back to middle-earth month 2022 | textual ghosts bingo | mother of berúthiel
Hashavis was a princess of the Haradrim taken to wife by Karasalêth, the Black Númenórean king of Abrakhân. She was given to her husband as part of an ancient marriage alliance between their peoples, wherein every three generations a princess of her people would wed a prince of his kindred. Karasalêth altered Hashavis’ name to his tongue of Adûnaic, where she became Queen Kuilizîth, mother of his heirs. Kuilizîth bore her king three sons loyal to their father, and one daughter she raised as her own. This was Zâinazimril, the jewel of the earth, and Kuilizîth loved her dearly; but when she came of age, Karasalêth sold her hand in marriage to Tarannon Falastur, the King of Gondor who had conquered his realm. Thus Kuilizîth and her daughter were sundered against their will, and Zâinazimril became known to her new people as Berúthiel, the angry queen, for she hated her new subjects and most of all dwelling by the sea. In time she grew so disagreeable that Falastur set her out to sea with only her beloathed feline companions to man her ship, and she sailed past Umbar to lands unknown. Some Black Númenóreans hold that Berúthiel was rescued by corsairs and began a new life in Umbar, where she plotted the downfall of Gondor’s line of kings with the aid of her vengeful brothers, but it is certain that she never returned to Abrakhân, and her mother remained alone.