The Complete Tolkien Companion (95 page)

For Thingol, wisest of the Eldar in Middle-earth – and, moreover, counselled by Melian – now perceived that a curse lay upon the enterprises of the Noldor, and he vowed to have nothing to do with the war for the Silmarils. The Sons of Fëanor he named as his enemies; and he forbade his people to aid or serve them. For he still hoped to ride the storm. Yet doom came to him in the end, in the person of Beren of the Edain, who sought the hand of his beloved daughter Lúthien. Of that tale much is said elsewhere. By his own rash words, uttered in wrath and contempt, Thingol was ensnared in the trap of the Silmarils and brought under the Curse of Mandos: for he named them in desire, and in so doing set in motion a chain of events which ended in his own fall and in the ruin of his long-defended kingdom, oldest and fairest in Middle-earth. Against his every expectation, Beren succeeded in recovering a Silmaril from Angband, and it was brought to Doriath, and kept by Thingol in his hoard. And so his doom drew nearer. For, possessing it, his heart turned more and more towards it, and to its beauty; and in seeking to enhance this he made himself vulnerable to unforeseen perils.

For although Thingol was of a great and noble kind, and would not easily have fallen into evil by his own acts, he was lured into displaying the Jewel before those whose resistance to such attractions was not so stern. They, falling under the spell, also desired the Silmaril – and slew Thingol to acquire it. So he died. And though his Heir Dior son of Lúthien and Beren succeeded for a time in restoring Doriath and Menegroth to its former splendour, this was to prove but a brief sunset. After a few years Dior and most of his kin were also slain, and Doriath was ruined for a second time – and again it was lust for the Silmaril which brought about the disaster.

But the Silmaril itself survived, and with it the Line of Thingol Greycloak of Doriath, noblest in Middle-earth. Mingled with the descent from the Noldor and all three Houses of the Edain, it was carried across the Sea to Númenor as well as continuing unbroken in Middle-earth: Two Ages after Thingol's death these two branches of his Line were re-united, in the wedding of Aragorn with Arwen daughter of Elrond – in whom, it was said, the likeness of Thingol's daughter Lúthien again walked the earth. But Elwë Thingol himself was never seen again East of the Sea, by Elves or Men.

Third Age
– The name given by the Elves and the Dúnedain to the period of 3,021 years between the first overthrow of Sauron the Great and the final Passing of the Three Rings, together with their Bearers, across the Sea to the Undying Lands.

The Third Age of Middle-earth was essentially an age of decline and transition, for after the victory of the Last Alliance the power of the Elves in Middle-earth was greatly diminished – and that of Men, their inheritors, greatly enhanced. Yet many Elves still lingered, especially in the North and in the great forests of Wilderland, while in the westlands the Realms in Exile grew to power.

For the first millennium there was peace in most lands, save for the expansionist wars fought by Gondor against her foes in the South and East, and it was not until the beginning of the second millennium that serious attempts were made to challenge the power of the Dúnedain. This period, from 1300 (the rise of Angmar) to 2002 (the fall of Minas Ithil), was grievous for the Númenorean Exiles, and although Gondor managed to withstand the many trials imposed upon her, the North-kingdom was swept away.

Scant years after the fall of Arthedain, the ancient Dwarf-city of Moria was finally captured by evil creatures, and Durin's Folk were expelled from their ancestral home. Only the Elf-kingdoms survived the turmoils at the end of the second millennium, while Gondor lost some of her royalty and became an embattled state.

Yet the Third Age was also an age of great migrations and folk movements. The Men of Rhovanion emigrated to northern Wilderland, and later to Gondor; the Hobbits journeyed from Wilderland to Eriador and Dunland, and back to Eriador; while for many years successive hordes of Easterlings and Southrons attempted to occupy the fertile lands west of the Anduin. More ominously, the second millennium saw the reawakening of Sauron the Great, whom all had believed overthrown at the end of the previous Age; and the final years of the Third Age were dominated by his machinations.

Nonetheless the power of Gondor proved strong enough to withstand Sauron's return to power, and with a final effort the Free Peoples, working in league, were able to accomplish his downfall at the very end of the Third Age. In this way the Elves were able to depart from mortal lands in peace, and so pass on their inheritance at last to the ‘Kings-of-Men', whose reconstituted realms formed the foundation on which the Dominion of Men in the Fourth Age was built.

Third House (of the Edain)
– The House of
HADOR LÓRINDOL
of Dor-lómin.

Third Line (of the Mark)
– The Kings of Rohan after Théoden Ednew. Each time the direct line of descent (from Eorl the Young) was broken, a new line of mounds was begun in the Barrowfield of Edoras. Éomer, nephew of Théoden, was the first King of the Third Line.

Third Theme (of Ilúvatar)
– According to the traditions of the Eldar, the Third Theme of the Great Song was that which dealt with the race of
Atani,
‘the Secondborn' (i.e. Men).

Thistle Brook
– A stream of the Shire; it arose in the Green Hill Country and joined the river Shirebourn near Willowbottom.

Thistlewool
– A family of Big Folk (Men) of Bree.

Thorin I
– From 2190–2289 Third Age, the first king of the Dwarves of the Grey Mountains colony; it was he who led a great part of Durin's Folk away from newly founded Erebor into the North.

Thorin (II) Oakenshield
– From 2845–2941 Third Age, the King of Durin's Folk in Exile, and for a brief period in the last year of his life (2941) the King Under the Mountain. He was the leader of the renowned expedition in which Smaug the Golden was destroyed and the Lonely Mountain freed from the Dragon's dominion; and he was the last bearer of the Elf-sword Orcrist.

Thorin was born in Erebor in 2746, the son of Thráin son of Thrór the King, and was thus only 24 years of age when the Dragon descended upon the Dwarves in the year 2770. Together with his grandfather, his father, his brother Frerin and his sister Dís, he went to Dunland in exile; but the murder of his grandfather twenty years after the fall of Erebor brought about the War of the Dwarves and Orcs, and in this Thorin won great renown (not to mention his famous nickname). He was in the vanguard of the Dwarf-host which attacked the Orcs of Azog at Azanulbizar; this force was driven back by the Orcs, and Frerin was slain. Thorin's shield was broken and for a while he made shift with a handy branch of oak, for there was no time to acquire another shield. Even so he was wounded. Nonetheless Thorin survived the Battle of Azanulbizar – where many others did not – and afterwards went with his father and their kin to the Blue Mountains, where they founded a small and modest colony.

But in 2845 Third Age Thorin's father Thráin II was captured by Sauron, and Thorin became King of Durin's Folk in Exile. For many years he husbanded the strength of his people, until at last he felt strong (or angry) enough to attempt revenge on the Dragon and the recovery of the treasure of Erebor. In this project he had the unexpected aid of Gandalf the Grey.

The story of that expedition, undertaken by Thorin and Gandalf together with twelve other Dwarves and a single Hobbit, has been told with admirable lucidity elsewhere and needs little elaboration here. By great good fortune the Dragon was slain and Thorin then became King Under the Mountain.
3
But in the hour of triumph his heart, inflamed perhaps by the wealth of Erebor and the long injustices done to his House, turned towards pride and rashness. Rather than accord his erstwhile allies a fair share of the wealth won, he planned to deprive them of even this amount, and defied them at the Gates of Erebor. This ill-considered action nearly brought about a disastrous battle between Dwarves, Elves and Men; luckily, the opportune arrival of an Orc-host united the potential enemies in a desperate defence, and in this last fight Thorin came once more to his senses. He died heroically after slaying many Orcs and wolves, and was buried under the Lonely Mountain with the Arkenstone of Thráin upon his breast. He was succeeded in Erebor by Dáin Ironfoot.

Thorin (III) Stonehelm
– The son of Dáin Ironfoot, and King Under the Mountain after the death of Dáin during the War of the Ring. Dáin was slain during the (second) Battle of Dale (March 17th, 3019 Third Age), in which hordes of Easterlings poured into Dale and drove the surviving Men and Dwarves to take shelter behind the Gates of Erebor. However, ten days afterwards news came north of the Passing of Sauron and, led by Thorin and his ally King Bard II of Dale, the besieged came forth and drove the Easterlings away.

Thorondir
– From 2872–82 Third Age, the twenty-second Ruling Steward of Gondor.

Thorondor
‘King of Eagles' (Sind., from Q.
Sorontar
) – The greatest of all the Eagles of the Elder Days, and the ancestor of all the Eagles of the North. The Messenger of Manwë, who built his eyries high in the Crissaegrim during the First Age, Thorondor took many a part in the affairs of the time. He aided Fingon of the Noldor in his successful attempt to rescue Maedhros from torment upon Thang-orodrim; and he took part in the combat of Fingolfin and Morgoth, rescuing the body of the fallen Elven-king from defamation by the triumphant Enemy; and Thorondor wounded Morgoth in the face with his great claws. At the same time two of his kin rescued Húrin and Huor from peril, and bore them to Gondolin, so initiating a series of events which were to end with the fall of Gondolin but the survival of the royal Line of Descent of that Elven-city.

Thorondor himself rescued Beren and Lúthien from Angband, after the recovery of the Silmaril; and he warned Turgon king of Gondolin concerning the presence of the fugitive Húrin at his gates (though at this time Turgon did not act as the King of Eagles urged).

Soon afterwards came the long-prepared attack upon Turgon's city; and for the last time Thorondor came to the aid of the House of Fingolfin. His timely arrival enabled a party of survivors to escape from the stricken city. And by means of this deed another deed was enabled to come to pass: the summoning of the Valar from the Far West. In the battle which ensued Thorondor and the Eagles of the Crissaegrim played a notable part; but the ancient eyries in the Encircling Mountains were destroyed in the inundation of Beleriand, and in later years Thorondor's descendants dwelled in the high places of the Misty Mountains.

Thorongil
‘Eagle-of-the-Star' (Sind.) – The
nom-de-guerre
by which Aragorn II, sixteenth Chieftain of the Dúnedain of the North, was known to Men of Gondor, during the period in which he served Ecthelion II, twenty-fifth Ruling Steward, as a captain of war. Aragorn was, of course, highly incognito at this time and the origin of the nickname was the star-shaped brooch he wore on his cloak.

See also
STAR OF THE DÚNEDAIN
.

Thousand Caves
– A translation of
MENEGROTH
.

Thráin I
– From 1981–2190 Third Age, the King of Durin's Folk; he led the exodus from Moria after the death of his father Náin I, and founded the Kingdom Under the Mountain in 1999 Third Age. There, in the ‘Heart of the Mountain', Thráin discovered the great jewel, the Arkenstone, which afterwards became an heirloom of Durin's House.

Thráin II
– From 2790–2850 Third Age, the King of Durin's Folk in Exile; he was the son of Thrór and father of Thorin Oakenshield, Frerin and Dís. Together with his father and his family, he was driven into exile from Erebor in 2770 Third Age, and later still led the Dwarf-armies at the Battle of Azanulbizar (2799), in which epic encounter he was gravely wounded, losing an eye.

Thráin was the last of the Dwarf-kings to possess one of the Seven Rings, and it was by this means that Sauron later managed to ensnare him. For after the War of the Dwarves and Orcs, he became restless and unable to accommodate his spirit to the humble Dwarf-dwellings in the Blue Mountains; together with a few chosen companions, he left the Ered Luin and wandered far abroad. And slowly his footsteps took him ever closer to Mirkwood. There he was captured and taken prisoner by agents of Sauron.

For five long years Thráin endured torment in Dol Guldur, whither he had been carried after being captured. There, Gandalf the Grey found him while exploring the fortress of the Necromancer in secret (2850 Third Age). Shortly afterwards, Thráin died – but not before he had passed on to Gandalf the Key of Erebor and a secret map of the Lonely Mountain. In this way these heirlooms came to his heir Thorin Oakenshield; but the last of the Seven Rings was taken from Thráin by Sauron, who kept it ever after.

Thranduil
– A Lord of the Sindar, and for an Age of the World the Elven-king of Northern Mirkwood; his realm lay between the Forest River and the north-eastern eaves of the forest itself.

Thranduil was the son of Oropher of the Grey-elves of Doriath, who had been accepted as King early in the Second Age by the woodland people of northern Greenwood. He fought at his father's side during the Battle of Dagorlad, and had seen his father slain and the Wood-elves all but wiped out. Thranduil thereafter became King of Greenwood, though his writ only ran in the northern reaches; and after a thousand years the name of the wood was changed, to Mirkwood. A rival power arose in the forest, and Thranduil's borders were threatened by evil things. Nevertheless he delved strong halls underneath the hill in the manner of Thingol of old, and resisted the forces of Dol Guldur till the end of his strength – and as a result the Wood-elves survived when all else in the forest was darkened.