Naming the Stones by Deborah Judge

Chapter 1: Tell Me My Name

Stat rosa pristina nomine,

nomina nuda tenemus

The sun shone in motley patterns through the leaves of Lorien, where these two Elves had taken temporary refuge. Light and dark moved, exchanged places, and cast brightness and shadow on the tree trunks, the vines creeping upon them, the red and brown leaves that covered them, and finally on the two grey-cloaked figures sitting in a small clearing in the heart of the forest.

They looked almost alike from a distance. Only closer could one see the thickened fingers, the half-shade darker hair, and the fuller girth that marked Elrond the half-Elven off from his companion Galadriel and all her race. The play of colors in the forest was the image of a lover's bower, but there was nothing of desire in the hands of Galadriel as she grasped those of her young student, nor in the unyielding eyes she fixed on his face.

"Tell me your name," she said. This teaching was not among the more pleasant ones she had to give, but it needed to be done, and often, before he was able to tell the tales of the First Age, tales of sorrow and shame for himself, for her, and for all their people.

"I am Elrond Peredhel," he spoke his first name, as he had begun ever time she had taken him through this teaching since he had come to her in the forest. "Son of Earendil and Elwing, brother of Elros the king of Men. Foster-son of Maglor." Galadriel smiled in her heart at that last name. How many years it had taken for him to speak it!

"Tell me my name," she said.

This was easy for him, although it hadn't been at the beginning, when everything had been hard to say. Then it had been difficult, under her clear, seeking gaze, to speak even the simplest of names. "You are Galadriel Artanis, wife of Celeborn, daughter of Finarfin and Earwen. Sister of Finrod. Lover of Elbereth." Elrond had added that last name recently without warning or explanation. Galadriel had not spoken to him of this love, but it was perhaps the truest thing her student had discovered about her.

She paused for a moment before repeating the teaching-words. "Tell me your name," she said again.

After years of this teaching, the soft names were beginning to come to Elrond more easily than the harsh ones. Still, they were far from easy. He took a breath, paused, and released it. "I am Elrond, the teacher of children." That had been the first kind name he had taken for himself years ago. He took great pride in his teaching, as he should, for after a short fifty years he had already become a renowned teacher among the children of Middle Earth. "I preserve memories of the beginning and write them for the future. I taught stories of Iluvatar and Elbereth to my brother, and through him to the race of Men."

Galadriel said nothing in response. The names he gave here were changing, shifting like the developing contours of his mind. It was not her place to declare them true or false, only to hear them spoken. "Tell me my name," Galadriel asked again.

"You are Galadriel, wise among the wise." The challenge for Elrond here was not to veer into flattery or intoxication, but to keep to the simple, bare truth that his teacher demanded and occasionally received. "You led the exiles of your people across the ice to this land. You are the teacher of the Elven peoples. You preserve in Middle earth the light of Valinor." The names he gave to Galadriel were also ever-changing, but like his names for himself they were not hers to judge.

They sat quietly for a moment, gathering strength for the hardest part of the teaching. Galadriel took a moment to match her breathing with Elrond's letting him be reassured by her utter, focused presence. It was the only comfort she would give him.

"Tell me your name," she said for a third time.

"I am Elrond, betrayer of my people." A lesser student would perhaps have rushed through these names, trying to get them all spoken before they destroyed him. Elrond, as always, held them in a timeless speaking, letting them tell the truth of his soul's memories. If there were another way I would take it, beloved, Galadriel thought, but she knew of no other and so she did not speak. What is named can be told, she reminded herself, what is told can be taught, what is taught can be learned, what is learned can bring wisdom.

"I abandoned my mother, leaving her to fall to the sea alone, and have not seen her since," Elrond continued his litany of guilt and pain. "I gave a son's devotion to the man who had driven her away and killed her people. I gave my baby brother to such a man, to be raised by him and call him Father. I turned away from my brother, my only kin, and did not follow him across the sea."

Galadriel waited a moment to see if Elrond had any other names with which to accuse himself. As he did not speak further, she continued, for the last time, "Tell me my name."

'You are Galadriel " Elrond paused, more reluctant to speak her shame than his own. The first time they had done this teaching she had sat with him for ten hours, not asking, simply remaining with her hands in his and her eyes expectant as the sun set and then rose, and with the dawn he had uttered the harshest of her names: "Kinslayer." She did not flinch. She had heard the name before, most often when she spoke it to herself. He took a breath, and then continued. "You left your father and his wisdom and brought your people on a journey to Middle Earth which many did not survive. You sought adventure and rule, rejecting the love of the Valar." His half-Elven hand trembled in hers. He opened his mouth to say more, but did not.

They had gone as far they could for today. Galadriel began to sing a wordless melody. Elrond smiled, and his smile was clearer than Galadriel had ever seen it before. With each teaching, a touch of shadow passes away, she thought. Perhaps one day he would laugh and dance under the stars like the fully Elven-born. Or perhaps not, and the difference in him was deeper than pain. He was only at the beginning of the path to wisdom, and Galadriel knew that it was a long one. After more than thirty centuries along that path, she felt like she had only just begun.

A wind blew through the trees, casting red-gold leaves in the laps of the sitting figures. Sunlight glanced off Galadriel's hair. If the heart of the forest looked as much like a lover's bower as it had before, perhaps the impression was now for a moment a fraction less incorrect. Galadriel rose, taking her student with her, to go to the children of Men who waited at the edge of the forest for the Elven teachers to come to them, bringing them stories of Eru Iluvatar and echoes of the song of Ea.

Chapter End Notes

Notes:

Elros and Elrond are commonly thought to be twins, but I have found no proof that they are (if you have please let me know). Elrond's personality seems to me to be that of an older brother, so I have gone with that.

In Silmarillion 15, Angrod (Galadriel's brother) tells Thingol that he and his family are innocent of the kinslaying. First of all I don't entirely believe him, and second of all it makes sense to me that Galadriel would see things differently. Although it is not recorded that she participated in the massacre of the Teleri at Alqualonde, it is also not recorded that she did anything to prevent it, and she did not join her father Finarfin in turning away from the murderers.

Having said that, all opinions expressed by the characters about their moral responsibility are theirs and not mine.

The Latin quote at the beginning means 'The earlier rose remains in its name, we hold bare names.' It is the last line of The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco.

Next chapter: Elrond remembers, and begins to write.

Chapter 2: Fragments From the Ruins

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow

Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only

A heap of broken images

Deep in the forest there was a building made entirely of glass. Celeborn had built it as a study for his wife's student Elrond, who loved the trees and the outdoors but whose books did not. Elrond loved to sit there as he worked, almost feeling the wind as it blew through the woods and cast dying leaves on the clear walls of his study. He needed this wind, needed to feel the strength of the forest, as he went through the hours with his papers and books.

Elrond's task that day was to begin writing. His brother Elros of Numenor, the king of Men, had asked for a book telling the history of the Elven peoples in Middle Earth, to be read in Numenor where there are no Elves to teach them. Elrond had decided that the work of writing this story would be his, as his teacher Galadriel had neither skill nor delight in the labour of quill and parchment. Nor in the telling of plain tales, she had added with a laugh. Elrond gave a mock grimace at the thought of what the story of the Silmarils would look like in the obscure, enigmatic verse Galadriel liked to compose. Such is the teaching of the firstborn, he thought to himself. They learn in riddles, lest they believe themselves wise too soon.

If Galadriel had written the story, Elrond thought, it would probably look something like the confused collection of papers he had in front of him. They were pieces of Elven diaries and poems, gathered from the ruins of his childhood home of Sirion. Little was left of that refuge, after the twin destructions of the wars with Morgoth and the last of the kinslayings, and what was left had mostly gone to the west with the ships of Elves and Men. But Elrond had returned to the city after the ships were gone, picking over each house, looking not for gold or jewels but for scraps of writing, fragments of stories to preserve. They were with him now, in his glass study surrounded by trees, as he attempted to find a place to begin his tale.

There was one fragment he kept coming back to, unusual, almost human in its simplicity:

'Yet shadows come, and shadows grow

We listened then, we did not know.

For poisoned words we traded light

The poisoned words that led our flight

Into the dark when the Trees fell

No more in Valinor to dwell.'

Poisoned words indeed. Elrond knew there were things worth leaving Valinor. The faces of his students came to mind, as did the trees that surrounded him. But for stones? What poison was in the soul of Maglor, and of Feanor his father? Elrond had no sympathy. He knew he must learn some, so that the stories could be told.

He picked up another fragment:

'Like the body

Clothes the soul

Light is clothed

In secret radiance

Wordless image

Burning the heart

In one desire

Calling the soul

Across the sea '

Now that looks like something written by Galadriel, Elrond thought, as he slowly put together its meaning. Still, at least it gave him some words to write what the Silmarils were to those who craved them. Like the body clothes the soul

Elrond knew his foster-father Maglor had longed for the stones in that way, beyond any desire of body or soul. Malgor had never told him of this. He must have known what kind of response to expect from the son of Elwing if he dared speak of his longing for the jewel he had pursued her into the sea in an attempt to regain. There was only one time Elrond had heard this part of the Maglor's story.

He remembered that day as the day the stairs did not creak. In the years before his majority he would spend his days in Maglor's study. Even immortals have mortal furniture, so Maglor and Elros could keep teack of Elrond's comings and goings by the sound of his footsteps on the ancient wooden stairway. But that day the stairs made no sound, and Elrond descended unnoticed until he came to the door to the balcony where Elros was playing on Maglor's harp.

Elros had no talent with music. Maglor had been the greatest of Elven musicians, but he was unable to teach his beloved younger foster-son to do more with a harp than pull the strings. Still, Elros loved to sit with his foster-father and pick out simple tunes. Elrond was about to join them, but stopped when he heard their voices.

"Father," Elros said, "Sing to me about the Silmarils."

"Very well," Maglor said. 'Let us sing the Lay of Lethien, about your great-grandparents and the Silmaril they stole from Morgoth's crown."

Elros would not be diverted into such a familiar melody. ""No. Sing to me about the Silmarils themselves. What they are like?"

Beyond the door Elrond stood unmoving, dreading what Maglor would say but too curious to prevent him from saying it.

"There are many songs about the Silmarils," Maglor responded, "but they are dark and terrible, like the jewels themselves, though they glow bright with beauty. They were made by my father Feanor, the greatest craftsman of all the races of Ea, and are the greatest of his works. Many have sought them, but they are mine," Maglors usually kind voice took on a harshness as he spoke, "mine and my family's. They are precious to us," he emphasized the word, "and to my people, beyond words, beyond belief." Elrond could hear his longing, and was afraid.

"You love them more than anything, don't you?" Elros asked. There was a challenge in the question, and pleading.

Maglor paused for half an endless moment before giving his answer. "Not more than anything," he replied, his voice breaking slightly. "Not more than you." And, at that moment, perhaps he even spoke the truth.

But Elros was not finished. "Mother did," he continued, determined to force speech like the half-Man half-child he was. "Mother could have surrendered the Silmaril and kept her children, but flew off with the Silmaril and left us to you instead. And I am glad of it. I think you should have the Silmarils," he added with the certainty of Men. "I will get them for you if I can." Peering around the door, Elrond saw Maglor lift his hand to touch his younger brother's silver hair.

How dare he, Elrond thought from behind the door. Determined to stop this slander, this caress over his mother's memory, he burst into the room. "Maglor, Elros! Let me tell you what I discovered in my readings today "

I wonder what he would have said, a much older Elrond thought as he sat in his very different study over a hundred years later. He was sorry that he did not know, and that he had never thought to ask. Would Maglor have defended Mother, praised her for preserving the light of the Silmaril, for following her husband with unbending loyalty beyond Middle Earth, as he himself had followed his father's vow across the sea? Or would he have condemned her love, and himself with her? Maglor was gone now, in a hopeless search for the light of a Silmaril that would never return. He and his tale were lost to the world, more vanished than those who sat in the Halls of Mandos to the west of Valinor.

Elrond returned to his papers. He could not tell Maglor's tale, but perhaps he could begin, in the fragile words that were given to him, to tell of the Silmarils and of the yearning for them that destroyed a world.

He picked up his quill and began to write:

The great jewels were like the crystal of diamonds, and yet more strong than adamant. Yet that crystal was to the Silmarils as is the body to the children of Iluvatar: the house of the inner fire, that is within it and yet all parts of it, and is

Chapter End Notes

Notes:

The quote at the beginning is from TS Eliot's 'The Waste Land', with thanks to Altariel for showing me how well Tolkien and Eliot go together. The title of this chapter is adapted from the end of that poem.

The first fragment Elrond reads is a piece of a poem by Elwen Aiwelinde called 'Longing.' It is posted on this site.

What Elrond writes at the end is adapted from Chapter 7 of the Silmarillion, 'Of the Silmarils and the Unrest of the Noldor.' It is intentionally not an exact quote - the Silmarillion still has many editors, redactors, and other forms of textual troublemakers to go through before it reaches the form we have. Not to mention that this is only Elrond's first draft.

Thanks again to all my kind reviewers (I couldn't do it without you), especially to Oboe-Wan for keeping my facts in line

Next chapter: some thoughts on desire, a test, and the truth about Galadriel's hair.

Chapter 3: The Test

It was at that moment that he knew that he desired her, when she stood bathed in sunlight, her hair forming a halo about her and her hands reaching up as she sang to the dawn. 'A! Elbereth Gilthoniel!' Galadriel sang, and the Elven and human children responded in one voice, drawn upward by her beauty. Elrond turned away, flushed by the sudden passion taking hold of him. How have I not seen, he thought, how have I not known? At that moment he cared for nothing, not wisdom and not teaching, not books and not stories, not song and not healing, not Middle Earth nor the Blessed Realm, nothing save that he possess her, though it be with his dying breath. He faced her again, and her beauty filled his mind, shocking him with its power.

When the morning-song ended Galadriel left Elrond alone with the children, and it was to him like the sun departing from the heavens. He stumbled through his lessons and dismissed the students as early as he could. Then he sat alone, taking in his sudden yearning. After all this time, he thought, how have I not known? How have I not seen?

He found Galadriel in the garden, kneeling among the elanor-flowers. He came to her breathless, with a face unlike any she had seen before. He threw himself down next to her and grabbed her hand, unable to speak. Then he touched her face, and his hand felt like fire to her. "What has come in to you?" she asked, far from pleased.

"Desire," he croaked. "Madness. Desire." Then he did something he had never before done: he fled from her.

He went to the small stream near his study, hoping for some privacy and a chance to sort out the strange thoughts in his mind. He put his hands in the water and let the coolness and the sound of water over stones bring him some calm.

After a time Galadriel joined him. She sat on a rock nearby, close enough to touch, and waited for him to speak. "I don't understand," he said, voicing his confusion and fear. "You know my mind so well, you have led it so skillfully to wherever you thought it would learn best. Why have I come to desire you? Why have you not turned me aside?" Then he realized what he was saying, and turned it around as she had taught him. "I know I cannot have you. Why have I led myself to desire you? I don't understand." He looked down, afraid to meet her eyes. "Why?" he demanded, "Tell me for once in your life as plainly as you can, without riddles!"

She nodded. He deserved some explanation, although explaining was far from being her strong point. This teaching was perhaps the cruelest she had to give, but it, too, must be borne. "You have lived long enough without desire. You must face your desire as well, and learn the truths it can teach."

"But is it only about teaching?" Elrond asked, his eyes finally rising to meet hers.

Galadriel met his gaze, but did not answer his question. "I will lie with you if you wish it," she said, simply.

His hand reached out, almost against his will, and twisted a lock of her long golden hair around his finger. Then he froze. That light, the light he saw in Galadriel's hair, he had seen it before.

Elrond had always believed he had never seen a Silmaril. But seeing now Galadriel's hair he remembered the night of the battle at Sirion, when Maglor and his soldiers had come to his house to seize his family and all its treasures. He was climbing out his bedroom window with his baby brother in his arms, and as he stood there balanced between the noise of the soldiers in the house and the horror of the battle below he saw a light from his mother's rooms upstairs. Elwing was flying away, a Silmaril on her breast. The stone lit the night, stopping the battle for a moment, as the soldiers on both sides gazed up at the beauty above them. Then the moment passed, and Elwing was gone.

He had been young then, young enough to forget what could not bear remembering. But as Elrond held Galadriel's hair in his fingers he remembered that light, and thought how strange it was that the very light he had never allowed himself to remember desiring was now in his grasp. Remembered desire burned him then, and he burned.

This desire was not for Galadriel. At that moment the teacher who had sat with him all these years in the forest was as nothing to him. Only the light, the light of the Silmaril that remained, somehow, with her, had any meaning. Controlling her, controlling this light, he could be among the great of Arda. Even the Valar had not such a light. Yet even this he could possess, now, if he were willing to take it. She would yield it up to him. Or if she would not, he would take it from her. In his mind's eye he was already throwing her to the ground, seizing the light and making it his own.

His fingers tightened in her hair, pulling so as to cause pain. He reached up his other hand to take her or strike her. Then his eyes returned to her face. Her gaze on him was still kind, as much as he did not believe that this could be so. Tell me your name, he remembered the teaching-words. What name would he give at this moment? He thought of one, and was ashamed.

He unwound his fingers and brought his hands back to his lap. "This is a test," he said, suddenly realizing it. "You want to see if I, like Maglor, can be transformed by desire into what I despise. I will not be, even though you have shown me what I long for."

Galadriel did not answer, as if it were a teaching and all judgements would have to come from within. Elrond could not bear it. "Have I passed the test?" he asked.

"Almost," she answered.

Chapter End Notes

Notes:

In Silmarillion 5 'Of Eldamar' we are told that Galadriel had in her hair the light of Laurelin, the younger of the two trees of Valinor. It was from these trees that the light of the Silmarils was taken.

Thanks to Jill for reading the first draft.

Next (&last) chapter: a conversation with Celeborn, and some forgiveness.

Chapter 4: Father Maglor's Star

In the fading light Elrond wandered among the trees, wondering what Galadriel could have meant. He knew there was another piece to the test, something he had yet to understand. In his thoughts he could not reach it, and felt only the loneliness of the forest.

The trees were no comfort tonight. He turned to seek solace and learning, as he had as a child, with his texts. In his study he pulled his books one by one from the shelves, hoping for something, anything, to answer Galadriel's riddle. But the dark forest surrounding him through the glass walls of his study was no longer the source of strength it had been. The trees towered over him, hovering, accusing, and he was afraid of what they had seen. So he left his majestic glass structure, and went to the place by the stream where he had been tested that afternoon.

Evening had just passed, and Earendil's star was still in the sky. "Father," Elrond called out, hearing his own childhood voice. What more must I do? He so desperately wanted to understand, to make sense of the tortured shards of his people's history and his own. He wondered what his father was thinking, looking down on his humbled wreck of a son. The star, of course, gave no answer.

"This is as useful as talking to Galadriel," he muttered aloud.

"Then it must be very useful indeed," said Celeborn from behind him. Elrond jumped, startled out of his thoughts. Calaborn, dressed in the white robes of Lorien, was leaning with one arm against the translucent glass structure he had created. Elrond smiled, absurdly glad to see him. They had never been close, although the older Elf had been more than kind to him in his time here. Somehow, though, at that moment Elrond felt that Celeborn's presence was answering a need he did not know how to explain.

They sat together by the stream. The stars, and their reflection in the water, made Elrond think not of his painful interlude with Galadriel in that spot only a few hours before but of a conversation with his brother, long ago, looking out over the shores of Middle earth, remembering their father who had gone.

"Did you know my father?" Elrond asked. Celeborn's homeland had been Doriath, the lost kingdom of Elrond's great-great-grandparents Thingol and Melian. He knew Celeborn must have many stories about his family.

'I never had a chance to speak to Maglor," Celeborn responded. Elrond thought he should get angry that Celeborn had interpreted his question that way, but somehow could not. So he let Celeborn continue. "I was there at the sack of Doriath and saw how he marched, expressionless, like a wraith. He covered himself in black, as if he knew he had been transformed into an orc, or something worse. I believe that if someone would have killed him, he would have been grateful. And yet I treasure his songs, those that I have been able to learn. For they are the songs of an open soul, dreaming always of the stars. If Arda could be torn, and remade, I would ask for his healing, even at the cost of the Silmarils. Great beauty is lost from the world with Maglor gone."

Elrond could not believe the sadness he heard in Celeborn's voice. "He destroyed your home and you speak of his songs?"

"Do you know," Celeborn asked in response, "what side Galadriel fought on in the battle for Doriath? We were only recently married, but she had been living with my kin for many years. Maglor and his brothers were among the Noldor that Galadriel had come with out of the west. Although they betrayed her, still their fates were joined in the beginning of time. What do you think she did, when they came to destroy our home?"

The stream flowed, the leaves rustled, and Elrond did not answer. After years of the teaching he knew every shame that Galadriel could name for herself. But this one he could not speak, not here, not to the one who had suffered from it. It was too close to his own.

"Nothing at all," Celeborn answered his own question. He spoke without grief, without bitterness, and Elrond was amazed. "She remained in her tower until Doriath fell, and then we rode away."

"And you forgave her?" Elrond asked.

"I had to," Celeborn answered. "I love her."

So do I, Elrond thought, and it had nothing to do with the crazed passion of the morning. He remembered the reassurance of her eyes in the forest, and her work that he would continue until the end of his strength. "You have so much to forgive," he said. "My family, for keeping the Silmaril in Doriath. Maglor. My whole people, the Noldor, for our madness over the Silmarils," he spoke the word like a curse. "Galadriel, for bringing us into Middle Earth to shatter your home." He almost stopped, but remembered the events of the day and forced himself to add, "Me."

Celeborn looked at him, and his gaze was like his wife's, both kind and unyielding. "You, too have much to forgive."

"How long does it take, to forgive?" Is it possible to put to rest the hurts of an age?

"About as long as you have taken." Yes.

Earendil's star remained in the sky. Below it there was a patch of darkness Elrond had never noticed before. Maglor's star, he thought, the star that Maglor's Silmaril could have been. Perhaps will be, when Arda is remade. He realized that Celeborn, in his kindness, had given him what he needed to pass the last part of Galadriel's test. To feel the longing of the Noldor for the light, and to renounce it, and yet still to have it, for the light still remains. To refuse to continue the evil of his chosen people, but to forgive it, and his yearning, and himself. To remember, for good and for ill, that Maglor was his foster-father. The father who raised him. His father. "Father Maglor's star," he said, to hear the words spoken aloud.

He turned to Celeborn, eager, wanting to explain. "Galadriel has wondered why I have never danced to the song of the stars. I think I had simply never seen the right star, or heard the right song."

"And you have now?" Celeborn asked.

"Yes," Elrond answered, and began to sing an old melody of Maglor's . It was a sad song, but sung without words it became no longer sad but merely true, and not only true but beautiful. He looked up and felt the stars, those that shone and those that did not. The trees rustled around him, welcoming his soul back to the forest. He looked up at Celeborn, the beginnings of possibilities in his eyes. "Let's go," he said. "Let's go find Galadriel."

They ran together, hand in hand, almost dancing. Galadriel was in her garden, where she had been waiting for him.

"Have you solved my riddle?" she asked, her eyes smiling, knowing that he had.

Elrond did not answer. He knew he would explain everything in the next teaching, but for the moment he let his response be the clarity of his gaze and his wordless song. He extended one hand to each of his teachers, and they began to dance.

When the Firstborn came into the world the stars were their first teachers, made by Varda from silver dew and song. Each star contains a world, a soul, a story, a gem, a light beyond telling. Each night again they teach Varda's love, and light the dances of the heart. The stars and their souls cast down their songs that night on the three Elves who danced beneath them, danced until morning, after an age of kinstrife, in a moment of peace.

And so the Silmarils found their long homes

One in the airs of heaven

One in the fires of the earth

One in the deep waters

Never to be found again

Until Arda be broken and remade.

Chapter End Notes

Notes:

The verses at the end are adapted from the last lines of the Silmarillion.

I bow to the Great Professor Tolkien, Lord of the Text, and apologize for any misuse of his characters that I have committed.

I bow also to all the authors, living or dead, whose works I have quoted in this story: Umberto Eco, T.S. Eliot, Elwen Aiwelinde.

A final bow to Loreena McKennitt, whose song 'Dante's Prayer' helped inspire both my Elrond stories, although I have not found a place to put the verses:

When the dawn seemed forever lost

You showed me your love in the light of the stars.

If you would like to read more about Galadriel and Celeborn in the First Age, I strongly recommend Oboe-Wan's delightful story 'Silver and Gold,' available on this site.

Thank you to all the kind reviewers whose enthusiasm helped me get this story to its conclusion. I am grateful with all my heart.