What happened to Legolas and Gimli after “The Lord of the Rings”?

Legolas, son of Thranduil and prince of the Mirkwood Elves; and Gimlison of Glóin, descendant of Dúrin and prosperous Dwarf of the Blue Mountains, are two fundamental characters in The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkienand whose participation in the Fellowship of the Ring, much more dignified in the novel than in the film adaptation, was decisive for Sauron’s defeat.

However, after the events narrated in The Lord of the ringswhen the One Ring was destroyed, Aragorn assumed the reign of Gondor, and Gandalf, Galadriel, Elrond, Bilbo and Frodo left Middle-earth, the destiny of Legolas and Gimli remains uncertain, even for many who have read the novel.

The truth is JRR Tolkien does not clarify in any passage of The Lord of the rings what happened with Legolas and Gimli. It is in its vast corpus of appendices, chronicles and notes after the advent of the Fourth Age, where the fate of these two friends, whose relationship overturned millennia of rancor and enmity between elves and dwarves, was finally revealed.

Let’s review the scarce but precise information that JRR Tolkien It tells us about these two characters; We insist, which does not appear in the novel, much less in the movies (see: The 8 dreams in “The Lord of the Rings”)

After the wedding between Aragorn and Arwen in Minas Tirith, Gimli He set out for Anglarond, where he established a colony of dwarves and became lord of the Glittering Caves, near Helm’s Deep.

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This group of dwarves maintained good relations with Rohan and Gondor; in fact, the artisans of Gimli They rebuilt the old gates of Minas Tirith, destroyed after Sauron’s siege, using the vein of Mithril that they had discovered in Anglarond.

For his part, after Aragorn’s coronation, Legolas he stayed close to Gondor. He founded an elven colony in Ithilien, and devoted himself primarily to restoring the devastation wrought by the War of the Ring to the area’s forests.

According to him Red Book of the Western Frontierthe one who began to write Bilbo —Story of a round trip (There and Back Again)—then continued by Frodo—The fall of the Lord of the Rings and the return of the King (The Downfall of the Lord of the Rings and The Return of the King)—and finally in the possession of the Gamgee family, it is stated that, after carrying out those works, Legolas and Gimli They met again to fulfill the mutual promise they had given each other in the novel: to visit Fangorn Forest together, and then the caves of Helm’s Deep.

In the Red Book it is also said that, after receiving the news of Aragorn’s death; Legolaswhose age is not clarified in any text of Tolkiensent a message to Gimli262 years old, to visit the king’s tomb together.

Subsequently, Legolas He built a ship in Ithilien, intending to sail to Valinor alongside Gimli, and thus leave Middle Earth. The fact, according to Tolkienhad no precedent, since until then no dwarf had been received in the Undying Lands, where the Gods, the Valar, coexist with the Elves.

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The unconditional affection of Legolas by Gimli surely influenced the dwarf to reach Valinor, but it is likely that it was Galadriel, who in Lórien agreed to the bold request of Gimli of giving him a lock of her hair, who decided to accept him in the Undying Lands.

It was so Legolas and Gimli They left Middle Earth together. With this short phrase Tolkien Describe the importance of that event:

And when that one left, the end came in Middle-earth of the Fellowship of the Ring.

(And when that ship passed an end was come in Middle-earth of the Fellowship of the Ring)

Mythology. I Middle Earth.

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