Eryn Lasgalen: Frodo's best ecological victory?
If you started your annual read of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings on September 22nd, you are just at the outset of the hobbits' adventure, but here is a chance to think about one of its most remarkable ends. When you consider the many things Frodo and his friends won with their sacrifice, perhaps the return of the king to Minas Tirith or the delivery of the Shire from Sharkey and his Ruffians spring first to mind.
But this new painting depicts a scene of a victory on such a grand geographical scale that I think it should be widely celebrated. This is the joyous day after the War of the Ring on which Celeborn and Thranduil meet in Mirkwood and re-name the rescued forest Eryn Lasgalen, the Wood of Greenleaves. This name is not unlike the original name of this largest of western Middle-earth's known woodlands: Eryn Galen, or Greenwood the Great, as it was known before the enemy arrived around T.A. 1050 and turned the wonderful forest into a place of darkness. Given Professor Tolkien's famous love of trees, I would suggest this scene meant a great deal to him, though it is easy to overlook in the texts.
On the left, Thranduil comes through the wood, crowned in fresh oak leaves and accompanied by his merry followers. Legolas is, by my reckoning, still down in Gondor at the time and so we do not know any of the names of these "Good People", all decked in spring green and brown and wearing the glittering gems they loved.
On the right, however, you know four of the five Galadhrim in view. Celeborn is tall, wise, silver-haired and majestic as he clasps arms with the King of the Wood-elves. Orophin and Rúmil follow behind, and then Haldir with an unknown elf maiden. At last, Celeborn's people have been completely reunited with those of the Elvenking, with their common foe vanquished and the forest released from his thralldom.
The elves are actually quite heavily armed. The two leaders have both bows and swords. Both have recently been victorious in the fierce battles that came to their realms during the War of the Ring. There could still be orcs and spiders and other dreadful things about, but the theme here is absolutely one of recovery for the forest. The Galadhrim are decked in garlands of green and silver mallorn leaves, further emphasizing that the long-suffering wood is going to heal and become a place filled with glorious foliage and beauty once more.
Already, the grass and young plants look very healthy and the oaks (who look a bit as if they are dancing) are leafing out in a very fair way. There is a marked contrast between the energetic deportment of the Wood-elves and the dreamier procession of the Galadhrim, but both would have been elvish-ly happy on this day, I am sure. And it is April, and these marvelous elves have come here to celebrate their new year. What a scene this would have been to witness!
Sub-text and deep lore
There is a little sub-text here for observant eyes. In my heritage, one never treads in a fairy-ring. These ancient stone circles in Ireland continue to have relevance for many modern people who sense that there is something powerful about such places. Today in Middle-earth, we might come upon an old ring of rocks in which two ancient oaks stand and get the feeling that something important must once have happened there. And if we respect custom, we would walk around the circle instead of entering it. The Third Age elves here, however, are processing right into the ring because the Faërian realm is their own. They belong there. I hoped to evoke a sense of the ancientry of special places which once witnessed great but forgotten deeds.
There is also another kind of full circle at work here. Long ago, the ancestors of Bilbo, Frodo, Merry, Pippin, and Sam lived beside Greenwood the Great, and doubtless any Fallohides in their family tree would have hunted along its eaves until the darkening of the place led to their great westward migration. In ridding Middle-earth from domination, the hobbits have set in motion the ecological rescue of their ancestral homelands. This feels very satisfying to me.
And, of course, being a hobbit at heart, I turn to Tolkien for hope that love of the green world might one day imbue Big Folk with better priorities so that our woodlands and other natural places are healthy and safe once more from the domination of the fossil fuels which are causing Climate Change.
A new day is dawning in this scene in the forest that once seemed like a place of horror to Bilbo, though he did catch a glimpse of its possibilities from the treetops. I think he, especially, would have been astonished by the transformation of Mirkwood into the Wood of Greenleaves, making it more like the forest his own ancestors knew long ago when they lived in the Vales of Anduin.
Enjoy witnessing this historic meeting of these two wondrous branches of elves in the great forest in this video short:
