The high white tower of King Ingwë of the Vanyar, rising above the houses and halls of Tirion, the great city of the High Elves in Aman. In the courts below the Mindon (the tower is often simply referred to as 'the Mindon') grew the silver-white tree Galathilion. Far above the courts, high in the Tower, a silver lantern was housed, whose light shone far across the Sea and along the dim shores beneath the Pelóri.
It was beneath the Tower that Fëanor gathered the Noldor after the Darkening of Valinor, and there he swore the Oath of Fëanor with his sons. From the courts, the Noldor marched after Fëanor into exile, and it is said that their last sight of the fair lands of Aman was the shining beacon of the Mindon Eldaliéva. Having left its light far behind, the Noldor were given the terrifying Doom of Mandos, laying a curse on them if they continued their journey into exile. Fëanor and his followers marched on, but Finarfin gave up the journey there, and led many of his people back into the south, where they were greeted once again by the high lantern of the Tower.
Notes
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Following the dating in The Annals of Aman in volume X of The History of Middle-earth, Tirion was completed in the Valian Year 1140, or about 3,450 years before the first rising of the Moon and Sun. All available evidence suggests that the Mindon Eldaliéva was completed in the same period.
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In The Etymologies (in volume V of The History of Middle-earth) the word mindon is explained as deriving from the older word minitaun, an isolated hill, especially one surmounted with a watch-tower. In the name Mindon Eldaliéva, it explicitly refers to the tower itself rather than the hill on which it stood, thus implying a more precise translation of 'watch-tower'. It should be noted that Christopher Tolkien gives a slight variation of this translation in his appendix to The Silmarillion, preferring to render mindon as 'lofty tower'.
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- Updated 8 August 2016
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