The Fellowship of the Ring: Lothlorien
We crossed the banks of the Nimrodel, the small river outside of Lothlorien. The elf, Legolas, told us the tales revolving around how the river got its name. As a dwarf, I found the stories a little on the boring side. After a while, he went silent and all that could be heard was the sound of trickling water. I guess that if you listened hard enough, you could hear someone talking in the silence. I wasn't particularly interested in what was around me. My thoughts were focused on how to get our small group moving again.
"Do you hear the voice of the Nimrodel?" Legolas asked, breaking the silence that had descended on our small party. "I will sing you a song of the maiden Nimrodel, who bore the same name as the stream beside which she lived long ago. It is a fair song in our woodland tongue; but this is how it runs in the Westron Speech, as some in Rivendell now sing it."
His voice dropped low, barely heard among the whispering of the leaves:
An Elven maid there was of old,
A shining star by day;
Her mantle white was hemmed with gold,
Her shoes of silver-grey.
A star was bound upon her brows,
A light was on her hair
As sun upon the golden boughs
In Lorien the fair.
I tuned out of his song at this time, as songs about trees bore me to tears. I looked around; feeling like something was watching us. Something a little hostile. Legolas faltered at this time, his voice ceasing to sing. I turned my attention back to him at this point.
"I cannot sing anymore," he said. "That is but a part, for I have forgotten much. It is long and sad, for it tells how sorrow came upon Lothlorien, Lorien of the Blossom, when the Dwarves awakened evil in the mountains."
I couldn't stand for that comment. "But the Dwarves did not make the evil," I said, a little vehemently.
Legolas looked at me, the sadness seen clearly in his eyes. "I said not so; yet evil came."
He kept talking after he said this, but I felt it was more for the benefit of the Hobbits. Boromir and Aragorn were sitting off to the side, listening as Legolas did most of the talking. This was the most talking that the elf had done during the whole journey. I finally got tired of sitting there, listening to him talk.
"...The people of the woods did not delve in the ground like Dwarves, nor build strong places of stone before the Shadow came," Legolas finished.
"And even in these latter days dwelling in the trees might be thought safer than sitting on the ground," I spoke up.
Legolas and the Hobbits watched me while I looked back across to the Dimrill Dale, towards the Misty Mountains, which hid the once great Dwarf city of Moria. I knew the evil of which Legolas had mentioned, the Balrog of Morgoth. We had met it in the bowels of Moria. And to it we had lost our friend and guide, Gandalf the Grey. I turned away from that memory and looked back up into the trees. The dark boughs of the trees seemed to close in on me.
"Your words bring good counsel, Gimli," Aragorn said, the first words he had spoken since we had stopped. "We cannot build a house, but tonight we will do as the Galadhrim and seek refuge in the tree-tops, if we can. We have sat here beside the road already longer than was wise."
We stood and prepared to continue into the woods of Lothlorien. My final thought as we passed under the trees was that elves are quite talkative if you give them a chance.
Author's Note: This was written for my college English class. I had so many who liked it that I didn't get rid of it like I did my other essays.