Aredhel

Lineage and youth

Aredhel was the daughter of Fingolfin and Anairë, the sister of Fingon and Turgon, and the granddaughter of Finwë. She was tall and strong, with dark hair and a pale skin, and she wore only silver and white, from which she took her name Ar-Feiniel, the White Lady. In Tirion she loved to ride and hunt, and she preferred the company of her cousins Celegorm and Curufin, the hunters among the sons of Fëanor, to that of her own brothers; she was the one member of Fingolfin's house who was close to the Fëanorians. She crossed the Helcaraxë with her father and lived first in Nevrast with Turgon and then in Gondolin, where she was treated with honour as the king's sister.

Leaving Gondolin

After two hundred years in the hidden city Aredhel grew weary of its walls and asked Turgon for leave to go out and ride again in the wide lands. Turgon refused at first, and then reluctantly allowed her to go to Fingon in Hithlum with an escort, forbidding any other destination. Aredhel did not intend to obey. Once outside she turned her escort south toward the lands of Celegorm and Curufin, and the party tried to pass through Doriath, where the marchwardens refused them entry because Thingol allowed no Noldor of Fingolfin's house through the Girdle. They went round by the horrors of Nan Dungortheb, where they were separated. The escort, believing her dead, returned to Gondolin; Aredhel rode on alone and came to Himlad, found her cousins absent, and wandered on until she came to the eaves of Nan Elmoth.

Eöl

Nan Elmoth was the wood where Melian had once ensnared Thingol, and it was now the home of Eöl, the Dark Elf, a Sinda who hated the Noldor and lived alone with his craft under the trees. He saw Aredhel and used the enchantment of the wood to draw her deeper until she could not find the way out, and when she came to his door he took her as his wife. The Silmarillion says she was not wholly unwilling, and that for a time she was content in the twilight of the wood, but Eöl forbade her the sunlight and any contact with her kin. In F.A. 320 she bore a son, whom she called Lómion, the child of twilight, and whom Eöl named Maeglin. She taught the boy the history and lore of the Noldor in secret and told him of Gondolin.

Flight and death

Maeglin grew up wanting to see his mother's people, and Eöl forbade it. In F.A. 400, while Eöl was away at a feast of the Dwarves in the east, mother and son took Eöl's horses and fled west across the Aros. Eöl returned, pursued them, was stopped and mocked by Curufin at the border of Himlad, and followed them to the hidden gate of Gondolin, where he was seized by the Guard. In Turgon's hall he claimed his wife and son, and when Turgon told him that all who entered the city must stay, he threw a poisoned javelin at Maeglin rather than let him remain among the Noldor. Aredhel stepped in front of her son and took it in the shoulder. The wound seemed small, but the poison worked in the night and she died, pleading with her brother for Eöl's life. Turgon did not grant it; Eöl was cast from the Caragdûr the next day. Aredhel was buried in Gondolin, and her death brought Maeglin, the seed of the city's ruin, into it.

Legacy

Aredhel is the freest spirit of Finwë's house and the most unlucky. Her escape from the city, her marriage in the dark wood, and her death defending her son set in motion the treason that destroyed Gondolin a century later. Her name is coupled with the White Lady's love of light and wide spaces, and her story is the Silmarillion's clearest picture of what the hidden city cost those who lived in it.

Killed in Gondolin by a poisoned javelin thrown by Eöl at Maeglin, F.A. 400.