Eärendil

Birth in the hidden city

Eärendil was born in Gondolin in F.A. 503, the son of Tuor, a Man of the House of Hador who had come to the hidden city as the messenger of Ulmo, and of Idril Celebrindal, the only child of King Turgon. In him, for the first time, the blood of the Three Houses of the Edain was joined to that of the Noldor and the Vanyar, and his was the first of the marriages of Elves and Men to bear a child within a kingdom of the Eldar. He was a fair child, with the beauty of the Elves and the strength and daring of his father's kin, and he loved the sea before he had seen it, from Tuor's stories of Nevrast and the shores of Vinyamar. His mother, foresighted, prepared a secret way out of the city against the day of its fall, and quarrelled with her cousin Maeglin, who hated Tuor and desired her.

The fall of Gondolin

In F.A. 510, when Eärendil was seven, Morgoth loosed his armies on Gondolin, guided by Maeglin's betrayal. In the sack of the city Maeglin seized the boy and would have thrown him from the walls, and Tuor cast Maeglin down instead. Idril and Tuor led the survivors through the secret tunnel and over the mountains by the pass of Cirith Thoronath, where Glorfindel died holding the rear against a Balrog and Thorondor's Eagles drove the Orcs off. Eärendil is remembered as weeping for Glorfindel, and as the child the whole company laboured to save. They went down Sirion through the willow-land of Nan-tathren and came at last to the Mouths of Sirion, where a remnant of Doriath and of the Falas had already gathered under the protection of Ulmo and the ships of Círdan.

Lord of Arvernien

At the Havens of Sirion Eärendil grew to manhood, and there he met Elwing, the daughter of Dior of Doriath, who had been carried there as a child with the Silmaril of Beren and Lúthien. They married, and to them were born the twins Elrond and Elros in F.A. 532. When Tuor grew old he built a ship, Eärrámë, and sailed with Idril into the West and out of all tales, and Eärendil became lord of the people of Arvernien. But he could not rest. Two longings drove him to the sea: to find his parents, and to reach Valinor and beg the Valar for mercy on the peoples of Middle-earth, whom the war had all but destroyed. With the help of Círdan he built Vingilot, the finest ship the tales record, white-timbered and with silver oars, and with a small crew that included Falathar, Erellont and Aerandir he sailed the coasts and the open ocean for years, seeking a way through the enchantments that the Valar had set about Aman. He found nothing: the Shadowy Seas turned him back, and the Enchanted Isles held him. He was drawn home at last by a foreboding, and while he was still at sea the foreboding was fulfilled.

The Third Kinslaying

The sons of Fëanor had learned that the Silmaril was at the Havens and, bound by their Oath, they wrote to Elwing to demand it. She refused, for the jewel had been won by Beren and Lúthien and had cost Dior his life, and her people would not give up the light that seemed to bless their ships. Maedhros held back for a time, but in the end the Oath prevailed, and in F.A. 538 the remaining sons of Fëanor fell on the Havens of Sirion and destroyed them, the last and cruellest of the Kinslayings. Elwing, rather than yield, cast herself into the sea with the Silmaril, and her sons were taken by Maedhros and Maglor. Ulmo bore Elwing up out of the water in the form of a great white bird, and she flew over the sea until she came to Vingilot far from land, and fell on its deck; in the morning she was herself again, and Eärendil learned what had happened.

The voyage to Valinor

Grief and the Silmaril decided the matter. Eärendil turned his ship west again, and now, with the jewel bound on his brow, its light drove back the shadows and the enchantment; Vingilot passed the Enchanted Isles, crossed the Shadowy Seas, and came to the Bay of Eldamar and the shore of Aman, the first vessel out of Middle-earth to do so. Eärendil would not let his companions share the peril, and he bade Elwing stay too, but she would not be parted, and they walked up the shore together. He climbed the pass of the Calacirya to Tirion and found it empty, for the Elves were at festival on Taniquetil, and he despaired, thinking the Blessed Realm deserted. Then Eönwë, the herald of Manwë, came down to him and hailed him as the looked-for one, the star in darkness, and summoned him before the Valar. Standing in the Ring of Doom Eärendil delivered the errand of the Two Kindreds: pardon for the exiled Noldor, pity for Elves and Men alike, and aid against Morgoth. The Valar heard him, and Manwë granted the prayer.

The Choice

Eärendil had set foot in the Undying Lands, which was forbidden to mortals, and he had Elven blood and mortal blood in equal measure. Manwë's judgement was that neither he nor Elwing should die, but that they must choose to which kindred they would be counted, and that their sons should choose likewise. Elwing, for love of Lúthien's memory and of the Elves among whom she had lived, chose the Firstborn; Eärendil, though his heart lay with his father's people, chose as she did, so that they should not be sundered. From this judgement came the destiny of the Half-elven: Elros chose Men and became the first king of Númenor; Elrond chose the Elves and endured to the end of the Third Age.

The War of Wrath and the star

The host of the Valar, the Vanyar and the Noldor of Aman, and the Teleri who steered the ships, sailed to Middle-earth, and in the war that followed Beleriand was broken. Morgoth's last stroke was the flight of the winged dragons, who drove back the host of the West; then Eärendil came in Vingilot, raised into the sky by the Valar and hallowed, with the great birds of the air about him and Thorondor at their head, and through a night of battle he cast down Ancalagon the Black, the greatest of dragons, whose fall broke the towers of Thangorodrim. Morgoth was taken and thrust out through the Door of Night.

Eärendil did not return to the lands of the living. The Valar set him to sail the sky in his ship with the Silmaril on his brow, rising in the west at evening and passing the walls of the world by the Door of Night to keep watch on Morgoth. The Elves of Middle-earth saw the new star and took hope, naming it Gil-Estel, the star of high hope, and Men in later ages called it the Evening Star. Elwing did not sail with him, for she could not endure the Void; she dwelt in a white tower on the northern shore of the Sundering Seas and, having learned the speech and flight of birds, rose to meet him when he returned.

Legacy

Eärendil is the pivot on which the whole of the Elder Days turns: through his voyage came the end of Morgoth, the pardon of the Noldor, and the raising of Númenor. His blood ran through the kings of Númenor and the Dúnedain to Aragorn, and through Elrond to Arwen. In the Third Age his star was still the sign of hope. Galadriel caught its light in the phial she gave to Frodo, and it was that light, the light of a Silmaril twice removed, that shone in the darkness of Shelob's lair; Bilbo made a long song of him in Rivendell, and Sam on the stairs of Cirith Ungol realised that he and Frodo were still inside the same tale.

Never died. Raised with Vingilot into the heavens by the Valar and set to sail the sky bearing the Silmaril, the light of which is the Evening Star.