The Oath of Felagund

The Oath of Felagund


<sub>“The sons of Finarfin bore most heavily the brunt of the assault, and Angrod and Aegnor were slain; beside them fell Bregolas lord of the house of Bëor, and a great part of the warriors of that people. But Barahir the brother of Bregolas was in the fighting further westward, near to the Pass of Sirion. There King Finrod Felagund, hastening from the south, was cut off from his people and surrounded with small company in the Fen of Serech; and he would have been slain or taken, but Barahir came up with the bravest of his men and rescued him, and made a wall of spears about him; and they cut their way out of the battle with great loss. Thus Felagund escaped, and returned to his deep fortress of Nargothrond; but he swore an oath of abiding friendship and aid in every need to Barahir and all his kin, and in token of his vow he gave to Barahir his ring. ”

-- J. R. R. Tolkien: The Silmarillion, chapter 18: Of the Ruin of Beleriand and the Fall of Fingolfin</sub>


Here's a scene I’ve wanted to draw for quite a while. ( And no, it’s not a gay wedding, even if they’re holding hands and there’s a ring involved.. ). It also took quite a while to draw, seeing as I started it sometime around Christmas.. I had more or less finished it by May but I didn’t have the time to do the Photoshop work before now..

So here King Finrod Felagund swears his oath of friendship to Barahir after the Men of the house of Bëor saved his life during the onslaught of Dagor Bragollach. That fateful oath would ultimately prove his undoing but eleven years later when he was honour-bound to accompany Beren on his quest for the Silmaril. However, without Barahir, Beren and the others Finrod would have almost certainly fallen that day at the Fen of Serech.

The drawing is partially an excuse for drawing armoured people for a change; Finrod and the Nargothrond captain in the background wear what I’d call traditional Ñoldorin scale mail and Barahir wears a complex suit of intricate leather armour. The all wear coifs of Dwarf-mail. The decorative heraldic themes are based on Tolkien’s designs for Bëor, Finarfin and Felagund as well as =elegaer’s ideas for Finrod.

The slightly wacky anatomy aside, I like how this turned out. I put a lot of blood and mud and grime and cuts here and there as an attempt to show how they’ve just hacked their way out of a battle against all odds. The wisps of mist drifting in the wind are there for some extra atmosphere and depth effect and also to illustrate the fact that the skirmish took place in a swampy location. I will probably do a coloured version at some point if I'll have time.. not likely anytime soon.

HB pencil and Photoshop.


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