Ufedhin

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This content is considered pre-canon. While the subject of this article is based on official information, it was replaced or emended in later stages of the legendarium.

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Ufedhin was an Elf of the First Age in earlier versions of the legendarium, notable for his treachery against Thingol, King of Doriath.

History

Ufedhin was significantly one of the corrupt Elves who helped treacherous Dwarves from Belegost and Nogrod past the Girdle of Melian, and also helping to incite the Dwarves already inside the Thousand Caves to war in order to seize the cursed treasure of Mîm. He appears in both "The Nauglafring" and the later Quenta Noldorinwa, but then mysterious vanishes from other accounts of the sack of Doriath.

The novel Beren and Lúthien uses material from the later versions of the Quenta Noldorinwa which explains that "by the treachery of certain Elves on whom the lust of the accursed treasure had fallen they [dwarves] passed through into Doriath in secret."^{[citation needed]} It appears Christopher Tolkien has taken a new route to explain how the Dwarves bypassed the veil (a thorn in J.R.R. Tolkien struggled with trying to explain and had several theories, including the 'inside help from Ufedhin, but never settled on one.)

The problem of the entry of the Dwarvish army into Doriath, defended by the Girdle of Melian, is still solved by the device - the too simple device, see II. 250 - of 'some treacherous Gnomes' (in the Tale there was only one traitor); the slaying of Thingol while hunting remains, and as in the Tale Melian, inviolable, left the Thousand Caves seeking Beren and Luthien. Though it is not so stated, it seems likely that in this version it was Melian who brought the news and the warn- ing to Beren (this is the story in the Quenta, pg. 160).