Ecthelion
of the Fountain; the lord who slew Gothmog
Name and Nature
Ecthelion — “of the Fountain” — one of the greatest lords of Gondolin, the warden of the great Fountain in the Court of the — the Quenta: “Ecthelion… lord of the fountain”; flourished in the long peace as the foremost of the city’s guard-captains, beloved of Turgon, and the friend of Glorfindel and of the arriving Tuor. His weapon-lore (the “spike of his helm”) made him the terror of the balrogs.
The Fall and the Duel In the terrible sack of Gondolin
— when the enemy’s hosts poured into the city with the dragons and the Balrogs led by Gothmog — Ecthelion, fighting in the square by the great fountain, met the lord of the demons:
- In the hottest of the fight, Ecthelion and Gothmog met and grappled; the elf-lord, Ecthelion overthrew the Balrog and, falling with him, pierced him with the spike of his helm — both perished in the contest, the greatest of Angband’s captains slain by the last of Gondolin’s lords, at the cost of the slayer’s life. It is one of the single most famous hero-combats of the age (in one account his death is by drowning in the fountain’s water with the balrog).
Significance
Ecthelion’s death-duel is the emblem of Gondolin’s final defiance: the beautiful city’s last champion bought the fall of the Enemy’s chief demon with his own life — the pattern of heroic self-sacrifice that, with Glorfindel’s fall at the pass, marked the ending of the city as noble even in ruin.