Maglor was the second son of Fëanor, and the greatest singer of the Noldor of the First Age. He swore the Oath of Fëanor with his brothers, and followed his father and his eldest brother Maedhros through the long years of the exile and the wars in Beleriand.1
He and his brothers fell on the Havens of Sirion, for the sake of the Silmaril that Elwing wore. When the fighting was over, Maglor took pity on Elwing's two sons, Elrond and Elros, who had been left behind, and cared for them, and came to love them as his own.2
At the end of the War of Wrath, when the Silmarils were won back from Morgoth's crown, Maglor and Maedhros stole two of them from the host of the Valar. The jewels, which they were unworthy to hold, burned their hands, and Maedhros took his own life. Maglor, in anguish, threw his Silmaril into the sea.2
After that he wandered along the shores of the world, singing of grief and loss to the waves and the winds. It is said that he never returned to any home, and the histories end without telling where he was at last.2
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. 9, “Of the Flight of the Noldor”
- Edited posthumously The Silmarillion, Quenta Silmarillion, ch. 24, “Of the Voyage of Eärendil and the War of Wrath”