Glorfindel

The golden-haired Elf-lord who carries Frodo to the Ford of Bruinen.

Glorfindel is an Elf-lord of the Noldor in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium, who helps Frodo Baggins escape the Nazgûl in The Fellowship of the Ring.

Quick Facts

Series: Middle-earth
Also known as: Lord of the House of the Golden Flower of Gondolin
Race: Elves

Facts from the source article.

Background

He was among the first characters Tolkien created, in the 1916–17 draft of The Fall of Gondolin, and his name means blond or golden-haired, a mark of distinction among the mostly dark-haired Noldor. In The Silmarillion he is a noble lord, one of King Turgon's chief lieutenants. When the city falls he escapes together with Tuor, Idril, Eärendil and others. Glorfindel fights a Balrog and succeeds in slaying the monster, but is himself mortally wounded, and the great eagle Thorondor recovers his body.

In The Fellowship of the Ring, Elrond of Rivendell sends him out to help Frodo reach Rivendell. Glorfindel sets Frodo on his horse Asfaloth and has him ride ahead across the Ford of Bruinen, and the Nazgûl who follow are swept away in the river by a wave raised by Elrond and Gandalf. He then sits beside Elrond and Gandalf in Rivendell and joins the Council of Elrond, where he warns against sending the Ring to Tom Bombadil.

The Appendices relate that earlier in the Third Age he led Elves of Rivendell, the Grey Havens and Lothlórien at the Battle of Fornost, where the Witch-king of Angmar fled from him, and that he foretold the Witch-king would not fall by the hand of man. Éowyn later slays the Witch-king at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.

Late in life Tolkien worked out how the two Glorfindels could be one and the same, returned to Middle-earth by the Valar after his death, a question scholars still debate. In Peter Jackson's 2001 film The Fellowship of the Ring, his rescue of Frodo is given to Arwen.