Episode 26: Celebrimbor, Silver-Fist

In the first installment of our last series of the season, I finally do some unembargoed explaining regarding why new episodes have been so sporadic lately. Then we dive into the early backstory of Celebrimbor, the Elf who is eventually one of the prime movers and shakers behind the whole "Rings of Power" business in the Second Age.

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Transcript

Hi. Welcome to “The Halfling.” I’m your host, Jaron Pak, and this is Episode 26: Celebrimbor, Silver-Fist.”

Well, as I warned a few episodes back, the consistency of new episodes has definitely been a bit rough as “The Rings of Power” premier draws ever closer. I’m sorry for the disruptions, but there have been a lot of opportunities that I haven’t been able to say no to — including a chance to attend a press dinner in San Diego a couple of weeks ago that was decorated like an Elven forest, where it rained food and drink, and where I was able to meet the entire cast, chat with the showrunners (who informed me that they read my articles, which was pretty sweet) and even got to hear a live performance of the score of the show led by composer Bear McCreary himself. Yeah, it was pretty fun. I’ve also had multiple chances to interview the cast, most of which will be going up live on Looper in the next few weeks (including a 20-minute exclusive interview with Robert Aramayo who plays Elrond on the show, which went live this past Friday morning. Robert is a serious Tolkien fan, and if you’re interested in hearing the actor’s thoughts on the character, you can find the link on The Halfling Twitter page or on my Looper writer profile). To top it off, I’ve got more interviews coming up, and I’ll be attending the premiere of the show in the Big Apple, too. So. Much. Going. On. Did I mention that I’m in heaven right now?

All that to say, my slate has been overflowing for weeks now, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to lighten up any time soon. But never fear. I saw this perfect storm coming and made an extra effort to carve out some time to really keep the content flowing your way over the next couple of months. As of the release of this episode, the Rings of Power premiere is less than a month away — and for all the love and hate the show is getting, I for one, am excited to spend some time in a new version of Middle-earth, no matter what it may have in store. I’ll have more takeaways from the show when it airs, and I may even have some company as I break things down — more on that later. In the meantime, I just want to say that I’m happy to both be back and to have multiple episodes coming out in the next few weeks before the show starts — episodes that are all going to focus on the life and times of a fellow that rides the line between kind of obscure and really important. I’m talking about Celebrimbor, the Elf who forges the Rings of Power or… I guess co-forges them, or at least most of them. And solo forges a few on his own. Don’t worry, it’ll all make sense soon.

Celebrimbor is an interesting character. He was invented to provide some of the backstory of the One Ring in “The Lord of the Rings” narrative but as with all things, Tolkien couldn’t just leave a character sitting there without a satisfying backstory.  So, the Professor, or “Mr. Tolkien,” as Robert Aramayo referred to him, had to go back and whip up an intricate back story to fill out the Elvish craftsman’s existence in the larger Middle-earth narrative, and we’re going to start digging into that narrative today.

Let’s start with a good old name breakdown first, shall we? The name Celebrimbor has several different translations, even though they all points toward the same meaning. According to the books “Unfinished Tales” and “The Silmarillion,” the name Celebrimbor means “Hand of Silver.” The book “The Peoples of Middle-Earth” says the name means “Silver-fist” which I like better — hence the title of this episode. At another point, that book also calls him “Celebrimbor of the Silver Grasp” and adds that the word celebrin means “silver” and paur means “the fist or closed hand.” Put them together and you get Celebrimbor. Put all of this together and you get the exciting mash-up Celebrimbor Silver-fist, Hand of Silver of the Silver Grasp …ah, Tolkien.

Anyway, Celebrimbor’s origin is vague. In fact, it’s one of those stories that Tolkien couldn’t quite nail down. In a note in “Peoples of Middle-earth,” Christopher Tolkien even says, “Like Gil-galad, Celebrimbor was a figure first appearing in “The Lord of the Rings” whose origin my father changed again and again.” In spite of the variations and lack of data, when you piece everything together, it’s pretty clear that Celebrimbor arrives on Arda very early in Tolkien’s histories. He’s also probably born in Valinor, away in the West of the Middle-earth continent. Eventually, his people, including his troublesome father and grandfather, leave the Blessed Realm and head into exile in Middle-earth proper. Their objective? To chase down the Dark Lord Morgoth and reclaim the jewels called the Silmarils, which he stole. Oh, and did I mention that Celebrimbor goes with them? Yeah, he’s not necessarily on board with everything going on, but he does go off in search of adventures in Middle-earth. Tragically, his mother remains behind, and we never hear about her again.

Okay, so far I think this makes relative sense. Celebrimbor is an immortal Elf born really early on the Middle-earth timeline. He leaves with his people, the Elvish subgroup called the Noldor, and goes into exile, even though it causes a rift in his nuclear and extended family. Aaaand then things get complicated. See, in the first drafts where Celebrimbor shows up, he’s just described as a survivor of Tolkien’s famous tragic city of Gondolin. Specifically, in “Unfinished Tales,” it says that “Galadriel and Celeborn had in their company a Noldorin craftsman named Celebrimbor.” It goes on to say that he’s a survivor of Gondolin and one of Turgon’s greatest artificers — Turgon is the king of that city. Pretty cool stuff. But he’s just another dude kind of following Galadriel and Celeborn around at this point. There are some other versions of the text where he isn’t even a Noldor — which, as we’ll see, is kind of important because they’re known for their incredible skill as craftsmen. Instead, Tolkien toys with having him come from a couple of different groups of Elves — at one point the Telerin and at another point the Sinda Elves. I know this can be confusing, but suffice it to say, Celebrimbor went through a lot of pretty dramatic revisions. But right from the get-go, the author started leaving notes to himself that this guy needs to be more important, and eventually, he settled on Celebrimbor’s rather illustrious final (or as final as it ever got, at least) backstory: and here it is. Celebrimbor is the grandson of the infamous Elvish leader Fëanor — the one who forges the Silmarils. Fëanor is the epitome of an Elf gone bad. He’s hot-headed and violent. He also has seven sons, and one of these is named Curufin the Crafty, which, yeah, is definitely a spoiler about this guy’s moral quality. I do like the play on words here, though. Curufin is a big jerk and a scheming villain in “The Silmarillion” which goes really well with the whole “crafty” moniker. But he’s also pointed out for having inherited a lot of his father’s skill as a craftsman. See that? Crafty — craftsman?

Anyway, Curufin is primarily known for just being a really terrible guy. In fact, at one point he and his brother Celegorm plot to usurp the throne of an entire Elven kingdom called Nargothrond. Long story short, their caught and kicked out, and we’re not going to go into detail here. For our purposes, we just need to note one crucial detail. Curufin’s son, a relatively unknown fellow named Celebrimbor, doesn’t follow his dad. In “The Silmarillion” it says that “In that time Celebrimbor the son of Curufin repudiated the deeds of his father, and remained in Nargothrond…” So the son rejects his father and, indirectly, his grandfather, whose oaths and deeds cause a ton of issues early on in Tolkien’s writings. Like, a ton of issues. Elves going into exile and killing each other and backstabbing others and all sorts of crazy stuff. The family business is really ugly, and Celebrimbor wants out. So he takes the chance when his father is physically removed from Nargothrond to renounce the whole thing and get a clean start. Like, a fully clean break. In “Unfinished Tales” it literally the says that he’s “estranged from his father” and “Peoples of Middle-earth” summarizes the episode by saying Celebrimbor “was son of Curufin, but though inheriting his skills he was an Elf of wholly different temper (his mother had refused to take part in the rebellion of Fëanor and remained in Aman with the people of Finarphin). During their dwelling in Nargothrond as refugees he had grown to love Finrod and his wife, and was aghast at the behavior of his father and would not go with him. He later became a great friend of Celeborn and Galadriel.” 

Alright. After the whole breaking off from the family business thing, Celebrimbor spends some time living in the Elvish city of Gondolin. This is a hidden city that becomes the crowned jewel of Elvish accomplishments during the First Age of Middle-earth history. During his time here, some accounts explain that Celebrimbor also learns quite a bit from a famous Elvish jewelsmith — and I’m gonna butcher this pronunciation — Enerthil? Anyway, during this time he’s connected to the creation of a jewel called the Elfstone. This is a really cool, powerful gem that holds a really important place in Elvish lore. There’s a chance that Celebrimbor also makes a second version of that hallowed gem at the request of Galadriel later on. But the history of the Elfstone is very complicated and could easily get its own podcast episode. I just want to include it here to say that, by this point in his life, Celebrimbor is already starting to associate his crafting skills with some pretty powerful jewelry. More to come on that front, folks. 

Eventually, Gondolin is discovered and destroyed. Presumably, Celebrimbor survives the sack of the city because, well, he’s alive later on. But we don’t get any first-hand details. Instead, he just kind of disappears from the narrative for several centuries. The First Age ends. Morgoth is destroyed, and the Second Age begins. Sauron flees into hiding and the Elves that remain in Middle-earth settle down in new kingdoms. One of these is called Eregion by the Elves and Hollin by Men. It’s founded 750 years into the age and lasts for roughly a thousand years. Its leader? Celebrimbor. So, let’s talk about Eregion for a minute.

When the Fellowship of the Ring heads south from Rivendell in the second half of, well, “The Fellowship of the Ring,” the group heads into an area called Hollin. There are some ruins and the area is still fairly, how should I say this … clean feeling. It feels like an area that once housed a bunch of Elves. In fact, Gandalf mentions that, “many Elves lived here in happier days, when Eregion was its name.” And Legolas literally says in reference to the area, that while the Elves were strange to his Woodland folk and they lived there so long ago that the trees and grass don’t remember them, “Only I hear the stones lament them: deep they delved us, fair they wrought us, high they builded us; but they are gone. They are gone. They sought the Havens long ago.” So, what is this group of mysterious Elves that occupied this long-forsaken land and built high structures with stone and all that jazz? Why, it was Celebrimbor and his Noldorin Elves, of course. Around three-quarters of a millennium into the Second Age, the Elvish lord (yes, we’re going to start calling him a lord now) arrives in the area, and they start building a city, practically in the shadow of the nearby Misty Mountains. The area becomes the kingdom of Eregion, and it is referred to as the only lasting realm of the Noldor built this far east into Middle-earth. Now, just to be clear, this is the farthest east that the Noldor Elves go. Remember, that is the sub-group of Elves who banish themselves into a self-imposed exile from the Blessed Realm in the West long before. Celebrimbor is part of that banished group, and he ends up leading the tip of the spear, so to speak, by settling the farthest east Noldor kingdom of them all. There are, of course, plenty of other Elves further East, but these are wild Elves, like the Wood-elves of Mirkwood or those living in Lothlorien. 

Eregion is the last Noldor settlement, and its center is in a glorious city called Ost-in-Edhil, which — cool name alert — means “Fortress of the Eldar.” The main road from this magnificent Elvish city heads further east …straight into the Misty Mountains. Why? Because there’s another group of people living nearby: the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm. The fact that these two groups are neighbors isn’t a coincidence. Celebrimbor and many of his fellow Elvish artisans are interested in networking with the Dwarves because the subterranean dwellers discover a very precious metal in their mines — a metal that can’t be found anywhere else in Middle-earth. That’s right. They find Mithril. The ultra-precious substance is excellent for smithcraft — especially if you want to, oh, say draw some signs on a hidden door or make some powerful jewelry. So, Celebrimbor sets up shop nearby and ends up discovering more than just a great source of traffic for a limited resource. He also finds something that money can’t by. Friends. No, for real, the relationship between the Elves of Eregion on the Dwarves of Moria is really, really cool. We already talked about it from the Dwarvish perspective in the Narvii episodes, but for now it’s a topic that will have to wait until next time, when we’ll dive into the incredible accomplishments of these two people groups in their brief yet important time living as neighbors. 

All right, that’s it for now. Until next time, friends.