#elendil

The Orcs were now drawing near. Isildur turned to his esquire: ‘Ohtar,’ he said, 'I give this now into your keeping’; and he delivered to him the great sheath and the shards of Narsil, Elendil’s sword. 'Save it from capture by all means that you can find, and at all costs; even at the cost of being held a coward who deserted me. Take your companion with you and flee! Go! I command you!’ Then Ohtar knelt and kissed his hand, and the two young men fled down into the dark valley.

–J.R.R. Tolkien, Unfinished Tales, “The Disaster of the Gladden Fields" (Isildur sends Narsil away during an ambush, hours before his death)

Middle-earth March - Day 3 

J.R.R. Tolkien considered “The Silmarillion” as the core of his Legendarium. In a letter from 1965 he wrote: “The Silmarillion is quite different, and if good at all, good in quite another way; & I do not really know what to make of it. It began in hospital and sick-leave (1916-1917) and has been with me ever since, and is now in a confused state having been altered, enlarged, and worked at, at intervals between then and now.” It had occupied him basically through his entire adult life and having been the perfectionist that he was, he never really finished it for publication. Thanks to his son Christopher, we’re able to read these marvelous stories and adventures that form the First Age of Middle-earth.