White Lady, With Lamp

[altariel]

It was she they wanted, Lady Wraithbane.

White Lady, With Lamp

Ithilien, in the Fourth Age

In the years after, so many of them came that a house was built in a tranquil valley where Elves now dwelt. Young men no more, the horror of that past still shaped their desolate present. Elf-song soothed them – but it was she they wanted, Lady Wraithbane, whose deed felled a dread king.

And Éowyn welcomed each of them, and fought for them, and ordered a fair house for them. But their devotion baffled her. She never quite grasped what her husband always knew – that pity was hers too, and the healing love can be strong as well as gentle.

Comments

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

...the healing love can be strong as well as gentle.

Indeed! I never know what to say to your drabbles, but I'm enjoying the outpouring. And I love that icon :)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

It's just great to know they're being read, EA. I appreciate every single shred of evidence that that's the case :-)

I'm going to follow this wave of creativity as long as it lasts, see where it takes me. It feels like there might be something substantial on the other side of it, but I shouldn't tempt fate.

I love the painting the icon is taken from vastly.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I'm going to follow this wave of creativity as long as it lasts, see where it takes me.

Feels like spring rain to me. Here's hoping it continues to pour!

I love the painting the icon is taken from vastly.

It's utterly gorgeous. My favourite of Eissmann's F&E works, though the one before it with the starry cloak is pretty adorable too. (Though looking at some of the ones that make Faramir look more gaunt, lo, do I find my protagonist! Or at least a whitened-up version of him.)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

the one before it with the starry cloak is pretty adorable too

Yes, that one is gorgeous. Grab him while you can, girl, for god's sake!

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Before that nasty Mr Jackson breaks him...

[altariel.livejournal.com]

La, la, la, can't hear Mr Jackson! Only the radio play remains in my head! Oh, and the book.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Who plays Faramir in the radio play? I don't think we've got a copy any more.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

An actor called Andrew Seear, who I have only seen elsewhere in a single episode of the TV drama Enemy at the Door (set on Nazi-occupied Guernsey), where, rather brilliantly, he plays a Commando Captain.

Denethor is played by Peter Vaughan, who is brilliant.

[lame-pegasus.livejournal.com]

How utterly beautiful. Simply perfect.

*bows deeply*

You tempt me to collect those little marvels and post them on my site. There is more than one faithful reader who cauteously asks for a drabble or two from time to time. And how I'd love to show them these!

And why the heck did I write marbles first? Silly brain.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Thank you, very much.

And you have free rein to translate whatever you like. So do go ahead, if you think you'd enjoy doing it.

And I like "marbles"! Suits them - small, rounded, polished things, chinking together.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

These short stories have the feeling of a consistent world behind them. Not just Tolkien's, but the Ithilien that you write about.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Thank you. It feels pretty strongly imagined in my mind, although I think a lot of that is Tolkien.

[azalaisdep.livejournal.com]

What an intriguing idea. I've always struggled a bit with the way JRRT suddenly flips Eowyn from shield-maiden to "now I'll be all peaceful and plant gardens" - not because I think it's impossible, but he doesn't put any effort into making it a convincing change. It's as though he got to the end of the story, suddenly realised he'd allowed a woman to get out of the "healing/tending/nurturing" box (cage?) and hastily stuffed her back in it. So I do like Fourth Age fic which attempts to do what JRRT hand-waved.

I am wrestling, now, with the grammar of "it was she they wanted" - "it was she who did xyz", yes, but surely "it was her they wanted", as it would be "they wanted her" not "they wanted she"? Or am I completely confused?

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Tolkien has an interesting aside about Éowyn in the Letters (244): "[S]he was not herself ambitious in the true political sense. Though not a 'dry nurse' in temper, she was also not really a soldier or 'amazon', but like many brave women was capable of great military gallantry at a crisis".

It seems to me that Éowyn wants freedom, and an active life - and in her culture, that means being a Rider. Instead she gets to watch Theoden get sicker. Later, she wants death, rather than wanting battle. But when she doesn't die, and when real freedom is offered - she takes it. Gondor will open up a bigger world to Éowyn than Rohan ever could. I think she would find many projects upon which to lavish her considerable energy and talents, and I imagined the one in the drabble as only a small part. Gondor's population is about to explode. Perhaps we could think of her as Minister for Health. (Part of what I was getting at with the Florence Nightingale allusion: statistician and health reformer, rather than Angel of Scutari.)

ETA: I wrote: Gondor will open up a bigger world to Éowyn than Rohan ever could. I think she would find many projects upon which to lavish her considerable energy and talents

Actually, that was sort of what A Game of Chess was going to be about originally, Éowyn's adjustment to her new life, and then the shellshock came out of nowhere, and the story became about both of them adjusting to their new life.


I did have 'her' but changed it for 'she', because the word is so much stronger. Perhaps this was the nickname these men had for her. "She is coming to day! What did She have to say to you? Have you spoken to She about it?"

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

It is Herself that's in it.

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

It is yourself that has a way with pronouns.

[azalaisdep.livejournal.com]

(Part of what I was getting at with the Florence Nightingale allusion: statistician and health reformer, rather than Angel of Scutari.)

ningloreth has Fourth Age Eowyn as a detective rather in Brother Cadfael mode (at Eryn Carantaur) - that's rather fun too, although her 'ship is Legolas/Eowyn, so very AU in that sense and thus might not be your cup of tea...

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Wow, what an amazing site. Had no idea those stories existed. I think I'd get too sad reading about F/E breaking up, but it's a great idea for a set of stories.

[azalaisdep.livejournal.com]

The site is visually stunning - and like a deluxe DVD with extra scenes, Easter eggs, illustrations... (I get the feeling ningloreth's personal M-E is quite strongly rooted in the movieverse, at least visually, so that may be no accident)

For me she needs to do a little more in the early stories to explain just how Eowyn happens to know exactly how to carry out forensic murder investigations (the way Ellis Peters does by making Cadfael both an ex-soldier, so he knows about violent death, and a herbalist so he knows about poisons...) - and also to convince me, not that Faramir might have been gay, but that he would have married Eowyn knowing that - but she writes entertainingly enough that when I'm in the mood I can handwave the setup and enjoy the ride... (Nothing to do with Teh Hot Elf Sex. Honest. Ahem.)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

(Nothing to do with Teh Hot Elf Sex. Honest. Ahem.)

A little Hot Elf Sex makes up for a lot.

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

And still they come! These lovely, lovely drabbles.

It may not have been trench warfare, but it would still lead to the desolation of the present, and yes, it would take someone of Éowyn's strength to understand that and pour out a healing measure.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Thank you. No trench warfare, although the Nazgul attacks during the siege of Minas Tirith must surely be Tolkien's narrativising of heavy bombardment. That must have took some coming back from.

As for some of the other men in this story, I was thinking of this bit in The Return of the King, as the Army of the West marches on the Black Gate:

So time and the hopeless journey wore away. Upon the fourth day from the Cross-roads and the sixth from Minas Tirith they came at last to the end of the living lands, and began to pass into the desolation that lay before the gates of the Pass of Cirith Gorgor; and they could descry the marshes and the desert that stretched north and west to the Emyn Muil. So desolate were those places and so deep the horror that lay on them that some of the host were unmanned, and they could neither walk nor ride further north.
Aragorn looked at them, and there was pity in his eyes rather than wrath; for these were young men from Rohan, from Westfold far away, or husbandmen from Lossarnach, and to them Mordor had been from childhood a name of evil, and yet unreal, a legend that had no part in their simple life; and now they walked like men in a hideous dream made true, and they understood not this war nor why fate should lead them to such a pass."

Aragorn sends some of them off to retake another outpost, and some of them are rallied by what he says to them and carry on to the Black Gate. It's such an incredibly poignant moment: Tolkien must have had very young men like this under his command.

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

now they walked like men in a hideous dream made true, and they understood not this war nor why fate should lead them to such a pass.

Goodness, yes, that must surely hark back Tolkien's wartime experience.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. So much of the book does.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

These drabbles are beautiful, and an enlightening insight into the world after the war. I have long had a great fondness for Éowyn, though I suspect that may be at least be partly due to the fact that she is the only female character I feel I can identify with. You make her more real -- it seems to me Tolkien only really gave us a very brief glimpse of Éowyn -- and I love seeing her have a good life. I thoroughly agree with your comment above that what Éowyn wants is freedom, and she is definitely clever enough to recognize it when it is presented to her.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Thank you. It's been interesting for me to build up this picture of the postwar world in this patchwork way. I also have loved Éowyn for a long time, although I do have a soft spot for my namesake (if not very much in common with her, I'm only five foot tall, for one thing).

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Don't get me wrong: I love Galadriel and always have. To me one of the most powerful parts of the whole saga is when Galadriel turns down Frodo's offer of the ring. However much I admire her strength and wisdom, kindness and spirit, I can't identify with her. She is too far above me; a great role model with qualities to aspire to, but too Elfish to be my alter ego. That of course is not to say that I think I would necessarily have Éowyn's courage of attempting to go out fighting when ending seemed the only option or to accept a new life when finding it. She just feels more human, and not just because she actually is.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

*whispers* I have a massively overinflated sense of my own self-importance and have always slightly identified with Galadriel (!). I think it's to do with hers being a story about choosing to use one's powers for good. I don't identify with any other Elves at all (it's only the stories of Men in The Silmarillion that really interest me). But something about Galadriel's story has always moved me at some very deep level. I think it's that "gesture of rejection and denial".

And Eowyn's story is deeply human, you are quite right.

[wormwood-7.livejournal.com]

Lovely!
I think you maybe right, that Eowyn never quite grasped that pity was hers too. She who wanted "no man's pity"...
I think Ithilien meant space for Eowyn, on many levels, and as you say freedom to unfold in a way that had been impossible for her in Rohan.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I think Ithilien meant space for Eowyn, on many levels, and as you say freedom to unfold in a way that had been impossible for her in Rohan.

Yes, like a bird unfolding its wings. A space to grow into, but not a space that is pre-determined, and so would constrain that growth in some way.

I'm glad you liked this one :-)

[lhun-dweller.livejournal.com]

Music as healer of PTSD... seems to have been rediscovered Age after Age.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I'd like to think Elf-song would soothe rather than strain these men.

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

I like this future for Éowyn quite a lot - and the allusion to Florence Nightingale is a clever and very suitable one. It's so easy to see her superficially as some model of caring and nurturing Victorian womanhood and thus completely misrepresent her amazing achievements. Similarly, the White Lady of Ithilien would have had her work cut out for her, with or without a sword. (And healing is so much harder than killing, in the end.)