Gil-galad was an Elven-king... - Page 5
© Michael Martinez
So Gil-galad established a community of Elves there, or found one and was acknowledged its leader. This community, however, must have eventually moved to Balar, probably at Cirdan's invitation, thus ensuring that the House of Finwë would survive.
Gil-galad was at this time merely a king of the Noldor, not their High King. The High Kingship had passed on Fingon's death to his brother Turgon, and now we know why. Fingon had no children, and the kingship therefore went to his closest male relative of the male line of descent from Finwë. When Gondolin was destroyed in the year 510, and Turgon killed, the High Kingship passed to the House of Finarfin, of whom the last male line descendant was Gil-galad.
Throughout the rest of the First Age Gil-galad remained on Balar. He and Maedhros were the last Noldorin kings to live in Beleriand, but it appears that Gil-galad never met Maedhros. He would have known Celebrimbor, the son of Curufin, who stayed in Nargothrond after Celegorm and Curufin were banished by Orodreth. Celebrimbor was not a king, and had no realm to inherit, although he technically should have become leader of the Fëanorians upon Maedhros' death and Maglor's departure.
When the War of Wrath ended and the Host of Valinor departed back into the West, many of the Noldor and Sindar of Beleriand went with them. The handful of Finwëans left (Gil-galad, Celebrimbor, and Galadriel) along with the chief lords of the Sindar (Celeborn and Cirdan) elected to stay in Middle-earth. Galadriel's history is very confused, but it appears she left Nargothrond sometime before 495 (probably before the Nirnaeth in 473). So she and Celeborn must have come west when Eonwë summoned all the Elves of Middle-earth to sail over Sea.
In The Road Goes Ever On J.R.R. Tolkien writes that Galadriel "was the last survivor of the the princes and queens who had led the revolting Noldor to exile in Middle-earth. After the overthrow of Morgoth at the end of the First Age, a ban was set upon her return, and she had replied proudly that she had no wish to do so. She passed over the Mountains of Eredluin with her husband Celeborn (one of the Sindar) and went to Eregion...."
Galadriel's position among the Eldarin lords of Middle-earth was thus unique, and she doesn't seem ever to have fit in well with Gil-galad's kingdom. In another history, published in Unfinished Tales, Galadriel and Celeborn first settled in Eriador near Lake Evendim early in the Second Age, and there they were acknowledged Lord and Lady of the Elves in Eriador. Nonetheless, The Lord of the Rings tells us that Celeborn was Gil-galad's vassal in Harlindon for a while after the Kingdom of Lindon was established.
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