The Complete Tolkien Companion (100 page)

Also (Third Age) the name in Gondor for the deep vale which lay in north-western Mordor, between the Isenmouthe and the Morannon, the Black Gate.

Ufthak
– As recorded in the Red Book (by Master Samwise), this was the name of a miserable Orc, a member of the garrison of the Tower of Cirith Ungol, who was captured and afterwards devoured by the giant spider Shelob the Great. Through Sam we learn that this unhappy Goblin was, in fact, discovered by his fellow-orcs while still bound and uneaten; but in an act of almost unbelievable callousness, his ‘comrades' declined to rescue him, not wishing to provoke the wrath of the monster.

Uglúk
– The leader of the raiding-party of Uruk-hai (Orcs) who slew Boromir son of Denethor II and captured the two young Hobbits Meriadoc and Peregrin, intending to carry them back to Isengard and his master Saruman the Wizard. Uglúk was afterwards described as ‘a large black Orc' with a deep, growling voice, and he was evidently a formidable warrior. At all events, he was no coward and seems to have commanded considerable loyalty from his own followers – though not, of course, from Orcs of other breeds, who doubtless resented the superior manner adopted by the Uruk-hai towards ‘lesser' Goblins.

As is told elsewhere,
1
Uglúk's raid, initially successful, was betrayed by fortune (and inattentive Orc-scouts) and the Uruk-hai, together with their reluctant allies (and their even more reluctant prisoners) were cut off by an
éored
of Riders of Rohan, led by Éomer, Third Marshal of the Mark, before they could regain the shelter of Fangorn Forest. And although Uglúk and his immediate followers remained disciplined to the last, in the end all the Orcs were slain by the Rohirrim. Éomer himself paid Uglúk the compliment of dismounting before killing him.

Uial
‘Twilight' (Sind.) – The Grey-elves' name for the periods of ‘star-fading' and ‘star-opening', which were moments of reverence for the Eldar. The word was incorporated in the Sindarin names for dawn-twilight (
minuial
) and eventide (
aduial
); these were known to the High-elves as
tindómë
and
undómë
respectively.
See also
AELIN-UIAL; NENUIAL
.

Uilos
–
See
ALFIRIN
.

Uinen
– One of the
MAIAR
; she was the Lady of the Seas, the spouse of Ossë, and was revered – particularly by the Númenorean mariners – for her powers of calming storms at sea.

Uinendili
‘Lovers of Uinen' (Q.) – A name given in Númenor to the
GUILD OF VENTURERS
.

Úlairi
‘The Undead' (Q.) – The name given by the Númenoreans to those of their race, already given over to evil, who were ensnared by Sauron – by means of the Nine Mortal Rings – during the later part of the Second Age, and who afterwards came to be accounted his most terrible servants: the
RINGWRAITHS
(
Nazgûl
in the Black Speech).

Uldor the Accursed
– A Chieftain of the Easterlings during the First Age, youngest of the three sons of Ulfang the Black. His memory is accursed among Elves and Men – and even his own race – because of the treacherous part he and his brothers played at the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. It is no exaggeration to say that Uldor's actions were the single greatest reason for the catastrophic defeat suffered in that battle by the Eldar and the Edain – though perhaps that enterprise, foredoomed as it was, would have foundered on some other rock, at some later time, with consequences equally disastrous for all, even if Uldor and his kin had remained faithful.

Easterlings first entered Beleriand after the Dagor Bragollach. Many took service with Morgoth, but other clans, passing down the Dwarf-road, came to the March of Maedhros and enlisted in the armies maintained by the Sons of Fëanor in that embattled region. Two of these clans were led by Bór and Ulfang. The former chief took service with Maedhros and Maglor, and held The Gap; the latter clan, that led by Ulfang and his three sons, Ulwarth, Ulfast and Uldor, enlisted under the banners of Caranthir (who of all the Noldor was the least apt a judge of Men). But they were already under the secret command of Morgoth, and although for perhaps a decade they served with apparent faithfulness, they secretly reported all that was done by the Eldar to their Master in Angband, and on his orders made secret preparation to thwart the designs of Maedhros (
see
UNION OF MAEDHROS
). So it proved. The set-piece battle which Maedhros had envisaged upon the desert of Anfauglith went badly wrong almost from the first. Certainly as a plan it was too elaborate and, moreover, the two armies of the Eldar were widely separated and messages were slow to arrive. Thus it was that when Uldor deceived Maedhros with false reports of a sortie from Angband, he was not able to initiate his part of the planned grand envelopment; and Fingon was too far away for messages to arrive in time. And besides, the Host of Mithrim had already become embroiled with the armies of Morgoth. Nonetheless, Maedhros managed to set forth in time to fall upon the rear of Morgoth's main host, and for a brief while the victory so long dreamed-of was within the grasp of the Eldar. But at this precise moment Uldor committed his second (and greater) treachery, and he brought on to the field of battle a great army of Easterlings friendly to Morgoth, who had been awaiting his order. He himself, with his brothers and followers, now fell upon the rear ranks of Maedhros. And though he (and his brothers) were straightaway cut down by those whom they had betrayed, the damage was done. The battle – and with it, the War – was lost.

Ulfang the Black
– A chieftain of the Easterlings of the First Age.
See
preceding entry.

Ulfast
–
See
ULDOR THE ACCURSED
.

Ulmo
‘The Pourer' (Q.) – The Lord of Waters. One of the great Valar (the
Aratar,
‘High Ones'); King of the Sea. In the traditions of the Eldar Ulmo is second in power only to Manwë: in his following are the Maiar Ossë, Uinen, and Salmar (who made for his lord the great horns of shell, on which Ulmo from time to time makes music on the shores of Middle-earth). Alone of the Valar, Ulmo did not entirely forsake the rebelling Noldor in their exile; for he dwells, not in Valinor, but in all the seas and rivers of the world, and has done so since the Beginning of Arda. And so he came from time to time to Middle-earth while the Noldor made war upon Morgoth, and learned of their doings, and from time to time offered counsel, in his own way, to those he deemed able to receive it.

It was Ulmo who put the thought of building lasting refuges into the sleeping minds of Finrod, son of Finarfin, and Turgon, wisest of the children of Fingolfin. Indeed these two Elves he favoured above all; and when Finrod was slain Ulmo continued to play a part in the destiny of Turgon. And although the Vala's counsel was not always taken – or understood – in the end it enabled this at the least to come to pass: that the Line of Fingolfin and the memory of Gondolin should endure into a new Age of the World. But that was the most that even Ulmo could salvage from the wreck.

Ulumúri
– The horns of white shell made by the Maia Salmar and given by him to his lord, Ulmo King of the Sea. In Eldarin tradition, Ulmo will from time to time come to the shores of Middle-earth and make music on the Ulumúri: a music which carries with it a deep and profound enchantment of everlasting memory.

Ulwarth
–
See
ULDOR THE ACCURSED
.

Úmanyar
‘[Elves] Not of Aman' (Q.) – One of the divisions of the Elves; it applies specifically to those of the Eldar (all of the Telerin kindred) who never completed the Great Journey from Cuiviénen to Valinor while the First Age lasted, lingering instead, for various reasons – and having been sundered from their kinsfolk at differing times and in varying ways – in Middle-earth. Included under this classification are the
Sindar
(‘Grey-elves') of Beleriand; a subdivision of the Sindar called ‘Coast-elves' (
Falathrim
), led by Círdan, who dwelt at the Havens (while acknowledging the High-kingship of Thingol Greycloak); the
Nandor
(‘Those Who Turn Back'), who quitted the Journey in Wilderland, never crossing the Misty Mountains; and a subdivision of the Nandor, the
Laiquendi
or ‘Green-elves' of Ossiriand, allies and vassals of the Sindar.

Note
:
Úmanyar
is not equivalent to
Moriquendi;
the latter term refers to all Elves, whether Eldar or Avari, who never came at all to the Far West, and instead lingered, in mortal lands, dwindling to minor disembodied spirits. Obviously as a definition
Moriquendi
(a title depending on hindsight) came into being at a much later date than
Úmanyar,
which refers only to those who actually completed the Journey during the Elder Days. Confusingly,
Calaquendi
(the opposite of
Moriquendi
) is virtually synonymous with
Amanyar;
or rather, they are two separately conceived definitions of the same group of Eldarin peoples, and exclude all other Elves, even those of the
Úmanyar
who came, last of all, into the Far West.

Úmarth
‘Ill-fortune' (Sind.) – ‘The Bloodstained, Ill-fortune's Child' was the dramatic pseudonym adopted by
TÚRIN TURAMBAR
when he first came to the city of Nargothrond, in company with the Elf Gwindor. Túrin had, of course, recently slain his greatest and oldest friend, Beleg Strongbow, by grievous mischance; and he was still deeply sorrowful and bitter about the incident. In such circumstances the slightly lurid quality of this short-lived
nom de guerre
can readily be forgiven him. After all, it proved an all-too-apt description of Túrin, who was destined to bring disaster upon all who loved him; for he was accursed of Morgoth, and though valorous beyond all other Men of his day, came to a bitter end.

Umbar
– The Quenya or High-elven word for ‘fate', but more properly the title of Tengwa number 6, which represented the sound
mb
in the High-elven speech,
b
in most other tongues. It was also the name of the great Cape and Firth on the coasts of Middle-earth, some seventy leagues south of the river Harnen. Umbar was first settled and fortified by Númenoreans returning to Middle-earth in the later Second Age, and by the year 2280 it was the chief haven of the Númenoreans outside their own land. Yet from the beginning the city lay under a spiritual cloud, and during the years of Númenor's moral decline it became a fortress of the King's Men, afterwards called the Black Númenoreans; some years later the Faithful of Andúnië founded their own haven of Pelargir further north.

Nonetheless Umbar was a mighty fortress, the greatest of its kind in Middle-earth, and it rapidly became a centre of the Númenoreans' sea-power. In 3261 Second Age the host of Ar-Pharazôn the Golden, last King of Númenor, disembarked there before marching out to offer battle to Sauron the Great for the supremacy in Middle-earth. But although Sauron was defeated and humiliated in that campaign, his cunning and deceitfulness later prevailed and Númenor was cast down under the waves; then for a while Umbar became the chief remaining fortress of Númenorean power in the world – until the Faithful of Andúnië, who had for the most part survived the Downfall, constructed their twin realms of Arnor and Gondor to the North of Umbar.

However, the Black Númenoreans of Umbar had also escaped the Drowning of Númenor, and from the beginning of the Third Age the rivalry between the two maritime states was intense. But in 933 Eärnil I, second of the ‘Ship-kings' of Gondor, took Umbar by siege and held it, thus intensifying the rivalry and the hatreds. For many years the power of Gondor was unassailable, and Umbar became the southernmost harbour and fortress of the South-kingdom. On a headland the victorious Dúnedain erected a monument to Sauron's defeat at the hands of Ar-Pharazôn, and many ships were berthed in the harbour below. But in 1432 civil war broke out in Gondor, and her fleets mutinied against the lawful King; in the end the rebels were defeated on land, but they still controlled the ships and, in 1448, sailed away to Umbar to establish a breakaway Corsair state, at permanent feud with Gondor.

For nearly four hundred years the descendants of these renegades waged naval war against Gondor's coastlands, but in 1810 Telumehtar, twenty-eighth King, determined to stamp out the pirates and he took Umbar by storm. However, by the end of the second millennium of the Third Age the power of the Haradrim, allies of the Corsairs, had arisen once more, and shortly after Telumehtar Umbardacil's victory the Southrons captured the haven from the Dúnedain and so made its naval might their own. Haradrim seapower dates to this time. For the remainder of the Age the new maritime state (still called ‘Corsairs' by the Dúnedain) continued to harass Gondor's coasts, often doing great damage (and furthering the cause of Gondor's foes everywhere). Counter-raiding by the fleets of Gondor failed to put an end to the menace, and by the time of the War of the Ring the seaborne threat from the South prevented Gondor's southern fiefs from sending more than a small proportion of their manpower to the defence of Minas Tirith. In that war the Corsairs indeed attempted landings in strength – at Linhir and Pelargir – but were severely defeated and lost most of their war-vessels to the Dúnedain, who used the ships as fast transports up the Anduin to the aid of Minas Tirith. The aid thus brought turned the tide of the war and the Haradrim were defeated. Accordingly, although Umbar remained in the hands of the Southrons, the sea-power of the Corsairs was greatly diminished; and in the peace which followed the victory over Sauron Umbar once again became a peaceful harbour and a centre of trade and commerce.