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meadowlarkx · 11 months

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grief and pride - embroidery for @tolkienekphrasisweek day 4, Gardening & Landscape Architecture! I was thinking about memory and how Elves might tell of particular places in adornments on clothing (imagining both of these designs on sleeves.)

First: Years of the Trees Fëanorian ornamentation, reminders of the Gardens of Lórien where Míriel lay, with Finwë's crest.

Second: Late First Age or Second Age Iathrim ornamentation, reminders of Menegroth and the First Kinslaying.

welcome to 'more photos and rambles at length'!!

Working on these little guys for a while I had time to think a fair amount about them. The concept of being literally clothed in one's sorrows feels very Elven and Tolkien to me. It's something about the long years and accumulating griefs, laying claim to and embodying them (powerful!), and the accompanying actions and grudges, and it's a thread that runs through both these groups. Fëanor is one of the first in the narrative to have this sort of memory/shadow on his heart, that of Míriel's passing. I love the similarities and connections between him and Míriel and the way she haunts the story, so I really enjoy the idea of Fëanor (and his sons!) reminding everyone of her absence subtly or unsubtly at every chance, including with their clothing--a mark of family loyalty which is also a nice fuck you to Indis and her children. Lórien is lush and verdant with golden flowers and mountain immortelle, don't @ me silvery tolkiengateway descriptions. I wanted this one to feel bright and vivid to echo the noontide of Valinor and the family's pride and brilliance. Finwë's crest got included in the design partly because it's less complicated than Fëanor's crest (shh), but also because I can completely see Fëanor making a(nother) claim to heirdom by wearing it.

Then of course he sets in motion greater horrors to remember. I am always thinking (@swanmaids has a great post about this) of the support Elwing canonically has in Sirion for her decision not to relinquish the Silmaril. And after seeing the 2nd kinslaying, it had to be a difficult, brave, potentially very controversial decision to hold on to it, but people are with her on this--I imagine motivated partly by real anger and grief over all they had lost and insistence upon memory, pride, dignity, identity etc. which probably remain with the few who survive the Sirion kinslaying too. And remembering Menegroth's beauty goes hand-in-hand with the grief--so I went for a bleaker look here, not the deep forest I usually picture (the 2 green vines, though, symbolizing in my head the surviving royal family/Peredhel!). This design being more of a picture of the place and less "abstract" was an attempt to gesture towards some cultural and stylistic differences in art, etc. I know this one isn't exactly a garden, but if we squint all of Doriath is an enclosed garden, so...!

Also here are the other pics. I'm imagining them bigger, but they are pretty little in real life!

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gwaedhannen · 4 months

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[Excerpt from Sorrow Beyond Words: Collected Testimony of the War of Wrath, 4th Edition; ed. Elrond Peredhel. Archive of Cîw Annúminas, inaugural collection]

“Simply reaching Menegroth was a struggle. Doriath had become a twisting nightmare of overgrowth and rot and mists, as Morgoth’s power warred with the remains of the Girdle and our old songs. Ai, our home, our haven! I know the name of every holly in Region, before the exile. We found deadfalls surrounded by dozens of animals who’d lain down beside the trees and rotted before they died. Blind moose more antler than flesh staggered towards us even after a dozen arrows. Vines covered in dripping thorns reached for our eyes. The cherry trees were overladen with fruits that smelled like gangrene. Deildhod stumbled into a nest of maddened vipers, and only escaped because their tails were all tangled together into a festering mass and could hardly move. We never saw or heard a single bird. I’m amazed we lost no one in that whole push through Region. No, I speak a lie. I know how we passed through with nothing worse than scrapes. Elrond was with us, and the ghost of Melian’s love still recognized her kin.

“Esgalduin had nearly been dammed by one of Hírilorn’s fallen boles, but the bridge still held. We crossed and reached the ruined gates, wrought twice and broken twice. Within there was only darkness to be seen; we knew not what manner of horrors Morgoth had sent to infest the city, but Ingwion was unwilling to leave them at the rear of his forces as he moved north, if it could be helped. Celeborn stood at Elrond’s right and myself at his left. Far less an honor guard than the heir of Elu Thingol and Melian Besain deserved. Yet in those dark days it was all the honor we could muster. King Dior Eluchíl had known thirty-six summers when he was unrighteously slain. Queen Elwing Nimaew thirty-five when despair took her to the sea. Lord Elrond Peredhel beheld the city of Elu for the first and only time in his twenty-ninth summer.

“Elrond stood before his inheritance and Sang. He sang a lament, for the lost endless years of joy and peace, for deep halls lit by birdsong and echoing with wisdom, for the Forsaken People who awoke the forest and earth with many voices, for the works of beauty never to be seen again on this side of the sea. He sang a promise, that the glory of Menegroth will be remembered in the songs of Middle-Earth for as long as its children endure. He sang thanks, for the protection the halls granted us until it could shelter us no more. As his song at last ceased, I thought I heard nightingales answering him.

“Stars shone on his brow, and his hair glistened as the vault of night, and the memories of our once-eternal bliss in the woods of Thingol’s realm under Elbereth’s gifts arose in my mind. Let Oropher dream of a deep hall for his own; let Celeborn reign where he will at his wife’s side! I knew in my heart, as the echo of nightingale songs faded, that there was no lord or king I would ever stand beside save Elrond Elwingion.

“The living stone in which our kingdom once thrived knew his voice, and at long last laid down its burden and passed. The darkness over Menegroth was lifted, and we went forth into its corpse, and no beast or orc could stand before us. I do not sing of what we found and left behind when we cast down the bridge and gave leave for the river to flood the caves. It is not worth remembering.”

#silmarillion #the silmarillion #tolkien #silm fic #elrond #doriath #menegroth #war of wrath #my OCs #war of wrath: sorrow beyond words #stormwritten #the Second Kinslaying occurred on this day in FA 506 #you can observe the day of remembrance by burning a Son of Feanor in effigy #in remembrance I'm writing Sindarin Elrond because I've seen too much Feanorian Elrond recently #the narrator is a former senior Marchwarden who escaped the Kinslaying and brought refugees over the mountains to Celeborn and Galadriel #she'll never forgive herself for not being at Sirion for the Third Kinslaying #she becomes one of Elrond's chief counselors and one of the heads of Rivendell's forces along with Glorfindel #she and Glorfindel were definitely at each other's throats for years until Elrond yelled at them to chill #they may have hatefucked #sorry Erestor #she either dies when Celebrían is captured #or leads the search for Celebrían and sails west with her #in either case she'll never forgive herself for failing #“Nimaew” = “white/pale bird” I think #a name given to Elwing after her leap #she doesn't know about it yet

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koyunsoncizeri · 2 years

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My love,, my King..

#silmarillion #jrr tolkien #the silmarillion #thingol #elu thingol #elwe #the children of húrin #menegroth #my love my babygirl

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nothinghereisworking · 5 months

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My Favorite Things

Melian’s singing and tree branches swaying, Luthien dancing to Daeron’s fair playing, Menegroth’s caverns, Esgalduin’s springs, These are a few of my favorite things.

Meeting new kin on diplomacy missions, Setting impossible marriage conditions, Keeping the gem he surprisingly brings, These are a few of my favorite things.

Was too reckless With the necklace, Now the Dwarves are mad; I just like acquiring favorite things, How did this turn out so bad?

#thingol #melian #menegroth #menelrond #seasons greetings #filk #tolkien fanart #bad paint art #artist: cuarthol

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a-elbereth-gilthoniell · 5 months

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Great Elven-Cities of Middle Earth

#the silmarillion #the lord of the rings #tolkien #lothlorien #rivendell #mirkwood #cuivienen #tirion #menegroth #alqualonde #gondolin #nargothrond #lindon #middle earth #tolkien edit #the silmarillion edit #lotr edit

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myrtaceaae · 4 months

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inspired by the present @curiouselleth gave me, and by Hanging Rock, in Victoria, here is a not very secret exit from the caves around Menegroth (me making things up to justify Beleg coming out of a cave)

#doriath #menegroth #tolkien #silm #silm art #thankyou curious elleth your gift was wonderful and inspiring #the silmarillion

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persephonedasilva · 7 months

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Eluréd and Elurín Rescue Headcanon:

Daeron had disappeared from Doriath for years. But unknown to everyone, he resided in a small cabin he had built in Doriath. Mablung had come across him once, but he made the marchwarden swear to silence.

Every few years, Daeron would get close to Menegroth, but he never had the courage to go inside.

On one such occasion, on his way to Menegroth, he overheard angry voices and the whimpering of children.

"Your rotten father killed our beloved Lord Celegorm! Now you brats can freeze to death!" one voice raged.

There were a couple of blows landed, the children crying out in pain.

Daeron knew he was outnumbered and out matched, so he stayed hidden.

The children began to move away, unknown to the minstrel.

The adults left back to Menegroth.

Daeron was concerned for those there, but he knew he had to get to the kids.

He followed the tracks for a moment, finding the children huddled in a hollowed base of a tree.

They were twins with silver hair, gray eyes, and had features similar to King Thingol. They were both crying, each sporting a slowly forming bruise on a cheek.

Daeron talked with them, with the twins being too afraid to talk and come with him.

"You look a little like King Thingol. I was his minstrel, so you can trust me."

At the mention of their great-grandfather's name, the twins perked up. Daeron smiled softly.

The older Elf scooped up the kids.

"Pull my cloak closer around yourselves. It's quite cold," Daeron instructed, and they did so.

The minstrel quickly made for his cabin, tending to the twins.

A few days later, the trio went to the remains of Menegroth, packing some clothes, left behind food, and other necessities.

The twins had sobbed brokenly, seeing their home destroyed.

32 years later, they heard about Elwing still being alive, but her new home being attacked. It had been done by the same who attacked Menegroth years ago.

Nothing was known of their sister with rumors of her becoming a white bird.

Another 20 years later, the trio left Beleriand, surviving the sinking of that land.

100 years after that, the trio relocated to Lindon. There, Eluréd and Elurín met their nephew Elrond! He introduced them to his relative Celebrimbor.

Not long after, Daeron left, unable to ignore the call of the sea any longer.

Meanwhile, Eluréd and Elurín stayed until well into the Third Age, leaving in the year 2,713. They could no longer resist the call as well.

Once in Aman, they were happily reunited with Daeron. Only then did he go to see King Thingol. From there, they met their extended family: Maedhros and his siblings, their mom - Nerdanel, Celebrimbor, all of their relatives up to Fingolfin, and Finarfin, Eärwen and their descendants.

Celegorm apologized heavily to them, begging for forgiveness.

"Why do you ask this of us?" Elurín inquired.

"It was your servants, not you who abandoned us," Eluréd added.

"You are not them, and they are not you," Elurín told him.

"So do not burden yourself with their choices," Eluréd finished.

Celegorm smiled, crying due to how happy he was and the weight being lifted off his chest. He hugged the twins, thanking them.

Elrond came at the end of the Third Age, his sons in the year 471 of the Fourth Age, bringing Celeborn with them. The twins were happy to be reunited with their mother's uncle.

They also got to meet King Thranduil as well, telling him what had happened to them during the attack on Menegroth.

(Sorry this was so long. I didn't know how to make it into a one-shot fanfiction. But thank you to everyone who read through it all.)

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elentarial · 1 year

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In Doriath dwelt Celeborn, kinsman of Thingol

#Silmarillion #silmedit #Menegroth #Doriath #Celeborn #teleporno #moodboard #woodland aesthetic

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dalliansss · 7 months

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I’ve got to find a way to go home, Turko thinks as he has his right arm over his eyes. Crossing the north isn’t an option. Too many Ice Giants…I’m alone and have no means to formulate some strengthening powders and tonics for myself. Sailing it is. After I see Heritúra, and know what she’s planning to do, one option for me is to continue west, until the Falas. Borrow a boat…

A journey more dangerous than just traversing the northern lands beyond Doriath toward Nan Dungortheb, certainly. Judging by the maps, he had to cross even wider plains before he could get to the Falas. He really doesn’t need to throw himself head-first against groups of orcs. He is strong, but Turko knows there is wisdom in picking battles he could actually win.

He removes his arm from above his eyes. Turko opens them – and for half a second he is confused as he sees nothing but silver. He gasps. He sits up, neck craned up – and he sees very clearly that a vast, round and definitely foreign celestial object was traversing the night sky. The light the round object shone was brighter than Varda’s stars, and Turko could only gape.

What in the–? What under Eru’s patched tunic is going on? What is THAT thing?

Slowly, Turko could only get to his feet and gape up at Rána , the moon, as Tilion slowly dragged his charge across the night sky for the first time.

[Along Came An Elf: Chapter 8]

#silmarillion #silm #silmarillion fanfiction #silm fanfic #my fanfic #my drabs #my writing #celegorm #turkafinwe #tyelkormo #ungoliant #luthien #luthien tinuviel #doriath #menegroth #along came an elf

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foedhrass · 8 months

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"King Greymantle was he, Elu Thingol in the tongue of that land."

I wore my new cosplay this week for a photo shoot and I'm so happy with how it turned out!

#thingol #elwe singollo #elu thingol #elwe #tolkien #silmarillion #cosplay #silmarillion cosplay #elves #tolkien cosplay #middle-earth #the silmarillion #lord of the rings #hobbit #doriath #Menegroth #woodland realm #jrr tolkien #Thingol cosplay

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meadowlarkx · 8 months

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elvenkings

Fic for @sindarweek day 2: Locations | AO3

Afterwards, they went back. No tale contains this part: no one set it down. Few set out: Oropher, his tall, gangly son, and a handful of others. A small cluster of green shoots. Spring was returning to the forest, and it smelled sweet, like unfurling leaves and old rot melting. They were very careful. They moved and slept in the trees, wishing their foliage fuller and missing Melian’s temperate cradle. But at the rushing Esgalduin, before Menegroth’s bashed-in mouth, there were no boughs to make the going safer.

“Finrod’s brother,” one said, weeping, “wished his mortal’s beauty to live on unmarred in his memory.”

Oropher looked searchingly at his son. Should we not have come back? the look asked. Should I not have brought you back?

Thranduil shook his head. He was serious-faced, with an edge of temper and a merry wit that darted free at times like a bird startled from a branch. No humor glinted in his gaze now. He was named for the spring, but perhaps it had been this kind of spring. “We had to,” he said simply. “Pass me a lantern:” and he crossed the stone bridge and went inside.

Ringing silence, orchestral silence, the tremor of the air from breath and speech shimmering up the vaulted halls roofed by gleaming roots, through the wide proud galleries with their pillars fashioned like beech-trees. No robbers or kinslayers had made lair of this place. Still they trod softly, reverently, until in the garden with its fountain gone quiet—not the throne room—Medlithor sang out clarion a love-song of Daeron’s, and briefly illuminated the dark like lightning.

Three of Nimloth’s gowns for the little princess. Torn tapestries—gleaming silver. A great book of heraldry, and another of sketches, plans for uncarved statuary. Daeron’s prized notes nowhere to be found. A chest of Oropher’s things, still fastened shut, guiltily perfect. A zither broken and unsinging. The dark space where the bodies had been heaped and burnt atop the frozen ground by their enemies. White bones of a few they had missed. The tree-roots embracing them, the new moss blanketing them. Circles ever widening outward, months late seeking children who would never be found.

Somber return, days in the making. Thranduil sat on a pier and watched the silt swirl and mingle with the clear salt of the ocean. Something tugged in his young breast: he could not name it. It was not sea-longing.

“It was very fine. The floor was fashioned like a vast ocean, sweeping out—oh!—with bright fishes, and strange sea-weeds like purple flowers, and amongst them, stars.” Evranin’s hands fluttered like birds, even when she was not at her stitching. “You used to hop from one spotted ray to the next.”

Elwing nodded dubiously.

“You remember it, don’t you, my girl? I know you do.”

“I think so,” Elwing said.

“Your great-grandfather planned it. He was the first to make the journey across the Sea, and he returned with a beautiful light in his eyes: they glowed in the endless dusk under the starlight.”

Elwing flinched.

“Not thus, sweet,” Evranin said, “like auntie Idril’s. ‘Twas a shine like the dawn, though of course, we knew no dawn then.”

Elwing looked confused, then squinted her eyes like two clenched fists, as though trying to work out a time before sunlight. Evranin thought this very Bëorian of her. At last, satisfied, she gave a little nod of approval.

“He loved the Sea: your great-grandfather. He and his brother meant to cross and live by the shore on the other side—where the fish leapt in the colorful shallows, and the stars’ reflection could yet be seen.”

“But he did not,” Elwing interrupted, frowning. She knew this part, and meant not to be appeased.

“He loved your great-grandmother more, and the woods’ green smell underfoot in the summer. But his brother—your great-great-uncle—did cross over, and he built a fair city for our people by the water. When you look west, my dear, think of all your family waiting to meet you. We live on the shore now, just as they do.”

“I don’t remember the floor of that gallery,” Elwing said quietly. “But I remember the music of the fountains through the room, and Naneth dancing with Ada. There were nightingales in his hair.”

If you looked carefully, as Bilbo was wont to do, you could see the places where the tapestry in Elrond’s library had been repaired. It nearly covered one complete wall of the hexagonal room, confidently draping languid and liquid across space where more books and scrolls could have been squirreled away. Its colors seemed to shift, unearthly, and the weave was finer than any Bilbo had seen—which made the repairs, neat as they were, quite obvious. The image was one of a shadow-crowded forest of brambles and feathery boughs, and in the foreground dark, shimmering water. Shapes were awakening beneath the stars in the twilight by the water’s edge, stretching up glistening bodies and dancing and drawing one another in to embrace. At one corner the winding border had been singed and the damage had not been mended. Still, it was very beautiful. Nearby, upon a varnished wooden stand, a book sat partly open, with thin, cracked pages of birch-paper. It was full of sigils, but Bilbo, despite making a study of Elf-lore, recognized none of them.

“Nor do I know most of them,” Elrond said, when asked. “It is far older than I, and a gift from Oropher from long ago, ere he left eastwards. See, though. Here is Beleg’s seal, and Mablung’s: the marchwardens from Túrin’s unhappy tale.” Bilbo exclaimed over these a while, and then asked: “What about the tapestry?”

“Melian the Maia wove it in the Elder Days.” He did not need to add: I thought it should be admired.

They had argued bitterly on the day the gift was made. It was vanishingly rare to see Elrond angry, but Oropher had managed it.

“Name me not king. I have chosen my king, and I am his herald. Leave it, I have begged of you. I won't ask again."

“And in what world am I to be named lord, while Elwing’s son bears no title? While our prince—”

“You might stay!” Elrond said rather wildly.

“And you might come with us—to oak and elm, the deep forest, people of our own ways—”

“I have made my choice.”

Silence fell between them, a silence of set jaws and brittle gazes. It was from an excess of care that they crossed wills.

“You are so like Lúthien,” Oropher said at last. Pride was soft in his voice. “Nay, your mother in her lordship. You are so like all of them.”

Elrond did not know what he meant.

“Accept these at least. They are your own inheritance. How I wish we had been able to offer you more.” Oropher said nothing else, but Elrond heard in his inmost heart all he meant, and opening his own heart he offered him forgiveness for the harsh words freshly spoken and for the old aches, the beaded necklace of orphans upon orphans, the bruise-tender childhood, the sunken continent, the houseless shades of the dead that crowded like moths: all the wounds still bleeding, and in which Oropher was faultless.

When Amon Lanc grew too dangerous, Thranduil knew what had to be done. Harried and unmerry was the Wood-elves’ journey northwards through the forest’s tree-paths. They took from the hill only what they could carry. Those of Thranduil’s people whom he met on the way—for many lived simply in the trees throughout Greenwood with their companions and children, and had joined themselves to no great settlement—spoke with him in troubled voices, though on the nights his following gathered around their small talans wine flowed and songs were sung.

“We need to make fast a stronghold,” he said. “Underground: a place of stone.”

“Better to go through the trees quickly! to travel lightly!”

“And if there is nowhere left that the Shadow has not touched?”

These Elves shook their heads and he read their thinking: we have always dwelt in this forest. But Thranduil’s heart misgave him, insisting the direst hour was still to come, and that he ready all his scattered people a sanctuary in advance of that hour.

Kingship did not rest easily on this son of Oropher. He had not been born to it, and he had meant never to find it. He preferred swimming the forest’s rivers and downing the sweet nectar of more summery lands to difficult counsels and deference, however warmly they were offered him. Very often since his father’s death, the way did not seem clear.

It was clear in this moment. He felt Elu Thingol’s hand cool upon his shoulder, as surely as if the king sojourned with him in the dappled wood and spoke as he had at the height of his wisdom. He saw in his mind’s eye the bridge that would cross the running water, the enchanted door, the roots that would be sung into high ceilings, the beech-carved pillars, the golden lamplight.

__________

From The Silmarillion: "But the Elves also had part in that labour, and Elves and Dwarves together, each with their own skill, there wrought out the visions of Melian, images of the wonder and beauty of Valinor beyond the Sea. The pillars of Menegroth were hewn in the likeness of the beeches of Oromë, stock, bough, and leaf, and they were lit with lanterns of gold. The nightingales sang there as in the gardens of Lórien; and there were fountains of silver, and basins of marble, and floors of many-colored stones. Carven figures of beasts and birds there ran upon the walls, or climbed upon the pillars, or peered among the branches entwined with many flowers. And as the years passed Melian and her maidens filled the halls with woven hangings wherein could be read the deeds of the Valar, and many things that had befallen in Arda since its beginning, and shadows of things that were yet to be. That was the fairest dwelling of any king that has ever been east of the Sea."

#wanted to post this one in as tumblr friendly a format as possible since it's not long !#thank you so much for running this event!!! 💕💕#thranduil #elrond #elwing #oropher #evranin #silm #silmarillion fic #silmarillion #etc.#lotr #the hobbit #thingol #menegroth #sindarweek #sindarweek2 #my fic

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