Maglor
the singer; the Káno; the one who kept the Oath's last hour
Name and Nature
Maglor — the second son of Fëanor and Nerdanel, called Káno (“the commander”, “the mighty voice”), the singer of the house. He is “the greatest of all the singers of the Noldor in the Elder Days” — his music is the music of the rivers and the sea; even the bard-heroes of the age (Glirhuin, Daeron) are judged against him.
Life
With his brothers he swore the Oath and went into exile; in Beleriand he held (nominally) the land between the rivers west of Himring (with his brother — the eastern marches). Throughout the age he is the loyal second of the house: with Maedhros he kept the Union, and in the betrayal of the Nirnaeth he fought at the side of the host.
- The keeper of the twins: after the Third Kinslaying at the Havens of Sirion — when the House of Fëanor slew the Swan-sailors to take the Silmaril — the brothers found the twin sons of Eärendil and Elwing, the babe Elrond and Elros. Maedhros would have cast them out; but Maglor in pity took them and fostered them, and they grew up in the camps of the Fëanorians, naming him foster-father. It is among the most moving mercy-deeds of the darkest house of all the tale.
- The end: With Maedhros he stole the two Silmarils of the West’s host; the jewels burned him too, and in his anguish, after Maedhros’ self-drowning, Maglor cast his Silmaril into the Sea, then — never able (in the lore) to return to the Elves — roamed the shores of the world in mourning, “singing in pain… the last of the house of Fëanor”. His song, the last the world hears of the Fëanorians, if it ever hears it again, is his.
Significance
Maglor’s arc is the testimony that the Oath destroys even mercy itself: the singer who pitied the orphans he was told to kill, whose whole art is grief and beauty, dies to fame — the Fëanorian who “lamented” but was still bound. His orphan-warding is the single thread of grace in the ruin of his house — a shadow of the pity that later redeems the world.
In the Texts
Maglor features in the Quenta, the earlier Fall of Gondolin (where he does not appear), and strongly in the Lay of Leithian and the Unfinished Tales genealogies; Christopher Tolkien notes him as one of the few “good men” of the Fëanorians whose goodness the doom nevertheless consumes.