Home » Reading & Literature » J.R.R. Tolkien » It's All in the Family: The Elweans and Ingweans - Page 8

It's All in the Family: The Elweans and Ingweans - Page 8

© Michael Martinez

Elwe's family produces a few mysteries, too. For example, in Unfinished Tales Christopher Tolkien mentions "Thingol's brother Elmo -- a shadowy figure about whom nothing is told save that he was the younger brother of Elwe (Thingol) and Olwe, and was 'beloved of Elwe with whom he remained'." Elmo was presumed to be the grandfather of Celeborn through a son named Galadhon. Celeborn had a brother, Galathil, who was the father of Nimloth, Dior's wife in The Silmarilion. Many years later, Tolkien decided that Celeborn was an Elf of Aman, a grandson of Olwe. Such a relationship would have made him Galadriel's first cousin, and such a marriage was supposed to be forbidden or at least disapproved of by the Eldar. Many people like to argue that this was Tolkien's final decision on Celeborn and therefore it should be accepted, but the problem is that Celeborn's ancestry in Aman does not fit with the published texts. There is, in fact, little explanation for how Celeborn and Galadriel should arrive in Middle-earth, and it's impossible to reconcile Galadriel's history as established in The Road Goes Ever On with this late conception of Celeborn, in which she and Celeborn had the Valar's permission to leave Aman before Feanor launched his rebellion. In The Lord of the Rings, Celeborn is presented as a Sindarin Elf, related to Thingol of Doriath. But this information came late, too. Celeborn was originally conceived as a Wood Elf, according to Christopher Tolkien. He may have been silver-haired like Thingol, but he was not an Elda at all. As the years passed and Tolkien developed the Silmarillion mythology more fully, Celeborn became an important validation of Thingol's family. That is, Thingol had to have relatives, so that it would be clear he was not all alone in the woods. The Silmarillion tells us that Thingol's friends and kinsfolk mostly stayed behind to search for him. Doriath must have been a pretty cozy little place the first thousand years or so, and it would have been hard to cheat at cards because everyone knew everyone else. Hence, if Olwe had to take most of the Teleri over Sea, then Elwe Thingol had to have other relatives who stayed behind. Celeborn's ancestry was thus moved over to the Elwean tree and he became Elwe's grand-nephew. Celeborn's wisdom is thus also transferred to the Eldar. Although some people smirk at Celeborn, who but for one reproach by Galadriel comes off as the wiser of the two in several critical areas, he is nonetheless Celeborn the Wise. Should a Wood Elf be as wise as an Elda, whose people have been tutored by the Valar and Maiar, which association the Wood Elves eschewed?

The copyright of the article It's All in the Family: The Elweans and Ingweans - Page 8 in J.R.R. Tolkien is owned by Michael Martinez. Permission to republish It's All in the Family: The Elweans and Ingweans - Page 8 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.