Thingol

Lineage and awakening

Elwë was one of the eldest of the Elves, awakened at Cuiviénen in the first years of the Firstborn. He was the brother of Olwë, and the two of them stood at the head of the third and largest host of the Eldar, the Teleri. He was tall beyond all others of his kindred, silver-haired and grey-cloaked, so that the Sindar afterwards named him Thingol, Greymantle. When Oromë chose ambassadors to see Valinor and report to their peoples, Elwë went with Ingwë and Finwë, and he came back from the light of the Two Trees eager to lead his people west. Finwë was his close friend, and it was partly for that friendship, and partly for the memory of the light, that Elwë urged the reluctant Teleri to take the road.

The meeting in Nan Elmoth

The Teleri were slow on the Great Journey and lingered long east of the Blue Mountains. When at last they came into Beleriand and camped beyond the Gelion, Elwë went walking alone in the starlit wood of Nan Elmoth to seek Finwë. There he heard the nightingales of Melian, a Maia of the household of Lórien who had come into Middle-earth, and then he saw her. He took her hand, and an enchantment fell on them both so that they stood together unmoving while the stars wheeled and the trees grew tall about them. Years passed. His people searched for him and found nothing; at last Olwë, unwilling to wait longer, led the greater part of the Teleri to the Sea, and Ulmo bore them to Aman. Elwë had seen the Trees, but he never sailed; those who stayed behind to look for him, and those who loved the shores of Middle-earth, became the Sindar, the Grey-elves, and he was their king.

King of Doriath

When Elwë and Melian awoke from their long stillness they gathered the Sindar into the forests of Neldoreth and Region, and their realm was called Doriath. Thingol alone of the Sindar had beheld the Two Trees, and his people counted him as one of the Eldar of Aman, a High Elf in Middle-earth. With Melian's counsel and the craft of the Dwarves of Belegost, whom he paid in pearls, he delved the mansions of Menegroth, the Thousand Caves, on the Esgalduin, the fairest dwelling of any king east of the Sea. His sword was Aranrúth, and his people learned smithcraft from the Dwarves and became skilled in arms as the shadow in the north grew. In the First Battle of Beleriand, before the Noldor returned, Thingol's forces broke the Orcs that attacked from the east, though the Laiquendi lord Denethor died on Amon Ereb before Thingol could reach him. After that battle Melian raised the Girdle, an unseen barrier of enchantment about the whole realm, and no one could pass it against her will or the king's. Thingol named himself Lord of Beleriand, and even those who did not obey him acknowledged that the claim had some weight.

The coming of the Noldor

When the Noldor returned, Thingol did not welcome them. He allowed no strangers within the Girdle save those of the house of Finarfin, whose mother Eärwen was Olwë's daughter and therefore his own kin, and it was in Doriath that Galadriel learned from Melian and met Celeborn. Thingol was slow to trust princes who arrived in Beleriand unlooked-for and claimed lordships; and when at last the tale of the Kinslaying at Alqualondë reached him, and Angrod told him the whole truth, he was consumed with wrath. He banned the Quenya tongue throughout his realm, so that Sindarin became the common speech of all the Elves of Beleriand. Yet he sent aid where he could, gave Finrod the counsel that led to the founding of Nargothrond, and let the Sindar of the marches fight beside the Noldor.

Beren and Lúthien

His daughter Lúthien was the fairest of all the Children of Ilúvatar, and when the mortal Beren came through the Girdle and Lúthien loved him, Thingol was incensed. Bound by his oath not to harm Beren, he set a mocking price: bring him a Silmaril from the iron crown of Morgoth, and Lúthien's hand would follow. So the fate of Doriath was tangled in the fate of the Silmarils and the Oath of Fëanor. Thingol shut Lúthien in a house in the great beech Hírilorn to keep her in Doriath, and when she fled anyway he grieved. When Beren came back, maimed and empty-handed, and told the king that the jewel was in his hand, the hand that lay in the belly of Carcharoth, Thingol's heart softened, and he gave Beren his daughter. He rode with Beren, Mablung, Beleg and Huan on the hunting of the wolf, and when the Silmaril was cut from the beast Thingol held it at last, though at the cost of Beren's life. Lúthien's return from Mandos with Beren was a wonder he lived to see but did not share.

Túrin and Húrin

Thingol took in Túrin, the son of his ally Húrin, and fostered him in Menegroth, sending Beleg to be his teacher. When Túrin fled the realm after the death of Saeros, Thingol judged the matter fairly, pardoned him and sent Beleg to bring him home, though Túrin would not come. Years later Húrin himself, released and broken by Morgoth, entered Doriath and cast the Nauglamír, the necklace of the Dwarves taken from ruined Nargothrond, at Thingol's feet as a bitter gift. Melian's words shamed Húrin into understanding, and he left the necklace in the king's hands.

Death

Thingol now possessed both the Silmaril and the Nauglamír, and he wished to join them. He gave the task to Dwarf-smiths of Nogrod who were working in Menegroth. When the work was done and the king saw the Silmaril set in the necklace, the smiths, moved by desire for the jewel and by old grievance against the Elves, claimed the work as their own and refused to give it up. Thingol answered with contempt, and in his own treasury they killed him. The Dwarves were hunted down before they could leave the realm, but the Silmaril was recovered only for a time; Melian, bereft, withdrew her power and went back to Valinor, and the Girdle failed. A Dwarf-host out of Nogrod sacked Menegroth, and it was Beren, with Lúthien and the Green-elves of Ossiriand, who waylaid the returning Dwarves at Sarn Athrad and took the necklace back. The kingship passed to Thingol's grandson Dior.

Legacy

Thingol was the greatest of the Elven-kings who never dwelt in Aman, and Doriath under his rule and Melian's protection was the longest-lived and least troubled realm of the First Age. His demand for a Silmaril turned the hidden kingdom into one more thread in the doom of the jewels, and his death came from the same greed he had condemned in others. Through Lúthien he was the ancestor of Dior, Elwing, Elrond and Elros, and so of the kings of Númenor and of Aragorn; his blood, mingled with that of Melian, ran in every line of the Half-elven.

Slain in Menegroth by Dwarves of Nogrod in a quarrel over the Nauglamír and the Silmaril, around F.A. 502.