Thorondor

Name and Nature

Thorondor — “the King of the Eagles” — the greatest of the The Eagles of Manwë, the mighty bird whose wings (they said) could — whose span was like a — he dwelt among the great peaks (the Eyrie of the Echoriath, and above Thangorodrim himself), the most ancient and lofty of the birds of the elder world, a friend of the Elves, a servant of the Lord of the West.

Deeds

• The rescue of Maedhros: When Fingon sought the tortured heir on Thangorodrim, Thorondor bore him up and away — the eagle’s aid that saved the man from torment.
• The bearing of kings: At the death of Fingolfin (fallen in his challenge before Angband’s gates), Thorondor came and bore away the king’s body from the very face of Morgoth (wounded by the Dark Lord’s attacks), and laid it in a tomb upon the mountain — “the body of Fingolfin”; and the eagles’ watch kept the way of the North.
• The guard of Gondolin: Thorondor and his eagles stood guard over the hidden vale of Turgon, “the eagles’ watch”, their eyries upon the peaks of the Encircling Mountains; their cry/the eagle’s fell was the alarm of the hidden realm; at the Fall of Gondolin they came to aid the remnant’s escape, and Glorfindel’s last foe was a great — the balrog that Thorondor’s feather-plumes — (the fall of Glorfindel over the precipice as he slew the balrog is told in Gondolin’s fall).
• In the War of Wrath: At the great battle, Thorondor and his eagles fought in the van; the Quenta numbers “Thorondor, King of Eagles” among the powers that cast down the Enemy.

Significance

Thorondor is the eagle-hero of the First Age — the great bird of rescue and witness, the “deus ex machina” that Tolkien (echoing myth and his own folk-tales) deploys at the hour of lords’ despair; his relationship with the Elves (and with Manwë) makes him the link between the high heavens and the suffering earth.

Related

• Manwë
• The Eagles of Manwë
• Fingon
• Maedhros
• Fingolfin
• Gondolin
• The War of Wrath
• Lúthien