Hounds of Valinor

Oromë's hunt

Oromë is the huntsman of the Valar, and in the Years of the Trees he rode out from Valinor with his hounds and his horse Nahar to hunt the monsters of Melkor in the starlit forests of Middle-earth. His hounds are mentioned in the Silmarillion only in passing, as the pack whose baying went with his horn, and they would have no place in the histories but for one of them.

Huan

Huan was a hound of Valinor of Oromë's own breeding, whom Oromë gave to Celegorm son of Fëanor in the days before the Darkening, when Celegorm hunted with the Vala and learned the speech of beasts. Huan followed his master into exile and through the wars of Beleriand, and no ordinary hound could have done so. He was as large as a small horse, tireless and sleepless, and no weapon or spell could harm him. He understood all speech. And he was under a doom pronounced in Valinor: he would not die until he met the greatest wolf that would ever walk the world, and he was permitted to speak with words three times before his end.

All three of those speeches were given to the tale of Beren and Lúthien. Huan found Lúthien in the woods near Nargothrond and brought her to Celegorm, and when he saw that Celegorm and Curufin meant to hold her and force a marriage, he spoke to her for the first time, counselled her, and carried her away by night to Tol-in-Gaurhoth. There he killed every wolf Sauron sent against him, killed Draugluin, threw down Sauron himself in wolf-form and held him by the throat until he surrendered the tower, so that Lúthien could free Beren. He turned on his own master when Celegorm and Curufin attacked the lovers, and left Celegorm for good. He spoke a second time to advise Beren and Lúthien to go to Angband disguised in the skins of Draugluin and Thuringwethil. And in the Hunting of the Wolf, when Morgoth's Carcharoth came raging into Doriath with the Silmaril in his belly, Huan met the greatest wolf at last, killed him, and, dying of his own wounds, spoke for the third time to bid Beren farewell.

Nature

The texts do not explain what Huan was. He was a hound, born in Valinor, of Oromë's kennels. That he could speak, that he understood the doom laid on him, that he could out-think the son of Fëanor and out-fight a Maia, and that Sauron's phantoms and enchantments could not touch him, all suggest a nature more than animal, and many readers take him for a spirit in hound's shape. The Silmarillion says only that he came from the Blessed Realm, and the Atlas leaves the question where the text leaves it.

The Hounds of Valinor as a kind are known only through Huan. No other came to Middle-earth in the published texts, and the hunting-pack of Oromë remained in Aman.

Fate

Huan died in Doriath in about F.A. 466 and was buried beside the tale's end. The hounds of Oromë remain in Valinor, beyond the reach of the histories.

Huan was grey, as large as a small horse, unsleeping, and immune to any weapon or spell of Sauron's. His bay and his bite were the terror of Sauron's wolves. Nothing is recorded of the appearance of Oromë's other hounds.

None; the hounds are the pack of a Vala, and Huan was a companion and counsellor rather than a servant.

Bred in Valinor by Oromë; Huan was his gift to Celegorm before the Noldor left Aman.

Huan died slaying Carcharoth. The other hounds remained with Oromë in Aman.