Thorondor

The eyes of Manwë

Thorondor was the king of the Great Eagles, sent into Middle-earth by Manwë when the Noldor went into exile. The Lord of the Valar had condemned the rebellion of the Elves but did not abandon them, and the eagles were his agents in the north, watching Morgoth and bringing help to the Elves in their need. Thorondor was the greatest of all birds that have ever been; his outstretched wings measured thirty fathoms, and his beak was of gold. In the earliest days of the Sun his eyries were on the peaks of Thangorodrim itself, above the very fortress of the Enemy. When Morgoth's strength grew, the eagles removed south to the Crissaegrim, the sheer northern peaks of the Echoriath, where no Orc could climb and from which they could see the whole of the northern march.

The rescue of Maedhros

In F.A. 5 Fingon went alone into the north to find Maedhros, whom Morgoth had hung by the wrist from a cliff of Thangorodrim. Fingon found him but could not reach him, and Maedhros begged to be shot. Fingon prayed to Manwë instead, and Thorondor came down out of the sky and carried him up the face of the precipice. Fingon could not free the iron band and cut off Maedhros's hand at the wrist; Thorondor bore both of them back to Mithrim. This first intervention of the eagles healed the feud between the houses of Fëanor and Fingolfin for a generation.

Fingolfin and Morgoth

After the Dagor Bragollach, Fingolfin rode to the gate of Angband and challenged Morgoth to single combat. When the king fell, Morgoth set his foot on the body and would have thrown it to his wolves, but Thorondor stooped from the sky, raked Morgoth's face with his talons, and carried the body away before the Enemy could stop him. The scar he left on Morgoth's face never healed. He laid Fingolfin on a height in the Encircling Mountains north of Gondolin, and Turgon built a cairn there that no Orc ever dared to pass.

Guardian of Gondolin

From the Crissaegrim Thorondor watched the approaches to the Hidden City, and his eagles kept its secret by keeping spies and Orcs away from the surrounding hills. In F.A. 458 the eagles found two young Men of the House of Hador, Húrin and Huor, lost after a battle, and carried them to Turgon, who kept them for a year and then let them go on their oath of silence. Forty years later, when Morgoth released Húrin and he wandered to the feet of the Echoriath calling for Turgon, the eagles saw him and reported it; Turgon at first refused him, then relented too late, and the eagles could not find him again. So the Hidden City's own guard was the means by which Morgoth learned roughly where it lay.

Beren and Lúthien

When Beren lost his hand to Carcharoth at the gate of Angband and lay dying, Thorondor came with two of his vassals, Landroval and Gwaihir, and lifted him and Lúthien from the threshold. They flew high above the storm and the Enemy's lightning, over Anfauglith and the mountains, and set the two down on the borders of Doriath, where Lúthien healed Beren with the help of Huan.

The fall of Gondolin and the War of Wrath

When Gondolin fell in F.A. 510, the survivors led by Tuor and Idril escaped over the mountains by a high pass, and were ambushed there by Orcs and a Balrog. Glorfindel fought the Balrog on the cliff-edge and both fell into the abyss. Thorondor came down on the Orcs and drove them off the pass, and afterwards recovered Glorfindel's body from the depths so that he could be buried under a cairn of stones.

At the end of the age, when the host of the Valar assailed Angband and Morgoth loosed the winged dragons, Thorondor led all the eagles of the north to join Eärendil in his ship, and in that battle of the air Ancalagon the Black was thrown down on Thangorodrim. This is the last that is told of him. Whether he returned over Sea, or lived on in the mountains and became the forefather of the eagles of the Third Age, the tale does not say; but Gwaihir and Landroval of the Misty Mountains are described as being of his line.

Not told after the War of Wrath. The eagles of the Third Age were of his line.