Elrond

Birth at the Havens

Elrond and his twin brother Elros were born in F.A. 532 at the Havens of Sirion in Arvernien, the sons of Eärendil the Mariner and Elwing, daughter of Dior. In them every strain of the Children of Ilúvatar met: through Eärendil the Noldor of Turgon, the Vanyar of Indis and the House of Hador; through Elwing the Sindar of Thingol, the House of Bëor, and the Maia Melian. Their father was often away at sea, seeking a road to Valinor, and their mother kept the Silmaril that Beren and Lúthien had won.

The sons of Fëanor

In F.A. 538, when the twins were six, the surviving sons of Fëanor attacked the Havens to seize the Silmaril. Elwing cast herself into the sea with the jewel, and the boys were taken captive by Maedhros and Maglor. What followed was not what anyone at the Havens feared. Maglor, weary of the Oath and sick at heart, took pity on the children and cared for them, and a love grew between the brothers and their captor that neither side had expected. Elrond never spoke of that time in the surviving tales, but the Silmarillion says plainly that Maglor cherished the twins, and Elrond's own later fostering of orphaned heirs of Men suggests that he remembered it. When the host of the Valar came, the boys were released, and they lived through the War of Wrath and the drowning of Beleriand.

The Choice of the Peredhil

Because Eärendil and Elwing had passed into the West, the Valar had decreed that they and their sons should not share the fate of either kindred automatically but must choose. This is the Choice of the Peredhil, the Half-elven. Elros chose to be counted among Men and became the first King of Númenor, living five hundred years and then dying. Elrond chose the Firstborn: immortality within the world, and with it the Elven fate of fading and the long road to the Sea. The Valar extended the same choice to Elrond's children, on the condition that they decide when he himself left Middle-earth: they might go with him and remain of the Elves, or stay and become mortal. That condition, and not any cruelty, lies behind everything Elrond later did concerning Arwen.

Herald of Gil-galad

After the War of Wrath Elrond remained in Middle-earth and joined Gil-galad, the last High King of the Noldor, in Lindon. When the Elven-smiths of Eregion under Celebrimbor took Annatar into their confidence, Gil-galad mistrusted the stranger, and in S.A. 1695, as Sauron marched west against Eregion, the King sent Elrond with a force to their aid. He came too late to save the city: Eregion fell in 1697 and Celebrimbor died, and Elrond, joined by the remnant of the Elven-smiths, was driven north. In a deep valley on the western flank of the Misty Mountains, fed by the Bruinen, he made a stronghold and named it Imladris, which Men later called Rivendell. Sauron besieged him there in 1700 until the Númenórean fleet of Tar-Minastir landed and the enemy was crushed between two armies. At the council held afterwards it was decided that Imladris should be kept as a fortress of the Elves in the east of Eriador, and Gil-galad made Elrond his vice-regent there. Some years later, when the Three Rings were withdrawn from Eregion, Gil-galad gave Elrond Vilya, the Ring of Sapphire, mightiest of the Three; Elrond held it in secret to the end of the Age.

The Last Alliance

When Elendil and Gil-galad made their alliance against Sauron, Elrond marched with the King as his herald. He was at the Battle of Dagorlad in S.A. 3434 and through the seven years' siege of Barad-dûr, and on the slopes of Orodruin in S.A. 3441 he saw Gil-galad and Elendil fall and Isildur cut the Ring from Sauron's hand. He and Círdan alone stood beside Isildur in that hour; they urged him to carry the Ring into the fire of Mount Doom and unmake it, and he refused. Elrond carried the memory of that refusal for three thousand years, and his account of it at the Council was the plainest statement of what the Ring could do to a good man.

Master of Rivendell

In the Third Age Elrond made Rivendell what Bilbo later called the Last Homely House: a refuge, a hall of counsel, and the greatest store of lore and memory in the North. He married Celebrían, daughter of Galadriel and Celeborn, in T.A. 109; their sons Elladan and Elrohir were born in 130 and Arwen in 241. Rivendell was the ally of Arnor against Angmar; it sheltered the heirs of Isildur after the fall of the North-kingdom and kept the shards of Narsil, the ring of Barahir and the sceptre of Annúminas. Elrond sat in the White Council from its foundation in T.A. 2463, where he supported Gandalf against Saruman's counsels. In T.A. 2509 Celebrían was taken by Orcs in the Redhorn Pass and tormented; her sons rescued her and Elrond healed her body, but not her joy, and the next year she sailed West. He never remarried.

Foster-father of Estel

When Arathorn was slain in T.A. 2933, his widow Gilraen brought their two-year-old son to Rivendell, and Elrond took the child as his own, hid his lineage, and called him Estel, Hope. He gave Aragorn his true name and the heirlooms of his house when he came of age in 2951, and in the same year Aragorn first saw Arwen. Elrond, foreseeing, told him what such a love would cost: that Arwen would not marry beneath the King of both Gondor and Arnor, and that if she chose him she chose death. In 2980 the two plighted their troth on Cerin Amroth, and Elrond, grieved but not opposed, held to his condition.

The Council of Elrond

Elrond took in Bilbo after the Hobbit left the Shire in 3001, and in October 3018 he received Frodo, carried in half-dead from the Ford, and drew the Morgul-splinter from his shoulder. On the twenty-fifth of October he held the Council that heard the whole history of the Ring, from Isildur to Gollum, and rejected in turn every other course: to hide it, to send it over the Sea, to use it against its maker. His judgement was that it must go into the fire that made it, and when Frodo offered to take it, Elrond named him the right bearer and chose him companions of every free people. Before the Company left in December, he had Narsil reforged in his halls as Andúril. In his remaining months in Middle-earth he sent his sons south with the Rangers and, by them, counsel to Aragorn to remember the Paths of the Dead.

The Grey Havens

After the fall of Sauron Elrond rode to Minas Tirith with Arwen and the Lords of Rivendell and Lórien, and on Midsummer's day of 3019 he gave his daughter to the King, surrendered the sceptre of Annúminas, and took his leave of her. With the One Ring gone, Vilya's power to preserve was ending. On the twenty-ninth of September, T.A. 3021, Elrond rode to the Grey Havens with Galadriel, Gandalf, Bilbo and Frodo, and took ship with Círdan's people into the West, carrying Vilya over the Sea. His sons remained for a while in Rivendell with Celeborn; the choice they made is not recorded.

Legacy

Elrond's life spans the whole story from Gondolin to the Shire. He was the last living witness to the Silmarils, the Kinslayings, the Last Alliance and the failing of Isildur, and he was a healer, a loremaster and a judge rather than a warrior-king. Through Elros he was the ancestor of the Númenórean kings, and through Arwen his blood was joined again to theirs in Eldarion. Rivendell, which he founded and kept for nearly five thousand years, was the one house in the North where the memory of the Elder Days remained whole.

Sailed West from the Grey Havens on September 29, T.A. 3021, bearing Vilya, with Galadriel, Gandalf and the Ring-bearers.