They responded, sending forth a great host. In the War of Wrath, Melkor was utterly defeated. He was expelled into the Void and most of his works were destroyed.

This came at a terrible cost, however, as most of Beleriand itself was sunk. In a letter, Tolkien wrote that "This legendarium [of the First Age, The Silmarillion ] ends with a vision of the end of the world, its breaking and remaking, and the recovery of the Silmarilli and the 'light before the Sun' — after a final battle [The War of Wrath] which owes, I suppose, more to the Norse vision of Ragnarök than to anything else, though it is not much like it.

The years of the Second Age are mostly unchronicled; there are hints in The Lord of the Rings , and shorter writings fill in some gaps.

At first, they honored the Ban of the Valar, never sailing into the Undying Lands. They went east to Middle-earth and taught the men living there valuable skills.

After a time, they became jealous of the Elves for their immortality. Sauron , Morgoth's chief servant, was still active. Seven Rings were made for the Dwarves, while Nine were made for Men who later became known as the Ringwraiths.

As soon as Sauron put on the One Ring, the Elves realized that they had been betrayed and removed the Three. Sauron eventually obtained the Seven and the Nine.

Now they sought to dominate other men and to establish kingdoms. Amandil, chief of the Faithful, sailed westward to warn the Valar.

The world was changed into a sphere and the continent of Aman was removed, although a sailing route from Middle-earth to Aman, accessible to the Elves but not to mortals, persisted.

Elendil, his sons and the remainder of the Faithful sailed to Middle-earth, where they founded the realms in exile of Gondor and Arnor. Sauron arose again and challenged them.

However, Isildur took up the hilt of Narsil , his father's shattered sword, and cut the One Ring from Sauron's hand.

Sauron was defeated, but not utterly destroyed. Afterward, Isildur ignored the counsel of Elrond , and rather than destroy the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom, he kept it as weregild for his dead father.

But the Ring betrayed him and slipped from his finger as he was escaping from an Orc ambush at the Gladden Fields.

Isildur was killed by an orc arrow, and the Ring was lost in the Anduin River. Virtually the entire history of the Third Age takes place in Middle-earth.

The Third Age saw the rise in power of the realms of Arnor and Gondor , and their fall. Arnor was divided into three petty Kingdoms, which fell one by one in the wars with Sauron's vassal kingdom of Angmar, whilst Gondor fell victim to Kin-strife, plague, Wainriders , and Corsairs.

In this time, the line of the Kings of Gondor ends, with the House of the Stewards ruling in their stead. Meanwhile, the heirs of Isildur from the fallen kingdom of Arnor wander Middle-earth, aided only by Elrond in Rivendell ; but the line of rightful heirs remains unbroken throughout the age.

This age was characterized by the waning of the Elves. In the beginning of the Third Age, many Elves left for Valinor because they were disturbed by the recent war.

Rivendell also became a prominent haven for the Elves and other races. Throughout the Age, they chose not to mingle much in the matters of other lands, and only came to the aid of other races in time of war.

The Elves devoted themselves to artistic pleasures, and tended to the lands which they occupied. The gradual decline of Elven populations occurred throughout the Age as the rise of Sauron came to dominate Middle-earth.

By the end of the Third Age, only fragments of the once-grand Elven civilization survived in Middle-earth. The Wizards arrive around a thousand years [T 23] after the start of this period to aid the Free Peoples, most importantly Gandalf and Saruman.

In Gondor the Plague caused many deaths, including king Telemnar, his children, and the White Tree ; the population of the capital city Osgiliath was decimated, and government of the kingdom was transferred to Minas Tirith.

In Eriador, the nascent Hobbit -realm of the Shire suffered "great loss" in what they called the Dark Plague. Elsewhere, the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains survived, as did the Green-elves of Ossiriand , and a few refugees from the Falas who escaped to the Isle of Balar.

The saddest and most heart-rending aftereffect of the Fifth Battle was its effective destruction of the relationship between the races of Elves and Men.

Morgoth betrayed his servants, the Easterlings, trapping them in Hithlum under penalty of death, and denied them the fertile lands of Beleriand.

Still Morgoth knew fear, for Turgon, now High King of the Noldor after the death of Fingon in the battle, had survived, and his city Gondolin was still unknown to Morgoth.

Also, while Morgoth had achieved a crushing and decisive victory over his enemies, his own forces had suffered heavy losses to achieve it, and it would be some time before his forces recovered to their full strength.

Hosts of Angband : [ 4 ]. Hosts of the Union of Maedhros: [ 6 ]. The presented version of the story was drawn by Christopher Tolkien primarily from The Grey Annals , although the Quenta Silmarillion was used as well.

Tolkien wrote a new version of the battle which postdates both aforementioned accounts. The major difference is that Morgoth does much better against the Elves in this version than he did in the old one.

The entire element of the "machinations of Uldor" delaying Maedhros' march is removed, and Morgoth sends a second force to meet Maedhros and prevent him from joining with the other Elven lords.

This version lacks the nearly explicit statement that the Elves would have won had it not been for the treachery of Men. Christopher Tolkien does not venture a guess on why Tolkien made these changes, but it may be that he felt the Elves did much better against Morgoth than they reasonably should have especially given the extreme length and difficulty of the later War of Wrath.

This is all speculation, however. The battle was from the beginning conceived by Tolkien to be the decisive point in the history of the Exiled Noldor.

However, the sight of the battle is "the Vale of Fountains" that is from that time called "the Valley of Weeping Waters", and this is the second battle fought, not fifth.

The name was taken from the Doom of Mandos : "Tears unnumbered ye shall shed Tolkien often omitted the accent over the first vowel due to haste or neglect , and this spelling was introduced into the published Silmarillion by Christopher Tolkien; in editorial text within later writings, as The War of the Jewels , he used the accented form.

The Elvish translation of the name itself was one of the most changeful within Tolkien's works. Ornoth , [ 18 ] N.

Irnoth , N. Tolkien survived the Battle of the Somme , where Britain lost a great fraction of a generation. A possible influence from World War One, if one must be found, can be seen in the terming of the 5 Battles of Beleriand as Battles when each actually contains more than one battle and, like the Battle of the Somme, more properly might be called an Offensive.

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Give contextual explanation and translation from your sites! Sauron is a former Maia of Aule. Melkor Morgoth was able to lure him to his side, becoming is lieutenant.

Finrod Felagund had a magical fight with him one on one. I'm planning to read again the books in the order of publication. The first time I read them in chronological order.

In that order the story became somewhat historical. I want to see the story in a different point of view this time. It's been long since I read any of the Middle-earth books.

Finally I'll read "The Unfinished Tales". While reading the books, I will try as much as possible to write something here. Share my journey to Middle-earth.

Blog at WordPress. A year later Morgoth sacked the havens of the Falas. Morgoth's destruction was not entirely complete, however, for Turgon, now High King of the Noldor after the death of Fingon, had evaded capture, and his city Gondolin was still unknown to Morgoth.

Doriath and Nargothrond still remained. The earliest concept of the battle appears in Gilfanon's Tale and is named the Battle of Unnumbered Tears.

The text was abandoned by Tolkien and what information of the battle existed in outlines for the Lost Tales , from it many essential features would remain in later writings including the death of the leader of the Gnomes Noldor , treachery of Men - corrupted by Melko and Turgon escaping with his host.

A common element of the battle in the drafts is that the Union of Maedhros comprises of two hosts, a western force commanded by Fingon and a eastern force commanded by Maedhros.

This division was mainly due to strategy employed by the leaders, a hammer and anvil tactic to encircle and destroy the host of Morgoth. This is part of the frequent revisions that Tolkien made of the composition and allegiances of the armies:.

In The Silmarillion Morgoth plans to send a decoy force to draw out Fingon, which succeeds due to the dismembering of the prisoner Gelmir. However this element plays out differently in early drafts, for instance in the Sketch it has Finweg's host advance into Dor-na-Fauglith Anfauglith and they defeat an Orc host, they pursue them only to fight against a greater host when they reach Angband.

There is no prisoner but the element of Finweg fighting two hosts in the opening stages remained in later writings. The use of the heralds was abandoned in later writings, [21] so the role was replaced by Gelmir who was now in the later writings the brother of Gwindor.

Turgon was originally already in Hithlum , however this was altered when Tolkien had Gondolin already existing before the battle so Turgon would arrive later on the day onlooked.

The battle was originally the third Battle of the Wars of Beleriand but was replaced by the Dagor Bragollach and it became the fourth battle [23] and then eventually to the fifth battle.

The Elvish name went through many changes in Tolkien's writings. Nirnaeth Arnoediad. Category : Conflicts of the First Age. Page Talk Edit History.

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