Idril was the daughter of Turgon, King of Gondolin, and was called Celebrindal, the Silver-foot. Tuor, who came to Gondolin by the guidance of Ulmo, wed her, and they had a son, Eärendil.1
Maeglin, Turgon's sister-son, desired her, and she did not love him; she distrusted him, and her doubts were not misplaced. She had a premonition of the doom of Gondolin and, without telling her father, had a secret way dug out of the city and into the plain, unknown to all but a few. It was by this that she was able to bring many of the people out of the city when the Orcs came.1
When Gondolin fell, Idril and Tuor, with their son Eärendil, led the survivors through the secret way, up the high pass of Cirith Thoronath, where a Balrog and its company fell upon them. They escaped, wandered down Sirion, and settled at last in the Havens of the Sirion, with Círdan's people.1
Eärendil, their son, grew up to wed Elwing, and to carry the Silmaril to the west. Idril and Tuor, in the years after, built a ship and sailed west themselves, and Tuor was numbered among the Noldor.1
Sources
Citations name the chapter rather than the page, so they work in any edition. The colour of each note shows what kind of source it is.
- Edited posthumously The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales and Tolkien's late writings on the Elder Days, assembled by Christopher Tolkien from his father's papers.
- Edited posthumously The Silmarillion, Quenta Silmarillion, ch. 23, “Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin”