The Complete Tolkien Companion (96 page)

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 Amon 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.