Tuor
the Messenger of Ulmo; lord of the foaming wave
Name and Lineage
Tuor — the son of Huor of the House of Hador and of Rían of the House of Hador — his mother, bereft and wandering after the Nirnaeth, died when he was born; he was taken and fostered by the Elf Aerin — by the Elves of the hills — he grew up in the wilds of the North, in Dor-lómin, “a man of sorrow”, until the sea’s call came.
The Choosing by Ulmo In his youth Tuor was taken
Captured and enslaved, he was a thrall of the Easterlings in Dor-lómin until he was freed; the Unfinished Tales account “Of Tuor and his Coming to Gondolin” begins the greatest tale of the Age:
- The vision of Ulmo: walking by the lake, Tuor saw the great shadow of the Vala and the vision of the sea; at last Ulmo himself commanded him: rising as the armour of the Deep, he took the oath of the Messenger, and Ulmo bade him go to the city on the hill —
- The way: gathering the Elves of the woods and the fugitives of the land, Tuor crossed Beleriand by the paths the Vala opened — the river Sirion, the marshes, the woods — and came at last, “no plain road”, to the ruins of Vinyamar, where he took the arms and gear that Turgon (by Ulmo’s command) had left waiting through the ages: the helm, the mail, the shield of Turgon of old, and the sword the Eagle — the “Ensuing of Tuor” — and by the hidden way (the secret pass) he entered Gondolin.
In
Gondolin
At the hidden city, Tuor’s counsel — Ulmo’s counsel — was to abandon Gondolin and reach the sea; the king refused. But his coming determined his fate: he wed Idril Celebrindal (the second of the great Elf-Man unions), and she bore him Eärendil, “the Half-elven, the Mariner”. At the Fall of Gondolin, Tuor — the lord whose long wardship and skill and love of Idril marked him as the champion — fought through the sack, hurled the traitor Maeglin from the walls, and led the remnant of the people (with the secret way Idril had made) down through the passes to the Sea. There the fugitives dwelt in the havens of the South and built the ships (with the swan-ships of Círdan’s folk), and in them Eärendil departed on his great voyage.
The End and the Meaning
The Quenta says the last that is known of Tuor is that “he went… at last with Idril… to the Sea, and there it is sung that he alone of mortal Men was numbered among the elder race, and joined the Noldor, and never again appeared in the tales of Men”. Whether he truly reached Valinor is left open
— one of the mythology’s most famous ambiguities, treated at length by Christopher Tolkien in his commentary (Unfinished Tales, the “Of Tuor” fragment). Tuor is the “good man” through whom Ulmo’s counsel speaks — the messenger who, alone of the mortals, was touched directly by the Valar, and whose blood, through Eärendil, passes into the salvation of the world.