The Complete Tolkien Companion

by J. E. A. Tyler

  But in 2845 Third Age Thorin’s father Thráin II was captured by Sauron, and Thorin became King of Durin’s Folk in Exile. For many years he husbanded the strength of his people, until at last he felt strong (or angry) enough to attempt revenge on the Dragon and the recovery of the treasure of Erebor. In this project he had the unexpected aid of Gandalf the Grey.

  The story of that expedition, undertaken by Thorin and Gandalf together with twelve other Dwarves and a single Hobbit, has been told with admirable lucidity elsewhere and needs little elaboration here. By great good fortune the Dragon was slain and Thorin then became King Under the Mountain.3 But in the hour of triumph his heart, inflamed perhaps by the wealth of Erebor and the long injustices done to his House, turned towards pride and rashness. Rather than accord his erstwhile allies a fair share of the wealth won, he planned to deprive them of even this amount, and defied them at the Gates of Erebor. This ill-considered action nearly brought about a disastrous battle between Dwarves, Elves and Men; luckily, the opportune arrival of an Orc-host united the potential enemies in a desperate defence, and in this last fight Thorin came once more to his senses. He died heroically after slaying many Orcs and wolves, and was buried under the Lonely Mountain with the Arkenstone of Thráin upon his breast. He was succeeded in Erebor by Dáin Ironfoot.

  Thorin (III) Stonehelm – The son of Dáin Ironfoot, and King Under the Mountain after the death of Dáin during the War of the Ring. Dáin was slain during the (second) Battle of Dale (March 17th, 3019 Third Age), in which hordes of Easterlings poured into Dale and drove the surviving Men and Dwarves to take shelter behind the Gates of Erebor. However, ten days afterwards news came north of the Passing of Sauron and, led by Thorin and his ally King Bard II of Dale, the besieged came forth and drove the Easterlings away.

  Thorondir – From 2872–82 Third Age, the twenty-second Ruling Steward of Gondor.

  Thorondor ‘King of Eagles’ (Sind., from Q. Sorontar) – The greatest of all the Eagles of the Elder Days, and the ancestor of all the Eagles of the North. The Messenger of Manwë, who built his eyries high in the Crissaegrim during the First Age, Thorondor took many a part in the affairs of the time. He aided Fingon of the Noldor in his successful attempt to rescue Maedhros from torment upon Thang-orodrim; and he took part in the combat of Fingolfin and Morgoth, rescuing the body of the fallen Elven-king from defamation by the triumphant Enemy; and Thorondor wounded Morgoth in the face with his great claws. At the same time two of his kin rescued Húrin and Huor from peril, and bore them to Gondolin, so initiating a series of events which were to end with the fall of Gondolin but the survival of the royal Line of Descent of that Elven-city.

  Thorondor himself rescued Beren and Lúthien from Angband, after the recovery of the Silmaril; and he warned Turgon king of Gondolin concerning the presence of the fugitive Húrin at his gates (though at this time Turgon did not act as the King of Eagles urged).

  Soon afterwards came the long-prepared attack upon Turgon’s city; and for the last time Thorondor came to the aid of the House of Fingolfin. His timely arrival enabled a party of survivors to escape from the stricken city. And by means of this deed another deed was enabled to come to pass: the summoning of the Valar from the Far West. In the battle which ensued Thorondor and the Eagles of the Crissaegrim played a notable part; but the ancient eyries in the Encircling Mountains were destroyed in the inundation of Beleriand, and in later years Thorondor’s descendants dwelled in the high places of the Misty Mountains.

  Thorongil ‘Eagle-of-the-Star’ (Sind.) – The nom-de-guerre by which Aragorn II, sixteenth Chieftain of the Dúnedain of the North, was known to Men of Gondor, during the period in which he served Ecthelion II, twenty-fifth Ruling Steward, as a captain of war. Aragorn was, of course, highly incognito at this time and the origin of the nickname was the star-shaped brooch he wore on his cloak.

  See also STAR OF THE DÚNEDAIN.

  Thousand Caves – A translation of MENEGROTH.

  Thráin I – From 1981–2190 Third Age, the King of Durin’s Folk; he led the exodus from Moria after the death of his father Náin I, and founded the Kingdom Under the Mountain in 1999 Third Age. There, in the ‘Heart of the Mountain’, Thráin discovered the great jewel, the Arkenstone, which afterwards became an heirloom of Durin’s House.

  Thráin II – From 2790–2850 Third Age, the King of Durin’s Folk in Exile; he was the son of Thrór and father of Thorin Oakenshield, Frerin and Dís. Together with his father and his family, he was driven into exile from Erebor in 2770 Third Age, and later still led the Dwarf-armies at the Battle of Azanulbizar (2799), in which epic encounter he was gravely wounded, losing an eye.

  Thráin was the last of the Dwarf-kings to possess one of the Seven Rings, and it was by this means that Sauron later managed to ensnare him. For after the War of the Dwarves and Orcs, he became restless and unable to accommodate his spirit to the humble Dwarf-dwellings in the Blue Mountains; together with a few chosen companions, he left the Ered Luin and wandered far abroad. And slowly his footsteps took him ever closer to Mirkwood. There he was captured and taken prisoner by agents of Sauron.

  For five long years Thráin endured torment in Dol Guldur, whither he had been carried after being captured. There, Gandalf the Grey found him while exploring the fortress of the Necromancer in secret (2850 Third Age). Shortly afterwards, Thráin died – but not before he had passed on to Gandalf the Key of Erebor and a secret map of the Lonely Mountain. In this way these heirlooms came to his heir Thorin Oakenshield; but the last of the Seven Rings was taken from Thráin by Sauron, who kept it ever after.

  Thranduil – A Lord of the Sindar, and for an Age of the World the Elven-king of Northern Mirkwood; his realm lay between the Forest River and the north-eastern eaves of the forest itself.

  Thranduil was the son of Oropher of the Grey-elves of Doriath, who had been accepted as King early in the Second Age by the woodland people of northern Greenwood. He fought at his father’s side during the Battle of Dagorlad, and had seen his father slain and the Wood-elves all but wiped out. Thranduil thereafter became King of Greenwood, though his writ only ran in the northern reaches; and after a thousand years the name of the wood was changed, to Mirkwood. A rival power arose in the forest, and Thranduil’s borders were threatened by evil things. Nevertheless he delved strong halls underneath the hill in the manner of Thingol of old, and resisted the forces of Dol Guldur till the end of his strength – and as a result the Wood-elves survived when all else in the forest was darkened.

  In 2941 Thranduil’s Elves encountered the errant Dwarves of Thorin Oakenshield’s expedition, and the Elven-king (somewhat hastily) imprisoned them, for those were watchful days. Later that same year his people brought succour to the Men of Esgaroth afflicted by the Dragon Smaug, and Thranduil (with a score of his own to settle), sent a host to aid the Lake-men when they marched upon Erebor to demand compensation for their injuries from the Dwarves. Luckily, a fourth host – of Orcs and wolves – united the Wood-elves with both Men and Dwarves and in the end the allies had the victory. Thranduil and his people received rich reward from the Dwarves and they returned in peace to their woodland halls.

  Yet although many Orcs and wolves were destroyed at the Battle of Five Armies, the lands were not freed altogether from peril and by 3018 Mirkwood was again an evil place. In that year Aragorn II, a friend of Elves, came to Thranduil’s kingdom, and with him he brought the creature Gollum as a prisoner. The Elven-king agreed to lodge Gollum until it should be decided what was to be done with him, but that same year Gollum escaped – and then Thranduil sent his son Legolas to Elrond with the tidings. (In this way Legolas was present at the Council of Elrond, and so came to be chosen as a member of the Fellowship of the Ring.)

  In the meantime Thranduil, alerted by the escape of Gollum, prepared for war. On March 15th forces of Dol Guldur made a great attack upon the Woodland Realm, but although many trees were burned and many Elves slain, Thranduil succeeded in repelling the attacks. Dol Guldur was
later destroyed and Thranduil returned to the North. He lingered in Middle-earth beyond the turn of the Fourth Age, but whether or not he eventually sailed over Sea has not been recorded.

  Three-farthing Stone – An obelisk erected by Hobbits of the Shire shortly after the founding of their land to mark the common boundary of the West-, East- and Southfarthings. It stood on the Great East Road, a mile or so south of Bywater Pool.

  Three Houses – The Edain.

  Three Kindreds – The Eldar.

  Three Rings – The three mightiest of the RINGS OF POWER made during the Second Age by Celebrimbor of the Noldor and the Elvensmiths of Eregion. They were wrought – by the Elven-smiths alone – for the purposes of understanding, making, and healing, and the hand of Sauron (who assisted in the making of all other Rings of Power) ‘never touched them or sullied them’. Unhappily the Smiths of Eregion were betrayed by Sauron, who forged a single Ring mightier than the Three; while this Ruling Ring remained in the world, the powers of the Elven-rings were limited by uncertainty, and when it was finally destroyed the Three were shorn of all potency.

  The names of the Three Rings were: Vilya, the Ring of Airs, mightiest of all, which bore a great blue stone and was originally possessed by Gil-galad, who gave it to Elrond at the end of the Second Age; Nenya, the Ring of Waters, with a single hard white stone of great beauty, which was always in the keeping of the Lady Galadriel; and Narya, the Ring of Fire, borne by Círdan the Shipwright until the end of the first millennium of the Third Age, when he surrendered the Ring with its great red stone to the Wizard Gandalf the Grey. Gandalf wielded Narya throughout the remainder of the Age in pursuit of his sworn task: the uniting of the Free Peoples against Sauron the Great, Lord of all the Rings of Power.

  Thrihyrne ‘Three-horned-peak’ – The name given in Rohan to the tall, triple-spired mountain which lay to the south of Aglarond and Helm’s Deep. The Deep was in fact a ravine in the northern face of the Thrihyrne.

  Thrimich – See following entry.

  Thrimidge – The Hobbits’ name for the fifth month of the year (equivalent to May). It corresponded to Lótessë in Kings’ Reckoning. At the time of the War of the Ring it was most usually written Thrimich (an earlier form of the same word was Thrimilch).

  Thrimilch – See preceding entry.

  Thrór – From 2590–2770 Third Age, the King Under the Mountain, and from 2770–90, King of Durin’s Folk in Exile. He was the Dwarf-king who led his people back from the failed Grey Mountains colony to Erebor (the Lonely Mountain) in 2590, following the deaths of his father (Dáin I) and younger brother the previous year. Thrór re-founded the dormant Kingdom Under the Mountain and ruled there in great splendour until the sudden appearance in the northern skies of the Dragon Smaug the Golden one hundred and eighty years later (2770). Luckily Thrór and his son Thráin knew of a secret escape route from Erebor, and so were saved from the Dragon. Thrór then led the surviving Dwarves into exile in Dunland, but grew weary and dispirited in his straitened circumstances. Ten years after the beginning of his exile he left Dunland and went wandering in the wilderness, taking with him one old companion, called Nár. By ill chance he decided to enter Moria, long lost to his House and to his people; and in Moria he was taken and slain by Orcs. This murder – and the ensuing desecration of Thrór’s body – brought about the brimming-over of the wrath of the Dwarves, who made war upon the Orcs. Thrór was eventually avenged, but at terrible cost.

  Thúle – The Quenya or High-elven word for ‘spirit’; also the alternative title for Tengwa number 9, which carried the phonetic value of th in Sindarin and Mannish tongues and s in Quenya. See also SULE.

  Thurin ‘Secret’ – A name given to Túrin in Nargothrond by Finduilas daughter of Orodreth.

  Thuringwethil ‘Woman of secret shadow’ (Sind.) – During the First Age a monstrous messenger of Sauron’s. She flew the night-skies in the shape of a huge and loathsome vampire-bat.

  Tighfield – A village of the Northfarthing, settled by a branch of the Gamgee family (after Wiseman moved there from the village of Gamwich). The Gamgees eventually settled in Hobbiton but the Tighfield branch remained in the Northfarthing to practise the prosperous family craft of rope-weaving. This family later became known as the Ropers of Tighfield.

  Tilion – One of the MAIAR, of the following of Oromë; he was a lover of the Silver Tree Telperion, and after the death of the Tree was granted the honour of becoming the eternal guardian of the last Silver Flower; and the Steersman of Isil (the Moon).

  Timeless Halls – Eä; the Universe.

  Tinco – The Quenya or High-elven word for ‘metal’; also the title of Tengwa number 1, which represented the sound t among users of the Fëanorian Alphabet.

  Tincotéma ‘Tinco-series’ (Q.) – The first of the four self-contained ‘series’ of Fëanorian letters (the Tengwar). The tincotéma included all the letters (nos. 1, 5, 9, 13, 17 and 21) with a dental point of articulation (tinco, ando, thúle, anto, númen, óre). See also TÉMA.

  Tindómë (Q.) – The name given by the High-elves to the period of twilight which came just before dawn, hence at the ending of the Elves’ day. The Grey-elven equivalent was minuial (called morrowdim by the Hobbits). See also UNDÓMË.

  Tindrock – Tol Brandir.

  Tintallë ‘The Kindler’ (Q.) – The secondary title given by the High-elves to the Lady Varda (Elbereth). Its Grey-elven equivalent was Gilthoniel. Varda was also called, by the High-elves, Elentári (‘Star-queen’).

  Tinúviel ‘Twilight’s Daughter’ [i.e. a nightingale] (Sind.) – A title of Lúthien of Doriath, bestowed upon her by Beren of the Edain.

  Tirion ‘Great-watch-tower’ (Q.) – The name given by the Eldar of the Undying Lands to the beautiful city built by the Vanyar and the Noldor upon the Hill of Túna, at the entrance to the Pass of Calacirya which led into Valinor from Eldamar. Its walls were white, and its stairs of crystal; and it had many tall towers, of which the highest was the Mindon Eldaliéva. At the feet of the hill of Túna upon the east lay a dark lake, the Shadowmere, and in the West the light from the Calacirya illuminated the city. The first lord of Tirion was the King of the Vanyar, Ingwë, builder of the Mindon. But after an Age had passed he and his people departed from the city, and journeyed through the Calacirya to Valinor, and ever after dwelt on the western side of the Pelóri. The lordship of the city upon Tuna then passed to Finwë of the Noldor who ruled there until the release (from imprisonment) of Melkor (Morgoth), and his slow corruption of the soul of Fëanor, Finwë’s eldest son. With the rebellion of Fëanor – and the death of Finwë – Tirion was abandoned by most of the Noldor, though in after years Finarfin (the youngest son of Finwë) became its lord. He ruled over all those of the Noldor who did not join the revolt, and who never went into Exile. But those Noldor who journeyed to Middle-earth, and, surviving the wars, returned to the West, never again dwelled in the city their fathers had built, though they often visited it. The Light that had illuminated its western walls in ancient days was now extinguished for ever; eternal twilight lay over Aman, the Calacirya was dark, and ‘the lamplit towers of Tirion [were] mirrored in the Shadowmere’.

  Tirith Aear ‘Sea-guardian’ (Sind.) – The watch-tower which stood on top of the coastal promontory of Dol Amroth in Belfalas, ancestral dwelling and stronghold of the Princes of that tributary fief.

  Tîw (coll. plural tîwhin) ‘Letters’ (Sind.) – The Grey-elves’ name for the alphabet of cursive characters brought to Middle-earth by Fëanor of the Noldor. These letters were known as TENGWAR.

  Tobold Hornblower – A Hobbit-gardener of the village of Longbottom in the Southfarthing during the latter part of the Third Age. ‘Old Toby’ was reportedly the first Hobbit to cultivate the herb nicotiana in the Shire (c. 2670 Third Age), and was afterwards immortalised for this accomplishment. See also PIPE-WEED.

  Tol Brandir – The Tindrock; a tall isle with precipitous sides which rose out of the Anduin in the centre of the stream between the hills of Amon Hen and Am
on Lhâw, above the Falls of Rauros. It was said by the Dúnedain of Gondor that no man or beast had ever been known to set foot on its slopes. In the days of Gondor’s power, the Tindrock marked the northernmost border of the South-kingdom.

  Tol Eressëa ‘Lonely-Isle’ (Sind. +Q.) – See ERESSËA.

  Tolfalas ‘Coastal-island’ (Sind.) – A great isle which lay at the mouth of the Anduin, between the cape of Belfalas and the shores of Harondor (South Gondor).

  Tol Galen ‘Green Isle’ (Sind.) – The long, leaf-shaped isle in the midst of the river Adurant, in southern Ossiriand; the dwelling of Lúthien and Beren after the granting of their second mortal lifespans, and the birthplace of their son Dior Eluchíl.

  Tol-in-Gaurhoth ‘Isle of Werewolves’ (Sind.) – The name given by the Eldar and the Edain to the former island of TOL SIRION, after its capture by Sauron.

  Tolma-An original (as opposed to translated) Hobbit-forename; it has been translated from the Red Book as Tom.

  Tolman Cotton – Farmer Cotton.

  Tolman Gamgee – The youngest son of Samwise Gamgee.

  Tol Morwen ‘Morwen’s Isle’ (Sind.) – The name given in the Second Age to the crag of CABED NAERAMARTH and the burial-mound which stood there, for this place was not buried under the destroying seas at the end of the Age, but stood above the waves as an offshore rock (in fulfilment of a prophecy spoken among the Edain). Underneath the mound were buried Morwen Eledhwen of the Edain and her only son Túrin Turambar.