Ecthelion

The House of the Fountain

Ecthelion was a lord of the Noldor of Gondolin, one of the captains who went with Turgon out of Nevrast when the city was finished and the mountains closed behind them. His house took its emblem from the fountains of the city, and its livery was silver and diamond; his folk went to war with silver flutes among their trumpets, and Ecthelion himself was renowned for a voice finer than any other in Gondolin. With Glorfindel of the Golden Flower he was reckoned the foremost of Turgon's lords, and the two of them are named together whenever the strength of the Hidden City is measured.

Warden of the Great Gate

Turgon set Ecthelion over the Great Gate, the last and mightiest of the Seven Gates that barred the ravine of the Way of Escape, beyond which the road opened at once upon the vale of Tumladen. Nothing came into the hidden realm that he did not judge. When Tuor climbed the guarded way in F.A. 495 with Voronwë, it was Ecthelion who came out to the challenge, recognised the arms of Turgon that Tuor wore, and had the horns sounded that carried word of the stranger's coming to the king; the account in Unfinished Tales makes the meeting at the gate the hinge on which Ulmo's last message reached Gondolin at all.

The Nirnaeth

In F.A. 472 Turgon broke the secrecy of three and a half centuries and marched to the Nirnaeth Arnoediad with ten thousand, and the lords of the houses went with him. Ecthelion was among the captains of that host on the western wing beside Fingon, and among those who fought their way clear when the field was lost and Húrin and Huor held the Fen of Serech at their backs. The greater part of the hidden host came home, and Ecthelion with it.

Gothmog and the fall of the city

Morgoth found Gondolin at last through the treason of Maeglin, and at midsummer in F.A. 510 his army came over the Echoriath with Balrogs, dragons and a host of Orcs. The gates and walls were carried, and the fighting drew inward to the square before the king's tower. There Ecthelion made his stand. He was already wounded and his people were spent when Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs and the captain of Angband, forced the square. The two closed, and each destroyed the other: the greatest of Morgoth's servants in Beleriand fell to an Elf of Gondolin, and Ecthelion did not outlive him. His death bought the hours in which Idril and Tuor got the survivors out by the secret way, and it left Morgoth's armies without the commander who had broken the Noldor at the Nirnaeth.

Legacy

Of all the deeds of the last day of Gondolin, the killing of Gothmog was the one that lasted longest in memory; it is the only certain death of a Lord of Balrogs in the histories of Beleriand. Ecthelion's name was still honoured among Men of the West thousands of years later, borne by two Ruling Stewards of Gondor.

Killed Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs, in the sack of Gondolin in F.A. 510 and died of the same encounter.