B2MEM Day Twenty-Three, The Tower: The World Was Fair in Durin's Day
Today's Challenge: Everyone avoided the tower. It was believed to have ...
Write a story or poem that starts with this line or create a piece of art that reflects this line.
This nearly did for me, I should just like to point out! - had I not already covered Dol Guldur, which is the place associated with today's challenge, it would have been easier, but I'd been there with Legolas and Oropher and done that. Apologies to curiouswombat and espresso_addict that we still have not met Aulë, but this is another potential meeting that had been intriguing me - though again you've ended up with more footnotes than text...
The World Was Fair in Durin’s Day
Everyone avoided the tower. It was believed to have been at its foot, at Finwë’s door, that Fëanor first drew sword on a kinsman… Some such Elvish legend. Gimli is not so easily put off; he wishes to examine the stonework. Absorbed, he does not notice the raven-haired Noldo emerge, and is astounded when he is addressed in Khuzdul:
“Good day, Master Dwarf.”
“Y-you speak my tongue?”
“Rustily from disuse, I fear. Tell me,” wistfully, “do the West-gates of Khazad-dûm stand yet?”
Pride, grief, heartsickness for home swell together at the thought. “They do.”
Celebrimbor bows low. “I am glad.”
~~~
We don’t know whether or not Celebrimbor’s been re-embodied after his time in Mandos (he was slain by Sauron during the Second Age after Sauron seized the Rings of Power), but it seems possible - as did the idea that he might then dwell in his ancestral home, his great-uncle Finwë’s house in Tirion (since his father and grandfather, Curufin and Fëanor, moved to a fortress up in Formenos in the remote north of Aman after the making of the Silmarils). I don't know for sure whether Finwë's house had towers either, but according to the Sil, Tirion's buildings were very tower-y. Fëanor's drawing sword on his half-brother Fingolfin at the door of their father's house was infamously the first breaking of the peace of Valinor after Morgoth had started persuading the Noldor to forge weapons.
Nor do we know for certain whether Celebrimbor spoke Khuzdul, which the Dwarves were generally very loath to teach to other races; but we do know that his father Curufin spoke it ("Curufin was most interested in the alien language of the Dwarves, being the only one of the Noldor to win their friendship. It was from him that the loremasters obtained such knowledge as they could of the Khuzdûl." - HoME, The Peoples of Middle-earth) and if Curufin had learned it, surely his son Celebrimbor, the most celebrated Dwarf-friend of the Second Age who together with the Dwarf Narvi made the great West-gates of Moria, might also have done so?
Write a story or poem that starts with this line or create a piece of art that reflects this line.
This nearly did for me, I should just like to point out! - had I not already covered Dol Guldur, which is the place associated with today's challenge, it would have been easier, but I'd been there with Legolas and Oropher and done that. Apologies to curiouswombat and espresso_addict that we still have not met Aulë, but this is another potential meeting that had been intriguing me - though again you've ended up with more footnotes than text...
The World Was Fair in Durin’s Day
Everyone avoided the tower. It was believed to have been at its foot, at Finwë’s door, that Fëanor first drew sword on a kinsman… Some such Elvish legend. Gimli is not so easily put off; he wishes to examine the stonework. Absorbed, he does not notice the raven-haired Noldo emerge, and is astounded when he is addressed in Khuzdul:
“Good day, Master Dwarf.”
“Y-you speak my tongue?”
“Rustily from disuse, I fear. Tell me,” wistfully, “do the West-gates of Khazad-dûm stand yet?”
Pride, grief, heartsickness for home swell together at the thought. “They do.”
Celebrimbor bows low. “I am glad.”
~~~
We don’t know whether or not Celebrimbor’s been re-embodied after his time in Mandos (he was slain by Sauron during the Second Age after Sauron seized the Rings of Power), but it seems possible - as did the idea that he might then dwell in his ancestral home, his great-uncle Finwë’s house in Tirion (since his father and grandfather, Curufin and Fëanor, moved to a fortress up in Formenos in the remote north of Aman after the making of the Silmarils). I don't know for sure whether Finwë's house had towers either, but according to the Sil, Tirion's buildings were very tower-y. Fëanor's drawing sword on his half-brother Fingolfin at the door of their father's house was infamously the first breaking of the peace of Valinor after Morgoth had started persuading the Noldor to forge weapons.
Nor do we know for certain whether Celebrimbor spoke Khuzdul, which the Dwarves were generally very loath to teach to other races; but we do know that his father Curufin spoke it ("Curufin was most interested in the alien language of the Dwarves, being the only one of the Noldor to win their friendship. It was from him that the loremasters obtained such knowledge as they could of the Khuzdûl." - HoME, The Peoples of Middle-earth) and if Curufin had learned it, surely his son Celebrimbor, the most celebrated Dwarf-friend of the Second Age who together with the Dwarf Narvi made the great West-gates of Moria, might also have done so?