Dior
Eluchíl; father of Elwing; the doomed heir of Doriath
Name and Lineage
Dior — called Eluchíl, “Heir of Elu” (Thingol), the son of Beren and Lúthien; the grandson of Thingol and Melian of Doriath. He is the first of the great Half-elven — “the fair as his grandfather” — the beauty of three houses was in him: — the Quenta: Dior.
The Inheritance of the Silmaril
After his parents’ quest the Fëanorians, “in the madness of the Oath”, slew or abandoned the children in the forest (a blackest deed); only Elwing, the youngest, was somehow saved and carried off, bearing the Silmaril — to the sea and to Eärendil.warves of Nogrod over the Nauglamír and the sack of Menegroth — it was Dior who avenged the king: he and his father — the account tells that “Dior came to Doriath, slew the Dwarves and drove their host from the halls” — retook the kingdom and re-established the realm with his queen, the fairest daughter of the Green-elves, Nimloth; their children: Elwing and the twins Eluréd and Elurín. Dior wore the Nauglamír with the Silmaril, “and the light of the Trees shone again upon the earth”.
The Second Kinslaying and his Fall
The Oath of the Sons of Fëanor, seeing the Silmaril alive again at Menegroth, drew them to war: the Fëanorians assaulted Doriath
— the Second Kinslaying — and at the gates and in the halls they fought. Dior was slain in the battle (in one account by Celegorm’s hand), and Nimloth fell with him. Their two young sons, Eluréd and Elurín, were left to the Fëanorians, who “in the madness of the Oath” slew or abandoned the children in the forest — the blackest deed of that house. Only Elwing, the youngest, was saved by faithful servants, and bearing the Silmaril she escaped to the sea and to Eärendil.
Significance
Dior is the brief, bright, doomed inheritor: the half-mortal king who held the Silmaril for a moment — “the fairest of the half-noir” — whose death (and the killing of his children) sets the Oath’s final account; through his daughter Elwing the Silmaril and the bloodline pass to Eärendil, Elrond and Elros, and so to all the later ages.