According to some sources, the father of Thranduil and grandfather of Legolas, who ruled a great realm of Silvan Elves in Greenwood the Great (later to be called Mirkwood). He went to the War of the Last Alliance, where he was slain with two-thirds of his army, but his son Thranduil survived and returned to rule his father's woodland kingdom.
(This account is from Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth. It does not sit easily with a statement in Appendix B to The Lord of the Rings that Thranduil was one of the Sindar who travelled eastward from Lindon to found forest realms. These two accounts aren't completely contradictory, but they are awkward to reconcile.)
Notes
1 |
We have no date of birth for Oropher, but he does seem to have been among the wave of Sindarin Elves who travelled eastward across Middle-earth before the year II 1000. He doesn't appear in any of the accounts of the First Age, which suggests (though does not prove) that he was born in the first millennium of the Second Age. |
2 |
All our references to the Elvenking of Mirkwood are to Thranduil. Assuming the title to be hereditary, however, and further assuming that Oropher was indeed Thranduil's father, it is conceivable the Oropher was the original Elvenking. Following this line of reasoning, Thranduil would have inherited the title at the time of Oropher's death in the Battle of Dagorlad.
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- Updated 21 April 2003
- Updates planned: 1
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