Some days you just get lucky. (But all the prep-work you did beforehand doesn't hurt...)
Here's a summary:
The main character Carnemírië is the
ardalagan Lórien to Amroth-king, i.e., the royal harpist of Lórien. Or, at least she was, because the year is 3A 1984 and
Amroth was lost at sea off the coast of Lond Ernil 2-3 years ago. (Which was just renamed in his honour to
Dol Amroth.)
Celeborn and
Galadriel took up the leadership of Lórien but not the kingship. How can one be a King's Harpist in a land that has no king? She hasn't been officially fired from the job, but Celeborn took a clear and public dislike to her. Galadriel was kind but did not challenge her husband's comments or attitudes (at least in public).
Carnemírië went to Amroth about 10 years ago for permission to marry someone she has loved for near 600 years, but she thought he was dead. They had recently become betrothed in a whirlwind romance where they encountered one another by accident. He's one of the few surviving grandsons of
Fëanor and completely unwelcome, i.e., banished from elven lands in NW
Middle-earth (for perfectly justifiable reasons). She hopes to win Amroth over in Lórien and her betrothed hangs out with his dwarven friends in nearby
Khazad-dûm. She's placed under restriction, she's not allowed to communicate with him other than to pass on
the simple fact that her king refuses to give permission for her to wed him. She's not allowed to leave the
realm.
Amroth leaves to chase after Nimrodel, but before he does so, he makes Carnemírië his regent. When Celeborn and Galadriel show up after
Durin's Bane empties out the Dwarrowdelf and folk start fleeing from Lórien, she hands over the regency to them. Celeborn, who is (oddly) fully aware of her marriage situation, makes a comment that Durin's Bane, whatever it is, is bound to be an improvement in neighbours over the
dwarves and a prince of House Fëanor. That comment alone was enough to let her know she was no longer welcome in her homeland. Before she handed over the regency she rescinded the restrictions on her leaving the realm and modifies it concerning her marriage to only hold whilst Amroth remains king. (She's a stickler for duty, and since she's got more experience with mortals than anyone else in her homeland, and knows the territory to search to some degree, she's the best choice amongst her people to search for her King and her two dearest childhood friends, Nimrodel and Mithrellas.) She found Mithrellas tarrying for awhile before going on to
Valinor (or so she said at the time; she ended up marrying the prince of Dol-en-Ernil instead.)
At this point, she's lost her homeland, her king, her position at court, two of her dearest childhood friends, and lost contact with her betrothed.
It's been a bad decade, one blow to the heart after another.
She goes north to fallen Arthedain where she spent most of the last 600 years warring in
the shadows helping the
Dunedain fight
Angmar. She made a home for herself, a peaceful refuge in a fen in Arthedain, which she also turned into an orphanage for the children of Arthedain and Cardolan her people encounter. If there's no one who can or will take care of the children, they are brought to the hidden orphanage, healed, loved, taught, and then sent back out into the world to combat the rot in Dunedain culture that Angmar's agents attempt to cultivate.
She missed the entire fall of Arthedain whilst held in her homeland, so she feels survivor's guilt over that. All she had to do was repudiate her betrothed and she could have gone north to aid her comrades in Arthedain. But Arthedain fell and Aranarth has decided to become the chief of a hidden folk, the
Rangers, instead of openly claiming the throne of a kingdom too weak to defend itself from the next blow. They are using her hidden orphanage as their base of operations at the moment until they prepare other hidden refuges. Carnemírië gifts the orphanage and the fen to Aranarth and departs.
Now she's lost her last home. There are only two things keeping her going. Hope she'll find her betrothed and her duty to a infant who was placed in the orphanage by his father so the child could grow up in safety. She's taking him to his father twenty years later.
She has no idea how long it will take to find her betrothed. None of the
elves in NW Middle-earth will tell her banished betrothed the time of day, much less the whereabouts of a lady they revere and admire. As ardalagan Lórien, she was an emissary of her king, and thus granted the privilege of
Káleressë, the Light of Solitude. Thus, no one without a need to know is told her whereabouts because her job makes her a target. Unknown to her, Amroth sent out word to the elven leaders in NW Middle-earth that they are not to pass on word of her betrothed's whereabouts to her. (She had been unable to find him in the prior 600 years because the same request was made back when Amroth received a report she had met the banished
elf and seemed drawn to him.)
But she's doggedly going to do her duty as best she can and hope for the best.
For multiple reasons, she takes her ward, Dirgon, through the back paths overland from Arthedain instead of by sea, and thus they find themselves in Sarn Erech in Morthond. Maybe she can pick up news of her betrothed since this is where she found him last time. She spent so much time in the area searching for Amroth and Nimrodel, and interviewing people to learn the Tale of the Aranwen, Princess of Morthond (it's a page-turner, or it will be when I write it!
) that the kind of light travelling disguise she usually uses won't work here. Plus, she has good contacts here so she'll get better info if she appears as herself.
She and her ward Dirgon are seated in the
inn awaiting their meal, the first fine eating they've had in two-plus months. The dwarves who fled the fall of Khazad-dûm scattered throughout NW Middle-earth. A few made their way to Morthond because of the mines in
the White Mountains. One of them approaches her and inadvertently becomes the person who informs her of the death of her betrothed.
It's one blow to the heart too many. She cracks. Dirgon is helpless to comfort her. She starts drinking, hoping that just one more bottle will fill the gaping hole that was just torn in her heart. And, as we all know, that never works.
A patron in the inn sees her harp case and, realizing she's a
bard, asks her to sing a song. Heck, just because your heart has just been pierced with grief is no reason to be rude, so she assents. She tunes her harp,
Herulin, the Lord of Song, to her sorrow and begins to sing a poignant Lament written an age of the world ago.
And then things go sideways. Once she lets sorrow flow out of her, she can't make it stop. It rushes out of her like the river Morthond during the spring thaws, growing ever stronger in a self-reinforcing downward spiral of grief, sorrow, and despair. She is a bard of superlative skill and power, the nature of her song is felt if not heard several hundred yards away from her. The patrons of the inn, and then the residents of the neighborhood, are overwhelmed with grief. Some collapse in place, weeping their hearts out. Others run away screaming. Some few attempt to kill themselves out of despair unless restrained.
The restless shades of the dead sense her song from further away, where they congregate at night next to the Stone of Erech near the town. The flow into the town. Some enter the inn, others stand in the public square outside, but all in respectful silence. Her sorrow speaks to them. They understand sorrow.
The town watch arrives, armed with staves and lanterns whose light is more pure than normal ones. They drive away the shades and stop her from playing and singing.
Things go downhill after that, but that's out of scope to this post, which is about how I got lucky.
Needless to say, such an event becomes the talk of the town and business at the inn booms as various versions of the tale are passed around. The innkeeper changes the name of his inn to "The Elfmaid's Lament" and then sponsors an annual bardic competition for songs of defiance against fate or one's enemies. (No one in town wants to hear a sorrowful song for some decades afterwards...)
I participate on a website called
www.ElfDict.com. I asked for help in translating "The Elfmaid's Lament" into
Sindarin so I could sprinkle some
Elvish into the story. I try to do my homework and come up with at least a reasonable (but probably wrong!) attempt at the translation. Y'all ever know someone who says their brain just short-circuits when they try to do math? I have the same problem when it comes to linguistic articles. The two translations I was given were
Naergon i-Ellath or
Naergon i-Eledhes.
Naergon means sorrowful Lament.
Ellath and
Eledhes both mean Elf-maid. '
i' is an article meaning, in this case, a specific Elf-maid, not a generic one. The full thread is here:
https://www.elfdict.com/discuss/7-translations/993-sindarin_for_the_elfmaids_lament.
I got back a translation for "The Lament of the Elf-maid" which, to my mind, isn't quite the same as "The Elf-maid's Lament". The former has more emphasis on the Lament and the latter puts more emphasis on the Elf-maid. Or so it seems to me. It seemed to me that perhaps the possessives or reflexive suffixes might be a better fit. One very kind translator explained that in Sindarin "The Elf-maid's Lament" and "The Lament of the Elf-maid" mean exactly the same and would be translated the same. He explained that neither the possessives or reflexive suffices were correct here.
And then I got lucky.
He wrote:
"A construction like
i-Eledhes Naergon în does not mean what you intend it to mean; rather, it means, perhaps, something along the lines of "an Elf-maid belongs to her own lament", and to me at least that seems like a very strange thing to say."
Boy, howdy, it
would be a very strange thing to say and it's
absolutely PERFECT for what happened in that inn!
So, when
the Master of Edhellond reports to the Lady of
Lorien about some very odd
events concerning the
ardalagan Lórien in Sarn Erech, he'll express puzzlement over the new name of the inn, "
i-Ellath Naergon în" instead of
"Naergon i-Ellath", and wonder whether the mortals just used poorly learned Sindarin or whether the new name is accurate in a way he does not understand. If the latter, it does not sound like an event to be pleased about.