For you are a lady high and valiant and have yourself won renown that shall not be forgotten; and you are a lady beautiful, I deem, beyond even the words of the Elven-tongue to tell. And I love you. Once I pitied your sorrow. But now, were you sorrowless, without fear or any lack, were you the blissful Queen of Gondor, still I would love you. Eowyn, do you not love me?’

Then the heart of Eowyn changed, or else at last she understood it. And suddenly her winter passed, and the sun shone on her.

‘I stand in Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun,’ she said; ‘and behold! the Shadow has departed! I will be a shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.’ And again she looked at Faramir. ‘No longer do I desire to be a queen,’ she said.

Then Faramir laughed merrily. ‘That is well,’ he said; ‘for I am not a king. Yet I will wed with the White Lady of Rohan, if it be her will.

The Return of the King (”The Steward and the King”)

Anonymous asked, for the Middle Earth Quote Meme, “9 for LotR (ask meme)”, #9 being the most romantic quote.

Cross-Cultural Marriages Among the Race of Men

It’s completely possible, and was even written about a few times. Keeping in mind that Tolkien wrote almost exclusively about ruling families, I don’t have any information specific to traders (though I’m sure that they married people from other cultures as well), but there are plenty of “noble” examples. Below I’ve listed just a few…

Introducing a new downloadable guide in progress: The Women Who Shaped Middle Earth. A five-part series, I’m looking at all the women who had a significant impact on Tolkien’s world. There’ll be some overlap (for example, Haleth and Elwing will both appear in other segments as well), so if you feel I left something out, that might be why, but send me an ask anyway, as I’ll be editing all of this before offering the complete version for download as a .pdf. 

This guide, as well as one other guide (to be released later this month) is part of my contribution to Legendarium Ladies April. If you don’t already know about the event, definitely check it out! And if you have any lady-centric questions or issues you’d like to see me make a post for, now’s the time to let me know!

And if you think this is interesting, check out my already completed Atanamili: The Women of the First Age series, which covers all the (mortal) women of the First Age.

Tolkien’s Most Beautiful Relationships (Third Age Edition)

(Here’s the original First Age edition, for those who haven’t seen it.) The Second Age is difficult for this, since Tolkien didn’t write much about it (which makes me so sad because there are some great stories from that era that I would love to see fleshed out more.) Just assume that my favorite relationships…

Eowyn and the Witch King

So, interesting point of fact: Glorfindel’s prophecy about the Witch King says “not by the hand of man will he fall.” It doesn’t say that a man couldn’t kill the Witch King, simply that one wouldn’t. Which takes a fair bit of pressure off of Eowyn’s still-quite-miraculous achievement. The Witch King apparently mis-interpreted Glorfindel’s prophecy, because when…

Tolkien and the Virgin Mary

I automatically want to avoid the word “represents”, because it brings us into dangerous allegory territory (see this post about Tolkien and allegory.) But there are a few characters that I would definitely say are at least partly inspired by the Virgin Mary, and Elbereth/Varda is absolutely one of them. Part of Tolkien’s strong Catholic…

Elboron: Second Prince of Ithilien

Yes, Faramir and Eowyn had at least one child, a son named Elboron. As far as I know, he appears only once in Tolkien’s writings, and that’s only in a single family tree included in “The Heirs of Elendil”, a chapter of The Histories of Middle Earth vol. 12.  Tolkien gives us very little information…

Aragorn, Eowyn, and the Cup

This exact scene didn’t happen in the books (because the entire post-Helm’s Deep sequence happens a bit differently in the books), but there are actually two similar scenes in the books that we can examine. The first happens earlier in Two Towers, actually just as Theoden is preparing to lead his people to Helm’s Deep:…