Now that we've done the easy one...
how do we feel about Meril, mother of Gil-Galad?
Quote:
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Originally Posted by HoME XI - The Later Quenta
"[Felagund] sent away his wife Meril to her own folk in Eglorest, and with her went their son, yet an elvenchild, and Gilgalad Starlight he was called for the brightness of his eye."
Felagund's wife Meril has not been named before, nor any child of his; and this is the first appearance of Gil-Galad from The Lord of the Rings.
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From the first, Gil-Galad was put in the story to become High King, and Meril was clearly created to be his mother, rather than Finrod's wife. Evidence of this comes from the fact that "Meril wife of Finrod" was summarily discarded to allow for "Amarie who Finrod loved", while "Gil-Galad sent away from Nargothrond" remained through the reassignment of his parentage to Orodreth.
So... if Meril was created to be Gil-Galad's mother, and was never replaced or directly rejected, does that mean the "Sindarin lady of the North" who is Gil-Galad's mother in the Shibboleth can legitimately take the name Meril?
(To slightly argue against this: Meril was from Eglarest, one of the Havens of the Falas. The unnamed woman was "of the North", which I would naturally read to mean Hithlum/Mithrim/Dorthonion, the home of North Sindarin speakers. But it could equally mean "the North" as in Beleriand - I think Tolkien uses the term that way when contrasting it with Middle-earth of the Third Age.)
hS