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appendix a 1367
rides often with many fair people to the Great Bridge, and there
he welcomes his friends, and any others who wish to see him;
and some ride away with him and stay in his house as long as
they have a mind. Thain Peregrin has been there many times;
and so has Master Samwise the Mayor. His daughter Elanor the
Fair is one of the maids of Queen Evenstar.’
It was the pride and wonder of the Northern Line that, though
their power departed and their people dwindled, through all the
many generations the succession was unbroken from father to
son. Also, though the length of lives of the Dúnedain grew ever
less in Middle-earth, after the ending of their kings the waning
was swifter in Gondor; and many of the Chieftains of the North
still lived to twice the age of Men, and far beyond the days of
even the oldest amongst us. Aragorn indeed lived to be two
hundred and ten years old, longer than any of his line since King
Arvegil; but in Aragorn Elessar the dignity of the kings of old
was renewed.
(iv)
gondor and the heirs of anárion
There were thirty-one kings in Gondor after Anárion who was
slain before the Barad-dûr. Though war never ceased on their
borders, for more than a thousand years the Dúnedain of the
South grew in wealth and power by land and sea, until the reign
of Atanatar II, who was called Alcarin, the Glorious. Yet the
signs of decay had then already appeared; for the high men of
the South married late, and their children were few. The first
childless king was Falastur, and the second Narmacil I, the son
of Atanatar Alcarin.
It was Ostoher the seventh king who rebuilt Minas Anor, where
afterwards the kings dwelt in summer rather than in Osgiliath.
In his time Gondor was first attacked by wild men out of the
East. But Tarostar, his son, defeated them and drove them
out, and took the name of Rómendacil ‘East-victor’. He was,
however, later slain in battle with fresh hordes of Easterlings.
Turambar his son avenged him, and won much territory
eastwards.