Formenos
the northern fortress of Fëanor; where the Silmarils were kept
Name and Position
Formenos (the “Northern Fortress”) was the stronghold to which Fëanor and his sons withdrew when, after his feud with the Valar (and the threats against Fingolfin), he was banished from Tirion for a time: — where the king Finwë (out of love) went to dwell with his eldest son, and where the Silmarils were kept in their treasury. The Quenta.
The Night of the Theft
- The keeping of the jewels: In Formenos the light of the Silmarils burned “darkly” — guarded by the kin and the king.
- The slaying and the theft: When Melkor (released) came upon the fortress, Finwë was slain at the door of the treasury, the Silmarils were taken, and the news of the murder carried — with the loss of the light — directly to the kindling of Fëanor’s revenge and the Oath and the Exile.
Significance
Formenos is the locked room of the mythology’s first act — the fortress where the light was kept and lost, where the king died, and whose fall set the rebels on their terrible road; its name (and its “iron door”) is the hinge of the First Age’s beginning.
Related
Werke: die Quellen sind seitenübergreifend die Bücher von J.R.R. und Christopher Tolkien (Silmarillion, Hobbit, Herr der Ringe, Unfinished Tales, History of Middle-earth, Nature of Middle-earth u. a.) — eigene Zusammenfassung. Siehe die Concordance und den README der Quelle für die Einzelbelege.
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