The Complete Tolkien Companion (36 page)

Faramir
– One of the two sons of King Ondoher of Gondor, slain, in battle with the Wainriders' Confederacy, in 1944 Third Age. The death of the King and his two sons in this battle resulted in the crown of Gondor being awarded to a victorious captain, who took the royal title Eärnil II.

Also the name of the Prince of Ithilien, Lord of Emyn Arnen and Steward to King Elessar of Gondor and Arnor. Faramir was the son of Denethor II, twenty-sixth and last of the Ruling Stewards – before the events of the War of the Ring brought about the return of the King and the transference of Gondor's rule. He succeeded his father during the Siege of Minas Tirith (March, 3019), and he ordered the affairs of the City until the crowning of King Elessar in May, when he was given the princedom of Ithilien.

Faramir was also the younger brother of Boromir (of the Fellowship of the Ring), and was like him in many ways, though not all. For while Faramir took pleasure in music and lore, his brother thought only of battles and great deeds. Nevertheless the needs of that time were such that Boromir was esteemed the higher of the two, especially in the eyes of their father. In the event both Boromir and Denethor died in the War of the Ring, and Faramir was badly wounded but was later healed. In this way he came to the Stewardship.

Despite his father's opinion, Faramir was in no way Boromir's inferior as a warrior, and he spent much of the war on especially dangerous duty in Ithilien, then occupied by forces of the Dark Lord. Immediately before Sauron's long-awaited assault on Minas Tirith, Faramir hurried back across the Anduin and took charge of the outer defences of the City. While leading the rear-guard in the final retreat from the out-wall on March 12th, he was struck by an arrow and fell in a dark swoon. For three nights he lay in peril until healed at last by the King's own hand.

Later, Faramir was well rewarded for his valour and loyalty, and the Office of Steward – and the title of Prince of Ithilien – was given to him and his heirs in perpetuity. He afterwards wedded the Lady Éowyn of Rohan and they dwelt together in Emyn Arnen during the years of King Elessar's rule. Faramir died in Year 83 Fourth Age and was succeeded – both as Prince of Ithilien and as Steward of Gondor – by his son Elboron.
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Faramir Took
– The only son of Peregrin Took, born in Year 9 Fourth Age (1430 Shire Reckoning) to the union of his famous father and Diamond of Long Cleeve. Peregrin named his only son
Faramir
in honour of the new Prince of Ithilien, whom Peregrin greatly admired. Faramir Took eventually married Goldilocks, one of Sam Gamgee's many children, thus uniting two of the Shire's most illustrious families.

Far Downs
– The green-grey, treeless uplands which sloped away to the Grey Havens on the western edge of the Shire.

Far Harad
– The southernmost reaches of Middle-earth. Little was mentioned of its people in the records of Gondor, since prolonged if intermittent warfare between the Haradrim and the Dúnedain of the South poisoned relationships between the two races.

Farin
– A Dwarf of Durin's House. He was the son of Borin and uncle of Thrór, first of the second Line of Kings under the Mountain.

Farmer Cotton
– Tolman ‘Tom' Cotton; in the last fifty years of the Third Age (and a good many of the Fourth), one of the most prosperous Hobbits of Bywater and its district.

Farmer Cotton's only daughter Rose became Sam Gamgee's wife in 3020 Third Age, the Great Year of Plenty. Thus were links forged between the Cottons (who played a prominent part in the Scouring of the Shire) and the ascendant Gamgee family.

Farmer Maggot
– A well-known and important Hobbit-farmer of the Eastfarthing, renowned for the prosperity of his holdings (and the excellence of his mushrooms). Yet for all his respectability, Maggot was also considered a canny person with his ear close to the soil; and it seems certain that he was on terms of friendship and mutual respect with Tom Bombadil.

Faroth
‘Hunters' (Sind.) –
See
TAUR-EN-FAROTH
.

Far West
– The meaning of the direction West carried a special significance for the inhabitants of Middle-earth. For this was the direction in which all things flowed – where Elves sailed when they grew weary of mortal lands, and where the Valar themselves dwelt, in the Uttermost West, in Valimar of the Twilight.

Men of Gondor faced West in Standing Silence at the commencement of each meal: ‘we look towards Númenor that was, and beyond to Elvenhome that is, and to that which is beyond Elvenhome and will ever be.'
7

‘Fastitocalon'
– The age-old myth of the giant sea-beast which mariners mistake for an island (with disastrous consequences) is the subject of the Hobbit-poem ‘Fastitocalon', which, together with ‘Oliphaunt', is a good example of the Hobbits' taste for comic bestiary lore. The poem is published as No. 11 in
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil
(though originally it was no more than an anonymous scribble in the margins of the Red Book).

Fastred
– A Knight of Rohan; one of King Théoden's house-carles, who fell at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields (3019 Third Age) and was laid to rest among his fellows there, beside the Great River.

Fastred and Folcred
– The twin sons of Folcwine, fourteenth King of Rohan. Together they brought aid to Gondor in one of her southern wars, thus fulfilling the Oath of Eorl. Under the twins' leadership, the Rohirrim turned the Battle of the Crossings of Poros (2885 Third Age) against the invading Haradrim; however, both sons of Folcwine were slain in the battle, and their burial mound afterwards guarded the Crossings.

Fastred of Greenholm
– In her thirty-first year Elanor ‘The Fair', eldest child of Sam Gamgee, wedded Fastred of Greenholm (a descendant of Holman the Greenhanded), and together they moved to the Westmarch of the Shire. They were later made Wardens of Westmarch and eventually became custodians of the Red Book, which their descendants (the Fairbairns) continued to maintain down the years.

Fathers of Men
– A translation of the Quenya word
Atanatári.

Fatty Bolger
–
FREDEGAR BOLGER
.

Fatty Lumpkin
– A well-fed pony of great common-sense; a faithful companion of Tom Bombadil.

Fëa
‘Spirit' (Q.) – The soul. From the older form
phaya
(Q.).
See also
FAIRË; HRÖA
.

Fëanáro
‘Spirit-of-Fire' (Q.) –
See
following entry.

Fëanor
‘Spirit-of-Fire' (Sind., after the Q.
Fëanáro
) – The eldest of the three sons of Finwë (the only child of Finwë's first spouse Míriel), and after the death of his father the joint High King of all the rebelling Noldor; the greatest craftsman of all time, whose pride grew together with his fabled skills until, in the end, his mightiest accomplishment brought about his own downfall, and the downfall of the Elven-people he ruled – not to mention years untold of misery for the guiltless inhabitants of Middle-earth, whither he went in exile. Fëanor was the first of the royal Exiles to be slain in Middle-earth, and dwells still in the Halls of Mandos.

Much is said of Fëanor and of his deeds – and even more of the fruits of his deeds – in records of the First Age, and little more than encapsulation is needed within these pages. His real name was
Curufinwë
(‘the Skill of [the House of] Finwë'); though he was known all his life as
Fëanáro
(his mother's name for him), and survives in records and tales as
Fëanor.
Born during the Eldest Days, in Tirion the Fair, he was a prodigy among Elves. Amazingly skilled at matters of craft, and with a formidable intellect which made him the foremost loremaster and inventor of his people, he embodied the dynamic principle of activism, and was constantly at work, learning, experimenting, storing, devising, practising, polishing and developing; until he had altogether redirected his inherent drives, away from ‘passive' understanding and contemplation, towards ‘active' subcreation of the highest order. So he is remembered for lore, and for skill, but not for wisdom.

Nonetheless, he wrought many objects of wonder, and in all his chosen fields accomplished more than all his successors. Among the lesser marvels were the
palantíri
(the Seeing-stones which were so prized in Númenor and Middle-earth many thousands of years later). And Fëanor himself also perfected the ancient Eldarin
Tengwar,
the
ALPHABET OF FËANOR
which served his people and others ever after. Such were Fëanor's deeds of mind and hand in Eldamar while the White Tree and the Golden still shone.

It has been recorded that only Fëanor was ever able to make the substance
silima,
the crystalline material from which he later created the chief source of his overweening pride. For his greatest achievement of all was the fashioning of the three
silmarilli,
the ‘Jewels-of-
silima
', that captured the Light of the Two Trees of Valinor and preserved it within their depths, so that they shone with glory like stars and gladdened the eyes of all who beheld them.

But the glory and splendour of the Silmarils led to terrible events. The Great Jewels tempted even one of the Valar (who was already given over to evil). He slew Finwë, and stole the Jewels, and poisoned the Trees so that their Light was dimmed for ever and the Land of the Valar plunged into twilight. This fallen Vala – now called (by Fëanor)
Morgoth
– then fled to Middle-earth in possession of the Silmarils.

Instead of accepting this turn of events and thus following the example of the Valar (whose loss was far greater), Fëanor grew wroth, and in the folly of his pride he vowed to pursue Morgoth across the Sea to Middle-earth in order to regain the Jewels by force. A great number of the Noldor supported him; but the Valar prohibited the venture. Nevertheless, Fëanor had his way, for the Noldor rebelled, and many of that Kindred followed the banners of Fëanor and Fingolfin back to Middle-earth in a great fleet of ships. But even as they sailed away from the Blessed Realm, great shadows rolled across the face of the Sea behind them, barring their return.

In the event, the Exile of the Noldor in Middle-earth endured for many bitter years. Finally defeated in their long wars against Morgoth, they were only saved from complete destruction by the intervention of the Valar, who cast out the Enemy and overthrew his realm. Most of the Exiles were then allowed to return to Eldamar, but not all – and not Fëanor, for the leader of the rebellion had been slain, together with a great number of his kin, in the War for the Great Jewels that he had made: for Fëanor was mortally wounded at the Battle-under-Stars, and died in the arms of his sons before the rising of the first Moon over Middle-earth.

Note:
in the Second Age the survivors of Fëanor's House were led by Celebrimbor, his grandson. In their time they too reached a peak of craftsmanship which came to an end with the making of a peril hardly less deadly than that created by their Forefather in the days of his pride.

Fëanturi
‘Masters-of-Spirits' (Q.) – Two of the great Valar: the brethren
MANDOS
and
LORIEN
.

Feast of Reuniting
– A translation of the Grey-elven words
Mereth Aderthad,
being the name given by Fingolfin the High King of the Noldor to the great feast he ordained for all the Eldar in Middle-earth, Noldor and Sindar alike, in the 21st Year of the Sun, First Age. It was celebrated at the Eithel Ivrin.

Feast of the Spring of Arda
– The celebration ordained by the Valar after the completion of the shaping of the World; it was held in Almaren. At this feast Tulkas, newly come to Middle-earth, wedded Nessa the sister of Oromë.

Felagund
‘Lord of Caves' (from orig. Khuz.
felak-gundu
‘Cavehewer') – The name given by the Dwarves to the Elven-king Finrod son of Finarfin, after he had, with their aid, enlarged and occupied the ancient delvings of
Nulukkizdîn
in the gorge of the river Narog. This underground city was of course known to Elves and Men as
Nargothrond.

Felaróf
– The steed of Eorl the Young. The first of the fabled
Mearas
of Éothéod and Rohan. The
Mearas
were a long-lived line of horses thought to be descended from the steeds of Béma (the Huntsman of the Valar); they would bear no one but the rightful King or his offspring, and would accept no bridle or stirrup.

First caught and bridled by Léod, Lord of Éothéod, Felaróf bolted, throwing Léod and causing his death. His son Eorl was expected to slay the horse, but instead he subdued the animal, named him and rode him thereafter. The horse understood the speech of Men and proved as long-lived, being laid to rest with his master in the same mound of the Barrowfield (in 2545 Third Age).

Fellowship of the Ring
– The eight companions of Free Peoples who were chosen by Elrond to accompany the Ring-bearer on the Quest of Mount Doom. They were: Gandalf; Aragorn, Dúnadan of the North, and Boromir, Prince of Gondor (for Men); Legolas, son of King Thranduil (for the Elves); Gimli, son of Glóin (for the Dwarves); and four Hobbits – Meriadoc, Peregrin, Samwise, and Frodo, the Ring-bearer. The Fellowship set out from Rivendell on December 25th in the year 3019 Third Age.

Fell Winter
– In Third Age records, this term refers to the winter of 2911, which struck northern Eriador with great severity, causing many of its rivers to freeze. At that time packs of white wolves from the North invaded the Shire.