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Character Bios

Vëantur

Location(s):
Rómenna

Race/Species: Man

Type/Kind: 2nd age Numenoreans

Title(s):
Captain of the King's Ships

Dates:
born: II 451
died: after II 727

Children:
daughter: Almarian
grandson: Tar-Aldarion, 6th King of Númenor

Description:

Vëantur, Captain of the King's Ships under Tar-Elendil, father of Almarian and grandfather of Tar-Aldarion, was the first Númenórean to sail back to Middle-earth:
[It] was Vëantur who first achieved the voyage to Middle-earth in the year 600 of the Second Age (he was born in 451).

Unfinished Tales, Part 2, Ch 2, Aldarion and Erendis: Notes, Note 3

When six hundred years had passed from the beginning of the Second Age Vëantur, Captain of King's Ships under Tar-Elendil, first achieved the voyage to Middle-earth. He brought his ship Entulessë (which signifies "Return") into Mithlond on the spring winds blowing from the west....

Unfinished Tales, Part 2, Ch 1, Description of the Island of Númenor

It was six hundred years after the departure of the survivors of the Atani over the sea to Númenor that a ship first came again out of the West to Middle-earth and passed up the Gulf of Lhûn. Its captain and mariners were welcomed by Gil-galad; and thus was begun the friendship and alliance of Númenor with the Eldar of Lindon. The news spread swiftly and Men in Eriador were filled with wonder.... [They] believed that all the Men who dwelt in [Beleriand] had been destroyed or drowned in great tumults of fire and inrushing seas. But since it was still said among them that those Men had... been kinsmen..., they sent messages to Gil-galad asking leave to meet the shipmen 'who had returned from death in the deeps of the Sea.' Thus it came about that there was a meeting between them on the Tower Hills.... [When] they looked on the shipmen fear left them, though... they stood silent in awe; for mighty as they were themselves accounted among their kin, the shipmen resembled rather Elvish lords than mortal Men in bearing and apparel. Nonetheless they felt no doubt of their ancient kinship; and likewise the shipmen looked with glad surprise upon the Men of Middle-earth, for it had been believed in Númenor that the Men left behind were descended from the evil Men who in the last days of the war against Morgoth had been summoned by him out of the East. But now they looked upon faces free from the Shadow and Men who could have walked in Númenor and not been thought aliens save in their clothes and their arms. Then... both the Númenóreans and the Men of Eriador spoke words of welcome and greeting in their own tongues, as if addressing friends and kinsmen after a long parting.

Unfinished Tales, Part 2, Ch 2, Aldarion and Erendis: Notes, Note 3

[Vëantur] returned in the autumn of the following year. Thereafter seafaring became the chief enterprise for daring and hardihood among the men of Númenor; and Aldarion son of Meneldur, whose wife was Vëantur's daughter, formed the Guild of Venturers, in which were joined all the tried mariners of Númenor....

Unfinished Tales, Part 2, Ch 1, Description of the Island of Númenor

[Meneldur's] wife was a woman of great beauty, named Almarian. She was the daughter of Vëantur...; and though she herself loved ships and the sea no more than most women of the land her son followed after Vëantur her father, rather than after Meneldur.

Unfinished Tales, Part 2, Ch 2, Aldarion and Erendis

From the first [Aldarion] loved the Sea, and his mind was turned to the craft of ship-building. He... spent all the time that his father would grant by the shores of the sea, especially near Rómenna, where was the chief haven of Númenor, the greatest shipyards, and the most skilled shipwrights....

Aldarion was much loved by Vëantur his mother's father, and he dwelt often in Vëantur's house on the southern side of the firth of Rómenna. That house had its own quay, to which many small boats were always moored, for Vëantur would never journey by land if he could by water....

It happened on a time that Vëantur said to his grandson: "Anardilya, the spring is drawing nigh, and also the day of your full age" (for in that April Aldarion would be twenty-five years old). "I have in mind a way to mark it fittingly. My own years are far greater, and I do not think that I shall often again have the heart to leave my fair house and the blest shores of Númenor; but once more at least I would ride the Great Sea and face the North wind and the East. This year you shall come with me, and we will go to Mithlond and see the tall blue mountains of Middle-earth and the green land of the Eldar at their feet. Good welcome you will find from Círdan the Shipwright and from King Gil-galad. Speak of this to your father."

When Aldarion... asked leave to go as soon as the spring winds should be favourable,... "Do as your heart calls, onya" [Meneldur] said. "I shall miss you sorely; but with Vëantur as captain, under the grace of the Valar, I shall live in good hope of your return."....

Thus it came to pass that on a morning of fair sun and white wind, in the bright spring of the seven hundred and twenty-fifth year of the Second Age, the son of the King's Heir of Númenor sailed from the land....

It is said that Aldarion himself wrote records of all his journeys to Middle-earth..., though all were afterwards lost. Of his first journey little is known, save that he made the friendship of Círdan and Gil-galad, and journeyed far in Lindon and the west of Eriador, and marvelled at all that he saw. He did not return for more than two years.... It is said that his delay was due to the eagerness he had to learn all that he could of Círdan, both in the making and management of ships, and in the building of walls to withstand the hunger of the sea.

There was joy in Rómenna and Armenelos when men saw the great ship Númerrámar (which signifies "West-wings") coming up from the sea, her golden sails reddened in the sunset. The summer was nearly over and the Eruhantalë was nigh. It seemed to Meneldur when he welcomed his son in the house of Vëantur that he had grown in stature, and his eyes were brighter; but they looked far away....

Vëantur did not again voyage from Númenor; but the Númerrámar he gave in gift to Aldarion.

Unfinished Tales, Part 2, Ch 2, Aldarion and Erendis

Contributors:
Elena Tiriel 4Nov05, 8Dec10

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