The Dagor Dagorath
The Last Battle; the Prophecy of Mandos at the end of the world
Definition
The Dagor Dagorath — in Sindarin, “the Last Battle” or “the Battle of Battles” — is the prophesied final conflict at the end of the world, when Melkor shall return from the Void through the Door of Night and fight the last war against the Valar and the Children. The prophecy is attributed to Námo (Mandos); it is the eschatological capstone of the legendarium. In the published Silmarillion the prophecy is given only in outline — the Quenta ends with the “Akallabêth” and the “Of the Rings of Power”, and the fuller telling is preserved in the earlier texts of the History of Middle-earth (the Lost Tales and the later Quenta Noldorinwa fragments).
The Prophecy
The prophecy, as preserved in the older forms, foretells that at the end:
Significance
The Dagor Dagorath is Tolkien’s answer to the problem of the long defeat: the tale of Arda is not one of unrelieved sorrow but of a promised restoration. It is also his most explicit act of mythopoeic eschatology — a native “apocalypse” modelled on (but freed from) the Norse Ragnarök — in which the flawed world is not merely ended but redeemed: the dead arise, the Three Kindreds are reunited, and Eru’s original intent is fulfilled. Tolkien ultimately hesitated over some details (the exact role and fate of Túrin, the nature of the “second Music”), and the published text keeps the promise deliberately veiled; but the hope of the “Arda Healed” remains the horizon of the whole mythology.