99-489: Isildur ( Quenya: [iˈsildur] ) is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien 's Middle-earth , the elder son of Elendil , descended from Elros , the founder of the island Kingdom of Númenor . He fled with his father when the island was drowned, becoming in his turn King of Arnor and Gondor . He cut the Ring from Sauron 's hand, but instead of destroying it, was corrupted by its power and claimed it for his own. He
198-461: A Catholic , realised he had created a dilemma for himself , as if these beings were sentient and had a sense of right and wrong, then they must have souls and could not have been created wholly evil. Dragons (or "worms") appear in several varieties, distinguished by whether they have wings and whether they breathe fire (cold-drakes versus fire-drakes). The first of the fire-drakes ( Urulóki in Quenya)
297-534: A Maia . The Valar withdrew from direct involvement in the affairs of Middle-earth after the defeat of Morgoth, but in later years they sent the wizards or Istari to help in the struggle against Sauron. The most important wizards were Gandalf the Grey and Saruman the White . Gandalf remained true to his mission and proved crucial in the fight against Sauron. Saruman, however, became corrupted and sought to establish himself as
396-620: A Nazgûl or ringwraith. In the television series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power , the young Isildur is played by the English actor Maxim Baldry . In Tolkien's legendarium , the island of Númenor , in the great sea to the West of Middle-earth , was created at the start of the Second Age as a reward to the men who had fought against the fallen Vala Morgoth , the primary antagonist of
495-727: A tightrope unaided. Their eyesight is keen. Elves are immortal, unless killed in battle. They are re-embodied in Valinor if killed. Men were "the Secondborn" of the Children of Ilúvatar: they awoke in Middle-earth much later than the Elves. Men (and Hobbits) were the last humanoid race to appear in Middle-earth: Dwarves, Ents and Orcs also preceded them. The capitalized term "Man" (plural "Men")
594-763: A catastrophic transition from a flat to a spherical world, known as the Akallabeth, in which Aman became inaccessible to mortal Men. Tolkien described the region in which the Hobbits lived as "the North-West of the Old World, east of the Sea", and the north-west of the Old World is essentially Europe , especially Britain . However, as he noted in private letters, the geographies do not match, and he did not consciously make them match when he
693-670: A child, he was sent away during the Siege of Angband for safekeeping with Cirdan the shipwright in the Falas . Alternatively, according to Tolkien's last word on the subject, he was a son of Orodreth, who became a son of Angrod, son of Finarfin . Christopher Tolkien rejected these changes for The Silmarillion , a decision he later regretted. He became the High King of the Noldor -in-Exile in Beleriand after
792-533: A device containing a star or Silmaril for Eärendil . The Tolkien scholars Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull note that matching the description in the poem, "The countless stars of heaven's field / Were mirrored in his silver shield", the lozenge-shaped devices both contain stars, with an elongated star in each corner. Margaret Purdy, in Mythlore , writes that Gil-galad's shield, like all elvish heraldry personal not inherited, seems to incorporate his stars, though
891-662: A fragment of a poem about him, and The Silmarillion . In the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, Gil-galad and Elendil laid siege to the Dark Lord Sauron 's fortress of Barad-dûr , and fought him hand-to-hand for the One Ring . Gil-galad and Elendil were both killed, but Sauron was wounded. This allowed Elendil's son Isildur to cut the Ring from Sauron's hand, defeating Sauron, and to take the Ring for himself. Gil-galad briefly appears at
990-472: A little glorified by enchantment of distance in time. ...if it were 'history', it would be difficult to fit the lands and events (or 'cultures') into such evidence as we possess, archaeological or geological, concerning the nearer or remoter part of what is now called Europe; though the Shire , for instance, is expressly stated to have been in this region...I hope the, evidently long but undefined gap in time between
1089-625: A rival to Sauron for absolute power in Middle-earth. Other races involved in the struggle against evil were Dwarves , Ents and most famously Hobbits . The early stages of the conflict are chronicled in The Silmarillion , while the final stages of the struggle to defeat Sauron are told in The Hobbit and in The Lord of the Rings . Conflict over the possession and control of precious or magical objects
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#17328521075151188-481: Is a descendant of King David , Aragorn is a descendant of Isildur. The Tolkien scholar Nicholas Birns notes Isildur's survival, along with his father Elendil, of Númenor's catastrophic fall, an event that recalls to him Plato's Atlantis , the Biblical fall of man , and Noah's flood ; he notes that Tolkien called Elendil a "Noachian figure", an echo of the biblical Noah . Tom Shippey writes that Gandalf's account to
1287-513: Is a recurring theme in the stories. The First Age is dominated by the doomed quest of the elf Fëanor and most of his Noldorin clan to recover three precious jewels called the Silmarils that Morgoth stole from them (hence the title The Silmarillion ). The Second and Third Age are dominated by the forging of the Rings of Power , and the fate of the One Ring forged by Sauron, which gives its wearer
1386-533: Is called Khuzdul , and was kept largely as a secret language for their own use. Like Hobbits, Dwarves live exclusively in Middle-earth. They generally reside under mountains, where they are specialists in mining and metalwork. Tolkien identified Hobbits as an offshoot of the race of Men. Another name for Hobbit is 'Halfling', as they were generally only half the size of Men. In their lifestyle and habits they closely resemble Men, and in particular Englishmen, except for their preference for living in holes underground. By
1485-652: Is described as a man who cut the One Ring from Sauron's finger after his father (here named Orendil) defeated Sauron in single combat, then lost it while swimming across a river to escape Orcs. Paul H. Kocher writes that whereas Isildur claimed the Ring as his own, Aragorn , on hearing Frodo 's exclamation that since he is Isildur's direct descendant the Ring must be his, at once renounces all claim to it. Aragorn explains that he searched for it to help Gandalf as "it seemed fit that Isildur's heir should labour to repair Isildur's fault", an inherited wrong. Catholic scholars have noted that just as Jesus , in his role as king ,
1584-469: Is the known world, "recalling the Norse Midgard and the equivalent words in early English", noting that Tolkien made it clear that this was " our world ... in a purely imaginary ... period of antiquity". Tolkien explained in a letter to his publisher that it "is just a use of Middle English middle-erde (or erthe ), altered from Old English Middangeard : the name for the inhabited lands of men 'between
1683-532: Is used as a gender-neutral racial description, to distinguish humans from the other human-like races of Middle-earth. In appearance they are much like Elves, but on average less beautiful. Unlike Elves, Men are mortal, ageing and dying quickly, usually living 40–80 years. However the Númenóreans could live several centuries, and their descendants the Dúnedain also tended to live longer than regular humans. This tendency
1782-717: The Ainur entered Arda, following the creation events in the Ainulindalë and long ages of labour throughout Eä , the fictional universe . Time from that point was measured using Valian Years , though the subsequent history of Arda was divided into three time periods using different years, known as the Years of the Lamps , the Years of the Trees and the Years of the Sun . A separate, overlapping chronology divides
1881-654: The Amazon Prime Video The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power TV series, which focuses on events in the Second Age , Gil-Galad is played by Benjamin Walker . Gil-galad has been included in multiple video games since Jackson's films were first shown. The 2004 video game The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age featured Mark Ferguson as Gil-galad. Others are the 2007 The Lord of the Rings Online ;
1980-686: The Black Speech (Burzum) for his slaves (such as Orcs ) to speak. In the Third Age , five of the Maiar were embodied and sent to Middle-earth to help the free peoples to overthrow Sauron. These are the Istari or Wizards , including Gandalf , Saruman , and Radagast . The Elves are known as "the Firstborn" of Ilúvatar: intelligent beings created by Ilúvatar alone, with many different clans . Originally Elves all spoke
2079-500: The Council of Elrond of Isildur's description of the Ring combines hints of the ancient time in which Isildur lived, with old words like " glede " (a hot coal) and obsolete endings as in "fadeth", and "loseth". It also provides a sudden reminder of Gollum 's name for the Ring, with "It is precious to me, though I buy it with great pain." His use of the "ominous word 'precious'" is, Shippey writes, quite enough for readers to guess that Isildur
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#17328521075152178-569: The First Age . Isildur's father was Elendil , descended from Elros, founder of the Kingdom of Númenor. Since Elros was half-elven , from the marriage of Beren to the elf Lúthien , he and his descendants enjoyed much longer life than other men. In Isildur's youth, Ar-Pharazôn , King of Númenor, was corrupted by the fallen Maia Sauron , who urged that Nimloth the White Tree be cut down. Isildur went to
2277-623: The Last Alliance of Elves and Men . After the Alliance defeated Sauron's host at the Battle of Dagorlad, they advanced into Mordor and laid siege to Barad-dûr . When Minas Ithil was recaptured, Isildur sent his younger sons Aratan and Ciryon to man that fortress, preventing Sauron and his forces from escaping that way. Isildur was accompanied throughout the war by his eldest son Elendur. The campaign in Mordor
2376-601: The Second Age , thousands of years earlier, helps to make the narrative function as history rather than allegory . This, he writes, lends an impression of depth . In the 1981 BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of The Lord of the Rings , the Lay of Gil-galad was set to music by Stephen Oliver . In the Lord of the Rings film trilogy by Peter Jackson , Gil-galad is portrayed by Mark Ferguson . He appears very briefly in The Fellowship of
2475-722: The fall of Gondolin and the death of the previous High King, Turgon. After the War of Wrath and the end of the First Age, Gil-galad founded a realm in the coastal region of Lindon along the shores of Belegaer , the Great Sea. At its height, his realm extended eastward as far as the Misty Mountains . King Tar-Aldarion of Númenor presented Gil-galad with the gift of some seeds of the Mallorn tree; he in turn gave some to Galadriel , who grew them in
2574-432: The nine rings , and then tortured him until his spirit was broken and he became a Nazgûl . The specific power of his ring allowed him to raise the dead and have them fight by his side as mindless minions. Eventually, he was defeated by the game's protagonist, Talion, after multiple encounters. Instead of subduing him with his own ring of power, Talion chose to spare Isildur and release his spirit, allowing him to proceed into
2673-765: The Ainur entered Eä, and the greatest of these were called the Valar . Melkor , the chief agent of evil in Eä, and later called Morgoth , was initially one of the Valar. With the Valar came lesser spirits of the Ainur, called the Maiar . Melian, the wife of the Elven King Thingol in the First Age , was a Maia. There were also evil Maiar, including the Balrogs and the second Dark Lord, Sauron . Sauron devised
2772-601: The Crebain, evil crows who become spies for Saruman , and the Ravens of Erebor , who brought news to the Dwarves. The horse-line of the Mearas of Rohan, especially Gandalf's mount, Shadowfax, also appear to be intelligent and understand human speech. The bear-man Beorn had a number of animal friends about his house. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings , both set in Middle-earth, have been
2871-507: The Dutch Tolkien Society, suggests that the only good reason for making him son of Fingon is the correspondence of the colours, blue and silver, of Gil-galad's heraldic device and Fingolfin 's banner. She notes that the publication of The Silmarillion , based on a limited "grasp of the material", created a "virtually unshakeable" tradition for this parentage. She argues that Orodreth has a better claim to paternity, for several reasons:
2970-480: The Fall of Barad-dûr and our Days is sufficient for 'literary credibility', even for readers acquainted with what is known as 'pre-history'. I have, I suppose, constructed an imaginary time, but kept my feet on my own mother-earth for place. I prefer that to the contemporary mode of seeking remote globes in 'space'. In another letter, Tolkien made correspondences in latitude between Europe and Middle-earth: The action of
3069-488: The Ring during the opening prologue sequence. Gil-galad is mentioned in the behind-the-scenes documentaries included with the Special Extended Edition DVD of The Fellowship of the Ring and is listed in the credits. In an interview with Ferguson and Craig Parker (Haldir), Ferguson stated that it had been planned for his death to be depicted onscreen as in the book, but it was considered too violent. In
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3168-599: The Ring , on the way to Weathertop , Aragorn mentions Gil-galad, prompting the hobbit Sam Gamgee to recite a fragment, three stanzas, of "Gil-galad was an Elven-king": Gil-galad was an Elven-king. Of him the harpers sadly sing: The last whose realm was fair and free Between the mountains and the sea. His sword was long, his lance was keen. His shining helm afar was seen. The countless stars of heaven's field Were mirrored in his silver shield. But long ago he rode away, And where he dwelleth none can say. For into darkness fell his star; In Mordor , where
3267-566: The Rings , Tolkien writes: "Those days, the Third Age of Middle-earth, are now long past, and the shape of all lands has been changed..." The Appendices make several references in both history and etymology of topics "now" (in modern English languages) and "then" (ancient languages); The year no doubt was of the same length,¹ [ the footnote here reads : 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 46 seconds.] for long ago as those times are now reckoned in years and lives of men, they were not very remote according to
3366-460: The Rings , written in 1938, in the chapter which became " The Shadow of the Past ", Gandalf tells Frodo (then called Bingo) that his ring "fell from the hand of an elf as he swam across a river". Although Isildur was not an elf , this was the earliest germ of the story of Isildur's death. In the next version of this part of the story Isildur himself appears, first named Ithildor, then changed to Isildor. He
3465-1115: The Rings: The Return of the King received 11 Academy Award nominations and won all of them, matching the totals awarded to Ben-Hur and Titanic . Two well-made fan films of Middle-earth, The Hunt for Gollum and Born of Hope , were uploaded to YouTube on 8 May 2009 and 11 December 2009 respectively. Numerous computer and video games have been inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien 's works set in Middle-earth. Titles have been produced by studios such as Electronic Arts , Vivendi Games , Melbourne House , and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment . Aside from officially licensed games, many Tolkien-inspired mods , custom maps and total conversions have been made for many games, such as Warcraft III , Minecraft , Rome: Total War , Medieval II: Total War , The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim . In addition, there are many text-based MMORPGs (known as MU*s ) based on Middle-earth. The oldest of these dates back to 1991, and
3564-567: The War of the Last Alliance. At the Gladden Fields in the middle course of the River Anduin Isildur's party was ambushed by roaming Orcs from the Misty Mountains . It was 5 October in the second year of Isildur's reign, and the second year of the Third Age . Tolkien wrote two differing accounts of the battle leading to Isildur's end. " Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age ", at
3663-641: The White Tree Isildur had planted there. Isildur and his family escaped down the Anduin by boat, bearing with them a seedling of the tree. They sailed to Lindon , seeking the Elven King Gil-galad and Elendil in Arnor. Anárion bought time for Gondor by defending Osgiliath and driving Sauron back to the mountains, while Elendil and Gil-galad marshalled their forces. Isildur returned with Elendil and Gil-galad in
3762-588: The ability to give conscious life to things. The precise origins of Orcs and Trolls are unclear, as Tolkien considered various possibilities and sometimes changed his mind, leaving several inconsistent accounts. Late in the Third Age, the Uruks or Uruk-hai appeared: a race of Orcs of great size and strength that tolerate sunlight better than ordinary Orcs. Tolkien also mentions "Men-orcs" and "Orc-men"; or "half-orcs" or "goblin-men". They share some characteristics with Orcs (like "slanty eyes") but look more like men. Tolkien,
3861-503: The afterlife after millennia of service to Sauron. Talion took Isildur's ring and eventually became a Nazgûl himself. Middle-earth Middle-earth is the setting of much of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien 's fantasy. The term is equivalent to the Miðgarðr of Norse mythology and Middangeard in Old English works, including Beowulf . Middle-earth is the oecumene (i.e.
3960-441: The appearances was to be in Númenor just before its fall, with the father as Elendil and the son as Herendil, later called Isildur. The story was abandoned, but Tolkien reused the characters and events. Isildur features briefly in voiced-over flashback sequences of Peter Jackson 's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy . The video game Middle-earth: Shadow of War departs from Tolkien's narrative by having Sauron make Isildur into
4059-417: The battle of Dagorlad, "we had the mastery: for the Spear of Gil-galad and the Sword of Elendil, Aiglos and Narsil , none could withstand." The connection of Elf and spear could relate to the English surname Elgar , which may represent Old English aelf-gar , "elf-spear". Tolkien created two sketches of heraldic devices for Gil-galad. They were drawn on an envelope posted to him in 1960, along with
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4158-420: The best of men were fallen, victory always temporary, and portrayed that in his writings, whereas a dramatic medium like film required good on one side and bad on the other. In the streaming series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power , the young Isildur is played by the English actor Maxim Baldry . Although Isildur eventually fails to destroy the One Ring, the series' showrunner Patrick McKay stated that
4257-418: The book for the benefit of readers, despite the expense involved. The definitive and iconic map of Middle-earth was published in The Lord of the Rings . It was refined with Tolkien's approval by the illustrator Pauline Baynes , using Tolkien's detailed annotations, with vignette images and larger paintings at top and bottom, into a stand-alone poster, " A Map of Middle-earth ". In Tolkien's conception, Arda
4356-440: The chapter. He notes that it has the form of a ballad , each stanza being a quatrain in eulogy mode with end-rhymes in the rhyming pattern AABB/CCDD. Gil-galad's spear was named Aeglos or Aiglos, meaning "snow-point" or "snow-thorn" or more commonly "icicle" ( aeg : sharp, pointed; los : snow) because when orcs saw his spear, they would recognize it by its reputation to bring a cold death to them. Elrond said that at
4455-490: The continent of Middle-earth . Isildur's father Elendil landed in the north and founded the realm of Arnor, while Isildur and his brother Anárion landed in the south, where they established the realm of Gondor and the cities of Osgiliath , Minas Ithil , and Minas Anor . Isildur lived in Minas Ithil on the east side of the River Anduin and Anárion in Minas Anor on the west side; they ruled Gondor jointly from Osgiliath. The Dark Lord Sauron captured Minas Ithil and destroyed
4554-401: The court of the king in disguise and stole a fruit of the tree. He was severely wounded during his escape, but his sacrifice was not in vain: Nimloth was cut down and burned shortly afterwards, but the line of the White Tree continued by way of the stolen fruit. When Númenor was destroyed by the creator, Ilúvatar , Elendil's family escaped in nine ships. The refugees from Númenor fled east to
4653-475: The crown of the Noldor in exile (in Middle-earth) then comes to a descendant of Finarfin, king of the Noldor in Aman; a descendant of Finarfin would fight Sauron to avenge Finarfin's son Finrod ; and as brother to Finduilas, he (alone of the Noldor's Kings) would fight with a spear, the weapon that killed his sister. The scholar of literature Lawrence Krikorian, in Mallorn , writes that Elrond 's account of his personal observation of being Gil-galad's herald in
4752-563: The end of The Silmarillion , is told from the point of the view of the Eldar . It states that Isildur had set no guard in his camp at night, deeming that all his foes had been overthrown, and orcs attacked him there. In Unfinished Tales Tolkien gives a fuller account, writing that Isildur was ambushed on the march by orcs. Isildur had left Minas Anor with a party of some 200 soldiers. His men had to march, as their horses were mainly beasts of burden, not for riding. They had two dozen archers, but they were too few to be effective. Isildur chose
4851-441: The end of the Second Age, Sauron reappeared with a newly formed army and made war against the kingdom of Gondor , near his old home of Mordor . Gil-galad formed the Last Alliance of Elves and Men with the High King of Men , Elendil . The armies of Elves and Men entered Mordor and laid siege to Sauron's fortress of Barad-dûr . At the end of the siege, Sauron finally came forth and fought hand-to-hand against Gil-galad and Elendil on
4950-401: The enemy, fleeing into the valley before the orcs encircled Isildur's company. Estelmo, Elendur's squire, was found alive under his master's body, stunned by a club. During the War of the Ring the Nazgûl searched the Gladden Fields, but failed to find any traces of Isildur's remains. Their efforts were hampered by Saruman , who had deceived the Nazgul, and who had arrived there first. After
5049-515: The events in Tolkien's stories take place in the north-west of Middle-earth. In the First Age , further to the north-west was the subcontinent Beleriand ; it was engulfed by the ocean at the end of the First Age. Tolkien prepared several maps of Middle-earth. Some were published in his lifetime. The main maps are those published in The Hobbit , The Lord of the Rings , The Silmarillion , and Unfinished Tales , and appear as foldouts or illustrations. Tolkien insisted that maps be included in
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#17328521075155148-494: The field is blue not silver. [REDACTED] Kings of the Noldor in Valinor [REDACTED] High Kings of the Noldor in exile in Middle-earth Gil-galad means "star of bright light" in Sindarin . His names in Tolkien's invented languages of Quenya and Sindarin were Artanáro and Rodnor, respectively. His Sindarin birth name, Ereinion, means "scion of kings". Tolkien considered several different parentages for Gil-galad in different draft texts, including making him
5247-418: The first big screen adaptation of the fictional setting was introduced in Ralph Bakshi 's animated The Lord of the Rings . New Line Cinema released the first part of director Peter Jackson 's The Lord of the Rings film series in 2001 as part of a trilogy; it was followed by a prequel trilogy in The Hobbit film series with several of the same actors playing their old roles. In 2003, The Lord of
5346-406: The gift of life but under the condition that they be taken and put to sleep in widely separated locations in Middle-earth and not to awaken until after the Firstborn were upon the Earth. They are mortal like Men, but live much longer, usually several hundred years. A peculiarity of Dwarves is that both males and females are bearded, and thus appear identical to outsiders. The language spoken by Dwarves
5445-542: The guarded land of Lothlórien . Gil-galad did not take a wife and had no children. He was the first of the Eldar to mistrust a stranger who called himself Annatar, and forbade him from entering Lindon. His mistrust was well founded, for Annatar was in fact Sauron . About the year 1600 of the Second Age, Sauron secretly forged the One Ring . Celebrimbor , the creator of the Three Rings , gave two of them, Narya and Vilya, to Gil-galad for safe-keeping once he knew Sauron's intention to take them. Gil-galad passed Narya to Cirdan
5544-416: The hilt-shard of Narsil , Elendil's sword, and cut the One Ring from the hand of Sauron. Despite the urging of Elrond and Círdan , Gil-galad's lieutenants, Isildur did not throw the Ring into the fires of Mount Doom. He made a scroll with a description of the Ring and a copy of its fading inscription. This scroll was deposited in the archives of Minas Anor (which much later was renamed Minas Tirith ), and
5643-425: The history into 'Ages of the Children of Ilúvatar'. The first such Age began with the Awakening of the Elves during the Years of the Trees (by which time the Ainur had already long inhabited Arda) and continued for the first six centuries of the Years of the Sun. All the subsequent Ages took place during the Years of the Sun. Arda is, as critics have noted, "our own green and solid Earth at some quite remote epoch in
5742-399: The human-inhabited world, or the central continent of Earth ) in Tolkien's imagined mythological past . Tolkien's most widely read works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings , are set entirely in Middle-earth. "Middle-earth" has also become a short-hand term for Tolkien's legendarium , his large body of fantasy writings, and for the entirety of his fictional world. Middle-earth is
5841-414: The intention was to present Isildur more favourably, as burdened by heavy responsibilities; McKay compared the character to the gangster Michael Corleone from The Godfather trilogy . In the video game Middle-earth: Shadow of War , Isildur's fate differs from the book. After he was attacked by the orcs, they transported his lifeless body to Mordor at Sauron's behest. Sauron revived Isildur with one of
5940-418: The latitude of ancient Troy . In another letter he stated: ...Thank you very much for your letter. ... It came while I was away, in Gondor ( sc. Venice ), as a change from the North Kingdom, or I would have answered before. He did confirm, however, that the Shire , the land of his Hobbit heroes, was based on England , in particular the West Midlands of his childhood. In the Prologue to The Lord of
6039-432: The main continent of Earth (Arda) in an imaginary period of the past, ending with Tolkien's Third Age , about 6,000 years ago. Tolkien's tales of Middle-earth mostly focus on the north-west of the continent. This region is suggestive of Europe, the north-west of the Old World , with the environs of the Shire reminiscent of England , but, more specifically, the West Midlands , with the town at its centre, Hobbiton , at
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#17328521075156138-544: The memory of the Earth. Both the Appendices and The Silmarillion mention constellations, stars and planets that correspond to those seen in the northern hemisphere of Earth, including the Sun, the Moon, Orion (and his belt), Ursa Major and Mars . A map annotated by Tolkien places Hobbiton on the same latitude as Oxford , and Minas Tirith at the latitude of Ravenna , Italy. He used Belgrade , Cyprus , and Jerusalem as further reference points. The history of Middle-earth, as described in The Silmarillion , began when
6237-445: The middle-earth sent unto men. This is from the Crist 1 poem by Cynewulf . The name Éarendel was the inspiration for Tolkien's mariner Eärendil , who set sail from the lands of Middle-earth to ask for aid from the angelic powers, the Valar . Tolkien's earliest poem about Eärendil, from 1914, the same year he read the Crist poem, refers to "the mid-world's rim". Tolkien considered middangeard to be "the abiding place of men",
6336-424: The north and Valandil in the south. Valandil was thus a precursor to the later Isildur, although in this work he was not Elendil's son but his brother. Soon afterwards Tolkien started a time-travel story , The Lost Road , in which a father and a son were to reappear time and again in human families throughout history. Only two chapters were written, one set in or near the present day, with the father named Oswin and
6435-417: The opening of Peter Jackson 's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy , in several video games based on Middle-earth , and as a secondary character in the TV series The Rings of Power . Gil-galad was an Elf of a royal house of Beleriand ; beyond that, accounts of his birth vary. According to The Silmarillion , he was born into the house of Finwë as a son of Fingon sometime in the First Age , and as
6534-443: The orcs regrouped and surrounded Isildur's party to prevent his escape. When nightfall came the orcs assaulted him from all sides. The Dúnedain were surrounded and outnumbered. Ciryon was killed and Aratan was mortally wounded in a failed attempt to rescue Elendur, who urged his father to flee. Isildur put on the Ring, hoping to escape under the cover of invisibility. Fleeing to the Anduin, he cast off his armour and tried to swim to
6633-500: The other side of the river, but the Ring slipped (of its own volition) from his finger. Isildur felt that the Ring was missing and was momentarily dismayed, but with the burden of the Ring removed he rallied and made for the opposite bank. Despite the darkness, the royal Elendilmir gem that he was wearing betrayed his position to orcs on the far bank, who were seeking survivors from the attack, and they killed him with their poisoned arrows. Isildur's squire , Ohtar, saved Elendil's sword from
6732-404: The overthrow of Saruman and the opening of Orthanc (in The Two Towers ) Gimli found a hidden closet containing the original Elendilmir, which was presumed lost when Isildur died. In the short work The Fall of Númenor , written before 1937, Tolkien wrote of two brothers named Elendil and Valandil , who escaped the destruction of Númenor and founded two kingdoms in Middle-earth, Elendil in
6831-410: The past." As such, it has not only an immediate story but a history, and the whole thing is an "imagined prehistory" of the Earth as it is now. The Ainur were angelic beings created by the one god of Eä, Eru Ilúvatar . The cosmological myth called the Ainulindalë , or "Music of the Ainur", describes how the Ainur sang for Ilúvatar, who then created Eä to give material form to their music. Many of
6930-490: The physical reality of creation as a whole. In careful geographical terms, Middle-earth is a continent on Arda, excluding regions such as Aman and the isle of Númenor. The alternative wider use is reflected in book titles such as The Complete Guide to Middle-earth , The Road to Middle-earth , The Atlas of Middle-earth , and Christopher Tolkien 's 12-volume series The History of Middle-earth . Tolkien's biographer Humphrey Carpenter states that Tolkien's Middle-earth
7029-428: The physical world in which Man lives out his life and destiny, as opposed to the unseen worlds above and below it, namely Heaven and Hell . He states that it is "my own mother-earth for place ", but in an imaginary past time, not some other planet. He began to use the term "Middle-earth" in the late 1930s, in place of the earlier terms "Great Lands", "Outer Lands", and "Hither Lands". The first published appearance of
7128-490: The power to control or influence those wearing the other Rings of Power. In ancient Germanic mythology , the world of Men is known by several names. The Old English middangeard descends from an earlier Germanic word and so has cognates such as the Old Norse Miðgarðr from Norse mythology , transliterated to modern English as Midgard . The original meaning of the second element, from proto-Germanic gardaz ,
7227-622: The rest of the physical world), which itself was part of the wider creation he called Eä. Aman and Middle-earth are separated from each other by the Great Sea Belegaer , though they make contact in the far north at the Grinding Ice or Helcaraxë. The western continent, Aman, was the home of the Valar , and the Elves called the Eldar . On the eastern side of Middle-earth was the Eastern Sea. Most of
7326-550: The road / And flung his cobweb cloak on me..." C. S. Lewis 's 1938–1945 Space Trilogy calls the home planet "Middle-earth" and specifically references Tolkien's unpublished legendarium; both men were members of the Inklings literary discussion group. Within the overall context of his legendarium , Tolkien's Middle-earth was part of his created world of Arda (which includes the Undying Lands of Aman and Eressëa , removed from
7425-465: The route along the Anduin rather than the safer but longer road North. Sauron, however, had deployed an army of orcs east of the Misty Mountains to attack stragglers of the Last Alliance. The orcs did not show themselves when the armies of the Elves and Men passed by, but they were more than a match for Isildur's small company. Isildur was assailed at sunset. Though the first orc sortie was beaten off,
7524-577: The same Common Eldarin ancestral tongue, but over thousands of years it diverged into different languages. The two main Elven languages were Quenya , spoken by the Light Elves, and Sindarin , spoken by the Dark Elves. Physically the Elves resemble humans; indeed, they can marry and have children with them, as shown by the few Half-elven in the legendarium. The Elves are agile and quick footed, being able to walk
7623-410: The same latitude as Oxford . Tolkien's Middle-earth is peopled not only by Men , but by Elves , Dwarves , Ents , and Hobbits , and by monsters including Dragons, Trolls , and Orcs . Through the imagined history, the peoples other than Men dwindle, leave or fade, until, after the period described in the books, only Men are left on the planet. Tolkien's stories chronicle the struggle to control
7722-790: The scroll was discovered by Gandalf nearly an Age later. After the fall of Sauron, the greater part of the army of Arnor returned home while Isildur stayed in Gondor for a year, restoring order and defining its boundaries. He planted the seedling of the White Tree in Minas Anor in memory of Anárion. As his brother's helmet had been crushed during his death at Barad-dûr, Isildur left his own helmet as Gondor's crown. He installed Anárion's son Meneldil as King of Gondor, and returned north en route to Arnor with his three sons. He made first for Rivendell , where his wife and his fourth son, Valandil, had stayed throughout
7821-512: The seas'." There are allusions to a similarly- or identically-named world in the work of other writers both before and after him. William Morris 's 1870 translation of the Volsung Saga calls the world "Midgard". Margaret Widdemer 's 1918 poem "The Gray Magician" contains the lines: "I was living very merrily on Middle Earth / As merry as a maid may be / Till the Gray Magician came down along
7920-461: The shadows are. Sam's companions are impressed, and ask for more; Sam admits that is all that he learnt from Bilbo. Aragorn says the fragment is a translation from "an ancient tongue" and suggests that the hobbits may hear the rest in Rivendell . The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey comments that the longer poem does not exist, and that Sam's fragment seems to have been composed while Tolkien was writing
8019-461: The shipwright, who stated that this was only to keep it secret; Cirdan never used it. Gil-galad chose to give Vilya, and control of Eriador , to Elrond. War broke out between the Elves and Sauron; Gil-galad asked the Númenóreans for help, and their king Tar-Minastir brought a great force, enabling Gil-galad to defeat Sauron's army. After the Downfall of Númenor there was peace in Middle-earth. At
8118-561: The slopes of Mount Doom , losing the One Ring but killing them both. A record left by Isildur in Minas Tirith implies that Sauron himself killed Gil-galad with the heat of his bare hands. Recalling the encounter at the Council of Elrond at Rivendell before the Fellowship took the One Ring south, Elrond said that only he and Círdan stood by Gil-galad in that fight. In The Fellowship of
8217-508: The son Alboin, and one set in Númenor just before its fall, with the father named Elendil and the son Herendil. Here Valandil is the name of Elendil's father. It seems that Herendil (later Isildur) and his father were going to escape the destruction of Númenor as in The Fall of Númenor , but the story did not progress that far before it was abandoned. In one of the earliest manuscripts of The Lord of
8316-404: The son of Orodreth. In the second version of The Fall of Númenor , he is called a descendant of Fëanor , who made the Silmarils . Then Tolkien treated him as a son of Finrod Felagund . Christopher Tolkien , editing the published version of The Silmarillion , made Gil-galad the son of Fingon, a decision he later regretted, saying he should have left the parentage obscure. Renee Vink, of
8415-509: The story takes place in the North-west of 'Middle-earth', equivalent in latitude to the coastlands of Europe and the north shores of the Mediterranean. ... If Hobbiton and Rivendell are taken (as intended) to be at about the latitude of Oxford , then Minas Tirith , 600 miles south, is at about the latitude of Florence . The Mouths of Anduin and the ancient city of Pelargir are at about
8514-487: The subject of a variety of film adaptations. There were many early failed attempts to bring the fictional universe to life on screen, some even rejected by the author himself, who was skeptical of the prospects of an adaptation. While animated and live-action shorts were made of Tolkien's books in 1967 and 1971, the first commercial depiction of The Hobbit onscreen was the Rankin/Bass animated TV special in 1977 . In 1978
8613-440: The time of The Hobbit , most of them lived in the Shire , a region of the northwest of Middle-earth, having migrated there from further east. The Ents were treelike shepherds of trees, their name coming from an Old English word for giant. Orcs and Trolls (made of stone) were evil creatures bred by Morgoth . They were not original creations but rather "mockeries" of the Children of Ilúvatar and Ents, since only Ilúvatar has
8712-492: The voice-over to say of Isildur that he had "this one chance to destroy evil for ever", commenting that when Tolkien says "for ever", he at once indicates that that optimistic hope is wrong: Elrond says he recalls "when Thangorodrim was broken, and the Elves deemed that evil was ended for ever, and it was not so." Shippey writes that there is a glimpse here of a sharp difference between Jackson's and Tolkien's concept of evil , and their respective media: Tolkien believed that even
8811-478: The word "Middle-earth" in Tolkien's works is in the prologue to The Lord of the Rings : "Hobbits had, in fact, lived quietly in Middle-earth for many long years before other folk even became aware of them". The term Middle-earth has come to be applied as a short-hand for the entirety of Tolkien's legendarium, instead of the technically more appropriate, but lesser known terms "Arda" for the physical world and " Eä " for
8910-460: The world (called Arda ) and the continent of Middle-earth between, on one side, the angelic Valar , the Elves and their allies among Men ; and, on the other, the demonic Melkor or Morgoth (a Vala fallen into evil), his followers, and their subjects, mostly Orcs , Dragons and enslaved Men. In later ages, after Morgoth's defeat and expulsion from Arda, his place is taken by his lieutenant Sauron ,
9009-574: Was "enclosure", cognate with English "yard"; middangeard was assimilated by folk etymology to "middle earth". Middle-earth was at the centre of nine worlds in Norse mythology, and of three worlds (with heaven above, hell below) in some later Christian versions . Tolkien's first encounter with the term middangeard , as he stated in a letter, was in an Old English fragment he studied in 1913–1914: Éala éarendel engla beorhtast / ofer middangeard monnum sended. Hail Earendel, brightest of angels / above
9108-644: Was Glaurung the Golden, bred by Morgoth in Angband , and called "The Great Worm", "The Worm of Morgoth", and "The Father of Dragons". Middle-earth contains sapient animals including the Eagles , Huan the Great Hound from Valinor and the wolf-like Wargs . In general the origins and nature of these animals are unclear. Giant spiders such as Shelob descended from Ungoliant , of unknown origin. Other sapient species include
9207-410: Was already becoming addicted to the Ring . In Ralph Bakshi 's animated 1978 film version of The Lord of the Rings , Isildur is called Prince Isildur of the mighty Kings from across the Sea and appears as the events of the Last Alliance are portrayed in silhouette. In Peter Jackson 's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy , Isildur is played by Harry Sinclair . Shippey writes that Jackson uses
9306-506: Was created specifically as "the Habitation" ( Imbar or Ambar ) for the Children of Ilúvatar ( Elves and Men ). It is envisaged in a flat Earth cosmology, with the stars, and later also the sun and moon, revolving around it. Tolkien's sketches show a disc-like face for the world which looked up to the stars. However, Tolkien's legendarium addresses the spherical Earth paradigm by depicting
9405-487: Was killed by orcs , and the Ring was lost in the River Anduin . This set the stage for the Ring to pass to Gollum and then to Bilbo , as told in The Hobbit ; that in turn provided the central theme, the quest to destroy the Ring, for The Lord of the Rings . Tolkien began a time-travel story , The Lost Road , in which a father and a son were to reappear time and again in human families throughout history. One of
9504-470: Was known as Middle-earth MUD , run by using LPMUD . After the Middle-earth MUD ended in 1992, it was followed by Elendor and MUME . Gil-galad Gil-galad is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien 's Middle-earth legendarium , the last high king of the Noldor , one of the main divisions of Elves . He is mentioned in The Lord of the Rings , where the hobbit Sam Gamgee recites
9603-568: Was long and bitter, and Anárion was killed by a stone from the Dark Tower. Besieged in the Dark Tower for seven years, the enemy was all but defeated, and Sauron himself appeared to challenge the king. During the final battle on the slopes of Mount Doom , Elendil and Gil-galad were both killed in combat with the Dark Lord, but Sauron's mortal form was destroyed. The Second Age ended, and Isildur became High King of both Arnor and Gondor. Isildur took up
9702-472: Was weakened both by time and by intermingling with lesser peoples. The Dwarves are a race of humanoids who are shorter than Men but larger than Hobbits. The Dwarves were created by the Vala Aulë, before the Firstborn awoke due to his impatience for the arrival of the children of Ilúvatar to teach and to cherish. When confronted and shamed for his presumption by Ilúvatar, Eru took pity on Aulë and gave his creation
9801-478: Was writing: As for the shape of the world of the Third Age , I am afraid that was devised 'dramatically' rather than geologically , or paleontologically . I am historically minded. Middle-earth is not an imaginary world. ... The theatre of my tale is this earth, the one in which we now live, but the historical period is imaginary. The essentials of that abiding place are all there (at any rate for inhabitants of N.W. Europe), so naturally it feels familiar, even if
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