Théoden already had a son and heir of his own: Théodred, born during the early part of the King’s reign. But Théodred’s mother, the Queen Elfhild, had died in childbed. Therefore Théoden took his dead sister’s children under his care, calling them Son and Daughter. Yet while the sight of these children growing up might have rescued Théoden from the morass of his despond, the times were again growing perilous, and Saruman the White, the master of Isengard, was beginning to prove troublesome to the Rohirrim. Théoden he despised, for the old King was already defeated in spirit – or so it then seemed to all – and accordingly Saruman won over a certain man of Rohan, one Gríma son of Galmód, bidding him ensure that the King’s torpor and despondency continue. Gríma made himself powerful in Meduseld through guile and flattery, and during the years immediately before the War of the Ring played Saruman’s part and spoke with the Wizard’s voice. Théoden sank still further, and it seemed to those that watched that the days of the Mark were doomed.
For now the peril of Saruman loomed closer, and at last in 3018 open war broke over Westfold. Théoden’s heir Théodred was slain at the first Battle of the Fords of Isen (February 25th), and although Erkenbrand lord of Westfold continued to hold off the hosts of Isengard, it seemed that in the end nothing could save Rohan if her King would not. It is told elsewhere how, in the very nick of time, Gandalf the Grey and his three companions arrived at Edoras – on the very morning of the second battle at the Fords, where Erkenbrand was defeated and the Westfolders scattered in the darkness. But the power of Gandalf proved (not for the first time) greater than the spells of Saruman, and Gríma the Wormtongue was exposed as a traitor to the King and banished from the Mark. More importantly, Gandalf healed the aged King of his long sickness of spirit; indeed, Théoden was shown how the imagined feebleness of old age was, in his case, little more than a product of the oft-repeated whisperings of a turncoat. So rapidly did Théoden revive that later that same day he himself led the host of Edoras westward to the help of Erkenbrand.
There is little which needs to be added to the story of the heroic campaigns undertaken by the King of Rohan and his Riders during the War of the Ring. The reverses at the Isen were atoned for by a crushing victory over the armies of Isengard at Helm’s Deep (see BATTLE OF THE HORNBURG); and with the threat of Saruman eliminated the King was freed to lead the greater part of his Host to the aid of Minas Tirith in Gondor, besieged by her foes. Before he rode south he named Éomer his heir, and himself led no less than six thousand cavalry, with stores and spare horses, on the great ride through Eastfold and Anórien which saved Gondor – and the West – from destruction.
Indeed, the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, greatest military encounter of the Third Age, may be said to have commenced with the classic cavalry charge executed by Théoden’s Six Thousand at dawn, March 17th, 3019 Third Age. The King personally led this onset, and was one of the first to fall; yet the account of his death leaves no impression that Théoden was anything but content with the manner of his ending. Before he passed away in the midst of the battle, he hailed Éomer as King of the Mark, and so died. Afterwards he was laid to honourable rest in the last barrow of the Second Line.
Théodred – The only son of King Théoden of Rohan. He was born in 2978 Third Age, the King’s Heir, and later became Second Marshal of the Mark. Yet he never came to the throne of Meduseld, for he was slain in his fortieth year while defending the borders of Rohan against attack. He fell at the first of the BATTLES OF THE FORDS OF ISEN, dying in the arms of the marshal Grimbold.
Théodwyn – The youngest sister of Théoden King of the Mark. She died in the year 3001 Third Age, shortly after her husband Éomund, and was greatly mourned by her brother the King. Théoden afterwards adopted her two children, Éomer and Éowyn.
‘There and Back Again’ – The title given (after much cogitation and indecision) by the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins to the narrative of his great adventure in the East, written by his own hand in the years following his triumphal return from Erebor. Bilbo completed the tale by the year 1401 Shire Reckoning, but contrived to keep his writings secret (except from his cousin Frodo) and took the manuscript away with him when he retired to Rivendell. He afterwards gave the complete work to Frodo; and the younger Hobbit completed the Tale of the Great Ring with a (longer) account of his own adventures. There and Back Again has been published in several different editions over the last sixty years under the title of The Hobbit, and it was the first tale concerning this people to become widely known.
Thingol Greycloak – The greatest King of the Eldar of Middle-earth during the First Age, the spouse of Melian the Maia, Lord of Doriath and High King of Beleriand; and father of Lúthien Tinúviel. With his younger brother Olwë, he led the Host of the Teleri on the Great Journey from Cuiviénen to the West of Middle-earth in the Elder Days. For nearly three Ages afterwards he reigned in Menegroth, his capital, in great glory and splendour, the only one of all the Eldar to wed with the race of Valinor, being also accounted High King of all Elves East of the Sea; but in the end he became enmeshed in the Doom of the Silmarils, and disaster came upon his house, and he was slain in his own halls before the Elder Days had passed. But his Line survived; and though Doriath was ruined and Beleriand was drowned under the Sea, this descent passed on through many generations of Elves and Men, and indeed survived until the Fourth Age: for so it had long been prophesied.
His Quenya name was Elwë (Elu in the Sindarin tongue), but he was known in later days as Singollo (from the older form Sindacollo) ‘Grey-cloak’, of which the Grey-elven form is Thingol; and together with his brother Olwë, he was the ruler of the Third Kindred of the Eldar, the Lindar (later called Teleri) at Cuiviénen. Elwë was one of the three Kings of the Eldar (the other two were Ingwë of the Vanyar and Finwë of the Noldor) who were taken to Valinor by Oromë the Vala, and afterwards persuaded their respective peoples to make the Great Journey out of Middle-earth. So began the march into the West, and though the Teleri were always last in the line of march, this was chiefly because of the great size of their host; and it is not recorded that Elwë was anything other than impatient to return to Valinor and once again behold the Light which shone over that distant and blessed land.
Yet he was fated to come there never again while his life lasted. When at long last the Third Kindred came across the Blue Mountains into Beleriand – by now somewhat reduced in number – Elwë, wandering abroad in the unpeopled woods of that fairest of mortal lands, was lost to his people for a time; and during that time the other Eldarin kindreds forsook Middle-earth and passed into the West – without him, for they believed him dead. Yet it was not so: Elwë had not been in peril, but been under an enchantment of love; and after a while he came forth from the woods with his bride – to learn that most of the Eldar, including his own brother Olwë, had already departed into the West. Only a portion of the Teleri had lingered in Beleriand, and these were those who had not believed him dead. Thingol then renounced any desire to pass West, and made his domain in Beleriand, eldest and greatest of all Elves on Hither Shores. His followers dwelt for the most part with him, in Doriath – the great forested region in central Beleriand wherein he made his realm; or wandered the empty lands. But all acknowledged his lordship and obeyed his decrees; for of all of them, Elwë Thingol was the only one who had ever beheld the Light of Valinor, a memory of which now abode with him in Doriath.
Thingol’s bride was the Lady Melian of the Maiar; and after a time she bore him a daughter, Lúthien; and his joy was complete. Never again while his life lasted was Thingol to reach such a pinnacle of bliss. For although Lúthien was the most beautiful of all the Elves, and although Thingol’s people loved her as greatly as they revered Thingol himself, far across the Sea the will of Morgoth was once more awake after two Ages of imprisonment; and in Middle-earth echoes of his dark thought were at work among the ruined strongholds of the North.
At first little of this was felt in Thingol’s domain, but Melian, sensing the evil, fore
saw the dangers which must follow. Taking her counsel Thingol sought the aid of the Dwarves, who built him an underground city and palace, after the fashion of their own deep-delved homes. This hidden citadel of great strength (and beauty; for Elves also had a part in its making) was named Menegroth, the Thousand Caves; and it stood under a hill on the southern bank of the enchanted river Esgalduin, in the middle of Doriath. Thingol and his court and people went and dwelled there, and it became the fairest palace of any King of the Eldar east of the Sea.
An Age passed. Across the Sea, Morgoth’s imprisonment came to an end; and the Valar released him from the Halls of Mandos. Almost straightaway he began to plot and scheme for the downfall of his former enemies; for his repentance was only feigned. And after a while he had struck a deadly blow at the Valar and the Eldar; and then he came flying back across the Sea to Middle-earth, to build anew his evil kingdom in the North; and with him he bore the three Silmarils of the Noldor. Immediately the evil creatures of Middle-earth were filled with new and deadly purpose. And before the ships of Fëanor had even set out in pursuit, the armies of Angband had struck at Beleriand. Thingol, though not altogether unprepared for war, was hard put to it. But although he won a great victory over the Orcs (with the aid of allies; see DENETHOR) in East Beleriand, in the West he was less successful, and his people who dwelled on the coasts (the Falathrim) were besieged, while Thingol himself was forced to withdraw into his impregnable citadel of Doriath. This scattered affray was afterwards called the First Battle of Beleriand, and it was the only one of the five such battles in which the King of Doriath took any part. Nonetheless, West Beleriand was soon cleared of Orcs – but by the Noldor, who had now returned to mortal lands in pursuit of Morgoth. And it was the valour and swords of the High-elves which threw the armies of Morgoth back into the North with great loss and kept them there for many centuries.
Nonetheless, the King of Beleriand was less than overjoyed at the coming of the Noldor; but he gave them leave to make realms in the North, so long as they did not interfere in the affairs of the Teleri. It was the Noldor who now called his people ‘Grey-elves’, though their name for the King of the Grey-elves, Singollo, had been given to Elwë long before, in the days when, with Olwë, he was the Lord of the Lindar. But as far as the more prideful among the Noldor were concerned, Thingol was merely King of Doriath; and though they did not at this time defy Thingol’s writ, they resented his attitude and, moreover, considered him an ingrate; for it had been their arms which had liberated West Beleriand from the Orcs, and not those of the Sindar. In this way seeds of mistrust were sown between the Noldor and the Sindar. And worse was to come; for after a time Thingol learned of the evil deeds of the Noldor in Eldamar, and of the Kinslaying at Alqualondë, in which many of his kinsmen had been cruelly cut down; and then he proscribed the Quenya tongue, and barred all save his close kin among the Noldor from Doriath. And he never came forth from Menegroth while his life lasted.
For Thingol, wisest of the Eldar in Middle-earth – and, moreover, counselled by Melian – now perceived that a curse lay upon the enterprises of the Noldor, and he vowed to have nothing to do with the war for the Silmarils. The Sons of Fëanor he named as his enemies; and he forbade his people to aid or serve them. For he still hoped to ride the storm. Yet doom came to him in the end, in the person of Beren of the Edain, who sought the hand of his beloved daughter Lúthien. Of that tale much is said elsewhere. By his own rash words, uttered in wrath and contempt, Thingol was ensnared in the trap of the Silmarils and brought under the Curse of Mandos: for he named them in desire, and in so doing set in motion a chain of events which ended in his own fall and in the ruin of his long-defended kingdom, oldest and fairest in Middle-earth. Against his every expectation, Beren succeeded in recovering a Silmaril from Angband, and it was brought to Doriath, and kept by Thingol in his hoard. And so his doom drew nearer. For, possessing it, his heart turned more and more towards it, and to its beauty; and in seeking to enhance this he made himself vulnerable to unforeseen perils.
For although Thingol was of a great and noble kind, and would not easily have fallen into evil by his own acts, he was lured into displaying the Jewel before those whose resistance to such attractions was not so stern. They, falling under the spell, also desired the Silmaril – and slew Thingol to acquire it. So he died. And though his Heir Dior son of Lúthien and Beren succeeded for a time in restoring Doriath and Menegroth to its former splendour, this was to prove but a brief sunset. After a few years Dior and most of his kin were also slain, and Doriath was ruined for a second time – and again it was lust for the Silmaril which brought about the disaster.
But the Silmaril itself survived, and with it the Line of Thingol Greycloak of Doriath, noblest in Middle-earth. Mingled with the descent from the Noldor and all three Houses of the Edain, it was carried across the Sea to Númenor as well as continuing unbroken in Middle-earth: Two Ages after Thingol’s death these two branches of his Line were re-united, in the wedding of Aragorn with Arwen daughter of Elrond – in whom, it was said, the likeness of Thingol’s daughter Lúthien again walked the earth. But Elwë Thingol himself was never seen again East of the Sea, by Elves or Men.
Third Age – The name given by the Elves and the Dúnedain to the period of 3,021 years between the first overthrow of Sauron the Great and the final Passing of the Three Rings, together with their Bearers, across the Sea to the Undying Lands.
The Third Age of Middle-earth was essentially an age of decline and transition, for after the victory of the Last Alliance the power of the Elves in Middle-earth was greatly diminished – and that of Men, their inheritors, greatly enhanced. Yet many Elves still lingered, especially in the North and in the great forests of Wilderland, while in the westlands the Realms in Exile grew to power.
For the first millennium there was peace in most lands, save for the expansionist wars fought by Gondor against her foes in the South and East, and it was not until the beginning of the second millennium that serious attempts were made to challenge the power of the Dúnedain. This period, from 1300 (the rise of Angmar) to 2002 (the fall of Minas Ithil), was grievous for the Númenorean Exiles, and although Gondor managed to withstand the many trials imposed upon her, the North-kingdom was swept away.
Scant years after the fall of Arthedain, the ancient Dwarf-city of Moria was finally captured by evil creatures, and Durin’s Folk were expelled from their ancestral home. Only the Elf-kingdoms survived the turmoils at the end of the second millennium, while Gondor lost some of her royalty and became an embattled state.
Yet the Third Age was also an age of great migrations and folk movements. The Men of Rhovanion emigrated to northern Wilderland, and later to Gondor; the Hobbits journeyed from Wilderland to Eriador and Dunland, and back to Eriador; while for many years successive hordes of Easterlings and Southrons attempted to occupy the fertile lands west of the Anduin. More ominously, the second millennium saw the reawakening of Sauron the Great, whom all had believed overthrown at the end of the previous Age; and the final years of the Third Age were dominated by his machinations.
Nonetheless the power of Gondor proved strong enough to withstand Sauron’s return to power, and with a final effort the Free Peoples, working in league, were able to accomplish his downfall at the very end of the Third Age. In this way the Elves were able to depart from mortal lands in peace, and so pass on their inheritance at last to the ‘Kings-of-Men’, whose reconstituted realms formed the foundation on which the Dominion of Men in the Fourth Age was built.
Third House (of the Edain) – The House of HADOR LÓRINDOL of Dor-lómin.
Third Line (of the Mark) – The Kings of Rohan after Théoden Ednew. Each time the direct line of descent (from Eorl the Young) was broken, a new line of mounds was begun in the Barrowfield of Edoras. Éomer, nephew of Théoden, was the first King of the Third Line.
Third Theme (of Ilúvatar) – According to the traditions of the Eldar, the Third Theme of the Great Song was that which dealt with the race
of Atani, ‘the Secondborn’ (i.e. Men).
Thistle Brook – A stream of the Shire; it arose in the Green Hill Country and joined the river Shirebourn near Willowbottom.
Thistlewool – A family of Big Folk (Men) of Bree.
Thorin I – From 2190–2289 Third Age, the first king of the Dwarves of the Grey Mountains colony; it was he who led a great part of Durin’s Folk away from newly founded Erebor into the North.
Thorin (II) Oakenshield – From 2845–2941 Third Age, the King of Durin’s Folk in Exile, and for a brief period in the last year of his life (2941) the King Under the Mountain. He was the leader of the renowned expedition in which Smaug the Golden was destroyed and the Lonely Mountain freed from the Dragon’s dominion; and he was the last bearer of the Elf-sword Orcrist.
Thorin was born in Erebor in 2746, the son of Thráin son of Thrór the King, and was thus only 24 years of age when the Dragon descended upon the Dwarves in the year 2770. Together with his grandfather, his father, his brother Frerin and his sister Dís, he went to Dunland in exile; but the murder of his grandfather twenty years after the fall of Erebor brought about the War of the Dwarves and Orcs, and in this Thorin won great renown (not to mention his famous nickname). He was in the vanguard of the Dwarf-host which attacked the Orcs of Azog at Azanulbizar; this force was driven back by the Orcs, and Frerin was slain. Thorin’s shield was broken and for a while he made shift with a handy branch of oak, for there was no time to acquire another shield. Even so he was wounded. Nonetheless Thorin survived the Battle of Azanulbizar – where many others did not – and afterwards went with his father and their kin to the Blue Mountains, where they founded a small and modest colony.
The Complete Tolkien Companion Page 65