The Complete Tolkien Companion (35 page)

Ethir Anduin
‘Mouths of Anduin' (Sind.) – The delta of the Great River, where it flowed into the Bay of Belfalas in six broad streams.

Ethring
– The small township built on either side of the river Ringló in Gondor; there, the road from Morthond to Pelargir forded the stream.

Ethuil
‘Spring' (Sind.) – The first season of the Eldarin
loa
(year). The (older) Quenya name was
tuilë.

Ettendales
–
See
ETTENMOORS
below.

Ettenmoors
– A wild and remote region of northern Eriador, haunted by Trolls; it lay north of Rivendell and south of the realm of Angmar.

Ever-cold
– A translation of the Sindarin name
Himring.

Evereven
– A poetic reference to the Eternal Twilight of Valinor and Eldamar, used (in the First Age) after Morgoth's poisoning of the Two Trees had removed their Light from the Undying Lands.

Evermind
– A translation of the Northern Mannish word
simbelmynë,
being the name given in Rohan to the white grave-flowers of the Barrowfield near Edoras. Also called
alfirin.

Exiles
– The High-elves of Middle-earth, the
NOLDOR
.

Ezellohar
– One of the (untranslated) names in Elven tradition for the green mound which stood before the western gate of the city of Valimar (or Valmar), in Valinor. Another was
Corollairë.
Here grew – and for many Ages stood in glory – the Two Trees of the Valar, raised from the green earth of Ezellohar by the enchantments of Yavanna Kementári.

Faelivrin
– An admiring name (which means ‘Ivrin's Daysheen' in the Sindarin tongue) given to
FINDUILAS
daughter of Orodreth, the Heir of Finrod, by Gwindor, a prince of Nargothrond.

Faerie
– The ‘Perilous Realm', the land of the Elves, as reported in mortal tradition. It is essentially a poetic term, for mortals are entirely unacquainted with these regions, and their interpretations can only be mere approximations of an unimaginable (for mortals) state of existence. Thus, in Bilbo's
There and Back Again,
1
the term
Faerie
(together with
Aerie
) is used as a fanciful name for imagined Elf-kingdoms, somewhere vaguely in the West.

Fairbairns of the Towers
– The descendants of Samwise Gamgee's daughter, Elanor ‘the Fair', traced through her eldest son Elfstan Fairbairn. Early in the Fourth Age, her family moved to Undertowers, on the slopes of the Tower Hills in the Westmarch of the Shire. They were later made Wardens of Westmarch, and eventually assumed the custodianship of the famous Red Book – charged with the duties of compiling, copying and safekeeping of one of the principal record-sources of the Third Age.

Fairë
‘Spirit [in general]' (Q.; Sind.
faer
) –
See also
FËA
.

Fair Elves
– A translation of the Quenya name
Vanyar,
meaning the First (and Highest) Kindred of the Eldar, who came to Valinor in the Beginning of Days and dwelt there ever after, unlike the ‘Deep-elves' and the ‘Grey-elves', both also Eldarin Kindreds. The Vanyar had golden hair.

Fair Folk
-The Elves.

Faithful
– The Faithful of Númenor; the small group of families who, despite increasing persecution, continued to hold to the ancient Elvish traditions and tongues throughout the gradual estrangement of their people from the Eldar and the Valar. They lived mainly in the province of Andúnië, in the most westerly part of the island.

Like most Númenoreans, the Faithful were great mariners; and in 2350 Second Age, after many journeys back to Middle-earth, they established their own haven there, at Pelagir, on the lower Anduin. When Númenor was eventually destroyed (in the year 3319), a number of the Faithful escaped the disaster and sailed back to Middle-earth in nine of their ships, bearing a seedling of the White Tree and the seven
palantíri.
Led by Elendil the Tall, son of Amandil, last Lord of Andúnië, they then founded the Dúnedain Realms in Exile, Arnor and Gondor, in the Westlands of Middle-earth.

Falas
‘Coastland' (Sind.) – A name for any coastal region (e.g.
Belfalas
‘The coasts of Bel';
Anfalas
‘Long-beach'), but in its earliest proper sense, for the shorelands of West Beleriand: the abode of the
Falathrim,
the ‘Coast-elves', a Telerin kindred who dwelt in this region, mainly at their two fortified Havens of Eglarest and Brithombar, throughout much of the First Age.

Falastur
‘Lord-of-the-Coasts' (Sind.+Q.) – The imposing title adopted by Tarannon, twelfth King of Gondor (from 890–913 Third Age) and the first of that realm's four renowned ‘Ship-kings'. His actual victories were comparatively modest in the light of the achievements of his immediate successors – Hyarmendacil in particular. But, as Captain of the Hosts, Tarannon succeeded nonetheless in extending the rule and reach of Gondor along the shorelands west and south of the Anduin, thus re-establishing the ancient Númenorean sea-power (to a limited degree). To commemorate these conquests, he laid down Gondor's first permanent fleet and took the crown in the name of Falastur.

Falathar
– One of the three faithful companions of Eärendil.
See
AERANDIR
.

Falathrim
‘Coast-Elves' (Sind.) – An Elven-people: the Eldar of western Beleriand, originally part of the main host of the Teleri who had come last of all to the coastal lands of Middle-earth, in the days of the Great Journey. There the last of the many sunderings of the Teleri took place, when this people passed over Sea, leaving behind two subdivisions of their kindred: the Eglath, who remained to search for Elwë their lord, lost years before in Nan Elmoth, and who subsequently became the Elves of Doriath; and the Teleri who then dwelt on the coasts, declining to depart with the main host because of their love for the sea-lands of Beleriand – and because of the entreaties of the Sea-Maia Ossë, who did not desire them to vanish out of his domain for ever. From these earliest days the Falathrim were led by
CÍRDAN THE SHIPWRIGHT
, and dwelt chiefly in the two ancient Havens of Eglarest and Brithombar. In the lore of the Elves, they are accounted ‘Grey-elves' (
Sindar
), and
Úmanyar,
but not
Moriquendi,
for those that survived the turmoils of three Ages of Middle-earth came in the end into the Far West, to the long home appointed for all those of Eldarin race. Their last dwelling in Middle-earth was the Haven of Mithlond; and Círdan himself was the last of all Elves to leave the ‘Hither Shores'.

‘The Fall of Gil-galad'
– The name given in the Common Speech to an Elvish lay, composed in Lindon or Rivendell early in the Third Age (the original title is unknown), and now no longer extant. At least one copy was evidently kept in Rivendell, for both Aragorn and Bilbo – and, surprisingly, Sam Gamgee – had an acquaintance with the poem. Bilbo probably brought a copy away with him on his return from Erebor via Elrond's house, later translating it at Bag End, where the sharp-eared Sam doubtless picked up a few stanzas.

Gil-galad was no less than the last High-elven King of Middle-earth, and the Lay concerns his long fight against the power of Sauron through the Second Age. This culminated in the Last Alliance, the (first) overthrow of Sauron and the death of the mighty Gil-galad:

the last whose realm was fair and free

between the Mountains and the Sea.
2

Fall of the Noldor
– A translation of the Quenya title
Noldolantë;
being the name of the long lay or song composed by Maglor the second son of Fëanor, in the time between the Fall of Morgoth and his own death, when he wandered, half-mad, on the wild coasts of Middle-earth. Its subject was the making of the Silmarils, the rebellion of Fëanor, the Curse of Mandos – and all the evil deeds which followed after, bringing ruin upon the Deep-elves. Maglor and Maedhros, the two eldest sons of Fëanor, were the only two of the seven brethren ever to repent in any measure of their Oath. Both slew themselves at the end of the First Age, but one copy at least of the
Noldolantë
survived (probably in Rivendell), and so came to be one of the chief source-references of the
Quenta Silmarillion.

Fallohides
– One of the three breeds or clans of Hobbits. Unlike the other two, Harfoots and Stoors, the Fallohides were ‘more friendly with Elves than the other Hobbits were, and had more skill in language and song than in handcrafts; and of old they preferred hunting to tilling.'
3
They were also noticeably fairer of colouring than other Hobbits, often taller, (sometimes) slimmer, and were frequently found in some leadership capacity, being characteristically more adventurous than others of their people. They were also the least numerous. Marcho and Blanco, who led the Crossing of the Baranduin and the founding of the Shire (1601 Third Age, Year 1 Shire Reckoning) were scions of this excellent stock.

Falls of Ivrin
– The
EITHEL IVRIN
.

Falls of Sirion
– The greatest fall or cataract on the river Sirion, where the marshes formed by the confluence of the Aros with the Sirion in flat country suddenly emptied over a precipice into a foaming basin – which was itself drained by means of underground courses, reappearing nearly ten miles downstream at the Gates of Sirion.

Falmari
‘Elves-of-the-Crested-Waves' (Q.) – More familiarly ‘Sea-elves'. A name given in Aman to those of the Telerin Elves who came first across the Sea, by way of Eressëa, to the Undying Lands, on whose shores they afterwards dwelt, at Alqualondë: the People of Olwë.

Fana
‘Veil' (Q.) –
See
FANUILOS
.

Fangorn
– This Sindarin word meaning ‘Beard-of-Tree' is used in the Red Book to mean both the great Forest which stood on the eastern side of the Misty Mountains, and the venerable Guardian Ent who ruled that strange country.

It is not clear whether the Forest was named after the Ent, or the other way about; however, it is certain that both were of exceedingly great age. Fangorn himself claimed that the Wood had seen over three Ages of the outside world. Indeed, both Treebeard's Forest and the Old Forest near the Shire were the last remaining enclaves of the great woods of the Elder Days, and both contained deep vales from which the Great Darkness had never been lifted. Treebeard put it another way:

Taurelilómëa-tumbalemorna Tumbaletaurëa Lómëanor
4

(‘Forestmanyshadowed-deepvalleyblack

Deepvalleyforested Gloomyland)'
5

was the old Ent's particular expression for those dark regions. This translates (very approximately) as: ‘there is a black shadow in the deep dales of the forest.' It is delivered in a typically Entish agglomeration of Elvish (Quenya) words –
Taurë, tumbo
and
lómë
are the original forms of the Quenya names for ‘forest', ‘[deep]-valley' and ‘many-shadowed' respectively.

Fantasie
– A poetic invention in the Elvish style which appears in Bilbo's poem ‘Errantry'.
See also
AERIE; BELMARIE; FAERIE
.

Fanuidhol
‘Cloudy-head' (Sind.) – The Elves' name for the southernmost of the three mountains of Moria. The word is derived from the ancient Grey-elven element
fan-, fanui-
‘cloudy' (and from the older Quenya
fana-
‘veil').

Fanuidhol was known as Bundushathûr to the Dwarves and Cloudyhead to Western Men.

Fanuilos
– One of the ceremonial titles of
ELBERETH
, in her aspect as divine or demiurgic intercessary. In this role she was often thought of as standing on the slopes of Mount Oiolossë, radiant with inner (divine) light, arms uplifted as she listened to invocations for aid from Men and Elves.

Note:
the Quenya element
fana
referred to the
fanar,
or ‘veils', with which the Valar clothed themselves when dealing with Elves and Men. (These ‘veils' were in essence their physical manifestations.) The full title
Fanuilos
means ‘Bright [Angelic]-Figure-EverWhite', as the suffix -
los
refers to the brightness of fallen snow (
cf. Lossoth,
‘Snow-people').