Before I retired I listened to several podcasts while driving back and forth to work. For me, driving seemed the best time. Now I don't listen very often, since when I'm sitting at home I am usually trying to write or research something. Lately I've been doing a lot of walking and often use that time to listen to a podcast. One of the advantages of listening to others speak about things I am interested in is that I get ideas arising from observations made by others, whether I am agreeing or disagreeing.
Today I was listening to The Prancing Pony Podcast with the inimitable Alan Sisto and the redoubtable Sara Brown. They were discussing the "Tale of Aragorn and Arwen" in Appendix A of The Lord of the Rings. So as I was walking through Prospect Park I heard them talk about Celebrían, wife of Elrond and mother of Arwen. According to Appendix B orcs captured and tortured her in 2509 of the Third Age. Although she was soon rescued by her husband and sons, she had suffered so much that in 2510 she set sail across the sea for Valinor, the only place where she might be healed.
Now here's where the idea comes in.
Five hundred years later in 3018 at the Council of Elrond, Elrond says "The world has changed much since I last was on the westward roads."
So, was the last time Elrond traveled on these roads when he took Celebrían to the Grey Havens?
Since he had gone with his sons to rescue her, imagining that he also escorted her to the Grey Havens is hardly far-fetched. Now from what I can tell Celebrían was not invented until long after that sentence appeared in "The Council of Elrond." So there's no evidence that Tolkien wrote this sentence with an allusion to her departure built into it (for those with eyes to see), but it can certainly be read as one after she has been invented. As he often did, Tolkien invested the old words with new meaning through a change of context. I can't say whether he realized how the creation of Celebrían would recontextualize this sentence. Maybe, maybe not. Still Celebrían's subsequently invented story allows us to discover Elrond's reminiscence of his faraway wife in his words.
My thanks to Alan and Sara for prompting this thought. I like it.