Menegroth

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In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional world of Middle-earth, Menegroth, the 'Thousand Caves', was the city in the land of Doriath which was home to King Thingol and Queen Melian of the Sindarin people. Lúthien the Fair, their daughter, was born here. It was from Menegroth that the quest of Beren to gain a Silmaril began. Thingol later stored the Silmaril in one of his many vaults. Considered one of the finest works by the Elves of the Elder Days in either Middle-earth or Valinor, Menegroth was built under a mountain. Dwarves were employed in its construction, having had far more experience in builing underground. Its halls were carved to look like a beech forest, complete with birds and animals.

Near the end of the First Age, Thingol commissioned a group of Dwarves from Nogrod to incorporate his Silmaril into another great treasure he had received from Húrin: the Nauglamír, the Necklace of the Dwarves. After the Dwarves finished their work, they demanded a heavy payment from Thingol which the king refused to pay. Enraged, the Dwarves slew Thingol, sacked Menegroth, and stole the Nauglamír. However, on their journey back to Nogrod they were waylaid and routed by Green-elves under Beren's command in Ossiriand, and the Nauglamír retrieved.

After Thingol's death, Melian departed for Valinor, and the girdle of protection she had wrought around Doriath vanished with her. Beren and Lúthien's son, Dior, later ascended to the throne of Doriath, and upon the death of his parents received the Nauglamír, which Lúthien had worn until the end of her life. Upon learning that a Silmaril was in Dior's possession, the sons of Fëanor organised an attack on Doriath. In this Second Kinslaying, Dior, his wife Nimloth, and his two sons, Eluréd and Elurín, were killed along with three of Fëanor's sons: Caranthir, Curufin and Celegorm. However, Dior's daughter Elwing escaped to the havens of Círdan at the mouths of Sirion with a remnant of her people, and with her went the Nauglamír and the Silmaril within it. Menegroth, along with the rest of Doriath, was left in ruins, never to rise again.

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