J.R.R. Tolkien created a lot of “throw-off” characters, characters who appear for a story or only part of a story, never to re-emerge fully again. And of all these throw-offs the one which garners nearly as much attention and discussion as any of the primary characters is Glorfindel. Or would that be, the Glorfindels. Was there one or two of the guy? Enquiring minds want to know (or do they just want to argue forever and never actually know?).
Why is Glorfindel so cool? He shows up near the end of “Flight to the Ford”, is seen but not heard in “Many Meetings” (oh, Gandalf and Frodo talk about him briefly), participates in “The Council of Elrond” long enough to confound and confusticate Bombadilian matters, and then vanishes until Arwen arrives in Gondor to marry Aragorn in “The Steward and the King”. Except for putting Frodo on his white Elven horse and lighting up like a Christmas tree when the Nazgul try to cross the Ford of Bruinen, what does Glorfindel do that is so special? His one real claim to fame comes in an anecdote in Appendix A where his arrival with an Elven army in Angmar helps defeat the Witch-king (in the north) once and for all.
Of course, no Glorfindel discussion is complete (and few are started) without someone asking, “Was the Glorfindel of Gondolin related to the Glorfindel of Rivendell?” Sometimes one is tempted to respond with something like, “Yes, they were twin brothers, and the evil one killed the good one and took his place in the family. The Elves have yet to catch on to the truth.”
It may be fairly said that the relationship between the two Glorfindels is not obvious. In fact, it’s really not clear to many people who have studied the matter for decades. For some reason, the revelation in The Return of the Shadow that “years later, long after the publication of The Lord of the Rings” J.R.R. Tolkien decided after much thought that Glorfindel of Rivendell was actually Glorfindel of Gondolin returned from the dead, just doesn’t carry much weight with some people. Why? Because the decision to connect the two characters this way was made years later, after The Lord of the Rings had been published. By implication (or inference, depending on which way you examine the issue) Glorfindel of Rivendell was not originally conceived of as Glorfindel of Gondolin.
Well, that’s fair enough. In fact, originally, Tolkien had written “Glorfindel tells of his ancestry in Gondolin” in a note which outlined events for the Council of Elrond. Clearly JRRT was intending to connect Glorfindel of Rivendell with Glorfindel of Gondolin, although at this time (the early 1940s) hardly anyone other than J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and a few close friends even knew about the Glorfindel of Gondolin.
Glorfindel had hardly blazed a trail across the pages of Tolkien’s imagination. He appears in one story in The Book of Lost Tales, and that is “The Fall of Gondolin”. There he doesn’t even make his appearance until the battle for the city is on, and he arrives with the battalion from the House of the Golden Flower. His “house” bore a device of “rayed sun upon their shield”, but Glorfindel himself “bare a mantle so broidered in threads of gold that it was diapered with celandine as a field in spring; and his arms were damascened with cunning gold.”
Of the eleven lords of houses of Gondolin (who served King Turgon), Glorfindel is the only one whose personal device is described. Glorfindel was one of the smarter lords. He didn’t rush out and get slaughtered with all his warriors, but most of them died nonetheless defending Turgon. The warriors of the House of the Harp (whose lord Salgant had held back out of fear) saved Glorfindel and some of his warriors when they were almost overwhelmed. From that point forward Glorfindel stayed close to Tuor, but he didn’t really accomplish much until Tuor began fleeing the city with all the women and children he could gather together. Then Glorfindel took the rearguard and fought off dragons, orcs, and balrogs with his dwindling force of warriors.
Tuor retreated from the city to the mountains and there the column of exiles, nearly a thousand strong, were ambushed. Orcs had been sent to the hills and mountains to prevent any escapes from the city, and they threw rocks upon the column from high cliffs while troops attacked the head of the column and its rear. And with the attack on the rear came a Balrog. Thorondor and his eagles stopped the Orcs who were throwing rocks, but the Balrog pressed in on Glorfindel’s warriors and he finally attacked it alone. Glorfindel’s battle with the Balrog was brief but he managed to kill it. He ended up going over a cliff with the creature, and so died himself, and the Elves made songs about his victory and death long afterward.
There is something moving about Glorfindel’s sacrifice, and I cannot help but wonder if Tolkien wasn’t projecting something of his friends Rob Gilson and Geoffrey Bache Smith, both of whom were killed in World War I. Gilson had fallen in battle at La Boiselle, leading a contingent of British soldiers into battle on July 1, according to Tolkien’s biographer, Humphrey Carpenter. Smith wrote a letter to Tolkien, who himself survived unscathed 48 hours of front-line combat at Ovillers. When Tolkien’s company was relieved and he returned to quarters he found Smith’s letter.
One cannot say enough in a few brief sentences what Tolkien’s early friends meant to him: he, Smith, Gilson, and Christopher Wiseman had formed the core of a small clique they called the Tea Club, Barovian Society (T.C.B.S.) when attending school. These four were particularly close, and all of them served in war in some capacity. Tolkien and Wiseman lived through the experience. When he replied to Smith’s letter about Gilson’s death, Tolkien wrote “I do not feel a member of a complete body now. I honestly feel that the T.C.B.S has ended.” Smith wouldn’t allow that to happen, however. “The T.C.B.S. is not finished and never will be,” he said. By the end of that year Smith himself would be dead. On December 16, 1916, Christopher Wiseman wrote to his friend Ronald Tolkien, “I have just received news from home about G.B.S., who succumbed to injuries received from shells bursting on December 3rd. I can’t say much about it now. I humbly pray Almighty God I may be accounted worthy of him.”
Smith’s spirit must have been infectious to Tolkien, as was Gilson’s. Gilson’s father had been the headmaster of King Edward’s School in Birmingham, and it was the elder Gilson who had encouraged Tolkien to pursue the study of classical linguistics. It was with the T.C.B.S. that Tolkien became entranced with “Beowulf”, “The Pearl”, “Sir Gawain”, and “Volsungsaga”. Carpenter says that Smith, a late member of the T.C.B.S., was so knowledgeable and influential with the others that they “began to wake up to the significance of poetry — as indeed Tolkien was already doing.”
One of the last letters Smith had written to Tolkien contained the following:
My chief consolation is that if I am scuppered tonight — I am off on duty in a few minutes — there will still be left a member of the great T.C.B.S. to voice what I dreamed and what we all agreed upon. For the death of one of its members cannot, I am determined, dissolve the T.C.B.S. Death can make us loathsome and helpless as individuals, but it cannot put an end to the immortal four! A discovery I am going to communicate to Rob before I go off to-night. And do you write it also to Christopher. May God bless you, my dear John Ronald, and may you say the things I have tried to say long after I am not here to say them, if such be my lot.
In the next year Tolkien would fall ill with Trench Fever and his part in the war would come to an end. But he would immortalize its tragic sense of loss and despair in the first of a series of stories that eventually came to be The Book of Lost Tales: “The Fall of Gondolin”. Carpenter says that Tolkien did not model the story on any prior event or tale, but that is not entirely true. Gondolin owes a great deal to the story of Troy. The idea of a lost city, destroyed by an overwhelming force despite the heroic efforts of its defenders — doomed to betrayal and treachery — is a powerful motif that is seldom revisited in ancient literature. Homer’s Troy is symbolic of the despairs and insanities of war, from Achilles’ fretting over a slave girl to Menelaus’ ridiculous insistence on winning back Helen no matter what the cost.
The story of Gondolin is not the human story of Troy retold. Gondolin is an Elven city, and though Tolkien’s conception of Elvish values and philosophy had yet to emerge, those who mourned the fall of Gondolin were Elves, not men. Gondolin is to the Elves as Troy is to Men: the inspiration for great songs and literature. And it is that to Tolkien, as well. Some of his greatest prose in the years 1917-25 is found in “The Fall of Gondolin”, the first full Elvish tale he ever wrote. And when he incorporated the story into his book of Lost Tales, one of his narrative Elves says of “The Fall of Gondolin” that “it is the greatest of the stories of the Gnomes [the Gnomes became the Noldor in later mythologies], and even in this house is Ilfiniol son of Bronweg, who knows those deeds more truly than any that are now on Earth.”
At this time in Tolkien’s life there was no story more important to his emerging mythology. “The Fall of Gondolin” represented the near fulfillment of the long promises of his youth and of the Gnomic legends. Bright Earendel would survive the fall of Gondolin to become the savior of Elves and Men, much as Aeneas survived the fall of Troy to become the ancestor of Rome. Tolkien survived the fall of the T.C.B.S., and he set about the task of ensuring that its dreams would live on, even as G.B. Smith had foretold.
But such a tragic story cannot be told without some great sacrifice. Tolkien had many examples of sacrifice to choose from. He needed to refine the theme and produce a character who was untouched by corruption, unscathed by the loss of hearth and home. A character who, despite the intrusion of death upon his life, would determine that Gondolin should continue. Death could not destroy Gondolin, nor exile. That was Glorfindel’s contribution. Gondolin had been founded by Noldoli (Gnomes) who survived the Battle of Unnummbered Tears. When Gondolin itself was destroyed a remnant of its people escaped, and they carried on. It was much the same with the T.C.B.S. Geoffrey Smith had determined that death and loss should not dissolve the group. The survivors would carry on, and at least one of them would tell great stories, revitalizing English literature in a way few men could hope to.
So Glorfindel becomes a tragic figure who alone among a host of tragic characters is memorable. There is something deep and moving about Glorfindel’s sacrifice. Echoes of the heroic fight with the Balrog would be passed down to later works such as the “Quenta Noldorinwa” and the “Later Annals of Beleriand”. But the story of Gondolin itself was to languish and fall by the wayside. Tolkien never returned to the battle for the city, but he returned to Glorfindel.
While writing “The Council of Elrond” Tolkien at one point considered having Glorfindel speak of his ancestry in Gondolin. Something of Gondolin was thus to be carried forward into the new Hobbit book. But Tolkien dropped the idea. Glorfindel of Rivendell became simply Glorfindel, and there was no reference to an earlier Glorfindel or an earlier story. The transformation of Glorfindel may represent nothing more than an author’s need to tell a concise story. He would, after all, remove material concerning the romance of Aragorn and Arwen to an appendix.
So the tale of Glorfindel would go on, and in fact Tolkien enlarged it several years later when he wrote the material for the appendices. There now appeared the account of Glorfindel’s arrival on the field of battle with an Elven army, completing the Gondorian victory over the Witch-king of Angmar and in a way rebutting Melkor’s crushing defeat and enslavement of Gondolin. Where darkness ruled Glorfindel brought light. But his light would soon fade and the Elves would return to their haunts, eventually to sail over Sea in great numbers, fleeing Middle-earth. Glorfindel would remain, but he was an exceptional elf, and the exception would haunt Tolkien’s thoughts in later years.
Who was Glorfindel, and what was he doing in Middle-earth? He wasn’t much of an enigma for the fans. In 1958 Rhona Beare asked Tolkien (on behalf of other fans) why Asfaloth, Glorfindel’s horse, had a bridle and bit “when Elves ride without bit, bridle, or saddle?” Tolkien responded quickly that he should have written “headstall”, and this change was eventually made to the text. And that (but for the request of the use of Glorfindel’s name for a cow) represents the sum total of early fannish interest in Middle-earth’s most enigmatic Elf.
The Glorfindel legend subsided. Tolkien attempted to rewrite the story of Tuor and Gondolin, but he only got as far as having Tuor look across the plain of Tunladen upon Gondolin for the first time. Glorfindel briefly appeared in the story of Aredhel and Maeglin as one of the lords Turgon appointed to escort her, but Tolkien decided that Glorfindel, Egalmoth, and Ecthelion were inappropriate choices for Elven lords who would become so dismayed by Nan Dungortheb they would turn back in despair and so lose their charge. He decided it would be best not to name them in the story. This decision, and a note concerning Elven death and possible resurrection accompanying “Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth”, represents an elevation of Glorfindel’s stature in the churning cauldron of Tolkien’s thought.
The question of who Elrond’s Glorfindel should be diminished in importance as the fame of Gondolin’s Glorfindel increased…in Tolkien’s mind. The readers had no idea these issues existed for the author. Glorfindel was more important to J.R.R. Tolkien than he was to The Lord of the Rings. But to find a place for Glorfindel in the mythology Tolkien had to be consistent with what Gandalf had said of the Elf in “Many Meetings”:
‘What about Rivendell and the Elves? Is Rivendell safe?’
‘Yes, at present, until all else is conquered. The Elves may fear the Dark Lord, and they may fly before him, but never again will they listen to him or serve him. And here in Rivendell there live still some of his chief foes: the Elven-wise, lords of the Eldar from beyond the furthest seas. They do not fear the Ringwraiths, for those who have dwelt in the Blessed Realm live at once in both worlds, and against both the Seen and the Unseen they have great power.’
‘I thought I saw a white figure that shone and did not grow dim like that others. Was that Glorfindel then?’
‘Yes, you saw him for a moment as is upon the other side: one of the mighty of the Firstborn. He is an Elf-lord of a house of princes. Indeed there is a power in Rivendell to withstand the might of Mordor, for a while: and elsewhere other powers still dwell….’
Glorfindel is therefore an Elf who has dwelt in Aman. So the published text makes it virtually impossible for him to be descended from an Elf of Gondolin. He could have lived in Gondolin, but could not have been born there or afterward among the Exiles of Gondolin. Hence, the decision not to make Glorfindel a descendant of the other Glorfindel was really a very early choice, made prior to the publication of The Lord of the Rings. But that doesn’t mean that Glorfindel was meant to be the Glorfindel of Gondolin.
Despite common misconceptions, Tolkien did not mind reusing names among the Elves. Although no two Elves in The Lord of the Rings bear the same names, one (at least) bears the name of an earlier Elf: Rumil, one of the march-wardens of Lorien, is given the name of the Noldorin Elf who created the first Tengwar (and the earlier Rumil is mentioned in Appendix E). But another name from Gondolin appears in Elrond’s council: Galdor, the Elf from the Havens, Cirdan’s emissary. Christopher Tolkien reaches the conclusion that this cannot be the same Galdor who led the vanguard of Tuor’s column of refugees in “The Fall of Gondolin”. Galdor of Gondolin not only lived, he returned to Aman at the end of the First Age and never returned to Middle-earth.
So there are peculiar cases even in The Lord of the Rings where Tolkien reused Elven names, and he was not entirely clear on whether the usage was appropriate. Years later, while considering the history of Cirdan, JRRT noted to himself that Galdor of Gondolin could have survived the fall and remained in Middle-earth, thus never acquiring the wisdom Glorfindel obtained in the West. Christopher is quick to point out that his father phrased the speculation in such a way as to indicate he wasn’t sure, and Christopher concludes that his father could not have located the manuscript for “The Fall of Gondolin” to check and therefore would merely have been suggesting a possibility to himself (for future reference, perhaps).
In The Peoples of Middle-earth Christopher published for the first time two essays concerning Glorfindel which his father had written around the time of 1972. The first essay is incomplete, its opening page missing, but it seems that JRRT had decided that several Elves had been sent back to Middle-earth with the Istari “as guards or assistants”. One of these was Glorfindel, attached to Gandalf. This essay supposes that Glorfindel, because of his great sacrifice, was released from Mandos early, and he was restored to the natural innocence of the Elves. Living with the Maiar and among Elves who had never rebelled, he probably became a friend to Olorin (Gandalf) and grew in wisdom and power.
But after having written out these thoughts, Tolkien changed his mind. In a note Christopher only refers to his father decided soon after writing the first Glorfindel essay that the Elf had more likely returned to Middle-earth in the Second Age. Thereupon Tolkien wrote the second essay concerning Glorfindel and he decided finally that the two Glorfindels were the same person, who having been purged of his sins in Mandos was released and allowed to live in Aman. But then he returned to Middle-earth to help Gil-galad prepare for the wars with Sauron.
The fact that Glorfindel of Rivendell had lived in the Blessed Realm at some point forced Tolkien to consider how he might have gotten there. Glorfindel’s arrival in Middle-earth was not so firmly mandated, but Tolkien doesn’t really say why Glorfindel had to return in the Second Age, except to say in the second essay that such travel by the Elves would have been forbidden after the Downfall of Numenor. Hence, the Istari could not have been accompanied by the guards and assistants of the first essay.
The restriction on travel from Aman to Middle-earth is attested in his letters, so Tolkien was not simply adding another element to the story to rationalize his choice. Rather, he was ensuring that the choice was consistent with what he had already told other people.
The final issue, that of Glorfindel’s apparent great power, is dealt with by suggesting that as a reconstituted Elf he would have become closer to a Maia in power than any normal living Elf. The enigma of Glorfindel’s power in Middle-earth is therefore explained. Not just any Elf can send the Nazgul fleeing. One Nazgul, alone in the Shire, withdrew before the company of Gildor Inglorion (himself an Exile). But the Nine of them were willing to face Elrond and Glorfindel together if they must when it seemed certain Frodo would escape them after all. So Glorfindel’s being sent out to find Frodo was a decision which reflected a great faith in his abilities.
If we accept that Glorfindel returned to Middle-earth in the Second Age, probably at the time of the War of the Elves and Sauron (which Tolkien suggests is the most likely event to trigger his return), then Glorfindel must have been very active in defending Lindon and Eriador against Mordor. After the war he might have accompanied Galadriel and Celeborn on some of their travels, or perhaps would have been Gil-galad’s emissary to other Elven realms (such as there still remained: Oropher’s kingdom in Greenwood, Amdir’s in Lothlorien, and the haven of Edhellond are all we know about for sure).
And then Glorfindel would have marched with the army of Lindon and Imladris in the War of the Last Alliance. Elrond was Gil-galad’s herald, a role which would have afforded him little time to command armies, as he would have been vital to Gil-galad’s relations with the other alliance leaders, and also would have been delivering proclamations to Sauron’s forces. Gil-galad would have had Celeborn, Cirdan, and Glorfindel to call upon to act as captains of his various forces. Of course, other Elven lords would have served as seconds-in-command, lesser captains, advisors, etc. There would have been a horde of Elven lords. Glorfindel’s status in the War of the Last Alliance is by no means certain.
Yet it was Glorfindel who led the armies of Rivendell and Lothlorien to the last combat with the Witch-king of Angmar. Should his status have been elevated so much in the Third Age? Why didn’t Amroth lead his own army? Was he even present at the battle, or did he stay home in Lothlorien to tend to the kingdom? That Glorfindel led the combined armies seems to imply he was a person of great stature among the Elves, a very great and noble lord indeed.
Tolkien tells the reader just enough about Glorfindel in The Lord of the Rings to imply that he was a very important Elf lord, but no more. It’s not until we get to The Silmarillion and read about his great sacrifice that we learn about Glorfindel’s tragic history. And yet even the Gondolin story leaves something to be desired. The account in The Silmarillion is a pastiche assembled by Christopher from “The Fall of Gondolin” and “Of Tuor and his Coming to Gondolin”. It doesn’t really say the great things that “The Fall of Gondolin” attempted to say. Other than commanding one of Turgon’s flanks in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Glorfindel isn’t mentioned anywhere else in The Silmarillion.
He had to be one of the Exiles, moved by Feanor’s demand that the Noldor follow him back to Middle-earth. He probably did not take part in the Kinslaying at Alqualonde, since of Fingolfin’s host only Fingon’s people helped the Feanorians directly. Turgon, presumably, came after his father’s group of Noldor. So Glorfindel survived the crossing of the Helcaraxe, and he was there with Fingolfin when the greater part of the Noldor marched on Angband with no effect. And he must have sat by as the greater princes of the Noldor convened their council in the wake of Fingon’s rescue of Maedhros.
Glorfindel is always there, in the background, a face amid the nameless legions of characters who make up the ancient hosts of the Noldor. What’s odd is that The Silmarillion sparked more questions about Glorfindel’s ancestry than about his personal history. Was he one of the Vanyar? Was he only part Vanyarin? Why did he have golden hair, if (as Tolkien says in The Lord of the Rings) only the descendants of Finarfin and Earwen have golden hair among the Noldor?
Golden hair is supposed to be a rare thing among the Elves, and yet the Elven-king of northern Mirkwood has golden hair in The Hobbit, some nameless Elf warrior of Lothlorien is golden-haired in The Lord of the Rings, and Glorfindel and Idril Celebrindal both have golden hair. Idril, at least, is a descendant of Indis, second wife of Finwe, who came of the Vanyar, and Idril’s own mother Elenwe was from the Vanyar. Tolkien’s ideas on Elven physical attributes must not have been fully-developed when he made the statement that only Finarfin’s descendants had golden hair among the Noldor.
But that doesn’t explain Glorfindel’s ancestry. Who were his parents? Was he part Vanya, like Idril? It seems quite likely he must have had one some Vanyarin blood. People feel that the Vanyar were above rebellion, but Elenwe’s decision to join Turgon in exile is an indication they were not. If one wife was moved to follow her husband, then why not others? And it may be that Elenwe went only because she and Turgon had not been married for very long. Idril was only a child when Elenwe was lost in the ice. So Idril was born during the sojourn through Araman, after the Kinslaying.
Few if any of the “elder” Noldor seem to have gone into exile. Nerdanel, Feanor’s wife, did not go with him. Nor did her father Mahtan, or any member of their family (except the sons of Feanor and Nerdanel). So Glorfindel probably could not have been an “elder” among the Noldor at the time of the rebellion. He may have been the son of a Noldorin lord and Vanyarin lady who had befriended Turgon, and as one of Turgon’s friends may have followed him out of loyalty and sense of youthful adventure.
Another possibility is that Glorfindel was the son of a Vanyarin lord and a Noldorin wife. Less likely would be a more remote Vanyarin ancestry. Few of the Vanyar appear to have been living in Tirion upon Tuna at the time of Feanor’s rebellion. Most of them had moved on to the slopes of Taniquetil or the woodlands of Valinor or the area of Valmar. If he came from the Vanyar, Glorfindel’s family must therefore have had close ties to the Noldor.
In the final analysis Glorfindel remains as much a mystery as ever. We know virtually nothing of his place within Eldarin society, who his relatives were (apparently all or most had died in Middle-earth, as Tolkien mentioned he was the first of his family to be released from Mandos in one of the two Glorfindel essays), or even what his specific relationship to Turgon was (except as a follower in the hierarchy of Gondolin’s nobility).
And Glorfindel’s history is far from complete. We can only trace his movements in the most general fashion. Perhaps he spent a fair amount of time with Gandalf, wandering around the northern lands. It would be hard to imagine a book written solely about Glorfindel, though he and Gandalf would make quite a pair of adventurers. Perhaps in the year 2061 or thereabouts a television series concerning the two will be launched, and Tolkien fans will at long last get to explore some the fascination this character holds for them.
This article was originally published on November 17, 2000.
[…] “The Wars of the Glorfindels” was published to our Tolkien and Middle-earth essays category on December 26. […]