Beoraborn of Sarn Lothduin

Beoraborn was one of the three great Men or Waildanbairs among the dozen shapechangers in southern Mirkwood.Hwe was the oldest of the ones who possess the gift of Shape-changing. He had become the most revered of his kind south of the Old Forest Road. Only the Waildanbair who lived in the North beside the Carrock held sway over this kind patriarch. From his Haiman (R. "Manor") at Sarn Lothduin he roamed the river valley and forest paths, taking care to visit the isolated Beijabar families. For many, he is a sort of grandfather; he had no power over the individual Frathagaman (Rh. "Wise Ones"), but his authority was unsurpassed. Of the dozen Southern Beijabar who could Shape-change (Rh. Skuiftlaik), he was the only one considered to be the religious and political leader of all the southern families. Beoraborn's homestead was located atop a hillock, in a small grove of trees overlooking the Anduin below the Gladden Fields. There—among the furry oaks, silvery maples, and gleaming larch—he had built a fine long- house for his family of five: his wife Geilsyn (46), his sons Bork (24) and Braiga (21), and his daughter Resuntha (19). Animals of all sorts abounded within their carefully tended yard. Each performed a cooperative task, and all had a home somewhere in or beside the entwined rose-trees that served as the fence and protective wall of the manor. Beijabar prized their women and protected them with extraordinary zeal. This was largely a result of their insulated heritage; they had always feared a dilution of their sacred line. So although the Beijabar woman was treated as an equal and an artist in her own right, her contact with those outside the clan was much more limited than that of her male counterparts. This was also true of young males, for the Beijabar were few, and their children were their future. When he was not wandering in Wilderland as a fearsome Great Bear, Beoraborn wore the clothes that denoted one of the Waetan: a tunic, vest, and cape created out of black "Warg" fur (not the lycanthropic variety), pants of red wool, grey leather shoes and leggings, and no hat or helm. His carved white Dragon-horn and peculiar silver beard set him apart from the other Beijabar lords. (Each Waetan carried a distinct horn.) To an outsider, he may have seemed to be simply another barbaric hunter; to his kind, he was a noble master. At least one night in seven Beoraborn left his abode for the wilds. There, outside the enchanted boundaries of his manor, he took the form of a Great Bear. This change was said to bring the Beijabar closer to their beloved Béma (Oromë), for the great Vala was a hunter of foul beasts and a master of changing ways. (All Valar, of course, possessed the latter trait.) In elder days the Great Bears had accompanied Béma into battle against the armies and servants of the Black Enemy. Now they gathered at one of their traditional glades to dance and commune with their Fathers. Then they went forth in search of the creatures of Darkness, hunting and killing with brutal determination. This instinctive slaughter ran deep in their blood, and in times of war, or at the sighting of one they called a "monster" (e.g., an Orc or Troll), the Beijabar lord might see fit to revert to the ways of his venerated Bear-cousins.