Nerdanel's Story: Prologue

Everything needs to begin somewhere, unless you are into infinite regression. For everything there is a 'first'. Today I have dealt with a HTML code, (I think!) and I feel quite pleased with myself. I have found an appropriate URL, and even uploaded a picture! Wow! I have even edited this page!

I know this must sound purile, but I have gained a sense of satisfaction from doing what many others can do in their sleep. And the instructions on this site are so helpful, even I can't go wrong. Can I ?

What will I learn next? It is a bit of an adventure! So was waving a family member off on yet another of his voyages of exploration!

But on to the writing.

I know what I am writing will not be to the taste of all those who love Professor Tolkien's works. Some may read and think: 'He is NOT like that!', or 'NO way did that happen!'. More likely folk will think it is rubbish, or I will just have made a lot of mistakes. I am not a Tolkien scholar, as will soon be evidenced. This is but my interpretation of what I have read. And I have enjoyed writing it down as far as I have, with the help and prompting of some very good friends.

You may have seen this already, because I have submitted it to two, good, Tolkien sites. But I want the freedom to edit without adding 'hits', and to post at will. That I hope to gain from the blog.


Nerdanel’s Story: Prologue.


As I use Quenya names, I have put a list of the better-known names of the characters, and some explanatory notes, at the bottom of the chapter.

With thanks to Bellemaine for beta reading, and to Eru_Melin.

Disclaimer: All of the characters, places, and the main story line are JRR Tolkien’s wonderful creations. All references are from The Silmarillion, or HoME Volumes 1, 10 or 12. Nothing is mine, except the interpretation and any mistakes. I make no money from this.)



‘Her (Míriel’s) death was a lasting grief to Fëanor, and both directly and by its further consequences a main cause of his later disastrous influence on the history of the Noldor.’

(The Shibboleth of Fëanor. HoME 12 The Peoples of Middle Earth. JRR Tolkien. HarperCollins Ed. 2002 p333)



The house of Sarmo Urundil. Seventh Age.



I rarely go up to Tirion now. I stay in my father’s house, in the dwellings of the Aulenduri that are to be found further into the Calacirya than the city. My hröa is tired with what has increasingly become the labour of living and my memories weigh most heavily upon my fëa. Soon will I seek release - to wander in the hills for a final time and then, mayhap, lay myself down in the gardens of Irmo Lórien to breath forth my last breath.

They say: ‘The Lady Nerdanel endures, despite her loss and her shame. She is strong, and will prevail until the End.’

But they have not my memories; they know not how I truly feel. Many have endured loss, many have been sundered from those they love because of the kinslayings or the exile, or doom encountered in the Hither Lands. But none of them bore seven children. None bore seven sons, who yet fell from the light and nobility that was their birthright to become oath-bound murderers. None of them were wife to the mightiest and most skilled of all the Noldor; the one who created the Great Jewels, who led the rebellion against the Valar, who was blamed for our greatest woes.

"His fire consumed his lady mother. Now, finally, the outworking of his deeds will consume you!” my father says bitterly. “Soon you, also, will have no choice but to seek respite from this existence. You cannot continue through more ages like this.”

My father’s words are meant to stir me into denial, into taking hold of life again even as he says Maitimo would have done had he returned from the Hither Lands. But Maitimo did not so return; neither has he returned from the Halls of Awaiting. None of my sons have. And I grow weary these last years, with the loss of all hope of beholding any one of them again in the land of the living.

As I ponder the past, I remember that day of such perplexity when Queen Míriel lay down to rest. Most weary indeed had she become, for, since giving birth to her son she had no more strength nor will to live. The death of an immortal in Aman - it was unthinkable! How much more so that it was something she had freely determined to embrace. I remember talk of the grief of King Finwë, that he could not hold her to this life with any plea; that though his love for her was a great and glad thing, it was not enough. And I remember the lasting grief that the unnatural denial of a mother’s love and nurture caused to her son, Fëanáro. Though he was nigh early youth when she sought death yet was he most pained by his loss, for dearly did he love her and, as with all Eldar in the Blessed Realm, thought never to be parted from any of his family. So did he bury himself in his works and journeys of exploration to ease his distress. Many indeed are those who can remember Fëanáro’s later deeds, and with no great joy. But it is the beginning I speak of. I, at least, remember it all so very well.

I was a little over two years of age at the time Míriel breathed forth. I heard a great deal about there ‘surely being healing in Aman’, and about the realisation that this event had taken even the Valar by surprise. My father, for he was foremost of the Servants of Aulë and of the masons of the House of Finwë, gathered us together: his wife, his only child, his apprentices and servants. We all sought the peace and reassurance of the Valar for ourselves in such a disturbing situation, but mostly we sought peace and comfort for the bereaved king and prince.

“There is something gravely wrong in this. It will lead to an anguish we cannot yet foresee,” my mother had warned.

“The Valar know what is best. We can trust them to resolve the situation,” my father replied, though he, too, had many misgivings.

Both he and my mother knew of loss, from those of their number who had chosen not to make the Great Journey, or who had been taken or slain by Moringotho in the Hither Lands, (I cannot bring myself to write the fairer name that Vala was once known by). But we knew not of death in Aman. Most certainly we knew not death by free will! We were so naive; it was something then, unlike now, that was utterly beyond our comprehension. Míriel was, and then she was not! How could that be?

“Let her rest. The strength she gave up to bear Fëanáro was great. She will return in time, when she is healed. She will be reunited with her hröa,” they had said.

But Míriel did not return. A short time it seemed before our king, journeying upon the western slopes of Mount Oiolossë on a visit to his friend, King Ingwë, had met with another. Not that such an event would have had great influence on me had I not, also, met with someone while walking in the hills.

Ai! I remember it as if it were yesterday! I remember the first time we met, so very clearly. When first I beheld him I was to know what beauty and strength and authority were; for he possessed all of those qualities in a measure far greater than any I had ever known. That he had other qualities too, I was soon to discover. We walked and rode together at will, away from the dwellings of the Noldor, making many journeys of exploration into the hills and across the plains of Valinor. We discussed matters of lore, of craft, of our wishes for the future and, to my delight, I found we developed such a love and affinity of fëa that there could only be one outcome. The wedding of King Finwë to the Lady Indis of the Vanyar saw the resurgence of joy in the life of one of the bereaved. I believe I brought a measure of joy back into the life of the other.

Curufinwë Fëanáro was soon to play a central role in the history of the Noldor, along with those two half-brothers whom Indis bore to Finwë. He was to become the mightiest, the most awe-inspiring figure of the Age of the Trees. Ever in the background was I, and glad to so be. Yet I made my presence felt, and not just through those sons I bore and loved in turn. Later lore may have all but disregarded my existence, but then later lore was written by those who had little love for my family, and re-written by mortals. Little do they know of one who left not the shores of Aman. Little do they care about one considered wise, rather than beautiful.

I often live in memory of those early days; the golden time before the release of the Vala who was to bring doom upon us all. That time do I ponder upon, before Fëanáro came to his full strength and began his greatest works. My husband’s creation of the Silmarils was a wonder beyond wonders, but their magnificence only illuminated his tendency to possessiveness. Jealousy of any who desired what he deemed his by right, and pride in his supreme mastery of skills it was that made him vulnerable to the path of folly - possessiveness of the light, that caused he, who loved the light, to stumble into darkness. And in that same moment Moringotho, consumed with hatred and with envy of his own, began his well-placed whispers of deception. Those lies, which further bound Fëanáro to the work of his hands, would in the fullness of time consume him. Such a waste it was; such a waste of what he should have become; what he should yet have wrought for the glory of Arda. Such a waste of joy it was, and of love.

In memory there is still fulfilment. For a short time I can forget all the grief that followed fast upon those days. I long to be with him again. I long to be captured by his piercing gaze, to be filled by that life and energy that flowed through him as a living fire. I long to be out in the hills once more with him, and with those beautiful sons he gave me; strong and swift and eager they all were.

But they are in the Halls of Awaiting long since. Only I remain in Elvenhome.

At times, when I read some of what is written, I wonder how much of it I dreamt and how much was real? I do not recognise my family at all in some works, while others leave out matters that were of great import. They say still that he was wicked, that Fëanáro and our sons were cruel and fell. They became so, mayhap, but it was not always thus. I make no plea against the blasphemy of their oath, nor against the awful destruction they wrought upon our own kind through three kinslayings. But where their father went, our sons would follow unquestioningly - for he was ever their ‘bright flame’ as well as mine. As for my lord himself: to be the first among our people in Aman to have a loved one die; to be the first among our people to have a loved one slain; to be the object at which Moringotho’s insidious hate was aimed; to have stolen from him that to which his heart was bound; was it any wonder Fëanáro became fell; that by the time of the oath he was nigh out of his mind, nigh consumed by his pain and wrath?

The Valar understood. Even though they condemned the eldest son of Finwë, they mourned for his marring as much as for the destruction of the Trees. Was it not reported, and by the Vanyar, that Manwë, himself, wept?

My consolation and trial is to ponder the past, the burden of memory, and live in it again and again, and wonder if, at any point, I could have made a difference to the way things developed. When I look back, it was as if I were the smallest corner of a triangle in which those two most powerful beings of their kind contended. I tried to reason with him in those last years, for I was one of the very few to whom he would pay heed. Long indeed did I endeavour to change Fëanáro’s mood as slowly but surely, the loathsome evil of 'Morgoth' corrupted him, twisting him from my counsel and from my arms. We were in conflict, Moringotho and I, though at the time I knew it not, and he had all the advantage. The power of a Vala against my small wisdom! Yet I fought for my husband’s heart, for his innate nobility every step of the way…almost every step! That I did not go with him into exile, to Formenos, is the thought that has long plagued me.

His father would not be parted from him, nay, not in guiltlessness for his actions, neither in guilt. Finwë’s love was never to falter. I should have made clear to him that my love never faltered either. I should have been with him! In seeking to be estranged from him, or rather, estranged from his deeds, did I fail Fëanáro most grievously, and so, also, our sons. Yet mayhap do I delude myself, that anything anyone could have said or done would have made a difference once Finwë was slain - once the Great Jewels were taken.

Many of those who died in the flight from Aman, in the kinslayings and in the first four Ages have returned to their families once more. They walk the fields, the hills and the shores in joy. Many more have been reunited upon Tol Eressëa, that place where the returned exiles may dwell in sight of the Blessed Realm. Yet time passes but slowly here. Few are those who have returned of late. For some, there is no forgiveness it seems; so dire were their deeds. There is no forgiveness for my sons, for my lord, have I oft pondered. When they departed my life in that darkest of nights did I not fear it was forever, and so has it proven. So does my hope fade, and I, too, freely make that choice to depart. Yet it strikes me that, before I will my own doom, I will write down what happened in those early years, as it happened; and that for me will be another way to be with them all again in the times of innocence. Who is to say, but in the doing I may wrench back the smallest of victories from Moringotho, for he who was my lord and my love. And in that, my heart will be at rest.


*****


Tirion – City of the Noldor in Eldamar. Originally the Vanyar dwelt there also.
Calacirya – Cleft of Light. Tirion is built on the hill of Túna in the Calacirya.
Fëa – Spirit
Hröa - Body
Aulenduri - Servants of Aulë
Maitimo - Maedhros
Moringotho – Morgoth
Oiolossë – The name most commonly used by the Eldar for Taniquetil, where the High King Ingwë dwelt to be nearer to Manwë.


There is a discrepancy concerning the time of Míriel’s death between The Silmarillion, and Home Vol12. The Silmarillion (supported by HoME 10) seems to say she died shortly after Fëanor’s birth, while the ‘Shibboleth of Fëanor’ in HoME 12, ‘The People’s of Middle Earth’, says she ‘endured until he was full grown’. I have veered towards what I think were possibly Tolkien’s later thoughts on this matter.


In this story I am writing years in terms of Years of the Trees. In The Annals of Aman Morgoth’s Ring J.R.R. Tolkien. Ed C. Tolkien, it says that ‘Here begins a new reckoning in the Light of the Trees’ P 70. On p 59 / 60 there is a footnote which seems to give explanation of that time in comparison to our time of reckoning, as follows:
1 hour of the Trees = 7 hours
1 day of the Trees = 84 hours.
1 Year of the Trees = 9.582 years.

When I write of Nerdanel being a little over two years of age, it is two Years of the Trees. So she is about 20 of our years when Míriel dies. However, as it also explains in Morgoth’s Ring p 210 that:

“Children of Men might reach their full height while Eldar of the same age were still in body like to mortals of no more than seven years. Not until the fiftieth year did the Eldar attain the stature and shape in which their lives would afterwards endure, and for some a hundred years would pass before they were full-grown.”