Gondolin
the Hidden City; the Yeomen of Tumladen; the last fortress of the Noldor
Name and Position
Gondolin — in Quenya Ondolindë, “the Rock of the Music of Water” — is the Hidden City of King Turgon, “the last of the foul… the fairest of the hidden realms”: the city built secretly in the valley of Tumladen, hemmed by the Encircling Mountains (the Echoriath) in the north of Beleriand, approachable only by the hidden way — for ages the most inviolable fortress of the Eldar. Its beauty was the Noldor’s final act of making: white walls, seven gates, towers and the fountains of the “Water of Gondolin” — its lamps and its crafts the “sorrow of the earth”. The seven names of the city are part of its lore.
The Secrecy
By Ulmo’s will, the armour of Vinyamar awaited the messenger; in the last years Tuor came — “the ward of Ulmo” — with the mandate of the Vala to leave the city; and the king refused.
The Fall
The Fall of Gondolin is among the mythology’s most terrible scenes — the golden city in flames, the great dragons (Glaurung’s brood), the death of kings and the doom of the seven gates; Ecthelion’s death-grapple with Gothmog; Glorfindel’s last stand at the pass; and the escape, by the secret way Idril had made, of the remnant with Tuor, Idril and the child Eärendil into the South — “and the fair city… of Gondolin… was no more”. The refugees returned to the sea (at the mouth of the Sirion), and in the Havens the last of the Noldor’s age’s glory was handed down toward the voyage of Eärendil.
Significance
Gondolin is the myth of the beautiful doomed city — the “El Dorado” of the legendarium, whose very perfection is its doom’s cause. Tolkien wrote its story first among all his tales (the germ of the mythology itself), and its fall — betrayed from within, entered by the enemy at its feast — is the great emblem of the “long defeat” redeemed only by the hidden way of mercy (Idril’s tunnel, the child who would sail the sea).
The Twelve Houses
The city was held by the twelve houses of Gondolin under Turgon, each with its lord and its emblem: Ecthelion (the Fountain), Glorfindel (the Golden Flower), Egalmoth (the Heavenly Arch), Duilin (the Swallow), Penlod (the Pillar and the Tower of Snow), Rog (the Hammer of Wrath), Galdor, Salgant, and the lesser lords of the folk. Of the lesser-known, Duilin was the archer-lord of the Swallow, Penlod the tall lord of the Pillar and of the Tower of Snow, and Rog the dour war-master of the Hammer of Wrath; all fell in the sack of the city, and the roll of the twelve houses is kept among the annals of the hidden realm.