An Essay on the Sons of Fëanor

‘fell unflinching foes’

(The Lay of the Children of Húrin)

Contents

Introduction

List of Abbreviations

1. The Oath

2. The History of the Sons of Fëanor

3. The Sons as Individuals

Appendix I: Names and Appearances of the Sons of Fëanor

Appendix II: Texts of the Oath of Fëanor

Introduction

They sweep across the history of the First Age: dangerous, doomed and continually ambivalent. They are arguably the most long-standing foes of Morgoth; yet they make Morgoth’s victory easier by alienating and even killing his other enemies. They are tough, maverick individuals; yet are bound to an Oath and a Doom beyond their control. They differ widely in appearance, talents and characteristics; yet are continually linked together, bound by the legacy of a father long dead and although they will see, experience and suffer more than their father ever imagined still their lives remain shaped by his choices. They will kill to regain the Silmarils; yet we do not know whether they even want them for themselves. Above all there remains the continual uncertainty of how far they are villains and how far victims; whether their crimes are all their own, or the work of a force far stronger.

They are the Sons of Fëanor, whose powerful ambiguities prevent the battles of the First Age from being a straightforward tale of Good (Elves and Edain) versus Evil (Morgoth). They are crucial to the history of the First Age: on the one hand the Doom placed on their house damns Beleriand; but on the other hand, although they are cursed that “To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well”, their most evil deeds will in the end rebound to cause the overthrow of Morgoth. Yet for all their importance to events Tolkien pays little attention to their history for its own sake. They weave in and out of the story, but the narrative never lingers on them long. It seemed worth, therefore, pulling the disparate threads together and making a full examination of these most turbulent of Elves. Maedhros, the steely survivor defeated at last by the Oath; elusive, shadowy Maglor and Caranthir; Celegorm and Curufin, so often the villains of the story; and Amrod and Amras, barely characters at all: what overall do we know about them and their history and the Oath which bound them?

First, a few preliminaries. This essay does not aim not to repeat or retell everything said about the sons of Fëanor in The Silmarillion. The aim here is to put together an overview of The Silmarillion to see what sort of picture is created, whilst also including extracts from the twelve volumes of The History of Middle-earth, Christopher Tolkien’s great compendium of his father’s writings which contains many earlier and unfinished versions of the legends, as well as more or less obscure writings connected with the cycle of stories. That a particular tale was not included by Christopher Tolkien in the published Silmarillion does not necessarily mean it had been abandoned; furthermore even stories which certainly had been abandoned by Tolkien can be illuminating. The way in which Tolkien worked also meant that there could be more than one version of a story existing at the same time, or the same story could be told at varying length; in particular he had two main (and frequently revised) outlines of his history up to the end of the First Age, one of which was a narrative summary and the basis of The Silmarillion as published, while the other took the form of detailed annals. Although the two were broadly similar they often differed in details and one outline might contain elements the other did not, but both are prime sources for Silmarillion legends. This essay therefore aims to include a wide range of information from the sources, even if that information is sometimes conflicting.

Tolkien made a number of changes to his characters’ names over the years, some major and some minor. When quoting from the HOME I have kept minor differences of spelling, such as Maidros for Maedhros or Celegorn for Celegorm, but where the name was changed altogether, as in the replacement of Inglor by Finrod, I’ve chosen to substitute the familiar form in square brackets. I have also followed the usual convention in distinguishing the work published as The Silmarillion by the use of italics; a reference to The Silmarillion without italics refers to the collection of legends as a whole. Book and chapter references are included throughout the essay in square brackets, and a complete list of abbreviations used in the text can be found below.

List of Abbreviations

BLT1 = The Book of Lost Tales I (HOME I)

BLT2 = The Book of Lost Tales II (HOME II)

CH = The Children of Húrin

CT = Christopher Tolkien

L&C = Laws and Customs of the Eldar

LB = The Lays of Beleriand (HOME III)

Letters = The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien

LOTR = The Lord of the Rings

LR = The Lost Road (HOME V)

HOME = The History of Middle-earth

MR = Morgoth’s Ring (HOME X)

PM = The Peoples of Middle-earth (HOME XII)

S = The Silmarillion

SM = The Shaping of Middle-earth (HOME IV)

UT = Unfinished Tales

WJ = The War of the Jewels (HOME XI)

1. The Oath

The Oath of Fëanor is one of the central elements of the Silmarillion (a main theme of which could be summarised as ‘think before you make any vows’). It cuts destructively across the history of the First Age, especially in the decades which follow the quest of Beren and Lúthien. Fëanor, the initiator of the Oath, died too early to feel its full effects, but it dominated the destiny of his sons. To understand their story it is vital to get an understanding of the part the Oath played in their deeds, and to learn what we can of its nature.

I believe one thing we can be certain of about the Oath is that there was a lot more to it than words, and the sons of Fëanor were not kept from breaking it simply by pride or stubbornness or a misguided sense of honour. The Oath indeed is presented as having a force of its own, and an almost sentient will, and the following of it appears as a matter of compulsion rather than free choice. Tolkien’s comments are brief and widely scattered but consistent, and if we put them together a powerful picture emerges.

“They swore an oath which none shall break and none should take, by the name even of Ilúvatar … so sworn, good or evil, an oath may not be broken, and it shall pursue oathkeeper and oathbreaker to the world’s end.” [S 9]

Tolkien states twice in the space of a few sentences that such an Oath may not be broken, and although there is an apparent contradiction with the reference to oathbreaking at the end (perhaps for ‘oathbreaker’ we should read ‘one who attempts to break it’) the idea of the Oath as possessing a terrible power is clear, and strongly stressed. Any who swear such an oath will be pursued by it for as long as the world lasts. They cannot simply make up their minds to break it and walk away in freedom.

The Valar must agree with that view, as Manwë’s rather unhelpful message to Fëanor after the Oath-swearing is “by thine oath art exiled”, since Manwë very much wanted to convince the Noldor not to leave Aman this is strong evidence he did not see breaking the Oath as an available choice. [S 9] Later, after the Noldor have settled in Middle-earth, it is said of Maedhros, the eldest son, “he also was bound by the oath, though it now slept for a time.” [S 13] The reference is a passing one, but an oath that can ‘sleep’ is clearly more than words spoken in public. The implication also is that an oath that slept ‘for a time’ later awakened again, and indeed Tolkien describes this happening. During the Siege of Angband the Oath was evidently dormant, but once the Siege was broken it is quick to make itself felt.

The turning point here is the quest of Beren and Lúthien. Finrod is quite explicit about the power of the Oath after Beren asks for his help, and we can assume, I think, that he knows what he is talking about. “It is plain that Thingol desires your death;” he says, “but it seems that this doom goes beyond his purpose, and that the Oath of Fëanor is again at work. For the Silmarils are cursed with an oath of hatred, and he that even names them in desire moves a great power from slumber; and the sons of Fëanor would lay all the Elf-kingdoms in ruin rather than suffer any other than themselves to win or possess a Silmaril, for the Oath drives them.” [My emphasis, S 19]

It is not clear here whether Thingol has inadvertently awakened the Oath by demanding a Silmaril as the price of his daughter’s hand in marriage or whether the Oath is working through him, and prompted him in some way to make the demand, but it is plain that Finrod sees it as an active force and a very powerful one. He also says quite specifically that the sons of Fëanor are driven by the Oath, it is not simply a matter of possessiveness. And although he accurately predicts trouble from Celegorm and Curufin once they know about Beren’s quest Finrod does not seem resentful. “Yet my own oath holds; and thus we are all ensnared.” [My emphasis] I believe that the ‘we’ here includes Celegorm and Curufin (Finrod cannot be using ‘all’ simply of himself and Beren) although it is fair to say they do not seem troubled by this, or inclined to make any attempt to resist the Oath’s power. Finrod also again invokes the idea of the Oath as being capable both of sleep and being awakened. It is awake again now, and he foresees ruin coming from it.

A little later there is a side reference to the Oath and the Valar, “the oath of Fëanor perhaps even Manwë could not loose, until it found its end, and the sons of Fëanor relinquished the Silmarils upon which they had laid their ruthless claim.” [S 23] This does sound at first as though they were holding to the Oath of choice, but I believe a closer reading suggests otherwise. It is not their claim on the Silmarils the sons of Fëanor must relinquish, but the jewels themselves; taken together with other references to the Oath I think this implies that the Oath would only be ended when they (or some of them) had the Silmarils and let them go. At all events the reference to Manwë being unable to loose the Oath is important; the Oath, it appears, is a force outside the control even of the Valar.

There are also some significant annal entries on the sack of Sirion which are rather more specific than the description of the same events in the published Silmarillion and which have further implications for the power of the Oath. The first reads: “Sons of Fëanor learn [that the Silmaril is in Sirion] but Maidros forswears his oath.” Then a few years later: “Torment fell upon Maidros and his brethren … because of their unfulfilled oath.” [WJ 3 v; also LR 2 iii]

What these lines reveal is that the surviving sons of Fëanor made a serious attempt to break the Oath (or at least Maedhros did and presumably held the others in check) and ‘torment’ fell upon them as a result. What kind of torment Tolkien does not say, but it is not a word he is prone to use lightly. They tried to break the Oath, but it just was not that easy. The Oath, we may deduce, was not prepared to let them go and the attempt to break it caused them some kind of severe suffering, an affliction of the mind most likely although the text is not specific, which eventually broke them down. That they did try to break it and failed is very significant, especially in the light of Maedhros’s words to Maglor at the end of the Silmarillion.

“But Maedhros answered that if they returned to Aman but the favour of the Valar were withheld from them, then their oath would still remain, but its fulfilment be beyond all hope; and he said: ‘Who can tell to what dreadful doom we shall come, if we disobey the Powers in their own land, or purpose ever to bring war again into their holy realm?’ ” [S 24] Plainly stirring up more trouble in Valinor is not something he wants to do, but something he anticipates being compelled to do, and the knowledge that the brothers have already tried and failed to break the Oath lends the words additional significance. “Compelled by their Oath” are the words Tolkien uses when describing the final seizure of the Silmarils by Maedhros and Maglor in the letter printed as an introduction to the second edition of The Silmarillion. They were compelled; it was not simply a character flaw.

Also important here is a passage in the Doom of Mandos spoken to the Noldor, and describing the House of Fëanor. “Their Oath shall drive them, and yet betray them and ever snatch away the very treasures that they have sworn to pursue.” [S 9] It is possible to debate whether this particular passage is curse or prophecy (Tolkien indicates the Doom contains both), but I think it is prophecy, not least because nothing implies an oath sworn by Ilúvatar is within the power even of the Valar to influence; on the contrary it appears too powerful for Manwë to loose. Again here we have the image of the Oath as an active and terrible force, one which shapes events with a power of its own.

At one point Tolkien even suggests that the Oath had a generally corrupting power, beyond simply compelling those who took it to seek the Silmarils at all costs. In Doriath Melian is represented as saying to Galadriel, “what evil lies on the sons of Fëanor that they are so haughty and so fell?” [S 15] Galadriel could, of course, have replied that they were born that way, but she does not. The implication may be that the Oath is at work even in matters not directly connected to the Silmarils, and has a deteriorating effect on character.

All of this is consistent enough, but not very vivid. Tolkien tells us of the power of the Oath, but he doesn’t make us feel it. Quite likely that was not his intention, most of the Silmarillion is written in a spare and distant manner. However it is worth asking what sort of power he may have had in mind. There is no clear-cut parallel to the Oath of Fëanor in Tolkien’s other writing, but the nearest equivalent may be the Ruling Ring. Here too we have a force of immense power, with a will of its own, that borders on intelligent awareness. Here too we have an insidious force that enters minds, that may lie dormant for years, but when it wakes is hard to resist; a force which both compels and betrays, and leads those under its influence into evil even when they intend good. Tolkien makes us understand the power of the Ring, so that we know why Frodo commits the objectively insane act of claiming the ring on Mount Doom and what causes Boromir, a basically honourable man, to assault a companion for selfish ends. There is no such immediate sense of the Oath of Fëanor, but we should not underrate it for that reason. To imagine it as a force akin, if different, to the force exerted by the Ruling Ring seems closer to Tolkien’s intention than to view it as a form of words which may be broken or kept at will.

I am not saying here that Fëanor’s sons did not bear moral responsibility for their actions, clearly the image of the Silmarils burning the hands of Maedhros and Maglor implies they do. It’s likely too that some were more susceptible to the Oath, or resisted less strongly, than others. And not all their actions were dictated by the Oath, by any means: except possibly as a generally corrupting force the Oath had little to do with Celegorm and Curufin’s scheme to force Lúthien into an unwanted marriage or with the burning of the ships at Losgar. Still I think we do less than justice to Tolkien’s conception if we do not recognise that Fëanor’s sons were victims (some more willing than others) of their own Oath. They had unleashed a power too strong for them, and there was no way out. I also think we must conclude that although at the end of the Silmarillion Maglor is undoubtedly right when he says they will do less evil breaking the Oath than keeping it; Maedhros is also right when he says there is no prospect of the Oath letting them alone, even in Valinor. “Who shall release us?” They were trapped.

What is it that gives the Oath this terribly destructive force? Why does Tolkien in the letter already quoted call it ‘evil’? It is implied that the terrible power in it springs from the naming of Ilúvatar. But why should that make the Oath a force for evil deeds? It is suggested that swearing an oath in Ilúvatar’s name is itself a wrong act, blasphemous, one might say, and therefore nothing good can come of it. However certain details in the Tolkien text entitled ‘Laws and Customs of the Eldar’ suggest a more complicated answer.

According to the L&C the marriage ceremonies of the Eldar included a blessing in which Manwë and Varda were named in witness “and moreover that the name of Eru was spoken (as was seldom done at any other time)”. Elves might at times marry informally “without ceremony or witness (save blessings exchanged and the naming of the Name); and the union so joined was alike indissoluble”, indicating this part of the ceremony was the binding part. [MR 3 ii] Although the marriage ceremony is not specifically said to include a vow spoken in the name of Ilúvatar, yet there is enough of a resemblance to the infamous Oath to make one wonder if Fëanor was taking the marriage ceremony as a model (if so no wonder his listeners were shocked!) And the marriage bond of the Elves was notoriously unbreakable, except by the Doom of permanent residence in Mandos; so although Tolkien is unclear about how much is due to the ceremony and how much to the intrinsic nature of the Elves, once again we have the association of the naming of Ilúvatar with a binding force. Here, however, that force is clearly not malevolent and the invoking of the Name is not seen as wrong.

The invoking of Ilúvatar, then, does not seem to be a wrong act in itself, although it is a binding act. The basic wrongness, or otherwise, must depend on context. I think the clue here may lie in Finrod’s word’s ‘an oath of hatred’. Fëanor swore out of hatred. Understandable hatred certainly, nonetheless his motives were entirely negative. They were selfish also; he was driven by thwarted possessiveness, that ‘greedy love’ for the Silmarils that is implicitly criticised by Tolkien. [S 7] Although we are told that Fëanor loved his father more than the works of his hands it is not to avenge Finwë that he swears (as Fingolfin points out in one version of the story [PM 2 xi]). An oath of vengeance would still have been hate fuelled, but might also have held elements of selfless love – at the least if Fëanor had sworn to avenge his father the second and third Kinslayings probably would not have happened. But he swore to get his stones back. What’s more he swore to get them back, not just from Morgoth, but from anyone else who took one as well; an obvious act of jealous possessiveness (perhaps caused by his conviction that the Valar would seize the stones if they could). Fëanor’s motives may be understandable, but they are not in any way admirable or good.

Fëanor’s folly, his sin even, may therefore have lain in invoking the name of Ilúvatar not out of love, or at least kind intent, as in the marriage ceremony, but out of hate, fury and selfish possessiveness. It was because his motives were negative that the force he unleashed was destructive. Such an oath would always have been a compelling force, but it became actively destructive, evil even, because of Fëanor’s motives for swearing. It was sworn with bad intent and therefore could never come to good.

His sons’ motives may not have been the same as their father’s. We are never told what any of them thought about the Silmarils as an object in themselves, rather than as the focus of the Oath, although they do seem to exert a powerful fascination on all who come into contact. It is hard, though, not to think that loyalty to their father would have played a part. However, Fëanor was the initiator of the Oath, no doubt it was his motives that counted.

Something Tolkien never attempts to explain was exactly what was meant by the ‘Eternal Darkness’ that the oath swearers called down upon themselves. Dramatically the concept is none the worse for being mysterious, but we may ask the meaning all the same. What was this Darkness, or what did they think it was?

There can be no certain answer, and indeed it is possible that they themselves had no clear idea of what they meant, but some suggestions can be made. It seems to be more than merely an eternity in Mandos – the Halls are not referred to in those terms anywhere else. The Oath was sworn immediately after the Darkness of Ungoliant came over Valinor, the Darkness that was not merely absence of light but, “a thing with being of its own: for it was indeed made by malice out of Light, and it had power to pierce the eye, and to enter heart and mind, and strangle the very will.” [S 8] That experience was still fresh when the Oath was sworn, and for many of the Elves present, including Fëanor and his sons, it would most likely be not just the most terrifying experience of their lives but the only truly terrifying experience. It might well have been the worst thing they could imagine at this moment, hence Fëanor’s invoking of it in his vow.

An alternative would be that they meant the Void into which the Valar thrust Morgoth at the end of the First Age, the Dark which lay beyond Valinor, and to the borders of which Fëanor and his sons were specifically said to have travelled. [S 5] Or it may have been simply eternal Nothingness, no doubt a particularly frightening concept for a race born immortal.

There is another possibility, suggested by passages on elvish fear, or spirits, in the L&C. In the days before they came to Aman, we are told, some of the Elves believed souls of slain elves passed “into ‘the Realm of Night’ and into the power of the ‘Lord of Night’. These opinions were plainly derived from the Shadow under which they awoke….” [MR 3 ii] The Shadow, of course, is Morgoth, or the power of Morgoth, and undoubtedly the ‘Lord of Night’ is Morgoth as well, although the Elves of the time can have had only the vaguest idea of who and what he was. This idea was mostly mistaken, of course, but not entirely. Ideally all elven spirits would go to Mandos, but they had the power to refuse, and a couple of pages later in the L&C Tolkien tells that an elven spirit “would flee in terror of the Shadow to any refuge – unless it were already committed to the Darkness and passed then into its dominion. In like manner even of the Eldar some who had been become corrupted refused the summons, and then had little power to resist the counter-summons of Morgoth.” [MR 3 ii]

Old ideas about the ‘Lord of Night’ might have lingered on in Valinor, if only as stories of the past, and no doubt the Elves would realise that Morgoth/Melkor had been the source of them, although it is uncertain how much they would have known about the possible fate of spirits who refused the call of Mandos. One interpretation of Eternal Darkness then would be the dominion of Morgoth. It seems unlikely that Fëanor would ever knowingly vow himself to fall under the power of Morgoth; but if, as is possible, they had no clear idea of what Eternal Darkness meant when they swore the Oath, Fëanor’s sons might have come to associate it with Morgoth later, especially if they had heard some of the rumours about the origins of Orcs as they most likely had. (And what did Morgoth do with the elvish spirits which fell into his power?)

Whatever they imagined it is clear from their final conversation that Maedhros and Maglor took the threat of Eternal Darkness seriously, and there is no reason to think the others did not. There is here also an interesting contradiction between given forms of the Oath. The prose version, which is the version in the published Silmarillion, calls the Darkness down on them “if they kept it not.” [S 9] However there is also a versified version which includes the words “To the everlasting Darkness doom us if our deed faileth.” [MR 2] Whereas the one version requires they should try their hardest to get the Silmarils back in order to avoid the Darkness, the other, and more chilling, requires they should succeed. This in turn might well mean that those who survived longer felt a responsibility to complete the Oath for those who had died, in order to free them from the Darkness.

This leads to the question of whether they necessarily were, or would have been, in fact condemned to Darkness (whatever we may understand by that). The question here arises of whether it was in fact possible to swear oneself to Dark, even by invoking Ilúvatar. This would certainly be compatible with Tolkien’s universe: we might compare the fate of the Ringwraiths, bound hopelessly to Sauron even if they were not evil to begin with. However Tolkien says quite specifically and several times that the spirit of Fëanor went to Mandos which, though apparently not a pleasant experience for rebel Noldor (at least if we believe the Doom of Mandos), was surely better than the Darkness however conceived. There is no reason to suppose anything worse happened to his sons. Was that because they had kept the Oath as far as possible or is there something else going on? It is not possible to go very far in speculation down that road, especially since there is no clear evidence on what the Darkness was, but we may here quote Finrod again. “If we are indeed the Eruhin, the Children of the One, then He will not suffer Himself to be deprived of His own, not by any Enemy, not even by ourselves.” [MR 4] Even Sauron’s power over the Ringwraiths did have an end.

A final ambiguity in the Silmarillion is that it is never quite made clear whether the Oath was fulfilled in the end or not. Certainly it was as far as the two Silmarils which Maedhros and Maglor took from Eonwë are concerned, they were no longer being withheld by anyone. But what about the third Silmaril? Although it is in the sky it is also on the head of Eärendil. Does that not count as being withheld? Yet Maedhros and Maglor did seem to think that Silmaril had been somehow taken out of the equation. The question is finally left unanswered.

2. The History of the Sons of Fëanor

The two marriages of King Finwë proved crucial in shaping the future history of the Noldor, but some of the nuances of the story will be lost on those who know it only from the published Silmarillion, as the tale was tied up with Tolkien’s ideas on Elvish immortality and resurrection which are not explored there. Elves were created immortal, but if they were killed or died from grief or other stress (Míriel, most unusually, died of weariness after Fëanor’s birth) then their spirits went to the halls of Mandos, and there, after a period of healing, they might be restored to life. This did not always happen however, since the Valar might refuse resurrection as a punishment or the Elf spirit might refuse to be re-embodied, and this Míriel did, insisting that she did not want to go back. When Finwë wanted to marry again, however, this created a problem, because elven marriage was supposed to be for life, and the Valar were very firm on the point that it was not permitted for an Elf to have two spouses living. They therefore decided that Finwë might remarry only if Míriel were to choose to remain in Mandos forever. Fëanor took this decision very badly and it was undoubtedly a factor in his resentment of his half-brothers.

We are told that, “As soon as he might (and he was wellnigh fullgrown ere Nolofinwë [Fingolfin] was born) he left his father’s house and lived apart from them, giving all his heart and thought to the pursuit of lore and the practice of crafts.” [MR 3 ii] Probably it was somewhere around or soon after this time he married, although an exact date is not given by Tolkien. Fëanor’s wife Nerdanel is an interesting character, who appears only briefly in the published Silmarillion, but she is treated at somewhat greater length in a passage quoted in Morgoth’s Ring. [3 ii]

“…while still in early youth Fëanor married Nerdanel, a maiden of the Noldor; at which many wondered, for she was not among the fairest of her people. But she was strong and free of mind, and filled with the desire of knowledge. In her youth she loved to wander far from the dwellings of the Noldor, either beside the long shores of the Sea or in the hills; and thus she and Fëanor had met and were companions on many long journeys. Her father, Mahtan, was a great smith, and among those of the Noldor most dear to the heart of Aulë. Of Mahtan Nerdanel learned much of crafts that the women of the Noldor seldom used: the making of things of metal and stone. She made images, some of the Valar in their forms visible, and many others of men and women of the Eldar, and these were so like that their friends, if they knew not her art, would speak to them; but many things she wrought also of her own thought in shapes strong and strange but beautiful.

She also was firm of will, but she was slower and more patient than Fëanor, desiring to understand minds rather than to master them. When in company with others she would often sit still listening to their words and watching their gestures and the movements of their faces. Her mood she bequeathed in part to some of her sons, but not to all. Seven sons she bore to Fëanor, and it is not recorded in the histories of old that any others of the Noldor had so many children. With her wisdom at first she restrained Fëanor when the fire of his heart burned too hot, but his later deeds grieved her and they became estranged.”

There are two versions of the estrangement, in the earlier [MR 3 ii] Nerdanel refuses to go to Formenos with Fëanor, but instead chooses to stay with Indis “whom she had ever esteemed” (that must really have annoyed Fëanor!); in the second the separation is not dated but she is said, less unexpectedly, to have returned to her father’s house. [PM 2 xi]

Although Fëanor and Nerdanel produced a record number of children only one grandchild is recorded – Celebrimbor, who went on to make the Rings of Power. Celebrimbor in fact was one of those characters whose origins Tolkien changed several times (making him at various points a Noldo of Gondolin, a Telerin Elf from Alqualondë, or a descendent of the Sinda Daeron); but he is described as a descendent of Fëanor in the appendices to the second edition of The Lord of the Rings, and CT notes that his father would have felt bound by this if he had remembered it (which he didn’t always). It also fits with the Star of the House of Fëanor which Celebrimbor drew on the west gate of Moira, a very odd thing for him to put there if he were one of the people of Turgon, Olwë or Thingol!

All that Tolkien ever wrote about the wives and offspring of Fëanor’s sons, apart from the note about Celebrimbor in the LOTR appendix, appears to be a couple of brief jottings reproduced in PM [2 x]. The first reads: “It seems probable that Celebrimbor (silverfisted) was son of Curufin, but though inheriting his skills he was an Elf of wholly different temper (his mother had refused to take part in the rebellion of Fëanor and had remained in Aman with the people of Finarphin). During their dwelling in Nargothrond as refugees he had grown to love Finrod… and was aghast at the behaviour of his father and would not go with him. He later became a great friend of Galadriel and Celeborn.”

The second note was: “Maedros the eldest appears to have been unwedded, also the two youngest… Celegorm also, since he plotted to take Lúthien as his wife. But Curufin, dearest to his father and chief inheritor of his father’s skills was wedded, and had a son who came with him into exile, though his wife (unnamed) did not. Others who were wedded were Maelor, Caranthir.” As far as I know Tolkien never said anything more about the unnamed wives of Maglor and Caranthir, not even whether they married in Aman or later in Middle-earth.

In the early parts of the Silmarillion legends the sons of Fëanor appear largely as appendages of their father. We are told that he, and they, “abode seldom in one place for long, but travelled far and wide upon the confines of Valinor, …seeking the unknown.” [S 5] (Always a restless lot it seems!). When Fëanor was exiled from Tirion his sons went with him. However there is evidence also that before Fëanor’s exile his sons had spent quite a lot of time in the company of their half-cousins, the descendents of Finwë and Indis, despite Fëanor’s own lack of liking for that side of the family. In addition to the well-attested friendship between Maedhros and Fingon, Aredhel is said to have often gone hunting in the company of Fëanor’s sons and was apparently particularly friendly with Celegorm [WJ 3 iii]. In early versions Tolkien also made Angrod and Aegnor (and in still earlier ones Orodreth as well) close friends of Celegorm and Curufin, close enough that Angrod and Aegnor were said to have been taken to Middle-earth by the Fëanorians in the ships. [LR 2 ii, iii] Although this idea was abandoned by Tolkien it is interesting that it ever existed at all.

The published Silmarillion has nothing to say about what the sons of Fëanor were doing when Morgoth came to Formenos, but an extended version appears in the HOME, where it was Fëanor’s sons who brought the news of Finwë’s death and the theft of the Silmarils to the Valar (and to Fëanor, although they apparently did not realise he was there at first). [MR 3 ii] The most notable point here is that Fëanor’s sons were not at Formenos when Morgoth and Ungoliant came: they had ridden out together to the north. This was no doubt a deliberate choice on Tolkien’s part, had they been at Formenos he would have had to represent them as fleeing and leaving Finwë to face the danger alone. Plainly he did not want to do that, whatever their other faults they were not cowards. (In fact there are very few cowards in Tolkien’s work). True, their actions when Morgoth passes by are not heroic, but less pusillanimous than abandoning their grandfather would be – and in fairness even the Valar are “blinded and dismayed” [S 8] by the darkness of Ungoliant.

The next time they appear is in the square at Tirion, swearing the fatal Oath, and we do not know whether Fëanor urged it on them or whether they leapt in without prompting. Either way from then on turning back was no longer a possibility for them, as the messenger of the Valar recognises. After that things move on quickly to the first Kinslaying. It does not seem that Fëanor or his followers intended bloodshed beforehand, although they certainly meant to take the ships by force. “But the Teleri withstood him, and cast many of the Noldor into the sea. Then swords were drawn…”. [This and quotes in the next two paragraphs from S 9] Of course deciding to seize the ships was a wrong act in itself and Fëanor, of all people, should have had more respect for what Olwë said about the ships of the Teleri being “the work of our hearts, whose like we shall not make again.” However, it seems the actual Kinslaying was not premeditated. Going in with a bunch of armed followers, starting a struggle, and not anticipating people might get killed might seem very naïve, but I think we have to assume at this time the Elves were still very innocent in many ways. They knew little about violence.

Once the violence had started it inevitably escalated. It seems evident that the whole episode was more shocking for Elves than it would be for us. First: from the mere description of the episode as ‘Kinslaying’, when it is a fight between different tribes in which no actual kinships are named (compare the Gondor war of Kinstrife, which was an episode of dynastic infighting). Second: the specific descriptions of First, Second and Third Kinslayings indicates that mass killings of Elves by Elves were very rare. At this point, in fact, it was probably unheard of and the shock waves must have been enormous.

As the Noldor rowed the ships away “the sea rose in wrath against the slayers, so that many of the ships were wrecked and those in them drowned.” No doubt the Noldor knew very little about sailing anyway. It was as they pressed on northwards that the Doom of Mandos was proclaimed, a mixture of prophecy and of curse on the Noldor. After these events it’s not surprising that Fëanor’s popularity – never high in spite of his charisma – fell still further, and many of the Noldor spoke against him. When the host reached the north and were faced with the necessity to divide their forces for the crossing by sea or attempt the Helcaraxë “already the fear of treachery was awake among the Noldor. Therefore it came into the hearts of Fëanor and his sons to seize all the ships and depart suddenly…”

There is no reason to suppose that anyone guessed Fëanor would abandon the rest of the Noldor permanently. Fëanor (not much of a forward planner) may not even have known it himself at that point. When he did decide to set fire to the ships he probably did not expect Fingolfin’s people would cross the Helcaraxë, he seems to have thought they would turn back. Although that does not excuse the betrayal, once again Fëanor does not seem to have intended actual deaths and nor, presumably, did his sons.

Confusingly there are two distinct versions of the ship burning at Losgar. The one in the published Silmarillion has Fëanor publicly order the burning of the ships, in which only Maedhros refuses to take part. Later, however, Tolkien came up with a different story, which is reproduced in the section of HOME entitled The Shibboleth of Fëanor. [PM 2 xi]. In this version the ships are fired at night when most of the camp is asleep and only Fëanor, Curufin and a handful of others take part. Only in the morning does Fëanor discover that one of his twin sons has remained asleep on ship-board and been accidentally burned to death. (The way in which the text is written makes it difficult to work out which twin died, but careful examination shows that it was Amrod, this is discussed further in the Appendix on names). CT decided not to incorporate this story into the published Silmarillion, and doing so would certainly have required a fair amount of rewriting, especially as at the end of his life Tolkien may have decided that both twins should die, not just one. In an annalistic note Tolkien originally wrote “Tragedy of the burning of one of Fëanor’s sons” then later added the words “2 younger”, perhaps merely as an expansion, but perhaps as an alteration intending to change ‘one’ to ‘two’. [MR 2] More conclusively in some late notes on the story of Eöl there are repeated references to the “5 sons of Fëanor”, which are pretty much inexplicable unless two of the sons were now intended to have died early in the story. [WJ 3 iii]

I have to admit to not finding this one of Tolkien’s happier inventions. There is a certain dramatic power to Fëanor’s act of treachery rebounding so quickly (although that would mean a consequent loss in the story of the sack of Sirion). But it means losing the dialogue between Fëanor and Maedhros and taking the onus of guilt off five of the sons. The continuing tension between Fingolfin’s people and the Fëanorians seems much less significant if guilt for the ship-burning is confined to Fëanor, Curufin and a few followers than in the earlier version where the guilt is belongs to almost the whole host, and the eventual (partial) patching of the rift seems therefore a much greater achievement. In the Shibboleth story there is surely much less reason why the remaining Fëanorians, who are not only mostly guiltless but have also suffered loss due to Fëanor’s fit of crazy destructiveness, should be too ashamed to welcome Fingolfin’s people; and much more reason for the other Noldor to accept them as friends again – after all Fëanor is dead, Curufin well down the pecking order of his sons and the other guilty a small minority. Fëanor’s refusal to admit guilt or dismay over his son’s death is damning, but also superfluous since the same characteristics appear in his death scene. It is true, however, that the story adds an extra dimension to his fall in the image of him sneaking around in the night, concealing his actions even from (most of) his own followers and sons. Elsewhere Fëanor, even at his most destructive, has grandeur; this moment is almost sordid.

The major events that followed need not be told in detail here. Fëanor and his sons conclusively defeated the Orcs of Morgoth in their first major battle, but Fëanor had a rush of blood to the head and got himself killed by Balrogs. Fëanor’s death scene is thoroughly chilling: “with his last sight he beheld far off the peaks of Thangorodrim, mightiest of the towers of Middle-earth, and knew with the foreknowledge of death that no power of the Noldor would ever overthrow them; but he cursed the name of Morgoth thrice, and laid it upon his sons to hold to their oath and avenge their father”. [S 13] It is a clear mark of how far Fëanor has fallen that knowing he has bound his sons to a battle they cannot win he is unrepentant. Probably it makes no practical difference, there is no reason to suppose Fëanor could undo the Oath if he wanted to, but still this is not the act of a father who cares for his children but of a hate-filled obsessive to whom they have become mere instruments of revenge. The only possible excuse for Fëanor’s putting his hatred and desire for vengeance above the future of his sons is that he was insane. What they felt about this we do not know; it was in any case too late now to turn back.

However strong-willed Fëanor’s sons were the whole situation must have been a severe culture shock to them, and indeed to all the Noldor. They had grown up in Valinor, in an environment that was safe, protected and apparently free from violence as well as being permanently lit by the Trees. Death, moreover, was extremely rare, and could always be cured if the individual wished. Those Elves who had spent their lives in Aman, which would most likely have been the vast majority of the Exiles, could hardly have been more sheltered. Suddenly the Light they have always known is destroyed, then they find themselves embroiled in the Kinslaying, their companions are shipwrecked and drowned, and the Doom of Mandos has made it clear they cannot expect resurrection, at least for a very long time (and that’s without the issue of Everlasting Dark…). Then in Middle-earth, probably without very much in the way of supplies or shelter, they have no choice but to fight a merciless war against creatures which, if they knew of them at all (they probably knew something about Orcs, but not necessarily Balrogs), would only have been an old tale to those born in Valinor.

The Noldor at this point most likely had no notion at all of large-scale warfare. No idea of tactics or strategy, of battle formations, of constructing defensive fortifications. How could they have? Elves may have had experience of fighting Orcs before and during the Great Journey, but probably on a fairly small scale, raiding bands rather than armies. They had to learn fast. (Fortunately for them Morgoth probably didn’t have much notion either. He had fought a war before, but fighting the whole college of Valar would surely called for very different methods than fighting a bunch of angry Elves. Certainly so far as we can tell from Tolkien’s limited description of the early battles Morgoth’s only tactic appears to have been to throw lots of Orcs and Balrogs at the Elves and hope that did the trick.)

All this would have been disorienting enough, but on top of it comes the death of Fëanor, whose charisma and reckless determination almost single-handedly propelled the Noldor into exile. There can be little doubt that Fëanor, whatever his faults, must have been a powerful presence in his sons’ lives, and as far as we can tell they had – with the lone exception of Maedhros’s refusal to help burn the ships – followed him unhesitatingly. In doing so they had cut themselves off from their old lives and the rest of their family – on both sides for Tolkien tells us Nerdanel’s kindred had remained in Aman. [PM 2 xi] Whatever they thought of his increasing deterioration his death must have left a gaping void.

All in all it is not so surprising that a group of Elves who do not lack for tough-mindedness on later occasions seem rather at a loss in the immediate aftermath of Fëanor’s death. The first reaction we hear of is for Maedhros to persuade his brothers to pretend to accept Morgoth’s offer of negotiation but to act in bad faith and send a greater force than was agreed. Exactly what he intended is not entirely clear, but there are signs here both of moral deterioration and of lingering naivety. Proposing to spring an ambush at a parley is an immoral act, even if the opponent is Morgoth. And not anticipating that Morgoth might do the same thing only more so suggests they still did not fully understand what they were up against.

Following Maedhros’s capture it seems that all his brothers could think of was to withdraw to Mithrim and fortify a camp, a remarkably defensive action for Elves who had just won a major battle. No doubt they realised, as Fëanor had in his last moments, and as Fingolfin would, that a direct attack on Angband was hopeless, but still the action suggests an inability to come up with any positive plans. One should probably not condemn them for not anticipating Fingon’s attempt to rescue Maedhros; as with Beren and Lúthien walking into Morgoth’s throne room to steal the jewel it would probably have seemed unlikely to the point of insanity that any such attempt could actually succeed.

In the meantime the Fëanorians had met some of the Sindar for the first time in Mithrim, and were apparently pleased to do so, although there was something of a language problem to begin with. However when the sons of Fëanor established contact with Thingol for the first time things got off to a bad start; although this was by no means all their fault. “For it entered into the heart of King Thingol to regret the days of peace when he was high lord of all the land and its peoples. Wide were the countries of Beleriand and many empty and wild, and yet he welcomed not with full heart the coming of so many princes in might out of the West, eager for new realms.” An attitude that would have been reasonable enough if Morgoth hadn’t been all over Beleriand before the Noldor arrived! (Of course Thingol had good reason to be furious when he found out about the Kinslaying, but that happened later.) The Fëanorians were not tactful certainly. They “were ever unwilling to accept the overlordship of Thingol, and would ask for no leave where they might dwell or might pass”. [WJ 1] However the blame for bad relations was not all on their side. This is important, because although a casual reading of the Silmarillion legends suggests the brothers were incorrigibly undiplomatic, I believe closer study gives a more complicated view.

The reconciliation that followed Fingon’s rescue of Maedhros changed the circumstances of the Noldor dramatically. The brothers now accepted Fingolfin as king, however grudgingly in some cases, and the Noldor began to form a strategy for dealing with Morgoth. The idea of a siege did not bring the immediate recovery of the Silmarils any nearer, but it was at least some kind of action, and as we have seen, appears to have satisfied the Oath for a while. Still old resentments flared up again in the quarrel between Caranthir and Angrod over a message from Thingol.

Soon afterwards Maedhros took his brothers off eastward, partly in order to avoid further quarrels, and settled them in an empty part of northern Beleriand, east of Doriath. Presumably they had some idea of what sort of territory they were headed into, although Tolkien does not tell us whether they had scouted it, or merely got reports from the Sindar. There they gathered “all such people as would come to them” [S 13] Tolkien tells us (probably northern Sindar for the most part, more on that later). The territory was divided into separate lordships, although Maedhros seems to have retained an overall authority.

A long line of hills formed a natural defensive barrier between Morgoth’s territory to the north and the territory of East Beleriand to the south, and Fëanor’s sons naturally centred their defences on this line although they had some control also over the plain of Lothlann to the north. Maedhros held the western range of the hills, which were not very high, with his citadel on a great hill known as Himring, the Ever-cold. Towards the centre of the Fëanorian line was a gap where the line of hills failed and this, most vulnerable, part of the line was held by Maglor who kept a strength of cavalry there. The easternmost line of hills, which were higher than the western and more like mountains, and the territory known as Thargelion which lay behind the range, belonged to Caranthir who had his home beside a lake called Helevorn, in the shadow of the greatest peak of the barrier range, Mount Rerir.

West of Himring was a pass which lay between the hill line and the upland of Dorthonion (the territory of Finarfin’s sons Angrod and Aegnor). Celegorm and Curufin fortified the pass, and also held the territory of Himlad behind. However to the east of Himlad were the woods of Nan Elmoth, and this was not Fëanorian territory but was held by Eöl, whose presence was presumably tolerated by the brothers although they did not like him (or he them). According to a late note of Tolkien, towards the end of the Siege of Angband Curufin (and perhaps Celegorm also) lived at the south east corner of the Pass of Aglon and kept a watch on the fords of Aros which were on the eastern border of their territory. [WJ 3 iii] Finally Amrod and Amras occupied the central part of the southern territory, which was sparsely populated. Theirs was the only territory set back from the front line.

The borderlands settled by the sons of Fëanor were, by Tolkien’s own statement, the part of the north march most open to attack. Unlike the lands further west there were only low hills guarding much of the land against attack from the north, and at one point in Maglor’s territory even these failed. Guarding against attack by Morgoth would have meant hard work and co-operation among the sons, which seems to have been forthcoming. “Their riders passed often over the vast northern plain, Lothlann the wide and empty…” [S 14] Tolkien tells us, keeping a strict watch out for attack. Morgoth was well aware of this, and his first attempt at testing the strength of the Noldor was therefore directed towards the west, (as was the attack by Glaurung a hundred years later, but that appears to have been Glaurung’s own choice rather than Morgoth’s). Although at one point in The Silmarillion Tolkien tells us the people of Fingolfin and Fingon were “the most feared by the Orcs and most hated by Morgoth” [S 14] we may note that in both the Dagor Bragollach and the Nirnaeth Arnoediad Morgoth used Glaurung, his most fearsome weapon, against the Fëanorians, particularly notable in the former since the natural defences were weakest in the east. Whilst Morgoth may have had his own reasons for hating Fingolfin’s family particularly, it seems that at this stage he had a considerable respect for the Fëanorians’ strength in battle, and indeed Tolkien in one account says that following the first battle of Fëanor and his sons with Morgoth’s forces “the Orcs ever feared and hated them after.” [LR 2 vi]

Tolkien does not tell us very much about the fighting methods employed in the First Age, but there are a few interesting comments on the Fëanorians. In the Dagor Bragollach Glaurung and the Orcs “overwhelmed the riders of the people of Fëanor [probably Maglor’s followers] upon Lothlann”. [S 18] In an annalistic account of the same battle “Celegorm and Curufin held strong forces behind Aglon and many horsed archers” and after being defeated they retreated westwards “with such mounted following as they could save”. [WJ 1] In both passages there is a reference to riders which indicates that the Fëanorians, or some of them anyway, used cavalry quite a lot. We know they had brought horses with them out of Aman, and plainly they made good use of them.

As Maedhros at least was apparently aware, their own strength of arms was not going to be enough to win them the war against Morgoth. Allies were needed, but the conduct of some of the brothers made that more difficult to put into practice. Nonetheless although the Silmarillion has a good deal to say about their less diplomatic moments that was not the whole story. Reading between the lines it is evident that they could make friends as well as alienate people. Tolkien is quite firm in his insistence that all the realms of the Noldor lords in exile in fact included more Sindar than Noldor [e.g. WJ 1]. This must have been true of the Fëanorians as well as the others, a fact all the more remarkable because in a late note Tolkien states the lands occupied by the Fëanorians had not been previously inhabited by the Sindar [WJ 3 iii], so any Sindar who followed the Fëanorians must either have come with them from Mithrim or joined them later. In view of Thingol’s well-attested dislike for the sons of Fëanor (even before he found out about the Kinslaying) that seems surprising, but a linguistic note of Tolkien’s casts some light. Thingol “had small love for the Northern Sindar who had in regions near to Angband come under the dominion of Morgoth and were accused of sometimes entering his service and providing him with spies.” [PM 2 xii] Thingol was probably being at least somewhat unfair here since “No Elf of any kind ever sided with Morgoth of free will, though under torture or the stress of great fear, or deluded by lies, they might obey his commands.” [WJ 4] However if Thingol was not very well-disposed to the North Sindar it is easier to see why some of them would choose to follow the sons of Fëanor.

Equally notable is that they seem to have got on well with the Green-elves, or Laiquendi, who after the death of their leader Denethor “came never forth in open war, but kept themselves by wariness and secrecy” [S 10] and acknowledged Thingol’s overlordship. The Green-elves did not like strangers and were not pleased by the coming of Men, but after the Dagor Bragollach the people of Amrod, Amras and Caranthir “had aid of the Green-elves”, [S 18] and after the Nirnaeth the Fëanorian survivors are said to have mingled with the Green-elves of Ossiriand, [S 20] which is remarkable considering what is said about the Green-elves elsewhere, including that they accepted the lordship of Beren. Amrod and Amras may have been the significant figures here; they lived just to the west of Ossiriand and therefore seem the most likely of the brothers to have won the friendship of the Laiquendi.

The Fëanorians also had a lot of dealings with Dwarves. Caranthir conducted a good deal of trade with them, although relations do not seem to have been warm. Curufin, however, was actively friendly with Dwarves and learned their language, [PM 2 xi] and Maedhros convinced the Dwarves of Belegost, and perhaps Nogrod as well, to fight against Morgoth at the Nirnaeth; probably the only time Dwarves are recorded to have followed an Elf-lord into battle. (It’s not clear whether the Dwarves of Nogrod fought in the battle or merely helped by making weapons, although they certainly did that). He also got information from the Dwarves, they told him of the coming of the Easterlings. [WJ 1]

There is less evidence of their dealings with Men, although Estolad, the Encampment, which was the first large settlement of Men in Beleriand was within the territory of Amrod and Amras, and we are told that although many of the Edain migrated westwards many others remained at Estolad “and there was still a mingled people living there long years after, until in the ruin of Beleriand they were overwhelmed or fled back into the East.” [S 17] We don’t know whether Amrod and Amras took much notice of them, however, and Tolkien did state that not many went north to the lands around Himring. [WJ 2 xiv] The only one recorded to have done so is one Amlach (son of Imlach son of Marach) who entered Maedhros’s service. Why most of the Men preferred to go westwards is nowhere stated, perhaps the Elf-lords of the west were more welcoming or perhaps the land was more attractive. There is a note in an early text that the sons of Fëanor were unfriendly to Men “because of lies of Morgoth,” [SM VII ] but this idea seems not to have been developed, unless traces of it remain in Caranthir’s initial underestimating of the people of Haleth.

There is one other scrap of evidence for the mixed nature of the Fëanorian following, and that is in one of Tolkien’s linguistic commentaries, where he says of the Fëanorian followers “their speech was mingled with that of [the other Noldor], and of Ossiriand, and of Men.” [LR 2 v]. This seems to be further testimony to their dealings with the Green-elves of Ossiriand, and perhaps a hint that they may have mixed with Men more than other writings would suggest.

Relations with the other Noldor would remain crucial, however. After several centuries in Beleriand they may have missed an important opportunity to pursue their cause. We are told that Fingolfin believing the numbers of his own people and their allies had grown strong enough to attack Angband, urged a full scale assault “but because the land was fair and their kingdoms wide, most of the Noldor were content with things as they were, trusting them to last” and therefore not many were willing to listen to Fingolfin “and the sons of Fëanor at that time least of all.” [S 18] This seems strange – they still had an unbreakable Oath to worry about after all – but perhaps what they, or some of them at least, objected to was not so much the idea of an assault as an assault that was lead by Fingolfin. This would fit with a late remark that something over fifty years before Morgoth assaulted Beleriand in the Dagor Bragollach Curufin and Celegorm were “beginning to prepare for war again ere the shadow of Thangorodrim became insuperable.” [WJ 3 iii] This would imply they were not blind to Fingolfin’s reasoning, but presumably would not follow his lead; although Tolkien’s notes also indicate they retained enough diplomatic sense to want to avoid a further quarrel with Turgon.

Whatever the truth about this they certainly suffered heavy losses in the assault of Dagor Bragollach. Himring was held; but Lothlann was overrun by Glaurung, Caranthir’s fortress was taken by Orcs and the surrounding land ravaged, and Morgoth’s armies forced the Pass of Aglon with heavy losses, compelling Celegorm and Curufin to retreat west to Nargothrond with some followers. Four of the brothers had therefore been driven from their territories, and the simultaneous loss of the high lands to the west, where Angrod and Aegnor were killed, left Himring isolated in the front line.

After the Dagor Bragollach the Fëanorians therefore had to adjust to a weaker position. Caranthir joined with Amrod and Amras and they fell back to the south. (The Fëanorians incidentally seem have been good at retreats – and no sarcasm is intended, an organised fighting withdrawal is a difficult thing to pull off). “Upon Amon Ereb they maintained a watch and some strength of war, and they had aid of the Green-elves; and the Orcs came not into Ossiriand, nor to Taur-im-Duinath and the wilds of the south.” [S 18] A look at the map shows they had formed what was effectively a second line of defence, relying on the hill line of Andram which stretched east from the River Sirion. The hill of Amon Ereb stood alone in open country between the end of Andram and the River Gelion, which formed the western boundary of Ossiriand, it was a natural centre point for defence, although not very steep and probably used as a centre for mobile forces rather than a great stronghold like Himring.

They seem to have recovered some of the lost territory at least briefly, however; for we are told in the Annals under the year 463 that Maedhros gave the Easterlings dwellings in Lothlann, [WJ 1] so the Fëanorians must have been controlling Lothlann again by this time. Some at least of Caranthir’s territory seems likely to have been retaken also, for on his map of Beleriand Tolkien wrote ‘later Folk of Uldor’ in the middle of Thargelion [WJ 2 xi]; since the territory later given by Morgoth to the Easterlings was in Hithlum [S 20] this land was presumably granted by Caranthir as part of his agreement with Uldor’s people. These two references imply a considerable military recovery, but details of how it was accomplished are not given. A better recorded gain was Maedhros’s recapture of the highlands of Dorthonion in the year 469; this is criticised as having given his intentions away to Morgoth, but as it is also said that Uldor’s folk were already supplying Morgoth with information is doubtful that it was the taking of Dorthonion that alerted Morgoth. There would certainly have been strategic reasons for recapturing Dorthonion before attempting to lure Morgoth’s forces out of Angband: to leave the high ground in Morgoth’s hands would have been to invite an attack from the rear, and to attack Angband and Dorthonion together would have dissipated strength. Like everything else about Maedhros’s campaign the retaking of Dorthonion was no doubt a calculated risk, which did not in the end pay off.

The series of events leading up to the Nirnaeth Arnoediad can be read as an illustration of many of the brothers’ qualities, good and bad. It was the greatest and most carefully prepared attempt to take the offensive against Morgoth ever made by the people of Beleriand: a remarkable, formidable, alliance of Elves, Dwarves and Men. That Maedhros succeeded in putting it together was quite an achievement, although a good deal was owed to his longstanding friendship with Fingon, who supported the plans whole-heartedly and was no doubt responsible for Turgon lending his support. It must have been Fingon also who recruited the men of Hithlum, but the alliance with the Dwarves can be put down largely to the Fëanorians. Yet there was little support from Nargothrond and less from Doriath owing, at least in part, to the recent, discreditable activities of Celegorm and Curufin, although given Thingol’s previous record we may doubt whether he would have participated anyway. The alienation of Nargothrond, however, was both new and serious, and Orodreth’s motives for standing aloof are understandable, if short-sighted. Yet in the end it was not lack of alliances that lost the battle, but poor choice of allies; one tribe of Easterlings remained faithful, but another, for unnamed reasons, joined Morgoth’s side. The sheer scale of the resources which the Elf kingdoms had poured into the battle made them especially vulnerable to defeat.

A couple of scraps of information from Tolkien’s early accounts of the battle are worth citing here. In his alliterative ‘Lay of the Children of Húrin’ Morgoth is furious over the escape of the sons of Fëanor as well as that of Turgon – the former may have fallen out of later versions of the legend only because it had nothing to do with Húrin who is the chief focus here. [LB I i(a) and I(b)] Then in an early prose version of the battle we are told Fëanor’s sons “wrought great slaughter on Orc and Balrog and traitor Man that day.” [SM III ] Balrogs? I suspect that line was dropped when Tolkien decided to make the Balrogs less numerous and harder to kill but it remains rather striking.

The disaster of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad effectively put paid to any real hope of regaining the Silmarils from Morgoth. From then on the sons of Fëanor were fighting what Elrond in a later context calls a ‘long defeat’. Their war against Morgoth was lost: since the Oath would not allow them to abandon Beleriand hope of long-term survival was lost as well. They were as good as dead, and with no hope of re-embodiment. The only question left was whether they were Doomed to Mandos, or to Everlasting Darkness, whatever they believed that to be. It is worth bearing that in mind when considering events that followed.

The published Silmarillion has only a little to say about the immediate consequences of the battle for Fëanor’s sons. The losses among their forces were undoubtedly heavy, and we are told that “They took to a wild and woodland life beneath the feet of Ered Lindon…, bereft of their power and glory of old.” [S 20]. The Annals have a little more “The Gorge of Aglon was filled with Orcs, and the Hill of Himring was garrisoned by soldiers of Angband.”[WJ 1]. The loss of Himring must have been a particularly notable blow, although we have no details of how it fell, whether taken by storm, or by siege, or whether those left within (there would most likely have been some garrison still) had a chance to pull out. The various references to the wild and wandering life of Fëanor’s sons after the disaster have a certain significance. Tolkien was almost obsessed with the figure of the noble wanderer: dispossessed, impoverished and often outlawed but still bearing a proud heritage. Beren, Túrin, Húrin, Tuor, Aragorn and Thorin Oakenshield all have elements of this. Yet of all the elven characters in his works the sons of Fëanor probably come closer than any to fitting the pattern, one of a few places where there is a sense their story appealed to his imagination in a way that was never fully realised in his writings.

All the same the Fëanorians cannot have been a spent force after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, even if a certain amount of reading between the lines is needed to observe that. They still had enough of a force available a few years later to sack Doriath. Even making allowance for the fact that the people of Doriath were no doubt reduced after the previous sack by the Dwarves of Nogrod, that probably fewer of them were battle-hardened, and that they were taken by surprise; this was not something that could have been done with a mere handful of followers. Moreover, since it seems unlikely that any of the Sindar (even the North Sindar who Thingol did not like) or Green-elves would actually have marched on Doriath, the sack was most likely carried out with only their Noldor followers, and perhaps some Men. There must have been more survivors of the Nirnaeth than the descriptions of the battle would suggest, perhaps scattered fugitives rallied to the Fëanorians later. Some of Fingon’s people might even have joined them when Hithlum was overrun. After all for those who wanted to carry on the fight against Morgoth there were not, by this stage, many other options. Doriath and Gondolin were still pursuing isolationist policies; Balar seems to have been more a refuge than a centre of active resistance; Nargothrond, before its fall would have been the best alternative but only for those who could find it.

We can also note that at one time Tolkien envisaged the Dwarf army that sacked Doriath being ambushed and wiped out by Celegorm and Curufin (or in another version Caranthir) who were hoping to get hold of the Silmaril – which in this view of the story was not in the possession of the Dwarves having already been passed by Melian to Lúthien. Although Tolkien later decided to bring the Ents into the First Age by having them help Beren to wipe out the Dwarf army his previous idea again implies the forces available to the Fëanorians were still formidable. [WJ 3 v]

All the same there is very little information about what the Fëanorians were doing during this period. The hill of Amon Ereb was still a central point for “upon that hill Maedhros dwelt after the great defeat” [S 14] (Maedhros was evidently partial to hills). The brothers presumably led fairly scattered and separated lives rather than remaining together for we are told that on hearing of the Silmaril in Doriath they “gathered from wandering”, [LR 2 iii] whether this was for strategic or personal reasons we have no way of knowing. Despite what was said about them dwelling beneath the Ered Lindon it seems they had not abandoned the land west of the river Gelion, although they were now vulnerable to attack from the west as well as the north, especially after the fall of Nargothrond. Although Morgoth concentrated most of his attention on finding Nargothrond and Gondolin in the west, he is not likely to have paid no attention at all to the east; we may guess at guerrilla warfare with perhaps occasional stronger probes from Angband. If the Fëanorians could no longer challenge Morgoth it seems he could not overrun them without greater loss than he wanted to suffer whilst there were still other Elf realms to attend to.

Then we come to the Second Kinslaying, and a crucial decision which gets passed over remarkably quickly. Tolkien never developed the episode at any length. The best information we have is that after learning that Dior wore the Silmaril in Doriath the sons of Fëanor “hold council. Maidros restrains his brethren but a message is sent to Dior demanding the Jewel. Dior returns no answer…. Celegorn inflames the brethren, and they prepare an assault on Doriath.” [WJ 3 v]

This really is an essential turning point. Since the death of Fëanor five of the brothers have been behaving themselves fairly well. Curufin and Celegorm had a bad lapse in Nargothrond, but the worst the others have been guilty of in the last five hundred years or so is being arrogant. But now they launch an attack on fellow Elves that, unlike the First Kinslaying, is wholly premeditated. Dior’s right to the Silmaril is dubious, but that is not a good reason for invasion and slaughter. And it’s not only a wrong act; it’s a stupid act. By attacking Doriath they are putting themselves beyond the pale, making it highly unlikely that any other Elves would ever ally with them. Probably not much could be expected from Turgon (who rules the last remaining Noldor kingdom) anyway, since Turgon had never forgiven the ship-burning; but the Green-elves were likely to be shocked, as were Círdan and Gil-galad, and any Sindar followers among their own hosts would surely not have been pleased. And with their forces reduced by recent disasters they really cannot afford more losses. Attacking Doriath severely reduces their future chances against Morgoth – and there can be no question of abandoning that war, even apart from the Oath there’s no way Morgoth is going to let them alone for any length of time. True, they really have no hope of defeating Morgoth now, but why make matters worse than they already are? We know, moreover, that Maedhros at least has been well aware of the need for unity and alliance in the past. Attacking Doriath is, from a practical point of view alone, a terrible decision. So why did they do it? What did Celegorm say to his brothers, and why did they listen?

We never find out. In the light of what Tolkien has to say elsewhere about the Oath, however, I think that must have been the crucial factor. The two Silmarils possessed by Morgoth are out of their reach. Despite the threatening talk of Celegorm and Curufin before the Nirnaeth, the Silmaril in Doriath was also out of their reach, as long as the Girdle of Melian remained. But with the Girdle gone we may reasonably assume the Oath would have reawakened in full force. Furthermore they may have believed that sooner or later attacking Doriath was essential if they were to have any hope of avoiding the Darkness to which they had vowed themselves. It depends on which version of the Oath you adopt, but if the gist was that they could avoid the Darkness by doing everything in their power to regain the Silmarils, then attacking Doriath would now have seemed the only way, their strength being surely too reduced for further attacks on Morgoth. We might say that not simply their lives but their souls were on the line, and perhaps that was what Celegorm said. Still, it is frustrating the turning point was not developed in more detail.

A little more can be said on the Sindar side: although that too is not explored in any detail the story is clearly one of escalating resentments and feuds ending in mutual tragedy. Thingol’s original anger against the Fëanorians was caused by the news of the Kinslaying of Alqualondë and renewed by Celegorm and Curufin’s mistreatment of Beren and Lúthien (it sounds as though he may have been in denial about his own degree of responsibility for the pains of the Silmaril quest); and this together with general Silmaril desire, and the arrogant tone of the Fëanorian message, caused him to refuse to give them the Silmaril back. Dior’s motives for ignoring their later message are not explained but were probably similar; possibly he also underrated either their ability or their willingness to actually attack Doriath. After the sack of Doriath one can well imagine that Elwing would not have been willing to give up the Silmaril to those responsible for the deaths of her parents and her brothers.

It’s worth remarking here that the chapter ‘Of the Ruin of Doriath’ in the published Silmarillion was constructed by CT and Guy Kay, from various notes made by JRRT, and I can find no warrant in JRRT’s writings for the statement that the sons of Fëanor ‘fought with Dior in the Thousand Caves’. Tolkien’s own annalistic note states that the sons of Fëanor “come up unawares in winter” but goes on “At Yule Dior fought the sons of Fëanor on the east marches of Doriath and was slain.” [WJ 3 v; see also LR 2 iii] So it would seem that Tolkien envisaged a pitched battle, with Dior having enough warning of the Fëanorian approach to meet them on the borders of Doriath. That they were able to overcome the people of Doriath in open battle is further reason to think they still had significant forces at their command. No doubt Menegroth was sacked afterwards, however, for it is not likely Dior would have had his young sons with him at the battlefield.

Even less is said about the surviving Fëanorians in the years immediately following the sack of Doriath than about the years immediately before. They evidently resumed their separated wanderings in the east, for before the sack of Sirion we are again told “they gathered together from their wandering hunting paths”. [SM III] We can guess that they had suffered heavy losses in the fighting, but Morgoth at this point was absorbed in bringing down Gondolin and probably had little attention to spare for the east. They must have made themselves effective pariahs, but we get few details of this. Isolated in the east of Beleriand as they were, the practical consequences of outraging the other Elf settlements may not have been so great at first, and we do not hear of any active response from Círdan or Gil-galad.

There is, though, a curious note that after the Kinslaying Turgon “vowed to march never at the side of any son of Fëanor,” [S 23]: curious because it seems unlikely there would have been any prospect of that anyway. There may be an explanation, however, in an early text where Ulmo, via Tuor, advises Turgon to make alliances with Men and prepare for battle against Morgoth. “Nor should the feud with the sons of Fëanor be left unhealed; for this should be the last gathering of the [Noldor], when every sword should count. A terrible and mortal strife he foretold, but victory if Turgon would dare it…” [SM III ] In this version it was only if Turgon should refuse to go forth to war that Ulmo advised him to abandon Gondolin and flee to the mouths of Sirion. Turgon, of course, refused to listen. That the idea that Ulmo had advised a last union of the Noldor survived for some time is suggested by a much later note of Tolkien’s that in the same year as the Kinslaying “Ulmo sends a last warning to Gondolin… but Turgon will have no alliance with any after the kinslaying of Doriath”. [WJ 3 v]. As Tolkien’s annalistic reckoning put the ruin of Doriath after Tuor’s coming to Gondolin Tuor cannot have been the messenger here, but the idea seems to be the same, as it is difficult to see why Turgon’s views on alliances and Kinslayings should have been relevant unless Ulmo had advised union with the sons of Fëanor. This story lends an extra dimension of tragedy to the Second Kinslaying, for if the Fëanorians had not marched on Doriath, then perhaps (only perhaps, since he had a number of motives for not heeding the advice) Turgon might have been more willing to listen to Ulmo.

The build up to the Third and final Kinslaying, the destruction of Sirion, is treated almost as briefly as the decision to attack Doriath. As has been said above it is not a choice that seems to have been arrived at lightly or readily. On first learning that the Silmaril was in Sirion the surviving brothers did not act, with Maedhros at least apparently making a conscious choice to break the Oath. Yet they were unable to keep up the resistance (some of Tolkien’s notes state that it was Amrod and Amras who pressed for attack, the older brothers would have held out longer). The Oath was too strong for them.

A difference between this, the Third Kinslaying, and the previous two, is that there were Noldor in Sirion, refugees from Gondolin who would no doubt have fought alongside the Sindar from Doriath. Perhaps this explains why here at last the loyalty of the Fëanorian followers, which seems to have been pretty strong all things considered, began to break down: “some of their people stood apart, and some few rebelled and were slain upon the other part, aiding Elwing against their own lords (for such was the sorrow and confusion in the hearts of the Eldar in those days).” [S 24] Given Tolkien’s stress on the shocking nature of Elves slaying Elves it is perhaps surprising this had not happened before.

Indeed the community of Sirion may have contained a bigger mixture of refugees than appears in most of the texts. A late piece of writing by Tolkien, intended to introduce the Túrin story, contains this passage. “For in the last days of Beleriand there came thither remnants out of all the countries, both Men and Elves: from Hithlum and Dor-lómin, from Nargothrond and Doriath, from Gondolin and from the realms of the sons of Fëanor in the east.” [WJ 3 ii]. The survivors from Hithlum and Nargothrond were probably a minority, for since the settlement of Sirion was formed first by refuges from Doriath it seems likely that most of the Noldor survivors from earlier catastrophes would have settled with Círdan and Gil-galad on Balar. However their presence remains notable. It is also suggested that some of the Fëanorian followers had already abandoned them before the attack on Sirion – Sindar shocked by the sack of Doriath perhaps? At all events the mixed nature of the community, and the consequent tragedy of allies and kindred turned enemies, perhaps goes some way towards explaining why The Silmarillion calls this “the last and cruellest slaying of Elf by Elf,”[S 24]; the ‘cruellest’ reference is otherwise hard to understand.

Although few details of the attack are given we may be able to name some of the victims of the sack of Sirion. Dírhaval, a mortal poet who composed the lay of the Children of Húrin was one [WJ 3 ii]. Another may have been Egalmoth, Lord of the Heavenly Arch in Gondolin, since some very early notes of Tolkien’s have him slain at Sirion, although the assault was then attributed to Morgoth not the Fëanorians. [BLT2 3 ]. Here the former allies of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad were turned against each other, both sides no doubt using skills honed against Morgoth’s troops. Both sides must have lost heavily, although it was the Fëanorians who won the battle – without gaining the Silmaril.

It can be assumed that following the Third Kinslaying the Fëanorian survivors, probably much reduced, returned to their old haunts in the east. Morgoth’s power, however, was growing, and all the elf realms had now been destroyed. In one set of annals Tolkien has this to say. “Maidros and Maglor, sons of Fëanor, dwelt in hiding in the south of Eastern Beleriand, about Amon Ereb…But Morgoth sent against them, and they fled to the Isle of Balar.” [LR 2 iii] Again we have the hill of Amon Ereb appearing as their centre, and it seems confirmed that it was not a fortress. How much weight we place on the rest of this solitary reference, which is neither confirmed nor contradicted by Tolkien’s later writings is up to the individual. On the one hand it is likely Morgoth would send against them, if only because they were there; on the other one really wonders why the Elves on Balar would take in Fëanorians. Tolkien did not dwell much on this period of history, preferring to move on to the culmination of Eärendil’s errand and the War of Wrath.

There are some differences in the accounts of the War of Wrath, most notably that in the narrative account of events none of the Elves of Beleriand fought with the Valinorean host, although the remnants of the Edain did. (This may be Tolkien’s attempt to explain the particularly brief and distant narration of the War of Wrath – there were no detailed accounts because the Elves who made the histories were not there) [S 24] In the annalistic tradition however Eonwë “summoned now all Elves, Men, Dwarves, beasts and birds unto his standard who did not elect to fight for Morgoth. But the power and dread of Morgoth was now grown very great and many did not obey the summons.” [LR 2 iii] I suppose it is just possible to reconcile the two versions by saying that all the Elves of Beleriand refused the summons, but this seems unlikely, especially as the war lasted between forty and fifty years (Tolkien’s chronology varied slightly). In support of the version in the annals we may note that Elrond at the great council in LOTR seems to be remembering the breaking of Angband firsthand – but then Elrond is not strictly an Elf and it is conceivable that he and Elros fought with the Edain. Whichever version we follow, though, the whereabouts of the Fëanorians remains obscure. They are hardly likely to have been welcome in the host of Eonwë.

It is a notable fact that there is marked emphasis on Maedhros and Maglor in the final passages of the Silmarillion. The Elves of Middle-earth, we are told, take the rising of the new star that is the Silmaril carried by Eärendil as a sign of hope, but the comments we actually hear come from the two brothers, who, strikingly enough, do not seem to feel any resentment that the Silmaril is out of their reach; further evidence perhaps that they were driven by the Oath rather than desire for the stones themselves. Then when the host of Valinor finally arrives we hear virtually nothing of the reaction of the Beleriand Elves, other than the Fëanorian brothers, who at the conclusion of the war bring themselves “with weariness and loathing, to attempt in despair the fulfilment of their oath.” [This and quotes in the next paragraph from S 24]

It is surprising, perhaps, that Tolkien does not make more of the killing of the guards who were watching the Silmarils in the camp of Eonwë. (Does that not count as a Kinslaying?) Otherwise the final act of the drama hardly needs much comment, although we may pause briefly on the moment when Maedhros “perceived it was as Eonwë had said and that his right thereto [that is to the jewels] had become void, and that the oath was vain”. What is noticeable here is that the question of right had not really come into the final conversation between Maedhros and Maglor, except perhaps tangentially in Maglor’s suggestion that in Valinor they might “come into our own in peace.” It was the Oath that mattered, not the question of whether Eonwë was correct about their having forfeited the right to the jewels, if anything Maglor seems to take it for granted they have not. Tolkien, we may further note, explicitly describes the Oath as vain whereas the right is void, a significant difference. It is no simple situation presented here, but rather one in which it seems the brothers have lost both the right and the ability to possess the stones, without being released from their Oath to regain them. There was indeed no way out.

Although the legends recorded in the Silmarillion end with the final victory over Morgoth there is no sense of joy. The concluding tone is sombre, even grim. If the remark that the triumph of the victorious host was lessened by the fact that they returned without the Silmarils may inspire the thought that Fëanor was not the only one overly obsessed with the shiny gems; nonetheless a victory which had come only after such overwhelming loss and destruction could hardly be entirely happy. Whereas at the end of The Lord of the Rings the mortal communities on the good side all survive and flourish, at the end of the Silmarillion all the realms that once flourished, and even Beleriand itself, are lost forever. The bleak note on which the work ends, however, is at least in part due to the way in which it is recorded, with as much space given to the final workings of the Oath as to the victory itself, and the last passages of recorded dialogue in the entire work being given to the despairing brothers. In a very literal sense the last word is with the Fëanorians.

3. The Sons as Individuals

Amrod and Amras

There is really not very much said about Amrod and Amras in Tolkien’s writings, indeed it may well have been their fairly marginal role in events that led him to consider killing one or both of them off at an earlier stage. In the list of Noldor princes we are told that they were “twin brothers, alike in mood and face. In later days they were great hunters in the woods of Middle-earth”. [S 5 ] It is interesting that their hunting is linked specifically with Middle-earth, unlike Celegorm, who was already a noted hunter in Aman. Perhaps in elven terms they were still pretty young at the time of the flight of the Noldor, and had not yet had time to make their mark as hunters, or anything else.

In Beleriand they were the only sons of Fëanor to have their lands set back from the war zone rather than being on the northern border. We are told that most of the Fëanorian followers lived in the north and came south only for hunting. “But there Amrod and Amras had their abode and they came seldom northward while the Siege lasted; and there also other of the Elf-lords would ride at times, even from afar, for the land was wild but very fair.” [S 14] The impression this gives is that of all the brothers they were the least concerned with prosecuting the war. They may have been useful in making alliances however, for, as has been said they seem the most likely to have won the friendship of the Green-elves. It is also worth remarking that they apparently had no objection to visits from their western relatives, nor it seems did the other princes object to visiting them. This perhaps carries a suggestion that they were not as turbulent or quarrelsome as some of the older brothers.

One other point about the two youngest brothers is that in Tolkien’s annalistic writings they are portrayed as the leading figures in the attack on Sirion. The words used are “[Amrod] and [Amras] ravaged Sirion and were slain. Maidros and Maglor were there, but they were sick at heart.” [LR 2 iii] The twins have not shown any marked Silmaril lust before this, nor have they seemed especially aggressive, indeed if anything they have been the least war-like of Fëanor’s sons; but as said above, the workings of the Oath seem particularly powerful at this point, so it may be that they simply held out against it less well than the two eldest brothers rather than that they were naturally more ruthless.

Caranthir

Caranthir is distinguished among Fëanor’s sons mostly by not being distinguished, except for temper. He is given no distinctive skills or interests, but is singled out as “the harshest of the brothers and the most quick to anger”. It was Caranthir who took particular offence over an admittedly rather haughty message from Thingol, and took out his anger by insulting the messenger – his cousin Angrod, who in his turn took offence and told Thingol about the Kinslaying. We are told that “the Noldor, of both followings, hearing his [Caranthir’s] words were troubled in heart, fearing the fell spirit of the sons of Fëanor that it seemed would ever be likely to break forth in rash word or violence.” [S 13] An understandable reaction, although Caranthir did get a telling off from Maedhros.

He also appears as the loner amongst Fëanor’s sons. Amrod and Amras seem virtually inseparable, Celegorm and Curufin usually work as a team, and although Maedhros and Maglor are more likely to appear independently they do pair up quite a bit. Caranthir, for whatever reason, seems the odd man out.

Caranthir’s people were apparently the first of the Noldor to come into contact with the Dwarves, but although both sides were eager to learn from the other relations were cool, “for the Dwarves were secret and quick to resentment, and Caranthir was haughty and scarce concealed his scorn for the unlovliness of the Naugrim, and his people followed their lord.” Caranthir appears in an unattractive light here, although also a pragmatic one since he nonetheless concluded an alliance with the Dwarves, and when they began trading with other Elves “all the traffic of the dwarf-mines passed first through the hands of Caranthir, and thus great riches came to him.” [S 13] It’s possible that he and the Dwarves of Belegost warmed a bit more to each other later since Tolkien says in his notes on Eöl “he had become very friendly with the Dwarves of Nogrod, since those of Belegost to the north had become friends of Caranthir son of Fëanor.” However this is Eöl’s point of view, and it is possible that Caranthir’s relations with Belegost were, in fact, purely businesslike. [WJ 3 iii]

A somewhat better light is cast on Caranthir in the account of his dealings with the Haladin, one of the three peoples of the Edain. When the Haladin first settled in the south of Caranthir’s territory he and his people paid little attention to them. Later, however, after the Haladin had proved their courage against attacking Orcs we are told “Caranthir looked kindly upon Men and did Haleth great honour; and he offered her recompense for her father and brother.” [S 17] Haleth, although she thanked Caranthir, chose to head westwards anyway, so his change of view came to nothing, but it does show he was capable of it.

Caranthir was evidently not a great judge of character for it was he who recruited the sons of Ulfast, Easterlings who proved treacherous, into his service after the Dagor Bragollach. Where he was living at that time is not clear, we know that after the Dagor Bragollach he had joined Amrod and Amras in the lands east of Doriath but, as has been said, there is evidence at least the southern parts of Thargelion were recovered and the Easterlings in Caranthir’s service settled there. Evidently Caranthir was eager to build up his strength, and it may well be it was his earlier good impression of the Haladin that led him tragically astray here. Dwarvish influence might be suspected also, for Dwarves and Easterlings got on rather well. There is a further irony in that Tolkien remarks that Ulfast’s people were not good-looking, so if Caranthir had kept to his policy of judging by appearance it would have been better all round. [WJ 1] It is a strange and unemphasised tragedy that Caranthir’s ability to change his mind did harm rather than good in the end. It seems a pity that we hear nothing of his reactions to the Easterlings’ treachery, which much surely have been painful, but Tolkien was concentrating on other things. After the disaster little more is said of Caranthir in the legends, except that he was killed in the attack on Doriath.

There is contradictory evidence as to whether Caranthir was Fëanor’s fourth or fifth son. In the list of the princes of the Noldor [S 5] Caranthir is listed fourth and Curufin fifth, and this order is repeated in the genealogical tables attached to the published Silmarillion. However Curufin is the fourth son and Caranthir is the fifth in the account of the Oath swearing [S 9], in the early list of Anglo-Saxon translations of the names of Fëanor’s sons [SM III], and in the late list of their Quenya names. [PM 2 xi ] The last of these at least is evidently intended to list the sons in order of birth since Tolkien reversed the order of the two youngest sons when revising their story; moreover in a related note he specifically calls Curufin Fëanor’s fourth son. [PM 2 xi] It seems probable that Caranthir was placed directly after Celegorm in the list of Noldor princes to juxtapose their nicknames of ‘the Fair’ and ‘the Dark’, but that still leaves two possibilities. 1. Tolkien sometimes thought of Caranthir as the fourth son and sometimes as the fifth. 2. Caranthir was always meant to be the fifth son, despite the list of princes, and the order in The Silmarillion family tree is a mistake by CT.

Celegorm and Curufin

Although they had quite different tastes these two appear acting as a pair so often it is most convenient to discuss them together. Of all Fëanor’s sons they seem the most turbulent and inclined to evil (Caranthir is arrogant and quick-tempered, but not notably malicious in action), but even with these two there are traces of more positive qualities.

Celegorm was initially characterised as a hunter and companion of the Valar Oromë. “A hunter also was Celegorm, who in Valinor was a friend of Oromë and often followed the Vala’s horn.” “Often they [Fëanor and his sons] were guests in the halls of Aulë, but Celegorm went rather to the house of Oromë, and there he got great knowledge of birds and beasts and all their tongues he knew.” [S 5] From our perspective it may seem rather an odd sidelight that Celegorm the hunter – and no doubt also Oromë – should know the tongues of those he hunted, but presumably it did not seem that way to Tolkien. Although Celegorm’s ability to talk to birds and beasts is not mentioned again it would surely have been a useful means of gathering information in Beleriand.

Fëanor’s regular visits to Aulë seem most likely to date from the period before, egged on by Melkor, he started to display hostility to the Valar and we do not know what happened to Celegorm’s friendship with Oromë after that. However he must have had good qualities in Valinor for Oromë to befriend him at all, and for Huan, the hound that Oromë gave to Celegorm (and who plainly had rather more of a moral sense than your average dog) to stay faithful during the rebellion against the Valar.

There is a further mention of Celegorm in the account of the first battle between the Fëanorians and the forces of Morgoth, when Morgoth attacked the Noldor in Mithrim. The Orcs were defeated and fled eastwards with the Noldor in hot pursuit. Other forces of Morgoth, who had been besieging Círdan’s people, came north to join those who had been attacking the Noldor and “Celegorm, Fëanor’s son, having news of them, waylaid them with a part of the Elven-host, and coming down upon them out of the hills near the Eithel Sirion drove them into the Fen of Serech.” [S 13] This is one of the few times that Celegorm appears separate from Curufin, and creates an impression of him as a capable war leader.

Curufin is said to have been Fëanor’s favourite son, and the one who came closest to inheriting his skill in craftsmanship. However it is noticeable that unlike his father, or his son Celebrimbor, no exceptional works of craft are attributed to Curufin. This could mean that Curufin was clever with his hands but not inventive, or it could be simply that he never had time, owing to too much of his life being taken up with the war against Morgoth. He is also said in one of Tolkien’s notes to have inherited Fëanor’s linguistic interests, although he applied himself mostly to the language of the Dwarves. [PM 2 xi] Curufin resembled Fëanor in appearance as well, but in character he appears decidedly more Machiavellian and less hot headed than his father, a trait reflected in his nickname ‘the Crafty’ (in the sense of ‘wily’ or ‘calculating’ – see Appendix I on this). Fëanor could be described as a lot of things, but I don’t think most people would choose ‘Crafty’.

Curufin was not always a troublemaker, and we learn in one of Tolkien’s notes that he got on well with Dwarves. Indeed it is said he was “the only one of the Noldor to receive their friendship. It was from him that the loremasters obtained such knowledge as they could of the Khuzdûl.” [PM 2 xi] The statement about Curufin being the only one of the Noldor to be friends with the Dwarves seems a bit of an overstatement even if we assume it only refers to the First Age (and therefore excludes the elven smiths of Eregion), but perhaps it depends on how one defines friendship. At all events we can accept that Curufin did gain the friendship of Dwarves, and may perhaps wonder if this had any influence on the Second Age friendship of his son Celebrimbor with the Dwarves of Moria.

Tolkien made an interesting note on Curufin when considering the story of Eöl: interesting not least because it shows his own concern not to make the character too purely villainous. “The meeting between Eöl and Curufin … is good since it shows (as is desirable) Curufin, too often the villain (especially in the Tale of Tinúviel) in a better and more honourable light – though still one of dangerous mood and contemptuous speech.” [WJ 3 iii] Personally my sympathies in the encounter had always been with Eöl, especially as Curufin seemed to have no reason beyond Noldor snobbery for being rude to him. (Apart from the fact that he had married Aredhel of course, but Curufin doesn’t appear to think Aredhel was unwilling, if he had thought she was held in Nan Elmoth by force it was thoroughly callous of him not to do something about it.)

According to Tolkien’s jottings, however, Curufin did have a reason: Eöl had been trying “with some success to stir up unfriendliness to the Noldor” among the Dwarves of Nogrod, which the Fëanorians, who had done well from the help of the Dwarves, understandably resented. Tolkien goes on “Curufin could have slain Eöl (as he greatly wished!) and no one beyond the few men with him at his camp (who would never have betrayed him) would ever have heard of it – or much mourned it. …But this would have been in Eldarin law and sentiment murder; Eöl came alone, on no errand of mischief that time, but in distress.” A note adds some further comment on Curufin’s statement that he was forbidden by law to kill Eöl, “the Eldar … were forbidden to slay one another in revenge for any grievance, however great.” [WJ 3 iii]

The point, evidently, is that Curufin did draw the line somewhere and killing Eöl under these circumstances was apparently it. (There is an interesting contrast here with Turgon who, however good his motive, had no hesitation in threatening Eöl with summary execution if he should attempt to leave Gondolin; and when Eöl protested justified himself with the argument that his word was the law). And in fact Curufin went so far as to give Eöl some sound advice, his parting words being “my heart warns me that that if you now pursue those who love you no more, never will you return.” [S 17] This of course is a true prophecy, and a warning Curufin was under no obligation to give. Tolkien also noted that Curufin and Celegorm could, if they wished, have confined Eöl entirely in Nan Elmoth, and prevented his visits to the Dwarves, which they had so far refrained from doing, despite the rivalry. [WJ 3 iii]

There is an additional oddity in Tolkien’s own notes on Aredhel’s story, namely that in considering why Celegorm and Curufin did not send word of Aredhel’s whereabouts to Gondolin he takes it for granted that they knew where Gondolin was. This is not what we would expect; given the emphasis elsewhere on both the secrecy of Gondolin’s location and Turgon’s understandably bad relations with Fëanor’s sons, it is quite surprising they would have been let into the secret. (It is clear from the phrasing that Tolkien pictured an actual visit to Gondolin by the brothers or duly accredited messengers, not simply a message sent by a passing eagle.) [WJ 3 iii]. The obvious explanation for the lack of communication with Gondolin – that they simply did not know where the city was and had no means of making contact – had clearly not occurred to Tolkien, just as he seems to have forgotten in making his notes that in the story as written Aredhel had not actually made contact with Celegorm and Curufin during her stay in Himlad since they were away visiting Caranthir at the time. Why he took it for granted that Fëanor’s sons would have known the whereabouts of the Hidden City must remain mysterious.

When their lands were overrun in the Dagor Bragollach Celegorm and Curufin fled west with some of their followers, and eventually ended up in Nargothrond. It is not clear why they chose this route, which would have involved passing through the lands north of Doriath, Nan Dungortheb, whose dangers Tolkien stresses. [S 14 ; also WJ 3 iii] Perhaps Morgoth’s forces had cut off all other lines of retreat, but it is worth wondering if Tolkien ever intended a connection with the abandoned story of the old friendship of Celegorm and Curufin with Angrod and Aegnor.

In the latest form of his annals Tolkien wrote a version of Celegorm and Curufin’s arrival at Nargothrond which did not make it into the narrative, although it is not incompatible with it. According to this story a force under Sauron “besieged the fortress of [Finrod], Minnas-tirith upon Tol Sirion. And this they took after bitter fighting, and Orodreth the brother of [Finrod] who held it was driven out. There he would have been slain, but Celegorn and Curufin came up with their riders, and such other force as they could gather, and they fought fiercely, and stemmed the tide for a while; and thus Orodreth escaped and came to Nargothrond. Thither also at last before the might of Sauron fled Celegorn and Curufin with small following; and they were harboured in Nargothrond gratefully, and the griefs which lay between the houses of [Finarfin] and Fëanor were for that time forgotten.” [WJ 1]

There is no suggestion that Celegorm and Curufin had any ulterior motive at this point, although it was obviously in their interests to help an ally. That they had actually rescued Orodreth makes their presence in Nargothrond something other than mere generosity on Finrod’s part. They were present as allies whose help was worth having. Even in the text of the published Silmarillion, it may be noted, they are portrayed by Finrod as rather more than tolerated refugees. “They have shown friendship to me in every need” [S 19] he tells Beren. Evidently they were good guests to have until the Oath got going again.

As Tolkien himself seems to have been aware, Celegorm and Curufin are used rather as villains of convenience in the Tale of Lúthien and their motives are handled in a somewhat throw-away manner. Initially their opposition to Finrod helping Beren comes from the Oath (naturally they would not want the Silmaril to fall into the hands of other Elves, or to be sent to Doriath where it would be inaccessible behind the Girdle of Melian); and the desire to oust Finrod as ruler comes across as something of an afterthought both to them and to Tolkien, although it might have been powerful if given more development (and it is quite interesting that Tolkien attributes their “dark thoughts” to the Curse of Mandos, rather than naked ambition alone). The further twist of Celegorm falling for Lúthien seems almost a motive too many, as well as being extremely sudden (but then every male who saw Lúthien fell in love with her). And why does Curufin try to shoot Lúthien when it’s Beren who has just taken his knife and horse – apart from Tolkien wanting an opportunity for Beren to be heroic?

There is a certain confusion also over Celegorm’s project to marry Lúthien for why would Celegorm send to Thingol for permission to marry Lúthien, when Thingol’s hostility to the sons of Fëanor was well known? Short of a bad attack of amnesia it is difficult to see how he could possibly have expected Thingol to agree. The real life explanation, I think, is that the Tale of Beren and Lúthien was written before the idea of Thingol’s profound dislike of the sons of Fëanor had emerged and was never revised; within the story we can only speculate.

Although the story as written gives a rather two-dimensional picture of the brothers there are some interesting touches nonetheless. Celegorm is the one who speaks first in opposition to Finrod, perhaps impulsively, and does so drawing his sword in what may be a deliberate echo of the Oath-swearing scene – indeed his words seem to be a version of the Oath and were perhaps intended to be a direct repetition. [See Appendix II]. Curufin, we are told, spoke with as much power, but “more softly”. Later on the ejection from Nargothrond “there was a light of malice in his [Celegorm’s] eyes, but Curufin smiled.” In both these extracts Celegorm appears the more openly fiery – and interestingly it is he who is compared directly to Fëanor in his speech in Nargothrond “as potent as were long before in Tirion the words of his father that first inflamed the Noldor to rebellion.” Curufin, by contrast, appears cooler and more calculating. [All quotes from S 19] Another point here is that, however maliciously spoken, the brothers’ speeches may have held an element of genuine foresight since everything they predict (Celegorm’s speech is developed a bit more fully in the poetic version [LB III vi]) did in fact happen. Then again it might not have needed any foresight to predict war and ruin, especially with a Silmaril involved.

In his early verse telling of the story of Beren and Lúthien Tolkien makes some further distinctions between the brothers that do not appear in the prose form, although they are compatible with it. Curufin is seen as the moving spirit and more calculating schemer, prompting his brother’s actions: Tolkien made a marginal note that “‘It is Curufin who put evil into Celegorm’s heart.’ ” CT rightly notes an implication in the text that “Celegorm has some authority – or is felt by Curufin to have some authority – that Curufin lacks.” [LB III viii] The impression is that Curufin is the subtler, more cunning and perhaps more ill-disposed, whereas Celegorm is the more charismatic and respected as a leader.

There is no evidence of where the brothers spent their time between their ejection from Nargothrond and the battle of Nirnaeth Arnoediad, presumably somewhere in the eastern territories. We are told, however, that after Thingol refused to return the Silmaril “Celegorm and Curufin vowed openly to slay Thingol and destroy his people, if they came victorious from war and the jewel were not surrendered of free will.” [S 20] There is an oddity here, although the malice rings true enough, for what made them think they could get through the Girdle of Melian? Perhaps they were starting to lose their grip on reality. An oddity appears also in one of Tolkien’s accounts of the preparations for battle of the Nirnaeth where it is said that only half of the folk of Haleth joined the battle because “The treacherous shaft of Curufin that wounded Beren was remembered among Men.” [LR 2 vi]. It seems strange that the people of Haleth, who had no known connection with Beren, should take it so hard, unless it was more of a pretext for not going to war than a real motive. The story is not present, however, in the latest version of the preparations, where it is implied that the people of Haleth were not at all reluctant [see WJ 1 and 2 xiv] and so had presumably been either abandoned or forgotten by Tolkien.

Like the other sons of Fëanor their actions in between the Nirnaeth Arnoediad and the sack of Doriath are obscure; although in some of Tolkien’s late jottings on Húrin this note appears “News of the fall of Nargothrond came to sons of Fëanor and dismayed Maedros, but did not all displease Celegorn and Curufin.” (Are we surprised?) [WJ 3 i ]. As said above it was Celegorm who took the lead in proposing the attack on Doriath, and it seems unlikely Curufin took much convincing. Tolkien never described the Fall of Doriath in much detail, but it is noted that Celegorm was killed by Dior [WJ 3 v ]. No details are given of Curufin’s end. The abandonment of Dior’s young sons in the forest is attributed by Tolkien to “cruel servants” of Celegorm (in context probably armed followers rather than household help, ‘servants’ in the sense that Sauron was a servant of Morgoth), presumably as an act of vengeance. [WJ 3 v] Who these servants were is not explained. Celegorm and Curufin’s original surviving followers had refused to accompany them from Nargothrond, so these must have been recruited later. They would not necessarily have been Noldor, perhaps not even Elves, but whoever they were their actions here should probably be seen as a reflection on Celegorm’s own character. Like leader, like followers.

Maglor

Maglor is a difficult character to assess because, apart from his musical talent, he does not really develop an individual personality until the very end of the Silmarillion legends. By the time of the attack on Sirion he is heartsick and weary of the Oath, but we have no means of knowing whether Maglor had always been a reluctant Kinslayer or whether he developed a conscience only at a very late stage. He is not said to have objected to the previous Kinslayings, although, as noted, the first seems to have been unpremeditated and Tolkien has very little to say about the attack on Doriath at all (it may or may not be relevant that Maglor is not said to have joined Maedhros in the search for Dior’s sons).

We must assume, however, that Maglor took part in the ship-burning (at least in The Silmarillion version of events), since only Maedhros refused to do so, and there is nothing to suggest he was either reluctant or repentant. There is also an alternative version of Fingolfin’s installation as king of the Noldor where he is chosen as king by ‘the council’ and “ill did the sons of Fëanor take this choice, save Maidros only, though it touched him the nearest. But he restrained his brethren…” [WJ 1] Maglor is here clearly coupled with his younger brothers as resenting the displacement of their family, which I think is significant even though it does not appear in the more usual version of events, according to which it was Maedhros’s choice to pass the kingship to Fingolfin. Prior to the attack on Sirion there is no mention either of Maglor ever supporting Maedhros in his various attempts to prevent troublemaking by some of the younger brothers, which there surely would have been had Tolkien conceived him as a serious moderating influence at this stage. On the other hand Maglor was apparently ready enough to have dealings with the western princes, attending the Feast of Reuniting (although that might have been for the audience…) and going hunting with Finrod. The overall impression is that Maglor, although not as much of a troublemaker as some of the other brothers, did not display any more of a moral sense until after the destruction of Doriath; but there is so little information about him that it can be only an impression.

His role as a singer and songmaker has an important part to play in the supposed transmission of the legends, for to Maglor is attributed the Noldolantë, the great song of the Fall of the Noldor. He was the only one of the Noldor said to be able to equal the Sindar as a singer (although still second to Daeron of Doriath). Taken together with the fact that Míriel, the mother of Fëanor, had silver hair (generally a feature of the Teleri/Sindar – and only a few of them) this is enough to make one wonder if Míriel was part Telerin; in which case maybe the term ‘kinslaying’ should after all be taken literally, and not just as a reference to the killing of Elves by Elves.

Tolkien has little to say about Maglor as a warrior, although we do know that he killed Uldor at the Nirnaeth. It is important though, I think, not to assume that because he was a poet and singer he was not warlike. Tolkien is at pains to note that the loremasters of the Noldor were not “a separate guild of gentle scribes…. They were mostly even as Fëanor the greatest, kings, princes and warriors, such as the valiant captains of Gondolin, or Finrod of Nargothrond….” [PM xi 2] There is no reason to suppose he saw poets any differently, and some strong evidence that he did not. We may note that Fingon, unquestionably one of the Noldor’s greatest warriors, took a harp with him on a dangerous rescue mission – and used it – and that an early note of Tolkien’s says that Ecthelion, one of the great heroes of the Fall of Gondolin, “had the fairest voice and was most skilled in musics of all the Gondothlim”. [BLT2 3] Moreover elven song could be a weapon in itself – as witness the duel of Finrod with Sauron. Maglor held the most vulnerable part of the northern borders, the only part where there was no protection against attack from Angband, and he evidently held it well for a long time. He also survived a long list of battles, probably more than any other named Elf except Maedhros. We can assume he knew how to handle himself on a battlefield.

Maglor features most strongly in the final dialogue with Maedhros yet, although we are clearly meant to take his part there, his argument is puzzling to me because it seems unrealistic. The evidence that the Oath cannot be broken is strong, the likelihood of the Valar returning the Silmarils small to non-existent. Maglor’s hope that they may “come into our own in peace” [S 24] sounds like wishful thinking (note that he evidently does not accept they have forfeited their right to the gems); and whilst the assertion they would do less evil breaking the Oath than keeping it is undoubtedly right, yet it remains uncertain how he intended to do that – we have seen what came of the brothers’ previous attempt to resist the Oath’s power. Unless Maglor was planning on suicide if the gems were not returned, then I believe Maedhros was right in saying they would have ended by breaking the peace of Valinor (again). The fact that Tolkien chooses not to report what arguments Maedhros used to convince his brother leaves the right interpretation of what Maglor had in mind unclear. It is probably relevant, however, that his relationship with Elrond and Elros gives him more to lose than Maedhros has by this time.

The fostering of Elwing’s sons by Maglor is a memorable story, yet it must be noted Tolkien was not entirely consistent, giving a different summary of the history of Elrond and Elros when explaining the meaning of their names in one of his letters. Whilst still saying they “were carried off by the sons of Fëanor” he goes on, “The infants were not slain but left like ‘babes in the wood’, in a cave with a fall of water over the entrance . There they were found: Elrond within the cave, and Elros dabbling in the water.” [Letters no. 211]. It is not clear whether this was an intended revision or if he had just forgotten the details of the brothers’ history, perhaps confusing them with the sons of Dior. Certainly no such change seems to have made it into his drafts and jottings for the Silmarillion, and he later came up with quite different explanations for how Elrond and Elros came by their names [PM xi, xii].

Alone of Fëanor’s sons Maglor’s ultimate fate remains uncertain. In The Silmarillion he is last heard of wandering and singing in regret by the sea; whether he eventually died, was permitted to sail west, or remained to fade in Middle-earth is not explained. One of a number of loose ends in the legends, the tale of wandering and regret was a fate Tolkien seems to have been fond of giving to musicians, for a similar story is told of Daeron. He did add a coda to the story of Maglor, which did not make it into the text of the published Silmarillion. “Yet not all the Eldalië were willing to forsake the Hither Lands… and among these were Maglor, as has been told; and with him for a while was Elrond Halfelven, who chose, as was granted to him, to be among the Elf-kindred; but Elros his brother chose to abide with Men.” [LR 2 vi]. Make what you will of that.

It was not, however, Tolkien’s final word on the fate of Maglor. In the letter, written in 1951, that is printed as an introduction to The Silmarillion second edition, Tolkien had this to say, “The last two sons of Fëanor, compelled by their oath, steal [the Silmarils], and are destroyed by them, casting themselves into the sea, and the pits of the earth”. Deliberate revision or forgetfulness? Once again it’s not clear which is the case. However the revisions to the poetic Lay of Leithian, made after LOTR was finished and therefore later than the last version of the Silmarillion’s final chapter, have this to say about Maglor:

forgotten harper, singer doomed

who young when Laurelin yet bloomed

to endless lamentation passed

and in the tombless sea was cast [LB IV]

Whatever idea lay behind this passage seems never to have been recorded fully, but it confirms that in later years Tolkien intended that Maglor’s life should end in the sea.

Maedhros

In a fragment of an alliterative poem on the flight of the Noldor Tolkien gives us this quote from the moment of the Oath swearing

the eldest, whose ardour yet more eager burnt

than his father’s flame, than Fëanor’s wrath [LB II]

This is rather striking – someone outshining Fëanor in a moment of great passion, and hints that at this stage of his thinking Tolkien may have attached rather more importance to Maedhros as a character than is clear from the completed texts. Even as things are Maedhros is one of the most frequently mentioned of Fëanor’s sons, and arguably the most developed as a character. Possessed undoubtedly of great strength of will, he is also for most of the story the most consistently well-disposed of the brothers, acting as a restraining influence on the others and with an appreciation of the Noldor’s need for unity that was too seldom shared, although of course it all comes to nothing in the end.

Up to the arrival in Middle-earth Maedhros, like the other brothers, acts chiefly as his father’s shadow, but the original version of the ship-burning at Losgar brings him forward as a character in his own right, one with a stronger sense of loyalty than his father (or presumably his brothers) and capable of standing up, at least in some degree, to Fëanor.

His brothers appear to accept his lead after Fëanor’s death, but his next action, trying to trick Morgoth, is neither moral nor sensible, and leads to his long captivity and torture at Morgoth’s hands. From Tolkien’s Grey Annals an outline of this time can be reconstructed which is fairly mind boggling when you recall Tolkien intended one year in Aman to be roughly equivalent to ten years of the sun. [WJ 1]

Aman Year 1497 Captured by Morgoth

Aman Year 1498 Sent to Thangorodrim

Aman Year 1500 = Sun Year 1 Fingolfin reaches Middle Earth (his trumpets are heard by Maedhros on Thangorodrim)

Sun Year 5 Rescue by Fingon

There are certain ambiguities here since it is not clear how far into their respective years the various events take place, nor whether the year 1500 was equal to a full ten sun years or was curtailed. However we add it up though, it comes to more than fifteen years on Thangorodrim, and a fair period in Angband before that. How Maedhros even stayed alive all that time on Thangorodrim is hard to think, even though Noldor Elves are said to have significantly more vitality than mortals. There is evidence elsewhere in Tolkien’s writing, however, that Morgoth could actually prevent his captives from dying, believable enough for a Vala, even a fallen one. We are told of Húrin (also held prisoner on Thangorodrim) that “he could not move from that place, nor die, until Morgoth should release him”. [CH 3]. If Sauron, who had much less native power, could create rings which kept mortals from dying of old age, then keeping a particular captive or two alive in circumstances which would normally have been fatal should have been easy enough for Morgoth. Elves appear, under normal circumstances, to have been able to die of their own will, and as Maedhros certainly wanted death something of that sort seems likely to have been effective here.

What might have happened to Maedhros in Angband is similarly left unclear, but it seems unlikely that Morgoth was simply content to wait for the reply of the other brothers to his messengers. Morgoth, we are told, endeavoured always “to break wills and subordinate them to or absorb them into his own will and being” [MR 5]. It is hard to believe he would not have attempted this with the eldest son of Fëanor, once he had him in his power. Evidently he failed.

That Maedhros was able to function at all after years, even decades, of torture is remarkable, and testimony to his strength of character. That, apart from the missing hand, he made a full physical recovery is striking also, especially since it contrasts with Tolkien’s account of Gwindor of Nargothrond, who was severely weakened by his time in Angband, although it must be said that Gwindor had less time in which to recover. Maedhros’s recovery may have been attributable to the fact that he was only recently come from Valinor, which is implied to give special strength to the Noldor. It is also noted in the L&C, however, that the elvish spirit or fëa had stronger influence over the body than is the case for mortals [MR 3 ii], so it may also be that Maedhros had a particularly strong will to recover.

Equally remarkable is the act of surrendering the kingship to Fingolfin which followed, not simply because it shows a basic appreciation of the need for unity that was all too often lacking amongst the Noldor (and we should not rule out a genuine desire to make amends for the ship-burning even though Maedhros had not taken part), but also because he was able to impose the settlement on his brothers. We know that at least some of them were not happy about it, and given what we hear of them, or some at least, elsewhere, they are not likely have agreed to such a thing readily or easily. To induce such a turbulent bunch to fall into line argues a forceful character, a good deal of persuasiveness, or both.

The apology was not simply a matter of words, in support of it, Maedhros “gave back the goods of Fingolfin that had been borne away in the ships” [LR 2 vi] (this might explain how Finrod came to have carried more treasures out of Aman than any of the other leaders, otherwise we have to picture him obliging the Noldor to drag his property across the ice!). We learn also of Fingolfin’s horses that “many of the sires came from Valinor, and they were given to Fingolfin by Maedhros in atonement of his losses, for they had been carried by ship to Losgar.” [S 14] Once again this must have been imposed on his brothers.

In the years that follow Maedhros is found more than once acting as a restraining influence (‘restrain’ is Tolkien’s consistent word) on his brothers, reinforcing the impression of a strong character, and one possessed of either greater moderation or greater appreciation of the need for alliance than at least some of the other brothers. To begin with after Caranthir’s ill-tempered outburst against Thingol and Angrod we are told Maedhros “restrained his brethren” and soon afterwards took them off the east in what was apparently a deliberate bid to stop further trouble. [S 13] (The exposed nature of the eastern territories is underlined in an additional comment, “he was very willing that the chief peril of assault should fall upon himself.”). The same image of Maedhros ‘restraining’ the others appears in the alternative account of Fingolfin’s becoming king of the Noldor already cited, which although not part of the mainstream Silmarillion legends is consistent in the portrayal of Maedhros.

The same picture emerges again, later in the First Age. One of Tolkien’s later annalistic notes under the year 505 describes the sons of Fëanor holding a council over the Silmaril in Doriath, “Maidros restrains his brethren [from instant attack presumably] but a message is sent to Dior demanding the Jewel. Dior returns no answer.” A similar course of events can be deduced in the years before the attack on Sirion, where Tolkien’s annalistic note reads “Sons of Fëanor learn [that the Silmaril is in Sirion] but Maidros forswears his oath.” [WJ 3 v] It is not stated what the other three surviving brothers thought about that, but the implication is surely that Maedhros was once again able to keep them in check.

Of course in the cases of both the Second and Third Kinslayings the restraining influence proved only temporary (although in the latter case it was also of great importance, since if the Fëanorians had attacked earlier then Sirion would have been destroyed before the marriage of Elwing and Eärendil and the birth of the twins Elros and Elrond, which were to have far-reaching consequences). Undoubtedly Maedhros’s influence over his brothers did have its limits, especially when the Oath was involved. In the case of the attack on Doriath we are never told how far Maedhros may have been influenced by the arguments Celegorm put forward, whatever those may have been, or whether he joined with the others only reluctantly. The tale that he searched in vain for Dior’s sons, however, does imply that he still possessed more of a conscience than the other remaining brothers, who are not said to have helped him. Later in the attack on Sirion both Maedhros and Maglor are said to have been reluctant, but afterwards it is Maglor who cares for Elros and Elrond in what becomes a permanent shift in their roles. Up to this point it has consistently been Maedhros who is the family voice of moderation and conscience (when anyone at all is); after the sack of Sirion it is Maglor who assumes the role, for although Maedhros is not said to have objected to his brother taking on the twins there is a clear division between them in the final debate about the Oath. We can only speculate on the reasons for this.

Co-operation was always important to the success of the Noldor, although often not forthcoming. Maedhros for much of the time had a particular awareness of this. The Dagor Aglareb or Glorious Battle was clearly won by intelligent co-operation and shared strategic planning with Fingolfin and of course alliances were crucial to the ambitious, and finally ill-fated Union of Maedhros. Maedhros did not, however, give Fingolfin the support Fingolfin wanted when trying to plan a new assault on Angband [S 18]. This seems uncharacteristic, and we can only wonder what lay behind it, and whether there had been some new rift amongst the Noldor. It would be conceivable that Maedhros was willing to help, but on this occasion failed to sway his brothers; however Tolkien’s statement that only Angrod and Aegnor were willing to listen would be against that. (Although it does leave you wondering what Finrod and the normally fire-eating Fingon were thinking of, unless Fingon’s co-operation was taken for granted as his father’s deputy and apparently the regular war-leader in Hithlum.)

Tolkien’s notes give some additional scraps of information about the warfare of the period, in which Maedhros was heavily involved and emerges as one of the most formidable of the Noldor both as a warrior and as a war leader. In the latest annals this entry appears under the year 402 (note that Tolkien later revised his chronology to put the first appearance of Men further back) “Here there was fighting on the north-marches more bitter than there had been since the routing of Glaurung; for the Orcs attempted to pierce the pass of Aglon. There Maidros and Maglor were aided by the sons of [Finarfin], and Bëor was with them, the first of Men to draw sword in behalf of the Eldar.” [WJ 1] Interesting that it should have been Maedhros and Maglor who are named here, although Aglon was in the territory belonging to Celegorm and Curufin.

In the assault of the Dagor Bragollach Maedhros was able to hold Himring, and with the aid of fugitives from the neighbouring land managed to again close for a while the Pass of Aglon, from which Celegorm and Curufin had been driven back. There was apparently hard fighting around Himring, we are told in the longest version of events that Maedhros “did deeds of surpassing valour, and the Orcs could not endure the light of his face; for since his torment on Thangorodrim his spirit burned like a white fire within, and he was as one who returneth from the dead, keen and terrible”. [LR 2 vi] It is worth remarking that for the Elves ‘one who returns from the dead’ was not necessarily a fanciful comparison.

Later there is some information about events after the Dagor Bragollach in annals under the year 462. “In the east he [Morgoth] had been foiled. Himring stood firm. The army that had driven into East Beleriand had been broken by Thingol on the borders of Doriath, and part had fled away south never to return to him, part retreating north had been stricken by a sortie of Maidros, while those who ventured near the mountains were hunted by the Dwarves.” [WJ 1]

Finally Tolkien’s expanded version of the Tale of Túrin gives the story of the great dragon helmet originally given by Azaghâl, Lord of the Dwarves of Belegost, to Maedhros “as guerdon for the saving of his life and treasure, when Azaghâl was waylaid by Orcs upon the Dwarf-road in East Beleriand.” Maedhros afterwards gave the helmet to Fingon, who gave it to Hador, from whom it descended to Túrin, who appears to have lost it. [UT 1 ii] No further details are given and the event is not dated, although it must have been after Glaurung’s first incursion into Beleriand (as the helm’s crest was modelled on him) and before Hador’s death in the Dagor Bragollach. The location is interesting; the Dwarf-road on the Silmarillion maps does not appear to run through Maedhros’s territory, although it is within the Fëanorian lands. Presumably Maedhros was prepared to carry the war to the enemy in any part of the eastern lands. As the eldest son he could reasonably have assumed overlordship of his brothers’ territories.

Fitting in with that, there is some evidence that Maedhros used the title of king, or it was used of him, although it is easy to miss. There is a brief reference in The Silmarillion to “the kings of the three houses of the Noldor” [S 17] which must mean the houses of Fëanor, Fingolfin and Finarfin. Elsewhere Tolkien has a reference to the Noldor after the death of Fingolfin being divided into separate kingships under Fingon, Turgon, Maedhros and Finrod, [PM 2 xi] but this is confusing as the reference to the kings of the three houses dates from the first coming of Men into Beleriand, which is before Fingolfin’s death, and the statement about separate kingships also contradicts what is said in the Silmarillion about Fingon succeeding Fingolfin as overlord of the Noldor. [S 14; 18] It does, however, reinforce the evidence that Maedhros was sometimes called king, although the title is never directly used of him as it is of Finrod.

A small number of other passages relating to Maedhros in the HOME are worth highlighting. One occasion we are told that “while Lúthien wore that peerless gem no Elf would dare assail her, and not even Maidros dared ponder such a thought.” [SM III] What is interesting about this passage is that Maedhros does not appear by any means the most Silmaril obsessed of the brothers (until the very end); indeed one would expect Celegorm and Curufin to take the lead in any project of assaulting Lúthien. The implication is presumably that Maedhros was the least easily over awed of the brothers, not really surprising after his experiences.

There was also an early and apparently abandoned notion of Tolkien’s that Maedhros made an attempt to reclaim the overlordship of the Noldor after the sack of Sirion, and even succeeded to some degree, after the Third Kinslaying we are told, “the folk of Sirion perished, or fled away, or departed of need to join the people of Maidros, who claimed now the lordship of all the Elves of the Outer Lands” [SM III] The thoroughly surprising concept of Sirion survivors joining the followers of Maedhros is repeated again in the annals made around this time, but seems to have been dropped by Tolkien later, probably when the idea of the haven of Círdan and Gil-galad on Balar developed.

There is a brief final comment on Maedhros in one of Tolkien’s notes on the Dagor Dagorath, the battle that was to take place at the end of Arda, and the events which were to follow. Part of Tolkien’s early conception was that the Silmarils would be broken open at last and the Trees restored. In most of his notes it is Fëanor who either breaks the Silmarils or gives them to Yavanna to be broken, but in one version it is Maedhros who breaks them. [SM III] The idea is never developed and the whole notion of breaking the Silmarils disappears in Tolkien’s later writing, but it remains as a tantalising fragment.

Appendix I: Names and Appearance of the Sons of Fëanor

I’ve chosen to bracket these together as virtually everything Tolkien says about the appearance of the sons comes under discussions of their names. Names and their meanings were important to Tolkien, but he quite often came up with a name first and then tried to explain its meaning in his languages later (‘Maedhros’ seems to have given him particular trouble).

According to Tolkien the Elves (or at least the Elves of Valinor) commonly had at least two names, one given by the father and the other by the mother, they might also be given an epessë or nickname. To complicate matters further the names of most principle Silmarillion characters are explained as Sindarin versions of names originally given in the Quenya, or High-elven, language, sometimes straightforward translations but sometimes not. So Fëanor is a semi-Sindarised form of Fëanáro, ‘spirit of fire’, and Fëanáro is a mother name, Fëanor’s father name being Curufinwë, meaning ‘Skilled Finwë’. Tolkien did not give both father and mother names for all of his principle characters, but he did do so for Fëanor’s sons, and the details may be found in PM 2 xi. Fëanor called all his sons ‘something-Finwë’, stressing their ancestry. (The name ‘Finwë’ according to Tolkien had no remembered meaning.) Apparently this produced names which were rather a mouthful, for shortened forms of each are given by Tolkien in brackets. However all the sons except Curufin preferred, and were generally called by, their mother names, and the usual forms of their names derived from these.

At a fairly early stage in his composition Tolkien produced a list of Anglo-Saxon names of most of his principal Elves. This was part of an elaborate construction according to which the legendary stories of the Silmarillion had been brought back to England by an Anglo-Saxon mariner named Ælfwine who had accidentally found his way to Tol Eressëa. The Anglo-Saxon names of Fëanor’s sons seem mostly to be chosen for similarity of sound rather than meaning, although Dægred and Dægmund for Maedhros and Maglor are exceptions. The distinguishing epithets given to them, however, are rather more interesting and therefore names and epithets are listed here. The details can be found in SM III.

For the sake of completeness one may note the Quenya form of the name Celebrimbor was given by Tolkien as Tyelpinquar (or Telperimpar in Telerin) and meant ‘silver-fist’. No other name is given, and there is no clue as to whether it was father name or mother name.

Maedhros

Nelyafinwë (Nelyo), his father name, is translated by Tolkien as “‘Finwë third’ in succession”. This sounds like Fëanor was attempting to claim the Noldor should practise strict father to eldest son primogeniture (although he would likely have expected it to be an academic question, but then as a language scholar Fëanor clearly have had an academic side) and may also have been a retort to the father names of his half-brothers, Nolofinwë and Arafinwë, which we are told he was not pleased by.

His mother name was Maitimo meaning ‘well-shaped one’, “he was of beautiful bodily form”. His Sindar name is not a straight translation but translates as ‘well-shaped copper’ and combines elements of Maitimo with his nickname Russandol which means ‘copper-top’ and was given because he had “inherited the rare red-brown hair of Nerdanel’s kin. Her father had the epessë of rusco ‘fox’.” Tolkien further notes of Nerdanel’s father “He loved copper and set it above gold… He usually wore a band of copper about his head. His hair was not as dark or black as was that of most of the Noldor, but brown and had glints of coppery-red in it. Of Nerdanel’s seven children the oldest and the twins (a very rare thing among the Eldar) had hair of this kind. The eldest [Maedhros] also wore a copper circlet.”

Maedhros is ‘the Tall’ in the list of Noldor princes and a few references elsewhere. In the list of Anglo-Saxon names he is Dægred Winsterhand. Dægred means ‘daybreak’ or ‘dawn’ and CT tentatively suggests it may be an early reference to Maedhros’s red hair. An alternative explanation would be that at this time Tolkien was actually interpreting ‘Maidros’ to mean daybreak, or something loosely equivalent. Tolkien certainly went through more than one interpretation of the name, in the etymologies given in The Lost Road the interpretation is ‘pale-glitter (of metal)’. [LR 3 ]

Winsterhand means Left-hand which is also used as a nickname for Maedhros in annals made about this time. As far as I know Tolkien always uses ‘Left-hand’ rather than ‘One-hand’, perhaps for no more profound reason than that he preferred to reserve ‘One-hand’ for Beren.

Maglor

Maglor’s mother name, Makalaurë, was said by Tolkien to be of uncertain meaning but usually interpreted as ‘forging gold’ and probably a prophetic reference to his musical skill as laurë was a word for golden light or colour, not metal. Kanafinwë (Káno) was his father name, the first element meant “‘strong-voiced or ?commanding’ ”.

“Maglor the mighty singer, whose voice was heard far over land and sea” is how he is described in the list of princes and most other references stress his musical skill. However in Tolkien’s verse version of the tale of Húrin’s children he is ‘swift Maglor’, presumably meaning he was fast on his feet [LB I iii]. His Anglo-Saxon name is Dægmund Swinsere. Dæg is ‘day’, mund ‘hand’ or ‘protector’. CT has no explanation, but I believe it was meant as a translation. Lor in ‘Maglor’ was consistently interpreted as meaning ‘golden light’, whilst in the etymologies given in LR maЗ is ‘hand’ and ‘day-hand’ is near enough to ‘hand (of) golden-light’ to be a plausible translated name. Swinsere means singer or music-maker. Alone among the sons of Fëanor there seem to be no descriptions of Maglor’s appearance.

Celegorm

Tyelkormo was the mother name of Celegorm, and meant ‘hasty riser’. It is suggested that this was a reference to a quick temper, but only tentatively (so perhaps Celegorm was in the habit of getting up at the Valinor equivalent of five in the morning...) His father name was Turkafinwë (Turko) the first element meaning “ ‘strong, powerful (in body)’”

The Anglo-Saxon name list calls him Cynegrim Fægerfeax. Cynegrim seems to be chosen for the similarity of sound. Fægerfeax (the ancestor of the English surname ‘Fairfax’) means ‘fair-hair’. The meaning of Celegorm’s nickname has been much debated. In modern English whilst ‘fair’ can mean a number of things ‘fair-haired’ invariably means blond or light-coloured; however it does not necessarily follow that Tolkien used the Anglo-Saxon Fægerfeax in this way. Certainly Tolkien was well aware of the ambivalent meaning of fair, and comments on it in a note on the Vanyar. “The name [Vanyar] referred to the hair…which was in nearly all members of the clan yellow or deep golden. This was regarded as a beautiful feature by the Noldor… [there follows a linguistic note on the stem of ‘Vanyar’] Its primary sense seems to have been very similar to English (modern) use of ‘fair’ with reference to hair and complexion; though its actual development was the reverse of the English: it meant ‘pale, light-coloured…’ and its implication of beauty was secondary. In English the meaning ‘beautiful’ is primary.” (It is also rare in modern English: Tolkien’s habit of using ‘fair’ to mean beautiful is deliberately old-fashioned.) So it seems not only is Celegorm’s nickname ambiguous in English it may have been so in Elvish as well!

However we do have proof that in Celegorm was originally intended by Tolkien to be blond. A line in the Tale of Beren and Lúthien, written in the 1930’s, says of Celegorm “Then Celegorm arose amid the throng, golden was his long hair” [LR 2 vi, my emphasis], which is quite unambivalent. (In the poetic version of the story his hair is ‘gleaming’ – LB III vi) This line was never rewritten by Tolkien but was removed from the published Silmarillion by CT since he felt it incompatible with his father’s later statements about Noldor colouring. Celegorm, then, was Fair because he was blond, at least in Tolkien’s original conception, although he may also have been considered beautiful for the same reason. It’s possible that Tolkien would have dropped the concept, along with the ‘fair’ nickname, if he had ever fully revised the legends, certainly it is a little difficult to see where Celegorm could have got blond hair from (although who knows whether elven genetics followed the same patterns as mortal ones).

Curufin

Curufin was the only one of Fëanor’s sons to use his father name, which was the same as Fëanor’s own, Kurufinwë or Curufinwë (Kurvo for short). His mother name also played on his resemblance to his father, said to be physical as well as showing in his tastes, it was Atarinkë, meaning ‘little father’. Fëanor was “tall, and fair of face… his hair raven dark”, presumably this description fitted Curufin as well. [S 6]

He is ‘Curufin the Crafty’ in the list of princes and Cyrefinn Fácensearo in the list of Anglo-Saxon names. Cyrefinn again seems to be chosen for sound. On Fácensearo I can’t do better than quote CT’s note in full. “fácen deceit, guile, wickedness, (a word of wholly bad meaning); searu ‘skill, cunning, (also with bad meaning, ‘plot, snare, treachery’) [this is the first element of the name ‘Saruman’]; fácensearu ‘treachery’.”

It should be pointed out that the Anglo-Saxon translation was meant to be just that, a translation, made by the traveller Ælfwine, so Curufin’s nickname ‘the Crafty’ may not have had such a bad meaning in the original elvish as in Ælfwine’s version. However it does demonstrate that the meaning was ‘wily’ rather than ‘skilful’, which would also have been appropriate, for although the element searu could be a reference to skill it seems that the name in full cannot.

Caranthir

His Quenya mother name was Carnistir meaning ‘red-face’ and we are told he had inherited “the ruddy complexion of his mother”. Morifinwë (Moryo) his father name begins with the element ‘dark’ and he is also Caranthir ‘the Dark’ in the list of Noldor princes. The reference is evidently to hair colour, Caranthir having either dark-brown or black hair (Tolkien uses both descriptions in the space of a few lines). It is a little puzzling all the same since the Noldor were typically dark haired. Both Fëanor and Finwë had black hair, so why should Caranthir be singled out? The Quenya element Mori could carry less than complimentary meanings, as in the term Moriquendi – Dark Elves. Fëanor presumably did not intend any such meaning when naming his son, but it adds a certain irony that Caranthir should be the brother who insulted Thingol by calling him (inaccurately) ‘Dark-Elf’.

The reference to dark appearance crops up again in his Anglo-Saxon name ColÞegn Nihthelm. The personal name once again seems merely a substitution of sound, although it’s worth noting col means ‘coal’. Nihthelm would literally be ‘night-helm’ but could also be used as a poetic phrase meaning ‘cover of night’. Either way it is plainly a translation of Caranthir’s nickname ‘the Dark’.

Amrod and Amras

Tolkien settled on these names for the twins at a fairly late stage, for a long time they were Damrod and Diriel (or Díriel). The reason for the change is not clear. In the etymologies published in The Lost Road Damrod is interpreted as ‘hammerer of copper’ and Diriel derived from ‘man’ and ‘joy, triumph’. The Anglo-Saxon name list calls them Déormód and Tirgeld and brackets them together as huntan, ‘hunters’.

Their father names are given as Pityafinwë (Pityo) ‘Little Finwë’ and Telufinwë (Telvo) ‘Last Finwë’ (‘we’re not having more kids!’ perhaps). Their mother names are more complicated, and tied up with Tolkien’s revision of the Losgar story. The mother names were first given as Ambarto (from amba ‘up’ or ‘top’ and arto ‘exalted, lofty’) and Ambarussa (‘top-russet’). The last was meant to be again a hair reference, in Tolkien’s original conception “the first and the last of Nerdanel’s children [i.e. Maedhros and Amras] had the reddish hair of her kin”.

Almost at once however he changed his mind and decided that the twins were both red-haired, and Nerdanel called them both Ambarussa. Fëanor wanted distinct names though and “Nerdanel looked strange and…said: ‘Then let one be called Umbarto [Fated], but which time will decide.’” Fëanor either misheard or disliked the name and changed it to Ambarto instead. Tolkien however noted that that name was not actually used “The twins called each other Ambarussa…. [they] remained alike, but the elder grew darker in hair and was more dear to his father.” It was apparently only after the ship burning that the name Ambarto/Umbarto was permanently attached to the dead twin. Tolkien whilst writing this story reversed the names of the twins in the accompanying list, so that Amras (Ambarussa) who had been the younger twin became the elder, and the dead twin Amrod became the younger.

A slight oddity here is that in the same essay Tolkien gave Aegnor, the son of Finarfin, the father name Ambaráto, which was the Telerin form of Ambarto, without ever noting that this was the same name borne by one of Fëanor’s twins. He actually stated that “The Sindarin form of this would have been Amrod; but to distinguish this from Angrod, and also because he [Aegnor] preferred it, he used his mother-name…” One would have thought distinguishing himself from a cousin, even a dead one, who was also called Amrod would have been an even better reason for using a different name. It is also possible to wonder what Fëanor would have thought of his son sharing a name with his half-nephew (it is not known whether Aegnor was older or younger than Fëanor’s twins).

Appendix II: Texts of the Oath of Fëanor

From ‘Of the Flight of the Noldor’

[S 9] This text was derived from Tolkien’s narrative summary

They swore an oath which none shall break, and none should take, by the name even of Ilúvatar, calling the Everlasting Dark upon them if they kept it not; and Manwë they named in witness, and Varda, and the hallowed mountain of Taniquetil, vowing to pursue with vengeance and hatred to the ends of the World Vala, Demon, Elf or Man as yet unborn, or any creature, great or small, good or evil, that time should bring forth unto the end of days, whoso should hold or take or keep a Silmaril from their possession.

From the Annals of Aman

[MR 2]

Be he foe or friend, be he foul or clean,

brood of Morgoth or bright Vala,

Elda or Maia or Aftercomer,

Man yet unborn upon Middle-earth,

neither law, nor love, nor league of swords,

dread nor danger, not Doom itself,

shall defend him from Fëanor, and Fëanor’s kin,

whoso hideth or hordeth or in hand taketh,

finding keepeth or afar casteth

a Silmaril. This swear we all:

death we will deal him ere Day’s ending,

woe unto world’s end! Our word hear thou,

Eru Allfather! To the everlasting

Darkness doom us if our deed faileth.

On the holy mountain hear in witness

and our vow remember, Manwë and Varda!

From ‘The Flight of the Noldor from Valinor’

This is a short fragment of alliterative verse to be found in LB II

There are two significant differences between this and the later texts. First the oath of the sons is not the same as the oath sworn by Fëanor himself (that it is the same oath in later versions is clear, although not stressed) and second that though the oath is called unbreakable the crucial feature of invoking Ilúvatar and Eternal Darkness is not yet present. There is also an additional sinister note struck in the comment that the oath “nor hath ended yet”.

The quoted words are:

Be he friend or foe or foul offspring

of Morgoth Bauglir, be he mortal dark

that in after days on earth shall dwell

shall no law nor love no league of Gods,

no might or mercy, not moveless fate,

defend him for ever from the fierce vengeance

of the sons of Fëanor, whoso seize or steal

or finding keep the fair enchanted

globes of crystal whose glory dies not

the Silmarils. We have sworn forever!

Fëanor’s oath, given a few lines earlier, is as follows:

Morgoth has them in his monstrous hold

my Silmarils. I swear here oaths,

unbreakable bonds to bind me ever,

by Timbrenting and the timeless halls

of Bredhil the Blessed that abides thereon –

may she hear and heed – to hunt endlessly

unwearying unwavering through world and sea,

through leagured lands, lonely mountains,

over fens and forest and the fearful snows,

til I find those fair ones, where the fate is hid

of the folk of Elfland and their fortune locked,

where alone now lies the light divine

From ‘The Lay of Leithian’

The substance of the text given is almost exactly the same as in the alliterative fragment given above, only the form of the poetry is different. It is not quite clear in the poem whether this oath is the same as the one sworn by Fëanor or not, although Tolkien does speak of “those kinsmen seven” which may imply it was not.

Be he friend or foe, or seed defiled

of Morgoth Bauglir, or mortal child

that in after days on earth shall dwell,

no law, nor love, nor league of hell,

not might of Gods, not moveless fate

shall defend him from wrath and hate

of Fëanor’s sons who takes or steals

or finding keeps the Silmarils,

the thrice enchanted globes of light

that shine until the final night

[LB III].

There is an alteration from the alliterative fragment, in that they are said to name “Timbrenting’s holy height” (although that name does not appear in the words actually quoted) and the idea here appears that anyone who calls

these names in witness may not break

his oath, though earth and heaven shake

A few pages later Celegorm repeats the Oath almost, although not quite, exactly in his speech in Nargothrond

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