"For though
Eru appointed to you to die not in
Eä, and no sickness may assail you, yet slain ye may be, and slain ye shall be: by weapon and by torment and by grief..."
From the Curse of
MandosQuenta Silmarillion 9
The Flight of the Noldor
After following a long northward road out of Valinor and along the empty coastlands of Aman, Fëanor and the Noldor who followed him found a strange figure standing high in the rocks above them, who spoke a prophecy sent by the Valar. Though it is not known for certain who this figure was, it is generally thought to have been Mandos himself, and so the words he spoke are variously known as the Curse or Doom of Mandos, or as the Prophecy of the North.
The curse was laid most strongly on Fëanor and the others who had taken the Oath to recover the Silmarils, but it foretold a dark future for all the Noldor, filled with treachery, tragedy and death. Even for those that survived, nothing was promised but a fading to emptiness beside the Younger Children - Men - who were even then awakening in Middle-earth.
Fëanor's half-brother Finarfin was moved by the words of the prophecy, and gave up the march, returning with many of his followers to Valinor. Fëanor himself, though, spurned the message of the Valar, and pressed on with the crossing of the Great Sea and the journey into Middle-earth. There the Curse of Mandos soon started its work: Fëanor himself was killed shortly after he landed in Beleriand, and each of his followers fell under the power of the Curse in their own way.
Notes
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We have a specific date for the Curse of Mandos in the Annals of Aman (in volume X of The History of Middle-earth). That source dates the Curse as Valian Year 1496, which equates to a matter of few decades before the first rising of the Sun. Converting Valian Years to solar years more precisely is not straightforward, but using a typical conversion method, the Curse was laid about thirty-eight years before the Moon and Sun first rose into the sky.
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- Updated 17 April 2025
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