Favourite Female Tolkien Character Poll - Round 1, Match 20
Pick your favourite!
Almarian
Zamîn
These are minor characters from “Aldarion and Erendis” in Unfinished Tales.
Almarian
The mother of Tar-Aldarion, the fifth king of Númenor, and his two younger sisters Ailinel and Almiel. The daughter of Vëantur, Captain of the King’s Ships under previous kings; though she herself had no especial love for the sea or ships, her father was close to Aldarion and taught him to sail as a child.
She supported Aldarion in his seafaring far longer than did her husband Tar-Meneldur, who feared it “sowed the seeds of restlessness and the desire of other lands to hold.” But she also tried to wean him of it through love, wanting Aldarion to fall in love with and marry Erendis; she hired the young woman when she saw her beauty, and arranged for the two to run into each other often. She became colder to her son for a time when he left Erendis to go voyaging for six years during their engagement. She loved and indulged her granddaughter Ancalimë.
Zamîn
An old woman who worked for Erendis; had an unruly son named Îbal, and a husband named Ulbar who sailed with Aldarion.
After Ancalimë meets Zamîn’s son, the first boy Ancalimë has met:
Zâmin was an old country-woman, free-tongued, and not easily daunted, even by [Erendis].
“What noisy thing was that?” said Ancalimë.
“A boy,” said Zamîn, “if you know what that is. But how should you? They’re breakers and eaters, mostly. That one is ever eating - but to no purpose. A fine lad his father will find when he comes back…he heard of those Venturers, and took up with them, and went away with your father, the Lord Aldarion: but the Valar know whither, or why.”
When Ancalimë, as a young woman proclaimed the King’s Heir, sought to escape from the importunity of her many suitors, Zamîn aided her in going into hiding as a shepherdess on a farm.
