Brodda

Lord of stolen lands

Brodda was one of the Easterlings whom Morgoth rewarded with Hithlum after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad of F.A. 472, when the people of the House of Hador were broken and their surviving men enslaved. He took possession of Húrin's lands and herds in Dor-lómin, built himself a hall, and made the old inhabitants his servants. To strengthen his hold he took Aerin, a kinswoman of Húrin, as his wife by force. Like the other incomers he feared Morwen, whom the Easterlings thought a witch, and so did not molest her directly, but he plundered what was hers and let her live in want. Morwen's household dwindled, and after she left for Doriath in 494 the remnant of her people, including the old woodwright Sador, passed into his service. The Easterlings called Húrin's folk Strawheads, and treated them as little better than beasts.

Death

In the winter of F.A. 495 Túrin came back to Dor-lómin after the sack of Nargothrond and walked into Brodda's hall unrecognised, a tall stranger in black. Set among the beggars at the lower tables, he learned from Aerin that his mother had gone long before. His anger rose, and when Brodda mocked him he seized the Easterling, hauled him across the board, and broke him against the floor, then turned on the guests. Brodda's men were killed or scattered, but the deed doomed the survivors of Hador's people in Dor-lómin, who suffered for it after Túrin had gone, and Aerin burned the hall over the dead. Brodda is the first named victim of Túrin's return, and his killing is one of the deeds that Túrin later counted as folly.

Killed by Túrin in his own hall in the winter of F.A. 495.