The House of Hador

The house takes its name from Hador, whose epithet Lórindol is an Elvish name meaning 'Goldenhead'. The name marks what the Eldar noticed first about this kindred: most of them were fair-haired and blue-eyed, and they were taller than the other Men who had come west. A later lord is named for the whole line, not its founder, and this reflects the shape of its history. The house did not start with Hador. He gave it its lasting form when his lordship brought the scattered kin together under one rule. For this reason the Eldar and their chroniclers speak of the people of Hador rather than of the people of his forebears.1

The line itself reaches back to Marach, who led the third and last of the hosts of Men that crossed the Blue Mountains into Beleriand in the First Age. His people were a large company, and they came in some order and with weapons ready. Marach's son Malach went west to live among the Noldor of Fingolfin, learned the Elvish tongue, and was given the name Aradan. Hador was the great-grandson of Malach, through Malach's son Magor and Magor's son Hathol. In the reckoning of the Eldar this made Marach's folk one of the three kindreds they called the Edain, or Atani, the Men who became allies of the Elves against Morgoth.2

Although the house used the Elvish names given to it and its lords learned the speech of the Noldor, it did not give up its own language. The Silmarillion records that the people of Hador kept their native tongue among themselves. From that tongue the common speech of Númenor later grew. The ancestral language of the house therefore survived into the Second Age, well beyond the history of Dor-lómin. Through the Edain who sailed to the island it became the root of Adûnaic.3

The house took shape in Hithlum during the long peace of the Siege of Angband. Hador son of Hathol spent his youth in the household of Fingolfin and won the king's favour, and Fingolfin made him lord of Dor-lómin. Hador then brought the greater part of his dispersed kindred into that country, so that the Men of Marach's line became one people under one ruler, holding a northern land as vassals of the High King of the Noldor. Hador had two sons, Galdor and Gundor, and a daughter, Glóredhel. The family was bound early to the Haladin of Brethil: Glóredhel married Haldir son of Halmir, and Galdor married Halmir's daughter Hareth. Those marriages later gave the house a refuge in the forest.1

The peace ended with the Dagor Bragollach, when Morgoth broke the Siege with fire and sent his hosts across the plain of Ard-galen. By then Hador was old. He fought beside Fingolfin at Eithel Sirion, where he fell in the king's rearguard, and his younger son Gundor died with him. Galdor became lord of Dor-lómin, and Hithlum held behind the Mountains of Shadow while much of the land to the east and south was lost. A few years later Morgoth attacked Hithlum again, and Galdor was killed defending Eithel Sirion. His son Húrin succeeded him while still very young, and in his youth the house kept its northern frontier together with Fingon, who had become High King.2

In that generation the house came into contact with the hidden realm of Turgon. As boys, Galdor's sons Húrin and Huor were fostered among their mother's people in Brethil. They were caught up in the fighting there and went astray, and Eagles carried them to Gondolin. Turgon received them kindly and after a time let them return home, on the condition that they would never reveal where they had been. Húrin later married Morwen of the House of Bëor, and Huor married Rían, a kinswoman of hers from the same house. The two elder houses of the Edain were thus united through their chief lines.3

The house was broken in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. The Men of Dor-lómin marched out under Fingon, and when the Union of Maedhros collapsed through the treachery of the Easterlings, Húrin and Huor stood with their men as a rearguard in the fens near the Pass of Sirion so that Turgon's host could withdraw towards Gondolin. The rearguard was destroyed. Huor was killed by an arrow, the warriors of Dor-lómin fell almost to the last man, and Húrin was taken alive and brought to Morgoth. Morgoth then settled Easterlings in Hithlum as a reward for their treachery. They took the land and made slaves of the survivors of Hador's people, most of whom were the old, women and children.4

After the battle the house had no lordship left, and its history continues through two of its descendants. Húrin's son Túrin was sent from occupied Dor-lómin to Doriath. His wanderings brought ruin on himself, on his sister Niënor and on several of the realms that sheltered him, and with his death the direct line of Húrin came to an end. Huor's son Tuor was raised by Grey-elves in the hills of Hithlum, spent years as a thrall of the Easterlings, and at last escaped. He reached Gondolin and married Idril, the daughter of Turgon. Their son Eärendil survived the fall of the city and sailed into the West to ask the Valar for help, and the War of Wrath that overthrew Morgoth followed. Through Eärendil's son Elros, the first King of Númenor, the blood of Hador passed into the royal line of the Dúnedain.5

The Elvish accounts describe the people of Hador as strong and tall, quick of understanding, bold and hard to turn from a purpose, and as ready to laugh as to grow angry. The folk of Bëor were said to resemble the Noldor most in cast of mind. The strength of Hador's kin showed itself chiefly in war and in faithfulness to the lords they had chosen to serve. Their life in Dor-lómin was shaped by that service. They held a frontier land on behalf of the Noldor, and their bond with the house of Fingolfin was kept over several generations. In the eyes of the Eldar they were among the mightiest of the young race of Men.1

The chief heirloom of the house was the Dragon-helm of Dor-lómin. It was the work of the Dwarf-smith Telchar of Nogrod. It passed from the Dwarf-lord Azaghâl to Maedhros, from Maedhros to Fingon, and from Fingon to Hador when he received his lordship. Its crest bore the likeness of Glaurung. Húrin seldom chose to wear it, and it later came to Túrin. The fair hair that set the kindred apart also became a mark of contempt after the Nirnaeth. The Easterlings who were planted in Hithlum called the enslaved remnant of Hador's folk Strawheads.2

Like all the Edain, Hador's people were mortal and short-lived beside the Eldar, and their tales face that difference openly. When the young Húrin and Huor asked Turgon to let them leave the hidden city, they gave their mortality as the reason. Elves could wait through long years for a distant battle, but the time of Men was brief, and their hope and strength soon failed. Their hearts were with their own people, and they would not leave them to face the coming war alone. In the Nirnaeth, as Turgon's host prepared to withdraw, Huor looked beyond his own death. He told the king that from their two houses a new star would one day arise. That hope was fulfilled in Eärendil.3

Hador drew most of his kin into Dor-lómin, but not all of them, and the Silmarillion names at least one branch of Marach's descendants that followed its own course. Amlach, son of Imlach and grandson of Marach, was among the Men in Estolad who opposed friendship with the Eldar. A council of Men was thrown into confusion when a figure in Amlach's likeness spoke against the Elves while Amlach himself was elsewhere. Amlach took this as evidence of the Dark Lord's deceit, renounced his earlier opposition and entered the service of Maedhros. His line was therefore bound to the sons of Fëanor in the east rather than to the lordship of Dor-lómin.1

Within the house, the two sons of Galdor founded an elder and a younger branch. The elder line of Húrin was the lordly one, yet it produced no lasting heirs: besides Túrin and Niënor, Húrin and Morwen had a daughter, Urwen, called Lalaith, who died of a pestilence as a small child. After the Nirnaeth some kin of Húrin remained in occupied Hithlum without any standing as lords. Among them was Aerin, a kinswoman of Húrin, whom the Easterling Brodda took as his wife and who gave help to Morwen when she could. The future of the house lay with the younger branch, descended from Huor through Tuor.2

Tuor's descent was also told differently: the early tale of the Fall of Gondolin names his father as Peleg, not Huor.

In the next generation after Eärendil the descent divided again. His sons Elros and Elrond were allowed to choose their kind: Elros chose to be counted among Men and became king of the Edain in Númenor, while Elrond chose the Elves and remained in Middle-earth. From Elros came the kings of Númenor and later the lords of Andúnië and the kings of Arnor and Gondor. Elrond's line continued through his daughter Arwen. When Aragorn, a descendant of Elros, married Arwen at the end of the Third Age, the two branches that had separated with Eärendil's sons were joined again.3

In the legendarium this house is where the history of the Elves turns into a history of Men as well. The earlier chapters of the Silmarillion follow the Noldor and their oath, and mortals appear mainly at the edges. With Hador's descendants, human choices begin to carry the plot. Two of the book's major mortal tales run through this family, and the story of Húrin's children grew large enough to stand on its own. It survives as the Narn i Hîn Húrin in Unfinished Tales and, in a later edition, as a separate book. The house is therefore less a background people than the frame in which Tolkien set out what it means for Men to take part in the war against Morgoth.1

The central theme of the house's story is loyalty put under strain. Húrin's refusal to yield to Morgoth after his capture turns a military defeat into a personal contest of wills. Morgoth answers it with a curse on Húrin's kin and forces Húrin to watch that curse unfold. From that point the tale of Túrin tests whether courage and good intent can hold out against a malice that bends every choice towards harm. The story leaves this question uncomfortably open. Túrin's own pride and haste make him an active part of his ruin, so he is not only its victim, and the narrative never separates fate from character cleanly.2

The younger branch works as a counterweight. Tuor's path from thraldom to Gondolin is guided by Ulmo, so the same kindred that carries Morgoth's curse also carries the strand of help from the Valar. In the structure of the book this pairing matters: the house holds both the darkest mortal tragedy and the line through which deliverance finally comes. Writing to Milton Waldman, Tolkien set out the tales of Túrin and of the Fall of Gondolin among the chief stories of the First Age. Read together, they show the house as the ground where the hope of Men and Elves is worked out.3

The house emerged gradually in Tolkien's drafts, and its oldest parts are the two stories that later ran through it. In the Book of Lost Tales, Túrin's father is called Úrin and his mother Mavwin. These are early forms of the names that became Húrin and Morwen. At that stage the family had no founder named Hador and no settled place among three kindreds of Men. Tuor's descent was also told differently: the early tale of the Fall of Gondolin names his father as Peleg, not Huor. Over the later outlines and annals the two tales were drawn into a single lineage. Tolkien gave Túrin and Tuor a shared ancestry, so that one house carried both the curse and the hope.1

Some of the later writings go beyond the published Silmarillion and look at the house from outside the narrative. In the essay Of Dwarves and Men, Tolkien connected Hador's people with Men who stayed east of the mountains. He treated the Northmen of Rhovanion, the ancestors of the Rohirrim, as their distant kin, and so tied a Third Age people back to the Edain of Dor-lómin. The philosophical writings also give the kindred a voice in matters of belief. In the Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth, the commentary includes a tale told by Adanel, a wise-woman of Hador's kin. It is a mortal tradition of how Men fell under the Shadow in their earliest days. None of this reached the finished history, and it shows the house mainly as a subject of Tolkien's late reflection.2