Galadriel
Nerwen; the Lady of the Noldor; the silver light of the Eldar
Name and Lineage
Galadriel — the daughter of Finarfin and Eärwen, the only daughter of the House of Finarfin; in her blazon the light of the Two Trees (seen in Valinor), the sea-light of the Teleri (through her mother), and the doom of her kindred. Her mother-name Nerwen (“man-maiden”) marks her as the Amazon of the tale; her later Artanis (in the Shaping) and the Sindarin Galadriel (“maiden crowned with radiant garland”) all name her brightness. She was “the greatest of the women of the Eldar” — the Quenta: “she was the fairest of all the women of the Noldor” — she — she is “the mightiest and fairest of all the Elves that remained in Middle-earth”.
The Exile Two strands of her story by the First Age:
- The forbidden exile: Galadriel was, per one tradition, one of the leaders of the rebellion — she — she was of the — the Unfinished Tales account: “Galadriel, the only woman of the Noldor to stand forth” — she “yearned to see the wide untrodden lands and to rule there”, and she stayed (per that account) even when pardon was offered; she rebelled against the Valar’s decree — and was under the ban of Mandos until the age’s end — in the final texts her part in the Rebellion is softened; in the Shaping she alone of the Women — Christopher Tolkien’s long note (in Unfinished Tales) sorts the versions.
- In Beleriand: She came in exile with the host (per the older texts), dwelt in Doriath under Melian, to whose counsels she was dear — she learned from the wise queen and was — she wed Celeborn of Doriath (in the later form, of the Teleri). Her part in the tale is quiet but her light is the standard: the Quenta’s closing images of her (and her brothers’ deaths, and her long survival) make her the thread from the First Age to all that follows.
Late and Last
Beyond the First Age, Galadriel — ruler by counsel and gift — carried the memory of the Trees into the Third Age, the last of the great rebels, honoured and forgiven (the Akallabêth and Of the Rings of Power name her among the smiths’ friends); her role in the Second Age (Eregion, the mirrors) lies partly, but her place as “the lady of the golden wood” is set from this age.
Significance
Galadriel is the survivor-heroine of the mythology: the only one of the Noldor’s great women who absolutely endures, whose refusal to be pardoned (or to fall) keeps the “light of the morning” alive; she embodies the Elvish ideal of wisdom, severity and mercy — and Tolkien’s most sustained portrait of a great woman.