Saturday, January 13, 2024

Queens back on their thrones: The restoration of Miriel, last Queen of Numenor

But the land of Aman and Eressea of the Eldar were taken away and removed beyond the reach of Men for ever.  And Andor, the Land of Gift, Numenor of the Kings, Elenna of the Star of Earendil, was utterly destroyed.  For it was nigh to the east of the great rift, and its foundations were overturned, and it fell and went down into darkness, and is no more.  And there is not now upon Earth any place abiding where the memory of a time without evil is preserved.  For Iluvatar cast back the Great Seas west of Middle-earth, and the Empty Lands east of it, and new lands and new seas were made; and the world was diminished, for Valinor and Eressea were taken from it into the realm of hidden things.

In an hour unlooked for by Men this doom befell, on the nine and thirtieth day since the passing of the fleets.  Then suddenly fire burst from the Meneltarma, and there came a mighty wind and a tumult of the earth, and the sky reeled, and the hills slid, and Numenor went down into the sea, with all its children and its wives and its maidens and its ladies proud; and all its gardens and its halls and its towers, its tombs and its riches, and its jewels and its webs and its things painted and carven, and its laughter and its mirth and its music, its wisdom and its lore:  they vanished for ever.  And last of all the mounting wave, green and cold and plumed with foam, climbing over the  land, took to its bosom Tar-Miriel the Queen, fairer than silver or ivory or pearls.  Too late she strove to ascend the steep ways of the Meneltarma to the holy place; for waters overtook her, and her cry was lost in the roaring of the wind.

-  Akallabeth, The Silmarillion



I suggested in my earlier post that the dream of the Great Wave that Tolkien had throughout his lifetime, and wrote about, actually had its source with Faramir, the one he would end up writing as the voice for it in LOTR.


In saying 'source', however, that is a bit misleading, because regardless of whether, where, and when both Tolkien-Frodo and Faramir had this dream, they would have both been experiencing it through the eyes of another.


Meaning, more specifically, that neither Being, in this story, would have been present on Numenor to experience first hand that Great Wave.  I have Tolkien as Earendil, and he would have been still up in Valinor or wherever he was sailing around up in the heavens at this time.  As for Faramir, I have him as Jared (of the Jaredites), and he would have been stowed away in their ships (tight like unto a dish, or a saucer) and riding this catastrophe over to join with Eressea #2.


Thus, the dream of this oncoming wave that envelops them, and all of the feeling associated with it, is coming through the eyes of someone else.


As I have written before, this was something with my own dreams that took me awhile to appreciate - that many times I was experiencing the dream through someone else's eyes or perspective (as I understood it).


So, given that neither man was there on the island, but the dream was of sufficient power to make a great impact on both of them, whose eyes were they seeing this through?


My current opinion is that it was through Miriel's eyes, the Queen mentioned in the passage I started this blog with, who was desperately climbing to the top of the Meneltarma, but was too late to reach it before the Wave overtook her.


In the spirit Queens that are missing from their thrones, Miriel is another one that will need to be restored as part of this story, I think.  


To avoid any confusion for those less familiar with Tolkien's stories, this is not the same Miriel that I wrote about as the Queen of the Noldor in Valinor and wife of Finwe (and potentially Mary the mother of Jesus).  This is another Miriel, who lived on Numenor, and was meant to be the ruling monarch until her cousin Ar-Pharazon married her, usurped the throne, and then subsequently broke the world.


Her father was Tar-Palantir, the 24th King of Numenor, an apt name for a visionary man. We have covered him before, and it is my guess that this Being would go on to be reborn as Denethor (Steward of Gondor), Lehi (of the Book of Mormon), and Joseph Smith, Sr.  In all of these roles, as I have stated in my prior posts on him, his life was mixed with some degree of tragedy and injury at the hands of Evil Beings.  His role as Tar-Palantir was no different, and he would first see his efforts to bring Numenor back into harmony with the Valar utterly fail.  What he would not live to see, though, is his daughter married to Phrazon against her will (and against the law), have her thrown taken from her, and then drowned with the rest of her people due to the actions of the evil Usurper.


So, I wanted to write this down, at least, and state that my opinion is that as part of Numenor's restoration, it will also see the restoration of its last rightful Queen as part of 'undoing' of or making right those evil deeds.


I have had at least two dreams related to this Miriel.  In the second, and last one I can remember, I was in a discussion with her ("I", again, meaning whomever's perspective I was seeing this through, not necessarily my own).  In that discussion, she and I were going over a plan, which I understood to involve some of the story headlines I have written about here on this blog regarding the restoration of Numenor.  To my understanding, and as far as I can remember, she was on board with whatever this plan was and an active participant.


Consequently, my guess is that Miriel, Queen of Numenor, is on this Earth as another human being like you and me, and who has completely forgotten who she is, just as so many of the the other characters I have written about, including the 'other' Miriel.   I think she is here as part of a plan that will at some point take a better and more discernible shape than what we are currently trying to decipher.   Part of these stories that come, I think, remind her and others just who they are and what they are supposed to do - or what they, themselves, have designed to do as part of this larger story.


And with her restoration, one more wrong thing will be made right.



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