The Complete Tolkien Companion (32 page)

Yet from time to time a shaft of light strikes through the murk. The ancient Irish, who had many exceedingly antique legends and traditions, believed that Ireland had in the past been invaded by successive waves of races, not all of whom were of mortal fibre, and most of whom came from the (mystic) West. One of these, called in Irish
Tuatha de Danaan
(the ‘People of Don') are said, quite specifically, to have sailed out of the West to Ireland to fight the evil Fomorians, to have defeated them, and then to have themselves been defeated by a new invasion of evil creatures, the Fir Bolg. The Tuatha then sailed back into the Far West, and did not return. (Significantly, they are not remembered as tiny creatures of malice – feeding on saucers of milk and stealing babies, and all the rest of the debased folk-memory – but as tall, beautiful, high beings of Light, great warriors and magicians, immortal and wise.) Some Welsh legends echo this theme, though different names are, of course, used.

Indeed, the idea of a Golden Age before the Age of Men – when older beings of quite different origin and destiny walked the earth – is exceedingly widespread. The Greeks had their age of ‘Titans' (who were not, in the original legend, gigantic beings, rather beings of power; it was only later that power became equated with gigantism). Interestingly enough, the fate of the Titan Prometheus (who tried to steal Fire from the Gods and was chained to a rock as a punishment, doomed to be savaged each day by an eagle) contains curious jumbled echoes of the destinies of Fëanor (who likewise challenged the ‘Gods'), and his eldest son Maedhros, who, as is told in
The Silmarillion,
was chained to a rock and left there (but actually rescued by an Eagle). It seems that, in the course of time, what folklorists call ‘telescoping' has occurred; and this explains why, in regions of comparative isolation – certainly of less cultural diffusion – such as the Celtic West and the Germanic north, the legends have been preserved in less adulterated fashion. Yet examples can be found everywhere. And while the
vanar
and
liosalfar
of Scandinavian myth are undoubtedly a recollection of Elves and their divisions, even the
cherubim
and
seraphim
of (Judaic) Cabbalistic tradition obviously owe a great deal to dimly preserved memories of older, more potent races, in the divine ‘hierarchy' somewhere between the true Demiurges (Angels and Archangels) and Men. Finally, the populous pantheon of ancient Sumeria is chock-full of beings who are neither Gods nor Men – as indeed are many other religious systems. But as might be expected, it is in the remoter lands of west and north that the memories are most clearly preserved.

Elves of the Darkness
– The
DARK-ELVES
.

Elves of the Falas
– The
FALATHRIM
.

Elves of the Light
– The
CALAQUENDI
.

Elves of the Twilight
– The
SINDAR
.

Elvish
–
See
ELDARIN
.

Elwë Singollo
–
THINGOL GREYCLOAK
.

Elwing the White
– The daughter of Dior Eluchíl, son of Beren of the Edain and Lúthien daughter of Thingol Greycloak of Doriath. She was born at
Lanthir Lamath
(the ‘Echoing-Cataract') in Ossiriand, and took her name – meaning ‘star-spray' – from this fair place. When she was still a child, Thingol her grandsire perished and Dior then arose and went to take up the lordship of Doriath; his wife Nimloth and his children, Eluréd, Elurin and Elwing, went with him, and dwelled for a while in Menegroth. But the realm of Doriath Renewed was not fated to endure. On a night of winter, the sons of Fëanor came against Dior's realm with fire and sword, to wrest from his keeping the single Silmaril which Beren and Lúthien had recovered years before. In this task they were not successful, though they slew Dior, and Nimloth his wife, and Eluréd and Elurin their sons – and were themselves slain in the same battle. But Elwing escaped from Doriath, bearing the great necklace (the
NAUGLAMIR
) in which was set the Silmaril, and came in the end to the coastlands near the Sirion delta, where for a while she and her people found refuge from the works of Morgoth Bauglir. Here Elwing came to the fullness of her beauty, and she wedded Eärendil the Mariner of Arvernien, thus uniting the noblest House of the Noldor in Middle-earth with the fairest House of the Grey-elves: the Line of Thingol and Melian.

Her high destiny is well known. When her husband Eärendil despaired of reaching Aman and so fulfilling his Quest, Elwing is said to have taken the likeness of a great sea-bird and flown out to Sea, bearing the Silmaril; to alight exhausted upon the prow of Eärendil's ship Vingilot. They then used the Jewel to pass the Shadows and so come to the West. We are also told that, while the ship rested on the strands of Valinor, Elwing wandered northward to the land of the Teleri in Aman, at Alqualondë (she was after all akin to the people of Olwë, who was her great-grandsire's brother); but afterwards, together with Eärendil, she came at last to Valimar. There she was offered the choice of all the Half-elven: to be for everafter of Elven- or Man-kind. She chose the former, for herself and for Eärendil. She afterwards dwelt in a white tower on the edge of Belegaer, the Great Sea, between the land of the Teleri and the region known as Araman, and there she dwells still, the patroness of all sea-birds and bride of the Evening Star.

Emeldir ‘the Manhearted'
– The mother of Beren and wife of Barahir; she led the retreat of the First House from Dorthonion, after the Dagor Bragollach. Most of the surviving menfolk of that House remained in Dorthonion, to contest it with Morgoth, and all save one – her son Beren – were slain.

Emerië
– The chief pastureland (for sheep) in Númenor. It lay in the south-west of the Mittalmar (central province).

Emerwen
‘Shepherdess' (Q.) – The name given to Princess (Tar-) Ancalimë of Númenor in her youth, when she dwelt in Emerië with her mother Erendis.

Emyn Arnen
– The ‘Royal Hills' which lay between the Anduin and the Mountains of Shadow, in the province of Ithilien. They were, in fact, an eastern spur of the White Mountains, divided from the main range in ages past by the wide river-plain of the Anduin. The Emyn Arnen marked the boundary between North and South Ithilien. In the Fourth Age, after the destruction of Minas Ithil (latterly Minas Morgul), the Princes of Ithilien dwelt in these hills.

Emyn Beraid
– The ‘Tower Hills' which marked the western boundary of the Shire. They were crowned with three Elf-towers built by the High-elven Exiles. The tallest tower contained a
palantír
(Seeing-stone) of singular sort; it ‘looked' only over Sea, and had been set there in the late Second Age by Elendil the Tall, so that he might gaze from afar at Eressëa and Eldamar – and at his drowned homeland of Númenor. After Elendil's death, the High-elves took over the custodianship of this Stone, and made occasional pilgrimages to the Emyn Beraid to use it.

Emyn Duir
‘Dark Mountains' (Sind.) – A group of low mountains in the north-eastern part of Greenwood, thickly covered with dark fir-woods. In later years these hills became evil and their name was changed to
Emyn-nu-Fuin,
the Mountains of Mirkwood.

Emyn Muil
– A knotted range of hills, cloven by the Anduin and the deep gorge of the Argonath. To the east they fell away until the land became flat and featureless; on the western side of the Great River, the hills dropped sharply in a cliff or scarp above the plain of Rohan. This was Rohan's east wall. South of the Emyn Muil, on the eastern bank of the river, the lands sloped down into the swamps of Nindalf and the Dead Marshes.

Emyn-nu-Fuin
‘Mountains under Night' (Sind.) – A later name for Mirkwood.

Enchanted Isles
– The name given to the chain of islands set in the Great Sea as a defence and a cloak for Aman, after the rebellion of the Noldor and the beginning of their Exile. At this time Aman was also hidden by other means. The Enchanted Isles were of unknown number, and their positions also were not known (if indeed these remained constant). Few, journeying westward out of Middle-earth, ever passed their net.

Encircling Mountains
– The
ECHORIATH
.

Encircling Sea
–
EKKAIA
.

Enderi
– The ‘Middle-days' (Q.) which the Elves added to the middle of their year to produce a total of 365.
See
CALENDAR OF IMLADRIS
.

Endless Stair
– One of the most impressive feats of stonemasonry ever executed by the Dwarves of Moria was the construction of this marvellous spiral stair, which climbed, in many thousand steps, from the lowest Deep to the very pinnacle of the Silvertine. At the head of the Stair a high, windy chamber was carved into the living rock of the peak: Durin's Tower, where Kings of the realm might gaze out over the Misty Mountains.

After the desertion of Moria by the Dwarves in the late Third Age, the Endless Stair and Durin's Tower were lost and became a legend even to the Dwarves. But they were not destroyed until the epic ‘Battle of the Peak' between Gandalf and the Balrog in January 3019 Third Age.

Endóre
‘Middle-earth' (Q.) – The Sindarin equivalent was
Ennor.

Enedhwaith
‘Middle-folk' (Sind.) – The open heath-country which lay between southern Eriador and the Isen, bounded on the east by Dunland and the southern peaks of the Misty Mountains. It had once been thickly forested. Always sparsely populated, this region was desolated after the severe floods of 2912 Third Age, themselves the result of the thaw following the Fell Winter of the previous year.

Enerdhil
– An elf-smith of Gondolin, creator of the first
ELENDILMIR
.

Ennor
–
See
ENDÓRË
.

Enquië
– The High-elven (Quenya) word for ‘week', applied to both the six-day week of the Eldar and the (later) seven-day week of Kings' Reckoning. The Eldarin ‘days' were:
Elenya
(‘Stars'-day'),
Anarya
(‘Sun's-day'),
Isilya
(‘Moon's-day'),
Aldúya
(‘The-Day-of-the-Two-Trees'),
Menelya
(‘Heavens'-day') and
Valanya
(‘The-Day-of-the-Valar'). Valanya was sometimes known as
Tárion.
The Númenoreans, who were much concerned with the Sea, added
Eärenya
(‘Sea-day') to the list as the sixth day of the
enquië,
thus producing a seven-day week. Tárion (or Valanya) then became the ‘High' day in the Dúnedain reckonings. They also changed Aldúya to
Aldëa
(‘The-Day-of-the-White-Tree').

Entish
– The language of the Onodrim or
ENTS
.

Engwar
‘The Sickly' (Sind.) – An Elvish term for Men.

Entmoot
– A ritual assembly of Ents which occurred infrequently, and only at times of great need. The traditional place for these meetings was the Derndingle, deep in the heart of Fangorn Forest.

Ents
– If the Elves were the oldest ‘speaking-peoples' of Middle-earth, then the
Onodrim,
or Ents, were the most ancient race of all. The Grey-elven form of their name is
Enyd
(sing.
Anod
), from which
Ent,
the word used in Rohan, was doubtless derived.

In legend Ents were created, by direct dispensation from God, in response to the prayer of the Vala Yavanna, who feared for the safety of the growing things she had set upon the earth, especially trees, and desired to create a race of ‘shepherds' who would protect them. They thus predated the awakening of Elves in Middle-earth by an unknowable margin; but Ents themselves admitted that until they met the Elves, they had not learned how to speak in tongues. From the moment the Elves cured them of dumbness, the Ents eagerly learned the languages of ‘the Speakers', which they used after their own fashion, strung together in polysyllabic phrases of almost endless adjectives and the (very) occasional noun; a language of long, slow observation and an Entish reluctance to jump to conclusions. For the Ents' nature was close to that of the trees they protected and herded; ageing only slowly, Ents and trees passed down the Ages together.

Physically, each of the Onodrim most resembled the family of trees with which he was associated. Their strength was immense: as tree-roots can tumble the strongest structure, given time, so could Ents display the same enormous force, all in a few seconds. Their power was sometimes compared with that of Trolls, but Ents were indeed much stronger than these lumpish beasts, which were created by Morgoth the Enemy in mockery of Ents, as Orcs were of Elves.

Their history is sad. Like the Elves, their flowering period was that wide expanse of time known as the Elder Days. For long years they walked the giant primeval forests, tending their flocks, speaking with the Elves (very quickly) and with each other (very slowly). But the Ents gradually grew apart from the Entwives, and ‘entings' became few. The Entwives grew less interested in trees and forests, being more concerned with grasses, flowers and shrubs, and all the lesser growing things. They made gardens to live in, where they grew ever more skilful at these pursuits, while the Ents continued to wander and saw the Entwives less and less often. Towards the end of the First Age, the Entwives crossed the Great River east-wards to escape the Darkness rolling down from the North; their agriculture continued to bring them great honour from Men but, in the end, the wars they had sought to escape swept over their country, leaving only Brown Lands and barren earth where their gardens had flowered. By the time of the War of the Ring, at the end of the Third Age, the surviving Ents had long hidden in their remaining woods, of which Fangorn was the chief survivor. There they wandered alone, dwindling, but still tending their beloved trees.