Doom of Mandos

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In the fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien, the Doom of Mandos, also called the Doom of the Ñoldor, the Curse of Mandos or the Prophecy of the North, was the judgement of the Valar pronounced on the Elves who carried out the Kinslaying at Alqualondë:

"Tears unnumbered ye shall shed; and the Valar will fence Valinor against you, and shut you out, so that not even the echo of your lamentation shall pass over the mountains. On the House of Fëanor the wrath of the Valar lieth from the West unto the uttermost East, and upon all that will follow them it lieth also. Their Oath shall drive them, and yet betray them, and ever snatch away the very treasures that they have sworn to pursue. To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well; and by treason of kin unto kin, and the fear of treason, shall this come to pass. The Dispossessed shall they be for ever.

"Ye have spilled the blood of your kindred unrighteously and have stained the land of Aman. For blood ye shall render blood, and beyond Aman ye shall dwell in Death's shadow. For though Eru appointed ye to die not in Eä, yet slain ye may be, and slain ye shall be: by weapon and by torment and by grief; and your houseless spirits shall come then to Mandos. There long shall ye abide and yearn for your bodies, and find little pity though all whom ye have slain should entreat for you. And those that endure in Middle-earth and come not to Mandos shall wane, and become weary of the world as with a great burden, and shall become as shadows of regret before the younger race that cometh after. The Valar have spoken."

The Kinslaying was the Elves' equivalent of Man's Original Sin, in that they fell to evil and were expelled from paradise.

The pronunciation of this Doom was the immediate cause for the return to Valinor of (already reluctant to proceed) Finarfin and his followers. There they asked and received the forgiveness of the Valar.