How old were Idril and Maeglin respectively when Aredhel died?

Aredhel died in the year 400 of the First Age. Maeglin was only 80 years old at the time (which is actually pretty young for an elf – according to “Laws and Customs Among the Eldar”, elves reach physical maturity around 50, but aren’t considered emotionally/mentally mature until 100.) Idril’s trickier – we don’t have an…

Here’s part two of The Women Who Shaped Middle Earth (here’s where you can read part one.) A five-part series, I’m looking at all the women who had a significant impact on Tolkien’s world. There’ll be some overlap (for example, Haleth and Galadriel both appear in other segments as well), so if you feel I left something out, that might be why, but send me an ask anyway, as I’ll be editing all of this before offering the complete version for download as a .pdf.

This guide, as well as one other guide (to be released later this month) is part of my contribution to Legendarium Ladies April. If you don’t already know about the event, definitely check it out! And if you have any lady-centric questions or issues you’d like to see me make a post for, now’s the time to let me know!

And if you think this is interesting, check out my already completed Atanamili: The Women of the First Age series, which covers all the (mortal) women of the First Age.

Exceptional Mothers of Middle Earth

It’s true that there is an above-average trend of maternal abandonment in Tolkien’s stories (you can read more about that here), and aside from those cases there are plenty of mothers who, through no fault of their own, did not live to see their children grow up. And there are plenty of mothers whose relationships…

Names in the House of Fingolfin

First of all, if you haven’t read this post about elvish naming customs, you’ll probably want to, since the rest of this won’t make too much sense otherwise. Also, I’ve got the Feanorian version of this post here. Fingolfin Father-name: Nolofinwe (“Wise Finwe”), sindarized to “Fingolfin”, with an extra “fin” prefix that you can read…

Elves and Silver

Elves definitely seem to love silver. It fits their image really well – elves, the lovers of water, starlight, and moonlight. Plus, most of them had grey eyes, and the royal Telerin family was known for their silver hair. How much of this Tolkien did intentionally and how much happened naturally is for you to…

Timeline of Gondolin

Hope you don’t mind, but I expanded this a bit to make it a more general timeline of events in/concerning Gondolin. All dates take place in the First Age. 50: Ulmo sends his vision to Turgon and Finrod, encouraging them to build hidden kingdoms. 53: Turgon discovers the valley of Tumladen, the future site of…

The elves are very equal! Idril is Turgon’s heir, Findis didn’t become a queen because she stayed behind in Aman, Galadriel is Galadriel, and then there’s all of “Laws and Customs”.

the-hare-and-the-otter: Okay, lets talk. 🙂 There they received the pardon of the Valar, and Finarfin was set to rule the remnant of the Noldor in the Blessed Realm. – Of the Flight of the Noldor and: Findis was made by combining the names of her parents. Litt is said of her in The Silmarillion. She did…

The Havens of Sirion

The Havens of Sirion, the great refugee camp of the First Age, is absolutely fascinating to me. It was first founded after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, when Cirdan’s coastal cities were destroyed (along with many other settlements of men and elves.) In The Silmarillion Tolkien says that The most part of Cirdan’s people were slain or enslaved.…

The elves are very equal! Idril is Turgon’s heir, Findis didn’t become a queen because she stayed behind in Aman, Galadriel is Galadriel, and then there’s all of “Laws and Customs”.

Socially there’s a lot that suggests the elves had a pretty equal society (especially many of the things written in Laws and Customs.) But as far as female leaders go, I think there was a lot of room for improvement: Idril is said to be “the only heir of the King of Gondolin”, true, but…