#handir

[melestasflight]

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.

"Of the Fifth Battle: The Nirnaeth Arnoediad", The Silmarillion

[arofili]

three houses of the edain ➴ house of haleth ➴ headcanon disclaimer

          Haldir was the son of Halmir, and the fifth Chieftain of the Haladin. When he was twenty-two years of age, a great feast was held between his people and the House of Hador where both he and his younger sister Hareth wed the children of Lord Hador. Hareth married Hador’s heir Galdor, and Haldir took to wife Hador’s daughter Glóredhel, a golden-haired woman with the beauty of an elf.           Glóredhel passed her golden hair to Haldir’s son Handir, who grew into a man of noble heart and great prowess in battle. Handir followed his father into the Fifth Battle, marching under the banner of High King Fingon, and when Haldir was slain covering an attempted retreat across the Anfauglith, Handir took command of the surviving Haladin and led them in a flight from the battlefield. Upon learning of her husband’s death, Glóredhel’s heart broke and she died of grief.           The wife of Handir was Beldis, daughter of Bregil of the House of Bëor and Arachon of the Noldor. Though her father and brother were slain amid the Sudden Flame, Beldis and her aging mother had fled to Brethil with Emeldir the Man-hearted, and though she was many years older than Handir she was yet fair and youthful thanks to her elven blood. Handir admired Beldis for her kindness and quiet strength and knew from his youth that he wanted to marry her; Beldis, who had assumed her heritage would complicate any chance she had at love, was quickly won over by his eager attempts at courting.           Beldis bore Handir one son, whom she named Brandir after her fallen brother. Brandir was a wayward and inquisitive child, prone to wandering off into the woods and driving his parents mad with worry. On one such misadventure, Brandir fell into the River Taeglin and badly broke his leg; he would have been swept downriver to his death had not Beldis discovered him and leapt into the waters to save him. Though Beldis managed to get her son to shore, she herself succumbed to the deadly waters of the Taeglin, leaving Brandir shivering and alone on its banks for hours. When at last Handir tracked him down, it was too late for proper healing to set in, and Brandir was left lame and motherless thereafter.           Due to his injury and his gentle mood, Brandir was never a man of war and instead took delight in all things that grew in the earth, becoming a healer so he might aid those who suffered similar mishaps to himself. But when his father was slain by orcs in the north of Brethil, Brandir became the Chieftain of the Haladin despite never wishing for such a responsibility. His cousin Hardang attempted to usurp his leadership, claiming he was unfit to rule, but seeing that his people needed his wisdom more than Hardang’s brashness, Brandir took charge despite his earlier hesitation.  In order to protect his people, Brandir sought silence and secrecy, closing the borders of Brethil and retreating from the remaining realms of Beleriand.           But despite his efforts, the Haladin would not remain isolated from the Shadow. When Nargothrond fell, the woodmen of Brethil attempted to rescue the elven prisoners of the retreating orcs, but failed to save Princess Finduilas, whom they buried in the mound of Haudh-en-Elleth. In the spring of the next year, the marchwardens encountered a strange man carrying a black sword who fell into a swoon upon discovering the death of Finduilas. He was carried to Amon Obel upon a bier and taken to the Chieftain, but when Brandir saw him a shadow darkened his heart.           Still, Brandir resolved to heal the stranger, and tended to him until he woke and cast off his darkness. Alone of the Haladin, Brandir learned that this was Túrin son of Húrin, his kinsman and a man under the Curse of Morgoth. Túrin determined to renounce his past, taking the name Turambar to symbolize his new life, but soon he began to ignore Brandir’s orders to remain in stealth and led the woodmen of Brethil in hunting orcs.           On one such hunt, Turambar discovered a feverish young woman lying upon the Haudh-en-Elleth and carried her to Brandir for healing. Turambar gave her the name Níniel, but it was Brandir who cared for her, and soon both men had fallen in love with her. Níniel’s heart was given to Turambar, and when he asked for her hand, Brandir urged her to postpone her decision and revealed the truth of Túrin’s lineage. Níniel did consider Brandir’s words, for he was a dear friend to her if not her beloved, but in the end she did marry Turambar at Midsummer the following year, and soon was expecting his child.           Turambar grew ever bolder until Brandir had lost the respect of his people. When Turambar’s deeds of valour drew the attention of Glaurung, Turambar asked for volunteers to accompany him on a quest to slay the dragon, and only Dorlas stepped forth. Seeing the others hold back, Dorlas scorned them and demanded to know if none would take the place of Brandir the Lame so that the House of Haleth would not be put to shame. Though his kinsman Hunthor took up the task and upbraided Dorlas for his cruelty, Brandir, who had long been unheeded, was now subjected to the derision of his people and became bitter at heart.           Not long after her husband’s departure, Níniel declared that she must follow her husband and ignored Brandir’s counsel to wait for their return. In despair, Brandir renounced his lordship and his people, but resolved to hobble after the woman he loved. He did not catch up to her until it was too late and the malice of Glaurung had revealed that she was in truth Niënor daughter of Húrin and the brother of her husband. Choked on horror and dread, Niënor Níniel ran to the waters of Cabed-en-Aras and cast herself into the Teiglin as Brandir called after her in vain, watching another woman he loved be devoured by the river.           Utterly defeated, Brandir limped away and soon encountered Dorlas, who had quailed from the fight and fled. Blaming his cowardice in part for Níniel’s demise, Brandir struck Dorlas down and continued on to give the awful tidings to those who had once been his people. But as he told the dreadful story, Túrin Turambar appeared though he was thought to have perished, and in his wrath at Brandir’s “lies,” Túrin slandered his name and slew him.           Yet soon after Mablung the Hunter arrived confirming Brandir’s words, for he had been tracking Niënor and had arrived too late. Túrin, now full of guilt and remorse, fled from the scene and killed himself upon his black sword in penance for the blood of Beleg, killed by accident, and Brandir, killed unjustly.

[theserpentsadvocate]

@iceberg-hootenanny I tried to save your ask as a draft and tumblr deleted it instead, but if I recall correctly you said 4, 5, 17 for any Silmarillion character, so! (Insert joke about ‘ha, you think YOU took a long time to answer’.)

4. Has the character ever witnessed something that fundamentally changed them?

I go back and forth on whether Handir was even at the Nirnaeth Arnoediad (depending on which source you use, as few as three of the Haladin’s warriors returned, so his odds of survival are not good, and we know he did survive past that) – but if we assume that he didn’t remain behind as interim leader and he didn’t choose to stay because his son was badly injured (my preferred reason), then he would have been there.

Of course, the Nirnaeth is an experience, more than just a single event he witnessed, but my personal headcanon is that Handir saw his father killed. Witnessing it had a profound affect on him, being unable to recover the body had a profound affect on him, returning home with his men absolutely decimated had a profound affect on him – it’s hard to separate these things from each other, but the visceral blow of seeing his father cut down contributed tremendously to the near-despair he was mired in during his first years as Chieftain. Between that and watching his mother just hopelessly waste away immediately afterward, it took him along time to recover. (It didn’t help that he had to focus all of his attention on getting his people through the ensuing difficulties, and what extra strength he had he spent trying to be present and steadfast for his family, rather than on processing his grief. It’s not that his priorities are wrong, there are just no good choices here.)

Losing his cousins in the fighting at the Fords of Brithiach also had a profound affect on him (no less so because they miraculously popped up alive a year later), but in that case the fact that he didn’t witness it, was fighting in another area entirely and only found out afterwards that they were gone, was the really traumatic part, and it took quite some time before he could really believe that Hurin and Huor even were alive in Dor-lomin. It just juxtaposes really interestingly to me.

5. What have they got in their pocketses?

Knives, or string, precious!

…You know, it’s actually a decent bet that most characters I’m interested in would have at least one of the above. Except for the Valar, I guess.

Knives: Haleth, Nienor, Mablung, probably Fingolfin, decent odds any random member of the Haladin will have at least an eating knife

String: Beldis (well, thread, anyway), Niniel, maybe Idril actually?

Both: Brandir for sure

17. What was the character’s favourite childhood toy?

Handir likes to whittle, and he made Brandir a lot of little animals when he was young. I don’t know that there was one specific one that he preferred over the rest, although I’m sure he was very attached to various ones at different times, but having some wooden figurine his father made for him to play with was a staple of his childhood. He takes it up himself after his father’s death as a way to feel closer to him, although he’s not as good at it as Handir was and always feels slightly like he’s coming up wanting once he’s finished. In that way it mirrors his feelings about being Chieftain.

[goldenvoicedminstrel]

You guys I just found out that the colles on Saturn’s Titan are named after Tolkien characters and I just - 

I’m glad they didn’t forget Faramir and it’s cool they even included Nimloth but what kind of nerd flex was it for someone to come up with Handir?? 

[alicebeckstrom]

Soon afterwards Handir Lord of Brethil was slain, for the Orcs invaded his land, and Handir gave them battle; but the Men of Brethil were worsted, and driven back into their woods. ~ The Silmarillion, Chapter 21 (The Men of Brethil by cemungudh, deviantART)

[unicarpet-blog]

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[theserpentsadvocate]

And finally, Beldis, again for @laurelsblue

1-3 things I enjoy about them

-For someone who isn’t mentioned once in the Silmarillion, she’s really well connected. Handir’s wife, Haldir’s daughter-in-law, etc. - from the instant she marries Handir she’s intimately connected to the Chieftaincy of the Haladin. She’s a member of the House of Beor - and when I say ‘member’ I mean ‘if the Beorians were a little less sexist she’d be their leader’: her mother is Barahir and Bregolas’s oldest sibling. And Morwen and Rian’s fathers are Beldis’s first cousins - she’s pretty closely connected to the leadership of the House of Hador too.

Oh yeah. And you know who else is Beldis’s first cousin? No removed, no nothing, first cousin? Beren.

Like... there’s a lot you can do with that, but I think that at this point it says something about her that she’s not mentioned in the Silmarillion.

-For someone who exists solely as a name on a family tree in relatively obscure material, there’s a lot of stuff we know about Beldis. There are all her family connections above - and then the fact that she was more than twice her husband’s age when they got married and was fifty-four when her son was born, like... there’s some quality extrapolation-worthy material right there. Plus we know she was a refugee from Ladros, we don’t know what happened to her brother but something clearly did, especially since she named her son after him... You can just go on forever.

-I DON’T EVEN LIKE AGE DIFFERENCES LARGER THAN EIGHT OR TEN YEARS BUT SOMEHOW I AM SO FREAKING SOLD ON BELDIS AND HANDIR AND THEIR THIRTY-FUCKING-YEAR AGE DIFFERENCE. HELP ME THINK OF ALL THE DIFFERENT WAYS IT COULD HAVE GONE DOWN. LET’S WRITE SEVENTY DIFFERENT FICS. NO I DON’T HAVE CAPSLOCK ON I’M JUST HOLDING DOWN SHIFT BECAUSE BELDIS/HANDIR EVERYBODY

Something interesting about them based on tenuous circumstantial evidence

-So @houseofhaleth has gone into excellent detail on why Handir and Beldis’s marriage was probably a love match (or at least a considerable-liking-and-attraction match) here, but basically the deal is, for the reasons she outlines (i.e. there’s no conceivable political or convenience-based reason for them to have married, and in fact several reasons why Beldis would not have been considered a good match for Handir, like the severe unlikelihood of her having a child), it’s 99% sure that they got married either because A.) they loved each other, or B.) they had some sort of affair or one night stand and she got pregnant.

I tend to think option A is the best, but you could have a lot of fun with option B. (And of course, you get to explain why the twenty-three-year-old grandson of the Chieftain is casually hooking up with a fifty-three-year-old refugee, so that’s fun too. To say nothing of how SHOCKED they’d both be when she got pregnant.)

Anyway, yes. Her marriage to Handir was decidedly not based on anything ulterior on either side, and you cannot pry that from my cold, dead fingers.

A question I have about them

-It really bugs me sometimes that we don’t know when she died. I mean, it’s convenient for headcanon and fic, but come on now...

A random relevant line I like

-HAH

-’Soon afterwards Handir Lord of Brethil was slain, for the Orcs invaded his land, and Handir gave them battle.’

I don’t actually like this line, for obvious reasons, but it’s the closest one to relevant, aside from one or two about Emeldir. The reason I chose it is because if you Math (I frequently Math where Tolkien is involved), you discover something. I Mathed about six months ago, discovered the something, and have been trying to forget about it ever since, but it’s not working so you get to share my pain:

Brandir died at 34 (insert sadface here)

He’d been Chieftain for four years, therefore Handir died when Brandir was 30.

Brandir was born when Handir was 24, therefore Handir died at 54.

Hence, when Handir died, Beldis would have been 84.

It’s entirely feasible to headcanon that she outlived him.

It’s also technically possible that she outlived her son (88) but that is Too Much and I Just Will Not. (Also surely if she was still around she would have merited a mention in the Narn.)

My preferred version, if there is more than one version of their story (or part of their story)

-...So not to bag on anyone but this meme might be sliiiightly less Tolkien-proof than we thought.

But hey, why pass up an opportunity to pimp my own fic?

Favorite relationship(s)

In order: Beldis and Brandir (and Handir as a family dynamic), Beldis/Handir, Beldis and Brandir-her-brother, and probably Beldis + Morwen and Rian too. Also I’m very interested in her (fraught) relationship with Gloredhel and her later odd friendship dynamic with Haldir. (Who is, after all, the same age, despite being her father-in-law.)

How would they react to Tom Bombadil

I feel like she’d just ignore him completely.

Optional: Something about them that I think people forget

There isn’t really much about Beldis to forget, but I’ll take a stab at it. The fact that she’s Beren’s cousin. Like, his first cousin. And she would have been about twenty when he was born, so she probably helped take care of him or babysat all the time and stuff. I dunno, I just feel like there’s something to that.

Also I’ll be angry forever that her Vegetarian Sweetheart cousin never got to meet her Pinnacle Of Forbearance And Ethics son.

[theserpentsadvocate]

I made a Wikipedia account solely to edit their Brandir page and change the shit they talk about Beldis and Handir’s relationship. Wikipedia come fight me.

‘plainly erroneous’ -> ‘possibly erroneous’

‘was introduced’ (by Tolkien without noticing the age difference) -> ‘may have been introduced’

Removed petty, insulting scare-quotes around ‘husband’, as referring to Handir.

‘it is highly unlikely’ (Tolkien meant to do this) -> ‘it is perhaps unlikely’

‘apparently one more generation is required by Tolkien’s own standards’ -> ‘one more generation may be postulated’

‘it would be better to leave obscure the identity of Brandir’s mother’ -> fuck you, Wikipedia

fuck you, Wikipedia -> ‘there is some obscurity around the identity of Brandir’s mother’

‘it is possible to regard him Turin’s third cousin on Beorian side’ ->  ‘it is possible to regard him as either Turin’s second or third cousin on THE Beorian side’

This is a good use of my time at two in the morning.