Fingolfin
High King of the Noldor; the challenger of Morgoth
Name and Lineage
Fingolfin — the eldest son of Finwë and Indis, the half-brother of Fëanor, the father of Fingon, Turgon, Aredhel and Argon, husband of Anairë. He is the greatest of the kings of the House of Fingolfin and, after Finwë’s death, the second High King of the Noldor — the Quenta calls him “the strongest, the most steadfast… the firmest and the bravest of the sons of Finwë”.
The Realm and the Crossing
In Aman he loved peace and the Valar, and would gladly have stayed; but when the Noldor were driven by Fëanor’s Oath, he took the leadership of the greatest host and led it through the terrible Helcaraxë (the Grinding Ice) when Fëanor burned the ships — enduring cold, terror and the deaths of his people rather than turn back — and at his entry into Beleriand the first rays of the rising Sun lit the spear of his host on the shore: the famous image of the high king of the Noldor coming out of the Dark. In Beleriand he was king of the realms of the West-North — the marches of Hithlum and Dor-lómin — and sat at the councils that built the Leaguer, “the Long Peace”, for near four centuries — his alliance with his brother’s sons (the reconciliation with Maedhros) held the union against Angband.
The Fall: the Challenge to Morgoth
The Quenta’s greatest single portrait of heroism comes after the Dagor Bragollach, when the siege broke, the realms were devoured by fire, and the king’s son — “Fingolfin beheld the ruin… and the humiliation of the Noldor” — in wrath and despair he is told: “he mounted his horse… and rode alone to Angband, the mightiest deed of the Age”:
- At the gate he struck the iron doors with his sword and challenged the Dark Lord — wounding Morgoth seven times in the duel that followed, until strength failed and he fell beneath the crushing of Morgoth’s war-foot — he was slain; and his body was borne away by Thorondor, King of Eagles — who “with the shafts of his wings” — his leman — buried him amid the mountains in a tomb of stone, the fairest of the Noldor to the very last. The legend closes with the two curses of the dead king: the crippling of Morgoth forever (his maimed foot — “Morgoth went ever halt”), and the prophecy that the Elder King — that Morgoth shall be slain by Túrin at the last battle (per the prophecy of the Dagor Dagorath), and the eagles of the king’s tomb shall sing.
Significance
Fingolfin is the archetype of the doomed hero — the tragic king whose pride (the Noldor’s common flaw) is redeemed by absolute defiance; “his was the most valiant deed… in the whole history of the Elder Days”. His death is the hinge of the age’s second half: with his fall, the “Long Peace” is over and the defence of Beleriand passes to lesser and darker days.