Nimloth
the fair Green-elf; wife of Dior; mother of Elwing
Name and Lineage
Nimloth — “the white-flower” — was the fair daughter of a house of the Green-elves (and of kin to the Sindar), wife of Dior Eluchíl, the heir of Thingol, and the mother of Elwing and the twins Eluréd and Elurín. She brought the Nandorin springtime into the hall of the Grey Elves — and her wedding to the half-elven heir joined the lines.
The Death at Menegroth In the
The Second Kinslaying — the assault of the Sons of Fëanor on Doriath for the Silmaril — Nimloth fought beside her husband: the Quenta records that — in the battle at the gates and in the halls she “defended her children” — and fell with Dior against the Oath-bearers. The two young twins were then, in the blackest deed of the age, left to die in the forest; only the infant Elwing survived, borne away with the Silmaril to the sea.
Significance
Nimloth is the bright, short-lived wife of the doomed inheritor — the royal mother whose death (with her husband’s) ended Doriath’s line in male descent, but whose daughter Elwing carried the blood of the Three Kindreds (and the Silmaril) into the salvation of the age. She is among the silent women of the myth whose death is one of the Oath’s unnumbered tears.