Rían

Lineage

Rían was born in F.A. 450, the daughter of Belegund, son of Bregolas of the House of Bëor. Her cousin Morwen, seven years older, was raised with her, and the two were carried out of Dorthonion as children by Emeldir after the Dagor Bragollach and brought up in Dor-lómin among the House of Hador. Where Morwen was proud and stern, Rían was gentle. She loved trees and wild flowers, and she was a singer and a maker of songs rather than a warrior's wife by temperament. Her father died among Barahir's outlaws in Dorthonion in 460, when she was ten.

Marriage

In F.A. 471 Rían married Huor, the younger brother of Morwen's husband Húrin. They had two months together before the muster of the Union of Maedhros took Huor to the war. He was slain at the Fen of Serech in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad in midsummer 472, and no news came back to Dor-lómin except rumour.

Tuor

Rían, pregnant and unable to bear the waiting, went out alone into the wild to search for word of her husband. The Grey-elves of Mithrim, a remnant who had fled into the mountains from the Easterlings, found her and took her in, and in the winter of 472 she gave birth to a son whom she named Tuor. When the truth of the battle reached her, she gave the child into the keeping of Annael, the leader of the Elves, and left them.

Death

Rían walked east across the plain of Anfauglith to the Haudh-en-Ndengin, the Hill of the Slain, the great mound the Orcs had heaped over the dead of the battle, where Huor's body lay among the rest. There she lay down and died. The Silmarillion records that grass grew on that hill alone in all the desert, green and long, and that no servant of Morgoth ever walked on it.

Legacy

Rían's son Tuor was raised by the Elves and became the messenger of Ulmo to Gondolin, the husband of Idril and the father of Eärendil. Through him the line of Bëor, which Rían carried, joined the lines of Hador and of Turgon in the mariner who saved Middle-earth from Morgoth.

Died of grief on the Haudh-en-Ndengin, the Hill of the Slain, in F.A. 472.