The Complete Tolkien Companion

by J. E. A. Tyler

  Ithilien ‘Land-of-the-Moon’ (Sind.) – One of the two most royal and ancient provinces of Gondor, founded by Isildur himself in 3320 Second Age. It lay in the narrow lands between the Mountains of Shadow and the Great River, bordered by the marshland of Nindalf in the north and the river Poros in the south. It was a fair land of trees, gentle hills and quick waters, and during the early years of the South-kingdom, many of the Dúnedain dwelt there in happiness and prosperity. Yet beautiful though Ithilien was, its strategic position (on the eastern side of the Anduin) rendered the province especially vulnerable to attack from both the East and the South – particularly during the years of Gondor’s decline, in the second half of the Third Age. Defenceless in the north, save for the partial shield of the marshes, the province was protected in the south only by the river Poros; and against direct attack from Mordor, the people of Ithilien were quite helpless. Nevertheless Gondor contrived to keep a foothold there throughout the wars and invasions of the Third Age, when her frontiers were left open to assault from all directions, as her might gradually diminished. But in the year 2002 the chief city of the province, Minas Ithil, fell to the Enemy, and only the hardiest of Gondor’s people dwelt in Ithilien afterwards. Indeed, a full century before the War of the Ring it was obvious to the Captains of Gondor that this fairest of her provinces must soon be abandoned to the Enemy. To ensure that Ithilien would not be taken without a fight, Steward Túrin II ordered the construction of secret refuges or bases from which a small but effective guerrilla force of Rangers would be able to harass the foe. By the year 2901 most of the few remaining inhabitants of the province had fled, due to a sudden influx of Mordor-orcs; fifty years later Sauron himself openly returned to Mordor; Mount Doom erupted once more and Ithilien was at last evacuated – save for the Rangers, who began to operate from hidden bases (see HENNETH ANNÛN).

  This period of Sauron’s outright domination over Ithilien lasted some sixty years. Yet for the most part, he did not bother to amass any new force there. In fact, Sauron’s chief purpose in capturing the province seems to have been in order to win control of the Harad Road which ran from the Crossings of Poros far in the south, northwards through Ithilien to the Black Gate. In the years immediately before the outbreak of the War of the Ring, this road was much used by his Southron allies – and their convoys suffered greatly at the hands of the Rangers. Finally, in March 3019, even the Rangers of Ithilien were withdrawn, to aid the city of Minas Tirith in its last need. But in the event Gondor was saved, and the Dark Lord cast down, and then Ithilien became free once more and was soon resettled, not least by Elves from Greenwood led by Legolas. During the Fourth Age which followed it was again renowned as the loveliest of all the provinces of Gondor.

  Note: in translations from the Red Book, Ithilien normally refers to North Ithilien, the fairer half of the province, between the hills of Emyn Arnen and the northern marches. South Ithilien was the name given to the less well-populated and more barren land bordered by the Emyn Arnen, the Anduin and the Poros.

  Ithryn Luin ‘The Blue Wizards’ (Sind.) – The fourth and fifth members of the order of ISTARI, said to have journeyed into the East and never returned. A late source identifies them as Alatar and Pallando, Maiar of Oromë.4

  Ivanneth – The Sindarin form of the Quenya word Yavannië, the ninth month of the loa (year) in Kings’ Reckoning. This name was used only by the Dúnedain.

  Ivorwen – The wife of Dirhael and mother of Gilraen the Fair (the mother of Aragorn II).

  Ivrin – The complex of springs and pools in the southern vales of the Ered Wethrin; the source of the river Narog. Called also Eithel Ivrin, and ‘The Pools of Ivrin’.

  Ivriniel – A noble lady of Dol Amroth in Gondor; she was the elder sister of Finduilas (who wedded Steward Denethor II) and Imrahil.

  The Ivy Bush – An inn of the Bywater district of the Shire, patronised (like its rival, The Green Dragon) by thirsty Hobbits from both Bywater and Hobbiton.

  Kalakirya ‘Light-cleft’ (Q.) – See CALACIRYA.

  Kalakiryan – See CALACIRYA.

  Kalimac – The original (as opposed to translated) Bucklandish fore-name, of which the diminutive Kali carried the meaning ‘jolly’ or ‘gay’. To preserve the full sense of the name, Kalimac has been translated from the Red Book as Meriadoc (abbreviated ‘Merry’).

  Karningul – The original (as opposed to translated) Westron name for that deep valley in eastern Eriador known to the Elves and the Dúnedain as Imladris. Both have a literal meaning of ‘Deep-clovenvalley’, translated from the Red Book as ‘Rivendell’.

  Kelos – See CELOS.

  Kelvar and Olvar – The Quenya words kelvar and olvar carried meanings almost identical to Latin fauna and flora, and were used in a similar sense.

  Kementári ‘Queen-of-the-Earth’ (Q.) – See YAVANNA KEMENTÁRI.

  Khamûl – Known as the ‘Black Easterner’; second-in-command of the Nine RINGWRAITHS, the only one of these creatures to be given a name in records. In the latter part of the Third Age he occupied Dol Guldûr in Sauron’s name. At the beginning of the War of the Ring he, together with the other Nazgûl, was sent into the Shire to hunt for the Ring; and Khamûl was the Ringwraith who pursued the Hobbits from Hobbiton (where he spoke with Hamfast Gamgee) as far as the Bucklebury Ferry. After the Morgul-lord Khamûl was said to be the Ringwraith most attuned to the Great Ring, and also the most easily confused by daylight.

  Khand – A south-eastern country or province of Middle-earth, situated between the deserts of Near Harad and the wide fields of Rhûn, close to the southern marches of Mordor. It was peopled by a race of men known as Variags.

  Khazâd (Khuz.) – The Dwarves. Although the literal meaning of this word has never been learned, it is certain that Khazâd was the Dwarves’ ‘own name for their own race since Aulë [the Smith of the Valar] gave it to them at their making in the deeps of time’.1 It is one of the few Dwarvish words ever to become widely known to members of other races – since the Khazâd were secretive by nature and jealous of all their possessions, including their language (Khuzdul). Khazâd can also be found in the Dwarves’ name for the city which the Elves called Moria: Khazâd-dûm, ‘The-Mansion-of-the-Khazâd’. The once well-known battle-cries of this people – Baruk Khazâd! (‘Axes of the Dwarves!’) and Khazâd ai-Menu! (‘The Dwarves are upon you!’) – also include this ancient element.

  Khazâd-dûm ‘Mansion-of-the-Khazâd’ (Khuz.) – The Dwarves’ own name for the greatest accomplishment of their race: their vast city and realm under the Misty Mountains. It was more widely known as MORIA, the Black Pit.

  Kheled-zâram ‘Mirror-mere’ (Khuz.) – The Dwarves’ name for the beautiful dark lake which filled the Vale of AZANULBIZAR. This lake was one of the most revered places of the Dwarves – indeed, the entire valley was hallowed by numerous ancient associations for Durin’s Folk.

  Dwarvish legend states that Durin the Deathless, on his awakening far back in the Elder Days, came to the Vale and looked into the cool, still depths of the Mirror-mere. There he perceived, like a crown about his head, a reflection of seven stars in the water, though it was still daylight and the sun shone in the sky. This vision was accepted as an acknowledgement of Durin’s incomparable royalty – he was the eldest of all the Seven Fathers of the Dwarves – and as a sign that he should found his kingdom there. The place where Durin gazed into the lake was later marked by an obelisk.

  Kheled-zâram was shaped like a great spear-head, with its point thrust deep into the north of the mountain-spur which curved east and south to embrace the Vale. At its northern end, near the ‘gore’, one of the main passes across the mountains, the Dimrill Stair, descended beside the cascading waterfall which fed the lake.

  Khîm – One of the ‘Lesser-Dwarves’ (the Noegyth Nibin) of Amon Rûdh; he was a son of MÎM. Khîm was slain by a member of the outlaw band then led by Túrin Turambar.

  Khuzdul ‘The-Speech-of-the-Khazâd’ (Khuz.) – A secret tongue of great age which the
Dwarves revealed to no one (apart from a few battle-cries and place names which became generally known). It was not a language of everyday congress between Dwarves, being rather a tongue of lore, a memory of their ancient past; and, like the Quenya (High-elven) speech, it was preserved lovingly as a prized treasure, guarded from changefulness.

  To the ears of the Elves – the first of the ‘speaking-peoples’ and the race with the most natural skill in such matters – Dwarvish speech seemed somewhat guttural. Indeed, the few examples of Khuzdul recorded in the Red Book reveal a strong Dwarvish predilection for spirants and glottal stops which doubtless affected the Dwarves’ pronunciation of Elvish and Mannish languages (and may even have affected some Mannish languages in return). Conversely, Elves never learned the Dwarvish tongue, though on one or two occasions they incorporated into their lexicon Sindarin (phonetic) approximations of Khuzdul sounds.

  Note: because of the secrecy surrounding Khuzdul, the Dwarves normally spoke the languages common to those lands in which they lived and travelled. The Dwarves of Erebor, for example, regularly used the tongues of Northern Men; all the personal names for Dwarves found in the Red Book derive from the language of the Men of Dale.

  Kibil-nâla – In Khuzdul (the Dwarvish speech), the name given to the icy-cold source of the river Silverlode, rising from a natural well in the Vale of Azanulbizar.

  Kíli – See FÍLI AND KÍLI.

  Kine of Araw – As late as the Third Age, large white, horned cattle were often to be found in the lands near the shores of the Inland Sea. They were wild, noble animals, greatly prized as beasts of the Chase. Indeed, their forebears were said to be the legendary Kine of Araw, who was the Huntsman of the Valar. (Oromë is the Quenya form of his name.) For it was believed that far back in the Elder Days he had brought such beasts from across the Sea. (The horses of Éothéod – or, more particularly, the Mearas, Princes of Horses – were also thought to be descended from animals brought to Middle-earth by Araw.)

  King of the Sea – ULMO.

  Kingsfoil – The name given among rustic folk of Gondor to the healing herb Athelas.

  King’s Men – The name given to their own party by the larger of the two Númenorean political factions: the group opposed to the Eldar and the Valar. The smaller faction, destined eventually to lose all influence in Númenor, were the FAITHFUL (as they called themselves).

  Kings’ Norbury – The name given in the Common Speech to Fornost Erain (literally, ‘Northern-fortress of the Kings’), the capital of Arthedain from 860–1974 Third Age. After it became desolate the ruins there were known as ‘Deadmen’s Dike’ – especially in Bree, only one hundred miles to the south.

  Kings-of-Men – In the lore of the exiled Men of Westernesse, the title applied by the Dúnedain to their own race, for they reckoned all Men as follows: High (the Men of the West, i.e. the Dúnedain themselves), Middle (the ‘Men of Twilight’ such as the Rohirrim and other Northern Men), and Wild (meaning the ‘Men of Darkness’, such as the degenerate Dunlendings).

  From the very founding of their realms-in-exile, at the closing of the Second Age, it was an overriding concern of the Dúnedain to preserve the ancient Line of Númenor – and eventually this obsession, fervently pursued in Gondor, brought about a civil war which came near to destroying the very inheritance it was meant to protect (see KIN-STRIFE).

  Later, many of the noble Dúnedain were forced by circumstance to ‘dilute’ their blood with that of lesser Men. However, it was long before this produced any discernible deterioration or lessening of life span – indeed, for a while the influx of fresh vigour greatly benefited the race of Númenor.

  Kings’ Reckoning – The Calendar of the Dúnedain, largely derived from the far more ancient reckoning-system of the Elves (see CALENDAR OF IMLADRIS).

  Originally developed by the Dúnedain of Númenor after the creation of their realm at the opening of the Second Age, Kings’ Reckoning was subsequently brought back to Middle-earth at the closing of the Age, by the surviving remnant of the Dúnedain who founded the realms-in-exile of Arnor and Gondor. From there it gradually spread throughout the Westlands until, by the latter part of the Third Age, a modified version of this system had been adopted by almost all folk who used the Westron, or Common Speech.

  The Elves of Middle-earth, who devised the first forms of calendar computation, seem to have based them primarily upon observed cycles of growth; and even their larger and smaller divisions of time were clearly chosen for ritual (as opposed to practical) reasons. Such a system – in which an Elvish ‘year’ or yen equalled 144 mortal years – was obviously unsuitable for Men; accordingly, the early Númenoreans devised a Calendar which, though deeply influenced by the Elvish system, was scaled more precisely to their own needs. Thus they eventually produced a workable system with significant alterations to the older computation of annual, seasonal, weekly and even daily cycles.

  To begin with, they adopted the annual Eldarin cycle of 365 days, the loa (‘growth’), though they retained the venerable Mannish custom of commencing this at Yule, or mid-winter (the Elves began their cycle at the opening of spring). The Númenoreans also abandoned two of the six Elvish ‘seasons’ (‘fading’ and ‘stirring’), preferring to recognise only four: spring, summer, autumn and winter. In contrast to the Elven ‘seasons’ these were of unfixed length and merely indicated discernible (to mortals) changes in temperature, length of day, and vegetation.

  More significantly, the Dúnedain – desiring a simpler method of metering their 365-day year – redivided the loa into twelve months (astar) of nearly equal length (ten of 30 days and two of 31). The five special Eldarin days which belonged to no season were reduced to three and redistributed, and various accumulated deficits were adjusted at intervals. Later they added one day (Eärenya ‘Sea-day’) to the six-day Elvish enquië to produce a seven-day week; and at some time they also began reckoning the span of a day as being from sunrise to sunrise, rather than sunset to sunset, as the Elves did.

  It was in this basic form that the system of Kings’ Reckoning was observed by the Men of Westernesse during most of the Second Age. Naturally, their reverence for the Elves had led them to study the ancient Quenya tongue, and this they used for all season-, month- and day-names. (The Elves themselves, having no use for months, presumably never learned the names the Númenoreans gave to these, even though they were in their own Ancient Speech.)

  The surviving Dúnedain of Númenor brought their Calendar back to Middle-earth after the Downfall (in 3319 Second Age). For the first two thousand years of the Númenorean realms-in-exile, the Kings’ Reckoning was left virtually unchanged in both Arnor and Gondor; then the dwindling North-kingdom fell at last, and shortly afterwards Gondor’s last King perished. Subsequently, in the year 2060 Third Age, Mardil the Good Steward introduced a revised Calendar. This was termed Stewards’ Reckoning, although it was in reality mainly the old Númenorean system with the accumulated deficits of 5500 years re-adjusted. It was in this form that the Calendar was eventually adopted by most of the other Westron-speaking peoples of Middle-earth. (Curiously enough, many of these Westron-speakers used the Quenya names which the Dúnedain of Númenor had originally given to their months and incorporated for their seasons and days, whereas the Dúnedain themselves actually used the Sindarin equivalents for these.)

  In any event, while almost all the other Westron-speaking folk adopted Stewards’ Reckoning – and ultimately New Reckoning – only the Hobbits preserved the unrevised Kings’ Reckoning, which they had taken up some time before settling the Shire, before the North-kingdom fell. The Hobbits’ natural insularity preserved the ancient Númenorean system, which they modified only slightly, most notably in their numbering of years; thus the date when the Hobbits first crossed into the Shire, 1601 Third Age, was accounted Year One in their SHIRE RECKONING. Apart from a few minor innovations, the only other difference between Kings’ and Shire Reckoning was in the calendar names which the Hobbits gradually evolved in place of the
original Quenya names preserved elsewhere.

  King Under the Mountain – The title borne by the ruler of Erebor in northern Wilderland, last mansion of the Dwarves of Durin’s Line in the Third Age. The Lord of Erebor was habitually addressed as ‘King Under the Mountain’, although the influence – if not the rule – of the Dwarves also extended over the valleys and nearby lands.

  Kinslaying at Alqualondë – The first and most evil of all the deeds committed by the rebelling Noldor; this act more than all others set the rebellion beyond the pale of forgiveness, and ultimately brought about the downfall of its perpetrators, of whom Fëanor was the chief. It was the fatal blow and (some have said) a greater evil than the poisoning of the Two Trees.

  The two kindreds involved were the Noldor, led by Fëanor, and the Falmari, the ‘Sea-elves’ of Alqualondë – their city and haven on the northern shores of the Bay of Eldamar – whose King was Olwë. Fëanor, hastening north at the head of the fleeing Noldor, desired to use the ships of the Sea-elves to transport his host to Middle-earth; also he desired to enrol the Falmari in his rebellion. But Olwë refused both, so Fëanor attempted to take the ships by force from the quaysides of Alqualondë where they were moored. There followed a fight with the Sea-elves, and before long the Noldor had drawn their new-forged swords, and had begun to kill. The Falmari, now reinforced from the city, still fought on, but Noldor of other Houses now rushed forward to join in the battle, for they were still unaware that it had been Fëanor who had opened the hostilities; and with their added strength Fëanor prevailed over the mariners of Olwë. Many of these were slain; and not a few of the Noldor. Fëanor then seized the ships – and shortly afterwards betrayed even his own allies by sailing back to Middle-earth with his own host, and then destroying the ships.