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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Ered
Luin
The Elves' name for the Blue Mountains, the broken range
that separated Lindon in the west from Eriador in the east.
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Iceforge
A small and secretive Dwarfhold in the frozen far north
of the Ered Luin
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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..
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Eryn
Vorn
'The Black Woods'; the deeply forested cape that stood out
into the Great Sea south of the mouths of Baranduin.
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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.
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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.
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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. .
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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.
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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
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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. |
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