The Shibboleth of Fëanor
on names, pronunciation, and the kin-strife (The Peoples of Middle-earth, HoME 12)
Nature
The Shibboleth of Fëanor is the late philological and historical essay on the naming and pronunciation of the Noldor. It takes its name from the old Quenya sound “th” — written with the rune-form “þ” — which Fëanor kept when the other Noldor of Valinor had passed to the sound “s”; the pronunciation became a “shibboleth”, a token by which a man’s party was known, and a seed of division. Joined to this is the great genealogical account of the House of Finwë: the naming-customs of the Elves, the two marriages of Finwë (with Míriel and then Indis), the sons of Fëanor, and the kin-strife that darkened the first age.
Contents
The change of the sound “th” to “s” in the speech of Valinor, and Fëanor’s deliberate keeping of the elder sound as the party-mark of his house; The names of the Noldor: the father-names and the mother-names (the essi), and the name Fëanáro — “Spirit of Fire” — of Curufinwë; The history of the House of Finwë: the death of Míriel, the judgment of the Valar, and the remarriage of Finwë to Indis; The consequences in the kin-strife: the divided loyalties, the accusations, and the griefs that follow the Noldor into exile.
Composition
Composed very late in Tolkien’s life (c. 1968, one of his last essays on the Ñoldor), The Shibboleth was published in The Peoples of Middle-earth (1996, HoME 12), with Christopher Tolkien’s reconstruction of the associated genealogical and name-material and his notes on where it stands apart from the finished Quenta Silmarillion.