The Complete Tolkien Companion (97 page)

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.

Tol Sirion
‘Sirion's Isle' (Sind.) – The name given by the Eldar to the strategic island in the river Sirion, which guarded the Pass of the same name against attack from the North. The island was first held by Finrod of the Noldor, who garrisoned it with warriors of his House (of Finarfin) and built there a watch-tower, called Minas Tirith. But after a while Finrod departed from the North, and went to dwell in Nargothrond, and the island – and the responsibilities which went with it – he delegated to his younger brother Orodreth. Orodreth held Tol Sirion and its tower until the Dagor Bragollach; but although he held out during that battle, shortly afterwards Sauron, the servant of Morgoth, came against him with great strength, and the Elves fled, abandoning Minas Tirith and Tol Sirion to the Enemy. The island was then renamed
Tol-in-Gaurhoth
the ‘Isle of Werewolves'. But Sauron was not to retain this fortress for long: he was driven out, by Lúthien, Beren and Huan, and fled in his turn. No folk dwelled there afterwards, nor made any lasting stronghold in that region of the North.

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

Tom Bombadil
– The ‘Master of wood, water and hill', eldest of all ‘speaking-peoples' in Middle-earth; he dwelt throughout the Second and Third Ages in the Old Forest east of the Shire, which was itself one of the last surviving reaches of the great primeval woods of the Elder Days, Bombadil's domain since the Beginning.

It was not recorded in the Shire what kind of creature Bombadil was, but it seems certain from all available evidence that he was a unique being, ‘oldest and fatherless' as the Elves deemed him. In the First Age he was known to the Eldar, who called him
Iarwain Ben-adar,
and acknowledged him as the oldest of all creatures. They considered him a benevolent spirit of the forest, a veritable incarnation of the ancient life-force present there, under no laws but his own, acknowledging no master.

Of his history little is known, save only those brief and veiled allusions such as he revealed to his guests. As the mighty woods of the Elder Days shrank with the passing of years, he too retreated until he finally took up his abode ‘down under Hill' in the Old Forest. There he lingered, walking, weeding and watching the country – and so in due course became known to the Hobbits, especially the Bucklanders, who had many strange tales and songs concerning the old man of the forest.
Tom Bombadil
is in fact a Bucklandish name; the Dwarves called him
Forn,
and in the legends of Northern Men he was known as
Orald.
But only the Elves were aware of his true origins – and by the end of the Third Age even Elrond himself had forgotten that Bombadil existed.
See also
‘
THE ADVENTURES OF TOM BOMBADIL
'.

Tom Cotton
–
FARMER COTTON
.

Tom Pickthorn
– A Man of Bree. Early in the year 3019 Third Age he was slain in a skirmish between the Bree-folk and the renegades led by Bill Ferny and Harry Goatleaf.

Took
– A rendering of the original Hobbit-name
Tûk;
more properly, an aristocratic and adventurous clan of Shire-hobbits, who from earliest days played a prominent part in the doings of the little land. The head of the family was traditionally known as ‘The Took', and ruled the clan from the family seat in the Tookland, a hilly region in the Westfarthing of the Shire.

Tooks were known to be descended from Fallohides, and were indeed far more adventurous than most of their kind; many younger sons vanished from the affairs of their fellow-hobbits because of this strange predilection. According to the family Genealogical Tables, Hildifons (sixth son of Gerontius ‘The Old' Took) ‘went off on a journey and never returned', while his youngest brother Isengar ‘is said to have “gone to sea” in his youth'; and so on. However, the first Took to become prominent in the Shire at large was Isumbras (afterwards called Isumbras I), who in 740 Shire Reckoning (2340 Third Age) became the thirteenth Thain of the Shire and the first of the Took-thains. The Office remained in the family ever after (
see also
OLDBUCK
).

It was Bandobras Took, the younger son of the eleventh Took-Thain, who became the most renowned warrior and leader in Shire-history (until the War of the Ring). Not content with growing to greater stature than any other Hobbit, ‘Bullroarer' also won acclaim as a military captain when, in Shire-year 1147, he led the Shire-muster which defeated an invading force of Orcs at the
BATTLE OF GREENFIELDS
. He also founded the North-took clan of Long Cleeve.

A third prominent Took was Gerontius, fourteenth Thain, who lived to the prodigious age of 130 years and accordingly became known as ‘The Old Took'; his age was exceeded in all Shire-history only by Bilbo's score of 131, and his descendants were numerous indeed. Nonetheless, most of these continued to live in the ancestral mansion-smials in Tuckborough, and it was there, in 1390 Shire Reckoning, that the greatest and most renowned Took of all was born: Peregrin, son of Paladin, who jointly captained the Shire-muster which won the Battle of Bywater in 1419 – and who also outgrew the legendary Bullroarer. Peregrin later became the twentieth Thain of the Took line and was afterwards appointed Counsellor of the reconstituted North-kingdom of Arnor. He also wedded Diamond of Long Cleeve, a descendant of the Bullroarer, thus reuniting the North-Tooks with their Southern kindred.

Tookbank
– A village in the Westfarthing of the Shire.

Tookland
– The hilly area of the Shire chiefly settled by the Took clan, whose centre was the village of Tuckborough.

Torech Ungol
‘Lair of the Spider' (Sind.) – The name given in Gondor to the highest point of the Pass of Cirith Ungol, where the secret road ran through a dark, noisome tunnel past a foul pit. Here the spider
SHELOB THE GREAT
had her lair.

Torog
–
See
TROLLS
.

Tower Hills
– A translation of the Sindarin name
Emyn Beraid.

Tower of Cirith Ungol
– A watch-tower constructed high on the inner, eastern side of the Mountains of Shadow by Gondor early in the Third Age. Its purpose – like that of Durthang, Isenmouthe and the Towers of the Teeth – was to guard Mordor against the entry (and exit) of evil creatures, and for many years it fulfilled this duty. Nonetheless by the end of the second millennium the power of Gondor was greatly diminished, and the Tower fell into the hands of Sauron's servants, who afterwards garrisoned the outpost on his behalf.
See also
SILENT WATCHERS
.

Tower of Ecthelion
– The highest tower of the city of Minas Anor in Gondor, originally built by King Calimehtar in the last century of the second millennium of the Third Age, and later strengthened and improved by Ecthelion I, seventeenth Ruling Steward, in the year 2698. It was three hundred feet tall in its completed form, and in its topmost turret the
Palantír
of Minas Tirith was kept.

Tower of Ingwë
– The
MINDON ELDALIÉVA
.

Towers of Mist
– A translation of the Grey-elven name
Hithaeglir. See
MISTY MOUNTAINS
.

Towers of the Teeth
– Narchost and Carchost.

Town Hole
– The dwelling-place and Official Residence of the Mayor of Michel Delving in the Shire.

Trahald
– In the original (as opposed to translated) Northern Mannish tongue, this name meant ‘burrowing-in'; it has been translated from the Red Book (into Early English, for contextual reasons) as
Sméagol. See
SMÉAGOL-GOLLUM
.

‘Translations from the Elvish'
– The name given by the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins to his greatest scholarly achievement: three bound red volumes compiled and annotated by him during the years (3003–18 Third Age) of his retirement in Rivendell. The books were later presented by Bilbo to Frodo, and by Frodo to Samwise, and were preserved together with the Red Book of Westmarch by the Fairbairn family.

Treebeard
– A translation of the Sindarin name
FANGORN
.

Treegarth of Orthanc
– The name given by the Ents of Fangorn Forest to the former valley of Isengard, after the area had been reforested following the victory of the War of the Ring and the eviction of the Wizard Saruman. The ancient walls of Isengard were, of course, destroyed by the Ents during the War, but instead of rebuilding them, they encouraged many wild and hitherto homeless trees to come and dwell there. Isengard ceased to exist as a fortress, but the Tower of Orthanc, being impregnable – even to the Ents – remained where it stood and reverted to the custodianship of Gondor.

Tree of the High-elves
–
GALATHILION
.
See also
TWO TREES
.

Trewesdei
– An archaic form of the Hobbit-name for the fourth day of the week, corresponding to
Aldëa
in the Númenorean Kings' Reckoning system. A later form of the same name was
Trewsday
(equivalent to Tuesday).

Trolls
– A translation of the Sindarin word
Tereg
(sing.
torog
), being the name most widely used in Middle-earth for the race of giant, man-eating creatures which first appeared during the First Age and which remained to trouble the world for many Ages afterwards. Trolls were strong, fierce and exceedingly dull-witted, with hides of overlapping scales resistant to all but the most well-forged weaponry; and though brutish and ignorant, they were readily adapted by Morgoth the Enemy to serve the cause of Evil during the War of the Great Jewels. It was later said that Trolls were corrupted by Morgoth from an older, less dangerous race ‘in mockery of Ents, as Orcs were of Elves'
4
and that ever after they proved apt to his will, and to that of his servants.

It is plain that this is the same race remembered in the folktales of Northern Men
5
, although the years which lie between the Elder Days and our own are numerous and the memory has been accordingly diminished (which might also be said of worthier creatures). One detail has lingered with especial clarity: the association of the Troll-race with stone. Trolls bore the same relationship to stone as Ents did to wood; and to stone they returned if caught by the direct rays of the noonday Sun; for like the Orcs they were bred during the years of the Great Darkness of the First Age, and the Sun was their enemy.

To avoid this peril, therefore, many Trolls took to dwelling in caves and under stone, and so the breeds became diversified, resulting in Hill-trolls, Cave-trolls, Snow-trolls and Stone-trolls (the most common sort). Yet all were fierce if stupid creatures, with lumpen minds and brutal instincts, whose main value to Morgoth lay in their sheer strength – which, if less great than that of the Ents, was unmatched by any other living creature.

The disaster which overwhelmed Morgoth and his armies at the end of the First Age greatly decreased the numbers of Trolls, and as they were from the first slow to breed, they were not again a menace in Middle-earth until nearly two Ages later, when a new race, called
Olog-hai,
appeared in Mirkwood and on the western borders of Mordor. This breed was at once perceived to be vastly more dangerous, being a fell race, strong, agile, fierce and cunning, but harder than stone; who could, for a while and if their Master's thought was with them, endure the sunlight. They were also less dull-witted than other Trolls, for Sauron had ‘improved' the breed to such an extent that many of their foes mistook them for huge Orcs. Many Olog-hai fought in the War of the Ring, on the Pelennor Fields; but in the last Battle before the Black Gate, most of them were slain with the fall of their Master and the consequent withdrawal of his animating will.

Trollshaws
– The dank, rocky and precipitous woodland which lay north of the Great East Road between the rivers Mitheithel and Bruinen. It was so named because the area was notoriously the abode of Stone-trolls wandering down from the Ettenmoors to the North. It was in the Trollshaws of Eriador that Thorin Oakenshield's expedition had an unpleasant encounter with three members of this fell species (in 2941 Third Age).

True-silver
– One of the many names for
MITHRIL
.

Tuckborough
– The chief village or township of the Took clan; it lay in the heart of the Tookland, in the Green Hill Country of the Shire.

Tuilë
‘Spring' (Q.) – The first of the six seasons in the Elvish ‘year' (the loa). It was of fixed length, having 54 days. The name was also used by the Númenorean compilers of the Kings' Reckoning calendar-system to indicate the first (approximate) season of their four. The Sindarin equivalent was
ethuil.

Tuilérë
‘Spring-day' (Q.) – The name given in Gondor to one of the five ‘extra' days in the Stewards' Reckoning calendar-system. Tuilérë fell between the third and fourth months (
Súlimë
and
Viressë
) and celebrated the advent of Spring. It was a holiday in Gondor.