Tuor

Lineage and birth

Tuor was the son of Huor of the House of Hador and Rían of the House of Bëor, and the nephew of Húrin Thalion. His parents had been married only two months when Huor marched to the Nirnaeth Arnoediad in F.A. 472 and fell beside his brother at the Fen of Serech. Rían, carrying their child, wandered into the wild when no news came, and was taken in by the Grey-elves of Mithrim. Tuor was born there in the winter after the battle. His mother left him with the Elves and went to the Hill of the Slain, where she lay down and died, so that Tuor never knew either parent. His father's last words to Turgon, that from their two houses a new star would rise, were fulfilled in him and in his son.

Fosterling and thrall

The Elf Annael fostered the boy in the caves of Androth in the hills of Mithrim, where a remnant of the Sindar of Hithlum lived hidden from the Easterlings whom Morgoth had loosed on the land. Tuor grew tall and golden-haired like the men of Hador, and learned much of Elvish lore and speech; in later years he could pass for a Noldo in bearing and tongue. When he was sixteen Annael's people, worn down by Orc-raids and Easterling hunters, resolved to escape south by the hidden tunnel that the Noldor had made, the Gate of the Noldor, and seek the Havens of Sirion. On the way they were ambushed. Tuor was captured by the Easterling chieftain Lorgan, who held Dor-lómin, and for three years he lived as a thrall, ill-treated because Lorgan knew whose son he was. In the fourth year he broke free, went back to the caves of Androth, and lived there alone as an outlaw, doing such harm to Lorgan's people that a price was set on his head.

The Gate of the Noldor and the Sea

Four years of solitary war ended in F.A. 495, when a longing to leave Hithlum came over Tuor that he could not explain. He followed a spring westward from Mithrim and came to the very Gate of the Noldor that Annael had sought, and there met two Elves of the people of Angrod, Gelmir and Arminas, who guided him through the dark passage under the Ered Lómin. He came out into a ravine of waterfalls and rainbows, Cirith Ninniach, and followed it down to the Firth of Drengist. So Tuor became the first of his house to look on the Sea, and the love of it never left him.

He turned south along the coasts, and seven swans flew ahead of him whenever he lingered, until he reached the empty land of Nevrast and the deserted halls of Vinyamar under Mount Taras, where Turgon had lived before Gondolin was built. On a wall in the hall, exactly as Ulmo had long ago instructed Turgon to leave them, hung a mail-coat, a sword, a helm and a great shield bearing a white swan's wing. Tuor armed himself with them and went down to the shore. There, in a rising storm, the Lord of Waters himself came up out of the sea and spoke to him. Ulmo told him that the doom of the Noldor was nearly complete and that he had chosen Tuor to carry a last warning to the hidden city of the King. He gave him a cloak of shadow to hide him from enemies and promised him a guide.

Voronwë and the road to Gondolin

The guide was Voronwë, the only survivor of the last ship Turgon had sent west to seek the aid of the Valar, who was cast ashore beneath Vinyamar that same night. Because Ulmo commanded it, and because he saw the arms of Turgon on this stranger, Voronwë agreed to lead Tuor to Gondolin. They went east through the bitter Fell Winter that followed the fall of Nargothrond, passing the frozen pools of Ivrin which the dragon Glaurung had fouled. There they saw a tall man in black hurrying north with a black sword, and let him pass without speaking: this was Túrin, Tuor's cousin, and it was the only time the two ever met. They followed the Sirion up to the dry riverbed that was the hidden entrance to the Echoriath, and Tuor passed through the seven gates of the Orfalch Echor, questioned at each, until at the last gate the warden Ecthelion of the Fountain received him. When Tuor threw back Ulmo's cloak and stood in the arms of Vinyamar, the guards knew that the messenger foretold to Turgon had come at last.

The message refused

Before the King, Tuor spoke Ulmo's words: that Turgon should abandon the city he had built and lead his people down to the Sea, for the curse on the Noldor was drawing near and the hope of the Elves lay in the West. Turgon had grown to love Gondolin more than anything the Valar might offer, and his nephew Maeglin counselled against leaving. The King refused, and after that no one was permitted to enter or leave the city. Yet he welcomed Tuor, remembering Huor, and Tuor stayed and became great among the Gondolindrim, learning their crafts and taking his place among their lords.

He fell in love with Turgon's daughter Idril Celebrindal, and she with him, and in F.A. 502 Turgon consented to their marriage, the second union of an Elf and a mortal Man after that of Beren and Lúthien. Their son Eärendil was born in the spring of 503. Maeglin, who had long desired Idril, hated Tuor from that day and hid it well. Idril, who had foresight, mistrusted the safety of the city and secretly had a tunnel dug from her house out beneath the walls to the north, and this she told to Tuor alone.

The Fall of Gondolin

Maeglin, taken by Orcs while mining beyond the mountains, bought his life by betraying the city's location. In the midsummer of F.A. 510 Morgoth's armies of Orcs, wolves, Balrogs and dragons came over the northern heights and fell on Gondolin at dawn. Tuor fought in the defence beside Ecthelion and Glorfindel. In the burning city he found Maeglin, who had seized Idril and Eärendil and was carrying the boy toward the walls; Tuor wrestled with him and threw him from the battlements to his death far below. Ecthelion killed the Balrog-lord Gothmog and died with him in the King's fountain, and Turgon died in the fall of his tower.

Tuor gathered the women, the children and the wounded who could be found, and Idril led them through her secret way while the enemy was busy with the sack. They climbed the mountains by the high pass of Cirith Thoronath, where a Balrog caught them; Glorfindel fought it on the cliff and both fell into the abyss, and the Eagles of Thorondor drove off the pursuers and recovered his body. The remnant came down at last into the willow-meads of Nan-tathren, where they rested and mourned, and then went on to the Mouths of Sirion.

The Havens of Sirion

At the Havens Tuor and Idril lived with the survivors of Gondolin and of Doriath, and Eärendil grew up among them and married Elwing, the granddaughter of Beren. Tuor was reckoned lord of the exiles of Gondolin, and the friendship he had with the people of Círdan on the Isle of Balar taught him shipcraft. The love of the Sea that had begun at Drengist never left him, and as age came on him it grew into a longing that could not be denied.

He built a ship that he named Eärrámë, Sea-wing, and with Idril he sailed into the West and out of every tale. What became of them is not recorded, but it was afterward sung that Tuor alone of mortal Men was counted among the Elder Kindred and joined to the Noldor whom he loved, his fate sundered from the fate of Men. Whether this was true the histories do not say. Some details of his early life, especially his thralldom and his journey with Voronwë, are told fully only in Unfinished Tales, which breaks off at the gates of the city; The Silmarillion gives the shorter, complete account.

Legacy

Tuor is the hinge on which the end of the First Age turns. Through him Ulmo's warning reached Gondolin, and although it was refused, the marriage he made there produced Eärendil, who alone sailed to Valinor and moved the Valar to overthrow Morgoth. His grandsons Elrond and Elros carried the blood of all three houses of the Edain and of the Eldar together, so that the kings of Númenor, Elendil and Aragorn all descend from him. The house of Hador, ruined at the Nirnaeth, was in the end the house through which the hope of Men and Elves was renewed.

Sailed West with Idril in old age aboard Eärrámë; no tale records their landing, but it was afterward said that Tuor alone of Men was numbered among the Elder Kindred.