Erendis
the Mariner's Wife; queen of Tar-Aldarion
Names and Titles
Erendis, called the Mariner’s Wife, was a lady of Númenor, the wife of Tar-Aldarion “the Mariner”, sixth King of Númenor, and the mother of Tar-Ancalimë, the first Ruling Queen. Her tale is told in Aldarion and Erendis: The Mariner’s Wife.
Life
Erendis loved the land and the green country, not the sea, and her marriage to the ship-king of Númenor was a marrying of two natures. In the years of her husband’s long voyages she withdrew from the coasts and dwelt in the inland part of the isle among her own ways, and there the estrangement between them grew. She had but one child, Tar-Ancalimë, whom she kept by her and brought up in her own manner, far from the counsels of her father.
The Estrangement
The tale of Aldarion and Erendis is the account of that estrangement: the king who came ever from the sea, and the wife who would not accept the sea’s dominion over her house. After their parting Erendis lived on long in Númenor, in the time when the Sceptre passed to her daughter.
Significance
Erendis is the one great Númenórean woman beside the Ruling Queens, and the marriage-legend of Númenor; her story stands in the Akallabêth for the beginning of that turning of the Númenórean heart toward the Sea that was to end in the Downfall.