Elves

Feanor

Also known as: Curufinwe, Spirit Of Fire

Also on this page: Caranthir Amrod And Amras

Fëanor -- Curufinwë, the Spirit of Fire -- was the eldest son of Finwë, first High King of the Noldor, and of Míriel Serindë, who spent her life-strength in his bearing and afterward died. Mightiest in skill of hand and mind of all the Children of Ilúvatar, he wrought the Tengwar letters, devised the palantíri, and in his greatest work captured the light of the Two Trees of Valinor in the three Silmarils -- jewels so hallowed and so fair that not even the Valar could remake them. But his spirit burned as hot in pride and possessiveness as in genius, and the lies of Melkor poured poison between him and his half-brothers.

When Melkor slew Finwë and stole the Silmarils, Fëanor named him Morgoth, the Black Foe of the World, and swore with his seven sons a dreadful and unbreakable Oath: to pursue with vengeance any -- Vala, Elf, or Man -- who should withhold a Silmaril from them. That Oath drew the Noldor into rebellion against the Valar and to the first Kinslaying at Alqualondë, where they shed the blood of their Telerin kin to seize their white ships. Fëanor led his people back to Middle-earth in defiance and burned the ships at Losgar; but in the first battle thereafter, pressing recklessly ahead of his host, he was surrounded by Balrogs and dealt his death-wound by Gothmog, and his fiery spirit consumed his body to ash as he died within sight of Thangorodrim. His Oath outlived him, and drove his sons to ruin and atrocity through all the long Wars of the Jewels.

Deep lore

A feud over one sound

In Valinor the speech of the Noldor was changing: the sound þ, as in English thin, was turning into s. Fëanor refused the change, because his mother's name was Þerindë and he would not hear it said any other way.¹

The house of Indis, his father's second wife, took up the new s, and how one said that one sound became a sign of which side one was on. The name the published Silmarillion gives his mother, Míriel Serindë, is the s form.^1,2

Fëanor's own letters, the Tengwar, did not come from nothing either. Appendix E says that he made them in Valinor and that they owed something to the older letters of Rúmil.³

Sources

Late papers The Peoples of Middle-earth (The History of Middle-earth, vol. 12), “The Shibboleth of Fëanor”
Edited posthumously The Silmarillion, ch. 6, “Of Fëanor and the Unchaining of Melkor”
Appendices The Lord of the Rings, Appendix E, II, “Writing”

Also on this page

Caranthir

Also known as: The Dark

The fourth son of Fëanor, harshest and most quick to anger. He ruled lands in East Beleriand near the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains. He was slain in the Second Kinslaying at Doriath.

Amrod And Amras

Also known as: Amrod, Amras

The twin youngest sons of Fëanor. In the published Silmarillion both are slain in the Third Kinslaying at the Havens of Sirion; in a later essay, "The Legend of the Fate of Amrod", Amrod dies instead in the burning of the ships at Losgar.

Also part of: House of Fëanor

Related entries: Maedhros Maglor Celegorm Curufin Celebrimbor Nerdanel

Related tongues: Sindarin Quenya

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