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Old 10-01-2012, 09:23 PM   #8
jallanite
Shade of Carn Dûm
 
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Toronto
Posts: 479
jallanite is a guest of Tom Bombadil.
Tolkien seems to be imagining that Men told tales of Lothlórien and its Elvish ruler similar to medieval tales of Fays who often appear as deceptive.

Compare Morgain the Fay in medieval tales who in some stories is Arthur’s sister who takes Arthur away after his last battle to heal him and who in some stories is a villainous would-be murderess, hostile to Arthur and to all his knights.

It would have been nice if Tolkien had actually told some of the tales supposedly current in Gondor and Rohan about Lothlórien and Galadriel.

Medieval fays often appear as seductresses who make mortals into their lovers. In some tales this is mostly represented as a good thing and in some tales it is not so. One might imagine a tale of a knight of Gondor who in error wandered into Lothlórien and met Galadriel who restored him to his own world, and how forever after the knight had little interest in his earthly duties and no interest in taking a wife but thought only of Galadriel. Galadriel as la belle dame sans merci unintentionale!

Faramir, while mostly not believing such tales as he knows, does believe that it is perilous to Men to seek Elves. Faramir and Sam both link Boromir’s lust for the Ring with the almost-temptation of Galadriel, is if Boromir was already tempted but it was Galadriel’s testing which (unintentionally) fully brought out Boromir’s lust for the Ring.

The same supposed Elvish ancestry was shared by Ar-Pharazôn. Anárion, possibly one of Boromir’s ancestors, was brother to Isildur who was the first Man to be tempted by the Ring, so far as we are told. But I understand what you are saying and do not disagree.
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