Amdír

King of the Golden Wood

Amdír was one of the Sindar who, like Oropher in the Greenwood, went east after the drowning of Beleriand and became a lord over the Silvan Elves. His realm was Lórien, the wood on the east bank of the Anduin below the Dimrill Stair, and he ruled it as a king before Galadriel and Celeborn ever lived there. His son was Amroth, who succeeded him. Unfinished Tales, which is the only source to name him, gives the alternative name Malgalad in one version of the story.

Dagorlad

When the Last Alliance of Gil-galad and Elendil marched on Mordor, Amdír brought the Elves of Lórien to join Oropher's host from Greenwood. The two woodland kings would not put themselves under the High King's orders, and in the Battle of Dagorlad in S.A. 3434 their peoples were caught in the open before the main army was ready. Amdír's host was driven off the field into the fens that afterwards became the Dead Marshes, and there he and more than half of his following died. The dead of that day, Elves and Men together, were buried in the marsh, and the faces that Frodo and Sam saw beneath the water an Age later were theirs.

Legacy

Amdír's death left Lórien to Amroth, and Amroth's loss left it to Galadriel and Celeborn. Beyond that he is a name and a death, remembered for the disaster that taught the Silvan Elves to stay out of the wars of the great powers.

Slain at the Battle of Dagorlad in S.A. 3434, driven with his people into the marshes.