Emeldir

Lineage and marriage

Emeldir was a woman of the House of Bëor in Dorthonion, of the same kindred as her husband Barahir, younger son of Bregor. Their only child was Beren, born in F.A. 432. Her name Man-hearted was earned, not given: she was said to have preferred fighting beside her husband and son to fleeing, and the Elves remembered her courage as something rarer among Men.

The flight from Dorthonion

When Morgoth broke the Siege of Angband in F.A. 455 and the highlands were overrun, Barahir chose to stay and fight while his house was scattered. It was Emeldir who saved what could be saved. She gathered the women and children who remained, armed those who could carry weapons, and led them out of Dorthonion by the mountain paths south and west. The journey took them through wild country full of Orcs and worse, but she brought them at last to the forest of Brethil, where the House of Haleth took some of them in, and onward to Dor-lómin, where the House of Hador received the rest.

Among the children she carried to safety were her husband's nieces Morwen, daughter of Baragund, and Rían, daughter of Belegund. Both grew up in Dor-lómin and married into the House of Hador, becoming the mothers of Túrin and Tuor. Without Emeldir's march, neither of those tales would have been possible.

Later life

Emeldir never saw her husband again. Barahir was slain beside Tarn Aeluin in F.A. 460, and Beren, having avenged him, went south into Doriath and beyond. Nothing is recorded of Emeldir's death, and it is not known whether she lived to hear of her son's return from Angband with a Silmaril. Her name survived among the Edain of Dor-lómin, and Morwen's own steadfastness in that land was in the same mould.

Her death is not recorded; she is last mentioned leading her people into Brethil and Dor-lómin.