Nimrodel

'Do you hear the voice of Nimrodel?' asked Legolas. 'I will sing you a song of the maiden Nimrodel, who bore the same name as the stream beside which she lived long ago. It is a fair song in our woodland tongue; but this is how it runs in the Western Speech, as some in Rivendell now sing it.'

- From the Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R.Tolkien

When I first read The Fellowship of The Ring in English (my father had read the Norwegian version for me as a child), I was in my teens and I got mildly obsessed with the poem of Nimrodel and Amroth. I memorised it, and slowly a melody started to form in my head. Now, almost twice the age I was then, I've put chords and harmonies to that melody and made a song out of the poem.

As ever, I've drawn my influence from folk music, but I also wanted to convey some of the haunting atmosphere of the scene in the book from whence it came.


I know others have probably done so before me, but this is my version of "Nimrodel":