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#1 |
Wight
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Barad-Dur
Posts: 196
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Boats travelling up and down Anduin and Lorien's isolation.
In the Fellowship of the Ring Aragorn stated that light boats used to travel from Wilderland down to Osgiliath. Surely if they had, they would have sailed past Lorien and contact would have been made with the elves that lived there?
Yet the impression is given that there was little or no such contact throughout the Third Age. |
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#2 | |
Curmudgeonly Wordwraith
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Ensconced in curmudgeonly pursuits
Posts: 2,501
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And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision. |
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#3 | |
Wight
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: The best seat in the Golden Perch
Posts: 219
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It's not that contact wasn't possible, it's entirely down to the estrangement of Men and Elves. In the late Third Age the only real contact between Men and Elves (outside of isolated and special cases such as the Rangers) appears to have been that between Thranduil's realm and Lake-town. So no, you haven't discovered a plot hole.
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Then one appeared among us, in our own form visible, but greater and more beautiful; and he said that he had come out of pity. |
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#4 | ||
Gruesome Spectre
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Heaven's doorstep
Posts: 8,036
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For one thing, Haldir noted that he knew the Common Speech because 'there are some of us still who go abroad for news and the watching of our enemies, and they speak the languages of other lands'. I further posit that Lórien had occasional encounters with Men from Gondor, based on Faramir's words to Frodo. Quote:
I wouldn't think the intercourse was a common thing, but both Lórien and Gondor seem to have derived some benefit from it, else it would have stopped altogether.
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#5 |
A Voice That Gainsayeth
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: In that far land beyond the Sea
Posts: 7,431
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I would second what Inzil said. Probably there would be occassions, rather limited to individuals, where the two kin would meet. I am imagining it kind of in the same way it was happening with the Hobbits and Elves, for instance (and after all, Hobbits are also Men, only Small). The local Bilbos and Frodos of Gondor meeting local Gildors who go to pilgrimages to the Elven harbours of old by the Bay of Belfalas (the traffic would be much bigger, of course, while they were still in use), and who knows, maybe even one weirdo local Farmer Maggot from Eastfold could make acquaintances with some Lórien patrols. But such cases would be rare, not a rule.
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"Should the story say 'he ate bread,' the dramatic producer can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own." -On Fairy-Stories |
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#6 |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 785
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Is it possible that the Woodmen and their kin who lived along the Anduin had some contact with the Elves of Lórien and/or Mirkwood?
And evidently the surviving Dúnedain of the North still had a very close relationship with the Elves (although that's the Elves of Rivendell, not of Lórien). It seems it was in the south that there was the greatest estrangement, in Rohan and Gondor, which probably makes sense given the geographical separation.
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"Since the evening of that day we have journeyed from the shadow of Tol Brandir." "On foot?" cried Éomer. |
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#7 | |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Lonely Isle
Posts: 706
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While there may have been those in Gondor who acknowledged the influence of Elvish culture on them, and respected what Elves had done in the past, they might (like Denethor II) have regarded them as fallen far from their past glories, and being irrelevant players in the present geopolitical situation. One could perhaps blame Elrond and Galadriel somewhat, for not offering the rulers of Gondor and Rohan regular advice and intelligence reports. |
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#8 | ||
Wight of the Old Forest
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Unattended on the railway station, in the litter at the dancehall
Posts: 3,329
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As we see here they had some folklore about Lórien and were probably aware that it was Elvish land, but their yearning to catch a glimpse of its beauty was mingled with fear, and their first reaction to the spreading mist was dismay at being touched by Elven magic. Even when the mist proved beneficial to them only his horse's instinct convinced Eorl that it was indeed harmless. (Borondir, on the other hand, seems to have known a little better, as is to be expected from an Gondorian.) I suppose any Men of Rohan or the North travelling on the Anduin by boat would have felt much the same: they would marvel at the Golden Wood and whisper some old tales to each other, maybe tell their children and grandchildren about it with some pride, but landing on the western shore and making contact with the Elves was a wholly different matter and restricted to few individuals.
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Und aus dem Erebos kamen viele seelen herauf der abgeschiedenen toten.- Homer, Odyssey, Canto XI |
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#9 | ||
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 785
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I think a substantial reason might be that for the majority of the Third Age the threats appeared to be deriving from different sources: Arnor and the Elves were troubled by Angmar and Dol Guldur, while Gondor fought the Haradrim and the Easterlings. Gondor's wars were also largely Sauron's doing, but less openly. The relationship between North and South seems to have failed after 1975 when Gondor and the Elves destroyed Angmar. Despite their victory, the North-kingdom had ceased to exist, which may have severely limited any existing relationship between Gondor and the allies of Arnor in the north. Although the Nazgûl conquered Minas Ithil in 2002, Sauron retreated from Dol Guldur in 2063 (a side effect, and possibly an unfortunate one, of Gandalf's investigation there). The Watchful Peace ensued. It seems possible to me that, with Arnor gone and the West at (uneasy) peace, the Men of Gondor had no apparent reason to maintain contact with the Elves, and thus lines of communication failed. Even for the Dúnedain the ensuing four hundred years of peace would have seen several generations of Men come and go. By the time Sauron returned to Dol Guldur in 2460 and the Nazgûl began attacking Osgiliath in 2475 the relationship between Gondor and the Elves may have been virtually nonexistent because they had not needed one for about four centuries. Quote:
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"Since the evening of that day we have journeyed from the shadow of Tol Brandir." "On foot?" cried Éomer. |
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#10 | |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Lonely Isle
Posts: 706
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#11 | |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Lonely Isle
Posts: 706
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![]() ![]() Last edited by Faramir Jones; 07-21-2015 at 07:49 AM. |
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#12 | |
Pittodrie Poltergeist
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: trying to find that warm and winding lane again
Posts: 633
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As Beren looked into her eyes within the shadows of her hair, The trembling starlight of the skies he saw there mirrored shimmering. |
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#13 | |
Gruesome Spectre
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Heaven's doorstep
Posts: 8,036
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Glóin said to Frodo in Rivendell that the journey from Dale would have been "impossible" if not for the Beornings, and those Gondorians would have been much nearer to the peril of southern Mirkwood. It wouldn't seem that any Man of Gondor had actually entered Lórien, since Aragorn was presented as such a special case.
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Music alone proves the existence of God. |
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