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Now of Isildur it is told that he was in great pain and anguish of heart, but
at first he ran like a stag from the hounds, until he came to the bottom of
the valley. There he halted, to make sure that he was not pursued; for
Orcs could track a fugitive in the dark by scent, and needed no eyes. Then he
went on more warily, for wide flats stretched on into the gloom before him,
rough and pathless, with many traps for wandering feet.
So it was that he came at last to the banks of Anduin at the dead of night,
and he was weary; for he had made a journey that the Dúnedain on such ground
could have made no quicker, marching without halt and by day. The
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river was swirling dark and swift before him. He stood for a while, alone and
in despair. Then in haste he cast off all his armour and weapons, save a short
sword at his belt, and plunged into the water. He was a man of
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strength and endurance that few even of the Dúnedain of that age could equal,
but he had little hope to gain the other shore. Before he had gone far he was
forced to turn almost north against the current; and strive as he might he was
ever swept down towards the tangles of the Gladden Fields. They were nearer
than he had thought, and
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even as he felt the stream slacken and had almost won across he found himself
struggling among great rushes and clinging weeds. There suddenly he knew that
the Ring had gone. By chance, or chance well used, it had left his hand and
gone where he could never hope to find it again. At first so overwhelming was
his sense of loss that he struggled no more, and would have sunk and drowned.
But swift as it had come the mood passed. The pain
had left him. A great burden had been taken away. His feet found the river
bed, and heaving himself up out of the mud he floundered through the reeds to
a marshy islet close to the western shore. There he rose up out of the water:
only a mortal man, a small creature lost and abandoned in the wilds of
Middle-earth. But to the night-
eyed Orcs that lurked there on the watch he loomed up, a monstrous shadow of
fear, with a piercing eye like a star. They loosed their poisoned arrows at
it, and fled. Needlessly, for Isildur unarmed was pierced through heart and
throat, and without a cry he fell back into the water. No trace of his body
was ever found by Elves or Men.
So passed the first victim of the malice of the masterless Ring: Isildur,
second King of all the Dúnedain, lord of
Arnor and Gondor, and in that age of the World the last.
The sources of the legend of Isildur's death
There were eye-witnesses of the event. Ohtar and his companion escaped,
bearing with them the shards of
Narsil. The tale mentions a young man who survived the slaughter: he was
Elendur's esquire, named Estelmo, and was one of the last to fall, but was
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stunned by a club, and not slain, and was found alive under Elendur's body. He
heard the words of Isildur and Elendur at their parting. There were rescuers
who came on the scene too late, but in time to disturb the Orcs and prevent
their mutilation of the bodies: for there were certain Woodmen who got news to
Thranduil by runners, and also themselves gathered a force to ambush the Orcs
of which they got wind, and scattered, for though victorious their losses
had been great, and almost all of the great Orcs had fallen: they attempted no
such attack again for long years after.
The story of the last hours of Isildur and his death was due to surmise: but
well-founded. The legend in its full form was not composed until the reign of
Elessar in the Fourth Age, when other evidence was discovered. Up to then it
had been known, firstly, that Isildur had the Ring, and had fled towards tin
River; secondly, that his mail, helm, shield and great sword (but nothing
else) had been found on the bank not far above the Gladden Fields;
thirdly, that the Orcs had left watchers on the west bank armed with bows to
intercept any who might escape the battle and flee to the River (for traces of
their camps were found, one close to the borders of the Gladden
Fields); and fourthly, that Isildur and the Ring, separately or together, must
have been lost in the River, for if
Isildur had reached the west shore wearing the Ring he should have eluded the
watch, and so hardy a man of great endurance could not have failed to come
then to Lórien or Moria before he foundered. Though it was a long journey,
each of the Dúnedain carried in a sealed wallet on his belt a small phial of
cordial and wafers of a waybread that would sustain life in him for many days
not indeed the miruvor
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or the lembas of the Eldar, but like them, for the medicine and other arts of
Númenor were potent and not yet forgotten. No belt or wallet was among the
gear discarded by Isildur.
Long afterwards, as the Third Age of the Elvish World waned and the War of the
Ring approached, it was revealed to the Council of Elrond that the Ring had
been found, sunk near the edge of the Gladden Fields and close to the western
bank; though no trace of Isildur's body was ever discovered. They ere also
then aware that
Saruman had been secretly searching in the same region; but though he had not
found the Ring (which had long before been carried off), they did not yet know
what else he might have discovered.
But King Elessar, when he was crowned in Gondor, began the re-ordering of his
realm, and one of his first tasks was the restoration of Orthanc, where he
proposed to set up again the palantir recovered from Saruman. Then all the
secrets of the tower were searched. Many things of worth were found, jewels
and heirlooms of Eorl, filched from Edoras by the agency of Wormtongue during
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