Timeline Event
Isildur swims the Anduin to escape the Disaster of the Gladden Fields
Event Type: Military/Strategic
Age: 3rd Age - The Kings
Date: October 4, 0002
Description:
An event in the Disaster of the Gladden Fields; see that entry for an overview:
'[Isildur] leaped into the waters....'
The Fellowship of the Ring, LoTR Book 1, Ch 2, The Shadow of the Past
Then he went on more warily, for wide flats stretched on into the gloom before him, rough and pathless....
So it was that he came at last to the banks of Anduin at the dead of night, and he was weary; for he had made a journey that the Dúnedain on such ground could have made no quicker... by day. The river was swirling dark and swift.... He stood for a while, alone and in despair. Then in haste he cast off all his armour and weapons, save a short sword1 at his belt, and plunged into the water. He was a man of strength and endurance that few even of the Dúnedain of that age could equal, but he had little hope to gain the other shore. Before he had gone far he was forced to turn almost north against the current; and strive as he might he was ever swept down towards the tangles of the Gladden Fields. They were nearer than he had thought, and even as he... had almost won across he found himself struggling among great rushes....
Unfinished Tales, Part 3, Ch 1, The Disaster of the Gladden Fields
Notes
1 This was of a kind called eket: a short stabbing sword with a broad blade, pointed and two-edged, from a foot to one and a half feet long. [Author's note.]
Unfinished Tales, Part 3, Ch 1, The Disaster of the Gladden Fields: Notes, Note 28
Contributors:
Elena Tiriel 1Dec07