A Dictionary of Tolkien Read online

  The Barrow-wights were of a substance of darkness that could enter the eye, heart and mind, or crush the will. They were form-shifters and could move from shape to shape and animate whatever life-form they wished. Most often a Barrow-wight came on the unwary traveller in the guise of a dark phantom whose eyes were luminous and cold. The voice of the figure was at once horrible and hypnotic; its skeletal hand had a touch like ice and a grip like the iron jaws of a trap. Once under the spell of the Undead the victim had no will of his own. In this way the Barrow-wight drew the living into the treasure tombs on the downs. A dismal choir of tortured souls could be heard inside the Barrow as, in the green half-light, the Barrow-wight laid his victim on a stone altar and bound him with chains of gold. He draped him in the pale cloth and precious jewellery of the ancient dead, and then ended his life with a sacrificial sword.

  In the darkness these were powerful spirits; they could be held at bay only with the spell of strong incantations. They could be destroyed only by exposure to light, and it was light that they hated and feared most. The Barrow-wights were lost and tortured spirits and their last chance to remain on Earth depended on dark security of the burial vaults. Once a stone chamber was broken open, light would pour in on the Barrow-wights and they would fade like mist before the sun and be gone for ever.

  Bats

  Of the many creatures that Melkor the Dark Enemy bred in darkness, the blood-sucking Bat was one. No story tells whether they were made from bird or beast but they were always known to be servants of evil. The lusts and habits of the Bat were well suited to evil purposes and tales tell how even the mightiest of Melkor’s servants used the Bat shape in times of need. Such was the form of Thuringwethil the Vampire, “woman of secret shadow”, and Sauron himself changed into a great wide-winged Bat when he fled after the Fall of Tol-in-Gaurhoth. The story of the Hobbit also tells how, at the Battle of Five Armies in the Third Age of the Sun, black storm clouds of Bats advanced in open war, with legions of Orcs and Wolves, to battle against Men, Elves and Dwarves.

  Belain

  Within Arda since its beginning there was a race of guardians who were known as the Valar in the High Elven tongue. The Grey-elves of Beleriand knew them as the Belain, which means the “powers”.

  Belegaer

  The vast western sea which separated Middle-earth from the Undying Lands was called Belegaer, Elvish for the “Great Sea”. The domain of the Vala Ulmo the Ocean Lord, and the Maia Ossë of the Waves and Uinen of the Calms, Belegaer extended from Helcaraxë in the north (the “grinding ice” bridge that once joined the two continents) to the limits of Arda in the south, with Númenor in the centre.

  Belegost

  One of the two great Dwarf kingdoms built in the Blue Mountains of Beleriand during the Second Age of Starlight, Belegost is Elvish for “mighty fortress”. In Khuzdul, the language of the Dwarves, it was called Gabilgathol, or Mickleburg. The Dwarves of Belegost were the first to enter Beleriand, and they were among the finest smiths and stone-carvers of Middle-earth. They were the first Dwarves to forge chain-mail. They traded their incomparable steel weapons with the Sindar and, commissioned by the Grey Elf King Thingol, they carved that most beautiful of realms, the Thousand Caves of Menegroth. In the War of the Jewels, the Dwarves of Belegost won great fame. They alone in the Battle of Unnumbered Tears could withstand the blaze of Dragon-fire because they were a race of smiths used to heat and on their helms they wore flame-proof masks of steel that protected their faces. Though the king of Belegost, Lord Azaghâl, was slain in this battle, he wounded Glaurung and forced the Father of Dragons and all his Dragon brood to flee the battleground. Yet, valiant and steadfast as the Dwarves of Belegost were, when the War of Wrath was ended, their kingdom, along with all of Beleriand, was overwhelmed and swallowed up by the sea. Those few who managed to survive fled eastward and found refuge in the mansions of Khazad-dûm.

  Beleriand

  Until its sinking at the beginning of the Second Age of the Sun, Beleriand was to be found west of the Blue Mountains in the extreme northwest part of Middle-earth. All the Eldar passed through Beleriand during the Great Journey, but the Teleri lingered there the longest while they awaited Ulmo the Ocean Lord to take them to the Undying Lands. Indeed, not all of the Teleri departed. The Sindar or Grey Elves of Doriath and the Falas remained behind and through all the Ages of Starlight built wonderful kingdoms there. Also out of the East came another remnant people of the Teleri, the Laiquendi Elves, who settled in the riverlands of Ossiriand just east of the Blue Mountains. Later still, during the First Age of the Sun, the Noldor Elves who returned from the Undying Lands built the kingdoms of Nargothrond, Himlad, Thargelion, Dorthonian, Gondolin, Mithrim Dor-lómin, Nevrast and East Beleriand. Besides the Elven people there were the two Dwarf realms of Nogrod and Belegost, several wandering tribes of Men, and finally the invading forces of Orcs, Balrogs, Dragons and other monsters from out of Morgoth’s evil kingdom of Angband. It was these terrible invasions of Morgoth that eventually brought to ruin every one of the Elven Kingdoms during the War of the Jewels. This resulted in the War of Wrath, wherein the Valar themselves came to destroy Melkor, but in so doing all of Beleriand was broken apart and swallowed up by the western sea.

  Beorn

  Northman, Beorning chieftain. Beorn’s people inhabited the northern Anduin valley between the Misty Mountains and Mirkwood during the last centuries of the Third Age. He and his woodsmen guarded the Ford of Carrock and the High Pass from Orcs and Wargs. Beorn was a huge, black-bearded Man who wore a coarse wool tunic and was armed with a woodsman’s axe. He was a berserker warrior who had the gift of the “skin changer”: that is, transforming into the form of a bear. In the year 2941, Beorn gave shelter and protection to Thorin and Company, and later fought with them in the Battle of Five Armies. In that battle Beorn took on his bear shape and slew scores of Orcs.

  Beornings

  In the Third Age of the Sun there was a race of solitary Northmen who guarded the Ford of Carrock and the High Passes in Rhovanion from the Orcs and Wargs. These people were the Beornings, and they were black-haired, black-bearded Men clothed in coarse wool garments. They carried the woodsman’s axe and were gruff, huge-muscled but honourable. They were named after a fierce warrior called Beorn, who was a mighty man and a skin-changer. By some spell he could shift form and become a great bear. In terror of this bear-man the Orcs and Wargs of the Misty Mountains kept from his road.

  Where Beorn learned the trick of form-shifting is not known, but he was a distant blood relation of the Edain of the First Age, and the “Quenta Silmarillion” relates how some of that race were skin-changers. Greatest of them was Beren, who, like Beorn, lived long alone in the forest and ate no flesh. As with Beorn, the beasts and birds came to Beren and aided him in his war with the Orcs and Wolves. In the Quest of the Silmaril it is told how Beren learned from the Eldar the art of form-shifting: presenting himself first in the shape of an Orc, and then as a great Wolf. So perhaps some of that magic was inherited by Beorn and his people, or perhaps it was as a result of living with bears for so long that Beorn learned this skill. Whatever the source, it is said that this trick of skin-changing was passed on to the heirs of Beorn through many generations. In the War of the Ring the Beornings led by Grimbeorn, son of Beorn, advanced fiercely with the Woodmen and Elves of Mirkwood, and drove evil from that place for ever. Because of the terrible strength and the berserk rage of the Beornings in battle, the legend of the bear-skin warriors lived long in the memory of Men.

  Beren

  Edain lord of Dorthonian. Beren was the son of Barahir, lord of the Edain. Born in the fourth century of the First Age, Beren was the sole survivor of the outlaws of Dorthonian, and the only person ever to cross the Mountains of Terror and pass through the vile realm of the Giant Spiders. Entering Doriath, Beren met and fell in love with Princess Lúthien, the daughter of King Thingol and Melian the Maia. Thingol forbade the marriage unless Beren brought him one of the Silmarils. Undaunted, Beren
embarked on the Quest of the Silmaril. Captured and nearly slain by Sauron on the Isle of Werewolves, Beren was saved by Lúthien and Huan the Hound. Thereafter, Lúthien and Beren entered into Angbad, where Lúthien cast a spell of enchantment on Morgoth, and Beren cut a Silmaril jewel from his crown. But as they fled, the Wolf of Angband bit off Beren’s hand, and swallowed both the hand and the Silmaril it held. Beren and Lúthien escaped to Doriath, but Beren returned to Angband, and with Huan hunted down and slew the Wolf. Recovering the jewel, Beren survived just long enough to put the Silmaril into Thingol’s hand. With the death of Beren Lúthien soon wasted away and died of grief, but she persuaded Mandos, the Lord of the Dead, to give both herself and Beren a second mortal life on Middle-earth. This was granted and they returned to live quietly in Ossiriand until the beginning of the fifth century. Only once did Beren venture away, and that was to avenge the death of Thingol and recover the Silmaril.

  Bifur

  Dwarf of Thorin and Company. Bifur went on the Quest of Erebor which, in 2941 of the Third Age, resulted in the death of Smaug the Dragon and the re-establishment of the Dwarf Kingdom under the Mountain. He survived the Battle of Five Armies; thereafter, he settled in the kingdom at Erebor.

  Big Folk

  To the small, shy race of the Hobbit, the ways of other races (except Elves) are thought to be coarse, loud and without subtlety. And though the affairs of other races might often threaten Hobbit lives, they seem little interested in the great nations of Men, and so Men of whatever origin are simply known to the Hobbits as the Big Folk.

  Bilbo Baggins

  Hobbit of the Shire. Born in the year 2890 of the Third Age, Bilbo was a bachelor Hobbit who lived in Bag End in the Shire. In 2941, Bilbo was lured away by a Wizard and thirteen Dwarves on the famous quest of Thorin and Company that, in 2941, led to the slaying of Smaug the Dragon and the re-establishment of the Dwarf Kingdom under the Mountain at Erebor. With a modest portion of the Dragon gold he won on his adventure, Bilbo returned to the Shire for some sixty years. On his adventure, Bilbo acquired a mysterious ring which had the power to make its wearer invisible. However, it was later discovered that this was, in fact, the One Ring that belonged to the Lord of the Rings. In the year 3001, Bilbo held a huge birthday party, then vanished before the eyes of the assembled host, leaving wealth, home and the One Ring to his young cousin and adopted heir, Frodo Baggins. Bilbo then went on to live a rather monkish life in Rivendell and for twenty years wrote poems, stories and Elf-lore, as well as his memoirs, entitled There and Back Again and his three-volume scholarly work, Translations from the Elvish. After the War of the Ring, at the age of 131 years, Bilbo sailed into the west with Frodo to the Undying Lands.

  Black Númenóreans

  In the “Akallabêth” is told the story of the land of the Númenóreans, which flourished as the mightiest kingdom of Men upon Arda during the second Age of the Sun. But in the year 3319 of the Second Age it was cast down beneath Belegaer, the Western Sea, in other parts for ever. Most of the Númenóreans perished, but some had left Middle-earth before the Downfall and so survived.

  One part of those who were saved from disaster was named the Black Númenóreans. These people made a great haven in a place named Umbar, which lay on the coastlands in the South of Middle-earth. The Black Númenóreans were a great sea power and for many centuries they raided and pillaged the coastlands of Middle-earth. They were allies of Sauron, for he came among them and corrupted them through their overweening pride and gave them many gifts. To three of the Black Númenóreans he gave Rings of Power, and these three were numbered among the wraiths who were called the Nazgûl. To two others, who were named Herumor and Fuinur, he gave other powers and they became lords among the Haradrim.

  The Black Númenóreans often came north into the lands of Gondor and Arnor to test their strength against that other noble remnant of the Númenórean race, the Elendili, or Elf-friends. For as allies of Sauron the Black Númenóreans opposed all things Elvish and, above all, they hated these Men who they believed had betrayed Númenor and its king. The Black Númenóreans proved to be immensely strong and for more than a thousand years their pillaging was endured. But at last, in the tenth century of the Third Age, King Eärnil I arose in Gondor and reduced the sea power of the Black Númenóreans of Umbar to nothing and took the havens. Umbar became a fortress of Gondor, and, though in the years that followed the Black Númenóreans rose again, they were finally broken by Hyarmendacil of Gondor in the year 1050 and never again were they rulers of Umbar.

  Thereafter, the wandering people of this strong race merged with the Haradrim and the Corsairs, and others lived in Morgul and Mordor. As is told in the “Red Book of Westmarch”, one became the spokesman of the Dark Lord and was named the Mouth of Sauron. But the end of the Third Age was also the end of the Black Númenóreans, for the gifts of power that Sauron gave them vanished with his fall, and the annals of the Fourth Age speak of these people no more.

  Black Riders

  In the centuries that followed the forging of the Rings of Power by the Elven-smiths and Sauron the Maia, nine Black Riders on swift black Horses appeared in Middle-earth. Few knew what manner of beings the Black Riders were, but the wise learned that they had once been Men, who by the power of the Rings had been turned to deathless wraiths. These Black Riders were the mightiest of the Ring Lord Sauron’s servants; in the Black Speech of the Orcs their name was Nazgûl.

  Blue Mountains

  The great mountain chain that marked the eastern border of the Elf lands of Beleriand was the Ered Luin, the Blue Mountains. These were the home of the twin Dwarf kingdoms of Belegost and Nogrod. However, after the end of the First Age of the Sun, when the Elf and Dwarf kingdoms of Beleriand were destroyed, all but a small part of the Blue Mountains sank into the sea. Even that part of the Blue Mountains that remained above the sea was cleft in two by the Gulf of Lune. Here the master of the Falathrim Elves of Beleriand, Lord Círdan, built the Grey Havens, the last harbour of the Eldar upon Middle-earth. And on that small remaining piece of Beleriand west of the Blue Mountains, called Lindon, was the kingdom of Gil-galad, the last High-King of the Eldar on Middle-earth. Right through the Third Age, Lindon survived as an Elf land and the Blue Mountains remained a homeland and refuge for several kingdoms of the Dwarvish peoples.

  Boars

  The hunting of Boars was a sport among Elves and the Men of Arda. Even Oromë the Valarian huntsman, who was Lord of the forest, would chase these tusked beasts of the woodlands with hounds and Horse.

  Most famous of the tales of the hunted Boar is the one record in the “Annals of the Kings and Rulers”, which tells how a king of Rohan died on a wild Boar’s tusks. Folca of the Rohirrim was a mighty warrior and hunter, and thirteenth in the line of kings, but the beast named the Boar of Everholt that he pursued was fierce and huge. So, when the contest was joined in the Firien Wood beneath the shadow of the White Mountains, there was loud battle in which both hunter and hunted were slain.

  Bofur

  Dwarf of Thorin and Company. Bofur was one of the company which, in the year 2941 of the Third Age, embarked on the Quest of the Lonely Mountain. The quest eventually resulted in the death of Smaug the Dragon and the re-establishment of the Dwarf Kingdom under the Mountain. After Thorin’s death, Bofur, with others of the company, swore allegiance to Dáin Ironfoot, and remained contentedly at Erebor for the rest of their lives.

  Bolg

  Orc king of Misty Mountains. Bolg of the North was the son of Azog, the Orc King who was slain by Dáin Ironfoot in the Battle of Azanulbizar at the end of the War of Orcs and Dwarves. Like his father, Bolg was a particularly large and powerful Orc, and therefore was probably one of that race of super-Orcs called the Uruk-hai. Bolg led a vast army of Orcs and Wargs into the Battle of Five Armies in the year 2941. It was during that battle that he was slain by Beorn, the Beornings’ chieftain.

  Bombur

  Dwarf of Thorin and Company. In 2941 of the Third Age of the Sun, Bombur
went on the Quest of the Lonely Mountain which resulted in the slaying of Smaug the Dragon and the re-establishment of the Dwarf Kingdom under the Mountain at Erebor. Bombur, like his companions Bifur and Bofur, was a Dwarf of Moria, but was not descended from Durin’s race. Even during his prime, Bombur had always been a very fat Dwarf; however, later in life he became so enormously stout that he could not even walk, and it took six other Dwarves to carry him about. After the quest, Bombur remained at Erebor for the rest of his life.

  Boromir

  Dúnedain lord of Gondor. Eldest son of Denethor II, Ruling Steward of Gondor. Born in the year 2978 of the Third Age, Boromir was the tall and handsome heir to the Steward. In 3018, he valiantly led the defence of Osgiliath against Sauron’s forces. After a prophetic dream that he shared with his brother, Faramir, he made his way to the Elf-kingdom of Rivendell and became a member of the Fellowship of the Ring. Enduring the many perils of the Fellowship’s journey as far as the Hill of the Eye, near Rauros Falls, he was overcome by the desire to seize the One Ring, and tried to kill Frodo Baggins the Ring-bearer. Although Boromir soon repented, Frodo continued the Quest only with Samwise Gamgee as a companion. Shortly after, Boromir died in battle while gallantly defending the Hobbits Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took from an Orc attack. Boromir was given a formal ship-burial over the Rauros Falls.