We don't know exactly when Tuor acquired Dramborleg, but by the age of sixteen he was said to be able to wield an axe, the traditional weapon of the Sindar who fostered him, and of his own father Huor. After his capture by Lorgan he was held as a thrall for three years, but in I 491 he managed to escape: '...he turned suddenly on his guards and slew them with an axe, and fled into the hills.' (Of Tuor and his Coming to Gondolin in Unfinished Tales). It's tempting to see this axe as the origin of Dramborleg, but in context it seems more likely to have been a simple wood axe than a weapon, and it is never mentioned again. Perhaps more plausibly, he would have taken his great battle-axe from the armouries of Gondolin, which would date it after his coming to that city in I 495.