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Don’t go into the Greenwood
when the leaves are dark
for the shadows stretch
and the dead winds fetch
strange things out of the bark.
Don’t go into the Greenwood
the paths are long and lost
and they lead you where
things bright and fair
whisper you’re lost, you are lost.

The song carried on words without breath, as saturated into their minds as the cold fog and damp-drip that soaked into their traveling cloaks. The wet was not heavy enough to be rain, not light enough to fall without sound, so it drip, drip, dripped from the branches, trapping the smell of rotting leaves into the channel of the path. Occasionally, as though giving in to an impulse they were all resisting, one of the company would sing out a verse:

“Don’t go into the mirky wood,
the rivers are cold and deep
with shallow streams
of ageless dreams that lull
you to sleep, to sleep, to sleep.
That lull you to deathless sleep.”

“Figwit!” snapped Elrond, the word crisp in the sogginess of the air. “The merits of that tune grow thin.”
On the horse beside Elrond, Gandalf puffed on his pipe, adding a whiff of finest Green Toby to the mist.
“Oh, I don’t know, my dear Lord Half-Elf, I think it rather nice of the villagers to give us such warning.”
The inhabitants of the small settlement on the edge of the lake – barely a village, a collection of huts and fishing boats where the current pulled out into the deeper water – had kept their distance from the brilliant tents of the Rivendell-Lothlorien party. The shutters on each house barred, in each doorway, on each threshold that they passed, a hastily thrown horse shoe or bag of iron nails along with a cup of good looking wine. Only a lone bard, sat by the water’s edge, had come out to sing to them. One song only before returning to the closed-up houses:

“Do not great the fair folk
whether dark or blonde or reds
with their twisted crowns
of branches wound
around their star-strung heads.

Do not offer them water,
only offer them wine,
only rope the barrels silently
and hope they pass by this time.”

The sound of the lute had come through the still night, ruffled into the laps of the lake edge. The bard had returned home quickly after, as though un-eager to stay out there with them. As though he had been sent to explain the villager’s reluctance to greet such fine and distinguished passers-by, and, job done, he had returned to the safety of the hearth.
“Besides, dear friend,” continued Gandalf, talking around his pipe, “it is a rather catching tune.”
“Catching or not,” said Glorfindel, pulling a leaf from out the mane of his horse, “I too would be pleased to hear no more of it. This place weighs on me. It is dour.”
“Dour?” repeated the Marchwarden from the front of the party. “It is dire. These are no trees of Lothlorien, no woods of my Lady.”
“No?” Gandalf looked from under the brim of his dripping hat. Then his tone changed. “I fear you are right, Haldir, but woods of the elves these are, or once were, and woods of the elves I believe they remain. For now.”
“Wood elves,” was Haldir’s retort to this, as though it explained all; the dripping trees, the silent branches, the lingering notes of that strange song. The slight upward curl of the mouths of the other elves showed their agreement. It was only Elrond’s face that remained unchanging, his only movement a flicker of the eye.
“You are up to something Mithrandir.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps it is no more than I told you. The world grows big enough and bigger with each mile and year you all stay so separated. It is time you made friends again.”
Glorfindel ducked below a branch.
“Have we ever been friends Gandalf, the High Elves and the Silvan? Elves they are, but they are not like us.”
“No?” that slight question in that word again. “Good gracious, how complicated the world is. It must be my age.”
The party fell back into the eerie silence of the path.

“Don’t go into the darkling wood
When the air is silent and still
and no deer break
and no hares shake
their ears and no birds no trill.
Don’t go into the magic wood…”

Haldir's voice sang from the front of company, repeating the words of the bard. Gandalf puffed on his pipe and worried he’d been gone too long.

*

There wasn’t room to pitch the tents, the bright canvases stayed rolled, only blankets and bedrolls came out. It was unusual to stop after so short a time of traveling but something in the forest felt on the edge of weary. Nothing on the surface, nothing that they could see or hear; it was a forest of great trees entering the autumn months, it’s colours blazing, it’s creatures starting to settle for the dusk. Yet, these creatures aside, it felt full of eyes they could not see.
“Keep a look out,” instructed Haldir, “these woods are dangerous in ways we cannot know, or have long forgotten about.”
He found his own vantage point where a great branch lowered itself to the floor, giving coverage, and pulled an arrow, ready. Haldir did not question his Lord and knew no part of his heart that could question his Lady, but this was a mission come from the wizard’s wants, not from the want of Lothlorien. His Lady had been persuaded, so Haldir would do her bidding but he did it with the knowledge that it was the wizard’s want that had moved her, not hers that had moved the wizard. The tree moved above him. He turned his face up to it.
Whatever it was landed on his back with a lightness that belied the viscous quickness of the movement.
“Hai! Hai!” he called, reaching up above him to pull it off him, grasping hold of two arms, thin and stick like. And strong; he felt the light weight of whatever it was shift, go onto it’s own arms, as though it was standing it’s weight on them. Then it swung and flashed down in front of him, biting at his hands. “Ow! Ow!”
The cries of the Marchwarden brought a hail of well-aimed elf arrows, one of them piercing into Haldir’s leather chest-strap as the creature moved too quick to be pierced.
“Stop it!” cried the warden in alarm, fearing the creature moved so fast that even with elven aim he would be hit. The words never fully sounded. Whatever it was, it was now between his legs, through his legs, pulling Haldir’s own arms through with it, kicking the warden’s legs out so that he fell, face forward.
“Catch it!” the huge voice of Glorfindel boomed out and whatever ‘it’ was yelped as an arrow went through some part of it. It didn’t stop it, it moved, diving for the wizard. Above them, the trees of the forest suddenly howled; the wind through their branches at the rate of storms, making a sound like wolves. Twigs and bark began to fly at the elves, whipping across faces to leave hard lines of blood.
“Stop it!” the wizard's voice as loud as the Balrog Slayer’s. “Stop it and be calm, are you so aroused that you shoot without thinking?”
Did he speak to the trees or to the elves?
Haldir rolled onto his back, whatever it was that was attacking them, it was now halfway up the wizard’s back, obscured by the grey cloak that had caught up in the movement. The hat was lifted off the wizard’s head, seemed to jump backwards and land upon the floor.
“Stop it, hold your fire!” demanded the wizard as whatever it was cowered under the hat, a bundle hunched in on itself, a huddle with an arrow through it’s leg.
“What is this thing?” asked Elrond, Glorfindel moving ahead of him to put the tip of his sword under the hat brim. Gandalf waved him down.
“Put your sword aside, Balrog Slayer, it is not needed. I think a truce has been requested.” He knelt down and gently pulled the hat away. The face beneath it glared at him, a little bit angry, quite a bit frightened and hurt though unwilling to show it. “Has it not, Legolas?”

Elrond’s eyebrows rose in spectacular fashion.
“Gandalf, that is an elfling.”
“And a princely one at that. A little late for you to be out patrolling the borders, say you not, Little Leaf?”
The Little Leaf glared at the use of that name and pulled the hat back from the wizard, disappearing once again beneath it.
“But what does it out alone?” exclaimed Glorfindel. “It is not old enough to be out of a nursery let alone in so wild a place as this.”
“Let me look at him,” Elrond strode forward, “that arrow will need to be seen to.”
The hat was pulled further down over the elfling by a pair of small hands.
“It is alright, little prince,” said Gandalf gently. “This is Lord Elrond, of the house of Rivendell, and he will see your leg well.”
There was no response from the hat. Gandalf leaned in, his language changing to Silvan with his quieter tone. As the wizard spoke, Haldir came to stand beside Glorfindel.
“My Lord, I did not know. I had no knowledge it was an elfling.”
“Come, prince,” continued the wizard in the tongue of the woodland folk. “Let us see that face, it was bravely fought and there is no shame in injury.”
The face appeared. Elrond only glanced at it briefly, his mind focussed on the arrow.
“Thank you,” he managed in Silvan, kneeling gently beside the injured little one. It was some time since he had had a need to practice such speech. A worried archer appeared beside Haldir.
“I am sorry Captain, that is my arrow. I did not know.”
“Me either friend, we are to blame together.”
“Blame!” exclaimed another elf. “It flung itself on us like a wild thing. The blame is all on it!”
“Shh, shh,” cooed Elrond gently as he touched near the arrow, making the elfling hiss. He could not remember more Silvan words and chose again the language of his own home. “You must never pull an arrow or a blade out, small one, for it stops the blood from leaving you until you are in a safe place. Instead we must snap it so - ” he matched the action to his words, causing a high pitched cry and a viscous shaking of the trees – “and bind around it. Explain it to him, would you Mithrandir?”
“He understands it well enough,” replied the wizard gently, wiping a tear of pain of the elfling’s cheek. Elrond looked up at the face, trying to judge the health of the small creature. He was small, he could be nowhere near his majority, Elrond doubted he had seen four hundred summers. The face almost disappeared into the trees, so pale and colourless it could be a glance of the moon through the branches. The eyes were blue, dark as the sky around stars. Above the tips of each tiny ear was an archer’s braid, the rest of the hair wild and loose, as ashen as his skin in the night.
“Bravely done,” said Elrond, trying to hide his surprise at such a smaller thing having such grown up braids. “Now, can you stand on it?”
“Come, sapling,” Gandalf turned once again to the woodland tongue. “Up you grow, for we must see how well your roots fair after such a storm.” As he spoke, the wizard lifted the hat and, biting his lip, the little elf rose underneath it, reaching up to bring it back over his head. Gandalf laughed and pushed the hat back slightly. There – probably because it was a wizard’s hat – it stayed, seemingly shrunk, revealing that startling face. The branches of the nearest tree dipped down, trailing their leaves like fingers over the little one’s green and brown clad body.
“An elf wood still,” confirmed Gandalf, relief in his voice.
“A seat by our fire, my lord?” asked Figwit, holding a cup of wine ready but the elfling seemed reluctant to leave the wizard’s side. With a mixture still of fear and defiance, he held the wizard’s cloak, putting his weight on his own good leg.
“Mithrandir,” Glorfindel had sheathed his sword and now stood beside them with Haldir and the worried Lothlorien archer. “Am I right in thinking this is Thranduilion?”
“From his glare I see not who else it can be,” supplied Elrond, looking again at the elfling’s face.
“How have you not told us of this?” asked Glorfindel, his confusion causing his anger, “for it is obvious that you know him, not just know of him, yet you have kept it from us.”
“I?” asked the wizard, raising the thick bushes of his brows. “It is not I who have not wandered these paths, it is not I who have spoken not to others. How is it my actions that meant you know not of him?”
“An elfling is a blessing to all elves,” said Elrond, “word of it would have been nice.”
“Yet they are not of you, have you not said so yourself Glorfindel, or you Haldir?”
“He is of Oropher’s line.”
“True, replied the wizard, putting a hand on the young elf’s shoulder, “but Oropher became of the wood when he chose the wood. He chose the ways of the wood folk and his son a wife of them. This little leaf is of them, crowned by the wood as surely as Oropher was, as surely as Thranduil is. But come, he is a tired elfling, I think a sit beside a fire will do him good.”
With that the wizard collected up the elf – and thus his hat – and made their way to the fire.
“This is bad, Lord Elrond,” said Glorfindel plainly. “Mithrandir schemes as he always does. If we had known we could have kept an eye out. Now we have shot the son of Thranduil, a being hardly known for his even temper with those he perceives as wronging him.”
“Had we known, Glorfindel, we still would not have known to watch for the prince attacking us from the trees. Thranduil will have to understand.”
Even as he spoke it, Elrond knew of the likelihood of this.
“We should turn around, my Lord,” said Lindir. “Turn around, it can only lead to conflict.”
“And say what?” asked Elrond. “That we shot his son and then left? I know you favour always peace over conflict and that is a wise thing to desire. But, should we leave now, whatever control Thranduil has might leave him wholly. Better to face the king here than at the gates of Lothlorien.”
“I am sorry my lords,” put in the archer again, “I truly did not see what he was.”
“Fear not,” reassured Glorfindel, “I represent the Lord and Lady here too and shall take all blame for you are under my command.”
“That will not sate one like Thranduil!” cried a Lothlorien elf, genuinely frightened. “He will demand blood; he will probably tie them to trees and shoot them with twigs until they are pinned there. The King of the Woods is a crazed wildling, he’s -”
A rock hit the elf in the head. The elf lifted his hands as another hit, smashing at the knuckles that protected the face.
“Noldor scum,” screamed the little elfling. “Dragon kissers.”
Gandalf rolled his eyes, picking up the little elf so that the next rock fell short of the target. The small face was flushed, the teeth barred and white and flashing like his eyes.
“He understands well enough,” he repeated, tucking the furious, wriggling elfling under his arm. A twig whirled off of a tree and bounced off the face of the nearest elf.
“Perhaps we are better to push on and take this one home?” Glorfindel looked around the camp. “Pack up all, we journey onwards.”
The elfling looked out at them from under Gandalf’s arm, his bright eyes blazing.

*

“Don’t go into the Greenwood,
you'll fall down in the mud
and the tree’s drop all their leaves on you
because you aren’t any good.”

Legolas’s voice rang through the forest. The mood of the little elfling was as changeable as the wind through the branches, the pattern of the sun through the canopy. He had gone from furious sulking to whimpers of pain to great enjoyment in mocking the others with songs. The sillier he could make the song the more pleased he obviously felt. It was hard for the elves not to be joyous with him, so happy and bright he appeared. But then Gandalf’s horse – who was carrying the prince so respectfully and with such pride – would have no choice but to step around a branch or cover uneven ground and the prince would wince.

“Gandalf has a lovely horse,
his feet are true and strong,
I shall feed him bread and wine
so he gallops all day long.”

“I don’t think horses like wine, young prince,” said Gandalf, his hat back upon his own head now.

“Gandalf is a silly wizard,
he knows lots of things,
but not that horses like five courses
of wine and….”

The prince trailed off.
“Wizard is hard word to rhyme, Prince Legolas,” said Elrond, helpfully. “Perhaps try a different one.”
The prince glared at him and turned away. The party carried on, ears alert for the Greenwood scouts who all knew they must come across soon. Elrond brought his horse besides Gandalf’s.
“Are we far, Mithrandir?”
“Not far and I should think our host will be coming to meet us. Word of what has happened has no doubt reached them already.” Above their heads the trees moved and whispered. “We have been followed for some time.”
Elrond scanned the trees but he could see nothing, not a movement or a colour. Glorfindel shook his head.
“We will not see them, not this close to the kingdom. Its power stretches out to us. I feel it.”
The party carried on, rather wishing that the prince’s singing would continue and break open the silence of the group but he remained silent. Birds sang in the trees, life moved now in the undergrowth around them. The forest felt alive and the scent that came up from the horse’s hooves was of fresh earth and leaf mould. It was beautiful; wilder than the trees of Lothlorien and Rivendell but with the feeling of grace that each place held.
They crossed a stream, careful at Gandalf’s instructions not to put even a toe in it.
“This is the boundary of the Kingdom of the Elves of Greenwood the Great. Not for nothing are the songs of their magics a warning. Tread carefully, for you arrive uninvited.”
One by one they stepped over the stream.
Once beyond, the forest looked no different. The trees were tall and mighty like the ones without, the birds still filling them with their evening song. Undisturbed by the visitors, an early fox ran across the path. It was only when the last elf had crossed over that the scene changed. Suddenly it was a wood of fire and light as the sunset beyond the forest burned cool and coloured around them. In the deep light of that sunset, glints came from the end of hundreds of arrows that pointed at the visitors from hundreds of great bows, each as bent and strained as a sapling in a mighty gale. Each elf that held a bow was coloured like the forest, their hair the blacks and browns and reds of the seasons, their skin as pale as winter or as dark as loam. Some of them looked almost silvered, like the bark of birches; some of them were more greyed like oaks or brown likes chestnuts. Their eyes were all the colours of the stones in the forest rivers. Some carried not bows but beautiful blades of leaf shapes, inscribed with delicate veins. All of them wore the most beautiful clothes; they shimmered like new leaves in the spring moon, like the ground in winter when the frost coats each edge of grass or bark.
All of their jewelled eyes were on the young elfling who sat unperturbed on the horse of Gandalf. Now the elfling’s clothes were no longer the simple leggings and tunic he was wearing before; now they were a brilliant shirt of silver mithral and a cloak of leaves and on his head was a crown of spring flowers, some real and some jewels, the beauty of each unsurpassed.
The horse beneath the prince bowed, reaching out it’s foreleg, dipping it’s neck. Around it’s neck, a garland of leaves began to grow in acknowledgement; for there, ahead of them, in the middle of the path, was the King of the Forest. Thranduil, on a white stag larger than any stag any elf there had ever seen. The coat shone silver like the mithral of the prince, the antlers so wide and tall that they pushed at the branches that edged the path.
“King Thranduil,” said Elrond, quickly dismounting from his horse to bow in acknowledgment. Glorfindel and the others quickly followed his example, for whatever they thought of Thranduil, whatever their history was together, there was no denying the power of this king in his own forest, nor the splendour of his presence.
If the prince’s crown was flowers, the king’s was branches. Branches that twisted around each other, more beautiful and delicate than any being could work in metal. It was a living crown, leaves grew through it, some of them autumnal, starting to flare and fire like the sun around them. Bright jewels gleamed amidst the twists like coloured stars, like the flashes of brilliant birds in the tree tops. His clothes were of a magnificence rarely seen; in them was all the textures and colours of the forests: of leaves and bark and feathers of fur; of starlight and moonlight and the summer sun in the glade. His skin, and his gaze however, were like the coldest winter; like the moment when bone slips and breaks with the sound of a frozen twig. Like when all sleeps and nothing wakens to your aide and the only thing that falls to help you is the snow and winter rain.
He gave the bows no acknowledgement. He returned no curtesy.
“You have my prince, you worldy wizard.”
Gandalf, who had bowed his head in the presence of the forest king, replied in the friendliest of tones.
“I have indeed, and if I hold him close despite his valiant attempts to wiggle free and greet you, it is only because I wish him no further harm. The drop from the horse may hurt him more for, as you no doubt know, he has come to injury outside of your realm.”
Hurriedly Glorfindel stepped forward.
“Allow me to take the blame for that, King Thranduil, for your son fell upon one of the wardens of Lothlorien and was injured before we knew what he was. We beg your forgiveness.”
The expression of Thranduil changed. His head tilted, his body moving forward slightly, his lips moving back to show his teeth in the sunset light.
“Do you think I don’t know, Glorfindel Balrog Slayer, what befell my prince in my own wood? Do you think my reach grows so limited, or my prowess so low?”
“I think it not, King Thranduil, I only wish to admit to the truth of it and emphasise to you it was not intentioned.”
The King of the Woods showed no sign of abatement.
“You expect that to appease me? Hand him over to me, wizard, I will have my jewel returned.”
The horse moved forward, Gandalf holding the young prince. He came to a halt beside the huge stag.
“He is quite well, Thranduil, whatever your understandable anger and distress, his coming to harm must be expected when you allow him to travel so far.”
Thranduil pulled away his son.
“You blame me?”
“I do not, though it matters not. It matters only if you blame yourself.” He leaned a little closer to Thranduil, his gentle voice continuing. “No parent is infallible, Thranduil, not even kings. Let your joy at his safe return be bigger than your fear of his injury or your anger. He has learned a valuable lesson about what happens when you attack those stronger than you. It is a good one for any to learn and he took it bravely.”
Legolas fiddled with the ends of his father’s hair, aware of the tension between them all, and that he had travelled beyond where his father permitted him to go.
“I am sorry, Adar, I was with the trees, they called me to come play with them and see the elves that passed them by. But then the elves started singing and I did not like their song. I was protecting us, adar, I am sorry.”
And with that, the little elf gave up all pretence of bravery and buried his head in the beautiful cloak. Thranduil stroked the gold of his son’s hair. His face softened, like sun on the winter snow.
“You protected us well, Prince of the Greenwood. I shall braid the back of your hair myself, so all may know it.”
The prince unburied his head in delight to look at his father.
“And Gandalf adar, is he staying?” the young prince’s voice was so full of hope. “He has let me wear his hat again!”
A conflict took over Thranduil’s face as his obvious difficulty in disappointing his son battled with his desire to turn away the visitors. He looked quizzically at Gandalf.
“I suppose you have a reason for inviting them here?”
“You suppose right.” Gandalf’s voice changed slightly as he turned to look at the forest that stretched around them. Returning his gaze to Thranduil he began to quote:

“Do not go into the darkening wood,
for there the shadow breathed
and the bright ones move
along the ways, with bows
tight strung and blades unsheathed -

It is not you, King Thranduil, or your folk, that the race of men should so fear. It is not you they should sing warnings about. Too long have I let it linger, this doubt between you all. Too long have I let it linger, this doubt in the minds of men. Invite in your fellow elves, Thranduil, show them the greatness of this good place. Show them so that your fears be eased.”
“And how will showing them ease my fears? So they can say my kingdom is a lesser one? I know well what it is they think.”
“So show them different. Help them to see this place as it should truly be seen. You cannot fear that harm shall come, King Thranduil, if you also never invite in the good.”
“We might have different ideas of what is good, Mithrandir. I am Thranduil, of the line of Oropher, I am the King of the Woods.” It seemed as he spoke that he grew taller, or perhaps all the woods of the world shrunk around him. Then he was as he was before. “But I am not discourteous nor will I have it said so and held against my folk. Seven days. Seven days I shall host you and the nights that come with them. Let me see what that does my fear. And for theirs.”
His bright eyes flicked towards the other elves. Then he bowed to them and the stag turned and the wood elves slackened their arrows to follow him. As he turned, the crown of the king disappeared, and the great robes and the sunset light and the brilliant costumes of the forest elves vanished too. There was Thranduil and the elves all as they were before except their clothes were simple tunics and leggings, their armour leather and their king, though splendid, was in robes made only of real cloth and a crown only of metal and jewels. On the stag Legolas looked as he had before, crowned only by the wildness of his untamed hair.
“Though I warn you Gandalf,” came the voice of Thranduil back down the path, “I cannot be so welcoming to all who wander here. The wood grows weary in it’s roots, they’re might be a time when you wished these paths stayed feared.”
With that Thranduil was gone into the trees, leaving the elves of Lothlorien and Rivendell to follow if they chose. Gandalf shook his head.
“He would rather his paths be feared and unvisited than folk come to harm here or to bother him with their affairs. But how much less those affairs might darken, and how much longer these paths stay good and true, if visitors could be encouraged to wander them.” He turned to Elrond and Glorfindel. “This is why I bring you here, a shadow did indeed breathe on these woods and it is one that has never truly drawn back it’s breath. The wood elves are wild things but they are good hosts and their wildness can be welcoming. Rather like the paths, I think it is good that they are wandered with, lest their fears grow and the ways to them become too tangled to find ways in. Or out.”
“Then we shall wander these paths and visit those who dwell by them,” said Glorfindel. “Your analogy is a good one, Mithrandir, and it is true that if you want a place to stay light, you must help keep the candle safe when the wind is blowing. Let us follow our host.”
At Glorfindel’s command the elves began to follow, though not without uncertain looks. It was a different magic here than they were used to, a magic of this earth not of the lands beyond. Elrond once again caught Gandalf’s eye, offering his old friend an amused smile as they both remounted their horses.
“Your mind is as agile as ever, Mithrandir.”
“Is it?” Gandalf harumphed, reaching for his pipe. “It must be my age.”
As they followed the elves of Rivendell and Lothlorien down the path, the wood elves began to call at them from the trees. They really were wild, and in their wildness was all the joys of the natural places; the laugh of the water, the dancing of the grasses, the voices of the trees. They celebrated the earth and the moon and the sun, they followed the stars that danced above them, dancing in return below. They were serious like the mountains were serious and silly as the birds were when they washed in the puddles of rain. Soon their shouts to the visiting elves became songs, nonsense things that flittered through the trees with them.

“He took such fright,
when our prince took a bite.
It was such a delight,
oh Haldir, oh Haldir,
on the ground, what a sight!”

And:

“Our prince did hit you with a rock,
Your manners are bad,
You got quite a shock,
But now you know better
And now you’re polite
Because our Little Leaf hit you,
Oh elf, what a sight!”

These calls went on for some time, each song getting sillier and sillier until really all there was to them was laughter. The elves of Rivendell and Lothlorien took it well, for in the songs there was only teasing and good meaning. It was only when they got near the great gates to the palace that the song changed. There, ahead of them, they could see the vast path that led beneath the forest, the earth inside shimmering and bright, the trees above tall and beautiful and wonderous against the moon. There the song of the wood elves changed and it became something like the tune that the bard had sung at the lake village. As though maybe he had heard it in the woods long ago and had woven it into a different song.

“Come, come into the Greenwood
the leaves are golden and bright,
or in the branches bare with frost
the moon fruits like a lamp of night.

Come, come into the Greenwood,
the paths are there for the brave
who follow the sounds of the merry folk
into the dark of the cave.

Come, come visit the Greenwood
the king is upon the throne,
in his cloak of leaves of sunlight
and his crown of branches and bone.

Come, come visit the fair folk,
eat the moon from a silver tray,
and dance with the trees of Greenwood
as you pass by this way.”

In the great gateway, Thranduil dismounted the stag. Legolas turned in his father’s arms.
“Come, Gandalf!” called the prince in great delight, gesturing with his hand.
Gandalf smiled and led the elves of Lothlorien and Rivendell into the home of the woodland king.