Dior

Birth and parentage

Dior was born in F.A. 470 on Tol Galen, the green island in the river Adurant in Ossiriand, where Beren and Lúthien lived their second lives after their return from the Halls of Mandos. He was the child of a mortal Man and of the daughter of an Elf-king and a Maia, and in him the three kindreds were joined for the first time; the Silmarillion calls him the fairest of all the children of the world, with the beauty of the Elves, the blood of the Edain, and something of Melian besides. He was named Eluchíl, Thingol's heir, and also Aranel. Because the Laiquendi of Ossiriand loved his parents and guarded their island, the region was called Dor Firn-i-Guinar, the Land of the Dead that Live, and Dior's childhood passed there in quiet outside all the wars of the Noldor.

Marriage and children

Dior married Nimloth, a kinswoman of Celeborn and so of the royal house of Doriath, and they had three children: the sons Eluréd and Elurín, and a daughter, Elwing, born in F.A. 503 by the falls of Lanthir Lamath at the borders of Ossiriand. Through Elwing the line of Dior became the line of the Half-elven, and every later bearer of that name, Elrond, Elros and their descendants, traces to him.

King of Doriath

In F.A. 502 Thingol was murdered in Menegroth by the Dwarves who had set the Silmaril in the Nauglamír, Melian departed, and the Girdle of Doriath failed. The Dwarves of Nogrod sacked Menegroth and were destroyed on their return by Beren and the Green-elves at Sarn Athrad, and Beren took the Nauglamír with the Silmaril to Lúthien. Dior then left Ossiriand with Nimloth and his children and came to Menegroth, and the Sindar who remained received him as king, since he was the grandson of Thingol and Melian. He set about restoring the ruined city and the kingdom. On a night in the autumn of F.A. 503 a lord of the Green-elves came to his door with a casket and departed without a word, and in it Dior found the Nauglamír; he understood that his parents had died, and he wore the Silmaril thereafter, and those who saw him in Menegroth said that the jewel made the fallen glory of Doriath live again for a while.

The Second Kinslaying

The sons of Fëanor had sworn to recover the Silmarils from any hand that held them, and they had left the jewel alone while it was Lúthien's, for none of them dared to face her. When they heard that Dior wore it in Doriath their Oath woke, and they sent messengers demanding it. Dior gave them no answer. Celegorm, who had once tried to take Lúthien by force, urged the brothers to war, and in the winter of F.A. 506 the seven, with what forces remained to them, fell on Doriath without warning. In the halls of Menegroth Dior fought and killed Celegorm, and Curufin and Caranthir also died in the battle, but Dior was slain, and Nimloth with him. Celegorm's servants seized the boys Eluréd and Elurín and left them to starve in the winter forest, a deed that Maedhros repented and tried to undo, but the children were never found. Elwing escaped with the Silmaril to the Mouths of Sirion. Menegroth was left empty, and Doriath was no more.

Legacy

Dior reigned in Doriath for only three or four years, and his life is told in a few paragraphs, but his place in the legendarium is large. He was the first Half-elven, the human link between the tale of Beren and Lúthien and the tale of Eärendil, and the one who chose, as Elwing would after him, to keep the Silmaril rather than buy peace from the Fëanorians. His death was the second Kinslaying and the end of the eldest kingdom of the Eldar in Middle-earth, and it cost the house of Fëanor three of its seven sons.

Slain in Menegroth by the sons of Fëanor in the Second Kinslaying, winter of F.A. 506, after killing Celegorm.