Arvedui

Birth and prophecy

Arvedui was born in T.A. 1864, the son of Araphant, fourteenth King of Arthedain. His name means Last-king, and it was given him at his birth on the counsel of Malbeth the Seer, who foretold that a choice would come to the Dúnedain of the North in this child's time. If they took the road of hope, his name would be changed and he would be king of a great realm; if they took the other, he would indeed be the last king, and many lives of Men would pass before the line was restored. Arthedain in his youth was already a shrunken kingdom. Cardolan and Rhudaur had long since fallen, and the Witch-king of Angmar pressed year after year on its borders.

Marriage and the claim to Gondor

Araphant and Ondoher of Gondor had drawn their realms together against the common danger, and in 1940 Arvedui married Ondoher's daughter Fíriel. In 1944 Ondoher and both his sons were killed in a single battle against the Wainriders east of the Morannon, and the throne of Gondor fell vacant. Arvedui claimed it on two grounds: he was the direct heir of Isildur, and Elendil had never given up the High Kingship over both realms; and he was the husband of Ondoher's only surviving child, who under the ancient law of Númenor since the days of Tar-Aldarion would have inherited in her own right. The Council of Gondor, led by the Steward Pelendur, answered that the crown of Gondor had passed only through the sons of Anárion since Meneldil, that the Númenórean law had never applied in Gondor, and that they would choose a king from among their own. They gave the crown to the victorious general Eärnil II, who was a descendant of the kings. Eärnil wrote courteously to Arvedui, acknowledging Gondor's kinship with the North and promising help in need, and Arvedui let the matter rest.

The fall of Arthedain

He succeeded his father in 1964 and reigned for ten hard years. In 1973 he sent word to Gondor that Arthedain was in extremity and that the Witch-king was gathering for the final blow, and Eärnil's son Eärnur was dispatched with a fleet. Before it could arrive, Angmar struck. In the winter of 1974 the Witch-king overran Arthedain and took Fornost, and the Dúnedain fled westward over the Lune. Arvedui held out on the North Downs with a few men, then broke away north with a handful of guards. They hid first in the old dwarf-mines at the northern end of the Ered Luin, and when hunger drove them out they went down to the frozen coast of Forochel and threw themselves on the mercy of the Lossoth, the Snowmen of the ice.

The Lossoth wanted nothing to do with the war of the tall Men, but they fed the king and his guards through the winter out of pity, and built them huts of snow. In the spring Círdan, who had heard of Arvedui's flight, sent a ship up the Ice-bay to fetch him. The Snowmen warned Arvedui not to go: they mistrusted the sea-monster of the Elves and foresaw a wind from the north. Arvedui would not wait. He gave the chief of the Lossoth the Ring of Barahir, the greatest heirloom he had with him, as thanks for the shelter, and went aboard with the two palantíri of Annúminas and Amon Sûl. That night the north wind came, the ice closed on the ship, and it went down with every soul on board. The Seeing-stones of the North were lost with him, and it was said in later days that the stone of Amon Sûl looked ever after only at the water.

Aftermath

Eärnur's fleet arrived in the same year, too late to save the king but in time to destroy Angmar at the Battle of Fornost, in which the Witch-king was driven from the North forever. The Ring of Barahir was later ransomed from the Lossoth by the Dúnedain and returned to the line. Arvedui's son Aranarth, born in 1938, did not take the title of king over a realm that no longer existed; he became the first Chieftain of the Dúnedain of the North, and the kingship of Arthedain ended, as Malbeth had foretold. Nearly eleven centuries passed before Arvedui's descendant Aragorn was crowned king of both Gondor and Arnor, which was the outcome Arvedui's claim had first sought.

Drowned in the Ice-bay of Forochel in the spring of T.A. 1975 when Círdan's ship was crushed by the ice; the two palantíri of the North were lost with him.