Thranduil
|
|
King Thranduil was a character in the fictitious world of Middle-earth created by J. R. R. Tolkien. He was a Sindarin Elf and king of the Silvan Elves in the northern part of Greenwood the Great (Mirkwood), which lay just east of the Misty Mountains.
In The Hobbit he is simply called the Elvenking. When Thorin Oakenshield and his party of Dwarves enter northern Mirkwood they are captured by Thranduil's elves and locked up when they refuse to divulge their intentions, before being freed by Bilbo Baggins.
Thranduil was son of Oropher and father of Legolas Greenleaf. In The Lord of the Rings, the gradually-established friendship between Legolas and the Dwarf Gimli, the son of Glóin of Thorin's band, helps to reconcile the differences between Thranduil's people and the Dwarves.
It is amusing to note that one of the dwarves imprisoned by Thranduil was Glóin, Gimli's father, and both Legolas and Gimili have most likely grown up hearing tales involving the other's father, yet ironically both end up on a doomed quest together, and develop an unprecedented friendship between Elf and Dwarf.
It is also noted in the appendices to The Return of the King that Legolas and the Wood-Elves somehow managed to work together with Gimli and the Dwarves to improve Minas Tirith.