Episode 27: Celebrimbor and the Rings of Power

With Celebrimbor established as his own Elf, the master craftsman settles down in a new kingdom right next to the Dwarves of Moria. From beautiful friendships to masterful knowledge, Celebrimbor and his people rise to their greatest heights only to run into a friendly new acquaintance ...who marks the beginning of the end.

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Transcript

Hi. Welcome to “The Halfling.” I’m your host, Jaron Pak, and this is Episode 27: Celebrimbor and the Rings of Power.

Last time we started our time with Celebrimbor by laying a kind-of half-baked foundation for the essential character. The Elf is a skilled craftsman from the beginning, but he starts as a random dude with some cool skills. From there, he morphs into a critical Elven lord who is a descendant of the infamous Elven leader and craftsman Fëanor and his son Curunir the Crafty. While Celebrimbor inherits his ancestor’s artisanal skills, he renounces their evil deeds and sets out on his own path. This eventually leads to him founding the region of Eregion and its glorious capital city of Ost-in-Edhil. The area is nestled right next to the Misty Mountains, allowing Celebrimbor’s people to strike up a friendship with the Dwarves. They are also able to trade with them for their marvelous mithril, which the Elves want to use in their crafting. And it’s this reputation as incredible craftsmen that really is the defining factor not just of Celebrimbor but of Eregion as a whole. Most Elven kingdoms are associated with splendor, but this is often connected with nature. Lothlorien has incredible Mallorn trees. Thranduil’s realm in Mirkwood is practically homogenous with the trees — except for its capital city, which is dug into a sweet cave network. Gil-galad’s kingdom in Lindon is associated with regalness and power, but not necessarily architecture or crafting. Eregion is the nation where the Elves live who like to make stuff. There are many extremely talented individuals there, but Celebrimbor is their unquestioned chief. In fact, Tolkien reiterates this in different ways in pretty much all of our sources on Celebrimbor. I’ll give you a few examples. In “The Peoples of Middle-Earth,” the Elf is described as “Great craftsman of Eregion.” “Unfinished Tales” uses the words “the chief artificer of Eregion.” “The Silmarillion” says “In the Second Age greatest of the smiths of Eregion; maker of the Three Rings of the Elves; slain by S” — oops. Spoiler alert. Sorry guys. We’ll get there soon enough.

Anyway, Celebrimbor leads a group of craftsmen called the Gwaith-i-Mírdain or the “People of the Jewel-smiths.” “The Silmarillion” describes this as a group or fellowship of craftsmen located in Eregion. This merry band spends their time honing their craft and working on different projects together, and the book gives them some serious street cred, saying, “In Eregion the craftsmen of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain, the People of the Jewel-smiths, surpassed in cunning all that have ever wrought, save only Fëanor himself; and indeed greatest in skill among them was Celebrimbor, son of Curufin…” Part of the reason the Gwaith-i-Mírdain thrive is because of the already mentioned relationship that they strike up with the nearby Dwarves of Khazad-dûm. As we already covered at length in our series on Narvi just before this, these Dwarves are at the height of their civilization during this time, and the friendship that they create with Celebrimbor’s people is mutually beneficial. But make no mistake, the Elves are the ones who are pushing the relationship from day one. In fact, this is clearly stated throughout the source material. Let’s take a looksie, shall we? In Appendix B of “The Return of the King,” it says that “Later some of the Noldor went to Eregion, upon the west of the Misty Mountains, and near to the West-gate of Moria. This they did because they learned that mithril had been discovered in Moria. The Noldor were great craftsmen and less unfriendly to the Dwarves than the Sindar; but the friendship that grew up between the people of Durin and the Elven-smiths of Eregion was the closest that there has ever been between the two races.” We hear a similar message in the book “Peoples of Middle-earth, where it says that Celebrimbor “went to Eregion attracted by the rumours of the marvellous metal found in Moria, Moria-silver, to which he gave the name mithril. In the working of this he became a rival of the Dwarves, or rather an equal, for there was great friendship between the Dwarves of Moria and Celebrimbor, and they shared their skills and craft-secrets.” “Unfinished Tales” connects Celebrimbor’s love of crafting with his friendship with Dwarves when it says “Celebrimbor had ‘an almost “dwarvish” obsession with crafts’; and he soon became the chief artificer of Eregion, entering into a close relationship with the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm, among whom his greatest friend was Narvi.” Which, hey, Narvi! Okay, one more quote here. In “The Silmarillion,” it describes how from the capital city of Ost-in-Edhil, “the highroad ran to the west gate of Khazad-dûm, for a friendship arose between the Dwarves and Elves, such as has never elsewhere been, to the enrichment of both those peoples.” I wanted to end on that quote because that last line sums this all up. I love that description. The Elves show up on the Dwarves’ doorstep looking for mithril. And yet, in the end, the two groups end up fast friends, bonding over their shared love of smithcraft and enriching one another’s kingdoms. In “Unfinished Tales” it even goes so far as to point out that both groups profit from their association in a way that makes Eregion much stronger and Khazad-dûm more beautiful than either could have done on their own. And in the midst of this collective prosperity, Celebrimbor and Narvi strike up their famous friendship. They make the Doors of Durin together, with Narvi crafting the entrance itself and Celebrimbor decorating it with words inscribed in moon-mirroring Ithildin that include the famous line “say friend and enter.”

I also mentioned in the last episode that Celebrimbor is connected to the creation of a pair of green, self-glowing gems called the Elfstone or Elessar. The first of these has a very vague history, but one version of the story connects the second Elfstone directly to Celebrimbor. In fact, he makes the stone at the request of Galadriel herself — who he even has a crush on in this one particular version of the story. Galadriel asks him for a way to heal the wounds of Middle-earth. Celebrimbor thinks about it and then starts what is described as a “long and delicate labor.” It’s one of his greatest works apart from the Rings of Power themselves. The resulting stone is given to Galadriel, but when she gets one of the Three Elven Rings later on, she doesn’t need its healing power anymore. So, instead, she passes it off to her daughter, Celebrían. Celebrían eventually gives it to her daughter, a gal named Arwen. From there, the stone is left in the possession of Galadriel again, who gives it to none other than our boy Aragorn when the Fellowship of the Ring passes through Lothlorien. The Ranger embraces the gift, which functions as a sort of engagement ring stand-in, I guess, as well as a mark that he sports as part of his claim to the Throne of Gondor. It’s important enough that one of Aragorn’s titles is literally Elessar, the name of the stone. See? It all comes together.

Okay, so Celebrimbor and his Gwaith-i-Mírdain thrive for centuries in their blossoming kingdom. They’re good friends with the Dwarves. They make a lot of cool stuff, too — which they keep in a sort of storehouse treasury called the House of the Mírdain. Oh yeah, and at one point along the way, Celebrimbor also starts making some Rings. Three of these he makes on his own, but not before he forges 16 other Rings, which he makes with some help from an unexpected ally.

Alas, my friends. All good things must come to an end. And in the case of Celebrimbor, the making of the Rings of Power and the friendship that he creates while doing so are the beginning of a nasty downward spiral. But it’s a slow slide into destruction, and it comes with some pretty interesting twists and turns. How slow are we talking? Let’s just say his doom plays out for almost 500 years in kind of a “decline and fall of the Roman Empire” kind of negative trajectory — which is why we’re nowhere near the end of this guy’s story.

Okay, so the beginning of the end takes place around 1200 years into the Second Age. Eregion is well over 400 years old at this point, and everything is hunky-dory in the thriving Elven kingdom. Everyone is minding their own business when this really nice fella shows up out of nowhere. His name is Annatar, the Lord of Gifts, which, hey, that sounds pretty nice. Except, hang on. No, wait. Yeah, no, no, he’s not a nice dude. Yeah. He’s Sauron in disguise. …Oops. In “The Silmarillion,” it says that after hiding for hundreds of years after his master Morgoth is defeated at the end of the First Age, Sauron starts to make trouble on his own account. He slowly builds up his power, picks out a nice piece of real estate in Mordor to set up shop, and eventually feels strong enough to tackle his age-old enemies again. Men aren’t too hard to deal with. They’re iconically corruptible and most of them are malleable enough. But Elves? Well, they’re immortal, and they know a thing or two. So, rather than try to intimidate them or coerce them outright, Sauron puts on this fancy disguise. Remember, at this point, he hasn’t made the One Ring yet. That means he hasn’t poured a ton of his inner power into something else. So he still retains enough power to shapeshift. In fact, in a battle in the First Age, not long before this time (relatively speaking) Sauron literally turns into a wolf, snake, and monster, along with his own normal shape. Trust me when I say that the guy can shapeshift. This time, though, he doesn’t look like he’s getting ready to go to a Halloween party. No, he spins his evil magic and turns himself into a really, and I mean really, good-looking guy named Annatar. Yep. That Annatar. The Lord of Gifts. Then he sets out for the Elvish lands with the goal of trying to worm his way into their affections — and I’m not talking about some insecure dude trying to get in with the cool kids. I mean deliberate lies and subversion with the end goal of total control and domination. When he arrives at Lindon, the Elven king Gil-galad and his second in command Elrond don’t trust this suspicious stranger and send him away. In fact, they’re so thrown off by this Annatar guy that they also send warnings to the other Elves to watch out for this peculiarly nice, charming fellow who’s wandering around offering to befriend and help people. Never trust strangers, kids. Even if they offer you presents. If only the wise Elves of Eregion had gotten that message into their immortal skulls a little bit sooner. In “The Silmarillion” we hear a summary of Sauron’s success and failure in this covert attempt to trick the Elves into trusting him. It says “Men he found the easiest to sway of all the peoples of the Earth; but long he sought to persuade the Elves to his service, for he knew that the Firstborn had the greater power; and he went far and wide among them, and his hue was still that of one both fair and wise. Only to Lindon he did not come, for Gil-galad and Elrond doubted him and his fair-seeming, and though they knew not who in truth he was they would not admit him to that land. But elsewhere the Elves received him gladly, and few among them hearkened to the messengers from Lindon bidding them beware; for Sauron took to himself the name of Annatar, the Lord of Gifts, and they had at first much profit from his friendship.” 

“The Peoples of Middle-earth” also talks about how Sauron plays on the desire of the Elves of Eregion, in particular, by appealing to their desire for knowledge and skill, and those are important here. The book says that “Sauron is still fair to look on and the Elves of Eregion are won over by their desire of skill and knowledge.” He’s a clever villain, too. He criticizes Gil-galad and Elrond for not helping him or trusting him and points out how much good they could do if they just trusted poor old Annatar. He only wants what’s best for everyone. Now, I know I’m being sarcastic, but there’s actually an interesting note written by Tolkien’s son Christopher in “Unfinished Tales” that toys with the idea that Sauron himself may not have been wholly evil with this whole Annatar schtick. It’s interesting enough that I’m going to read the whole thing. “In a letter written in September 1954 my father said: "At the beginning of the Second Age he [Sauron] was still beautiful to look at, or could still assume a beautiful visible shape - and was not indeed wholly evil, not unless all 'reformers' who want to hurry up with 'reconstruction' and 'reorganization' are wholly evil, even before pride and the lust to exert their will eat them up. The particular branch of the High Elves concerned, the Noldor or Loremasters, were always vulnerable on the side of 'science and technology,' as we should call it: they wanted to have the knowledge that Sauron genuinely had, and those of Eregion refused the warnings of Gil-galad and Elrond. The particular 'desire' of the Eregion Elves - an 'allegory' if you like of a love of machinery, and technical devices - is also symbolized by their special friendship with the Dwarves of Moria.”

So, depending on what you read, an evil or at least mostly evil Sauron who is deadset on controlling everything and everyone and is disguised as Annatar, the Lord of Gifts, shows up in Eregion, and Celebrimbor and the Gwaith-i-Mírdain, desperate for skill and knowledge, welcome him with open arms. And it’s here, as he unwittingly welcomes Sauron into the fold of the People of the Jewel-smith, that we’ll have to leave Celebrimbor until we can wrap up his story in the next and final episode of the season. That’s it for now. Until next time, friends.