By Oshun
Printer-friendly
Downloadable PDFBy Oshun |
Printer-friendly Downloadable PDF |
Angrim is primarily recognized as the father of Gorlim the Unhappy, known in The Silmarillion for his tragic end. Angrim was a descendant of the early Bëorians, the First House of the Edain.1 They were called the First House of Men, Elf-friends or Artani in Quenya,2 because not only were they the first Mortals to leave the area of Hildórien to make their way west into Beleriand,3 but also because they were the first to meet the Eldar, where they were befriended and protected by Finrod Felagund.
Angrim’s son Gorlim accompanied Barahir into war in the Dagor Bragollach (Battle of Sudden Flame) and was one of only a dozen companions who survived, only to be tricked into betraying Barahir.4 The story of Gorlim is one of the most relentlessly graphic of the many tragic stories of the First Age.5 Recounted in both in The Lay of Leithian and a slightly divergent version in Christopher Tolkien’s published Silmarillion proper, an initially righteous and loyal Gorlim is psychologically tortured by Morgoth or Sauron, depending upon the account, with promises to save his beloved wife Eilinel if he would reveal the hiding place of Barahir and his followers:
Gorlim Unhappy, Angrim's son,
as the tale tells, of these was one
most fierce and hopeless. He to wife,
while fair was the fortune of his life,
took the fair maiden Eilinel:
dear love they had ere evil fell.6
Gorlim was driven mad by the visions sent to him of Eilinel alive and suffering, finally betraying his comrades in order to save her. He was then told she was "long since dead, food of worms."7 He was then mercilessly tortured to death with the devastating knowledge that his treacherous loss of honor had been for naught.
Aside from fathering the tragic figure of Gorlim, very little is told of the character or life of Angrim himself that does not apply to his people as a whole. The House of Bëor maintained their loyalty to the Eldar from that first meeting with Finrod some three hundred years after the arrival of the Noldor in Beleriand.8 They were included among the Edain, who "became friends and allies of the Eldar, and did deeds of great valour in the war against Morgoth" and were finally rewarded for their suffering and loyalty with a new home in Númenor:
A land was made for the Edain to dwell in, neither part of Middle-earth nor of Valinor, for it was sundered from either by a wide sea; yet it was nearer to Valinor. It was raised by Ossë out of the depths of the Great Water, and it was established by Aulë and enriched by Yavanna; and the Eldar brought thither flowers and fountains out of Tol Eressëa. That land the Valar called Andor, the Land of Gift; and the Star of Eärendil shone bright in the West as a token that all was made ready, and as a guide over the sea; and Men marvelled to see that silver flame in the paths of the Sun.9
The people of the House of Bëor are said to have physically resembled the Noldor:
The Men of that house were dark or brown of hair, with grey eyes; and of all Men they were most like to the Noldor and most loved by them; for they were eager of mind, cunning-handed, swift in understanding, long in memory, and they were moved sooner to pity than to laughter.10
The House of Bëor produced Beren, son of Barahir, who won the love of the illustrious Elf-princess Lúthien, was the great-grandfather of Elrond and Elros, and thus linked the Bëorians to the famous line of the Half-elven or Peredhil who play such an important role in the history of Middle-earth.
Read comments on this essay | Leave a comment on this essay
(You must have an account on the SWG archive to comment on essays. Click here to register for an account.)
Oshun's Silmarillion-based stories may be found on the SWG archive.
Return to Character of the Month Index
Return to References Home