a letter to eowyn...

(photo credit unknown)

     This was an assignment after we read the Lord of the Rings trilogy last year: to pretend to write a letter to one of the characters. I chose Eowyn *smiles*.

            Fairy's Mirror

Golden Leaf Bridge, Lorien

May 23, 1413

            "Dearest Eowyn,

                          

                           I rejoice for your arrival this autumn! I have not seen you in what seems an entire lifetime, but obviously that isn't true. Anyways, you will love to see Meldamiriel, the great golden tree. Every fall she yawns and reaches her arm-like branches towards the heavens and shakes off her leaves. Legend says that every midsummer evening, one who sits beneath her will find her crying. And no, it is not the rain, because some have said that her tears are warm, not cold, and are not clear, but blue as the clear summer sky. They say that her tears cause the river that runs beneath her, Fairy's Mirror, which is usually quite calm enough to see your reflection, to flow slightly this time of year. It is tradition for us here to walk down to the river's edge and send afloat thousand upon thousands of glowing honey candles that had been prepared the day before down the river while there was still current left.. We watch them float quietly down the river until they only look like distant flickering stars on a clear, cloudless sky, slowly fading into the Unknown Horizon, where all the stars and the sun and the moon dwell. At this hour, the younger elves ask me why Meldamiriel weeps so, and as a tradition I sing this in the elvish tongue:

" 'Though stars may burn and seas may roar,

It shall be told again in our folk-lore:

Her tears shall water all trees and flowers,

For her lost love, her tears all things devours.'

    

      "(I was wondering if you and Bilbo could help me with coming up with a few more verses if you both get the chance. I know Bilbo is getting oldour, but I would be honoured if I could have both of your help. I'm not an elf, so I dare say I have never been one good at poetry.)

      "Some say this poem is just old wives' tales, fools that they are, but I, on the other hand, truly believe that Meldamiriel is an Ent-wife. That is the purpose of my story: to ask you to also send for the Ents. There are more; I have seen more. So please, O Eowyn, wife of Faramir, send them!

       "Now enough about the going-ons of Lorien. I could write books filled with all our songs, traditions, stories, culture, people, and history, but I'm afraid not even all of Middle Earth could contain them.

       "Pray, how are you and Faramir? O Eowyn, I'm so glad you are happily married!

       "Well, I'm afraid I have kept you much too long with all my boring, rambling stories.

       I wish you Farewell and Good Luck!

                                                                                           Rae Hatcher"