How did the Sons of Fëanor Achieve the 2nd and 3rd Kinslayings?

Q: How did the Sons of Fëanor Achieve the 2nd and 3rd Kinslayings?

ANSWER: A reader asks how the Fëanorians were able to gather sufficient forces to destroy both Doriath and Arvernien. He writes:

How were the Sons of Fëanor able to achieve the Second and the Third Kinslayings, and win both and kill almost all its inhabitants while the kingdoms of the Sons had been wholly destroyed after the Dagor Bragollach and the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. After the destructions of their kingdoms they fled to Ossiriand, and I always assumed that their forces had greatly diminished after their defeats. Doriath on the other hand still existed after the Dwarves had defeated them, and I find it hard to believe that they slew most of the people of Doriath since they were numerous and strong (also a remnant of the survivers of Nargothrond were in Doriath). Thingol was killed but Dior took over and restored the glory of Doriath. Then the last Kinslaying at the Havens of Sirion, were all the survivers of Doriath (thus also of Nargothrond) and of Gondolin (thus also of Hithlum) and a part of the Falathrim dwellt, all of these peoples were killed by the Sons of Fëanor and their followers, who again, must’ve been very few after their losses in the Battles of Beleriand and also after the Second Kinslaying.

Well, we’re talking about a time frame in the history of Beleriand that was very fluid and incomplete when Christopher Tolkien set out to create a publishable version of The Silmarillion. So one must consider that everything that followed the Nirnaeth Arnoediad (First Age Year of the Sun 473) was in a confused and unfixed state. Christopher did his best to organize his father’s papers. Of course, the stories of Beren and Luthien and Turin Turambar seem very complete when we read them but the sons of Fëanor hardly enter into them. Celegorm and Curufin are only briefly involved with Beren and Luthien, and their followers remain in Nargothrond when they are cast out.

Dior died in First Age Year of the Sun 506 after he had possessed the Silmaril for 1-2 years. This was about 33 years after the Nirnaeth, which would not be enough time for a whole new generation of Elven warriors to grow up. The Fëanorians therefore had to rely on their own surviving followers, most if not all of whom were among the most experienced Elven fighters remaining in Beleriand. They were well-armed and well-led (all seven brothers were still alive in the published Silmarillion, six if you accept the death of one at Losgar).

The chapter on the Nirnaeth does not indicate what kind of losses Maedhros suffered:

Yet neither by wolf, nor by Balrog, nor by Dragon, would Morgoth have achieved his end, but for the treachery of Men. In this hour the plots of Ulfang were revealed. Many of the Easterlings turned and fled, their hearts being filled with lies and fear; but the sons of Ulfang went over suddenly to Morgoth and drove in upon the rear of the sons of Fºanor, and in the confusion that they wrought they came near to the standard of Maedhros. They reaped not the reward that Morgoth promised them, for Maglor slew Uldor the accursed, the leader in treason, and the sons of Br slew Ulfast and Ulwarth ere they themselves were slain. But new strength of evil Men came up that Uldor had summoned and kept hidden in the eastern hills, and the host of Maedhros was assailed now on three sides, and it broke, and was scattered, and fled this way and that. Yet fate saved the sons of Fëanor, and though all were wounded none were slain, for they drew together, and gathering a remnant of the Noldor and the Naugrim about them they hewed a way out of the battle and escaped far away towards Mount Dolmed in the east.

It sounds like they lost most of their army but they were not completely without support, for the chapter says only a few paragraphs later:

The realm of Fingon was no more; and the sons of Fëanor wandered as leaves before the wind. Their arms were scattered, and their league broken; and they took to a wild and woodland life beneath the feet of Ered Lindon, mingling with the Green-elves of Ossiriand, bereft of their power and glory of old. In Brethil some few of the Haladin yet dwelt in the protection of their woods, and Handir son of Haldir was their lord; but to Hithlum came back never one of Fingon’s host, nor any of the Men of Hador’s house, nor any tidings of the battle and the fate of their lords. But Morgoth sent thither the Easterlings that had served him, denying them the rich lands of Beleriand which they coveted; and he shut them in Hithlum and forbade them to leave it. Such was the reward he gave them for their treachery to Maedhros: to plunder and harass the old and the women and the children of Hador’s people. The remnant of the Eldar of Hithlum were taken to the mines of the north and laboured there as thralls, save some that eluded him and escaped into the wilds and the mountains.

To me it seems as if many of the Fëanorian warriors survived the battle but they fled into the deep hills and woods. But this is a part of the history that J.R.R. Tolkien himself was never able to fully complete. There is no definitive, canonical answer to your question.

His intention was to tell a story in which the Fëanorians approached Menegroth without being detected. Hence, we can infer (should we so choose) that the majority of Dior’s people were not close by when he needed their help. By the time the Doriathrim could muster a force to support Menegroth the battle might have been over. With the element of surprise a small force can nonetheless overwhelm greater numbers. Tolkien would have known this from his military training and his knowledge of history. As the storyteller he only has to grant the attackers a plausible scenario, that they somehow passed into Doriath undetected and so caught Dior’s people unaware.

The Third Kinslaying occurred 32 years later in First Age Year of the Sun 538. At this point all we can know for sure is that Tolkien envisioned many Elves and Men living in Arvernien near the coast. They were descendants of survivors from Gondolin, Doriath, and other parts of Beleriand from whence people escaped. But this time frame is the least developed in the history. For this final attack our best source is Christopher’s version of events in The Silmarillion:

Now when first the tidings came to Maedhros that Elwing yet lived, and dwelt in possession of the Silmaril by the mouths of Sirion, he repenting of the deeds in Doriath withheld his hand. But in time the knowledge of their oath unfulfilled returned to torment him and his brothers, and gathering from their wandering hunting-paths they sent messages to the Havens of friendship and yet of stern demand. Then Elwing and the people of Sirion would not yield the jewel which Beren had won and Lœthien had worn, and for which Dior the fair was slain; and least of all while Erendil their lord was on the sea, for it seemed to them that in the Silmaril lay the healing and the blessing that had come upon their houses and their ships. And so there came to pass the last and cruellest of the slayings of Elf by Elf; and that was the third of the great wrongs achieved by the accursed oath.

For the sons of Fëanor that yet lived came down suddenly upon the exiles of Gondolin and the remnant of Doriath, and destroyed them. In that battle some of their people stood aside, and some few rebelled and were slain upon the other part aiding Elwing against their own lords (for such was the sorrow and confusion in the hearts of the Eldar in those days); but Maedhros and Maglor won the day, though they alone remained thereafter of the sons of Fºanor, for both Amrod and Amras were slain. Too late the ships of Crdan and Gil-galad the High King came hasting to the aid of the Elves of Sirion; and Elwing was gone, and her sons. Then such few of that people as did not perish in the assault joined themselves to Gil-galad, and went with him to Balar; and they told that Elros and Elrond were taken captive, but Elwing with the Silmaril upon her breast had cast herself into the sea.

Although it is reasonable to infer that Elwing would have been expecting the attack, she had no real army. The men living in Arvernien would not have been veterans of the wars. They would have been the descendants of outlaws who wandered down from the north. They could not have been great in number. Earlier in the book we also read this:

Yet by Sirion and the sea there grew up an Elven-folk, the gleanings of Doriath and Gondolin; and from Balar the mariners of Cirdan came among them, and they took to the waves and the building of ships, dwelling ever nigh to the coasts of Arvernien, under the shadow of Ulmos hand.

One must ask how many of Elwing’s people were actually ashore when the attack began. How did word reach Cirdan and Gil-galad so that they could bring ships to help? These details are not provided and so the reader is free to infer whatever conditions seem justifiable in mounting another attack. The narrative does not say when the Fëanorians began to turn against their leaders. It is just as reasonable to infer that they entered the haven in strength before regret began to settle in. Still, even in this situation Maedhros would have used his extensive military experience to his advantage. Any Elf-warriors from Gondolin or Doriath who remained with Elwing would have been few in number. Unless they were manning barricades with full arms and armor when the Fëanorians attacked, many of them could have been slaughtered before they had a chance to react as a force. Nowhere are we told that the havens were fortified like the great cities of the north had been.

Without adding any details to the Silmarillion account I think we can reasonably say that Tolkien meant for the Fëanorians to use surprise to their advantage and that they would have looked for opportunities when their enemies were scattered across the landscape. It was the custom of the Doriathrim to live in scattered communities; Menegroth was their chief abode but not their only one. And the Fëanorians’ warriors may have included younger Elves who had been born late in the First Age, or Elves from Ossiriand who were not as loyal to them as the Noldor had been.

The narrative is weak on these points because it was unfinished but Tolkien almost certainly intended for these events to happen. Had he ever written stories about how the second and third Kinslayings occurred, he would have thought about how the Fëanorians could succeed against the other Elves. We need only assume that he would have provided reasonable details to support the plots.

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