Favorite Five

For the last few days I have been reading The Silmarillion for the first time.  So today's quotes are going to be five (I have closer to five hundred) of my favorite from it.


  A sister they had, Galadriel, most beautiful of all the house of Finwë; her hair was lit with gold as though it had caught in a mesh the radiance of Laurelin.


  Finrod was with Turgon, his friend; but Galadriel, the only woman of the Noldor to stand that day tall and valiant among the contending princes, was eager to be gone.  No oaths she swore, but the words of Fëanor concerning Middle-earth had kindled in her heart, for she yearned to see the wide unguarded lands and to rule there a realm of her own will.


  The fire of their hearts was young, and led by Fingolfin and his sons, and by Finrod and Galadriel, they dared to pass into the bitterest North; and finding no other way they endured at last the terror of the Helcaraxë and the cruel hills of ice.


  For Maedhros begged forgiveness for the desertion in Araman; and he waived his claim to kingship over all the Noldor, saying to Fingolfin: "If there lay no grievance between us, lord, still the kingship would rightly come to you, the eldest here of the house of Finwë, and not the least wise."


  Melian said nothing to him at that time, but afterwards she said to Galadriel: "Now the world runs on swiftly to great tidings.  And one of Men, even of Bëor's house, shall indeed come, and the Girdle of Melian shall not restrain him, for doom greater than my power shall send him; and the songs that shall spring from that coming shall endure when all Middle-earth is changed."

Guys, this is a quite different Galadriel than the one that we know from Lord of the Rings.  This proud Noldorian princess is not the wise, gentle Lady of Lorien who we are used to!  And she was there from the beginning.  She lived with Thingol and Melian, she watched Lúthien grow up, she was there when Lúthien fell in love with a mortal, she saw the grief it caused Melian, she KNOWS!!!  There is a reason that Arwen was Galadriel's granddaughter, because she alone knows how is has to be.  And she isn't only Elrond's mother-in-law, she is also his cousin by marriage because Nimloth, Dior's wife, is a cousin of Celeborn's, so Aragorn is actually blood related to Celeborn.

So yeah, in case you can't tell, I am completely adoring this book and I can't go above a few chapters without telling Mel once again how amazing Tolkien was!!!!  And no it doesn't annoy her because she did the same thing to me when she was reading it!!!