Q: Was Amroth Related to Celeborn?
ANSWER: There is no satisfactory answer to questions about where Celeborn fits into the various Elven genealogies. Christopher Tolkien devoted an entire chapter to the convoluted history of Galadriel and Celeborn in Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth. The shifting genealogical placement of Celeborn represents one of the few major inconsistencies between Tolkien’s published work (as represented by the first edition of The Lord of the Rings) and his almost random philological and philosophical musings about nearly every person, place, and thing mentioned in any Middle-earth text.
In his introduction to Unfinished Tales Christopher says of the history of Galadriel and Celeborn that it is “a primary strand in the history of Middle-earth that never received a settled definition, let alone a final written form”. In the opening paragraphs of the chapter itself Christopher writes:
There is no part of the history of Middle-earth more full of problems than the story of Galadriel and Celeborn, and it must be admitted that there are severe inconsistencies “embedded in the traditions”; or, to look at the matter from another point of view, that the role and impor¬tance of Galadriel only emerged slowly, and that her story underwent continual refashionings.
Thus, at the outset, it is certain that the earlier conception was that Galadriel went east over the mountains from Beleriand alone, before the end of the First Age, and met Celeborn in his own land of Lórien; this is explicitly stated in unpublished writing, and the same idea under¬lies Galadriel’s words to Frodo in The Fellowship of the Ring II 7, where she says of Celeborn that “He has dwelt in the West since the days of dawn, and I have dwelt with him years uncounted; for ere the fall of Nargothrond or Gondolin I passed over the mountains, and together through ages of the world we have fought the long defeat.” In all proba¬bility Celeborn was in this conception a Nandorin Elf (that is, one of the Teleri who refused to cross the Misty Mountains on the Great Journey from Cuiviénen).
In The Peoples of Middle-earth we see glimpses of J.R.R. Tolkien’s earliest post-narrative thoughts about Celeborn’s background, but even amidst the various notes Celeborn began morphing. If we look only at the published texts, we find no inconsistencies between Celeborn’s status (as possibly a Silvan elf) and some putative relationship between him and Amroth. For example, when Celeborn greets Legolas in Lothlorien, he says: ‘Welcome son of Thranduil! Too seldom do my kindred journey hither from the North.’ Clearly from this sentence the reader would reasonably infer that Legolas and Celeborn share some sort of kinship, but it does not necessarily mean that Celeborn is a Silvan elf. Legolas identifies himself as a Silvan elf but it has been alleged by several linguists that Tolkien was only using the word “silvan” in the sense of “woodland” (that is, Tolkien’s silvan is a variant spelling of the more familiar sylvan, which is derived through Medieval French sylvain from Latin Silvanus).
In an early text titled “The Languages at the End of the Third Age”, Tolkien wrote:
$18. Elves, it may be thought, had no need of other languages than their own. They did not, indeed, like the Dwarves hide their own language, and they were willing to teach the Elven-tongues to any who desired or were able to learn them. But these were few, apart from the lords of Numenorean descent. The Elves, therefore, who remained in the west-lands used the Common Speech in their dealings with Men or other speaking-folk; but they used it in an older and more gracious form, that of the lords of the Dunedain rather than that of the Shire. Among themselves they spoke and sang in Elven-tongues, and throughout Eriador from Lindon to Imladrist [> Imladris] they used the Noldorin speech; for in those lands, especially in Rivendell and at the Grey Havens, but also elsewhere in other secret places, there were still many of the exiled Noldor abiding or wandering in the wild. Beyond the Misty Mountains there were still Eldar who used the Lemberin [> Telerian] tongue. Such were the people of the elf-kingdom in Northern Mirkwood, whence came Legolas. Lemberin [> Telerian] was the native tongue also of Celeborn and the Elves of the hidden land of Lorien. There the Common Speech was known only to a few, for that people strayed seldom from their borders.*
The Lemberin language referred to here is derived from a pre-LoTR language family tree which identifies Lemberin as an early offshoot of the Quendi’s language — it was spoken by the descendants of the Nandor, the Telerin Elves who forsook the Great Journey when they reached the Vales of Anduin. By the time J.R.R. Tolkien finished revising the above text to become the Appendix “On Languages”, Celeborn had been fully realized as a Grey Elf of Doriath.
An entry for the Second Age in an early version of the “Tale of Years” (published in The Peoples of Middle-earth) was written thus:
750. Foundation of Imladris (or Rivendell) and of Eregion
(or Hollin) as dwellings of the Noldor or High Elves. Remnants of the Telerian Elves (of Doriath in ancient Beleriand) establish realms in the woodlands far eastward, but most of these peoples are Avari or East-elves. The chief of these were Thranduil who ruled in the north of Greenwood the Great beyond Anduin, but Lorien was fairer and had the greater power; for Celeborn had to wife the Lady Galadriel of the Noldor, sister of Gil-galad [> sister of Felagund Gil-galad’s sire].1010. With this entry compare the headnote to the Second Age in Appendix B. — The words ‘the Lady Galadriel of the Noldor, sister of Gil-galad’ were not, as might be thought, a slip, but record a stage in her entry into the legends of the First Age. In one of the earliest texts of the work Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age my father wrote of Galadriel: ‘A Queen she was and lady of the woodland elves, yet she was herself of the Noldor and had come from Beleriand in the days of the Exile.’ To this he added subsequently: ‘For it is said by some that she was a handmaid of Melian the Immortal in the realm of Doriath’; but striking this out at once he substituted: ‘For it is said by some that she was a daughter of Felagund the Fair and escaped from Nargothrond in the day of its destruction.’ In the following text this was changed to read: ‘And some have said that she was the daughter of Felagund the Fair and fled from Nargothrond before its fall, and passed over the Mountains into Eriador ere the coming of Fionwë’; this in turn was altered to: ‘For she was the daughter of Felagund the Fair and the elder sister of Gil-galad, though seldom had they met, for ere Nargothrond was made or Felagund was driven from Dorthonion, she passed east over the mountains and forsook Beleriand, and first of all the Noldor came to the inner lands; and too late she heard the summons of Fionwë.’ — In the Annals of Aman and the Grey Annals she had become, as she remained, the sister of Felagund.
The relationship between Celeborn and Amroth was first enumerated in a text about the family of Imrahil:
The House of Dol Amroth.
Amroth brother of Celeborn flies from northern Lorien when the Balrog drives out the Dwarves about 1980 T.A. Mithrellas, one of the companions of Nimrodel, is lost in the woods of Belfalas, and is harboured by Imrazor the Numenorean [added in margin: Imrazor 1950-2076], who takes her to wife (according to the legends and traditions of Dol Amroth); though after a few years she vanishes, whether to wander in the woods or seek the havens. The son of the union of Mithrellas and Imrazor received the elven-name of Galador; from him the lords of Dol Amroth traced their descent. After the ending of the kings they became virtually independent princes, ruling over Belfalas, but they were at all times loyal to the Steward as representing the ancient crown.
1.Galador 2004-2129 (125)
2 … 2060-2203 (143)
3 … 2120-2254 (134)
4 … 2172-2299 (127)
5 … 2225-2348 (123)
6 … 2274-2400 (126)
7 … 2324-2458 (134)
8 … 2373-2498 (125)
9 … 2418-2540 (122)
10 … 2463-2582 (119)
11 … 2505-2623 (118)
12 … 2546-2660 (114)
13 … 2588-2701 (113)
14 … 2627-2733 (106)
15 … 2671-+2746 (75) slain by Corsairs of Umbar
16 … 2709-f2799 ([90]) slain in battle
17 … 2746-2859 (113)
18 … 2785-2899 (114)
19 Aglahad 2827-2932 (105)
20 Angelimir 2866-2977 (111)
21 Adrahil 2917-3010 (93)
22 Imrahil 2955-3054 (99)
23 Elphir 2987-(3087 =) F.A.57 (100)
24 Alphros 3017-(3115 =) F.A.95 (98)In contrast to this carefully written page, the other form of this list (that written on the back of the document of 1954) has a scrawled note at its head, the same as that in the text just given but extending only to the words ‘harboured by Imrazor the Numenorean, who weds her’; and the dates are written in pencil, with some corrections. Imrazor is numbered 1, so that Angelimir is the twenty-first prince; but this was corrected. The life-span of the sixteenth prince was given as 91 years instead of 90, and my father followed this in the second text; and where the second text has ‘slain in battle’ the first has ‘Battle with Orcs’.
The statement here that Amroth was the brother of Celeborn appears to be unique (for other accounts of him see “The History of Galadriel and Celeborn” in Unfinished Tales: but all the material concerning Amroth collected there comes from after, much of it long after, the publication of The Lord of the Rings). On both forms of the present text the words were struck out, and on the second my father pencilled ‘was a Sinda from Beleriand’. With the time of Amroth’s flight from Lorien cf. the entry for 1981 in Appendix B: ‘The Dwarves flee from Moria. Many of the Silvan Elves of Lorien flee south. Amroth and Nimrodel are lost’; also Unfinished Tales pp. 240, 245. No events are recorded elsewhere in the years 2746 and 2799 that cast light on the deaths in battle of the fifteenth and sixteenth Princes of Dol Amroth.
What is significant about this particular text is that it is nearly contemporary with the primary narrative references to Celeborn and Amroth. J.R.R. Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings from December 1937 through about midway into 1948. He began working on material for the appendices around 1950, perhaps a little earlier. He continued to revise material for the appendices right up until their publication in 1955.
Based on these passages and a few other facts “known” about the Eldarin lords as described in the texts which existed at this time, we can argue that — for a brief time at least — Amroth and Celeborn were intended to be brothers, probably Sindar (not Silvan Elves as Christopher suggests), and perhaps related to Thranduil and Legolas. The semi-canonical fathers of Thranduil (Oropher) and Amroth (Malgalad or Amdir) had not yet appeared in the narratives that Christopher published in Unfinished Tales. Amroth at first went from being Celeborn’s brother to being the son of Galadriel and Celeborn, but ultimately J.R.R. Tolkien rejected this relationship (probably without thinking about what had already appeared in print) in favor of a separate family tree — in which one could still assume a family relationship between Celeborn and Thranduil and/or Amroth and Thranduil, if one so desired, albeit a very different one.
Ultimately, I don’t believe the idea that Celeborn was a prince a Valinor — a grandson of Olwë of Alqualondë — would have stood the test of time. For example, in “Laws and Customs of the Eldar” Tolkien wrote that the Eldar did not marry their first cousins. At some point I think he would have realized that he was bringing Galadriel and Celeborn too close together in the genealogies.
But these early hints about Celeborn, Galadriel, and Amroth may provide an alternative explanation for Gildor Inglorion’s place in the Eldarin genealogies. Suppose Gildor really was intended to be a son of Inglor (Felagund), and hence the brother of Gil-galad and Galadriel? It would not have been until J.R.R. Tolkien developed the appendices that he decided Gil-galad was the last heir of the High Kings of the Noldor-in-Exile. From that time forward, perhaps for completely unrelated reasons, Tolkien radically changed the family relationships among all the Eldarin lords.
And yet, at the time of its publication, The Lord of the Rings may have been more consistent about some of the relationships between various Elvish lords than we are accustomed to believing. The problem is that by the time the third volume saw publication, whatever consistencies there may have been (if any) had already begun to crumble as the radicalization of the Eldarin genealogies was already in process.
We therefore cannot say with any certainty whether Tolkien really felt (by the time he published the third volume in 1955) that Amroth and Celeborn were definitively related in any way. Since the nature of Celeborn’s relationship to all but Galadriel (to whom he was married) and Celebrian (their daughter) was not precisely established in the published texts, Tolkien felt free to move Celeborn (and Galadriel) around the family trees. And poor Gildor was quickly left behind with any attempt at an explanation for his remarkable name.
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Have you read our other Tolkien and Middle-earth Questions and Answers articles?
[…] The Nandor and Avari who settled in the Vales of Anduin appear to have merged to become the Silvan Elves of Lothlorien and Greenwood the Great. For some background on Tolkien’s use of “silvan” for “sylvan” see Was Amroth Related to Celeborn?. […]
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