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The River carries the seeds of all life within her dark flowing bosom. She never ceases, never falters, carves a course through solid rock if it must be, wearing away earth inch after inch until all gives way before her.
The River is patient. As long as Arda lasts, she will endure, in one form or another, even if her courses be destroyed. She will make others. She will devour all and nourish all, and see no contradiction.
The River does not love or hate or fear. The River is, and that is enough.
Except...for one time. Once, the River fell in love.
Far back in the vanished years, beyond the times we know, the Entwives fled their burning lands, scattered to the four winds. Their grief was heavy upon them for the lands they had nurtured and cherished, for the Entings that were lost, for the happy times that were now gone forever. Sauron and his armies marched like ravening wolves over their fair cultivated grounds, turning what they could not use into ash and dust.
One such Entwife, whose name in the Common Tongue might be termed Silverleaf, made her way to the other side of the Misty Mountains to Eriador and so to the banks of the River, who in that place was what we hobbits would call the Withywindle. She was slow and deep, her courses set for long ages already, carrying the richness of the mountain streams of the South Downs to the Brandywine, and from there onwards into southern lands, before finally reaching the Great Sea.
Silverleaf, worn out and weary with grief and much wandering, rested her roots in the reeds on the banks of the River, and bent over to behold her face in the River's waters. But when she looked upon herself, the River also looked upon her - brown and disheveled, her face wrinkled and shrivelled, burn scars covering her, not yet renewed by fresh bark.
And the River loved her.
Now, the River has a voice, but cannot speak in the manner that you and I can, and so could not tell Silverleaf of her love in words. So she sang in ripples, counterpoints and harmony, wordless paeans of devotion, echoed pleas in every drop of rain that touched them both. She murmured soft and low 'round Silverleaf's roots, brought gifts of leaves and fallen branches from the trees Silverleaf loved best on her waters, crept up into Silverleaf's most secret places and washed over her.
Silverleaf shivered at the River's tender urgings, pleasure surging through her, long-missed, long thought lost. With the River's nourishment, she grew strong again, though her scars would forever remain. For long years she stayed by the River's side, and they had great pleasure of each other.
But at last Silverleaf let forth a great sigh. For in her heart she remembered the Entings she had lost, the little seedlings destroyed, never to be recovered. Her heart yearned for a child to raise and to love, despite all the joy she had in the River's companionship.
By this time, though they could not speak, Silverleaf and the River had learned to communicate well enough by touch, caresses and movement against each other speaking more eloquently than even words could do. So Silverleaf told the River of this, sadly saying that she wished not to leave her, but how else was she going to get the Entings she longed for?
The River carries the seeds of all life within her dark flowing bosom. She brushed gently over Silverleaf's roots in reassurance, and then began a great work, pressing seed after seed into Silverleaf's womb, a potent mixture of power and beauty combining within Silverleaf's body and fertilising within her, taking root.
Time passed, and the child within Silverleaf's body grew. This child was not wholly of the River, and not wholly of Silverleaf, but something altogether new. For long years she lay quiescent within Silverleaf's body, absorbing all that Silverleaf could teach her, both of wild lands and tame, of danger and of beauty, of love and of grief.
The River, too, spoke with their daughter, telling her all the secrets of the water, of how to travel as a fish slipping betwixt roots, of how to float like a leaf on the surface of the pond, of how to flash laughing down mountain streams and waterfalls, quick as rain on the roof, beautiful as the rainbow formed by mist.
And when the time came at last that the child was ready to be born, she slipped from between Silverleaf's roots easily, emerging laughing into the sun, her golden hair shining bright.
"Goldberry you shall be called," Silverleaf whispered, rustling her leaves.
"Goldberry," the River sang sweetly, "Goldberry." The joy that Silverleaf and the River felt rippled about them in ever-expanding waves.
In the rushes next to Silverleaf, water-lilies all about her, Goldberry opened her mouth, and began to sing.