Editing Lothlórien (section)

==Analysis==

[[File:Zampieri St John Evangelist.jpg|thumb|upright|Light against darkness: Haldir's description of how Lothlórien opposes Mordor echoes [[Gospel of John|John's Gospel]].<ref name="Danna"/><br />''St John the Evangelist'' by [[Domenichino]], c. 1626]]

===Land of light===

{{see|Light in Tolkien's legendarium}}

The Tolkien scholar [[Paul H. Kocher]] writes that Galadriel perceives Sauron with Lothlórien's light, "but cannot be pierced by it in return".{{sfn|Kocher|1974|p=57}} The good intelligence has the "imaginative sympathy" to penetrate the evil intelligence, but not ''vice versa''.{{sfn|Kocher|1974|p=57}} The Christian author Elizabeth Danna writes that the Elf Haldir's explanation of this [from a ''flet'' or tree-platform high above Cerin Amroth], "In this high place you may see the two powers that are opposed to one another, and ever they strive now in thought; but whereas the light perceives the very heart of the darkness, its own secret has not yet been discovered"<ref group=T name="Lothlórien"/> echoes a [[biblical]] description: "The light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not."<ref>''[[King James Bible]]''. [[Gospel of John]] 1:5</ref><ref name="Danna">{{cite web |last=Danna |first=Elizabeth J. |title=''The Gospel of John'' and ''The Lord of the Rings'' |url=http://ejdanna.com/JohnLOTR.html |access-date=28 February 2020 |archive-date=13 February 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160213151305/http://ejdanna.com/JohnLOTR.html |url-status=dead }}<!--List of Danna's published books: https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?i=aps&k=%22Elizabeth%20Danna%22&ref=nb_sb_noss&url=search-alias%3Daps--></ref> The scholar of humanities<!--Klaipeda University, Lithuania--> Susan Robbins notes that Tolkien, a devout [[Roman Catholic]], associated light as the Bible does with "holiness, goodness, knowledge, wisdom, grace, hope, and God's revelation", and that Galadriel was one of the bearers of that light<!--along with Gandalf and Glorfindel-->.<ref name="Robbins 2017">{{cite journal |last=Robbins |first=Susan |title=The Biblical Symbol of Light in J.R.R. Tolkien's ''The Silmarillion'' and ''The Lord of the Rings'' |journal=Societal Studies |volume=9 |issue=2 |year=2017 |issn=2029-2236 |doi=10.13165/sms-17-9-2-05 |url=https://repository.mruni.eu/bitstream/handle/007/15215/4767-10614-1-SM.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y |doi-access=free |archive-date=2020-06-06 |access-date=2020-02-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200606045623/https://repository.mruni.eu/bitstream/handle/007/15215/4767-10614-1-SM.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y |url-status=dead }}</ref>

=== Earthly paradise ===

{{further|Valinor|Dreams and visions in The Lord of the Rings}}

[[File:Pearl Poet.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Earthly Paradise]]: Lothlórien has been compared to the place dreamed of in the [[Middle English]] poem ''[[Pearl (poem)|Pearl]]''.{{sfn|Shippey|2001|pp=198–199}}  Miniature from [[Pearl Manuscript|Cotton Nero A.x]] shows the Dreamer on the other side of the stream from the Pearl-maiden.]]

Lothlórien is a ''[[locus amoenus]]'', an idyllic land that Tolkien describes as having "no stain".{{sfn|Shippey|2001|pp=198–199}} The Tolkien scholar [[Tom Shippey]] notes that to get there, the Fellowship first wash off the stains of ordinary life by wading the River Nimrodel.{{sfn|Shippey|2001|pp=198–199}} He compares this perfect place to the [[Earthly Paradise]] that the dreamer speaks of in the [[Middle English]] poem ''[[Pearl (poem)|Pearl]]''.{{sfn|Shippey|2001|pp=198–199}} But then, Shippey writes, the Fellowship have to cross a rope-bridge over a second river, the Silverlode, which they must not drink from, and which the evil [[Gollum]] cannot cross.{{sfn|Shippey|2001|pp=198–199}} What place can they have come to then, he wonders: could they be "as if dead"?{{sfn|Shippey|2001|pp=198–199}}

Shippey notes however that it might be old England, the "'mountains green' of 'ancient time'" in [[William Blake]]'s ''[[Jerusalem (poem)|Jerusalem]]''.{{sfn|Shippey|2001|pp=198–199}} As evidence, Shippey explains that when they come to the deepest part of Lothlórien, the Elf Haldir welcomes them, calling the area the ''Naith'' or "[[wikt:gore#Etymology 1 2|Gore]]", both unfamiliar words for the land between two converging rivers, the Hoarwell or ''Mitheithel'', and the Loudwater or ''Bruinen'', and then giving a third word with a special resonance: the "Angle". Shippey states that the name "England" comes from the Angle between the [[Flensburg Fjord]] and the [[Schlei|River Schlei]], in the north of Germany next to Denmark, the origin of the [[Angles (people)|Angles]] among the [[Anglo-Saxons]] who founded England.{{efn|England was founded in around the 5th and 6th centuries. The connection between the foundation of England and the mythology of ''Lord of the Rings'' is discussed further in the article on [[The Shire]].<ref>{{Cite web |author=Hamerow, Helena |url=http://www.arch.ox.ac.uk/wessex.html |title=The Origins of Wessex |publisher=University of Oxford |access-date=18 November 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120702185330/https://www.arch.ox.ac.uk/wessex.html |archive-date=2 July 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref>}} He suggests that Frodo's feeling that he has "stepped over a bridge of time into a corner of the Elder Days, and was now walking in a world that was no more" may be exactly correct.{{sfn|Shippey|2001|pp=198–199}}{{sfn|Stanton|2006|pp=394–395}}

{{anchor|Time}}

===Elfland where time is different===

{{further|Elfland|Time in The Lord of the Rings}}

[[File:Katherine Cameron-Thomas the Rhymer.png|thumb|left|upright|Time in Lothlórien was distorted, as it was in Elfland for ''[[Thomas the Rhymer]]''.{{sfn|Shippey|2001|pp=89–90}} Illustration by Katherine Cameron, 1908]]

Shippey writes that in Lothlórien, Tolkien reconciles otherwise conflicting ideas regarding time-distortion in Elfland from [[European folklore]], such as is exemplified in the medieval ''[[Thomas the Rhymer]]'', who was carried off by the [[Queen of Elphame|Queen of Elfland]], and the Danish ballad [[Elvehøj|''Elvehøj'' (''Elf Hill'')]].{{sfn|Shippey|2001|pp=89–90}}

The Tolkien scholar [[Verlyn Flieger]] writes that the Fellowship debated how much time had passed while they were there, [[Sam Gamgee]] recalling that the moon was waning just before they arrived, and was new when they left, though they all felt they had only been there for a few days.<ref name="Flieger 1990">{{cite journal |last=Flieger |first=Verlyn B. |author-link=Verlyn Flieger |title=A Question of Time |date=15 March 1990 |volume=16 |issue=3 |url=https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol16/iss3/1 |journal=Mythlore }}</ref> She notes that Sam actually exclaims "Anyone would think that time did not count in there!", while Frodo sees Galadriel as "present and yet remote, a living vision of that which has already been left far behind by the flowing streams of Time" and Legolas, an Elf who ought to know how things work in Elven lands, says that time does not stop there, "but change and growth is not in all things and places alike. For Elves the world moves, and it moves both very swift and very slow. Swift, because they themselves change little, and all else fleets by. Slow, because they do not count the running years".<ref name="Flieger 1990"/>

Shippey considers Legolas's explanation to resolve the apparent contradiction between the mortal and Elvish points of view about Elvish time.{{sfn|Shippey|2001|pp=89–90}} Flieger however writes that there is a definite contradiction between Frodo's position, that there is an actual difference in time between Lothlórien and everywhere else, and Legolas's, that it is a matter of perception. She considers Aragorn's view to reconcile these two positions, agreeing that time has passed as Legolas said, but that the Fellowship felt time as the Elves did while they were in Lothlórien. That is not, writes Flieger, the end of the matter, as she feels that Aragorn reintroduces the dilemma when he says that the moon carried on changing "in the world outside": this suggests once again that Lothlórien had its own laws of nature, as in a [[fairy tale]].<ref name="Flieger 1990"/>{{-}}

{| class="wikitable" style="margin:1em auto;"
|+ [[Verlyn Flieger]]'s analysis of the paradoxes of Elvish time in Lothlórien<ref name="Flieger 1990"/>
|-
! Source !! Story !! Time
|-
| ''[[Thomas the Rhymer]]''
| Mortal enters [[Elfland]].<br />Spends a few nights there.<br />Returns to find all friends dead,<br />dim memory of a man lost visiting Elfland.
| flows much more slowly in Elfland.
|-
| [[Elvehøj|''Elvehøj'' (''Elf Hill'')]] 
| Elf-maiden sings: "the swift stream then stood still" 
| flows much faster in Elfland;<br />everything outside stops.
|-
| [[Frodo]]'s view 
| Lothlórien "in a time that has elsewhere long gone by".
| different epoch, long ago.
|-
| [[Legolas]]'s view
| Both fast and slow:<br />Elves change little,<br />"all else fleets by".
| different perception of time's speed.
|-
| [[Aragorn]]'s 1st view
| Mortals feel time as Elves do while in Lothlórien.
| different perception of time's speed.
|-
| Aragorn's 2nd view
| But Moon went on changing<br />"in the world outside".
| different actual flow of time<br />(as ''[[Thomas the Rhymer]]'')
|}

[[File:Warwick Castle, Warwickshire, England, a popular tourist destination.jpg|thumb|Cerin Amroth, a grassy mound surrounded by two circles of trees, has been compared to the [[Motte]] of [[Warwick Castle]], Ethelfleda's Mound (pictured), where a young Tolkien went with his future wife [[Edith Bratt]].<ref name="Garth 2020"/>]]

Flieger writes that while time is treated both naturally and [[supernatural]]ly throughout ''The Lord of the Rings'', his "most mystical and philosophical deployment of time"{{sfn|Flieger|2006|pp=648–650}} concerns Elves. It is therefore "no accident",{{sfn|Flieger|2006|pp=648–650}} she writes, that Frodo has multiple experiences of altered time in Lothlórien, from feeling he has crossed "a bridge of Time" on entering that land, to seeing Aragorn on Cerin Amroth as he was as a young man, dressed in white.{{sfn|Flieger|2006|pp=648–650}} Flieger notes that in ''[[The Monsters and the Critics]]'' Tolkien writes "The human-stories of the elves are doubtless full of the Escape from Deathlessness".<ref group=T>{{harvnb|Tolkien|1983|loc="[[On Fairy-stories]]", p. 153}}</ref><ref name="Flieger 1990"/> In her view, this explains the exploration of time in his mythology, [[Themes of The Lord of the Rings#Death and immortality|death and deathlessness]] being the "concomitants" of time and timelessness.<ref name="Flieger 1990"/>{{efn|Tolkien's themes of death and deathlessness are discussed further in the article ''[[The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen]]''.}}

=== A remembered Warwickshire ===

The author [[John Garth (author)|John Garth]] writes of a possible [[Warwickshire]] connection for Lothlórien. The young Tolkien and his fiancée Edith Bratt visited Warwick; in 1915 he wrote a celebration of Warwickshire, ''Kortirion Among the Trees''. Garth suggests that the central green hill of Cerin Amroth in Lothlórien recalls the grassy [[Motte]] of [[Warwick Castle]], known as Ethelfleda's Mound and the happy time he spent there in his youth.<ref name="Garth 2020">{{cite book |last=Garth |first=John |author-link=John Garth (author) |title=The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien: The Places that Inspired Middle-earth |date=2020 |publisher=[[Frances Lincoln Publishers]] & [[Princeton University Press]] |isbn=978-0-7112-4127-5 |pages=118–121}}</ref>