Feast of Reuniting

As the Noldor journeyed out of Aman and back to Middle-earth, a rift grew between their two main parties, the followers of Fëanor and those of his half-brother Fingolfin. Fëanor and his sons had stolen ships from the Teleri, and sailed across the frigid northern seas from Aman into Middle-earth. Rather than sending the ships back to transport Fingolfin and his people, Fëanor chose instead to burn them and so abandon Fingolfin in Aman. In this he failed for, with no other way to make the crossing, Fingolfin led his Noldor on a desperate journey across the broken and icy Helcaraxë to reach Middle-earth.

Fëanor's attempted abandonment of Fingolfin and his people led to a breach between the two branches of the Noldor. There were Elves on both sides of the resulting conflict who sought to calm the passions of their people, not least Fëanor's eldest son Maedhros, who owed his life to Fingolfin's son Fingon. After his father's death, Maedhros went so far as to give up his own right the High Kingship of the Noldor, so that Fingolfin became the titular ruler of the Noldor in Middle-earth.

In the year I 20 (that is, twenty years after the crossing) Fingolfin resolved to repair the dissension among the Noldor. He arranged a great feast to be held at the Pools of Ivrin that were the sources of the river Narog. That feast was known in Elvish as Mereth Aderthad, the Feast of Reuniting. To it came Maedhros and Maglor of the Sons of Fëanor, as well as Mablung and Daeron as ambassadors from Thingol of Doriath, and others from the Green-elves of distant Ossiriand.

In holding this Feast of Reuniting, Fingolfin succeeded in bringing the Eldar together, and oaths of friendship were sworn between former enemies. At that time, early in the history of the Noldor in Beleriand, there was a still a sense of hope for the future, though the Elves could not imagine the hardships and new divisions that lay in store for them in the centuries ahead.

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We have very few details of events at the feast itself. One early account (in volume IV of The History of Middle-earth) mentions games being held there as well as a feast, though no such suggestion appears in the published Silmarillion. One notable detail is the fact that Sindarin was spoken more freely at the feast than Quenya (because the incoming Noldor were able to learn that tongue more readily than the native Grey-elves could master their own). This small detail presaged the later dominance of Sindarin across Beleriand.