Gil-galad
the last High King of the Noldor; the King of Lindon
Name and Lineage
Gil-galad — “Star of Radiance” — Ereinion in his father-name; the son (by the common genealogies) of Fingon (though one tradition makes him of Orodreth’s line — the “most vexed” question of the Quenta’s genealogy, sifted by Christopher Tolkien in The Peoples of Middle-earth). He was the “last High King of the Noldor, the wisest and valiant young king” — after the death of Turgon in the Fall of Gondolin, the kingship of the Noldor passed to him.
The Kingship from the First Age
In the last years of the First Age, as the remnant of the Noldor gathered in the west of Beleriand, Gil-galad was proclaimed High King — the heir of the house of Finwë through his line — and he led the elven-hosts that remained when the West’s war ended.
- In the Second Age: His realm was Lindon (the westernmost lands of Middle-earth under the Ered Luin), with his lordship at the Grey Havens under Círdan; and he is the lord over whom the Age’s events revolve: he kept the Noldor of the west, warred against the shadow, and received the Three Rings (in the later tradition, Vilya was given to him).
The Last Alliance and Death The
Akallabêth and Of the Rings of Power tell his end: as Sauron rose again and Númenor fell, Gil-galad and Elendil the High (of the Dúnedain) formed the Last Alliance of Elves and Men and marched against Mordor in the year 3430; in the long siege and the final fight upon the slopes of Orodruin before Barad-dûr, Gil-galad was slain (scorched to ash by the heat of Sauron’s hand — “Gil-galad… was burned by the heat of Sauron” — the poem of the Fall:), and Elendil fell with him, and the Ring was taken by Isildur.
Significance
Gil-galad is the last king of a three-age chain: the “good” High Kingship of the Noldor ends with him; his death and the fall of the Alliance close the Second Age and open the Third — making him, in the later memory, the “elven-king” whose fall the songs of the Hobbit and LotR lament. Within the scope of this vault he is the closure of the throne of Finwë.