Rían
the seeker; the mother of Tuor
Name and Story
Rían — the wife of Huor, whom she married just before the great war; when Huor went to the Nirnaeth (and fell), she carried their unborn child into the wilds alone. In the distress of the defeated north, Rían — bereft and near the end — was brought to the fenland of the Serech (where her man had died) by the Elves’ mercy — and there, after the birth, she died by the side of the mound of the fallen, “sorrow-stricken” — “Rían… gave birth… and the Elves fostered the child”. Her son is Tuor — the one whose coming is the hinge of the tale of Gondolin; and because of her death, Tuor was raised among the wilds, never knowing the bright kinship that awaited him.
Significance
Rían is one of the tale’s brief, deep-mourning women — the mother whose death at the laying of her babe sets Tuor’s story (the secret, the orphan-lord of Ulmo) upon its bare and then golden way. Her name (“the seeking”) and her grave by the marsh mark the cost at which the line of the Half-elven began.