After following a long northward road out of Valinor and along the empty coastlands of Aman, Fëanor and the Noldor who followed him found a strange figure standing high in the rocks above them, who spoke a prophecy sent by the Valar. Though it is not known for certain who this figure was, it is generally thought to have been Mandos himself, and so the words he spoke are variously known as the Curse or Doom of Mandos, or as the Prophecy of the North.

The curse was laid most strongly on Fëanor and the others who had taken the Oath to recover the Silmarils, but it foretold a dark future for all the Noldor, filled with treachery, tragedy and death. Even for those that survived, nothing was promised but a fading to emptiness beside the Younger Children - Men - who were even then awakening in Middle-earth.

Fëanor's half-brother Finarfin was moved by the words of the prophecy, and gave up the march, returning with many of his followers to Valinor. Fëanor himself, though, spurned the message of the Valar, and pressed on with the crossing of the Great Sea and the journey into Middle-earth. There the Curse of Mandos soon started its work: Fëanor himself was killed shortly after he landed in Beleriand, and each of his followers fell under the power of the Curse in their own way.