Melian's Heir and Other Mothers of Middle-Earth

[Estelyn Telcontar]

I would like to come back to this topic, which is by no means exhausted yet! Granted, not too many alive mothers show up in LotR, but I was impressed with an example of a mother who made a major mistake, told in the Unfinished Tales.

The mother is Erendis, her daughter and only child, Ancalimë. Erendis' and Aldarion's marriage was an unfortunate union - more about that on Unhappy Marriages. Because their interests were so different that the love that had bound them to one another cooled off, only one child was born to them. (I wonder how much that marriage owed to the kind-hearted, well-meaning, but ill-fated meddling of Aldarion's mother!) When Aldarion went to sea, Erendis moved with her daughter to a home of her own and became a single mother, basically.

There the problem began: Erendis influenced her daughter to adopt her mother's bitterness to her father, then to all men.

She sought ever to mould her daughter to her own mind, and to feed her upon her own bitterness against men.

Her (Ancalimë's) mother had spoken unceasingly against men.

Erendis surrounded herself and her daughter with women, cut off from all male influence.

Erendis had made Ancalimë accustomed to the society of women.

She made that mistake which is so easy for parents who are estranged to make: Involving the child(ren) in their animosity. And Ancalimë was clever enough to try to use that situation for her own advantage.

Not only that, she was a clinging mother:

Such love as she had was all given to her daughter, and she clung to her, and would not have Ancalimë leave her side.

Not even her education was entrusted to another:

All Ancalimë's teaching was from her mother.

The whole atmosphere of the house was joyless:

There was little enough of laughter for Ancalimë... It was hushed and without music.

Ancalimë took over the attitude of her mother, and it ruined her life later as well.

She had something of her mother's coldness and sense of personal injury.

She did not wish to marry or have children, though she did so in the end because of political necessity. She hated her husband, as her mother had hated her father.

Erendis tried to resolve the conflict in old age, since she was:

neglected by Ancalimë and in bitter loneliness.

But it was too late for reconciliation, and certainly too late for her daughter to profit from her experience.

The moral of the story? Our children are not extensions of our selves - we need to solve our own problems and let them solve their own instead of repeating ours! (At least that's my version - how do you read this story?)