Elendil

Lineage

Elendil was born in S.A. 3119 in Númenor, the son of Amandil, last Lord of Andúnië. His house descended from Silmariën, daughter of the fourth King, and so from Elros Tar-Minyatur, Eärendil and all three houses of the Edain, but it had never held the sceptre. The Lords of Andúnië were the chiefs of the Faithful, the minority who kept the friendship of the Elves and the reverence of the Valar while the kings turned away. Elendil was called the Tall: even among the Númenóreans, who stood far above other Men, he was a giant, reckoned close to two and a half metres in height, and his name in Quenya meant Elf-friend as well as Lover of the Stars. He had two sons, Isildur, born in 3209, and Anárion, born in 3219.

The Faithful in Rómenna

When Ar-Pharazôn usurped the sceptre in 3255 and brought Sauron to Númenor in 3262, Elendil's house became the centre of resistance. Amandil was dismissed from the King's council; the family withdrew to Rómenna, where the Faithful had been herded, and there Elendil kept a fleet ready. When his son Isildur stole a fruit of the White Tree before it was felled, it was in Elendil's house that the seedling was hidden. Elendil watched the Temple rise and the sacrifices begin, and he kept his people from open rebellion while the King's power lasted.

About 3316, when the Great Armament was building, Amandil resolved to sail West and plead with the Valar. Before he went he gave Elendil his instructions: to gather the Faithful in ships at Rómenna, to load the heirlooms of the house, above all the seven palantíri that the Eldar had given the Lords of Andúnië and the seedling of Nimloth, and to hold off the coast ready to flee east when the King sailed. Elendil obeyed. He was never able to learn what became of his father.

The Downfall

In 3319 Ar-Pharazôn sailed against Aman, and Eru changed the world. Númenor sank, and the great wave that rose from its drowning caught the ships of the Faithful lying off Rómenna and flung them east across the sea. Elendil, with four ships, was cast up on the coasts of Lindon; Isildur and Anárion, with five, were driven south to the mouths of the Anduin. Nine ships in all survived. With them came the palantíri, the seedling, the Sceptre of Andúnië and the sword Narsil, forged by Telchar of Nogrod in the First Age.

The realms in exile

Gil-galad, High King of the Noldor, received Elendil as a friend, and in the same year Elendil founded the North-kingdom of Arnor in Eriador, with its capital at Annúminas beside Lake Evendim. He built the tower of Amon Sûl on Weathertop, where the greatest of the northern palantíri was set, and kept another at Annúminas and a third in the tower of Elostirion in the Tower Hills, which looked only toward the West. His sons founded the South-kingdom of Gondor, with its cities of Minas Ithil and Minas Anor and its capital at Osgiliath, and Elendil was High King over both realms, though he ruled in the north and left Gondor to his sons. Many of the Men of Middle-earth in Eriador, descendants of those who had never gone to Númenor, accepted him. The seedling of Nimloth was planted at Minas Ithil.

Sauron too had survived the Downfall, though his fair form was lost forever, and he returned to Mordor, where he found the Dúnedain settled on his doorstep and hated them the more because they had escaped his ruin. He struck first, in 3429, taking Minas Ithil and burning the White Tree. Isildur escaped by ship to bring word to his father while Anárion held Osgiliath.

The Last Alliance

In 3430 Elendil and Gil-galad made the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, and the host they gathered was the greatest seen in Middle-earth since the War of Wrath. It mustered at Rivendell, where Elendil met and befriended Elrond, the herald of Gil-galad, then marched south and over the Misty Mountains in 3434. On the plain of Dagorlad before the Black Gate the Alliance defeated Sauron's army in a battle in which every living kind took part on one side or the other. The host entered Mordor and laid siege to Barad-dûr for seven years. Anárion was killed by a stone from the tower in 3440.

In 3441 Sauron came out himself. On the slopes of Mount Doom Gil-galad and Elendil fought him together and threw him down, and both of them were killed: Gil-galad burned by the heat of Sauron's hand, Elendil dying in the fall, so that his sword Narsil broke beneath him. Isildur took up the hilt-shard and cut the Ring from Sauron's hand, and Sauron's spirit fled. The Second Age ended.

Burial and legacy

Isildur did not bring his father's body to Annúminas. He laid it in a secret tomb on the summit of Amon Anwar, the Halifirien, the hill at the midpoint of the realm of Gondor, and he made the hill a hallow that only the King and his heir might enter. There the remains rested until Cirion, Steward of Gondor, removed them to Minas Tirith when he gave Calenardhon to Eorl, and the Oath of Eorl was sworn upon that hill in Elendil's name. His words on landing in Middle-earth, a vow to remain there with his heirs until the world ended, were repeated by Aragorn at his own crowning more than three thousand years later.

Everything that the Dúnedain of the Third Age counted as royal came from Elendil: the Sceptre of Annúminas, the Elendilmir or Star of Elendil that the northern kings wore instead of a crown, the palantíri, the shards of Narsil, the White Tree. His name was the war-cry of Gondor and of Aragorn; his line, which seemed to have ended in Arnor with Arvedui, survived in the Chieftains of the Dúnedain and returned to both thrones in Aragorn Elessar. He and Gil-galad were the last of the Elder Days' great captains, and their fall marked the end of the age in which Elves and Men fought side by side.

Slain in S.A. 3441 in the overthrow of Sauron on Mount Doom, his sword Narsil breaking beneath him; buried by Isildur in a hidden tomb on Amon Anwar.