Was Galadriel Married to Celebrimbor?

Q: Was Galadriel Married to Celebrimbor?

ANSWER: No, Galadriel was not married to Celebrimbor. In his latest streaming podcast for TheOneRing.Net, Cliff Broadway (Quickbeam), mentioned that Galadriel was married to Celebrimbor. He referenced this marriage more than once. There is, to my knowledge, no Tolkien source that stipulates or suggests a marriage between Galadriel and Celebrimbor. It’s not my place to speak for Cliff but he was doing a live show and you can’t take back anything in such a format. You just keep moving.

Celebrimbor was the grandson of Fëanor. He was Galadriel’s first cousin once-removed (although Fëanor and Galadriel’s father Finarfin were only half-brothers). Tolkien stipulated that this was too close a relationship for the Eldar to consider marriage.

The only hint of a romantic connection between Galadriel and Celebrimbor occurs in abandoned text in Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth, in the chapter “Galadriel and Celeborn”, where Celebrimbor confesses his love for Galadriel, but conceding that she “turned to Celeborn of the Trees”.

So I cannot explain Cliff’s assertion that Galadriel and Celebrimbor were married.

Galadriel Was a Late Addition to the Family

Before he started writing The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien had no conception of her. She had no place in his genealogies. She emerged from his plotting for LoTR. And as Christopher Tolkien explains in The History of Middle-earth, Celeborn was probably originally intended to be a Silvan elf. Christopher speculates that Galadriel’s personal narrative of her life stipulates she met Celeborn after she crossed the Ered Luin. So Galadriel’s history as published in The Lord of the Rings differs from the history attributed to her character in The Silmarillion.

Galadriel was never married to anyone other than Celeborn.

Celebrimbor Was a Late Addition to the Family, Too

Prior to his work on The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien never imagined that Fëanor had any descendants other than his seven sons. Celebrimbor, like Galadriel and Celeborn, emerged from Tolkien’s plotting for The Lord of the Rings. As Christopher Tolkien notes in The Peoples of Middle-earth and the earlier Unfinished Tales, Celebrimbor began as a descendant of Daeron (the Sindarin elf-minstrel who loved Lúthien Tinúviel and hated Beren). He morphed into a Noldorin elf from Gondolin. But JRRT eventually concluded that someone of such great skill had to be a descendant of Fëanor.

In a passing thought near the end of his life, JRRT toyed with the idea of making Celebrimbor a Telerin elf of Aman who accompanied Celeborn into exile. This was never part of any formal text. It was just a rough idea.

Was Galadriel an Important Second Age Character?

As anyone who has read Unfinished Tales should know, the history of Galadriel and Celeborn was a mess. Were they the parents of Amroth or not? J.R.R. Tolkien made Amroth the son of no less than three fathers. There is no way to reconcile any of Amroth’s attested lineages with a “canon”. Hence, the Amazon show would probably have free rein to decide whatever they want.

That said, J.R.R. Tolkien retrofitted Galadriel into a number of First and Second Age stories. She appears briefly in The Silmarillion, not really significant in the rebellion of the Noldor or in the wars of Beleriand. But she need not be. Although The Silmarillion disagrees with The Lord of the Rings on when Galadriel crossed the Ered Luin, it’s clear that Tolkien always intended for her historical significance to begin in Eriador in the Second Age.

Celeborn is mentioned as ruling the surviving Sindar of Middle-earth in Harlindon in the Second Age. Tolkien never says this is a kingdom or a separate realm from Gil-galad’s, but I believe it would be acceptable to stipulate it is a separate kingdom if Amazon’s contract does not include the rights to use Unfinished Tales‘ material (rumor has it they do have the rights to all the Tolkien books – but we’ll have to leave that for another discussion). If they do have the rights to use Unfinished Tales, there Christopher Tolkien says that in an unpublished note Harlindon is described as a fief of Gil-galad’s realm. I don’t know if this “unpublished note” was subsequently published among the linguistic essays that the Elvish Linguistic Society have published in their studies of Tolkien’s supplemental materials.

From Harlindon, in one version of their history (according to Unfinished Tales), Galadriel and Celeborn migrated to Eregion (Hollin), where they founded a new realm. There Celebrimbor eventually seized power from them.

In a note attached to “Aldarion and Erendis”, Tolkien says that Aldarion met Galadriel at Tharbad. He doesn’t say anything else, but Tharbad was the crossing between Enedwaith and Minhiriath and it would have lain on the road between Eregion and Lindon.

According to the fullest history provided for them, “Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn”, Celeborn and Galadriel ruled Eregion when the Eldar were reunited with the Nandorin Elves of the Vales of Anduin (specifically the elves of Lorinand). The Sindarinization of these Nandorin elves began during their time in Eregion. When Celebrimbor rose to power Galadriel took Amroth and Celebrian through the mountains to Lorinand, but Celeborn remained in Eregion.

Regardless of what history you want to use for Galadriel, she played little significant part in the rest of the Second Age. She is said to have remained influential but Tolkien didn’t provide many details for her association with the great events of the Second Age. For example, she is not mentioned in the War of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men.

So, yes, Galadriel was important in the Second Age but she was only one of several important characters.

See Also:

• Celeborn Unplugged
• How and Why Did Celebrimbor Give Nenya to Galadriel?
• Why Did the Noldor Only Establish Two Realms in the Second Age?
• Was Amroth Related to Celeborn?

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