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Things of Middle-earth

Heirlooms of the Lords of Andúnië

Type: Artifacts

Description:

The artifacts from the House of the Lords of Andúnië, said to have survived the Downfall of Númenor on the fleeing ships of the Faithful:
[The] Faithful put aboard their wives and their children, and their heirlooms, and great store of goods. Many things there were of beauty and power, such as the Númenóreans had contrived in the days of their wisdom, vessels and jewels, and scrolls of lore written in scarlet and black.

The Silmarillion, Akallabêth

The last leaders of the Faithful, Elendil and his sons, escaped from the Downfall with nine ships, bearing a seedling of Nimloth, and the Seven Seeing-stones...; and they were borne on the wings of a great storm and cast up on the shores of Middle-earth.

The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A, Annals of the Kings and Rulers: Númenor

Tall ships and tall kings
Three times three,
What brought they from the foundered land
Over the flowing sea?
Seven stars1 and seven stones
And one white tree.

The Two Towers, LoTR Book 3, Ch 11, The Palantír


The Seven Seeing-stones
These stones were gifts of the Eldar to Amandil, father of Elendil, for the comfort of the Faithful of Númenor in their dark days, when the Elves might come no longer to that land under the shadow of Sauron. They were called the Palantíri, those that watch from afar....

The Silmarillion, Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age

Gondor... declined into a "Middle Age" of fading knowledge, and simpler skills. Communications depended on messengers and errand-riders, or in times of urgency upon beacons, and if the Stones of Anor and Orthanc were still guarded as treasures out of the past, known to exist only by a few, the Seven Stones of old were by the people generally forgotten, and the rhymes of lore that spoke of them were if remembered no longer understood; their operations were transformed in legend into the Elvish powers of the ancient kings with their piercing eyes, and the swift birdlike spirits that attended on them, bringing them news or bearing their messages.

Unfinished Tales, Part 4, Ch 3, The Palantíri


The White Tree
[Isildur] passed alone in disguise... to the courts of the King... [where] the Tree was watched day and night by guards in [Sauron's] service.... Isildur... took from the Tree a fruit that hung upon it.... [He] was assailed, and fought his way out, receiving many wounds.... But Isildur came at last hardly back to Rómenna and delivered the fruit to the hands of Amandil.... Then the fruit was planted in secret...; and a shoot arose from it.... But when its first leaf opened then Isildur, who had lain long and come near to death, arose and was troubled no more by his wounds.

The Silmarillion, Akallabêth

[In] the ship of Isildur was guarded the young tree, the scion of Nimloth the Fair.

The Silmarillion, Akallabêth


The Silver Rod of the Lords of Andúnië
The sceptre was the chief mark of royalty in Númenor... and that was also so in Arnor... The sceptre... of Annúminas was the silver rod of the Lords of Andúnië, and is now perhaps the most ancient work of Men's hands preserved in Middle-earth. It was already more than five thousand years old when Elrond surrendered it to Aragorn....

The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A, Annals of the Kings and
Rulers: Eriador, Arnor, and the Heirs of Isildur
, Note 3


The Elendilmir
[In Orthanc was found] a treasure without price, long mourned as lost for ever: the Elendilmir itself, the white star of Elvish crystal upon a fillet of mithril that had descended from Silmarien to Elendil, and had been taken by him as the token of royalty in the North Kingdom.

Unfinished Tales, Part 3, Ch 1, The Disaster of the Gladden Fields: The Sources of the Legend of Isildur's Death


The Ring of Barahir
[The] Ring of Barahir... survived the Downfall; for it was given by Tar-Elendil to his daughter Silmarien and was preserved in the House of the Lords of Andúnië, of whom the last was Elendil the Faithful who fled from the wrack of Númenor to Middle-earth. [Author's note.]

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


The Sword of Elendil
Elrond had in his keeping the heirlooms of the Dúnedain, chief of which were the shards of [Narsil,] the sword of Elendil who came to Middle-earth out of Númenor at its downfall.

The Peoples of Middle-Earth, HoME Vol 12, Part 1, Ch 9, The Making of Appendix A: The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen

'Here I set [Andúril],' [Aragorn] said; 'but I command you not to touch it.... In this elvish sheath dwells the Blade that was Broken and has been made again. Telchar first wrought it in the deeps of time. Death shall come to any man that draws Elendil's sword save Elendil's heir.'

The Two Towers, LoTR Book 3, Ch 6, The King of the Golden Hall


Notes
1Seven stars of Elendil and his captains... originally represented the single stars on the banners of each of seven ships (of 9) that bore a palantír....

The Return of the King, LoTR, Index

Contributors: Elena Tiriel 3Mar05, 5Mar05, 16Nov05, 15Dec09

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