[mark12_30]

During the last Chapter, Gimli sang about Durin rising and walking alone, naming nameless hills and dells, and sang that the stars wait in Mirrormere til he wakes again from sleep.The story of a resurrection & return is told from the dwarvish perspective in the halls of Khazad-dum, not long before Gandalf's fall, battle with Durin's Bane, and death.

Durin's Bane killed Durin and Gandalf, and Gimil grieves for Gandalf as he looks on Mirrormere: ‘There lies the Mirrormere, deep Kheled-zâram!’ said Gimli sadly. ‘I remember that he said: “May you have joy of the sight! But we cannot linger there.” Now long shall I journey ere I have joy again. It is I that must hasten away, and he that must remain.’ Gandalf stays near Durin? Killed, as they suppose (and indeed, he eventually is killed) by the same Bane? Quite a link between the two. So in Gimli's tale of Durin's early history and the promise of his resurrection, in the last chapter and in this, we have a foreshadowing of Gandalf's resurrection.


One theme in the Lothlorien chapter is water, which they encounter all along their way to Lothlorien. The descriptions are gorgeous, evocative, haunting. I wanted to quote the descriptions here but it makes the post far too large... I'll leave in a few snippets.

Dimrill Stair and the torrent beside it "like a white lace over an endless ladder of short falls". Mirrormere, Khelen Zaram: "Yet its waters were dark: a deep blue like clear evening sky seen from a lamp-lit room." The well "clear as crystal"and the first Stream, "glistening and gurgling", and the second: "...plunged over a fall of green-hued stone, and foamed down into a dell. " In this dell, Aragorn tends to Frodo and Sam (interesting that they carry the only wounds from Moria.)

The third stream is Nimrodel, soothing, cold, healing, musical. Legolas sings to them "in the Westron speech, as some in Rivendell now sing it." Legolas paid attention in Rivendell!

The legend continues: "But in the spring when the wind is in the new leaves the echo of her voice may still be heard by the falls that bear her name. And when the wind is in the South the voice of Amroth comes up from the sea; for Nimrodel flows into Silverlode, that Elves call Celebrant, and Celebrant into Anduin the Great, and Anduin flows into the Bay of Belfalas whence the Elves of Lórien set sail."

That the history/legend/ myth of Amroth and Nimrodel is well-known to the Mirkwood elves is significant. This also is significant:

"‘Behold! You are come to Cerin Amroth,’ said Haldir. ‘For this is the heart of the ancient realm as it was long ago, and here is the mound of Amroth, where in happier days his high house was built."

Note that *Cerin Amroth* was the heart of the ancient realm.

Aragorn backs this:

"‘Here is the heart of Elvendom on earth,’ he said, ‘and here my heart dwells ever, unless there be a light beyond the dark roads that we still must tread, you and I. Come with me!’ And taking Frodo’s hand in his, he left the hill of Cerin Amroth and came there never again as living man."

That Cerin Amroth is the heart of elvendom, and not Caras Galadhon, is further emphasized in that Arwen did not return to Caras Galadhon to die; she returned to Cerin Amroth.

It is at Cerin Amroth that Frodo touches the mallorn-bark, and has his mystical encounters with time and timelessnes, and with the elvish past; and even with the Sea:

"They entered the circle of white trees. As they did so the South Wind blew upon Cerin Amroth and sighed among the branches. Frodo stood still, hearing far off, great seas upon beaches that had long ago been washed away, and sea-birds crying whose race had perished from the earth."

Does he, as Legolas implied above, hear the voice of Amroth in the wind from the south?

EDIT: More ragged thoughts regarding Cerin Amroth:

Nimrodel had her house in the trees as did Amroth. In HoME, the debate continues as to which of them chose this mode of living first, Nimrodel or Amroth, but the talan is credited to one or the other (hence both). For the past thousand years, the lifestyle of the Lorien elves has had its roots (and branches) in that tradition and even Celeborn and Galadriel follow it.

Nimrodel represents the little stream and the silver waterfall. (I am rather tempted to include with that all the minor waters that the fellowship encountered on their way down from the mountains: the cascading waterfall of lace, the well with thestone lip over which a waterfall bubbled.) Amroth represents the Sea; yet though they plighted their troth, they never reached the Undying lands where they were to be wed. So Cerin Amroth (the heart of Elvendom on earth) represents trees and what they are, time and timelessness, memory, long-lost shores. But it also represents the longing of the Stream for the Sea, and the call of the Sea to the Stream.

Even the elves of Rivendell and Mirkwood sing about the sundered lovers-- and about Nimrodel's stream and waterfall. The tale of Nimrodel and Amroth (as Legolas knows it) ends in sadness and separation and unfulfilled longing. Yet more; if one reads further in HoME, Amroth waited at the havens til a storm took the ship. Nimrodel, lost in the White Mountains, slept by a stream in the white mountains that reminded her of her own. In this tale of two lovers (known and retold in three major elf-settlements) that sets the flet-lifestyle for all the elves of Lorien, and represents 'the heart of elvendom on earth'-- the stream never met the sea; that desire is unfulfilled in Middle-Earth.