Elwing

Childhood in Doriath

Elwing was born in F.A. 503, the youngest child and only daughter of Dior Eluchíl and Nimloth of the Sindar. She was born on a night of stars beside the falls of Lanthir Lamath in Ossiriand, where her parents then lived, and her name, star-spray, remembers the place. Through Dior she was the granddaughter of Beren and Lúthien and so carried the blood of Men, of the Sindar and of the Maia Melian. She was still an infant when Dior went to Doriath to rule it after Thingol's death, and she spent her earliest years in Menegroth. When she was three the Silmaril came to Dior, and in the winter that followed the sons of Fëanor attacked.

The flight to Sirion

In the Second Kinslaying Dior and Nimloth were killed and Elwing's brothers Eluréd and Elurín were left to die in the forest. Faithful servants of the house carried the little girl away with the Nauglamír and the Silmaril set in it, down the Sirion to the sea, and at the Mouths of Sirion the survivors of Doriath gathered with the Falathrim of Círdan. Elwing grew up there as the lady of the Doriathrin remnant, and the survivors of Gondolin joined the settlement in F.A. 511. Among them was Eärendil, son of Tuor and Idril, and in time the two heirs of the fallen kingdoms married. Their sons, the twins Elrond and Elros, were born in F.A. 532. The Silmaril she wore was believed by the people of the Havens to be the reason for the health and prosperity of their ships and their shore.

The Silmaril and the sons of Fëanor

When Maedhros learned that the jewel was at Sirion he was at first reluctant to act, sick of what the Oath had already made him do; but the Oath did not release him, and the brothers sent to Elwing demanding the Silmaril. She refused. Her husband was at sea; the jewel had been won by her grandparents from Morgoth's own crown and had cost her father and mother their lives, and she would not give it up. In F.A. 538 the sons of Fëanor fell on the Havens. Some of their own followers refused to fight and were killed by their fellows, and Amrod and Amras both died, but the Havens were destroyed. Elwing, seeing all lost, threw herself from the shore into the sea with the Silmaril on her breast, and Maedhros and Maglor took her sons.

The white bird

Ulmo did not let her drown. He lifted her out of the water and gave her the shape of a great white bird, with the Silmaril shining on her breast like a star, and she flew out over the sea in search of Eärendil's ship. She found Vingilot far from land on a night when Eärendil, restless, kept the watch himself, and she fell out of the sky onto the deck. When he took her up she was Elwing again, and she told him what had happened. Ulmo's rescue is one of the few direct interventions of a Vala in the last years of Beleriand, and the tale is explicit that it was for the sake of what Eärendil's errand would mean to the Two Kindreds.

Valinor and the Choice

Elwing would not stay behind when the ship, driven now by the Silmaril's light, passed the Shadowy Seas and came to Aman. She insisted on sharing whatever doom awaited her husband, and while Eärendil went alone up the Calacirya to plead with the Valar, she waited on the shore of Eldamar, where the Falmari of Alqualondë welcomed her as kin of Olwë and Elwë. When Manwë's judgement came, allowing the Half-elven to choose their kindred, Elwing chose the Firstborn for the sake of Lúthien and the Elves among whom she had lived, and Eärendil, though his heart was with Men, chose the same so as not to be parted from her. The choice shaped the fates of their sons: Elros chose Men and became the first King of Númenor; Elrond chose the Elves.

The tower on the shore

When Vingilot was raised into the sky with the Silmaril, Elwing did not go. The cold and the emptiness of the Void beyond the world were more than she could bear, and she loved the earth and the sea-wind. A white tower was built for her on the northern edge of the Sundering Seas, and there the sea-birds of the world came to her; she learned their speech and, from them, the art of flight, and she was given wings white and silver-grey. When Eärendil's ship returned toward Arda from its voyages she rose to meet him, so that the two who had never been sundered in life were not sundered by the stars.

Legacy

Elwing's refusal of the Silmaril completed the ruin of the sons of Fëanor and, by driving the jewel into the West, made the Valar's intervention possible; her leap into the sea and Ulmo's mercy are the hinge between the Kinslayings and the War of Wrath. She is the ancestress of every Half-elven and, through Elros, of the Kings of Númenor, Arnor and Gondor.

Chose the Elven kindred; dwells in a white tower on the shores of Aman, where she flies to meet Eärendil on his returns.