lance and bow. I won't pretend to know their system, because I had never tried to involve myself in the work Celeg did to restore his forces during their stay in Nargothrond, but it was well known before the Bragollach that he had defended Himlad with great ferocity and ranged abroad with his riders in his brothers' lands to support them as needed, for they could ride so swiftly that the distance was no great obstacle. He had been the undisputed master of Himlad's plains. And then, leaving Nargothrond, he gathered them all up, less of them though there were, and their great herd of horses, and rode out through the north as though they were Oromë's Hunt come to Beleriand.

LR: You think he did it on purpose, to draw the enemy's attention from Lúthien.

Orodreth: Perhaps I'm being too generous. Perhaps I'm reading into his actions, looking back with what I've come to understand now, but I do think it was in part a gift to her. Celeg marshaled his forces with haste and set out, riding with a great fury, a Wild Hunt streaking across the Taeglin before turning east to strike through to Himring. I don't know if it worked, if any of Gorathur's forces on the Isle of Werewolves would have been drawn away, if any of the Enemy's forces that might have been making their way there were instead ridden down or distracted, but I know Celeg well enough to be certain that he was at least aware that Lúthien would benefit from his actions.

LR: Justifying it as merely moving his forces, but choosing a route that would do the most aid to her?

Orodreth: That was the nature of Celeg's aid, at times, he wouldn't divert his course to help, exactly, but he would do what he could for you without breaking stride. [Orodreth laughs, a faint bitterness to the sound.] He took me aside, before he left. Celeg. He told me, Look after yourself and Tyelpë, mind Finduilas, and be careful, cousin. Curvo stayed a month more, arguing with me, arguing with Tyelpë. I got the sense that he was being difficult on purpose, not bothering to restrain his temper. We could all see he was greatly aggrieved, but he was being so wretched about it we wore through our sympathy quickly. Tyelpë was and is very close friends with Finrod, and he and I are good friends as well. He and Curvo had an explosive fight, both of their tempers getting the better of them, and Tyelpë disavowed him. And then Curvo's train was ready to leave, and he set out with his followers…

LR: And they were gone.

Orodreth: I never saw either of them again, and heard nothing of them, until the Leithian was sung out for us.

Excerpt from the book "The Lay of Leithian: a Historiographical Approach" by Líwë Ríniel of the University of Tirion

Chapter 16 — Changing Power Dynamics FA 467 – 477 and The Writing of the Leithian

The Leithian can be definitively dated as having been finished and performed in Doriath between the years FA 475 and 480, with a tentative specific date of FA 477. This delay between the date given for Beren and Lúthien's return from Mandos—FA 467—and the debut of the Leithian encompasses an eventful decade in the history of Beleriand: the formation of the Union of Maedhros, Beren and Lúthien leaving Doriath for Tol Galen, the failed Fifth Battle itself, the Year of Lamentation, and the destruction of the Falas.

This series of events—as well as some pertinent facts of contemporary Beleriandic sociopolitics of the time—is significant when exploring the development of the Leithian as a political and propagandic device.

First-hand accounts of the time assert that while Thingol was invited to the Union, there was no expectation that he would actually join. Interviews with several counselors who served High King Fingon—who had been diplomatically 'responsible' for Thingol during the Union's conception and formation—make it clear that the invitations sent to him were, at the time, mostly meant to serve as a political means of later—on the expectation that the Fifth Battle would be successful—undermining Thingol's position within the power structures of Beleriand†.

The specific dating of Beren and Lúthien's return is significant because it marks the exact timing of when Beren and Lúthien would have left Doriath and thus no longer been able to provide any oversight as to how their story was recollected and constructed. Sources from Tol Galen and across broader Ossiriand state that they lived quietly, and did not return to Doriath until some time after FA 490, when a formal visit was made to the Iathrim court to present Dior to his royal grandparents and allow their son to make his debut in Iathrim politics.

The Nirnaeth itself has been written of in great detail, both from first-hand account and later analysis, many sources of which were utilized to contextualize events discussed within this work††. For the purposes of discussion, however, it bears retreading a few details: after this battle the power of the Noldor in Beleriand was conclusively broken. The failed Fifth Battle, as well as the Year of Lamentation, marked a turning point in the balance of political and military power in Beleriand which would continue to tip further and further out of the Noldor's favor. The presence of some intact forces belonging to the Noldor, specifically those of Gondolin and Nargothrond, were either little known—in the case of Gondolin—or believed to be in a position of weakness—contemporary rumor was kinder to Orodreth than later interpretation implies, but the widespread consensus held that he was less able a King than Finrod which did him no favors.

The Fall of the Falas in FA 473 is the final piece in the figurative chain of events that culminates the Noldor's disempowerment. As the most respected Sindarin Lord in the First Age, Círdan's sway over politics in Beleriand was a lightly-used but powerful thing. Círdan had long served as a moderating influence on Thingol's policy toward the Noldor, as well as a pacifying influence on some factions of the Noldor's more aggressive attempts at diplomacy toward Doriath. Accounts from the Mereth Aderthad paint a picture of Círdan's early work as a mediator, utilizing his place as both kin to Thingol and Lord of the Falas, as well as—according to accounts from the breaking of the Siege of the Falas—a sworn friend to Celegorm Fëanorion, to deftly navigate the tensions between the various factions of the Noldor and Beleriandic Elves and was instrumental in building the political and social consensus that would later support the Siege of Angband. Círdan's flight to the Isle of Balar and the destruction of the Falas sharply reduced his political activity during this period, and further, his willingness to accept Noldorin refugees was derided by Thingol. In the position of a Lord-in-Exile, as well as with his continued sympathies for the Noldor, Círdan's influence on the Iathrim court was greatly curtailed. Contemporary accounts make it clear that Círdan's guardianship of young Gil-Galad was kept deeply secret, but one cannot imagine that Círdan was unaware of the political implications of succoring the future Noldóran, nor that he was unaware that calling undue attention to himself from the politically and militarily intact Iathrim court might invite unwanted scrutiny at a time when the Falathrim were greatly weakened.

The Fëanorions ended the decade described in the timeline above in dire enough straits—the loss of the fortress Himring; the decimation of their hosts; the betrayal suffered at the hands of Ulfang; and the deaths of several key allies whom had supported the Union—but their star had not entirely yet fallen. All had survived the Nirnaeth, and the Fëanorions still enjoyed a great deal of popularity among the various groups of Men and Elves over whom they had ruled during the Long Peace. Their fighting retreat first to Mount Dolmed and then to Amon Ereb—a slow battle over several years—cost them, but held back Morgoth's forces and gave time for warning to be sent ahead of their train that is said to have saved the lives of many. Accounts from various sources among the Laiquendi maintain that the Fëanorions were well-regarded and remained honored for their deeds as defenders against the Enemy even as news of the Fifth Battle's failure spread across Beleriand.

It is understood, in what can be tentatively dated as the year FA 475, the Fëanorian hosts and their noncombatant followers had convened at Amon Ereb and begun reorganizing their forces and reestablishing their footing in Beleriandic politics. Their alliance with the Aulëonnar remained strong, and the Laiquendi and Avari of Ossiriand and Taur-im-Duinath still recognized them as Lords worthy of respect—although not, in most cases, as overlords, but rather as worthy neighbors—who would treat with them fairly and had been better friends to them than Thingol.

In this circumstance it is ironically again that Celegorm Fëanorion is revealed as a key political and military figure. Much as his reputed friendship with Círdan can be assessed as the foundation of a great deal of the Noldor's early political successes in Beleriand, so too does Celegorm's tenure as Prince of Himlad demonstrably influence this period.

Amrod and Amras Fëanorion had been Lords of Estolad the lands to its south and west of the Gelion, and were well known by the Sindar and Laiquendi there. However, they had mostly been occupied with hunting and agriculture in the area, and their forces were primarily utilized as scouts and couriers. They were known as great hunters, and friends to the other peoples within and on the borders of their lands, but their protection of Estolad from the Enemy's forces in any great number was provided by Celegorm's cavalry in Himlad.

Other scholarly works have been written about the advancements in organizing horses and troops that gave Celegorm Fëanorion's light cavalry its tremendous speed, range, and ability to forgo supply lines for long periods—a contrast to Maglor Fëanorion's heavy cavalry in the Gap, constrained to its supply range between Himring, Mount Rerir, and Maglor's own fortress. More has been written about the innovations in arms and armor devised by Curufin Fëanorion that were driven by the need to outfit his brother's forces, and which ultimately vindicates Maedhros Fëanorion's oft-questioned decision to install both Celegorm as ruling Prince of Himlad and Curufin as junior Prince under him†††. In the case of the defense of Himlad and Estolad, the well-managed nature of Celegorm's cavalry is shown in its most essential form. Celegorm's personal closeness and frequent contact with them is likely a contributing factor to the system that was developed, but credit must also be given to Amrod and Amras' own efforts: the establishment and management of high-speed couriers and covert scouting forces across not only their lands in Estolad but Eastern Beleriand as a whole, connecting the lands of their brothers.

Often times the Ambarussar's scouts and messengers could identify and dispatch warning quickly enough to bring news of any incursion before it had even reached Estolad. Interviews with those who served in Estolad and Himlad assert that the Fëanorions were so uniformly powerful, skilled, and familiar with each other's ósanwe that often the hail to Himlad's forces was passed directly mind to mind from Amrod or Amras to either Celegorm or Curufin depending on where on the highlands Celegorm and his cavalry ranged at the time.

Celegorm Fëanorion was thus famous for his tireless defense of the lands south of Himlad, his willingness to come to the aid of his brothers and the people of their lands, and his fair rule of a prosperous city as Himlad's capitol became a central hub for trade and travel on the wide plains and highlands of Eastern Beleriand. His reputation as a hunter preceded him, as well as the fact of his tutelage of the Ambarussar in the craft, and he was conferred the respect and honors of a Chieftain by the Laiquendi and Avari. Curufin Fëanorion's prestige as a craftsman and friend to the Aulëonnar—who found themselves accorded greater respect among the Noldor than other Elves as a rule, and greater yet respect among the corps of smiths and engineers led by Curufin as well as by the traders led by Caranthir—as well as his work in support of Celegorm in the defense and rule of Himlad inextricably linked their reputations.

It is with this context, then, that examination of the political landscape of Eastern Beleriand circa FA 475 can truly be understood. The Fëanorions had been driven from their northern territories and lost much, but they still had allies and connections that were ripe for reestablishing their strength, both military and political.

To Thingol and the Iathrim, this was likely an unhappy prospect.

This confluence of events, politics, reputation, and first-hand familiarity forms the basis for the development and usage of the Leithian as a political tool: Celegorm Fëanorion had long been known to the Iathrim generally and to Thingol specifically, and his reputation and deeds were the grounds on which Fëanorion political power was most likely to be revived in Southeastern Beleriand††††.

Along with this, Beren and Lúthien had been living in Tol Galen since circa FA 469, and were well-known and much-beloved of the Laiquendi in Ossiriand.

It is hardly a stretch of the imagination to consider that Thingol would desire to see produced something that would undercut the Fëanorions' reputations as a whole, as well as specifically undermining the reputation of Celegorm Fëanorion in the regard of wider Beleriand. Lúthien's popularity among the Laiquendi he meant to discourage from aiding or supporting the Fëanorions, as well as the widespread rumor—though untrue—that she had been briefly courted by Celegorm in Nargothrond, must have seemed tremendously fortuitous. Establishing Lúthien as wronged and ill-treated by the Fëanorions also brought the doubtlessly welcome opportunity to further cement a moral claim to ownership of the Silmaril—which had come into Thingol's hands after the Hunting of the Wolf in FA 466—as weregild.

Suffice to say, then, that Daeron's mastery is evident within the Leithian's cantos, but, more specifically, it is the sleight of hand he performed in its writing that makes it evident he knew full well how to ensure the Leithian remained at the forefront of the cultural consciousness after its debut.

To wit: as discussed in prior chapters dissecting the different versions of the Leithian, the original Iathrim text identifies Curufin Fëanorion as the rebuffed suitor.

While the Iathrim were less familiar with Curufin than they were with Celegorm, their linked reputations and well-known partnership were famous across Beleriand. Specifically naming Curufin—whom Daeron may even have known was already married, considering his attendance of the Mereth Aderthad—when rumor was already linked to Celegorm about purported romantic intentions toward Lúthien meant that once the Leithian escaped Doriath it would be sung, talked over, and given 'correction' to bring events into line with a more popularly believable frame.

A more popularly believable frame that specifically and directly discredited Celegorm to tarnish his reputation, both in his behavior toward Lúthien as well as the loss of loyalty from Huan, whose companionship had long been regarded as an implicit mandate of support from the Lord of the Hunt himself.

In the twenty-nine years between the Leithian being written and the Second Kinslaying, it is unclear how badly it damaged the Fëanorions' ability to rebuild their power-base. It is also unclear what retaliations they might have attempted to enact against Doriath for this attack on their reputations. Certainly they were able to find enough forces to make their fatal attack on Doriath.

† See Index XIII — Transcript of the interviews with two of High King Fingon's Advisors, from among the Returned, who consented to speak on record — After the Bragollach, the political footing of Northern Beleriand was much changed. Fingon was, during the planning of the Union, the one whom was responsible for diplomatic overtures to Doriath, ostensibly because of Thingol's known dislike of the Fëanorions. Consensus agrees that Thingol understood Morgoth as a threat, but his historical attitude was one of fortification and patience. It is unclear how much awareness he had of how radically his possession of a Silmaril altered the calculus of danger that Doriath found itself in.

†† See Reference Index VI — The Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Sources and Accounts — There have been arguments made that Thingol may have believed that the Noldor would not triumph in the Fifth Battle—as they indeed did not—either through foresight or merely pessimism. If this is the case, his refusal to commit forces is wise, as he maintained Doriath's ability to defend itself for several decades longer than it might otherwise have been able to. However, there are counterarguments that insist Thingol had perhaps believed that, with the Noldor largely vanquished, things might have returned to the state of affairs prior to the Noldor's arrival; himself as unchallenged High King of Beleriand, and Angband returned to quiescence.

††† The positioning of the Fëanorions remains a contentious topic in First Age scholarship, due in large part to the infamy accorded Celegorm and Curufin based on their part in the Leithian. There are several theories which erroneously apply a lens of retroactive menace that evidence contemporary to the time simply does not support. Maedhros Fëanorion—the Crownless King of the House of Fëanor—very clearly had specific reasoning for the placement of each of his brothers. Celegorm would simply not have been allowed to serve as the ruling Prince of Himlad if he were unsuited to the task, either in character or intellect. Evidence and accounts from the Long Peace bear this out as truth: for a period of more than four hundred years Celegorm Fëanorion successfully ruled Himlad, held the Pass of Aglon, managed defense of a tremendous swathe of the plains of Eastern Beleriand, and engaged in diplomacy with the Iathrim.

†††† This is not to say that Maedhros, nor any of the others, were not also widely respected, but Maedhros' primary political efforts during the Long Peace had been maintaining relations among the Noldor and among the Northern Sindar and Aulëonnar. This goes similarly for Maglor, whose contemporary reputation was very much based around serving as Maedhros' Right Hand. Caranthir also held very close ties to the Aulëonnar, as well as to various groups of Men, but otherwise his efforts were primarily economic. It is Celegorm, then, who was one of the best known of the brothers in Southern Beleriand, and with a reputation for martial leadership that Amras and Amrod both deferred to. Curufin, specifically of all the brothers, was the one denied his own command; the reasons for which cannot be conclusively stated.

Index XVI — Transcript of an interview with Curufinwë Tyelperinquar, called Celebrimbor, the Returned, late Lord of Eregion and Master of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain

[We are sitting in a small pavilion in the gardens of the House of Istarnië.]

LR: Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, I'm sure you've had a lot of requests for your time since your Return.

Celebrimbor: [He smiles, wanly.] Yes, many. [He pauses.] Yours is one of the few that I've decided to grant.

LR: You have my thanks once again, in that case. I don't want to tread over any sensitive subjects, so I'll ask, what do you think of the research?

Celebrimbor: You don't need to be that careful, the First Age is less sensitive a subject than…ah…other topics. [He grimaces, taking a breath.] As for the research, [he seems to sit straighter, a bright intensity coming into his eyes] I found it very interesting! I will be honest, I eventually came to find the Leithian quite tiresome.

LR: Really?

Celebrimbor: There was a traveling Sindarin theatre troupe who made a stage play of it, in the Second Age. Tiresome isn't the right word, perhaps, 'deeply irritating' or 'an increasingly warped portrayal of people I loved' or 'a politically motivated display I was repeatedly taunted with' would be better.

LR: "Taunted with?"

Celebrimbor: As I said, there was a traveling theatre troupe, from somewhere in Rhovanion, and they came west every decade or so. Their leader had written the Leithian out as a stage-play, and each time they came to Ost-in-Edhil they requested permission to perform it. [He frowns] Celeborn favored the troupe, and so they were usually allowed to perform, and each time it felt more and more pointedly like a ridicule of my family specifically and of the Noldor in general. The worst part is if it had been about anyone other than my family I'd probably have enjoyed it. They got quite experimental some years. In one production they were all portrayed as allegorical animals. My Father was a jewel-bug and my Uncle was a hyena. The actors' costumes were half-puppet, and the jewel-bug spent the play sitting on the hyena's head and telling it what to do, while the hyena's dialogue was nothing but crazed laughter interspersed with howling.

[Celebrimbor falls silent, gazing off into garden.]

Celebrimbor: The costumes were so cleverly done…It was very clear that the portions with my Father and Uncle were meant to be comedic breaks in the grander drama of Beren and Lúthien's story. But their portrayal had been shifting slowly in the direction of the absurd for centuries, until there was nothing of substance left to them but—but—just some grasping little creature using another's strength for its own gain, and some big dumb animal stupid enough to let itself be used. There was a line I recall, from the chorus, It is Curufin who put evil into Celegorm's heart. It struck me with such deep revulsion that I got up and left, as subtly as I could, and Annatar followed me also seeming relieved, although it wasn't until much later that I realized why he would be uncomfortable with the Leithian until much later….

[He pauses, scowling furiously.]

LR: What was it specifically about the line that was upsetting?

[Celebrimbor exhales, his eyes fluttering shut for a moment.]

Celebrimbor: I wasn't a child in Himlad, but I was young still. I remember—I remember having lunch with my Father and his smiths in the fountain-courtyard that was set in the middle of the great complex of forges and workshops down the eastern slope of the hill the city was built on, and then running back to the fortress to wash up and change my tunic in time to sit with my Uncle as he held audiences and met with his captains and stewards and magistrates and various leaders of the factions in the city. My Father insisted that I learn how to rule, and while my Father—and my Mother, who was Chatelaine of the fortress—undertook part of the work to assist him administratively it was my Uncle who ruled Himlad.

LR: So it's that the portrayal renders them into caricatures?

Celebrimbor: No. Or. Not entirely. Uncle Tyelko was a good ruler. He was never especially formal, but he had a way of speaking to people, and understanding them. I was allowed to sit with him through several court cases he deliberated over as Prince of Himlad, as he spoke to the postulants and then conferred with his steward and magistrates. He would explain the evidence to me, and his reasoning as he decided on the judgments. He was very good at seeing things as they truly were, and very sharply perceptive of little details. Taurost was a greater city than people are willing to remember, and there were many Sindarin and others who lived and prospered there under my Uncle's protection and leadership.

LR: I'm sorry. Taurost? I'd been under the impression that Himlad's capitol was also called Himlad.

Celebrimbor: There was a great deal that was purposefully lost, I think, especially after Beleriand was destroyed and my Father and Uncles were dead and gone. The dreadful spectre of the Fëanorions was banished, so why bother remembering much? Certainly not the centuries of familiarity and friendship that existed between my Uncle and the Sindar and Laiquendi and Avari who lived and traded and traveled through Himlad and enjoyed the fruits of his rule. Why remember otherwise here in Aman, especially with many of their most devoted followers so long in the Halls? But yes, the capitol of Himlad was Taurost. [His face takes on a vaguely cringing expression.] Uncle Tyelko named it [He sighs] because it was a city on a hill with a wall around it.

LR: Oh, so Taur as in—

Celebrimbor: Yes. [He sounds deeply aggrieved.] I'm not sure why he was so bad at naming things, when otherwise my uncle was so tremendously gifted with language and in speech.

LR: Well. [I struggle to think of something to say.] Nobody can be entirely perfect?

[Celebrimbor laughs, his mood lightening. The gold trinkets woven into the thick braids of his hair tinkle musically as they fall over his shoulders.]

Celebrimbor: I suppose not! I don't mean to give the impression they were at all perfect, far from it! My father could be very paranoid and manipulative, and my uncle's temper would often get the best of him. But it's just. That wasn't all they were. Their flaws made the parts of them that were noble and great and good stand out even more than if they had been so monotonously faultless.

LR: But it's the shortness of memory that bothers you? Some might call it reasonable, considering the Second Kinslaying.

Celebrimbor: I know that. I do. They committed horrible crimes, even without making up more of them, and I myself, as I realized what they'd done, struggled to make sense of how people who had loved me could perform such atrocities. And more, in the Second Age, when all of them were dead and gone, or if not dead then certainly gone. But it still bothered me, to see them so reduced, flensed of everything they were, everything that even the Sindar should have been able to remember that they were.

[He lapses into silence for several minutes, reaching for his teacup and drinking.]

LR: During your time in Nargothrond, what stands out to you as different from the version of events portrayed in the Leithian? What did you think of it?

Celebrimbor: [He frowns. His face is very expressive.] When it was first performed for us—that is, for Orodreth and his court, in which I served as a counselor and Master of the Forges—I remember being greatly dismayed by it. I had kept abreast of news of my family well enough to be aware of the more subtle insults that were being offered, which Orodreth missed. Orodreth seemed to find its portrayal of them, and of Lúthien's time among us almost silly, but there was more disquiet than he realized. My Father, and especially my Uncle, had been very popular in Nargothrond, and Lúthien had been less than well-liked, certainly less well-liked than I think my cousin understood.

LR: Why was that?

Celebrimbor: Many reasons. She was Thingol's heir. Finrod had just left to go to his death with Beren. We were outsiders in Nargothrond, certainly, but so was Orodreth. He didn't understand how dearly Bëor's memory was held by the people there, and to see his descendant being sent on what we all believed to be a vain quest by Thingol? And their beloved King? There was a great unrest, quiet though it was. And then Lúthien, through no fault of her own, was perceived to be forming an attachment to my Uncle. It comes back to Thingol in many ways. There was a deep bitterness. Orodreth only truly saw the surface of what was in truth an abyssal well.

LR: Did they blame your Uncle?

Celebrimbor: No, or, not where I could hear at least. And I heard a great deal, being considered much more as one of the people than a figure of authority. My Uncle's habit of being casual with his person was well known, and in some quarters despaired of, but his huntswomen performed ably as chaperones for Lúthien, and so while there was grumbling and aspersions cast on her behavior, nothing that was considered truly scandalous occurred. It helps that she left quickly. I do think she knew.

LR: That she was disliked?

Celebrimbor: I should provide some context I think. Uncle Tyelko was perhaps the most devoted adherent to the ways of the Hunt in Aman, at least that I knew of. It wasn't just—just hunting, you must understand, the Oromëndili practiced a great many spiritual and meditative disciplines as part of their doctrines, and they had a distinct culture. My Uncle taught me the precepts when he taught me to hunt as a child, which was much like when Grandfather and Great-grandfather both endeavored to help my Father teach me the introductory lessons of the forge. [He smiles, laughing] Three Master smiths guiding my hands with the utmost care and skill, to turn out those first slightly crooked nails. But it was the same with Uncle, a Master of his many crafts—and I do mean many crafts, Uncle Tyelko wasn't just a hunter, he had a Mastery in every craft that was necessary to hunt, and to support the hunt, and to use what was gained from hunting—and someone intimately occupied with the deeper theology of the Mysteries—

[He pauses for a moment, appearing suddenly somewhat sheepish.]

Ah, pardon me, I've digressed, where was I?

LR: It's quite all right, this is very interesting. You said there was some context to be had…

Celebrimbor: Yes! Yes—Let me get back to my point. One of the foremost precepts of the Hunt, as practiced by the Oromëndili, is hospitality. Lord Oromë's halls at Intauros are nearly always open to visitors, and while he himself is not usually in residence his Maiar and followers who remain there take the duty of welcoming guests seriously. It's common—or at least it was common, I can't say that I'm entirely restored to all awareness of the habits and customs of the present Age—for anyone interested in the Hunt to ride with them for a season or two, and be welcomed, and learn some skills and perhaps the very basics of the foundational Mysteries before they went back to their homes. It was well known that Uncle Tyelko was not merely an adherent of the Hunt but had stood among the innermost circle of Oromë's followers, and if there was something known of the Hunt to those who never sought it, then it was surely that there is no greater hospitality to be had than from a student of Oromë. The hospitality of our fortress was famous, and Uncle was very exacting about guest rites. Which is to say, that when he arrived back in Nargothrond with Lúthien and explained that he had found her traveling alone and offered to accompany her and host her in Nargothrond, it was taken very much as expected behavior for Uncle. As for Lúthien, my Father certainly made no secret of how much he disliked her, and there were always more voices than perhaps expected, who'd offer grumbled words of agreement to his words.

LR: When you say that the Hunt's hospitality was known, do you mean it was known among the Noldor or known more widely?

[Celebrimbor blinks, pausing for a moment in consideration.]

Celebrimbor: I supposed I had never considered before, especially not when I was younger, that the ways of the Oromëndili might not be known in Beleriand. [A pensive expression crosses his face] I was raised with the knowledge and don't even remember a time when I lacked it. [He frowns] I don't know. It was certainly widely known among the Noldor, and among Uncle's followers. I would imagine those who joined his service swiftly learned. I can recall at times our hospitality being commented upon as exceptional, in Himlad, but as a youth I had only taken that as a compliment rather than with the consideration that they might have meant anything else by it.

LR: So to the Noldor's perceptions, Celegorm was offering Lúthien his habitual levels of hospitality?

Celebrimbor: Yes. It was part of the culture of the Hunt. A skilled and confident hunter could afford to share, and there were none so skilled as my Uncle. That is the point of the Hunt, after all; to protect, to feed, to provide. Uncle took it very seriously, and always had. I remember when I was a child, when Uncle came home to visit for the winter solstice it seemed like he brought an endless supply of gifts for everyone: furs and leathers he'd dressed and tanned; rare herbs and dye plants he'd gathered while traveling; food, of course, all sorts of things pickled and preserved, and provisions to stock the larder, and game to feed the household for the whole holiday; things he'd made, like clever pieces of camp furniture, or combs and jewelry and buttons carved from horn and bone, or new bows. And socks. Always socks. [He sighs, wistfully] It wasn't until he was gone and we were a decade into the War of Wrath that I really, truly understood why Uncle insisted on drowning us all in pairs of woolen socks on every occasion.

LR: He made you socks?

Celebrimbor: Uncle could knit a new pair of socks in an afternoon. He had a marvelous dexterity of hand. I was too young to know where he got his wool in Aman, but in Himlad a good portion of Uncle's wealth was in flocks of sheep and goats grazed on the highlands. [He laughs] It seemed strange to me as a child, the way everyone would always exult in getting a pair of socks, when Uncle made so many wonderful and more-interesting things, until the last pair he made me was finally too full of holes to darn and I finally experienced the misery of soggy socks in wet boots while tramping across broken Beleriand.

LR: [In polite tones of disbelief] You'd never had wet socks before?

Celebrimbor: From the day I was born until the last pairs he made me finally wore through and there was no one who could repair them as skillfully as was needed, I'd never worn a pair of shoes or socks that wasn't made by Uncle Tyelko. I didn't even realize the love he'd spoiled me with. I'd heard people complain about wet socks and soggy boots and thought they were joking. Whenever I grew or had worn a pair beyond fixing he'd sit me down and measure my feet, and let me pick the leathers and furs from his supply, and he'd turn out every sort of winter boot and hunting boot and riding boot and house shoe and slipper I might need. He did it for the whole family.

LR: To be so well-loved you'd never experienced wet socks! How did he find the time to do all of it?

Celebrimbor: [Somewhat bashful] It was an awful realization. I had been a terrible churl to Gil-Galad because I'd thought he had some long-running joke, and then suddenly my socks were wet and I had blisters and had to break in a new pair of boots and was complaining miserably the whole time.

[He laughs suddenly, grinning at the memories].

I wondered sometimes myself, but all I can say is that Uncle was very skilled and liked for his hands to be busy.

LR: I won't pretend to be an expert on Iathrim culture, but I do know their norms for gift-giving and hospitality are different than the Noldor. Did Celegorm comport himself similarly in Himlad? Did you ever have visitors from Doriath?

Celebrimbor: We did, occasionally. Usually Marchwardens coming to deliver messages about some issue or other that needed to be dealt with on both sides of the Aros. Uncle would greet the Marchwardens personally, and offer them the hospitality of our fortress. Sometimes Iathrim traders would come, during the great markets—although they would stay in the city, which did come to have a culture of hospitality that echoed Uncle's household, so I don't know how they got on. That was one of the reasons I was at first so fond of the Khazâd, their sense of hospitality was much like Uncle's and much like the Aulënduri as well. I suppose it might have seemed unusual to those who weren't used to it, especially since my Uncle was singular among the Lords of the Noldor as a student of Oromë; although my Father and all of my Uncles had been raised in part in the Mansions of Aulë in Great-grandfather Mahtan's house, and further had grown up with Uncle Tyelko, so I know their hospitality was similar if not perhaps on the same level that Uncle held himself to.

LR: It's an interesting question. I didn't mean to take us on such a tangent, but the thought does arise whether or not the differences in Noldorin and Iathrim culture might have contributed to things.

Celebrimbor: It's a very fair question. I want to say no, but I can't say with any certainty. I had some connections to the Sindar, but I'm aware that I was a difficult figure for them to interact with. And, aside from those Sindar whose loyalty came to me from my Father and Uncles, who by that point had integrated fully into Exilic culture, my own followers were primarily Noldor as well. I can see how someone who didn't know better might assume Uncle had intentions toward Lúthien, rather than him merely extending the full grace of his household to an honored guest.

LR: Do you think Lúthien believed Celegorm held intentions toward her?

Celebrimbor: [He laughs] No. I'm quite certain of this. My Uncle was—I hesitate to share this, because it was a great secret of his—from my Father and his Brothers, mainly—but my Uncle's affections were already spoken for. I never managed to learn their identity, beyond someone from the Hunt who he left behind in Aman, but I do know that Uncle loved them deeply and remained loyal to them. Lúthien, whom I met briefly—mostly because Father worked diligently during the time she was among us to keep me as far away from her as possible—behaved as though she and Uncle were dear friends and nothing more.

LR: Did Curufin truly dislike her so much?

Celebrimbor: With a passion! I had rarely seen my Father in such a temper! It was—It was difficult. Mother had died during the Bragollach, and he grieved her deeply. I grieved as well, of course, and all those who had known her, but Father was shattered by her death. [He pauses, tears welling briefly in his eyes before he dashes them away] He was never the same. Like brittle iron, he tried to put himself back together, but the joins were weak. He was more fragile. He leaned very heavily on Uncle Tyelko for support. I was told, by several people, that it was Father's similarity to Grandfather that preyed upon him; everyone in our family feels quite deeply and has a strong temper, but Father was ruled very profoundly by his emotions. His grief became its own creature. My Parents remain in the Halls, and I don't think I'll see them again until they can return together.

LR: I'm sorry for your loss, as extremely belated as it may be.

Celebrimbor: Thank you, I don't think time matters so much, in this regard, especially not when the grief is still felt. But that was why he hated Lúthien, she took Uncle's time and attention away from him, and I think he was truly afraid that she might have secretly desired to steal Uncle away from us. He was deeply paranoid about her presence.

LR: What was it like in Nargothrond after Curufin and Celegorm left?

Celebrimbor: Quieter, much quieter. After they left it became clear how much we were reduced, and more, the upwelling bitterness had fewer outlets. I tried to stay clear of it. Things muddled along for many years, and Orodreth tried his best, but he wasn't Finrod and everyone judged him for it. Then—ah—that Man arrived, Agarwaen? [He frowns] He had a lot of names, it seemed, and I found him personally rather tiresome.

LR: Túrin son of Húrin.

Celebrimbor: I should admit, I left Nargothrond a few years after he arrived.

LR: Did you? Why?

Celebrimbor: It sounds rather self-serving…[He hesitates, seeming somewhat embarrassed]. Before he left, my Father counseled me thus: If there is ever a time you lose your cousin's ear, and he will no longer hear your advice, then you must leave this place. And it did happen as he said. Orodreth was greatly impressed by—Túrin? Especially in regard to the bridge. I counseled against it, because I felt that we were growing over-bold, especially as the previous defenses we'd enjoyed from the north had been destroyed. Orodreth wouldn't hear me, and so I took all of my followers who wished to join me and left. I led them to the Isle of Balar and offered my services to Círdan.

LR: Why Círdan?

Celebrimbor: He had been a good friend to Uncle Tyelko, and I had met him several times before. Once he even came to visit us in Himlad, and stayed for some months. I half-considered returning to my Father, but we had argued in the end, and I had my own pride, and more, I had lost track of them after the Nirnaeth, and couldn't lead my people blindly across Eastern Beleriand.

LR: Did you hear of them, before the Second Kinslaying?

Celebrimbor: Yes, eventually. Círdan was still exchanging letters with Uncle Tyelko, at the time, and so I finally had news of them again, but it was grim. Uncle Nelyo was very unwell, and he had been their King in all but name, which set them foundering. Father had passed being brittle and had simply broken and become jagged. The Leithian had begun to circulate, by that point, and while I knew it wasn't true and Círdan believed that it wasn't, it seemed like there were so many who were quick to accept it as fact.

LR: What did you think of it?

Celebrimbor: What, the Kinslaying? The thing that truly preoccupied me at the time was the loss of many friends of mine from Nogrod. The whole business with the Nauglamír was just…it was so pointless…so senseless. I got the news shortly after the Sarn Athrad. Azanûl, that is, the Lord of Nogrod, had been a dear friend not only to myself but to Father and Uncle Moryo. To hear of his death was a great upset. Círdan was also deeply shocked by the news. More that Thingol was dead and Doriath had been sacked than because of any closeness between himself and the Khazâd. They didn't like the sea, and hated boats, and so had really never had much to do with each other.

LR: There are very few Iathrim who are willing to speak about the Battle in the Thousand Caves, nor the Sarn Athrad, so please, I would be very interested to hear your perspectives.

Celebrimbor: The thing is, by that point the Nauglamír would have already been cursed many times over. [He makes a frustrated noise]. I should say, I had once been given leave to examine the Nauglamír by Finrod while we stayed in Nargothrond, and it was a Masterwork. But jewelry crafted at that level isn't metaphysically inert, and gold is an especially suggestible metal—and well. Having been part of a Dragon-hoard, and then looted and given to Thingol, and then blooded not only by Thingol's own death but the slaughter of the Iathrim and the Khazâd, and then finally cursed with Azanûl's dying breath. I've heard that Beren washed the blood from it right there in the Ascar and then carried it off with him. The Silmaril was hallowed, of course, but Grandfather's jewels were compelling in a way that provoked greed even before it was set into a necklace that was cursed with compounding gold-madness several times over. And Beren had held a Silmaril before. I wasn't surprised at all that he couldn't give it up a second time, but the whole thing was so wretched.

LR: Please, explain what you mean about Beren holding the Silmaril.

Celebrimbor: It's very straightforward, I think. He pried it from Morgoth's crown and his hand clutched at it even as it was bitten off and swallowed. They say his hand still held it even when it was cut from Carcharoth's belly. And then he died, and Thingol took it. And yet, when the Silmaril came to him again, even in such circumstances, he took it for himself.

LR: That's a rather uncharitable accounting of Beren.

Celebrimbor: [His eyes narrow] I'm rather uncharitable on the subject of magic jewelry, these days. My point is, for all his heroism, we will never know if Beren could truly have let go of the Silmaril once it was in his hand. He never had the chance to try. And then, when he saw it again, he took it back.

LR: I feel compelled to offer the defense that he could hardly have thrown it into the Ascar with the rest of Doriath's cursed treasures.

Celebrimbor: [Sharply] He very well could have. Imagine the trouble my Father and Uncles would have been prevented from causing had they been stuck dredging the Rathlóriel for the thing.

LR: …That is a good point…

Celebrimbor: I can admit that my views of the subject have somewhat calcified. [He takes a breath] I met Beren, briefly. He seemed an entirely decent person, if the type willing to swear impetuous oaths over the procurement of jewels…

LR: [I cough, not quite able to cover my laugh] Ah. Rather damning with faint praise, aren't we?

Celebrimbor: Beren was forthright and honest with his intentions, which is the best I can say for him. He certainly didn't seem to have much consideration for the political implications of his task, and if he did, then I would account that as being even less excusable than ignorance on his part.

[He pauses, seemingly deliberately relaxing his shoulders and giving his temper a moment to ease].

As for the Second Kinslaying, I found myself unsurprised, in the end. If Beren could not resist the combined allure of the Silmaril and the Nauglamír. If Lúthien herself, whom I account as much stronger in will than Beren, could not resist. Then I cannot imagine Dior being able to do so. And with Doriath's defenses so broken? A Silmaril that wasn't in Morgoth's grasp but instead easily within reach? No. I was grieved, to hear of the deaths of my Father and Uncles, and to know of another crime staining our House, but I was not surprised.

Excerpt from the book "The Lay of Leithian: a Historiographical Approach" by Líwë Ríniel of the University of Tirion

Chapter 23 — The Trouble of Beren

There is one point that arises when examining the evidence in terms of comparison between the text of the Leithian and contemporary accounts of the events it purports to represent: why fabricate the confrontation between Beren and Lúthien and the Fëanorions in the Forest of Brethil?

If Lúthien's supplies were a gift of friendship from Celegorm Fëanorion, and Huan's accompanying her the Great Hound's own choice, then why contrive such a fraught encounter to explain the presence of Huan and the knife Angrist in the tale?

Taking the political motives behind the Leithian into consideration, a few possible aims arise.

The first and most obvious, of course, being to directly insert Beren's name into conflict with the Fëanorions. For all Thingol was little impressed by Beren's deeds and reputation when he was first approached, he would not have been unaware that Beren Erchamion was regarded as a great hero in Beleriand and especially revered among Men for his fearless defiance of Morgoth. It is perhaps even this fame that caused Thingol to name the Silmarl as Lúthien's bride-price, hoping to drive Beren away and injuring his pride by demanding he strike an impossible blow against Morgoth†.

After the Nirnaeth, when Lúthien and Beren had already returned from Mandos and Thingol was in possession of a Silmaril, things must have seemed quite different. It is, in truth, unclear how much Thingol truly softened toward his son-in-law, but regardless, sentiment had never stayed Thingol's hand before. Putting forth his son-in-law's name—known and hailed as one of the great heroes of Men in Beleriand—as an enemy of the Fëanorions at a time when the Fëanorions were weakened and seeking to re-stabilize their alliances with Men may have had a directly chilling effect on the Fëanorions' ability to maintain those alliances, or doubtlessly so Thingol hoped††.

Another potential motive lies in establishing an official endorsement of Beren's martial abilities†††. While there was no question of his valor and bravery—shown clearly in his defiance of despair in Canto IX and choosing to continue to Angband alone in Canto XI—through most of the events of the Quest for the Silmaril, Beren is dependent on others: first Finrod and then Lúthien. In the only other occasion that displayed his martial skill, The Hunting of the Wolf, Beren sustained the injury that would lead to his death—and thus Lúthien's death, by extension. It may have occurred to Thingol that allowing his son-in-law to be portrayed in such a way, with no great feat of his own prowess other than the one that saw him slain, would be ultimately damaging to the Iathrim's faith in Lúthien's consort. Thingol's awareness of Beren's reputation and deeds is a given, but Thingol had also already denounced Beren in front of his court as unworthy.

Beren being portrayed defeating a Fëanorion is also worthy of note, as Thingol's view of Men was relatively dim. This may simply have been meant to reflect further insult to the Fëanorions—especially in light of their betrayal at the hands of Men during the Nirnaeth—but the text's assertion that Beren knocked Curufin from his horse is notable. Curufin, while not as militarily renown as Celegorm, was known for his own strong horsemanship and martial deeds in Himlad. He was a known neighbor to the Iathrim by way of their shared border and while he would have dealt with them less than Celegorm did as ruling Prince, he remained a convenient and established benchmark which Beren's deed could be measured against††††.

A more subtle and insidious aspect of Beren's lionization is the portrayal of Lúthien. Contemporary accounts of Princess Lúthien paint the portrait of a mature and powerful woman: the first and greatest of her mother Melian's students and an accomplished politician within her father's court. Lúthien's position as both the great sum of her parents' parts and also Thingol's undisputed heir had been established in countless ways prior to the Quest for the Silmarl. In physical aspects as well, Lúthien was known to be powerful: accounts describe her height as only a few inches shy of matching her father's—Thingol recorded as the tallest Elf to ever live—and with the solid and plush figure accounted to her mother—Melian falling in line with the general build of Maiar servants of Vána, and indeed, the Lady of Spring and her elder sister the Queen of the Earth, with a fana that suggested all the generous bounty of life renewed and prevailing.

In comparison, Beren was tall for a man but fell short of Lúthien's height by nearly two feet. Celegorm Fëanorion—the third tallest of the Fëanorions, after Maedhros and the Ambarussar—is recorded as being half a foot shorter than her. Curufin Fëanorion—the shortest of the Fëanorions, standing at Fëanor's own supposed height—was a few bare inches taller than Beren; perhaps another reason why he was chosen as Beren's opponent, again providing a convenient benchmark as a known quantity to the Iathrim†††††.

What remains is the fact that there is no possible way either Fëanorion could have carried Lúthien off without her consent, through the combination of her formidable strength in spirit, body, and Song. Yet a considerable portion of the directly political sections of the Leithian involve Lúthien being imperiled††††††. Beren's great feat is accorded as a direct rescue of Lúthien. Lúthien's perils at the hands of the Fëanorions are accounted as Fëanorion falseness that she failed to perceive. Huan's pity for Lúthien is what supposedly freed her from Nargothrond rather than any action of her own. All of these details conspire to paint a picture of a deliberate depreciation of Lúthien's power in her portrayal in the Leithian, directly in spite of her eventual victory over Morgoth.

In this frame it can perhaps be considered that while Thingol had more or less accepted Beren and sought to burnish his martial reputation, he had not forgotten that Lúthien was more than willing to defy him for Beren's sake.

This makes it more significant, then, that Beren and Lúthien soon departed Doriath to live on Tol Galen in what by all accounts was a modest and pastoral manner, rather than remain in Menegroth in the modes of comfort due to the Princess of Doriath and her husband. Only returning to Doriath some time after FA 490, when their son Dior would have been fully grown and capable of fending for himself in the Iathrim court.

† The relationship between Thingol and Beren is particularly opaque to historical review. While Thingol did relent and welcome Beren as his son-in-law, there are doubts as to whether he did so out of true reversal of his previously held position or merely because he had come to understand that Lúthien would not have another. Especially so after their return from Mandos, when Lúthien's life was bound to Beren's own. Regardless, Thingol chose to use Beren's reputation as a further weapon in his political arsenal, taking care to position Beren as aligned with himself and thus Doriath's denunciation of the Fëanorions.

†† After the Nirnaeth, Thingol's position in Beleriand was as close to what it had been before the arrival of the Noldor as could be had, and perhaps to his view was even improved, as various powerful Sindarin Lords had also died or lost their holdings. With the Silmaril in hand, it is entirely doubtless that his thoughts were focused on denying the Fëanorions any potential allies or avenues of regaining power he possibly could.

††† Beren is a difficult figure to pin down within the historical record. He is spoken of a great deal, and there are many stories about him that have passed into legend—of which the Leithian is considered the greatest—but it is difficult to form a complete picture of the Man from these necessarily embellished sources. What we can be sure of is that he was, personally, rather modest and quiet although not without moments of temper. He took his oaths seriously. He was extremely brave and very forthright. It is accounted that he could speak to birds and animals—although some arguments have been made that Beren and Celegorm Fëanorion have been conflated in this detail, as Celegorm was also famously possessed of the ability—and that he may have been a vegetarian. Thingol need not have fabricated examples of Beren's martial prowess, as there were already countless stories circulating in Beleriand at the time. Beyond this, however, he is a ghost within a great many First Age accounts.

†††† With Himlad as the primary political link between the Iathrim and the Fëanorion-controlled regions of Eastern Beleriand, it follows that it was also the primary market into which Iathrim traders brought goods. Curufin is accounted as only rarely leaving the city of Taurost during the Long Peace—while Celegorm ranged afield with the cavalry as needed—and thus he would have been seen and recognized by Iathrim who visited the city, as well as those Marchwardens who were sent to conduct diplomacy on Thingol's behalf. Descriptions of Curufin and Celegorm would have likely have been circulating within Doriath for centuries before the Leithian was written.

††††† See Index XXIX — Transcript of an interview with Îdhiel, former Lady's Maid to Princess Lúthien, from among the Returned — The Shrinking of Lúthien is another curious historical dissimulation; according to a direct source, Lúthien was eight feet six inches tall and weighted approximately five hundred and thirty pounds. This puts her behind only her father Thingol, at nine feet tall exactly, and Maedhros Fëanorion, at eight feet eight inches, in height. It ties her with Turgon of Gondolin for the position of third tallest Elf in Beleriand. Beren is recorded as six feet six inches. Celegorm Fëanorion is accounted as being eight feet exactly, and Curufin is accounted as being exactly seven feet tall—the same height as Fëanor, who was accounted as being the same height as Finwë—with the Ambarussar being accorded as eight feet two inches and Caranthir being accorded as seven feet eight inches.

†††††† In combination with the phenomena that can be called the Shrinking of Lúthien, the continual depiction of her as imperiled not via direct threat of violence or the Enemy—as she handily prevails over both Sauron and Morgoth when she challenges them—but rather via poor discernment of character is notable within the Leithian. Except during the confrontation in Brethil—which is itself notable as the only directly fabricated section that depicts Lúthien in peril—the danger that Lúthien faces from other elves is portrayed as due to naivety on Lúthien's part. Within the political context of these portions of the Leithian it is very intriguing that Lúthien is portrayed as so soundly helpless and of poor judgment, especially in regard to her continued position as Thingol's heir.

Index XIX — Transcript of an interview with Three Huntswomen formerly in the service of Celegorm Fëanorion, who decline to give their names, under the pseudonyms of Ruiwen, Hadriel, and Narchadis, all Returned

[We are sitting in the inner courtyard of a private house in the settlement of Taunorand, on the edge of the Woods of Oromë. This interview is being conducted with the promise of anonymity for the subjects, and the three Huntswomen all wear veils. I cannot see their faces. They have requested specifically that we speak mostly in Sindarin, for further obfuscation. The interview has been printed in Sindarin, and also translated into academic Quenya.]

LR: Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, I was very surprised to receive your letter…

Ruiwen: We heard about what you're doing…

Narchadis: Yes. About the Leithian, and what happened.

Hadriel: We Returned some few centuries ago, the three of us, and it's been….[She trails off, making a helpless gesture with her hands].

Narchadis: It's been difficult. Very difficult.

Ruiwen: We asked our Lord if we might be given leave to speak with you.

LR: Forgive me, your Lord?

[Narchadis bows her head, while Ruiwen and Hadriel speak at once]

Hadriel and Ruiwen: Lord Oromë.

LR: [I am rather unaccustomed to interacting with the profoundly religious] Do you need his permission?

Narchadis: Not to speak with you, but to share some aspects of the Mysteries usually kept for disciples of the Hunt.

Ruiwen: [Her tone is somewhat disagreeing] For permission to leave the Wood, before we've finished serving out our penance.

LR: [With some alarm] What penance?

Hadriel: We will explain, please, ask your questions.

LR: Alright. You were all followers of Celegorm Fëanorion?

Ruiwen: Yes. We all served in Prince Celegorm's household as his companions. I hope you'll forgive us for not being willing to speak in too much detail about our exact roles and positions, but…

Hadriel: We want to speak the truth, but without sacrificing our identities.

LR: And these names won't compromise your identities?

Narchadis: No, please, worry not. Anyone who knows these names is already aware.

LR: In that case, in as specific terms as you feel capable of…please, tell me about your service to Celegorm.

Hadriel: [Tartly] Prince Celegorm.

[Narchadis reaches over and swats her arm].

Ruiwen: We were all three of us disciples of Lord Oromë first, long before we first met Prince Celegorm. But when he came among us, the Oromëndili, I knew at once that he would be truly great.

Narchadis: I thought he was unruly. Coltish. You could tell that he had great potential, but he had to learn how to get out of his own way to achieve it.

Hadriel: [Hisses at Narchadis, and swats her arm in return] Prince Celegorm needed time to reach understanding of the Mysteries, and that was complicated by his personal worries, but such dissonance is what draws in all of us who follow Lord Oromë and Lady Vána at the most dedicated levels.

Narchadis: [She nods slowly, crossing her arms over her chest. As the sleeves of her outer robe slip down her forearms I can see the inked patterns of devotional tattoos.] That's true. He was deeply charming, even so young, and very earnestly desired to learn. There are some who fancy themselves as in love with our Lord and Lady, and often realize their mistake and swiftly leave us, but Prince Celegorm loved the things that made the Hunt, and the Procession of Spring, and felt a kinship to the forces that they represented long before he'd met them.

Ruiwen: I saw the spark in him at once, we all did, no matter what Narchadis likes to pretend. That's why he was so well-loved that a great number of us were willing to leave our Lord and Lady and face Exile to follow him. To us he wasn't some distant Prince of Finwë's house, but our own Prince of the Hunt.

LR: Could you explain the 'Mysteries'? I'm not sure I understand what you mean by forces they represent?

Hadriel: [She nods] The Valar are great powers, but their power doesn't derive from them but rather from the forces in the world they represent. The stars would not go dark simply because Varda left the circles of the world. Lord Oromë is the Hunt, because the Hunt is Lord Oromë. There are other things, aspects and elements that merge to make him what he is, and some of these are even shared by other Valar, but they are expressed in the world in a way that is uniquely inherent to Lord Oromë.

LR: I…think…I understand. Theology really isn't my area of expertise. Or study. Or interest. Unfortunately.

Narchadis: [In bland tones] That is very unfortunate for you.

[Hadriel reaches over and swats Narchadis' arm again.]

Ruiwen: If you love Lord Oromë without loving the Hunt, then you don't love Lord Oromë. If you love the Hunt, even if you've never met him, and don't even know his name, then you love Lord Oromë.

LR: Aha. [I try to not sound skeptical.]

Ruiwen: I died on the Great Journey. I wasn't a hunter then, I was merely young. Not a child, but young. I remember I'd strayed to the edge of a group, exploring the lands we were passing by even as we made to leave them. I'm not certain what killed me. An orc, probably. In hindsight I think it was an orc. All I remember is I'd strayed away from the torchlight of the camp and the next I was laying on the ground gasping and crying. Lord Oromë appeared from nowhere, and struck the thing that killed me with his great spear. I looked up at him as I was dying, hearing the body of my killer drop quietly behind me, its breath already silenced in death, and suddenly I knew him. I knew him as the swift and merciful death, the keen sharp blade and steady hand, the knife-edge that each of us must meet to pass from the realm of the living into Námo's gracious halls.

[She is serenely calm as she tells me this. Hadriel reaching over to clasp Ruiwen's shoulder as she speaks. I feel frisson of discomfort that I cannot describe the source of.]

Ruiwen: [Her voice sounds as though she is smiling] That was my introduction to the Mysteries. Everyone has one, a moment where they see beyond, and glimpse the forces of the world that the Valar represent.

LR: And you? Came out of the Halls?

Ruiwen: Oh yes, fairly quickly. I had been avenged immediately, and I had felt such peace and understanding in my last moments. I sought Lord Oromë then, and asked to become one of his disciples, and he recognized me, smiling, and welcomed me.

LR: I suppose I'm just surprised…

Hadriel: Most are. Aman is spoken of as the deathless land, but death lives here as much as it does anywhere else. It lays more lightly, perhaps, but there is death in Aman just the same.

LR: Queen Míriel…

Narchadis: [She makes a dismissive sound] Míriel, Míriel, Míriel, enough has been spoken of Míriel. The buck whose meat you're eating died. A mason broke his neck falling off a ladder last week. Just because Finwë wanted to believe there would be no more death and convinced his family of the same doesn't mean he was right.

LR: You said Prince Celegorm had personal worries, relating to the Mysteries…I don't suppose that has anything to do with Míriel?

Narchadis: Ha! You are quick! Yes, in a sense. There was a time when the House of Finwë had worked itself into hysteria over Prince Celegorm's birth and resemblance to Míriel. I knew her, although we were better acquaintances than friends, and he truly was the very image of her. The first time I saw him I half-convinced myself that it was indeed Míriel come out of the Halls at last. It was awful, at the time she was always accounted as a terribly delicate and sickly maiden when portrayed in art, and the trend kept up for centuries afterward! But she was tall! With strong shoulders and wiry muscle and whipcord strength. And their resemblance wasn't just in form. They were both of them wild and fae, as bright and sharp as white flame, with a ferocious heart and swift, volcanic temper. Neither of them could stand their hands to be idle for very long.

Hadriel: I was rather jealous, actually, that he could get such uniform thread off a drop spindle while riding.

Ruiwen: Your thread is just uneven, melitsa.

Narchadis: When Prince Celegorm came to us I found myself wishing that Finwë had spent every last moment he looked into his grandson's face writhing with quiet agony over Míriel.

LR: Did you, ah, disapprove of his remarriage?

Narchadis: I didn't give a damn about his remarriage. I cared that between himself and that emotion-bumbler Fëanor they'd nearly managed to convince such a bright child that he should submit to their dearest wishes and allow himself to be sealed into a display case labeled Míriel's Heir, where he might be kept posed in tableau sitting at a loom for the rest of his life, or else die.

[I barely manage to stifle a shocked laugh, at hearing Finwë and Fëanor spoken of in such a way.]

Ruiwen: And he chose death! [She sounds breathlessly exultant, as though she's beaming with happiness] He chose to risk the kiss of that loveliest blade! And in turn found that there was nothing waiting for him but life and renewal and growth, and in that moment he knew Vána as well, despite never yet having seen her, and from that moment on he was the most fearless and devoted of all of us, because he truly and deeply loved our Lord and Lady for all the things that make them.

LR: [In disbelief] So you're telling me that the Hunt is a death cult?

Narchadis: I'm not certain why you're surprised. Hunting involves killing. Our charge to pursue the creatures and servants of the darkness involves killing. The Hunt brings death, the Procession of Spring brings life. Lord Oromë and Lady Vána's union is one of balance and yet also cycles of change.

LR: Yes—I—I'm sure it's all very deeply theologically profound…but…explain the part where Prince Celegorm decided to…to cope with his ah…resemblance to Míriel by joining a death cult?

Hadriel: That's a very reductive way of putting it.

Ruiwen: And a rather sensitive topic, there are some confidences we won't share.

LR: [I am trying to remain calm] You brought the subject up?

Narchadis: It's very simple, when you become aware of death you can cower from it or seek to understand it. Prince Celegorm was bold enough to seek knowledge rather than remain trapped in the shadow of Finwë and Fëanor's fears.

LR: I see. [I do not see]. So you followed him from the Hunt to Beleriand. Why?

Hadriel: [She nods] He wasn't perfect, but he was good. He could be arrogant at times, and overly competitive, but he found himself in the Hunt and slowly settled and grew more mature as he advanced through each grade of initiation. In a way, he was at his best in Beleriand, during the Long Peace. I thought it was a shame, actually, that it took the Oath and the Doom and the Exile to nudge him that last bit of the way into growing fully into himself.

Ruiwen: Because he was ours, in part, because he had already shown us his mettle.

Narchadis: Because he asked. He asked us to go with him, pursue Morgoth for vengeance, and to hunt the creatures of the Enemy in far Beleriand as Lord Oromë's had taught us to do.

LR: I suppose that begs the question, how did you feel about the Exile? If Lord Oromë didn't actually go to Beleriand until the War of Wrath.

Ruiwen: [Very kindly, as though I am a dullard] I think you might not have understood, when we explained that the Hunt is Lord Oromë, regardless of where he himself happens to be. Prince Celegorm led us to fulfill Lord Oromë's charge, and Lord Oromë's blessings upon us never wavered for all that we were Doomed and Exiled.

LR: [I am attempting to calm myself] Perhaps if you explained it again.

[For the sake of coherence, I have redacted the text of the hour the Three Huntswomen spent attempting to explain the theological and metaphysical concepts surrounding the Valar and their domains to me. The full transcript has been provided to the University of Valmar.]

Narchadis: And that is what substantive divine manifestation means, in very simple terms.

LR: [I understand less now than I did before] Aha. That's fascinating. I'm sorry to have taken us so very off topic.

Hadriel: [Laughing] You didn't get any of that, did you?

LR: I'm really not a theologian. At all. I appreciate you trying to explain.

Ruiwen: The point that truly matters, in all of this, is that we felt that our Lord was still with us. We felt that we carried out the duties of the Hunt as he had taught us, hunting monsters and evil creatures. Protecting and providing for our people. We felt Lord Oromë's favor upon us still, and felt even that we were blessed, to go to Beleriand and experience all the more keenly the dance of our Lord and Lady's spheres, away from the gentling influence of the Blessed Land. I had almost forgotten, it had been so long, how much more biting and fierce Endórë was. And how we all wept, when that first Spring broke upon us. It was transcendent, all of us there, in the dark, on Mithrim's frozen shores, as the ice slowly began to melt and life was renewed. Prince Celegorm in his great faith was especially moved, that first year, by the fullness of Vána's might. It seems ironic, but it's more difficult to understand, in Aman, which is why there are less who account her the honors she is due.

LR: You've mentioned the Procession of Spring, Vána's train. And the Hunt. Do you belong to both, then?

Hadriel: We do, and many times our Lord and Lady's trains are one and the same. There are some to whom the twofold Mysteries of our Lord and Lady do not speak, of course, who choose to follow one or the other, or who only advance a few ranks of initiation before stopping. But to fully understand…

Ruiwen: [She nods] Their wisdom is intertwined, and cannot be fully grasped unless taken together.

Narchadis: Prince Celegorm had reached the highest degree of initiation in both, and bore the full devotional marks.

LR: [In excited tones] Oh! Even the little forehead flower?

[There is a beat of silence. Narchadis begins to cackle with laughter.]

Ruiwen: [Very patiently] The Alyalotsë is a mark of blessing and good fortune bestowed on those who have reached full elucidation in Vána's Mysteries.

Hadriel: [Agreeably] It is also a very cute little tattoo of a flower on your forehead, yes.

[Narchadis wheezes.]

Ruiwen: [Speaking at increasing volume to be heard over Narchadis' laughter] The half-blossom shape is meant to invoke the image of a bud unfurling in the Spring—

Narchadis: [Speaking over Ruiwen] It's quite painful, the tattooing itself I mean. The face hurts the worst.

Hadriel: I didn't mind it, really. After a while you get used to the tap-tapping of the bone needle. I did have a headache afterwards though, but that was the vibrations.

Narchadis: The Cirmacimhen were worse, to me at least. The pain was the same, but I had to have Ruiwen hold my head still so I wouldn't twitch and take my own eyes out on the needle.

LR: That's the eye one?

Ruiwen: [Faintly irritated] The Alyalotsë sits on the forehead to represent enlightenment and receptivity to renewal. The Cirmacimhen is, yes, the knife-edge stroke along the eyelid, to represent keen sight and clarity of vision, and of a willingness to see the world as it truly is.

Hadriel: There's a whole school of spiritual metaphysics based around how the fëa sits within the hröa and how its energy moves that underpins how and where each tattoo is placed, if you were curious, although I won't bore you with the explanation.

LR: Thank you. I mean—I'm sure it's very interesting…but not exactly the focus on this interview.

Narchadis: You want to know about Lúthien.

LR: Yes, the Leithian is the focus of my study. Did you meet her? I had somewhat assumed, since Prince Celegorm's Huntswomen had been mentioned in other accounts.

Ruiwen: It was us that chaperoned her, yes. She was lovely, very charming. Well educated, although understandably more about the biology and more theoretical aspects of woodcraft rather than practical applications. She'd never left Doriath before, she said, except for a few rare visits to the Falas.

Narchadis: She was very uncomfortable in Nargothrond, it was obvious.

LR: Uncomfortable?

Narchadis: Not like that silly song says, Prince Celegorm—and all of us—offered her every hospitality and honor that could be afforded by his household, as reduced in circumstance as we were after the Bragollach. But she kept to her chamber, or to Prince Celegorm's drawing room, or just generally to the company of his household—mostly ours, when Prince Celegorm was too busy to entertain her, and a few others who stood in his confidence at the same level we did.

LR: There are some who say she was disliked, in Nargothrond, is that why she sequestered herself?

Hadriel: Perhaps, but more immediately it was because all of us had stood in Vána's own presence and bourne the weight of her regard. To us, Lúthien was her pale shadow, but to most of those in Nargothrond she was overwhelming and discomfiting.

Ruiwen: Which probably drove some of the dislike. That was true. There was that—you remember—that sad little man, Pelilas.

Narchadis: [In tones of deep contempt] Oh yes, Pelilas. One of Finrod's counselors, a Northern Sindar who'd come into his service. Absolutely hated Lúthien. Egged Prince Curufin on terribly, which was very tiring. Part of it of course was how unpopular Doriath was, but part of it was definitely how he turned red as a beet every time he looked at her full on. She was like Prince Celegorm: too brightly alive, and beautiful, and powerfully charismatic for anyone to be neutral in their opinions on her. And in Nargothrond they were already inclined toward being negative.

LR: And she and Prince Celegorm were friends?

Hadriel: I think if given the chance they could have been each other's dearest friend. They were very alike. We liked her too, of course, although we tried to talk some sense into her.

LR: About what?

Ruiwen: Her Man. Beren. She'd told us the whole story of how they'd met and came to be here, and we'd observed him during his time in Nargothrond.

LR: You didn't like Beren?

Narchadis: There was nothing wrong with him other than a tremendous lack of political acumen. I'm sure if any of us had spent the past several years roaming around in the wilderness watching our families be killed we'd also be direly out of touch with current geopolitics. Or something. [She makes a broad gesture with her hands] At the time I just thought that she should take a moment to consider that her Man, valorous and honorable though he may be, was rather making a mess of things.

Ruiwen: She was very gracious about hearing us. Didn't listen to a word, of course, but was very gracious about it. She loved him, with her whole heart, and I had the sense she'd been chafing under Thingol's rule for a while.

Hadriel: I think she listened. She was rather abashed when we pointed out that his method thus far had been to march up to whichever authority with whom he wished to treat and then, as soon as he was assured he could speak without danger, immediately announce his intentions no matter how outrageous.

Ruiwen: But she loved him, so she was willing to accept his flaws.

Narchadis: I think she bundled him off to Tol Galen and away from Thingol and his court as soon as she could because of it. She might be willing to accept that level of forthrightness but Thingol's court was a rigidly stratified thing. I visited once, conveying a gift from Prince Celegorm to Thingol for some bit of petty politicking—Thingol continually made a nuisance of himself in regard to Himlad's borders on the Aros and with Nan Elmoth—and it was all the worst parts of visiting Tirion.

LR: Was it common knowledge that Beren and Lúthien lived on Tol Galen? I've heard differing accounts.

Ruiwen: It took time for the news to spread, and near the end of their lives it was fairly common knowledge, but we knew sooner. She maintained an intermittent correspondence with Prince Celegorm, and we'd occasionally have a letter.

LR: So you knew where they lived?

Hadriel: Not exactly. We knew they were in Ossiriand somewhere. She and Prince Celegorm could both speak to birds, and so what I assume, because it's what Prince Celegorm did, is that whenever they had a letter they'd call out to any bird willing to make the flight, and then leave the actual specifics of location to the bird's seeking.

LR: He'd just give his letters to a bird, tell it to find Lúthien, and then…let it go?

Narchadis: That was how he sent all his mail, unless there was something big enough to require a courier. It was deeply irritating. One moment you're lining up a good shot and the next a bad-tempered little jay is throwing itself at your head to deliver his message. And then you'd finally wrest the parchment away from the bird and it would be something like Narchaneth, Helvon says the shepherds are complaining again, go ask the sheep in the south graze what's going on. Which. The cheek of calling me 'little sister'. And asking me to go talk to sheep.

Ruiwen: [Laughing] Oh yes the diminutives, no one could escape the diminutives. And whenever we complained he of course reminded us that we'd all been calling him Tyelko since he was fifty—

LR: How did it effect his rule of Himlad that his primary companions were all so much older than he was?

Hadriel: Not so much. We respected him, but Prince Celegorm had no patience for sycophancy and so didn't expect or want a tremendous amount of deference. There was a younger cohort within the Hunt who looked up to him, of course, but they were necessarily less advanced within the Mysteries and less experienced. Those of us who were his most immediate and closest followers were those who had stood with him in the highest circle of Lord Oromë's disciples, so his following retained a great deal of the hierarchical structure of the Hunt.

Ruiwen: He didn't particularly encourage the hierarchy, in Beleriand, but there was a rather clear demarcation between those of us who'd been his companions and friends for many long years and those who knew him primarily as an authority to be revered rather than a person.

LR: Why is that?

Ruiwen: The Exile and the Doom and all of it had given the young ones some strange ideas. [She hesitates] I haven't spoken of this with Lord Oromë, but….

Narchadis: I have. And it's not like he didn't already know.

Ruiwen: [Sounding relieved] Oh good. I'd been agonizing!

Hadriel: [Warmly] You usually are, melitsa.

Ruiwen: [Sounding flustered] Its embarrassing.

Hadriel: It really is embarrassing, I feel for them, honestly. Some have returned already and are greatly ashamed of themselves, standing in Lord Oromë's presence again.

LR: [Feeling alarmed] What did they do?

Narchadis: It's not that embarrassing. Well. It is embarrassing, but its the embarrassment of an initiate who mistakes every particularly clever animal for a Maia. They venerated Lord Oromë in name, but they revered Prince Celegorm as their actual leader and the strings got a bit tangled as it were. Lord Oromë and Prince Celegorm had been, to them, two figures who were inextricable, and now they were in a strange place and while Prince Celegorm would tell them that Lord Oromë's lack of personal physical presence didn't mean he was absent or inattentive…The young ones got it into their heads that since Lord Oromë had not physically come to Beleriand with us, and since Prince Celegorm was their leader and also Lord Oromë's most favored, that they should perhaps shift their veneration from Lord Oromë to Prince Celegorm.

Ruiwen: Complicated by the fact that Prince Celegorm had, before the Exile, risen to the highest possible rank of leadership within the Hunt. He was known to them as both a strategic and spiritual authority long before we left Aman. He was a Prince of the senior line of the House of Finwë, which meant something even if people tried to pretend it didn't during the Darkening. Worst, perhaps, he wasn't always as strict about decorum and address in regard to his person as he could have been. With Lord Oromë you could never escape the feeling of his power, but Prince Celegorm was very warm. Very intense of course, a person can't stand toe-to-toe with a Vala without being intense enough to match, but when contrasted with Lord Oromë his fire was a comfort.

Hadriel: I remember standing next to them, one Midsummer, and although the atmosphere was festive and there was nothing but joy to be felt…Lord Oromë's presence can make one feel as though you're standing in the deep woods, with eyes peering at you from the underbrush. There's a sort of creeping dread inherent to him, that lingers more strongly when he's in residence at Intauros. But when Prince Celegorm was beside him, it was as though you'd suddenly come to a clearing, and found a friendly face and a roaring campfire.

Ruiwen: [Nodding] And although nothing about the woods themselves had changed, suddenly you'd feel the fear and awe ease a bit. It's not that Lord Oromë ever purposefully made you feel overawed, of course, but he is the things that make him and those are things that one must be wary of.

LR: But Prince Celegorm….I'm struggling to phrase this question…Prince Celegorm wasn't afraid?

Narchadis: [Shaking her head] Everyone is afraid. Even Prince Celegorm was afraid. One of the triumphs of the Mysteries is to face that fear, to confront it, and to gain insight and mastery of it. Prince Celegorm was afraid, but he had reached the point where his love far outstripped his fear, and to stand beside him was to feel the presence of that love illuminating aspects of Lord Oromë that a lesser disciple wasn't capable of understanding by themselves.

LR: And this caused problems, in Beleriand?

Ruiwen: Not problems, exactly, but it meant that among those who hadn't known him so well as we had Prince Celegorm was held in a sort of reverence. He disliked it, and so would distance himself from those who were most overt about it—

Hadriel: Which in turn made him seem more untouchable, which inspired more reverence.

Narchadis: And of course there was the fact that there are only so many levels of initiation one can advance without our Lord and Lady's direct presence and blessing, which meant that many of them were stalled in their progression through the Mysteries….

Ruiwen: There were those of us who were familiar with him, and with whom he was very casual, and then there were those who he maintained a distance from, but whom revered him almost as though he were Lord Oromë.

LR: I thought you said he was rather arrogant, at times?

Hadriel: There's a difference between being a bit full of yourself, and actively encouraging your followers to revere you alike your patron Vala.

Narchadis: Disliked is too mild a word. It made him deeply uncomfortable. Part of why he had such low tolerance for people. He'd already spent his youth being burdened with unreasonable expectations by people who were failing to understand him for who he was, his desire to endure such a thing as an adult was nonexistent. It changed of course, after the Bragollach. There was a bond, between everyone who'd survived, we were more closely knit. For a while things we very good, among us at least, we'd all fought and struggled and scraped along together to reach safety. It was the opposite after the Nirnaeth though. The camaraderie we'd achieved died on the field there. Prince Celegorm had saved us, his feats in that battle, although they will never be commemorated in song, were the sort of quick-thinking that stopped our entire cavalry from being wiped out, and helped hold the way of retreat for all of our forces… Even I—There was a moment, in the battle, where he turned, wheeling on his horse, his spear flashing in the light of the fires taking the field, as he held his horn to his lips to sound the retreat—I felt Lord Oromë's presence.

Ruiwen: They revered him even more strongly, after that. Even those of us who'd never done it before fell prey to the desire to account our survival to something more than mere chance and Prince Celegorm's skill at reading the battlefield. I won't deny the possibility that Lord Oromë may have helped, of course, but his aid doesn't generally work very overtly. It was somewhat cultish. I tried to study the phenomena, actually—there was even a shrine hidden in one of the barracks! Candles and little offerings!

Narchadis: It wounded Prince Celegorm deeply, I think. We were so reduced, and then everyone started losing their heads and putting him on a pedestal.

LR: This gives me an excellent point of entry into perhaps the heaviest topic surrounding Prince Celegorm and his servants: was this attitude what caused the Twin Princes of Doriath to be abandoned in the forest?

[The Three Huntswomen all go very still. Ruiwen gives a shocked gasp.]

Narchadis: I supposed I should have remembered we'd have to get to this eventually.

[Ruiwen laughs wetly.]

Hadriel: No. Well. Not entirely. It was what caused a great number of Prince Celegorm's followers to take part in the Sack. There was a very keen sense that his honor had been greatly impinged by Thingol—which it had been, the Leithian slandered Prince Celegorm a great deal—and that the Iathrim should be paid back for the insult. And they had the Silmaril.

Ruiwen: [Voice thick] Thingol was dead, of course, but the insult still stood.

Narchadis: Eventually the pull of the Silmaril won out, although they tried their best to deny it. Prince Celegorm especially…

LR: Why would he be especially motivated?

Hadriel: He'd been fighting it longer than the others, and it wore on him. You recall, he and Lúthien corresponded. She never said it in as many words, but it wasn't hard to realize that she'd come into possession of the Silmaril.

Ruiwen: They could sense them, somehow. I won't speculate about whether it was the Oath or some connection to Fëanor's spirit within the jewels, but they could sense them. It's how we discovered the site of the massacre at Sarn Athrad.

LR: They felt the Silmaril move?

Narchadis: Yes. I'm not sure which of them noticed it first, but I remember them all standing in the great hall of the fortress at Amon Ereb, their faces turned to the north.

Ruiwen: It was frightening. We all knew of the Oath, of course, but we'd never seen them so overtly affected by it. I've heard Alqualondë blamed on the Oath before, but I don't think that's true. Things were more confused, people were frightened. All the tensions of the Darkening were coming to a head. Morgoth did his work among us well! I had friends among the Teleri whom even I, who rarely spent time in Tirion and only for festivals and the like—had begun to mistrust. There's been a great deal of talk devoted to the fracturing of the House of Finwë, and not enough, I think, about the festering mistrust that had built between the Noldor and our neighbors.

LR: You don't think the Oath of Fëanor played a role in the First Kinslaying?

Ruiwen: I think that if it did, it wasn't enough to be notable. There was enough fear and confusion at work that attributing it all to the Oath seems almost like eliding the truth of what happened. As for the Silmaril. I remember there was a sense of surprise. Prince Celegorm…I remember the last letter he ever received from Lúthien, he read it while pacing the battlements, until finally he stopped, staring south-east with a gutted expression on his face. He didn't tell the others, but every once in a while, when he allowed himself to be idle, I'd find him turning in that direction. It wasn't hard to look at a map and realize that must have been the direction Tol Galen was from us.

Hadriel: [Nodding] He was greatly grieved, by Huan's death and our losses in the Nirnaeth. He'd already rebuilt our forces once, after the Bragollach. I remember our first year in Nargothrond, there was a whole wall of his drawing room papered over with charts of pedigrees and bloodlines as he worked out which of the horses had survived, which stallions to stand at stud to rebuild the herd. Training regimes, figuring out how much we'd lost. Aglon held long enough to evacuate Taurost, and a number of our people had been sent south to the lands of the Ambarussar—

Narchadis: With as many of the sheep and goats as could be gathered up along the way! Prince Celegorm was more upset about losing most of the flock than he was about losing the city! Helvon, bless him, managed to get a letter through from Amon Ereb and he put news of how many of the sheep had survived before the salutation.

Hadriel: [In tones of great exasperation] Oh the sheep. Yes. There was an evacuation plan for the sheep, actually.

Narchadis: I believe it. I can't believe I never thought of it before now, of course, but I entirely believe that Prince Celegorm created such a thing.

Hadriel: Helvon was in charge of it, and getting the heavier equipment moved south, after it became clear that Aglon was going to be forced no matter what we did. But we held long enough for them to get away! Prince Celegorm gathered everyone fit to ride, every horse that could bear a saddle, and sent everything else south. We routed the first wave to break the pass on the upper highlands, harried the second to slow them as much as we could, and then broke for the west.

Narchadis: [Meanly] We knew when they'd gotten to Taurost because the explosion lit the sky for leagues around. Prince Curufin and his smiths had rigged the whole of it with oil and sulfur and coal and anything else that would feed the flames, and then Prince Celegorm had called out for every falcon and kite that would answer and asked that they take up any burning stick or grass they could find and drop them into the city once the Enemy's forces were inside. This was planned before the Balrogs had taken an active role in breaking the pass, of course, but I imagine that their presence didn't exactly slow the fires once they got started.

Ruiwen: [Longsufferingly] All that being said! Prince Celegorm was greatly grieved, after the Nirnaeth. Prince Curufin had been badly injured, and a great many of his company of smiths and siege engineers had been slain. Lord Maedhros had been injured less terribly, but his grief brought him a great deal of suffering and his mind did not clear for a long while. We had been decimated, and everyone who could work was needed. And then the Oath started to work upon them.

Hadriel: We saw smoke from the north and rode out, after they'd felt the Silmaril move. It was still moving, and the Ambarussar went forth to track it. Beren must have had Vána's own luck, to make it back to Tol Galen when they were attempting to pin down the jewel's location. We found the battlefield. Well. Battle. It was a massacre. I had never known the Shepherds of the Forest to take a hand in such a way. You could see them up the slopes of the foothills, where they'd retreated to the treeline. Trunks and branches and leaves painted in blood. It was a dreadful business. Lord Maedhros recognized Lord Azanûl, and the sigils and crests of Nogrod. And there was the river, of course, the whole bed strewn and mounded with gold. All of Doriath's treasures.

Ruiwen: It seemed at the time there was enough mercy in the Oath that if they didn't know exactly where it was they could ignore it more easily—which is why Lord Maedhros could not rest, even during the Long Peace, I think, he knew so intimately the halls of Angband, and where Morgoth kept the jewels! And so all thought turned from the Silmaril to doing what we could for our friends. All we knew is that we'd come upon the crossing and found it strewn with the bodies of dwarves. A messenger was dispatched to Nogrod with haste, as we did what we could to tend to the dead, and what few survivors there were. Lord Azanûl's widow, Lady Vár, made haste to meet us there, bringing a procession of mourners. We had already gotten an idea of what had happened, from those very few who had survived. There were a few whose injuries were too great, and who died, but there were some very few who we managed to save.

Narchadis: It was Lady Vár who related the dreadful tale. Thingol's selfish desire to unite the Silmaril and the Nauglamír into one. The Iathrim who survived made sure their version of the tale spread far and wide, which I can understand. They won, in every way that matters. Politically at least. The Noldor are remembered for our crimes, and the Iathrim are our unfortunate victims! But it was not the Silmaril nor payment for the work that caused all of it, but rather the Nauglamír.

LR: [I am taking furious notes] Please, explain. I don't think there's ever been an account from after the Sarn Athrad that wasn't penned by a survivor or descendant of Doriath, you're right.

Narchadis: Property rights among the dwarves work similarly to property rights among the Noldor. If there are no descendants left to inherit a piece crafted specifically as a gift, then rights revert to the craftsman. Finrod left no children in Beleriand, and as far as anyone knew his named heirs were all dead. Thus, the Nauglamír by rights should have been returned to Nogrod, but instead it was looted from Nargothrond's ruins and given to Thingol. The craftsmen who were summoned to work on the project recognized the maker's marks on the necklace, but Thingol insisted that it had been given to him as a gift. It's considered rude to re-gift masterworks, and Finrod was known to have died, so the going assumption at first was that one of his heirs had passed the necklace to Thingol. It wasn't until after the project was completed and the Nauglamír and Silmaril combined that they learned that Thingol wasn't being quite honest with them.

Hadriel: Of course, by this time the Nauglamír's curses were being amplified by the Silmaril, so I don't think anyone was exactly at their best in this situation.

Narchadis: Oh certainly not, gold-madness and jewel-lust all around. Even under the waters of the Ascar, you could still sense the wretched miasma of the curses, where they'd spread to the rest of the gold. But what happened was, the Nogrod demanded that Thingol allow them to undo their work and take back the Nauglamír. Thingol, who'd been Silmaril-struck for a long while by that point, reacted poorly. And then it fell to insults, and then blood.

Hadriel: [Scoffing] 'Reacted poorly', what an understatement!

Ruiwen: Lord Azanûl had not been quite so dear a friend to Lord Maedhros as Lord Azaghâl, but he had been a very dear friend to Prince Curufin and Prince Caranthir. There was a pyre, for the bodies had lain for more than a day already. The dwarves sung terrible dirges, and we sang our own songs of mourning, of anger. Lady Vár wanted vengeance, but the Nogrod had not the forces to pursue the matter any further.

Narchadis: It was on that day, I think, that the Iathrim truly became our enemies. The song was an insulting bit of political theatre, but Maglor had written enough of his own—prodding people's opinion this way and that—that we didn't truly have grounds for more than outrage. But this. Prince Celegorm had hosted Lord Azanûl in Taurost as a friend and cherished guest, and the dwarves had been friends and valued allies. That he should die in such an insulting way. That Beren carried off the Silmaril with the blood fresh upon it, and yet had the presence of mind to have the rest of the treasure thrown into the river where the water might eventually wash clean the curses. That they had not even bothered to care for the bodies of the slain, and left instead a field of corpses in a land beset by a wretched necromancer.

Hadriel: It was, I think, the end of Prince Celegorm and Lúthien's friendship. As I can recall, he wrote her only once more after we returned to Amon Ereb. Her last letter was the reply, although it came some months later. I wasn't privy to their correspondence, beyond what he shared with us, but I remember a grim and sombre mood came upon him.

Ruiwen: Everything was grim and sombre in those days. We hadn't the strength to challenge Morgoth again. We had lost so much, and so many. Lord Maedhros must have realized that Beren had taken the Silmaril back to Tol Galen as well, because he ordered an end to the Ambarussar's search when they first returned with only vague headings to the south.

Narchadis: Oh, what days! When we still had no idea how much lower we could sink!

Hadriel: Things were very quiet, for a while. We lived, we built up our defenses. We tried to mend our strength as best we could.

Ruiwen: Prince Celegorm had withdrawn into himself somewhat. There was a sense of waiting. He tried to keep himself occupied, working feverishly at any of his crafts that were needed, becoming deeply involved with the management of the stables and livestock.

Narchadis: Every once in a while, though, we'd find him out in the pastures, or up on the battlements, or even on the roof of the fort, staring fixedly toward where the Silmaril was.

Ruiwen: We actually have a fair idea of when Lúthien died. The Silmaril moved again. The poor courier must have been riding like the Enemy himself was on their heels, because as soon as they could sense it near Amon Ereb even Lord Maedhros' orders couldn't stop the Ambarussar from mounting up to try and find them. It was autumn, late autumn.

Hadriel: But the Oath's small mercy was at work. Out of all of them, I think only Celegorm was certain that Lúthien had possessed the Silmaril and that its latest journey was most likely it being taken to Dior in Doriath. Lord Maedhros was still recovering from the terrible despair that had gripped him after the Nirnaeth, and the further grief of the Sarn Athrad, he specifically ordered his brothers to keep to Amon Ereb and not wander.

Ruiwen: It didn't save us, though. We still got news from Atani traders, and from the dwarves, and very occasionally a letter from Círdan—although those were mostly addressed to Prince Celegorm in friendship rather than meant to bear any serious news. Indeed, Lord Círdan seemed to rather strenuously avoid speaking of politics and the like. In hindsight I wonder if he had some foresight of what was to come. But. It was the Men who shared the news that Dior openly wore the Silmaril. It was the spring after Lúthien died. I had always found it strange, how suddenly she and Beren passed. He was of the Edain, and only seventy-one. I don't pretend to be an expert on the ages of Men, but I had understood the Edain to live at least into their eighties. Just months before he had been hale and strong enough to fight the battle of the Sarn Athrad and best Lord Azanûl in combat.

Narchadis: Once they had the news it was easy to see how the Oath bit at them. Prince Celegorm had already known, of course, but having it confirmed seemed to make things worse.

Hadriel: You had to climb onto the roof one night—

Narchadis: More than one night! It happened a handful of times…I'd find him up there, grimacing and perched like a grotesque, staring off toward Doriath.

Ruiwen: Lord Maedhros waited a year to send the first letter. It wasn't exactly a demand, but it was a very firm request.

LR: How many letters did he send?

Hadriel: Oh, half a dozen at least. Via official courier. We'd had some time by then to recover, in practical terms. We had trade again, and our fortunes had somewhat been restored. Nothing near the wealth of the Long Peace, and certainly only a faint shadow of the wealth the House of Fëanor enjoyed in Aman, but wealth enough that we weren't desperate. Amon Ereb had been fortified and brought into as good a state of repair as it could be made. We were a fraction of the hosts that had marched for the Nirnaeth, but our numbers had been reorganized to make what effective units we could field. So every month, from the spring to the coming of autumn, we dressed one of the Ambarussar's fastest scouts in the livery of a courtier and Lord Maedhros sent them off to Doriath to convey his letters to Dior.

LR: And Dior refused.

Ruiwen: [She nods, sounding very tired] He refused. He had wavered, it seemed, in his first few replies. Lord Maedhros was not unpersuasive even in writing. But. He finally issued his clear proclamation: the Silmaril belonged to Doriath, and to the line of Lúthien, through right of conquest, and he would not yield it up to such infamous transgressors as the Kinslaying Fëanorions.

Narchadis: I've always rather thought that he was just stalling us. That's the story they tell, the Iathrim—or so I've heard, I rather try and avoid the Iathrim nowadays—that Dior used the power of the Silmaril to restore Doriath to its former glory. I'm not entirely sure what they mean by that.

Hadriel: Based on how damn surprised they were when we came marching out of the woods, I think Dior had meant to imitate his Grandmother Melian and raise some sort of Girdle.

[They pause in speaking for a moment, the three of them tilting their heads toward each other as though they mean to catch each other's gazes.]

Narchadis: Is it terrible if my first thought is how pitiful a lack of knowledge of jewelcraft that betrays?

[Ruiwen slumps with relief.]

Ruiwen: I had the same thought! Poor Dior! Silly boy! As though the Silmaril wouldn't recognize the children of Fëanor! And to try and build his defenses on the foundation of something stolen and cursed!

LR: You think the Silmarils would recognize the Fëanorions, even though they had been hallowed?

Hadriel: I know so. The jewels were blessed and hallowed, and indeed they burned their hands in the end, but Fëanor's spirit lived in the Silmarils also and that spirit is what fed the fëa of his sons. Like recognizes like.

LR: There has been a theory that Lady Elwing used the Simaril to ward the Havens of Sirion…

Ruiwen: I'm sure she did, although I was dead by then! The Silmarils were very powerful, more than enough to fuel whatever enchantment she might have wished to lay down as protection. The problem that no one ever seemed to consider is that, within Noldorin law at least, the Fëanorions had a right to them, and more, that Fëanor's masterworks would recognize Fëanor's heirs.

LR: This has some fascinating implications for the Third Kinslaying, but that's not within the purview of my research. So. You think Dior tried to Girdle Doriath using the Silmaril.

Hadriel: I think it makes as much sense as anything else, considering the state of their defenses when we finally attacked.

LR: You attacked Doriath during the winter, a few months after Dior had offered his final refusal. Perhaps two years after the Fëanorions had confirmation that he definitely possessed the Silmaril.

Ruiwen: Yes. The year had turned, Midwinter had passed, and we were in the early months of the next year. In the deep winter and hard-biting cold. [Wistfully] It was a sacred time, in Aman. To the Hunt at least; the stillness and quiet of Lord Oromë's season, before it began to wane and Lady Vána's season approached.

LR: Why is it that in this case they barely waited two years, when later Maedhros would manage to wait twenty-six years? From the time he learned the Silmaril was in Sirion to when they carried out the Third Kinslaying.

Narchadis: [Blandly] I thought that wasn't in the purview of your research? But I should think the differences in the situations are clear enough. Doriath, although weakened, was a standing kingdom. And more! The outrage of the Sarn Athrad was fresh! Not only did they spill the blood of our friends and allies over cursed and stolen treasure, but Dior claimed that the thefts erased the rights of Fëanor's heirs.

Ruiwen: I'm glad I died before the Third Kinslaying, honestly. I'm glad Prince Celegorm died before the Third Kinslaying. But. Having seen how the Oath bit at them over only a few years, when they knew a Silmaril was within reach, I cannot say how greatly they must have been tormented by it over decades of awareness. [She clears her throat, delicately] I will admit, I never really cared for any of them aside from Prince Celegorm—

Hadriel: Is this supposed to be surprising? You made it abundantly clear at every opportunity that the only authorities you'd ever recognize were our Lord and Lady and Prince Celegorm.

Ruiwen: —But! I do think it was truly rather wretched, what they came to. What we came to as well, of course, but I think we were actually rather lucky to have died in Doriath.

Narchadis: Some survived. Laecthel made it all the way to the Second Age.

Ruiwen: Prince Celegorm told Laecthel to guard little Prince Tyelpë with her life and then left her behind in Nargothrond, she wasn't there to make poor decisions with us.

Narchadis: Helvon survived!

Ruiwen: Because he stayed behind at Amon Ereb with the sheep! And then orcs killed him later!

LR: If we could please—

Hadriel: Yes, yes. Doriath. It was very eerie, actually. Marching through the woods. I do believe Dior tried to raise a Girdle with the Silmaril. I think I could feel it, shivering down my spine once we'd crossed the Aros and pressed far enough into the Forest of Region. But Prince Celegorm was leading us, and Lord Maedhros leading the entirety of our host, and so a faint shiver was all I felt. A momentarily pressing urge to turn back. Perhaps that was my conscience, or a warning of foresight. I can't say.

Ruiwen: [Somberly] They were taken by surprise. The Battle of the Thousand Caves had decimated the forces of their Marchwardens, and we had our own arts and sorcery that we deployed to hide our approach. By the time they noticed us and began to raise a defense we were so close to Menegroth it was meaningless. We rolled over them like a tide. It was. It was a battle. I killed ten, I think, as we made our way to the throne room to find Dior.

Hadriel: You may recall, I said that the Leithian was what motivated a greater number of Prince Celegorm's followers to take part in the Sack. There was a strange fury within us. An instability, I should say. Our numbers were some of the greatest, and a great many of us were cut down as well. The Iathrim fought ferociously, bleeding us for every pace we stepped in Menegroth's halls.

Narchadis: I was late to the throne room. I'd gotten into a melee and couldn't disengage in enough time.

Ruiwen: Prince Celegorm struck a killing blow on Dior. Very cleanly done. But Dior had a Mannish vigor to him, and even as he died he followed through on a strike on Prince Celegorm in turn.

Hadriel: A nasty blow, to the gut and the lung. He lay dying long enough for us to reach him.

[A heavy silence falls between them.]

Ruiwen: [She speaks in a strange, distant voice] He couldn't draw in enough breath to speak, but I saw his lips move, I could make out his words. He—He dragged his fingers through the gore on his side, and—and—

Narchadis: There's a certain custom within the Hunt, a way of commending a particularly impressive kill to Lord Oromë.

Ruiwen: [Voice tight] He made the gesture. He dragged his hand through his own blood, and then made the gesture. From the killing blow, to the lips, to the forehead. What great beast has been slain here, let it be offered to Lord Oromë, let the Lord of the Hunt find this kill a worthy feat of strength and skill.

Hadriel: His hand fell lax just after he'd daubed his own blood to his forehead. The breath rattling from his ruined lung. As though Lord Oromë had heard him, and cut the lingering binds holding his spirit to his body and eased the suffering of his death throes.

Ruiwen: [Voice wet] I like to think that's what happened. I've never been able to work up the courage to ask, and I don't think Lord Oromë would answer me anyway, but I want to believe that Lord Oromë showed his mercy to his most favored. His most beloved—

[Ruiwen bursts into tears.]

Narchadis: We would have stayed there, standing stunned around his body, were it not for Prince Curufin's screaming.

Hadriel: He'd seen Prince Celegorm fall, and had gone berserk. He didn't even realize he was bleeding to death until he'd hacked Nimloth and her guards to pieces—and then he fell as well. Silently. As though the rage had run out of him with his lifeblood. And. Behind the doorway Nimloth was trying to guard was the way that Lady Elwing and the Twin Princes had been led in their escape.

LR: So you followed them. Are you—were you—

[Ruiwen's weeping intensifies.]

Narchadis: You asked about our penance, and it is this: to be returned to the lowest level of initiation in the Mysteries, and travel again the hard path of that knowledge. I—We—Our crime is not just a crime against Elven-kin, or a transgression against morality, but against Lord Oromë's teachings.

LR: [I find that I cannot speak above a whisper] Did you abandon the Twin Princes to die?

Hadriel: No. We didn't abandon them to die. We killed them outright. We bolted down the corridor Nimloth had died to protect, and the bloodlust rose in us. We were as a pack of wolves, the drive for prey moving us. Nimloth's servants had split the children up, for we never saw Lady Elwing and the nurse who carried her to safety, but we came upon the Princes and the maid Nimloth had sent them with. She had been carrying them, they were so small, and she dropped them and told them to run—

Ruiwen: [Recovering herself, although her voice is still wet] She tried to fight us. She looked to be a Lady's Maid, I think. It's difficult to recall in more than flashes. I remember her face. She screamed. She tried to take my eyes out, but all she had was a belt-knife…

Narchadis: We killed her quickly, and set off after the Princes. They were running, trying to lose us in the warren of caverns that made up Menegroth. Trying to get out of the city and into the forest. But they were children. Small. We caught up to them, and then suddenly…all I could see running ahead of us were a pair of snow-rabbits. Prey.

Hadriel: The greatest sin a hunter can make is to kill thoughtlessly, to let the drive for prey rule them.

Narchadis: They were only children…and we were as a pack of wolves…

Ruiwen: We fell on them with our bare hands. Teeth and nails. And rended them apart like animals.

LR: [I am stunned to silence for several minutes.] Why did you tell Maedhros that you'd abandoned them in the woods?

Hadriel: We didn't tell him that, exactly… We were ashamed of ourselves, and almost mad with distress…

Narchadis: I don't remember what we told him, actually, I think something nonsensical, but by the time we'd shaken ourselves from our bloodlust and overcome the immediate horror of what we'd done, he'd already found his brothers' bodies and had them brought out of Menegroth.

Ruiwen: None of us were in our right minds. I don't remember what we said either. I just remember kneeling before Lord Maedhros.

Hadriel: We said that we'd left them where we found them, I think, which is…true…we'd stumbled away from the bodies, following the escape route that they must have been taught to take. I remember—I remember scrubbing my mouth with handfuls of snow, until the cold burned my skin.

LR: He took it to mean that you'd found them in the forest, and abandoned them there.

Narchadis: We surrendered, we went before him and surrendered. We were all so shocked that we must truly have seemed as cruel as that! Nary a tear from any of us, nor the slightest expression on our faces! Lord Maedhros made us kneel, under guard, while he searched for the children…

LR: The children he'd never find…because their bodies were in some hidden passageway in Menegroth, and not in the forest at all.

Ruiwen: Yes. He returned, eventually. We'd been kneeling in the snow for hours, but I'd barely felt it. It was as though I couldn't feel anything. He was more grim than I had ever seen him, his eyes burning with grief. It was like I was watching my own body from somewhere behind my own shoulder, when he drew Narsil and took our heads off in one mighty stroke.

LR: He killed you.

Hadriel: Executed us. I don't remember what he said before he did it, I'd lost myself to the world, but I remember his face, as he looked down at us and spoke what must have been our sentence.

Narchadis: And isn't that a great shame as well? That Prince Celegorm died, and our deed is accounted as a final stain on his legacy.

Excerpt from the book "The Lay of Leithian: a Historiographical Approach" by Líwë Ríniel of the University of Tirion

Chapter 30 — After the Second Kinslaying

Within the historical record, the period of time immediately after the Second Kinslaying is piecemeal at best. There are accounts from many Iathrim who fled to Sirion and Balar, or those who fled into the East and over the Ered Luin, of the dangers of their flights: from Morgoth's forces; from the slow spoilage of the land; from general banditry; and from the lingering terror of the Fëanorian forces. What is more difficult is to get a clear picture of is the political landscape.

Gondolin was not yet destroyed—although it would fall less than four years later—but also likely unaware that its position now had no friendly forces further north than Sirion. The Havens of Sirion were built and receiving refugees, administered at the time by Círdan from the Isle of Balar, including Princess Elwing—now Queen, at all of four years old—and the surviving Iathrim who'd chosen to seek refuge there. These groups would eventually unite after Gondolin's fall, and converge in Sirion and Balar. One might expect, as the oldest and most experienced Lord present, that Círdan would have dominated the politics of the refugees, but accounts state that his touch remained as gentle as ever; content to let the gathered lords and leaders of the accumulated fallen kingdoms of Beleriand deal with each other†.

Balar and Sirion were in the west. In the east, there were the Fëanorions.

After retreating from Menegroth and the site of their slaughter there, the Fëanorians had returned to Amon Ereb. They'd taken losses during the Sack of Doriath, but their forces were still enough to hold the fortress and its lands. The loss of three of the Sons of Fëanor was likely a great strain on morale that accounts say was fairly low, but not so direly low as it would become by the time of the Third Kinslaying—indeed, the aftermath of Second Kinslaying is notable for the lack of desertions the Fëanorian forces faced††.

While now reviled by elves as Kinslayers twice over, the Fëanorions still enjoyed strong relations with the Aulëonnar and various groups of Men. To the Men, it is likely that the politics of elves meant little, especially in the face of the continued encroachment of the Enemy. For a race that was accustomed to warring with itself, the elvish horror at kinslaying may even have seemed somewhat naive. The Fëanorions, while weakened, still maintained a vigorous defense against banditry by orcs and Men in service of the Enemy. Even those groups of Men who held loyalty with the elvish factions of the west—what can be broadly called the Refugee Kingdoms—had casual connections to the Fëanorians as a whole, via kin-groups or trading partners who lived within their sphere of protection.

Sources for the Aulëonnar's response to the Second Kinslaying can unfortunately only be had as second or third-hand accounts of the period, but there is unanimity among these histories†††. For the Aulëonnar, the Sack of Doriath was regarded as vengeance enacted in part on their behalf for dwarvish blood spilled by the Iathrim. The insult of dwarven dead being left to be despoiled on the field was not one that would be easily forgotten nor forgiven, and likewise, the honor the Fëanorions showed them by saving those wounded who could still be saved and taking part in mourning over the pyres of the slain was a great act of friendship that could scarcely be repaid. After the Nirnaeth and the Sarn Athrad, it is clear that the dwarves also had expended a great deal of their strength and also their interest in elvish politics. They would not field forces in Beleriand again until the War of Wrath.

There are fragmented accounts of various minor groups of Avari and Laiquendi who still willingly treated and traded with the Fëanorions, but there are very few direct sources to be had. Any contact between groups of elves and the Fëanorians would have necessarily been kept secret: opinion in Beleriand had turned firmly against them, and any who associated with them would soon find themselves shunned by polite elvish society††††.

It is an interestingly contradictory period in that regard: the Sons of Fëanor and the Fëanorian forces as a whole were very soundly shunned by the Refugee Kingdoms in the west, to the point that for a period of several decades there was absolutely no official correspondence passed between the two groups, yet, the Leithian had reached such a level of cultural saturation that it decisively entered the zeitgeist of Post-Second Kinslaying Beleriand. They were not spoken to, but the Fëanorions were inescapably sung of; a continually lingering spectre of fear.

When tracing the versions of the Leithian that evolved as it spread from Doriath, all roads lead to Sirion. Through the various refugee groups that sought shelter in the Havens the disputed details in cantos VI, VIII, and X would slowly be reconciled into the Sirion-form Verse of the Leithian and henceforth be regarded as the most authentic recounting of the events described therein. Not only were changes made within the finalized Sirion-form that accounted for the post-Second Kinslaying political and cultural context that the refugees found themselves in, but the changes also alter the intensity of action with regard to the Fëanorions. Notably, there are also changes introduced to some of the cantos which had previously been undisputed, although on a much more minor scale.

The greatest of these changes is ironically within Canto X—a portion that was itself originally fabricated to support Thingol's political goals—where Beren's deed of knocking Curufin from his horse is intensified to not only dismounting him with a single leap but also nearly killing him. In further irony, the Sirion-form version of the canto accounts Curufin's survival from Beren's attack as entirely due to Lúthien pleading for his life; the verse echoing Thingol's original depreciation of Lúthien's character by putting her at fault, albeit indirectly, for Curufin's survival and future deeds.

This example reflects a curious microcosm across all altered cantos in the Sirion-form, where the generally uncharitable treatment Lúthien received in the original version of the Leithian is made more extreme. Accounts from the period regard Lúthien's memory as a double-edged blade: she won the Silmaril from Morgoth's crown and achieved a great deed, but thus far the consequences of her actions seemed to be nothing but ruin. Beren, in contrast, was a much more straightforwardly heroic figure: he had been wary of the Fëanorions from the start, died bravely, and was content to live humbly after being revived by Lúthien's efforts. In the Havens—with death and destruction not only a recent memory to the refugees but an increasing threat as Morgoth's forces encroached further south—being wary of the Fëanorions, facing death bravely, and finding contentment within much humbler dwellings than many were used to would all have seemed much more imminently practical traits to aspire to†††††.

In reflecting upon the Leithian, there is a great habit of hindsight to consider the full arc of events that Lúthien's winning of the Silmaril led to: namely, the eventual arrival of the Hosts of the Valar and the defeat of Morgoth at the end of the War of Wrath. And indeed, by the end of the Second Age, the minor changes introduced to cantos other than VI, VIII, and X had all been reversed to nearly the original text of the Leithian's account of Beren and Lúthien's deeds. Contemporary to the late First Age, however, the cultural consensus was much more grim.

† Gil-Galad would not be recognized as High King of the Noldor until FA 511, after the Fall of Gondolin. During the four years between then and the Second Kingslaying, Círdan was effectively High King of Beleriand. If there was ever an effort to convince him—a kinsman to Thingol, and the highest ranked of his surviving vassals—to press his claim to the throne over Elwing there is no record of it. Círdan's own attitude towards such a thing is clearly dismissive: he maintained his title as Lord, and was as a foster-father to his very young kinswoman.

†† While the First Kinslaying is regarded as a terrible mistake bourne out of fear and darkness, and the Third an unconscionable act of cruelty even by those Fëanorians who did not either desert or mutiny, the attitude of the Fëanorian forces after the Second Kinslaying is uniquely one of defiance.

††† See Index XXXIII Transcript of an interview with Gimli, son of Glóin, Lord of the Glittering Caves, of the Fellowship of the Ring, arrived from Endórë — Within the histories of the dwarves, despite their infamy, the Fëanorions themselves are accounted consistently as friends and allies and their memories are greatly honored for their deeds on behalf of Nogrod and Belegost. The later migration of many dwarves from the Ered Luin to Khazad-dûm ensured that this cultural memory remained relevant, with the Noldor in Eregion enjoying much easier relations with the dwarves than the Sindar in Rhovanion.

†††† Apocryphally, one account exists of a crime being committed in Sirion that was dire enough to warrant banishment rather than the usual modes of justice. Upon being banished, the offender was told to go east to the lands of the Kinslayers and be shunned with them. The shunning didn't last much longer than two decades, however, before communication was re-established between the Fëanorian stronghold at Amon Ereb and the Isle of Balar††††††. Relations remained strained, but there is evidence of some basic coordination to provide defense for the east-west road that passed north of Taur-Im-Duinath.

††††† The diminished regard in which Lúthien was held during the period from the Second Kinslaying to the arrival of the Hosts of the Valar and beginning of the War of Wrath is an interesting view into the popular mood at the time. It is also another artifact of the age that is often subject to retroactive revision. The Sirion-form's changes in criticism of her were very swiftly undone, but the eighty year period in which Lúthien was portrayed as as much an unwitting architect of Doriath's eventual fall as the Fëanorions were intentionally does linger within the cultural consciousness attached to the Leithian.

†††††† Typically, it was Círdan who was the first to reestablish diplomatic contact with the Fëanorions, sending a letter around FA 530 to—belatedly—appraise them of Gil-Galad's assumption of the throne of the Noldor. Considering the Fëanorions were likely already well-aware of this—and according to some accounts, even already aware that the Silmaril was held in Sirion—this is a transparently political maneuver. Círdan's political prudence throughout the First Age and beyond can be attributed to his maintaining a solid awareness of public opinion and either observation of or dialogue with the various political forces around him. Despite their horrific deed, the Fëanorions could scarcely be left to seethe in isolation when they were still a material threat, and more, when their control of Amon Ereb protected the only safe passage to the east that could be had overland.

Index XXIX — Transcript of an interview with Elrond Peredhel, Lord of Imladris, other titles omitted at the request of the subject, arrived from Endórë — With the text of a transcribed letter, shared from his personal collection of First Age correspondence, found in the chambers formerly belonging to Celegorm Fëanorion in the Fortress of Amon Ereb before it was abandoned by the Fëanorian forces during the War of Wrath

[We are sitting in the garden of the home belonging to one Bilbo Baggins, a Hobbit.]

LR: Thank you for agreeing to meet with me. And thank you for introducing me to your charming Hobbit friend.

Elrond: Bilbo was gracious enough to offer his garden for our meeting. Your request intrigued me. I've had a great many people request meetings, but none of them were interested in my library's collection of First Age correspondence.

LR: I hope I wasn't too forward, but Orodreth mentioned you had letters when I interviewed him, and—well, it's the scope of the work, you know? I'm trying to look at the whole picture, and there are so few primary sources that come directly from the Fëanorions or Doriath. I've done so many interviews at this point I think my hand may develop a permanent cramp, but the filter of memory and hindsight is rather the problem with the Leithian scholarship we have.

Elrond: Or the lack thereof. I did read your précis when you sent it along with the request.

LR: I'm flattered! There are several requests for interviews I'd like to do that I don't think will ever be granted, and several more who sent the whole thing back with some very sharp words about the integrity of my scholarship.

Elrond: [He hums thoughtfully. His face is very serene and gentle.] In my experience, even among the Eldar, there are very few who wish to face the First Age again, and face the fact that their actions were driven by what they knew and felt at the time rather than more objective truths. And there are more who simply wish to believe their assumptions are correct, and shrink from having them challenged. I was quite pleased, actually, to hear about your work in untangling some of the legendry from the history.

LR: [I am blushing so hard my face hurts. Lord Elrond is very politely ignoring it.] I–I–Yes! Thank you! There's—The First Age has become a time of legend to us, even as more and more of those who lived it Return. I spoke to several who are rather shocked, at how what was such a complicated time period seems to have been distilled down into storybook fables. To the Returned that history was their lives, with all the mundanity and ignorance of day-to-day existence, and yet those who remained behind and those of us who came after rushed to build a mythology out of it!

Elrond: [He smiles at me, a faint curve of his mouth.] Well said. But I think you have questions for me as well, about more than my collection.

LR: [I reach for my teacup and take several sips to try and gather my thoughts] Yes, I don't mean to upset you, but, do you recall during your early childhood…when did you first hear the Leithian? If you have any memory of it, what were the attitudes in Sirion?

Elrond: [He tilts his head, glancing down at the teatime spread on the small table we're both sitting in the grass to be at the proper height for, before glancing back up at me] It's not upsetting, I've had quite a long time to consider my feelings about all of it. My memories of Sirion aren't quite as sharp as the memories of most elvish children at an equivalent age, but I can still recall the city. Well. City is a strong word for what Sirion was. Village, perhaps. It spread along the coast at the mouth of the river, built in part into the caves and cliffs and part over the open water and across the delta. There were great floating docks anchored to the stone of the cliffs that spread out into the delta and the estuary, and boats everywhere. My mother would often take us to the water market, bundling us into her sampan and telling us to stay under the shade while she worked the oar. I remember…when the Fëanorians attacked, looking out the Sea Tower windows—it was the only tower in the settlement, and meant to be the seat of my parent's rule, but all I remember was it being our home—and having my eye be caught by an elf, I couldn't recognize them from that distance, sawing at the ropes tying a bridge between one of the delta islands and another. Watching boats flee across the bay to Balar. A fire caught, I can't say if it was set purposefully or if it was simply an accident, but a fire caught and began devouring the wood and thatch of the pile dwellings built over the water.

LR: When people describe it they always make it sound like a land-based city. It was mostly out over the water?

Elrond: You could easily navigate the whole of Sirion with a sampan or skiff. There were many who simply lived in their boats. When I was older, and—[He pauses, delicately]—and Maglor told us the story of the Third Kinslaying, he got into a long tangent about how much trouble the design of the city gave them. Enough of the docks and bridges had been cut loose that they couldn't reach many parts of Sirion. Not that they particularly bothered with anything other than reaching the Sea Tower by the most direct route possible. Círdan had designed it initially, hidden and guarded by the waters of the marine estuary; as far within the protection of Ulmo's domain as it could be built.

LR: Fascinating! I—this is likely quiet personal for you, but, when I was told of it as a child it was always made to sound as though the Fëanorians razed the city. Systematically, you know? With malice aforethought.

Elrond: [He shakes his head, a pensive expression on his face] No. I remember it myself. That was what made their attack so truly devastating. They cut through like an arrow shot from a bow. They'd known where the Silmaril was for decades, and could sense its general location. The whole of their strategy was to get to it as quickly and directly as possible. It was the speed with which it happened. There was no time to get out of the Sea Tower and down to the docks, and the Sea Tower itself was one of the few buildings that were fully on the shore.

LR: So it was simple coincidence.

Elrond: Knowing what I know, remembering what I recall, having spoken to Maglor as a child and Maedhros when I was an adult and my Mother and Father when I finally arrived in Aman. Yes. It was just misfortune. My Mother had used the Silmaril to set enchantments to protect Sirion, they were well hidden and had the protection of the sea at their backs. They thought they were safe in their secrecy, and no one outside the Fëanorian camp knew that the Sons of Fëanor could tangibly sense the locations of the Silmarils. We happened to live in the tower rather than out in the pile dwellings or on a boat in the delta. One moment it was simply another evening, and the next my Mother was jolting from her seat as she felt the barriers give way—it was Maedhros, he told me, workings anchored on the Silmarils were already inherently vulnerable to them, and he was terrifically strong even vitiated as he was by that point, he punched through it like putting his fist through a thin sheet of ice—and it seemed that in the next moment after that the Fëanorians had already reached the tower. There was simply no time.

LR: I—I've interviewed other subjects who mentioned the Fëanorions' connection to the Silmaril, I won't recount their exact words, since the transcripts of all the interviews will be in the book, but they said it was a matter of fëa.

Elrond: It would be. I have some experience with objects of power and the crafting of them—Maglor and Maedhros tried their best to give Elros and I what they considered a princely education by the standards of the House of Fëanor, so I have not-inconsiderable experience in the forge—and the metaphysical aspects make up a much larger part of the piece than is easily realized. It was, I think, one of the things that caused such trouble for the Sindar in Beleriand. They had their own crafts and Masteries, of course, but the Noldor's art was unique and the highest levels of the craft were only—to my knowledge at least—shared openly in Eregion under Celebrimbor.

LR: So you think there was a conceptualization issue. They could understand the Silmarils as valuable and rare jewels, and even as Masterworks, but not their scope as metaphysical workings.

Elrond: To put it simply, yes. The Sindar had arts that the Noldor knew not, and it was the same in reverse. The political divisions in Beleriand did very little to give opportunities for this aspect of Noldorin craft to be revealed, except to the dwarves, who had equivalent if not similar levels of workings; the influence of Aulë, I should think.

[He pauses to sip from his teacup before smiling at me again, and this time I see the barest flash of sharp teeth as his lips momentarily part.]

Elrond: I've digressed, I'm sorry. You asked about the Leithian.

LR: Please don't apologize, this is all extremely interesting.

Elrond: The Leithian wasn't particularly popular in Sirion, as I recall. Or perhaps it was simply not popular within my Mother's presence. I heard it performed a handful of times, but only a handful. There was…My Mother didn't wear the Silmaril except for on a few rare occasions. Otherwise it stayed locked in a box in her office. I asked why, once, because to a child's eyes the Silmaril is nothing but a beautiful jewel, and the Nauglamír a particularly well-made necklace. She said it made the back of her neck itch, and she would feel unaccountably tired after wearing it or working with it. Elros and I weren't meant to notice, I think, and she tried to keep her grief from us, but she hated it as much as she was compelled by it.

LR: Lady Elwing didn't like the Leithian?

Elrond: You asked what the attitude toward the Leithian was in Sirion, and that's a part of it. I can remember each time I heard it for the rarity, and each time the performer made a great production out of the memory of Doriath and the great deeds of the past. Once—just before the Fëanorians came, actually—I remember turning to look at her as the same variation on the speech was being given, and she had the most terrible scowl on her face. For every person who'd known Lúthien and remembered her with fondness and pride, there was someone else who blamed her for the Silmaril coming to Doriath.

LR: Not Beren? Or Thingol?

Elrond: Thingol's memory had already been hallowed by his death. My Mother wasn't even born yet when Thingol died, but Dior had known and loved his Grandfather, and remembered him to her, and many surrounding her as advisors had been veteran courtiers in his service. As for Beren, it was known that he would never have been able to achieve Thingol's demand without Lúthien's help, and his other virtues made him laudable.

LR: By 'other virtues' I suppose you mean…

Elrond: Being mistrustful of the Fëanorions, mostly. They were the revenants that haunted every ghost story. And there were many ghost stories. Doriath had been insulated from the wars of Beleriand for most of the age, and then suddenly within three years was sacked twice and destroyed. It was similar for Gondolin, they had enjoyed centuries of safety and peace and then had it suddenly shattered when the protection of their secrecy was broken. Looking back as an adult, it's easy to see that the rampant superstitions and peculiarities of culture that formed in Sirion were a people unused to such mass death suddenly being forced to reckon with it. We—that is, Elros and I—were frightened out of our wits by our nurse once; she'd told us that Celegorm was actually a werewolf of Sauron and that he'd eaten Dior, and would come and eat us too if we didn't behave ourselves. I remember insisting that he was dead, only for her to assure me that the Necromancer had brought him back as a barghest.

LR: What a horrible thing to say to a child!

Elrond: [He laughs] That was the general mode of those types of story, though. It was either the Fëanorions as servants of the Enemy, or outright ghost tales. The ghost tales weren't entirely stories, either. Círdan once gave us a very gentle but firm lecture about going walking alone at night on the delta or in the marshes that gave me nightmares for weeks. I could tell he meant every word of it, when he spoke of hearing and seeing things in the twilight. Stories about seeing a loved one, wandering lost and calling for anyone familiar. Of wraiths and wights roaming in the darkness. Of strange and alluring lights in the distance, bobbing like carried lanterns. Of stopping to tend to what seemed a party of travelers slain on the road only for them to rise and attempt to add the unwitting altruist to their number. There was a very grudging respect given to the Fëanorians, for the simple fact that they'd tended the bodies of all the slain after the Sack.

LR: They were respected, even as they were called servants of the Enemy?

Elrond: I think they wanted to believe that they'd succumbed to the Enemy but still had some shreds of decency in them, rather than face the fact that elves had visited such horror upon elves. But. I remember the frightened whispers. I can't say with absolute certainty, but those that claimed to have seen ghosts and wraiths were almost always making that claim about someone who'd died after escaping Doriath or in Gondolin, whose body wouldn't have been tended. It was true, Sauron and his necromancy were a great concern as the land fell increasingly under Morgoth's sway. There was a great terror of the unquiet dead. In Sirion, and later—The Fëanorians were better at warding such things away, having already had the chance to learn and refine their techniques…and…Maedhros and Maglor did both know a great deal of sorcery. Amon Ereb was one of the safest places left in Beleriand, under their protection, save the Isle of Balar itself, which was warded by Ossë.

LR: That's all terribly grim.

Elrond: It was a grim time. Even after the Hosts of Valinor had reached Beleriand things continued to get worse. It was—There was—I remember when it was pronounced that the land could simply not be saved, and so it would be allowed to sink and be washed clean in Ulmo's waters.

[We sit in silence for several minutes. Lord Elrond drinks his tea and appears entirely untroubled by the heavy topics of our conversation. I help myself to a scone to fortify my nerves.]

LR: You mention the arrival of the Hosts of Valinor. Did things change, in terms of the Leithian and Lúthien's memory after that?

Elrond: I don't entirely know. We were still entrenched in Amon Ereb when the Hosts arrived, and after it became untenable to hold we fought a slow retreat to Belegost. Or rather, I didn't personally do any fighting, but I remember our journey. The land was already so scarred that it was difficult to travel, and Morgoth's forces moved freely. By the time I entered Gil-Galad's service it had been decades. I don't actually recall the Leithian being sung, we were all parched thirsty for music that we hadn't heard or played a thousand times before and the Amanyar had brought new songs with them. By the time I heard it again it was a much more uplifting thing, the bitterness that had colored it in Sirion had been washed clean by the knowledge that the Silmaril had actually accomplished something other than getting a great many people killed.

LR: And then the First Age ended.

Elrond: [He laughs] And then the First Age ended. I heard it more, after that, when Morgoth had been defeated and the Fëanorions had vanished into death and history. It was strange. This sounds very foolish, but the first time it was performed in Gil-Galad's new court in Lindon, I had to fight the urge to correct the singer. Even if it hadn't been well-liked by my Mother, Elros and I had still both been taught it for the poetry, and the version we'd had in Sirion was, well…

LR: The Sirion-form, yes. It's actually very notable, from a scholarly standpoint. But definitely the most bleak version of the song.

Elrond: It was a surprise to learn the original version. Or what was as close to the original as was known.

LR: You said there were letters you'd found in Amon Ereb?

Elrond: Yes. We had the run of the fortress, after a while, and it wasn't safe to venture very far away. So we'd explore, Elros and I. We lived in the family wing. Maglor cleared out his room and gave it to us, and bunked with Maedhros, who slept very rarely and very poorly. The rest of the rooms were…not shrines, I suppose, they were cleaned, occasionally, but otherwise they were as they had been left, the last time each of them had left.

LR: As each Son of Fëanor left and never returned.

Elrond: [He nods in acknowledgement] As children we of course peeked into each room, driven by curiosity. But later, when I was older…I was still curious, I suppose, but I was curious about who they were as people, rather than simply the contents of the rooms. We weren't forbidden to go in them, and Maedhros was very firmly practical about the whole thing, of course, and had been raiding their closets and tools and weapons for years to outfit us, but it still felt like sneaking; finding time when I wasn't busy and going into each room, looking through their books and letters and belongings.

LR: That's how you found the letters.

Elrond: I was actually most curious about Curufin and Celegorm, but not because of the song. In Sirion they'd been the ones that featured in the most ghost stories. Like the one about the werewolf.

LR: They were the most well-known to the Iathrim during the Long Peace, and then were brought into the Leithian through their contact with Lúthien, and then later slew Dior and Nimloth. It's not surprising they were the ones best-remembered like this.

Elrond: And they certainly were remembered. It was—the forges were one of the few other things in Sirion built entirely on-land, so they were near enough to the tower we could visit them. I remember a smith cursing, when a fitting he was working on seized, that Curufin had touched the iron. One of my Mother's advisors had visited Himlad once, and insisted that in the past he'd only spoken so well of Celegorm because Celegorm had used dark sorcery to bewitch him. He took Elros and I aside, once, and warned us very direly that should we meet anyone with shining silver hair and great beauty we should be instantly wary.

LR: That sounds…

Elrond: It's as I said, in hindsight, a great deal of Sirion was constituted of frightened and grieved people trying to reassemble their understanding of the world after having it shattered. As a child I simply accepted that all adults were very strange.

LR: Was it illuminating? Going through their things?

Elrond: It was. I will admit, even as a young adult, I had retained some of the superstitions of Sirion, and didn't fully conceptualize them as people. I knew Maglor and Maedhros very well by that point of course, and had understood them not as the terrors they had been painted in my childhood but rather as the elves who'd done their best to raise us, but the others were rarely spoken of in Amon Ereb. The grief over their losses was very great, by their brothers and those who remained loyal to the House of Fëanor. It made them seem real, to go through Curufin's desk and find draft upon draft of letters he'd never sent to Celebrimbor. To sort through the chaos of Caranthir's chambers and find half-finished projects he'd been working on; a book that had been bound and pressed but not yet had its cover put on, a panel of embroidery left stretched on its frame, pairs of steel shears waiting to be sharpened and hinged together. To go into the Ambarussar's room and see their collection of beads and glass and stones and fossils. And then the letters, in Celegorm's room—he had a great deal of correspondence, some from names I recognized and much from names I didn't.

LR: And you took it with you?

Elrond: When we were preparing to leave Amon Ereb I had the thought that there were things that should be preserved. It was a period of time where Maedhros was doing better—he usually did better, when there was some immediate problem that he could focus on—and so he was fully in command of our preparations and was being ruthlessly practical about it. It was known we would need to move quickly; the land was increasingly unstable, and all the forces of the Enemy were abroad. I couldn't take everything I wanted to, but I chose some things. I packed Curufin's letters for Celebrimbor—I had met him, only once, but I'd met him when Mother had taken us to visit the Isle of Balar, and I had become aware that I would see him again—which I eventually gave to him. I did take a few items of particular sentimental value from Caranthir and the Ambarussar's rooms, which I gifted to Lady Nerdanel upon my arrival in Aman. And from Celegorm's correspondence, I saved out a few particular bundles of letters: from Círdan, which I also later returned to him; and from Lúthien, which I kept. I truly—I didn't entirely believe they were from Lúthien, when I first read them. There was no one who was familiar with her hand, among the Fëanorians, and so I simply held on to them until many years later, when I finally spoke to Círdan.

LR: And he confirmed that they were from her?

Elrond: Yes. He brought out a very old letter from his own correspondence with her, to show me, and it was indeed Lúthien's hand. I had hoped—I had hoped that they were truly from her, because I had by that point been told a great deal about Lúthien and how I resembled her and how I should feel about her, but I had known nothing truly of her, aside from the Leithian, which was in my mind still the bitter lament from my childhood.

[He pauses for a moment, reaching into one of his sleeves and drawing out a thin vellum folio.]

Elrond: There is one letter in particular…the last of their correspondence, that I feel should be shared. The rest of it—It is clear they were friends, and dear to each other, and I will not break Lúthien's confidences by sharing all of her words when I was never their intended recipient.

LR: Having anything in her own words is more than I had ever hoped for when I started this project at all. You have my utmost thanks.

[Transcribed below is the last letter in the correspondence between Celegorm Fëanorion and Lúthien of Doriath, confirmed as being written in her hand by Lord Círdan of the Grey Havens. It is written in Sindarin, with a translation into Academic Quenya provided.]

7th of Iavas, in the 503rd Year of the Sun

Celeg, My Dear Friend

My heart is heavy with grief at the receipt of your last letter. The speed of a bird's flight was more swift than Beren's return to my side, and so it was from you that the news first came to me of all that transpired.

What miserable loss! What senseless death!

When word was brought to us that my Father was slain and my Mother fled, I thought that my heart could feel no sharper pain, but I am proven wrong. To think that Beren, whose goodness and gentleness I have known these many years, and my son, whom we have striven to teach the ways of honor and virtue, would commit such a sin. Long has it been since those days in Nargothrond when we spoke candidly to each other of the doings of the Noldor, and the morality and lack thereof in their great crime, and yet I find myself thinking now of those days again. What a small handful of years it has been, in the face of the yén which I have lived before, and yet how aged I feel now. I understand all of Beren's forthrightness, for the time of a mortal life seems to slip from between my fingers as water cupped in my hand; no matter how much I raise to my lips, by the time it has reached them there is only a sip left to wet my mouth.

I realize now how little I understood, when you told me of the Dark Days, of the fear and anger then, of the thirst for vengeance that drove your people. My son stood before me and spoke with utter conviction, that the Nogrod must be made to pay blood for blood, such that he called upon the very Shepherds of the Forest to aid in this deed. Ivon's own children! And my husband, dear Beren, did not say a word against this. Nor did he do more on the field of that slaughter than see to the dead of those of their own host who followed them in battle.

We faced the Enemy together! In the shadow of that dark and wretched place he saw all the works of Morgoth and his Servant!

Dior has left now, intent on Doriath and his birthright as Eluchíl. I remember the days when I too felt the whole world was my Father's court, and cannot fault him, but I turn again and again to search my memories of his youth and yet also cannot find where the fault is, that my own son could do such a thing.

It has taken me some months to even be able to put pen to paper, and write to you. You would laugh at me, I think, to see me now. I spoke of Vána and her wisdom in those long-ago days, and though you warned me otherwise I thought little of Araw's part in it. I feel it now, the Great Hunter's eyes on my back. Like a hind who hears the wolves' howl, but cannot yet see them in the underbrush. The fear of mortality has made itself at home in my heart, and I find I cannot shake them. You must be laughing at me now, reading this, and I find myself weeping that we will never see each other again. You, who exulted in Araw's Mysteries, would tell me that I might fear the blade, but that its bite will be nothing but release. To you I say now: I hope when your time comes to meet Araw in his most final of aspects you will feel all the bliss you have ascribed to his touch and go easily to the Halls. For myself, I feel nothing but his looming dread.

Beren brought it back with him. He didn't bring it out to show me until after Dior had left. I was sickened to see it at first, the bright glow that I had remembered from those days of our adventure, and more, the flaked blood caught in the fittings of the gems. He seemed surprised that I should react in such a way, and then was only apologetic that he had not cleaned it well enough that I should have to see the blood. As though I did not carry him from the pits of durance vile, as though I did not bind and heal his wounds, as though I did not dress and tend his very corpse before I laid down beside it.

I meant to put it away. To throw it away. To put it out of my sight and send it to your hands.

I did none of these things. I am not so lost to it that I cannot find shame in myself for having succumbed. I had thought I had passed the test, when I let it pass to my Father and cared only for Beren's loss. Not so, it seems, for now that it is with me I find I cannot bear the thought of being parted from it. The light of it banishes my fears. Beren's nightmares of his captivity have ceased to trouble him. I feel the curses imprinted on the gold like nettles pickling my skin, and yet I wear it. I am as a child, clinging to a candle in the darkness, and yet the more I burn it for light the less I have of it.

It saps me of my strength. Those here who have seen me wear it say that together we are too radiant in beauty for mortal lands, and they have the right of it. Beren has become feeble near overnight, it seems, since I fell into the jewel. I feel a fatigue such that I never have before, the weight of mortality pressing down upon me. There are days now where I can scarce rise from bed, and yet I cannot bring myself to cast it away. Our lives are bound to each other, and he will pass soon, I think. It terrifies me to think I might last longer on my own, that without Beren I might carry the thing like a millstone around my neck for some years yet; afeared of its loss and afeared that I could not bear my own dread without it. In a way I have come to understand your own love of him and his Mystery, for I am glad Araw's patient stalking will bring an end to this. There is no suffering that need go on forever, and soon, very soon, Beren and I will flee the circles of the world.

Forgive my rambling, my thoughts are greatly disordered of late. It will be soon. Forgive my weakness as well, that I could not let go once it was in my hands.

I have arranged things such that, if my wishes are heeded, it will be returned to you.

Fear troubles my every waking moment, in these last days of my life, and yet I cannot tell myself that it is a vain fear that my wishes will not be heeded. I know the jewel too well now. You warned me of it, I remember your warnings, and yet in the end my ears are deaf to them.

I know it will trouble your heart if I do not say it, so I forgive the harsh words in your letter. I hope you will forgive me my own failure in this.

I remain, until the end of my days, yours in friendship and love of the world,

Lúthien