Lothlórien

The Golden Wood

Lothlórien fills the angle where the Celebrant, which the Dwarves called the Silverlode, comes down out of the Dimrill Dale to meet the Anduin. The land between the two rivers was the heart of the realm and was called the Naith, the Spearhead, narrowing eastward to a green tongue of grass at the confluence; but the woods also spread west across the Silverlode toward the Misty Mountains and north to the eaves above the stream of Nimrodel, named for the maiden who dwelt beside it. Beyond the rivers the Elves kept no borders but their watchfulness, and the plains east of the Anduin, once the fields where Eorl rode to the rescue of Gondor, were empty ground.

The forest's glory is the mallorn, a tree found nowhere else in Middle-earth. Its bark is smooth and silver-grey, its boughs spring out level from the trunk in tiers, and its leaves are pale green above and silver beneath. In autumn they turn to gold but do not fall; the tree stands golden all winter, and only in spring, as the new leaves open and golden flowers come, does the old foliage drift down, so that the floor and the roof of the wood are gold together. The mellyrn came originally from the West, seeds of the trees of Tol Eressëa carried to Númenor and thence eastward as a royal gift, and of all the lands of Middle-earth only Lórien would receive them.

Within the wood no blemish or sickness could be found. Visitors felt that they had stepped out of the passing world into something older and undying, and that the shapes of things were sharper and their colours purer than elsewhere; the sense of time itself grew uncertain, so that a month spent under the mellyrn seemed a few days. This was no illusion of the wood but the work of Nenya, the Ring of Adamant, which Galadriel bore and used to preserve rather than to command.

The Galadhrim

The people of Lórien were Silvan Elves, descended from the Nandor who forsook the westward march at the Misty Mountains under Lenwë and settled the vale of Anduin while Denethor led others on into Ossiriand. They were called the Galadhrim, the Tree-people, for they built no houses of stone but lived on flets, wide wooden platforms lashed high in the boughs and reached by rope ladders, sleeping under the leaves in summer and winter alike. They were archers and woodsmen, wary of strangers and slow to change, and they spoke a Silvan tongue that had drifted far from the Sindarin of the west; their lords, being of the Sindar, taught them the grey-elven speech in time.

Marchwardens under captains such as Haldir watched the northern eaves and the crossings of the Silverlode, and by the end of the Third Age no stranger was allowed to walk in the Naith with open eyes. The Galadhrim made grey cloaks that took the colour of whatever lay about them, ropes of hithlain, lembas, and the small boats in which the Fellowship went down the Great River. Their one city was Caras Galadhon; their oldest and most hallowed place was the mound of Cerin Amroth.

Lórinand of the Nandor

The Elves of the wood knew it as Lórinand, the golden vale, and later as Laurelindórenan, the land of the valley of singing gold; the Men of Rohan called it Dwimordene and would not go near it. It was one of the oldest Elvish settlements east of the mountains and for long ages it had no king, only scattered folk in the trees. In the Second Age Sindarin princes came east out of the ruin of Beleriand, as they did in Greenwood, and a lord named Amdir was accepted as king. He led the Elves of Lórien to the Last Alliance and was killed at Dagorlad in S.A. 3434, cut off with his people in the marshes, and his son Amroth succeeded him.

Amroth and Nimrodel

Amroth loved Nimrodel, a maid of the Silvan folk who lived beside the falls of the stream that bears her name and who would consent to wed him only if he left Middle-earth. Their story ended in the disaster of T.A. 1980 and 1981, when the Dwarves of Moria delved too deep and roused the Balrog. Terror came over the mountains, Nimrodel fled south and was lost in the passes of the White Mountains, and Amroth went down to the havens of Belfalas to wait for her. In 1981 an autumn storm drove his ship from its moorings; seeing the shore receding he leapt into the sea and was drowned. With him ended the kingship of Lórien.

Galadriel and Celeborn

After Amroth's loss Galadriel and Celeborn took the rule of the wood, though they refused the titles of king and queen and were called only the Lady and the Lord of the Galadhrim. Galadriel was of the Noldor, the last in Middle-earth of the princes who had come from Aman, and she held Nenya, one of the Three made by Celebrimbor. Under her keeping the wood became a fortress of the will as much as of arms, and while Sauron could not see into it, she and the White Council could measure his strength; it was at Galadriel's urging that Gandalf was offered the leadership of the Council, and Lórien's power lay behind the assault that drove the Necromancer from Dol Guldur in 2941. Their daughter Celebrían went from Lórien to wed Elrond of Rivendell.

The Fellowship in Lórien

On 17 January T.A. 3019 the Company of the Ring, broken by the fall of Gandalf in Moria, was brought through the northern eaves and into Caras Galadhon. Gimli alone was made to go blindfold at the border until Aragorn insisted that all be blinded together; the old enmity between wood and mountain ended there, and the Dwarf came to love Galadriel above all others. Frodo and Samwise looked into her Mirror, and Frodo offered her the One Ring, which she refused. The Company rested nearly a month, was given cloaks, boats, rope and lembas, and on 16 February went down the Silverlode to the Anduin with gifts from the Lady: a phial of Eärendil's light for Frodo, a box of orchard earth for Sam, a sheath and the green Elfstone for Aragorn, a bow of the Galadhrim for Legolas, belts for the others, and three of her golden hairs for Gimli.

The three assaults

While the war was decided in the south, Dol Guldur threw its strength at Lórien three times, on 11, 15 and 22 March 3019. Each host was driven back across the Anduin with loss, though the eaves of the wood were burned; the trees themselves and the power of the Lady were reckoned defence enough where swords failed. On 28 March Celeborn led the Galadhrim over the river and stormed Dol Guldur, and Galadriel threw down its walls and laid its pits bare. In April he and Thranduil met in the cleansed forest, renamed it Eryn Lasgalen and divided it, the southern part becoming East Lórien under Celeborn.

The passing

The end of the One Ring unmade the power of the Three. On 29 September T.A. 3021 Galadriel went to the Grey Havens with Elrond, Gandalf and the Ring-bearers and passed over the Sea. Celeborn remained for a time in East Lórien, but the Galadhrim dwindled and slipped away south and west, and after Arwen came to Cerin Amroth to die in Fo.A. 121 he left the wood to the sons of Elrond at Rivendell. Lothlórien fell silent, its mellyrn still golden and its flets empty, and no Elf-realm remained in the vale of Anduin.

A forest realm in the angle between the Celebrant (Silverlode) and the Great River Anduin in western Rhovanion, below the Dimrill Dale and the eastern gate of Moria. The Naith or Angle forms its heart, the stream of Nimrodel its northern march, and the mound of Cerin Amroth and the city of Caras Galadhon stand within. Empty plains lie east across the Anduin and Fangorn far to the south-west.