The first families of Men who wandered across the mountains into Beleriand in the First Age were befriended by and allied themselves to the Elves in the wars against Morgoth and the darkness. The other story, the story to which both Faramir and Aragorn gave their loyalty, was to Númenor as a gift. Sadly this was the story that Denethor nourished in his heart and why he ended his life in despair and denial.
The Valar, the governors or stewards of Earth on behalf of Illuvatar, the One, became through this belief as no more in the eyes of the kings of Númenor than rivals for power. At last all the bitterness about these constraints was concentrated upon anger about mortality and about the divinities, the Valar, who seemed to hold life unjustly as a private possession. One was the story of the desire for power and a growing bitterness about everything that constrained them. Perhaps there are always these stories in every human enterprise. There were effectively two stories of Númenor. Faramir may have been tutored by Gandalf, just as Aragorn was, but Gandalf could only teach him because he was already captured by the story of Númenor. It was one of the many ways in which he was divided from his father. At the end of his life he cried out to Gandalf, “I will not bow down to such a one, last of a ragged house long bereft of lordship and dignity”.įaramir saw things differently. Denethor may have told Boromir that only in places of “less royalty” could a steward have claimed the throne but as we saw in his last days he regarded Aragorn as an upstart. Tolkien remarks that although “some remembered the ancient line of the north”, the descendants of Elendil and Isildur of the kingdom of Arnor, the Ruling Stewards “hardened their hearts” against a true return of the king. In all but name they were kings of Gondor but they never sat upon the throne or wore the crown. They chose a Steward to govern them “to hold rod and rule in the name of the king, until he shall return”.Ī thousand years passed before the War of the Ring and the downfall of Sauron during which the Stewards of the line of Mardil did their office. He had no heir but the people of Gondor chose not to make a member of another family their king but to wait for the king’s return. No tale was ever told of a battle between them but Eärnur was never seen again. It was in the year 2050 of the Third Age that Eärnur, the last king of Gondor, rode to Minas Morgul in answer to the challenge of the Witch-King, the Lord of the Nazgûl.
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