The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 365-367

Galadriel has prepared gifts for every member of the Company except for one and that member is Gimli the dwarf. Readers of my blog will remember that when the Fellowship first came to Caras Galadhon after the terrible events at the bridge of Khazad-dûm Celeborn was at first angered that a Balrog, Durin’s Bane, had been disturbed in Moria and that he was angry with Gimli, blaming him for this and even for the fall of Gandalf. Long years of division, suspicion and even hatred between Dwarves and Elves were recalled. Celeborn was a child of Doriath, a secret kingdom of the Elves of the First Age in Beleriand and did not forget the killing of Thingol, its king, by Dwarves after the making of the Nauglamir, a wonderful necklace that contained a Silmaril, the one taken by Lúthien from the crown of Morgoth.

It was Galadriel who persuaded Celeborn to put aside his anger and to welcome Gimli into Lothlórien but surely the very fact that she has no gift prepared for him shows that she too is undecided about what kind of relationship she has with this dwarf. “What gift would a Dwarf ask of the Elves?” she asks him. There is no doubt that she wishes to heal a long hurt, not least because she knows that unless all the foes of Sauron stand together they will fall before him, but she does not know how this will be achieved.

“It is enough for me to have seen the Lady of the Galadhrim, and to have heard her gentle words.”

The gentle words were, of course, Galadriel’s words to Celeborn that he should not repent of his welcome to Gimli but also her speaking of sacred names in his own language. He had “looked suddenly into the heart of an enemy” and seen there “love and understanding”. It was a moment that changed him for ever which does not mean that the change is the creation within himself of a quality that had never existed within him but that something has been awakened that hitherto lay dormant.

Galadriel is delighted by Gimli’s answer, her heart goes out towards him and she bids him make a request of her. She wishes to be generous and to heal the ancient enmity but she is entirely unprepared for the request that Gimli will make. Just as Frodo, when in complete innocence, offered the Ring to Galadriel and so exposed desires within her that she had, perhaps, hidden even from herself, so Gimli too, with the same innocence, touches something that has long lain hidden within her.

Gimli asks for nothing but he names a single strand of Galadriel’s hair “which surpasses the gold of the earth as the stars surpass the gems of the mine.” Gimli cannot know that he is not the first to have made such a request of her, and that ages long before, Fëanor himself asked three times for a tress of her hair. Fëanor’s request was bold but not courteous. His desire was not just for her hair but for herself and she had refused him. Fëanor was one who wished to possess and Galadriel had perceived this darkness within his heart. Gimli, on the other hand, wishes only to love in pure devotion and so she gives him not only one strand but three, recalling the three times that Fëanor had made his request and the three times that she had refused him.

Galadriel unbraids a tress of her golden hair that holds the light of Laurelin and Telperion, the ancient trees of Valinor that Morgoth destroyed, and places three hairs in Gimli’s hands. “I say to you, Gimli son of Glóin, that your hands shall flow with gold, and yet over you gold shall have no dominion.”

Galadriel has been shaken to the very core of her being by the coming of the Fellowship to her land. She had expected that it would mean the end of Lothlórien just as she said to Frodo and she was prepared for this. What she had not expected was that in receiving them her Self would be revealed to herself. She is forced to become vulnerable in a way that she could never have anticipated. We will think about this when we look at her last song in a few weeks time. My belief is that her vulnerability will lead her, not to despair, but to hope. And so it does in all of us.