Creation Song of Ilúvatar

Chapter 32: The Voices of the Lindar

The songs of the musicians rang true and sorrowful, yet full of a seductive lure.  The musician’s fingers ran nimbly over the lute-like instrument (1).  The music celebrated life, love, loss and tragedy, each chord being strummed, breathing life to the little documented life of Silvan society.  The heart of the music was pulsating forth from the hands of the musician that tapped on a hollowed gourd that had leather stretched over its hollow mouth. The musician’s hands would venture into the hollowed out end, changing the sound that beat forth from the Elvish drum.

The music was haunting, beautiful, full of life, and the dancers swayed to the rhythmic incantations of the musicians.  They danced, holding each other tightly, afraid that if they let go, they too would loose their precious hold on life.  The previous days had held much loss and sorrow, scenes that the Silvan folk were too familiar with, and one of their most beloved’s fate was unknown.

The strings of the lute reverberated with the purposeful strumming of its handler, eliciting a strange and beautiful music.  The voices of the minstrels were heavy with sorrow, their melody evocative but soft and beautiful as only the voices of the Lindar could be.  They sang of life under Shadow, and they yearned for a time when all was green and lives could be fulfilled; where little greenleafs could run freely without worry and pain.

Such was the way of the wood Elf, to be immortal yet caught in the most fragile of webs, where life could be swept away in a single instant.  It is said the these are a simple folk, unlearned in the ways of the wise, but for those who dare look closer it is indeed a wise and wondrous people they have before them.  For they do not dwell in the desires of power and dominance but in the beauty of the trees and the simple truth of love.

In this moment Glorfindel felt tears begin to overwhelm him.  How was it that the words written in some book could come to distort such wisdom, such ancient strength?  And Legolas, oh Legolas, what could he do but weep for the life of a loved one, one of the few left who maintained his innocence and awe of the world?

***

Legolas was now caught in the unconscious world of vision as his body struggled to regain control over the poison that coursed through his body.

As he walked further into the vastness of space he felt his body begin to rise and fall more rhythmically with each breath. He felt song come from afar and carry his breath to the most vivid places of life, sustaining him, nurturing him. The act of Elven healing was upon him, a great mystery to mortal kind.

On his meandering journey through this world of visions he came upon the mortal maiden who was watching her reflection in a pool of silver water.

“Lenmana,” Legolas called softly. 

The woman turned to look at Legolas and gasped, “How could it be Pamuya? You have passed into the world of spirits!”

“Yes, Lenmana, but this world of spirits does not hold me as it holds a mortal body. In this place I am safe to heal and receive the songs of the Eldar which will lead me back to life in my Greenwood.”

Legolas saw the fear in the young mortal’s eyes. “What do you fear,” he asked the fragile mortal.

“I fear what I know not,” she paused, her voice trembling, “I fear being alone, with nothing but dirt around me, and yet I should fear not.”

“Why,” Legolas inquired, “why should you not fear?”

Lenmana was drawn to the beauty of her water moon, and felt a peace that for once allowed her to speak with patience, “Because, the earth that holds me is not to blame, nor to be feared.  I am made of these things, but I fear them.  Do you not see? I have forgotten the stories.  I have lost them and I fear death.  I fear the unknown, and all I see is my body, torn, laying upon a pile of dirt which I claim as mine.”

Legolas sighed, the unknown fate of men.  He could not fathom this uncertainty, to travel beyond the confines of this world to a place nameless, but deep within he knew that there was a destination, a thing to be, to become, that this life was but a journey for the Edain, cursed and at once born the gift of mortality.

She waited for an answer from her earthen moon but he simply looked into her eyes.  Tears welled in her eyes as she felt the immensity of fear overcome her again.

Legolas reached out and gently placed his hand on Lenmana’s cheek, “It is not for me to grant you faith.  That is a journey only you can take.”

“I do not know if I can do this.  I have lost so many, so many,” she whispered, tears running down her cheeks.

“And this is a pain I share with you albeit unwittingly,” Legolas spoke, sorrow clouding his piercing gaze. “It is such that during these times we walk the sundering of lives from our sides is a like a raging river we must hold forth against.  But even in sadness there is hope.  Their deaths have not been in vain,” Legolas spoke, his voice like a sweet and sad melody.

But the young mortal had not the heart to hope for fear guided her heart and a rage overtook her heart.  “My peoples’ deaths have been utterly for nothing.  We die not only once but twice.  You speak of the sundering of lives, I speak of the sundering of the only way I have ever known how to understand my world,” Lenmana shouted, slapping Legolas’ hand away.  “How can I even approach to understand myself when the lands of my birth are stripped from me?” Lenmana cried out, full of mortal rage that has lost the guidance it once had.

Legolas looked down.  He could do nothing to make the pain that ate her go away.  He could not grant her the faith she had seemingly lost. 

Then Lenmana saw it as Legolas eyes looked into her, like a thunderstorm covering the mesas of her desert with the power and ferocity of nature, his eyes stormed and the ages of his life came crashing down upon her.

“Forgive me Legolas,” Lenmana cried like a lost child, “I know not my path.  I, I only know how to be a part of something, not alone.  It is not the way I have come to understand this world, not on my own.  My faith, my person has always been guided by those who have come before me.  The stories, the grandfathers, our lands, they contain the entirety of me.  Oh I feel so lost without them,” the young mortal woman cried out, collapsing into Legolas arms.

“So young,” Legolas thought, as he gently embraced Lenmana. “It is these stories you must keep to child.  It is these stories you must always remember,” he gently admonished.

“My grandmother told me that my fate was tied to the moon and that I would always be drawn to it and here I have found you, but I know not what to do.  How do you dare claim the moon as your own?”

“You do not,” Legolas whispered, his voice like a gentle breeze, soothing the mortal’s aching soul, “you simply must trust that it will always be there.”

“No matter what happens,” Lenmana questioned like a young child eagerly seeking reassurance from a parent, resting her head on his strong chest.

“If the sun were to burn without setting over the West, the moon would be there cloaked in the rays of light, but there it would remain to serve as a reminder there is always hope,” Legolas answered, his voice running like a gentle river on a summer’s night.

Legolas continued, “do not forget to love, to love all that is in you, for in remembering this, you remember them.  Do not forget to love, to love one another, and you will understand that all you thought was lost has survived.  And you have learned to survive, to endure, but most of all you must not forget to love,” Legolas gently reminded the mortal maiden.

“I do,” Lenmana replied, “I love the moon and the comfort it brings me.  I love the moon for it is ever coming to grace me with its beauty.  In the moon I find love, and I am not afraid.”

“Yes, you are a child of the moon,” Legolas agreed, “but do not forget that with the sun you find your brilliance.”

“But my heart, my heart cannot contain the love for the sun and the moon!”

“Ah child, but love, love is the largest of all we have in life.  It is so large that all the souls that walk these lands can be lost in its vastness.  No love, it is larger than life itself.  Remember how to love, and in this you will find your stories. You will find that your peoples, they are not lost, they have always been with you,” Legolas ageless voice murmured softly.  “Remember love and you will find your path returns to your lands, to your center, for it is what you love, where your love is born.”

And she walked with love away from Legolas towards her center.

As she walked away Legolas whispered, “and we crumble like the dried petals of a summer’s flower succumbing to the chill of fall.  Everything we once held dear is now adrift like the ashes of a lover taken from our side too soon… Follow the song of the blue bird.“

Legolas walked alone amongst the trees. 

***

Lenmana awoke from her slumber to hear the chirping of birds in the trees. She looked towards the birds and in the trees she saw a flock of strange blue birds who sang a familiar song.  The light in the sky was a strange hue of blue and as Lenmana turned to look towards the sun she saw the moon resting in the sky next to the sun, and together they shone a luminous light. It was as if these birds that sang their familiar song only sang for this luminous light which shone once in the lifetime of a people.

Lenmana looked around a saw a familiar landscape but it was not completely her own. Her horse lay dead next to her and she saw figures in blue uniforms gathering those who still lived, tying their hands together, and marching them ahead towards the East.

The blue uniformed men had not noticed her and Lenmana again looked up towards the sky and saw the sun and moon. “I understand now. I do not fear that which was my home. I shall return to my center, to the lands that gave birth to me, even if I cannot take my body, my spirit shall return there.”

Lenmana stood up and walked towards the blue birds that sang in the trees that were strangely out of place in the desert. The blue birds called to Lenmana with their song, and they flew West, beckoning her to follow. And Lenmana followed soaring in the sky under the pale and strange luminosity of sun and moon.

“Pamuya,” Lenmana sang softly, “Pamuya, I return to the place where your darkness gave me birth.”

***

It had been two days since Legolas had regained consciousness. He was propped up in his bed sipping a hot tea filled with fragrant honey. Glorfindel sat on the bed next to him.

“Legolas, I have something to tell you,” Glorfindel hesitated, fearing that the news might not be well received by Legolas.

“What is it Glorfindel” Legolas urged, seeing the hesitation on Glorfindel’s part.

“It is the mortal maiden, she is gone,” Glorfindel revealed.

“Yes, I know,” Legolas answered.

Glorfindel raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

Legolas, seeing Glorfindel’s surprise continued, “You see my Lord, I was there when she left.” Legolas looked into Glorfindel’s eyes, knowing the Elf Lord would understand this tale. “In my time of unconscious wake, I came upon her as she neared her journey’s end her in our lands.”

“Yes,” Glorfindel answered, the realization of what had happened giving him understanding.

The two Elves looked towards the west, and Legolas whispered into the wind:

“They didn’t fit any more, they didn’t fit in her head,

the blue birds in [her] head

That was how one mid-day of strange luminosity,

She opened them a tragic orifice of escape

and the blue birds they took her life

They left, but when they left,

they also took her life” (2)

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

(1)I am taking liberties in introducing the lute into Silvan society, but I do it in the spirit of Tolkien.  He after all introduced corn and tobacco into Middle-Earth, and we all know corn was unknown in Europe until after contact with the Americas where it is from.  The lute, or Ud was brought into Spain in the early 8^th century by the Moors/North Africans and probably more generally into Europe with the advent of the Crusades. The Ud was adapted by Europeans, strings were added and the instrument morphed into the Lute.

(2) Atahualpa Yupanqui

Thank you all who have followed this story. Although this ending comes so late, I can say that I too have taken a journey and upon my return I have come back to Lenmana and Legolas with a renewed sense of peace. Life is a mystery, and it is force always unfolding before us.  It is amazing to me that death be so feared when in the wind, if we listen closely we hear our ancestors, when in the rains that come in the summer months, our grandfathers return to bring us life; the thunder thumping like the beat of the drummer reminding us, life is renewed.