Aerin

Kinswoman of Húrin

Aerin was the daughter of Indor, a man of the House of Hador in Dor-lómin, and a kinswoman of Húrin. After the Nirnaeth Arnoediad in F.A. 472, when Morgoth gave Hithlum to the Easterlings, the chieftain Brodda seized Húrin's lands and took Aerin as his wife against her will. As a woman of the old people she was scorned in his hall, and she lived among enemies for more than twenty years.

Secret help

The Easterlings feared Morwen and left her alone, but they also left her to starve. It was Aerin who, at real danger to herself, sent food and other help to Húrin's wife through the lean years, so that Morwen and the infant Nienor survived. Morwen was too proud to seek help openly, and Aerin gave it quietly; it is one of the few unmixed kindnesses in the story of Húrin's family.

The burning of Brodda's hall

In the winter of F.A. 495 Túrin, coming home after the fall of Nargothrond, entered Brodda's hall and was made to sit in the place of a beggar. Aerin, seated beside her husband, spoke with him, and it was she who told him that Morwen had left Dor-lómin for Doriath years before, and that his coming had been in vain. Túrin's grief broke into fury; he killed Brodda and the fight that followed left many Easterlings dead. Túrin urged Aerin to come away with him, but she refused, saying she was too old to walk the winter wilds and would rather die in her own land. When he had gone she set fire to the hall. The Easterlings afterward hunted the people of Hador in Dor-lómin the more cruelly for the deed, and Túrin counted her death among the harms his coming had brought.

Set fire to Brodda's hall in the winter of F.A. 495 after Túrin killed him, and is believed to have died in the flames.