Swords in the Troll's Cave

[Alcuin]

Originally Posted by Galin

...according to late texts Nerdanel named her last two sons Ambarussa, although Feanor desired that this should not be so, and admittedly this could be an arguably unique scenario.

They were twins. It is as if she did not care for the difference between them; but later one was killed by his father.

Back to the original thesis of the thread: Surely the swords were taken as loot by Morgoth’s army after the Fall of Gondolin. Then, as Elrond surmised, the original hoard of loot was looted by others, perhaps several times, until their journey ended in the trolls’ cave. In which case (to paraphrase Gandalf) some other power was at work, and Gandalf was meant to have Glamdring.

I’ve also thought that Glamdring and Orcrist were a matched pair: Wealthy princes in our real world sometimes had two swords made together, so that if his first broke, the prince would have another, identical sword immediately at hand to replace it. I think that perhaps Aranrúth and Narsil might be swords of the same sort: a pair made by Telchar for Thingol. Narsil would then have been an appropriate gift by Tar-Elendil to his grandson Valandil of Andúnië; besides had the law Tar-Aldarion put in place to pass the throne to Tar-Telperion been enacted in Silmariën’s day, Valandil, not Aldarion, would have been King of Númenor.

[Galin]

Originally Posted by Alcuin

They were twins. It is as if she did not care for the difference between them; but later one was killed by his father.

True, but I add this example as: often enough I bump into the idea that Tolkien's Elves cannot have the same name, but even here (with the brothers Ambarussa) Tolkien mentions nothing about some sort of broken rule with respect to naming. And as I say, even if this scenario is considered unique, I'm not aware of any text that sweepingly or generally states that Elves cannot have the same name.

With respect to Glorfindel: if the Elf of Imladris had been named after the Elf of Gondolin, we would have to consider some things, the most important (in my opinion) being that Tolkien had just about stated (as he himself realized) that Glorfindel of Imladris was an Elf from Aman (an Elf-lord from beyond the Sea).

I suppose one could get around the issue of hair colour, as "names become names" and a person having a name that means "gold tressed" doesn't necessarily have to have golden hair (however expected in Tolkien's world)... and that said, Glorfindel of Imladris had golden hair anyway.

Tolkien had also published the general idea that the Eldar were dark-haired except for the House of Finarfin, though in my opinion this can be a fairly general "truth" concerning the Eldar, allowing exceptions outside of Finarfin's House as long as the general principle remains true (see also the author-published definition of Eldar in Appendix F).

Anyway I don't want to get sidetracked about hair... or do I?

But any-anyway, Tolkien decided that there should not be two Elves named Glorfindel, which of course is not the same as deciding that other names cannot be repeated among Elves.

Not that anyone said otherwise, specifically!

[Galin]

By the way, for the thread in general, I want to stress the if in if above... in other words, I'm aware that JRRT decided that there was only one Glorfindel.