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

[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.