The Third Kinslaying
the attack of the Sons of Fëanor on the Havens of Sirion
The Event
The Third Kinslaying — the last and worst of the Fëanorians’ internecine murders — was the attack of the survivors of the House of Fëanor (only Maedhros and Maglor lived) upon the Havens of Sirion, the refuge at the river-mouth where the remnant of Gondolin and Doriath had gathered with Elwing, keeper of the Silmaril. The Oath, seeing the jewel in others’ hands “out of their reach”, demanded the taking; and in the year before the War of Wrath they came.
The Order of the Sack
- The slaughter: At dawn — they, slaying — the Third Kinslaying: — the survivors of Doriath (the folk of Elwing) and the remnahm of Gondolin were destroyed or scattered, and.
- Elwing’s leap: Elwing, holding the Silmaril, cast herself into the sea — and the Valar in pity gave her the form of a great white bird (with wings), and she flew away to find Eärendil on his ship, with the jewel. Thus the Silmaril escaped the Oath.
- The foundlings: The two little sons of Eärendil and Elwing — Elrond and Elros — were taken by the Fëanorians; and here the only mercy: Maglor, in compassion (against the cold counsel of Maedhros), fostered them in the camps of the Oath-bearers — the strangest and most moving fosterhood of the age, by which the last of the Doriath-line grew to manhood (Elf and man) among their kin’s killers.
The End of the Kinslayings
At the War of Wrath’s close, the Oath at last drove the two brothers to their final act — the theft of the two remaining Silmarils from the camp of the West, and their burning hands, and the deaths (Maedhros’ fall, Maglor’s casting of his jewel into the sea). The Third Kinslaying is the last Elvish blood the age’s curse spills; its taking of Elrond and Elros is the seed of the later kings.