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Gil-galad
Gil-galad is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium, the last high king of the Noldor, one of the main divisions of Elves. He is mentioned in The Lord of the Rings, where the hobbit Sam Gamgee recites a fragment of a poem about him, and The Silmarillion. In the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, Gil-galad and Elendil laid siege to the Dark Lord Sauron's fortress of Barad-dûr, and fought him hand-to-hand for the One Ring. Gil-galad and Elendil were both killed, but Sauron was wounded. This allowed Elendil's son Isildur to cut the Ring from Sauron's hand, defeating Sauron, and to take the Ring for himself.
Gil-galad briefly appears at the opening of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, in several video games based on Middle-earth, and as a secondary character in the TV series The Rings of Power.
Gil-galad was an Elf of a royal house of Beleriand; beyond that, accounts of his birth vary. According to The Silmarillion, he was born into the house of Finwë as a son of Fingon sometime in the First Age, and as a child, he was sent away during the Siege of Angband for safekeeping with Cirdan the shipwright in the Falas. Alternatively, according to Tolkien's last word on the subject, he was a son of Orodreth, who became a son of Angrod, son of Finarfin. Christopher Tolkien rejected these changes for The Silmarillion, a decision he later regretted.
He became the High King of the Noldor-in-Exile in Beleriand after the fall of Gondolin and the death of the previous High King, Turgon. After the War of Wrath and the end of the First Age, Gil-galad founded a realm in the coastal region of Lindon along the shores of Belegaer, the Great Sea. At its height, his realm extended eastward as far as the Misty Mountains. King Tar-Aldarion of Númenor presented Gil-galad with the gift of some seeds of the Mallorn tree; he in turn gave some to Galadriel, who grew them in the guarded land of Lothlórien. Gil-galad did not take a wife and had no children. He was the first of the Eldar to mistrust a stranger who called himself Annatar, and forbade him from entering Lindon. His mistrust was well founded, for Annatar was in fact Sauron. About the year 1600 of the Second Age, Sauron secretly forged the One Ring. Celebrimbor, the creator of the Three Rings, gave two of them, Narya and Vilya, to Gil-galad for safe-keeping once he knew Sauron's intention to take them. Gil-galad passed Narya to Cirdan the shipwright, who stated that this was only to keep it secret; Cirdan never used it. Gil-galad chose to give Vilya, and control of Eriador, to Elrond. War broke out between the Elves and Sauron; Gil-galad asked the Númenóreans for help, and their king Tar-Minastir brought a great force, enabling Gil-galad to defeat Sauron's army.
After the Downfall of Númenor there was peace in Middle-earth. At the end of the Second Age, Sauron reappeared with a newly formed army and made war against the kingdom of Gondor, near his old home of Mordor. Gil-galad formed the Last Alliance of Elves and Men with the High King of Men, Elendil. The armies of Elves and Men entered Mordor and laid siege to Sauron's fortress of Barad-dûr. At the end of the siege, Sauron finally came forth and fought hand-to-hand against Gil-galad and Elendil on the slopes of Mount Doom, losing the One Ring but killing them both. A record left by Isildur in Minas Tirith implies that Sauron himself killed Gil-galad with the heat of his bare hands. Recalling the encounter at the Council of Elrond at Rivendell before the Fellowship took the One Ring south, Elrond said that only he and Círdan stood by Gil-galad in that fight.
In The Fellowship of the Ring, on the way to Weathertop, Aragorn mentions Gil-galad, prompting the hobbit Sam Gamgee to recite a fragment, three stanzas, of "Gil-galad was an Elven-king":
Gil-galad was an Elven-king.
Of him the harpers sadly sing:
The last whose realm was fair and free
Between the mountains and the sea.
His sword was long, his lance was keen.
His shining helm afar was seen.
The countless stars of heaven's field
Were mirrored in his silver shield.
But long ago he rode away,
And where he dwelleth none can say.
For into darkness fell his star;
In Mordor, where the shadows are.
Sam's companions are impressed, and ask for more; Sam admits that is all that he learnt from Bilbo. Aragorn says the fragment is a translation from "an ancient tongue" and suggests that the hobbits may hear the rest in Rivendell. The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey comments that the longer poem does not exist, and that Sam's fragment seems to have been composed while Tolkien was writing the chapter. He notes that it has the form of a ballad, each stanza being a quatrain in eulogy mode with end-rhymes in the rhyming pattern AABB/CCDD.
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Gil-galad
Gil-galad is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium, the last high king of the Noldor, one of the main divisions of Elves. He is mentioned in The Lord of the Rings, where the hobbit Sam Gamgee recites a fragment of a poem about him, and The Silmarillion. In the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, Gil-galad and Elendil laid siege to the Dark Lord Sauron's fortress of Barad-dûr, and fought him hand-to-hand for the One Ring. Gil-galad and Elendil were both killed, but Sauron was wounded. This allowed Elendil's son Isildur to cut the Ring from Sauron's hand, defeating Sauron, and to take the Ring for himself.
Gil-galad briefly appears at the opening of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, in several video games based on Middle-earth, and as a secondary character in the TV series The Rings of Power.
Gil-galad was an Elf of a royal house of Beleriand; beyond that, accounts of his birth vary. According to The Silmarillion, he was born into the house of Finwë as a son of Fingon sometime in the First Age, and as a child, he was sent away during the Siege of Angband for safekeeping with Cirdan the shipwright in the Falas. Alternatively, according to Tolkien's last word on the subject, he was a son of Orodreth, who became a son of Angrod, son of Finarfin. Christopher Tolkien rejected these changes for The Silmarillion, a decision he later regretted.
He became the High King of the Noldor-in-Exile in Beleriand after the fall of Gondolin and the death of the previous High King, Turgon. After the War of Wrath and the end of the First Age, Gil-galad founded a realm in the coastal region of Lindon along the shores of Belegaer, the Great Sea. At its height, his realm extended eastward as far as the Misty Mountains. King Tar-Aldarion of Númenor presented Gil-galad with the gift of some seeds of the Mallorn tree; he in turn gave some to Galadriel, who grew them in the guarded land of Lothlórien. Gil-galad did not take a wife and had no children. He was the first of the Eldar to mistrust a stranger who called himself Annatar, and forbade him from entering Lindon. His mistrust was well founded, for Annatar was in fact Sauron. About the year 1600 of the Second Age, Sauron secretly forged the One Ring. Celebrimbor, the creator of the Three Rings, gave two of them, Narya and Vilya, to Gil-galad for safe-keeping once he knew Sauron's intention to take them. Gil-galad passed Narya to Cirdan the shipwright, who stated that this was only to keep it secret; Cirdan never used it. Gil-galad chose to give Vilya, and control of Eriador, to Elrond. War broke out between the Elves and Sauron; Gil-galad asked the Númenóreans for help, and their king Tar-Minastir brought a great force, enabling Gil-galad to defeat Sauron's army.
After the Downfall of Númenor there was peace in Middle-earth. At the end of the Second Age, Sauron reappeared with a newly formed army and made war against the kingdom of Gondor, near his old home of Mordor. Gil-galad formed the Last Alliance of Elves and Men with the High King of Men, Elendil. The armies of Elves and Men entered Mordor and laid siege to Sauron's fortress of Barad-dûr. At the end of the siege, Sauron finally came forth and fought hand-to-hand against Gil-galad and Elendil on the slopes of Mount Doom, losing the One Ring but killing them both. A record left by Isildur in Minas Tirith implies that Sauron himself killed Gil-galad with the heat of his bare hands. Recalling the encounter at the Council of Elrond at Rivendell before the Fellowship took the One Ring south, Elrond said that only he and Círdan stood by Gil-galad in that fight.
In The Fellowship of the Ring, on the way to Weathertop, Aragorn mentions Gil-galad, prompting the hobbit Sam Gamgee to recite a fragment, three stanzas, of "Gil-galad was an Elven-king":
Gil-galad was an Elven-king.
Of him the harpers sadly sing:
The last whose realm was fair and free
Between the mountains and the sea.
His sword was long, his lance was keen.
His shining helm afar was seen.
The countless stars of heaven's field
Were mirrored in his silver shield.
But long ago he rode away,
And where he dwelleth none can say.
For into darkness fell his star;
In Mordor, where the shadows are.
Sam's companions are impressed, and ask for more; Sam admits that is all that he learnt from Bilbo. Aragorn says the fragment is a translation from "an ancient tongue" and suggests that the hobbits may hear the rest in Rivendell. The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey comments that the longer poem does not exist, and that Sam's fragment seems to have been composed while Tolkien was writing the chapter. He notes that it has the form of a ballad, each stanza being a quatrain in eulogy mode with end-rhymes in the rhyming pattern AABB/CCDD.