Nimrodel was an Elf-maiden of Lórien in the Third Age, whose name was given to the mountain stream that runs into the Silverlode near the borders of the Golden Wood. The Fellowship crossed it on their way out of Moria, and Legolas bathed his feet in it, saying that its water was healing to the weary.1
That night Legolas sang them part of the lay of Nimrodel, in the common speech as it had been turned in Rivendell, though he said it was fairer in the woodland tongue. In the song she dwelt beside the falls of the stream, fair as a star, and her voice could still be heard in the falling water. She left the wood and was lost in the mountains, and Amroth, who loved her, waited for her at the haven until he was carried out to sea.1
Unfinished Tales gives the fuller tale. When the Balrog woke in Moria in 1980 and fear came on Lórien, Nimrodel fled, and Amroth followed her, meaning to take ship with her into the West. On the long road south to the haven of Edhellond she went astray in the White Mountains, and she was never found.2,3
The same book records a tradition of the princes of Dol Amroth: that one of Nimrodel's companions, Mithrellas, was taken as wife by a lord of that coast, and that the Elvish blood of Imrahil's house came from her.2,4
Sources
Citations name the chapter rather than the page, so they work in any edition. The colour of each note shows what kind of source it is.
- Published story The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings as Tolkien published them.
- Appendices Tolkien's own appendices to The Lord of the Rings.
- Edited posthumously The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales and Tolkien's late writings on the Elder Days, assembled by Christopher Tolkien from his father's papers.
- Published story The Fellowship of the Ring, Book II, ch. 6, “Lothlórien”
- Edited posthumously Unfinished Tales, Part Two, IV, “The History of Galadriel and Celeborn”
- Appendices The Lord of the Rings, Appendix B, “The Third Age”
- Published story The Return of the King, Book V, ch. 9, “The Last Debate”