Bet it feels good as fuckkk to rest your hand on the pommel of your sword when the newcomer steps a little too close to your lord who youâve sworn to protect with your life
A/N: This one takes place during the finale of season 2 of The Rings of Power.
IX. Fall
At the edge of a cliff, Galadriel stood alone.
Though Sauronâs voice was in her head, she found herself still in control of her thoughts, still capable of moving her limbs. But Celebrimbor had been rightâit was not strength that would overcome this darkness. She could not win by fighting.
In this strange pool of clarity that perhaps was a gift from Nenyaâor perhaps was simply a part of dyingâShe saw her actions here as part of a chain of echoing events that stretched back thousands of years.
There was only one way of escape. Celebrimbor had known it, and Elwing long ago, and perhaps even Finrod in the pits of Tol-in-Gaurhoth. Now it was Galadrielâs turn.
For Finrod, she spat in Sauronâs face the eternal defiance of all the free peoples of Middle Earth.
For Celebrimbor, she closed her fist around Nenya.
And for Elrond, who still lived somewhere below, she stepped backward.
The second she proved she was beyond Sauronâs control, she was also beyond his reach. And the burden of every vow, every failure, every duty, the drive to prove herself greater than the darknessâit was all left behind on the clifftop.
Galadriel had never felt so free as when she was falling.
A/N: Takes place during the season 1 finale and season 2 premiere of The Rings of Power. Shout out to Matthew Stover's Revenge of the Sith novelization on its 20th anniversary for the inspiration of "This is Obi-Wan Kenobi in the light."
VIII. Rings
âOne is for you,â Celebrimbor said. But she knew already. Sheâd known the moment sheâd entered the workshop and seen the Three Rings glittering there.
They had a way of drawing oneâs eye.
Galadrielâs hand hovered over each in turn. Sapphire⌠ruby⌠and adamant. A rush of water in her ears, like the waters of the Glanduin.
It was what Sauron wanted⌠Sauron wanted you to have one.
She drew her hand back. âWhy me?â
âBecause,â Celebrimbor said, as though it should have been obvious. âYou sacrificed your daggerâFinrodâs dagger.â
Yes. She had done that. It was she who had sacrificed for the Ringsâ creation. And she who had come up with the idea for Threeâfor balance. To thwart any intention Sauron might have had. To manifest the Rings as a power for good. Of course they called out to her.
And they were all she had left, now, of Finrodâof her brother, and of her vow. Of course her heart called out to them in return.
âAnd becauseâŚâ Celebrimbor smiled that half-smile heâd directed at her ever since they were children in Valinor. âYouâre⌠Well, you were in my thoughts, I suppose, as I worked on them. Itâs right that you have one.â
Yes. Perhaps Celebrimbor was correct. With one of these Rings, she could make up for all that sheâd doneâand more. And then, she would beâŚ
A queen.
No. At peace.
***
A stillness fell over the Elves of Lindon.
The Rings had a way of drawing oneâs breath away.
But it was to Galadriel that the Ring of Adamant came.
It glistened in the somber courtyard with a light of its own. In that light, held between her fingers, the twisted metal flowed and bubbled like fountains, like underground rivers, like forest streams feeding great, silver trees that soared up to hold serene dwellings in their branches.
âGaladriel,â Elrond pleaded. âNo.â
But he did not understand; this Ring had chosen her. It belonged to her.
After all she had sacrificed, how dare he say it did not?
She slid the Ring onto her finger and at once heard the rushing of tides in her ears, felt the water flowing, rising through her veins, purifying and subsuming her fĂŤa.
Nenya, she thought, and knew that it was not her own thought, but the Ring telling her its name.
While she stood rooted to the spot, water carried her under mountains and over seas until she emerged into voices singing and⌠light. Light that was both of her and outside of her. It bloomed all around, and Galadriel looked up and saw it was the Tree.
For the first time in millennia, the world was illuminated by treelight. The leaves shone on Galadrielâs face, and she was a child again in a home that was golden, unpolluted and perfect.
She had not felt that light since⌠since Sauron had conjured it inside her mind in the gardens of Eregion. Since that day, she had moved through a world in muted, dull grey until the power from Nenya had welled up in her and made everything vibrant.
A/N: This one takes place in The Rings of Power season 1.
VI. Seafarers
Galadriel knew these cliffs before theyâd had faces, and sheâd known the faces when theyâd been sharp with chisel-marks.
She remembered sailing into NĂşmenor the first time with Elrond at her side. Heâd been nervous. Elrond always was a bit uneasy on the seaâit was not his element the way it had been his fatherâs, though he could swim and sail well enough. Galadriel got the sense that he resented it for calling so many he loved away from him.
But Elros had swept his hand grandly toward the burgeoning town. âHere it is,â heâd said. âHome.â
Elros, Elrond, and Galadriel all knew what it was to follow a singular star unwaveringly through the dark.
But in that moment, Galadriel had recognized in Elrond something she often felt in herself: the feeling of looking in on something warm and inviting and knowing oneself to be irrevocably apart from it. Sheâd taken his hand and squeezed it, just so that heâd know she was there with him.
Elros had found his harbor. She and Elrond, Galadriel suspected, would spend centuries more in search of theirs.
Now, millennia later, with Elros gone longer than heâd lived, the faces carved into the cliffs of NĂşmenor were weathered and covered in moss. This time Galadriel sailed not with the friend sheâd found stranded on the beach as a boy, but with the stranger whoâd found her stranded on the open water.
âWeâre nearly there,â the captain said.
Halbrand asked, âNearly where?â
âHome.â
Halbrand was nervous. There was trepidation in his eyes that he could not completely hide as he took in the many towers of NĂşmenor.
In that moment, Galadriel recognized in Halbrand something sheâd felt in herself, ever since Elrond and Gil-Galad had conspired to banish her from Middle-Earth.
The High King, Elrond, Elros in his time, likely even this shipâs captain knew what it was to be guided by a single star through the dark.
But Galadriel and Halbrand knew what it was like when the stars vanished in the fog and you had to keep swimming, keep sailing, with nothing to guide you. They knew what those others could not, what it was to sail into the storm.
Galadriel turned away from Halbrand and fixed her eyes on the Meneltarma. She wondered whether they had truly come out of that storm yet. She wondered whether she would ever see the stars again.
"Begone, foul dwimmerlaik!": A linguistic analysis
(Disclaimer: It's possible someone has come to these exact same conclusions before. Because this essay was just for funsies, i didn't check.)
When Ăowyn confronts the Witch King of Angmar on the Pelennor fields, the first thing she says to him is, âBegone, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion! Leave the dead in peace!â
We can assume that, with âdwimmerlaik,â she has slipped into the Rohirric language, if only because of its similarity to the place name âDwimorberg,â the location of the door to the Paths of the Dead that Tolkien translates as âHaunted Mountain.â And indeed, dwimor/dwimer is an Old English word (Tolkien uses Old English as a stand-in for the language of Rohan) meaning, according to the Bosworth Toller Old English Dictionary, âillusion, delusion, apparition; phantom; error.â
But what stood out to me most is the second half of the compound, âlaik.â On first seeing it, I thought, âhey, I know that word,â and I know that word because it isnât Old English, itâs Middle English (and specifically because it shows up a lot in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which Iâll come back to later).
In fact, the whole compound word shows up in the Middle English Dictionary as dweomerlak or demerlayk, so it seems very likely that Tolkien came across it in a Middle English text before deciding to use it as the Witch Kingâs epithet. But while he âRohiricizesâ Middle English dweomer/demer to something more like a standard Old English form, âdwimmer,â he does not do the same with laik. The âaiâ or âayâ vowel combination isnât typical of Old English.
Why break with the fairly straightforward use of Old English for Rohirric with this specific word? After all, âlaikâ has an Old English rootâthe word âlac.â
Both âlaikâ and âlacâ have a number of possible definitions. I think the Witch King is a dwimmerlaik instead of a dwimmerlac to point us toward which one Tolkien intends.
Bosworth Toller states that âthe idea which lies at the root of the various meaningsâ of lac âseems to be that of motion.â According to the dictionary entry, while the Icelandic cognate leikr came to more often indicate games or playâa connotation the word retained in âthe dialect of the North of Englandââand relatedly, both Icelandic and English used the word to mean âbattle,â the most common definitions of Old English lac are related to gifts and offerings.
But Tolkien didnât want the Witch King to be interpreted as a phantom gift or a phantom offering, so he couldnât âretroliterateâ laik into his typical Rohirric/ Old English.
The Middle English âlaik,â on the other hand, in all its various spellings, is derived from both lac and the Scandinavian leik/leikr, and its most common uses by far are related to games, sport, play, and amusement. In retaining the Middle English here, Tolkien points us toward a definition of âdwimmerlaikâ that has Ăowyn calling the Witch King a kind of phantom/illusion play/game.
The connotation of this is epic mockery. âDwimmerâ underlines that the Witch King is a wraith, yes, but it also identifies him as insubstantial, not real. And as a laik, he is something not to be taken seriously. He is a phantom play, an illusion game. Something that will dissipate if you wave your hand and say the right magic words.
Also note that the Witch King is not the producer of the illusion here, he is the product, the illusion itself. âDwimmerlaikâ implies that, although he may take the name of âWitch King,â he is not the sorcerer behind his own manifestation. His form has been manipulated into existence by the real big bad, Sauron. This is a âshadow of Morgothâ-level insult.
The Middle English dweomerlak/demerlayk backs this upâthe Middle English Dictionary defines this word as âmagic art, witchcraft.â So the Witch King is not in fact the witch, he is the craft. He is not the magician, he is the magic trick.
Just a trick. A trick inside the mind of the beholder, perhapsâa reminder that despair, which is the Witch Kingâs greatest weapon, is a lie.
And the thing about tricks is that they can be figured out, and then the illusion is undone.
This is exactly what Ăowyn does on the Pelennor. When the Witch King tells her, âNo living man may hinder me!â she points out the loophole: âBut no living man am I! You look upon a woman.â
For the first time, doubt enters the Witch Kingâs mind, giving Merry (also not a man) the opportunity to stab him in the leg with the sword he got from the barrow wight (not a living man). Ăowyn (a woman) seizes the opening to stab him in the face, and poof! Like any decent magic trick or phantom or illusion, the Witch King vanishes.
In calling him a dwimmerlaik, then, Tolkien clues us in to something essential about the Witch Kingâs nature and hints at the means of his imminent defeat: he is a trick to decipher, a game to play.
More specifically, he is a word gameâthe chink Ăowyn finds in his armor is a linguistic one, making the means of his death the solution to a riddle. âWhat can kill something invulnerable to living men?â I think Tolkienâs use of dwimmerlaik tips us off about this, too, if we look at where he might have encountered both âlaikâ and âdwimmerlaikâ before.
More analysis involving specific Middle English texts, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Cleanness, below the cut.
That brings me back to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (SGGK), one of the Middle English texts where âlaikâ (or âlayk,â as itâs spelled there) appears most frequentlyâand where it has drawn quite a bit of critical attention, because the way this poem deals with games and play is interesting and weird. (As I say above, itâs the first thing I thought of when I saw âlaikâ in âdwimmerlaik.â)
We know Tolkien was very familiar with SGGK because he produced his own translation of it and was the co-producer of what was for a long time its standard critical edition. So, although it isnât one of the three Middle English texts that features the compound word dwemerlak/demerlayk, itâs not unreasonable to think that Tolkien might have taken SGGK into consideration when he chose to stick with âlaikâ over âlac.â
It's even possible to draw some parallels between SGGK and Ăowynâs confrontation with the Witch King, particularly in the connotations of her âdwimmerlaikâ insult.
SGGK, like Ăowynâs big moment of the Pelennor fields, features a lone knight facing down a giant, supernatural, occasionally headless foe. The Green Knight is a dwimmerlaik in that he himself is a trick, a form of play, a riddle. He rides into King Arthurâs courtâhis appearance a strange mix of the courtly world, the natural world, and the otherworld that is difficult to parseâdeclaring that he is there for a âChristmas game.â This turns out to be, in fact, a beheading game: someone is to take one big whack at him with an axe, but he gets to return the same blow in a year. Gawain ends up cutting the Green Knightâs head off, but then the Knight picks his head back up and rides away. He later reveals that this was an attempt to trick Queen Guinevere and scare her to death. But when that doesnât work, itâs Gawain who has to undergo another series of games and tests (a hunt paired with a seduction/courtly love game, then an exchange of winnigs), all to solve the puzzle of how to a) keep his word to the Green Knight, and b) survive doing so. He succeeds in the end, more or less, when all the games and tests turn out to be clues toward solving the one big riddle of the Green Knightâs true nature and identity.
In the end, the Green Knight, like the Witch King, is also a dwimmerlaik in that (spoiler alert for a 700-year-old text) he is a work of a greater sorcererâs witchcraft. In fact, while the actual text (in the Andrew-Waldron edition) has him say, âBertilak de Hautdesert I hat in Ăžis londe./ ĂurČ myČt of Morgne la Faye, Ăžat in my hous lenges (Bertilak de Hautdesert I am called in this land./ Through the might of Morgan le Fay, that dwells in my house),â Tolkienâs translation inserts a line to make sure the reader interprets Morgan le Fay as the sorceress behind the Green Knightâs supernatural appearance: âBertilak de Hautdesert hereabouts I am called,/ [who thus have been enchanted and changed in my hue]/ by the might of Morgan le Fay that in my mansion dwelleth.â The Green Knight himself is just some guy hiding in plain sight, not that scary or impressive at all.
So that gives us an idea of what âlaikingâ is like in SGGK and some of the connotations Tolkien might have had in mind when he chose itâthat games and puzzles usually involve trickery and can be deadly serious. And you might not even know youâre playing until all the clues come together.
But what about the compound word demerlayk/dweomorlak? Where was Tolkien likely to have seen it, and did that context influence his decision to have Ăowyn use it against the Witch King?
According to the University of Michiganâs Middle English Dictionary, the word only appears in three Middle English texts: twice as dweomerlak/dweomerlac in LaČamonâs Brut, once as demerlayk in the Wars of Alexander, and twice as demerlayk/demorlayk in Cleanness. Tolkien could have read all of theseâthey all had editions published in the 19th century. Itâs likely he read the Brut, since thatâs an Arthurian text, but note that, while the first half of the compound has the âwâ more reminiscent of Old English âdwimerâ and dwimmerlaik, the second half doesnât use the distinctively Middle English laik/layk spelling that Tolkien chose to retain.
I donât think itâs a coincidence that one of these three texts, Cleanness, appears in the same manuscript (called Cotton Nero A.x) as SGGK and may have the same author. While a cursory search doesnât show Tolkien as having done any work with Cleanness in particular, he would have been familiar with it, and may even have examined/read it in the manuscript while working on his edition of SGGK.
The word âdemerlaykâ features in Cleannessâs retelling of the Biblical episode of King Belshazzarâs feast, where a disembodied hand appears and writes a message on the wall. Belshazzar sends for men âĂat wer wyse of wychecrafte, and warlaČes oĂžer/ Ăat con dele with demerlayk and deuine lettres (That were wise in witchcraft and other warlocks/ that could deal with demerlayk and interpret letters)â to decipher the message. Accordingly, among the âclerkes,â âwychez,â âwalkyries,â and âsorsersâ who answer the call are âdeuinores of demorlaykes Ăžat dremes cowĂže rede (diviners of demerlaykes that could interpret dreams/visions).â
Significantly, the dwimmerlaik in this poemâthe mysterious writing on the wallâis, like the Green Knight, something to be deciphered; the game/play that comes with the phantom/illusion is a linguistic puzzle to be solved. Daniel ultimately reads the writing on the wall, interpreting that King Belshazzar has been found wanting and therefore the days of his dominion, like those of the Witch Kingâs, are numbered.
I think that Tolkienâs understanding of âdwimmerlaikâ may have been influenced by these texts such that, for him, the word doesnât just refer to play and games, but to games that involve solving a puzzle or riddle. In using it to refer to the Witch King, he points to the kind of phantom/illusion game/play Ăowyn is dealing with and how she will defeat him.
The solution to all the Green Knightâs games and riddles is that he is not what he seems; he is, like the Witch King, only the result of a greater sorcererâs enchantment. And in Cleanness, the solution to the word-puzzle brings an evil Kingâs rule to an end. These two laiks and Ăowynâs with the Witch King are all of the high-stakes, life-and-death variety, and all are resolved with the unraveling of identity.
Another part of the laiking in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the incongruous laughterâGawain and King Arthur laugh after the Green Knight picks up his severed head and rides out, and the poem ends with the courtâs laughter after Gawain tells the story of how a moral failing almost cost him his life on the quest. Ăowyn, too, lets out an incongruous laugh after the Witch King says, âNo living man may hinder meââbut in her case, the laughter, though in the middle of a field of desperate battle, is not so difficult to interpret. She laughs because she has just figured out the trick, solved the puzzle, found the answer to the riddle. And she is going to win this shadow game.
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