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The Magic of the Minstrels - Page 2

© Michael Martinez

"There was an Elvish song that spoke of this," Treebeard says to Merry and Pippin when he tells them of the Ents' long separation from the Entwives. "It used to be sung up and down the Great River." He sings for them, taking the part of Ent and Entwife, and says the song is Elvish. And Treebeard also says "there were songs about the hunt of the Ents for the Entwives sung among Elves and Men from Mirkwood to Gondor." All the great songs and stories, of course, seem to be Elvish in origin. Aragorn sings part of a lay about Beren and Luthien for Frodo and the Hobbits on Weathertop. "There are none now, except Elrond, that remember it aright as it was told of old," he says. "It is a fair tale, though it is sad, as are all the tales of Middle-earth." Why are all the tales of Middle-earth sad? It may be that the Elves were more moved by the sad tales than by the happy ones, and therefore they composed their greatest lays about their greatest griefs. The only song composed in Aman which is named was "Aldudenie", made by Elemmire of the Vanyar. It was apparently carried to Middle-earth by the Exiles, or learned by them after the War of Wrath when the Host of Valinor was reunited with the Exiles in what remained of Beleriand. And "Aldudenie" recalls the grief of the Elves and Valar over the slaying of the Two Trees. The Elvish gift for song was supplemented by the Elves' sub-creative powers, their "magic". In the tale of Aragorn and Arwen, he thought he had conjured an image of Luthien when he first saw Arwen, because he had been singing a part of the lay of Beren and Luthien, "and he halted amazed, thinking that he had strayed into a dream, or else that he had been given the gift of the Elf-minstrels, who can make the things of which they sing appear before the eyes of those that listen." If the art of the Elves was near-forgotten by the end of the Third Age, it must have been in full swing at its beginning. The Eldar had been the dominant civilization in Middle-earth for thousands of years. After the War of Wrath there wasn't much left of civilization, except for the Dwarven cities in the Misty Mountains and beyond. So Gil-galad and his people set about rebuilding civilization as the Dunedain set sail over Sea to create their own civilization in far away Numenor.

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