Silverdelve

Forodwaith
The Northern Wastes

An icy region in the far north of Middle-earth, named for the hardy people who had once dwelt there.

The Forodwaith were an obscure people dwelling in the north of Middle Earth in the distant past, dating back to the First Age. They were noted as being a hardy people, as indeed would be necessary living in the icy lands closest to Morgoth's stronghold at Angband.

By the Third Age, little was left of the Forodwaith. Their last remnant were a people known as the Lossoth, living around the shores of the Icebay of Forochel. They did leave one great memorial, though: the wastes of northern Middle-earth retained the name of the Forodwaith who had lived there. Judging by the extents of the wasteland that bore their name, these people wandered much further afield than Forochel. These lands stretch to the north of the Misty Mountains and the Grey, for hundreds of miles eastward from the Icebay.

Icebay of Forochel
The great northern bay of Middle-earth

In the distant north of Middle-earth, between the far reaches of the Blue and the Misty Mountains, lay a wide icy bay of the Great Sea. This was the mighty Icebay of Forochel (the name Forochel means 'northern ice'), which extended far into the coldest regions of the north of Arda. To the north and west, the bay was sheltered from the Sea by the curve of the Cape of Forochel.

Despite its freezing climate, tribes of Men lived around the shores of the Icebay. Far back in the Elder Days, these were the people known as the Forodwaith, but by the Third Age, their descendants - the Lossoth - occupied the northern wastes in their place. Their main settlements were along the sheltered Cape, but they wandered far and wide around the Icebay, even venturing as far as the Icebay's southern coasts.

Carn Dûm
Mountain Fortress of Angmar

Peak in the far north of the Misty Mountains, the site of the ancient capital of the Witch-king of Angmar.

Angmar
The realm of the Witch-king

The realm of the Witch-king (the Lord of the Nazgûl) in the far north of the Misty Mountains, centred around the city of Carn Dûm; Angmar made war unceasingly with Arthedain and its allies, and eventually destroyed them, but was itself ultimately destroyed by an army of Gondor.

Ered Luin

The Elves' name for the Blue Mountains, the broken range that separated Lindon in the west from Eriador in the east.

Iceforge

A small and secretive Dwarfhold in the frozen far north of the Ered Luin

Dwarven Halls
The Home in Exile of Thorin Oakenshield

Though the mighty Dwarfholds of Nogrod and Belegost were ruined in the cataclysm that smote Beleriand beneath the sea, Dwarves still dwell in the Ered Luin. The famous Thorin Oaken-shield had his halls here, his kinsman Glóin, father of Gimli also came from there, and a community prospers still, nigh to the ruins of Belegost.

The Dwarves of Ered Luin were mostly unrelated to Durin's Folk (the Longbeards), they belonged to the Broadbeam and Firebeard clans, descended from the survivors of Belegost and Nogrod.

The Misty Mountains

The great mountain chain that ran through the northwest of Middle-earth for a thousand miles, from Carn Dûm in the far north, to Methedras above Isengard in the south.

Fornost
The city of the Kings of Arthedain

The chief city of Arthedain, and the seat of its Kings from Amlaith to Arvedui. Soon after the loss of the kingdom of Arthedain, the Battle of Fornost was fought there between Gondor and Angmar.

Annúminas
Ancient seat of the Kings of Arnor

The city of the Kings of Arnor, founded by Elendil himself, on the shores of the northern lake Nenuial, near the sources of the Baranduin. It was the chief city of the Kings of Arnor for several centuries, and home to one of the three palantíri of the North-Kingdom.

Available evidence suggests that the city survived for nearly a 1000 years. In the early days of Arnor, it must have been one of the glories of Middle-earth. Soon after its founding, though, the numbers of the Dúnedain of the North began to dwindle. The population of Annúminas seems to have fallen throughout its history, until eventually it was deserted, and the Kings removed to Fornost to the east.

Rivendell

The hidden refuge of Elrond Halfelven, founded by Elrond in the Second Age against the assaults of Sauron in Eriador. It lay in a deep valley in the western foothills of the Misty Mountains, and endured, under the protection of Elrond's Ring Vilya, until the War of the Ring and beyond. After the War, the Ring's power ended and Elrond passed over the Sea, but Rivendell itself remained, at least for a time, in the keeping of Elrond's sons Elladan and Elrohir.

Moria

The grandest and most famous of the mansions of the Dwarves. It lay in the central parts of the Misty Mountains, tunnelled and carved through the living rock of the mountains themselves, so that a traveller could pass through it from the west of the range to the east. It was founded in very ancient days by Durin the Deathless, who came upon a shimmering lake beneath the mountain Celebdil, with a crown of stars reflected in its waters. He named that lake in the Dwarvish tongue, Kheled-zâram, the Mirrormere, and there he started the building of Khazad-dûm.

Bree

Though Bree seems to have been founded before the beginning of the Third Age, it lay on the road between the North- and South-kingdoms of the Dúnedain, and so was drawn into the history of that Age. When the North-kingdom of Arnor was founded, Bree lay within its borders, and the Men of Bree became subjects of that country. More than a thousand years later, in about III 1300, members of a strange and little-known race began to appear in the township. Man-like in appearance, but much smaller, these were Hobbits fleeing the encroaching darkness to the east. Many of them stayed among the Men, and a unique society arose where the Big People and the Little People lived beside one another in harmony.

The Barrow Downs

The downs to the east of the Shire that held the ancient burial grounds of Men. During the time of the realm of Angmar, evil things came to dwell among the barrows, and some were still to be found there at the time of the War of the Ring.

The Old Forest

A remnant of the great forests of Middle-earth in the Second Age; most of these forests were felled by the Númenóreans, but two isolated woodlands remained. The Old Forest was the northern of these two (the other being Fangorn in the south), on the eastern borders of the Shire.

Mithlond
The Grey Havens

Mithlond, the harbours of Círdan at the eastern end of the Gulf of Lhûn, from which the Elves of the north of Middle-earth passed into the West during the later Ages.

Himling

A small island that lay off the north-western coasts of Middle-earth, about twenty-five miles out from the shores of northern Lindon. During the First Age, this had not been an island but a hill - Himring, where Maedhros' fortress had stood. When the western lands were flooded at the end of the First Age, the plains about the hill were drowned, and it was left standing as an island.

Forlindon
Northern Lindon

After the end of the First Age, the land of Lindon, west of the Blue Mountains, was divided by the great Gulf of Lhûn. The greater northern part was named Forlindon, which means no more than 'North-Lindon' in the Elven-tongue. On its southern shores was the haven of Forlond, while off its northwestern coasts stood the island of Himling, where Maedhros' fortress had once stood.

Harlindon
Southern Lindon

The lesser, southern part of the Elf-land of Lindon, on the western shores of Middle-earth. Harlindon was the part of that land that lay south of the Gulf of Lhûn, and the haven of Harlond lay on its northern coast..

Eryn Vorn

'The Black Woods'; the deeply forested cape that stood out into the Great Sea south of the mouths of Baranduin.

Tharbad
The City on the Greyflood

An ancient city of Men that grew up where the North-South Road crossed the River Gwathló (Greyflood). Tharbad was deserted in the late Third Age after it was devastated in the floods that followed the Fell Winter.

Mount Gundabad
Orcish Stronghold in the North

A mountain in the north of Middle-earth, lying at the meeting point of the Misty and the Grey Mountains. It was here that the Orcs of the northern world had their capital.

Dunland
W ild Land of the Dunlendings

A land in the eastern regions of the Enedwaith, beneath the southern Misty Mountains. Its warlike inhabitants were known as Dunlendings, blood-enemies of the Rohirrim.
Dunland was founded by Hill-men travelling northward from the White Mountains during the Dark Years, which places its foundation during the Second Age. We also know that it did not exist at the time when the Númenóreans began their exploitation of Middle-earth in about II 1800, so it must have come into existence within a few centuries of this date. .

Trollshaws
The Troll-woods West of Rivendell

The upland woods, consisting at least partly of beech trees, that lay to the west of Rivendell between the Rivers Hoarwell and Loudwater. They were the haunt of trolls, three of which famously waylayed Bilbo and his companions during the Quest of Erebor.

The Shire
The Land of the Halflings

At the end of the Third Age, the Shire was the most populous country of the Hobbits in the north of Middle-earth. It was founded in the middle of the Third Age by the Bree-hobbits Marcho and Blanco, and gifted to them and their followers by King Argeleb II of Arthedain, within whose borders the land lay at that time.

The Shire was divided into four farthings, North, South, East and West; its chief town was at Michel Delving on the White Downs, in the Westfarthing. The Mayor of Michel Delving was accounted among the most important of the Shire-hobbits, as was the Thain (the head of the Took family).

The Shire was largely given over to agriculture, and its land was well-suited for

farming. One of its chief products was Halflings' Leaf, grown especially in the warmer regions of the Southfarthing.

Hobbiton

Large town in the central regions of the Shire, within the borders of the Westfarthing. The town was overlooked by Hobbiton Hill (usually called simply 'The Hill'), in which was Bag End, the ancestral smial of the Baggins family.