Idril

Idril
Tolkien's legendarium character
The Wedding of Tuor and Idril illustration by Tom Loback
Aliases	Celebrindal
Race	Elves
Gender	Female
Book(s)	The Silmarillion, The Book of Lost Tales(The Fall of Gondolin)

Idril Celebrindal is a fictional character in English author J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. She appears in one of his chief works of literature, The Silmarillion, published posthumously by Christopher Tolkien, as an elvish princess.

Idril Celebrindal ("silver-foot") was the only child of Turgon, whose wife Elenwë died at the Helcaraxë. She was the wife of Tuor, and the mother of Eärendil the Mariner, who later sailed to Valinor and brought about the War of Wrath in which Morgoth was finally defeated. Together with Angrod's son Orodreth and Curufin's son Celebrimbor, she was one of the three Noldor in the third generation to come into exile. Idril was loved in secret by her cousin Maeglin, the son of Eöl the Dark Elf and Aredhel, Turgon's sister, but scorned his advances because of his dark character, as well as the fact that they were too closely related.

In Tolkien's fictional language of Sindarin, the name Idril was a form of the name Itarillë (or Itarildë), which means "sparkling brilliance" in Quenya, another of Tolkien's invented languages.

When the mortal man Tuor, son of Huor, arrived in the Elvish city of Gondolin as a messenger of the Vala Ulmo, he immediately fell in love with the King's daughter Idril and she with him. In contrast to the first union of Elves and Men, which came about through much hardship and unimaginable sacrifice, Tuor and Idril were allowed to marry without difficulty. This was because King Turgon had grown to love Tuor as a son (as he had his father before), and remembering the last words of Huor which prophesied that a "star" would arise out of both his and Turgon's lineage which would redeem the Children of Ilúvatar from Morgoth he permitted Idril and Tuor to wed, thus bringing about the second union of Men and Elves, after Beren and Lúthien. Their wedding was celebrated with great mirth and joy and of their love was born in Gondolin Eärendil the Mariner, who was to become the saviour of Elves and Men and their mediator to the Valar. Afterwards Idril had a secret passage built, known as Idril's Secret Way, and thus enabled many to escape the Fall of Gondolin.