Fengel

King Fengel was the 15th king of Rohan and grandfather of King Théoden, He is infamous having been cursed by Wyrgende with an omen of death afflicting his entire bloodline.

King Fengel came to the throne when he was very young, and he ruled for fifty years. Though long, his rule was ill-starred: he was prone to greed and made many enemies. In the last winter of his reign, he was hunting north of the Entwade on a cold afternoon. An elderly woman stumbled into his camp. She was lost and hungry.

Wyrgende said, "A scrap of bread, if you please, my mighty lord. I am lost, and cold, and hungry." King Fengel said, "Who are you, crone, to beg from the crown? If you seek warm food in your belly, find some churl whose bed lies unwarmed, or find some game and kill it yourself!"

King Fengel threw his own dagger at her feet and sent her away into the dark night. The King's men were horrified, and they searched for the woman. They found her at dawn, frozen to death at the foot of a tall boulder, the King's dagger still in her hand. She had carved a curse into the face of the stone, along with her name: WYRGENDE.

This is what she carved into the stone:

'Feckless Fengel, fool I name thee, Grief shall be the get of thy greed. No lord of your line shall long live, upon thy seat no son shall settle. Kin and kingdom your craving hath killed, Until the might of the Mark is mended. Wyrgende.'

King Fengel was furious, and he ordered Wyrgende's body burned and the stone destroyed, but no man of his company could more her, and every hammer and mattock they set to the stone shattered on contact. King Fengel himself assailed the stone with his sword until the blade shattered, and a shard pierced his thigh. The wound festered, and King Fengel died of poisoned blood on the first day of Spring.

His bloodline since was marred with the deaths of many young kin. The most recent of these is Prince Théodred, who would not live to receive his father's crown.

Gallery

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  The Barrow of Fengel