And Leave of Gold There Grew by StarSpray

And Leaves of Gold There Grew

“Aldarion gave me these,” Gil-galad said, opening the small wooden box in his hands. On soft cloth inside nestled a handful of silvery nuts. Galadriel picked one up, turning it over in her fingers, feeling the life thrumming gently within, just waiting for the right planting. “Mellyrn, he called them. They thrive on Númenor, the first of them a gift from the Elves of Eressëa, long ago. We have tried to plant some, but they do not grow here in Lindon.” Gil-galad held out the box with a smile. “Perhaps you will have better luck in the east.” 

Long ago and far away, in her childhood, Galadriel had raced her brothers through a wood of mallorn trees in spring. They had laughed and delighted, all of them, in the golden roof above and golden floor of leaves below, and all the smooth silver pillars of trunks in between. Finrod had made many fair songs of it.

Perhaps it was from that grove that seeds had been taken to plant on Eressëa, and thence to Númenor, and thence to Middle-earth. Galadriel kept the seeds close as she passed into the east, seeking a place where they might grow.

Atop the hill that would one day be called Cerin Amroth, Galadriel knelt amid the elanor, and placed a single nut into the earth, covering it with soft warm soil. She poured water over it, and began to sing, of golden leaves and golden flowers, and silver trunks tall and strong. Gil-galad was gone, and Númenor too—but this last gift from Eressëa to reach the shores of Middle-earth would survive, and what was more, it would thrive.

That first mallorn sprouted and grew swiftly, as did the others after. The Galadhrim delighted in them, and Galadriel smiled.

Actions