The Kinslaying at Alqualondë
the first slaying of Elves by Elves; the taint of the Exile
The Event
The Kinslaying at Alqualondë — also the first Kinslaying — is the massacre at the Alqualondë when, in the rebellion of the Noldor, Fëanor and his host demanded the swan-ships of the Teleri; when Olwë’s folk refused, the Noldor (drawn by the Oath and the madness) fell upon the sea-elves and slew them, the Quenta. The Teleri, had no feud; they were — the dead of the night of the swans.
The Seeds
The cruelty was the deednd, Third) are the moral axis on which the age of the Noldor turns, and the sole event (with the Oath) for which the Doom of Mandos gives no pardon until the end.ing’s guilt fell on the whole rebel host (Fingolfin’s and Finarfin’s followers “against their will” were drawn into the evil and the taint).
- The curse: Mandos’ doom (spoken at the first return) names it —; and the wrong done to the Teleri was named among the grievances of the Doom.
- The ships: The taken swan-ships, and the later burning at Losgar, complete the impiety (the waste that separated the host in the north).
The Consequences
The hatred between Noldor and Teleri, and the wrath of the Valar, poisoned the age: the Teleri of Aman never forgave, and the Kinslaying is the moral debt (the “great sin”) upon which the Doom, and the long defeats of Beleriand, are grounded. It is named (with the Havens’ later slaughters) as the pattern of the “continued Kinslayings” — the repeated shedding of Elvish blood by the Oath — down to the Third Kinslaying at the Havens of Sirion.
Significance
The Kinslaying is the mythology’s original sin of the Eldar — the first Elvish murder, upon the holy shore, which blights the whole exile: the “Kinslayings” (First, Second, Third) are the moral axis on which the age of the Noldor turns, and the sole event (with the Oath) for which the Doom of Mandos gives no pardon until the end.