Tag: andreth

Howl

Getting around to this. Where The Brides of Death comes from. Overloading on symbolism and call-forwards with Beren.

…

The night of the masks had come again, on the full moon of the last harvest. The last sheath had been gathered, bound, and hallowed in the name of the giver of fruits, and now balance would shift to another, she of grief and winter, and the nights would grow longer than the days. After tonight, the lords and ladies of growing things and warmth would step down from their thrones. With promise the tools of harvest were stored beside the seeds for next year’s planting. The blistering days of the last twilight of summer would become distant memory after tonight, the winds blowing only cold from the north and the pines preserving the only remnant of color. Here came the night of sorrow and memory, but also the night of hope and defiance.

Illuminated by towering bonfires built in the cleared and now empty fields, the people gathered to listen and sing their history. They brought their torches and wreaths and some the masks that hung face down and hidden the rest of the year. This ritual of sacred history was shared only on the full moon before the turn to winter. Once all had gathered around the tallest bonfire did the silence break. The wise woman began the songs in a voice that was strong and piercing, and those that did not sing joined her with clapping hands or feet. What was sung were old melodies, the most ancient songs, for half the words no longer had meaning, and of their significance only the wise woman knew in full. Of the words they still understood were chants for running, for long journeys and sorrow and desperate hope. No names were spoken that night, for none had survived to be recalled. Memory needed the dance and the masks more than the words.

Once they had no fields, no harvest, no food, no home. Once they had only darkness and hunger, travelling ever westward in the hope of freedom and safety. Once only the moon had known them. Only the moon knew their journey and all the words to the songs they had sung.

Once long before they had possessed fields and homes, but no freedom, for their harvests had not been their own. Once long before their great enemy had claimed them as their own.

In the flickering of bonfires and moonlight, the people hid their faces behind masks of their enemies. They disguised themselves as snarling wolves and monsters, chalk-white fangs and black fur capes lined with wooden beads that rattled and shook as they cavorted and danced. The ones hidden beneath the masks of wolves howled and laughed, stamped their feet and forgot their voices. Hunched over like the beasts that their masks mimicked, they curved fingers like claws. Running to the edges of the field they disappeared in the darkness, then leaped back out to weave patterns and circles in what remained of the winnowed grain. Others unmasked dressed themselves in their simplest garments, the white of undyed cloth bright against the glow of moonlight. They danced in counterpoint with garlands of autumn flowers and leaves crowning their heads, and streaks of ash ran like tear tracks down their faces. The ash came from what had been gathered from their hearths as the people dosed all the fires that morning. On this night the only lit flames would be out in the middle of the harvested fields. They danced for their ancestors who fled from the first fields, those who left homes and hearth for the unknown wilds, running before the wolves of the enemy. Their dance was steadier, forming rings of joined hands and staying close to the bonfire. Until the ones in masks leaped out. Then the hands would break apart, the dancers in white scatter. In mock horror they screamed and skipped away from grasping hands of those masked like wolves. Back and forth went this dance, while the rest sang and rattled strings of bone and beads and clapped and chanted.

A boy spun and leaped free of his older cousins, his laughter rising above the crackle of the bonfire, the rattle of beads, clapping of hands, and stomping of feet. Last year he had been a wolf, and he had howled loudest behind his painted fangs. No one had been a better or more believable wolf. This year he was his ancestor, defying the enemy by running free of the wolves. No one could touch him. The boy spun once more in the air, his white tunic spotted with soot and ash, gray as the moon that witnessed his daring leaps.

The wise woman finally rejoined the dancers with a new crown atop her white-streaked hair, one with three pieces of polished rock crystal instead of flowers, a cloak of black wool across her shoulders. On the finest chair from the feasting hall whom none would remember having fetched and just as mysteriously would none remember returning the chair to the hall once the dawn rose did the wise woman sit enthroned. Surrounded by torches, her face was recast fey and strange. Her eyes heavy-lidded surveyed the dancers before her, and with hand gestures slow and imperious she bellowed that her wolves bring to her the brightest sacrifice. Her piercing voice was pitched low and cold, the mask of the enemy.

In a leaping frenzy the dancers in wolf masks began to ring the bonfire, howling the last song as the dancers in white fetched torches to light. The boy paused and smiled, teeth as bright as the painted fangs of his cousins as he held out his hands. Each grabbed one arm and hoisted their laughing cousin into the air, carrying him through a gauntlet of other dancers, unlit torches crossed above their heads. To their great aunt enthroned with a black crown they brought the boy, and in the enemy’s deep voice she demanded to know who they had brought before her. Ritual words she called out; his name she desired, the labor of his hands, the bounty of his fields.

The boy knew his role, that he was supposed to pretend to be afraid of his great aunt, of the enemy enthroned and crowned, but that he must shout defiance, give no name, as the dancers in masks bowed low and waited for the shout that would allow them to remove their snarling wolf-faces. Together everyone would dip the torches into the bonfire to begin the last procession from the fields back to the feasting hall where they would drink and feast until the dawn. The hearths would be re-lit and masks hidden. Still, the boy could not halt his laughter as the wise woman loomed above him, the pieces of crystal in her crown reflecting off the harvest moon like true gems. Laughter and pride danced in her gray eyes as the boy, released by his pair of cousins, stood and stepped forward. A bold one, she called him, the hint of a smile at the corner of her frowning mouth. Once more she demanded his name, and the dancers shifted awkwardly. The boy could not break tradition.

He wanted to shout his name for all to hear and proclaim it would not matter anyway, for the enemy could not catch him. He wanted to turn the simple taunt into a new song of defiance, to list all that his people had accomplished and would now that they were free. He wanted to sing until the moon heard his voice. To howl like the wolves, forget once more he was a boy. Wanted to lean close and whisper into the wise woman’s ear that she did not frighten him. To kiss her eyes and break the spell that made her terrible and fey. To brush his fingers against the crown of dark branches and pluck free the three pieces of clear stone.

Wha’cha Gonna Call It?

From that very old AU where Aegnor and Andreth do marry and have a daughter, but everything still isn’t happy rainbows and no convenient Eönwë proclamation for the very serious issue in Tolkien of a soul bound with 100% certainty to Arda and zero ambiguity about eternity and afterlife versus one that does have all that, and what does that make their impossible offspring? But about lighter problems than those issues. Eventually.

…

It started with a question which should have been harmless. Everyone had already exhausted all the thorny or offensive or just plain unanswerable questions like why Aegnor married a mortal and was that even possible or ethical or physically possible. The last question turned Angrod’s brother a very bright red, though his new sister-in-law, Andreth, only gave him a look that could have turned Tarn Aeliun into a dry valley. No, neither of them had any idea if their souls would have a chance to stay together after Andreth’s inevitable demise, or if Aegnor was doomed to a widowhood that not even Grandfather Finwë had faced. Having his prudent advice ignored, their big brother Finrod down in Nargothrond was now writing letters to all the Wise-women of the three Edain tribes and the philosophers among the Eldar (which consisted mostly of Finrod himself, two advisers of Thingol, and one loremaster living with Fingolfin – the majority of the Noldor either uninterested in esoteric questions of soul, especially strange mortal ones, or had stayed behind in Aman to begin with) to bring together in a colloquy to discuss the impact of the first marriage of immortal to mortal and any possible changes or transfers in the nature of their bodies and souls. The philosophers were still struggling with the definition of a soul that appeased everyone, immortal and mortal, before moving onto the thorny questions concerning the union of them. “Or you could come up and visit,” Aegnor had said, though the idea of becoming his brother’s newest focus of heavy scholastic observation was not thrilling. Finrod still had not been convinced this marriage was not a disaster waiting to happen but kept those reservations private. The belated wedding gift to Aegnor and Andreth had been accompanied by a note scolding them for the lack of invitation, which Angrod found a little ‘closing the barn door after the horses’, to quote Belegor. And it wasn’t as if Angrod had been present to fulfill the role of father-of-groom, as Aegnor had delivered the news fait accompli with Andreth in tow. The mild admonishments in the letter he received had been utterly unwarranted. But Finrod had pointedly declared his support of the union with a gift. Publicly he was loudly and enthusiastically supportive. He had even shouted down their half-cousins for implying Andreth, as a mortal, was as beneath a prince of the House of Finwë as one’s horse and bordering on bestiality to begin with. Sensitive on behalf of the Edain in general, that insult to mortals, the House of Bëor, House of Finarfin, and his baby brother and favorite sister-in-law had goaded Finrod to not only shouting but nearly throwing nearby objects. Angrod had been very proud.

Andreth’s side of the family, Boromir of Ladros and his kin, had their own set of reservations about their eldest daughter marrying one of their elven liege lords without telling anyone, but the fuss they made was much quieter. Funnily enough, the most awkward part, after Beril screamed at her sister for daring to do this without informing her at all, was Lord Boromir addressing Aegnor as ‘Son’ with an uncomfortable grimace. Aegnor was delighted and had immediately taken to calling the old Bëorian lord ‘Father’.

Secretly, Angrod wondered if this whole mess should have been a surprise, for Aegnor had assimilated to the Bëorians in Ladros more rapidly than their sister had to Doriath. Every morning Angrod checked his brother for sign of stubble on his cheek or gray hairs, for that was the inevitable next step after learning the mortal tongue, drinking mortal beer and eating that mortal food dish involving stuffing animal organs with more meat, wearing mortal clothing, staying in mortal halls, and falling in love with a mortal woman.

Everyone was curious to see if Aegnor and Andreth could conceive a child, the disparities of soul and body balanced against similarities, and Finrod’s colloquy by correspondence side-tracked into tangents involving hypothetical marriages between elf and dwarf and mortal men and dwarves and how would those unions work. This led to some questions about Círdan that made Thingol and the other old Sindar howl with laughter, with the eventual consensus reached that conception was impossible. Until of course the morning Andreth announced she was. Edhellos pulled the other woman aside to congratulate and appraise, Aegnor broke into loud and euphoric song over the pregnancy, and Angrod smiled and began a new letter to send to Orodreth and onward to the rest of Beleriand. The following celebration over that piece of news in Boromir’s great hall in Ladros involved copious dancing and alcohol. It was only some time after the hangovers were lingering and Edhellos was trying to reassure Andreth over a misunderstanding about the duration of elven pregnancies (”A whole year!” was the scream heard throughout the mead hall) that Angrod thought to ask the question that should have been harmless.

“So will be a boy or girl?” he asked his younger brother.

“What?” Aegnor replied.

“Which one? So you know what father-name to pick out.”

Aegnor made a slow sort of noise, which Angrod thought was a little ridiculous, considering his brother had an even higher alcohol tolerance and thus completely avoided hangovers, a trait that served Aegnor well while dealing with all his new in-laws.

“Which naming tradition are you following, anyway? Mortals only chose one and tend to stick with it, I noticed, but the Bëorians like to use similar names from father to son.”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean? Has Andreth not told you?”

Aegnor shrugged. “It’s not a mortal thing. She and her relatives explained it. They can guess, and Boromir’s wife says there’s all these little sayings that are supposed to predict, but they aren’t always right.”

“But the mother is carrying the child in her body. How can she not know her own? And how do they have prophetic insights for mother-names? I know those are not always clear, but Mother said she had a good inkling with all of us before we were born.”

“We’ll guess,” Aegnor said. “Andreth says you pick out a good name for either gender before the birth and go with that. Adanel says sometimes a relative or close friend of the parents is the one to chose the name, not the parents.”

Angrod was not sure what to make of this, but he was also still a little hungover. “So have you picked any out yet?”

His answer was a drawn-out groan.

Seven and a half months later, neither Aegnor or Andreth had picked out possible names for their child that both considered perfect. Edhellos addressed her soon-to-born niece or nephew as ‘that’ with an accompanying elaborate airy hand wave and half-smile, and Bregor was running a betting pool on the gender and name, which Angrod would swear to Mandos he knew nothing about. Finrod had written scrolls filled with suggestions and fanciful calligraphy for each option in both tengwar and runes, hoping that a visual preference might assist the debate over mouth-sounds. Orodreth did not weigh in on the great name debate; his concerns centered solely on if the child would be born healthy. Little Finduilas was very excited and was firmly convinced her new cousin would be another girl.

The concerns over health also preoccupied Aegnor and Andreth far more than naming, for this child was the first of its kind and had no guarantee of anything. It was bad enough that regular mortal births had unsettling chances of becoming deaths for mother and/or child, and not just in the weariness of spirit that Serindë succumbed to. Birth fevers and breach-births and other mortal horror stories quickly circulated through the castle, despite the best assurances of Andreth’s kinfolk. Old Gildis took one look at Andreth, then at how much taller Aegnor was, and tutted. While not as tall as Cousin Turgon, Aegnor could still comfortably look Cousin Maedhros in the eyes before he was forty, and thus out of all the sons of Finarfin, he was the only one not completely towered over by Great-uncle Thingol. Andreth was of average height – for the People of Bëor. If the baby was as big as the crone feared, Andreth was going to have a hell of a time pushing through her skinny hips. No one knew how seriously to believe that dire proclamation. The newness and uncertainty of the situation worried everyone but Cousin Lúthien, who refused to understand the fuss. She existed, did not she? Still, with that in mind, King Thingol lifted his ban on allowing mortals to enter through the Girdle, as the exception of kin-blood now applied, and together he and Queen Melian offered that Andreth come to Menegroth where the Maia could watch over her. Aegnor and Andreth kindly thanked them for the offer but declined, for her pregnancy had advanced that even by swiftest boat down the Narog River and horse they would not reach Menegroth before the due date. The King and Queen of Doriath still sent a glorious conception gift, several beautiful tapestries to hang in the nursery with a promise of more gifts to follow once the child was born. Finrod sent up a golden circlet set with emeralds and a small harp, among a veritable mountain of other gifts. Fingon also sent a harp, and King Fingolfin promised a fine horse once the child was big enough to ride. From Himring came more jewels. From Brethil came a set of carved wooden spoons. Traditionally there would also be a wooden cradle for first-time parents, wrote Finrod, but he had explained to Haldan that one was being provided by Orodreth and his wife. Gathering up all these gifts and the diplomatic entailment was something Angrod was glad not to deal with, most of all because he was not the one forced to explain the difference between the elven celebration of a new child’s conception versus the mortal celebration of a child’s birth. Of the reasons for this difference Angrod would have been happy to have never learned that for mortals a child was not always carried to term. He wished he could have held that knowledge from Aegnor.

Andreth’s labor began with fortuitous good time in the morning, leaving plenty of time to call for her relatives before the birthing pains increased in frequency. The nonchalant acceptance of the mortals for birthing times to last hours and sometimes over a day had turned Edhellos snow-white in sympathetic pain, and Angrod’s wife praised the unnatural strength and endurance of mortal women. Angrod concurred. He also wondered, not for the first time, how was it possible that the mortals were able to have such large families compared to the elves.

Aegnor fought with the Bëorian midwife about allowing him into the room while Andreth was laboring. Such constant clashing between the customs of the Eldar and Edain were the hallmark of this marriage, which Finrod found fascinating from an academic perspective even as he did his best to smooth them over along with the rest of the family. Finrod, however, was physically nowhere near Dorthonion and thus unable to intercede between the fight. Wise of him, Angrod thought. With a little shouting of his own, Angrod convinced the midwife to allow Aegnor in. Andreth needed the target for all her soon-to-be curses, and Aegnor would be worse than useless until the babe was born, so let him sit quietly at her side and offer support.

“I won’t be useless.”

“Yes you will,” Angrod cut Aegnor off. “Agree to anything Andreth says; remember most of what she will say will come from the pain.” He wanted to give more advice, but Aegnor had already left.

The day passed, the stars rose, and the castle waited for the shouts to push, the groans of pain, the hustling of maids for more clean towels, and the worried demands of family to finally cease. The longer it took, the more all the horror stories about mortal births and the uncertainties of if this fit in Ilúvatar’s plan crowded their thoughts. Everyone was tired, none more than Andreth, for it was now almost dawn.

Angrod held Edhellos, breathing in the scent of his wife’s hair and shaking with his own fear. He knew if Andreth or the babe did not survive the birth, his brother would blame himself and along with most of Beleriand take it as a sign of Ilúvatar’s proscription against such a union. Aegnor would chose death by grief then.

He prayed, using the same chants the mortals did, listing out the names of all the Valar but to Mandos and Estë and Vána most of all. Edhellos sang her own prayers, those she used while birthing foals.

“A girl!” the midwife shouted over the cries of the newborn and Andreth. Angrod could hear Aegnor weeping, this time bright with triumph, on the other side of the door, and Andreth’s tired but firm demands to see her child.

With a silent praise to the Valar, Angrod sagged with boneless relief. “A girl. Living. Healthy. That answers a few questions.” Between his remarks, Edhellos griped his face and kissed him in relief and joy.

“Yes, now everyone knows what other gifts to send,” Edhellos said. She had assisted with the letters to the various kings and princes of Beleriand, each desirous to know the appropriate gifts.

After cooing over the newborn and appraising the perfection of her minuscule features, Aegnor carried her out to meet her uncles and aunts as the maids helped to straighten and clean Andreth’s bedding so the woman could rest. As Beril and Edhellos proclaimed her beautiful and Bregor opened the window so the light of the sunrise could illuminate a glowing Aegnor and his newborn daughter, Angrod opened his mouth and ruined the moment.

“I thought of the perfect name for her!”

Aegnor was too distracted by the sunlight on his daughter’s red face and the wisps of stiff golden hair on her head. His focus was on his daughter’s eyes blinking open.

“You should name her Nómwen.”

That drew everyone’s attention away from the infant.

Grinning in response to everyone’s flat and disbelieving stares, Angrod explained his genius. “It is perfect. The name is half Taliska and half Sindarin, just like our… peredhel. It honors both her mother, Saelind, and Finrod who started everything by finding and befriending Bëor’s people. And it is similar to Nerwen, so it fits the family name.” Angrod made a face. “Be careful, brother. She is likely to be another like our sister. Combine our side of the family with how stubborn the Bëorians are – Bregor, be honest, the only mortals more pig-headed are the Haladim, and I mean this as praise – and your daughter will be impossible. Not to mention spoiled by everyone; you have heard what toys Finrod has commissioned from the dwarves, right? The best we can hope for is Cousin Lúthien.” Thingol and Melian’s daughter was fortunately exceptionally beautiful and good-natured, willing to believe the best of everyone she interacted with and generally gregarious with company. As she was also so stubborn as to make her father Thingol seem weak-willed, the obstinacy of her character was rarely on display.

“Angrod, I am not naming my daughter Nómwen.”

Still unsteady on her feet and only wearing a long shift, Andreth walked through the doorway to hear Angrod unsuccessfully cajoling her husband to name her daughter. Sweaty, tired, and radiant, she firmly vetoed that name along with Aegnor.

“What are you naming her?” Beril pressed to forestall the family argument.

Aegnor looked down at his daughter, at the dawn highlighting the wisps of bright golden hair she had inherited from him. “Anárwen,” he said.

Privately, Angrod thought his new niece’s name was silly, despite the symbolism. It did not help that everyone decided that gifts themed around Arien became vogue to send to the newborn girl, and praised how fiercely she glared. Finduilas was smug.

He still called her Nómwen, to the disapproval of the girl’s parents.