–—

The Rider of the Last Hope.

One of six riders sent north from Gondor by Steward Cirion to seek the aid of the Northmen in war. Borondir was the only one to survive the journey and present the Seal of the Stewards to Eorl.

* Borthand

One of the three sons of Bor; see Borlach.

–—

One of the sons of Bór, and apparently the youngest, who entered Beleriand late in the First Age. He fought in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, and was faithful to the Noldor, taking a part in the slaying of Ulfang’s sons before he was himself slain.

* Bracegirdles|Bracegirdle

An important hobbit-family of the Shire.

An important and populous family of Shire-hobbits, associated with the town or village of Hardbottle. The most famous of them was Lobelia Bracegirdle, who married Otho Sackville-Baggins.

* Brand

Third King of Dale, grandson of Bard the Bowman; slain in the battle of Dale.

–—

Lord of Dale, the grandson of Bard the slayer of Smaug, who fell at the side of Dáin Ironfoot in the War of the Ring, and who was avenged by his son Bard II.

* Brandir

Called ‘the Lame’ or ‘Club-foot’; ruler of the People of Haleth in Brethil after the death of Handir his father; enamoured of Nienor; slain by Túrin.

–—

The last of the line of Haldad.

The son of Handir, the last of Lord of the Haladin of Brethil; slain by Túrin Turambar after the death of Glaurung.

* Brandy Hall

The ancestral home of the Brandybuck family, a deeply-delved smial in Buck Hill, in the central regions of Buckland on the banks of the River Brandywine.

* Brandybuck Family|Brandybuck

An old family of the Shire found mostly in Buckland, and descended from the Oldbucks, and ultimately from Bucca of the Marish, the first Thain of the Shire. The family was founded by Gorhendad Oldbuck who, claiming the Eastmarch of the Shire (Buckland), changed his family name to Brandybuck.

Probably the most famous member of the family was Meriadoc Brandybuck, who was part of the Company of the Ring.

* Brandywine

The eastern border-river of the Shire.

The name given by Hobbits to the river the Elves called Baranduin; its source was at Lake Nenuial in the north, and it flowed southwestwards to reach the Great Sea near Eryn Vorn. For part of its length it formed the eastern border of the Shire.

* Brandywine Bridge

The point where the East Road crossed the Brandywine.

The bridge on the East Road crossing the River Brandywine; it marked the eastern border of the Shire. Originally called the Bridge of Stonebows.

* Bree

The principal village of the Bree-land at the crossing of the Númenórean roads in Eriador.

–—

An ancient colony in Eriador shared by Hobbits and Men. Far older than the Shire, it was from Bree that the two Fallohides, Marcho and Blanco, set out to found that land.

* Bree-folk

The Men and Hobbits who inhabited the village of Bree and its surrounding lands.

* Bree-hill

The most prominent point in the Bree-land, on the slopes of which stood the villages of Bree itself (to the west) and Staddle (to the east).

* Bree-hobbits

The Hobbits native to Bree and the lands around; their interaction with Men (who also lived in the Bree-land), made them more open to the outside world than their parochial cousins in the Shire.

Bree itself was a very ancient township of Men. The first Hobbits came there from the east in about the year 1300 of the Third Age, making Bree the only place in the world where Hobbits and Men lived together side by side. Most of the Hobbits of the Bree-land lived in Staddle, a village on the southeastern slopes of the Bree-hill, but some also dwelt in Bree itself, living on the hill above the houses of Men.

It was three hundred years after Hobbits first arrived in Bree that two Fallohides, Marcho and Blanco, led a group of colonists westward to found the Shire. The Bree-hobbits, therefore, tended to look down somewhat on their cousins in the Shire, referring to them as ‘Colonists’ and

‘Outsiders’. The Hobbits of Bree claimed to have originated most Hobbit customs, and certainly it was thought that they were the ones who first discovered the properties of pipe-weed.

At the end of the Third Age, the Bree-hobbits still occasionally travelled west to the Shire, but they rarely ventured further than Buckland or the Eastfarthing, those parts of the Shire that were closest to their home.

In The Lord of the Rings I 9; At the Sign of the Prancing Pony, Tolkien gives us a list of the more prominent Hobbit families living in the Breeland at the time of the War of the Ring; Banks, Brockhouse, Longholes, Mugwort, Sandheaver, Tunnelly and Underhill. There were also Hobbits by the name of Banks living in the Shire, and Underhill was a hamlet of Hobbiton, but we can do no more than speculate on the links between these families and regions.

* Bree-land

The land around the Bree-hill, the chief township of which was Bree itself, but which also comprised the villages of Staddle, Combe and Archet.

* Bregalad

The ‘hasty’ Ent known to the Hobbits as ‘Quickbeam’, who befriended Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took during the Entmoot that preceded the Ents’ attack on Isengard. Bregalad later played an important role in that attack himself.

* Brego

The son of Eorl the Young, who became the second King of Rohan. He freed Rohan from its enemies for many years, and completed the Golden Hall of Meduseld.

* Bregolas

The younger brother of Barahir, father of Baragund and Belegund, an ancestor of both Tuor and Túrin Turambar. He fought and died in the Dagor Bragollach.

* Bregor

Father of Barahir and Bregolas.

–—

The son of Boromir and father of Barahir, who was the second lord of Ladros from the House of Bëor.

* Brethil

The forest between the rivers Teiglin and Sirion in Beleriand, dwelling-place of the Haladin (the People of Haleth).

–—

The home of the Folk of Haleth.

A forest on the western marches of Doriath. It was occupied in the later years of the First Age by the Edain of the House of Haleth, and it was there that Túrin Turambar slew the dragon Glaurung.

* Bridge of Khazad-dûm|Bridge of Khazad-dum Part of the defences of ancient Khazad-dûm - a narrow bridge across a chasm within the eastern gates of the Dwarf-city. Most famous as the site of Gandalf’s encounter with Durin’s Bane during the Quest of Mount Doom.

* Bridge of Stonebows

The name of the Brandywine Bridge used while it was still in the keeping of the kingdom of Arthedain.

* Brilthor

‘Glittering Torrent’, the fourth of the tributaries of Gelion in Ossiriand.

–—

The fourth of Gelion’s six tributaries.

One of the six swift rivers that flowed westward from the mountains of the Ered Luin to meet the long course of the Gelion on the borders of Ossiriand. The river’s name Brilthor is said to mean ‘glittering torrent’.

* Brithiach

The ford over Sirion north of the Forest of Brethil.

–—

The ford over the northern reaches of the River Sirion, north of the Forest of Brethil on the margins of Dimbar.

* Brithombar

The northernmost of the Havens of the Falas on the coast of Beleriand.

–—

The western of the two Havens of the Falas, at the mouth of the River Brithon, from which it took its name.

* Brithon

The river that flowed into the Great Sea at Brithombar.

–—

A lesser river that rose in an isolated and unnamed highland region of West Beleriand, and flowed south to meet the Great Sea at the haven of Brithombar. After the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Morgoth sent a force down the course of this river to assault the haven at its mouth.

* Brockhouse

A populous family of the Bree-hobbits.

* Brodda

An Easterling in Hithlum after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad who took as wife Aerin, kinswoman of Húrin; slain by Túrin. Called ‘the Incomer’.

–—

An Easterling and ally of Morgoth during the First Age. After Morgoth’s capture of the land of Hithlum, Brodda became its lord.

* Brown Lands

The desolate region between Mirkwood and the Emyn Muil.

–—

The blighted lands that lay on the eastern banks of the Anduin, between the Emyn Muil in the south and the borders of Rhovanion in the north.

* Bruinen

River in Eriador, tributary (with the Mitheithel) of the Gwathló; translated Loudwater.

–—

Also called the Loudwater, the river that rose in the Misty Mountains east of Rivendell, and joined the Mitheithel (Hoarwell) to form the River Gwathló or Greyflood.

* Bucca of the Marish|Bucca

First of the Shire-thains.

The end of the second millennium of the Third Age was a time of crisis for the Hobbits of the Shire. The northern lands of Middle-earth were aflame with war. The armies of Angmar, of Arthedain, of Cardolan, Rhudaur and latterly Gondor marched across the lands that had been the northern realm of Arnor. Most of the Shire-hobbits went into hiding, though some few marched to the service of Arthedain, within whose borders the Shire lay, but they never returned.

At last, peace returned: the kingdoms of the Dúnedain fell one by one, and then the victorious Witch-king of Angmar was himself defeated by a revenging army of Gondor. The Hobbits returned to their old lives, but the loss of Arvedui, the last king of Arthedain, left them leaderless.

After four years had passed since the end of the great wars, the Hobbits decided to take a leader for themselves. They chose one Bucca of the Marish, who was granted the title Thain of the Shire, and led the Shire-hobbits to peace and prosperity.

No more is known of Bucca’s life, but his legacy remained until the time of the War of the Ring and beyond. At that time, more than twelve hundred years after his Thainship, the Masters of Buckland still proudly claimed descent from Bucca the first Thain.

* Buck Hill

A hill overlooking the village of Bucklebury in Buckland, deeply burrowed with the smials that made up Brandy Hall, the ancestral home of the Brandybuck family.

* Buckland

The Eastmarch of the Shire.

–—

Origin and History: Seven hundred and forty years after the founding of the Shire, Gorhendad Oldbuck crossed the River Brandywine from the Eastfarthing and started the building of Brandy Hall in Buck Hill, in a land hitherto unpopulated by Hobbits. As Gorhendad’s family grew, the Hall also expanded, and soon there was a flourishing community in the land between the River and the Old Forest.

From that time, Buckland was ruled by the Brandybucks, as Gorhendad renamed his family, who were given the title ‘Masters of Buckland’.

The village of Bucklebury, lying close by Buck Hill, was considered Buckland’s chief village, but the expanding population meant that many other villages soon grew up in the region, the largest of which were Newbury, Crickhollow and Standelf. The growing power of the Master of Buckland gained respect from those close by in the Eastfarthing, too; the lands of the Marish between Stock and Rushey also acknowledged themselves under the sway of Buck Hall.

The Bucklanders soon found themselves threatened by the strange trees of the Forest, and so built a vast hedge, the High Hay, stretching twenty miles along the eastern border of their land. This was not the only danger to threaten Buckland - in III 2911, the year of the Fell Winter, the Brandywine froze and Buckland was invaded by white wolves.

Buckland was also the childhood home of Frodo Baggins, who returned here on his journey to Rivendell in III 3018. He bought a house in Crickhollow, and claimed that he would be living there, but instead entered the Old Forest through the old Hay Gate, and left the Eastmarch of the Shire.

–—

Culture: Although similar in many ways to other Hobbits, the Bucklanders did have certain peculiarities. Due no doubt in part to the Fallohidish blood of the Brandybucks, the Hobbits of Buckland were somewhat more adventurous than their cousins in the Shire (while still conservative by the measure of many other races in Middle-earth). They enjoyed boating, an activity frowned upon by Shire-hobbits, and some of them could even swim.

When the Bree-folk ventured to the Shire, Buckland was their usual destination (though some ventured as far as the Eastfarthing), and so was rather more cosmopolitan (in Hobbit terms) then the rest of the land.

Living under constant danger from the Old Forest, the Bucklanders were hardier and more suspicious than the usual Shire-hobbit. They were organised to deal with danger (through the famous Horn-call of Buckland), and they kept their doors locked at night, which was unusual in the Shire.

* Buckland Gate

The North Gate of the Bucklanders.

Leaving the Shire across the Brandywine Bridge, a traveller would come to the northern end of the High Hay, where it ran beside to the road to meet the River Brandywine. In the Hedge at this point was a guarded gate that led to Buckland, the Eastmarch of the Shire.

* Bucklanders

The inhabitants of Buckland on the eastern borders of the Shire, the Bucklanders acknowledged the Master of Buckland as their leader. The Brandybucks, descendants of Gorhendad Oldbuck who founded Buckland, were considered the most important family of the Bucklanders.

The Brandybucks had a strong Fallohidish strain in their blood, it is said, and this made them more adventurous than many of their more conservative neighbours in the Shire. They did not share the Shire-hobbits’ fear of water, for example, and the Bucklanders’ boats where often seen on the Brandywine River that bordered their land.

On the eastern border of Buckland lay the dangerous Old Forest, and the constant threat of the dark trees made the Bucklanders somewhat hardier than typical Hobbits.

* Bucklebury

The chief village of Buckland, lying in the shadow of Buck Hill, seat of the Master of Buckland, on the banks of the River Brandywine.

* Bucklebury Ferry

Ferry across the Brandywine River between Bucklebury and the Marish.

–—

A raft-ferry, the main crossing point of the River Brandywine from the Shire to Buckland, after the Brandywine Bridge.

* Bullroarer

Title of Bandobras Took.

The title given to Bandobras Took, the nearest thing in Hobbit history to a great warrior. Tall enough to ride a horse, the Bullroarer was most famous for his rout of the goblins at the Battle of Greenfields.

* Bundushathûr|Bundushathur

The mountain the Elves called Fanuidhol.

With Barazinbar and Zirakzigil, one of the three Mountains of Moria that rose above the ancient Dwarf-kingdom of Khazad-dûm in the heart of the Misty Mountains. The name also appears in the short form Shathûr, and refers to the mountain called Fanuidhol by the Elves and Cloudyhead by Men.

* Bungo Baggins|Bungo

The builder of Bag End.

Bilbo Baggins’ father. He married into the Took clan when he wed Belladonna Took.

* Butterbur Family|Butterbur

The family that kept the Prancing Pony.

An old family of Bree, that had kept the inn there, the Prancing Pony, for years beyond reckoning. The innkeeper at the time of the War of the Ring was Barliman Butterbur.

* Bywater

Village in the Shire a few miles south-east of Hobbiton.

–—

The village by the Water.

A town of the Shire, lying close to Hobbiton on the borders of the Westfarthing, near the East Road.

* Bywater Road

The road to Bywater and beyond.

The road that left the main East Road a little to the west of the Three-Farthing Stone, leading to the village of Bywater from which it took its name. From there, it carried on to Hobbiton, where a traveller would turn right and cross a bridge across the Water to reach Hobbiton Hill and Bag End. The road itself carried on into the west, in the direction of Little Delving.

* Cabed-en-Aras|Deer’s Leap

Deep gorge in the river Teiglin, where Túrin slew Glaurung, and where Nienor leapt to her death; translated ‘the Deer’s Leap’. See Cabed Naeramarth. The ‘Deer’s Leap’; a narrow point in the Ravines of Teiglin.

It was here that Túrin Turambar slew the dragon Glaurung.

* Cabed Naeramarth

‘Leap of Dreadful Doom’, name given to Cabed-en-Aras after Nienor leapt from its cliffs.

* Cair Andros

Island in the river Anduin north of Minas Tirith fortified by Gondor for the defence of Anórien.

–—

The ‘Ship of Long-foam’.

A large river-island in the Anduin, to the east of the land of Anórien.

It was held in defence against Mordor by Gondor to prevent crossings of the Great River, though these defences were breached during the War of the Ring.

The island itself was long and narrow, a little over ten miles in length. At its northern end, sharp rocks split the waters of the Anduin in a bubbling foam that gave the island its name. Cair Andros was covered with trees for much of its length.

Strategically, the island was of immense importance: apart from the bridge at Osgiliath, it was the only practical means for an army from the east to cross the Anduin into Gondor’s heartlands. The Gondorians took this risk seriously. Amon Dîn, the first of the Beacon-hills, was set up originally to warn the citizens of Minas Tirith if Cair Andros was ever breached.

Gondor took steps to fortify the island, too, but the history of these fortifications is difficult to establish. We know that it was ‘manned’ at the time of King Ondoher’s fall in III 1944, but whatever defences were in place at that time were apparently abandoned, since Denethor’s great-grandfather Túrin II found it necessary to fortify the island again in about the year III 2900.

The Gondorian defences fell on 10 March III 3019. On the same day that the Witch-king rode from Minas Morgul with the armies that would besiege Minas Tirith, Sauron released a smaller force (though still numbering more than 6,000 Orcs and Men) from the Morannon. They overwhelmed the defenders of Cair Andros, and used the island to cross into Anórien. It was this northern force that blocked the eastward progress of the Rohirrim as they rode to Gondor’s aid, though after the Battle of the Pelennor, the Rohirrim chased them down and pushed them back out of Anórien.

They retreated to Cair Andros, and apparently held the island for some days. In his march on Mordor, Aragorn released a small group of soldiers from his main army to retake the island if necessary, and hold it. They must have succeeded, since the last we hear of the island of Cair Andros, its moorings were used by the ships of Gondor, as glimpsed by Frodo after completing his Quest.

* Calacirya

‘Cleft of Light’, the pass made in the mountains of the Pelóri, in which was raised the green hill of Túna.

–—

The ‘Pass of Light’.

The cleft made in the mountains of the Pelóri so that the light of the Two Trees could shine through. The Elven city of Tirion stood near the eastern end of the Calacirya.

* Calaquendi

‘Elves of the Light’, those Elves who lived or had lived in Aman (the High Elves). See Moriquendi and Dark Elves.

–—

‘Elves of the Light’; a name given to the Vanyar, the Noldor and that part of the Teleri who travelled to Aman in the youth of the world and saw the light of the Two Trees of Valinor; Elu Thingol of Doriath is also counted among their number.

* Calembel

The township on the River Ciril.

A town in the Gondorian region of Lamedon. It stood above the fords of the River Ciril, where the road from Erech crossed that river and passed on eastward. It was here that Aragorn and the host of the Dead camped during their journey to Pelargir during the War of the Ring.

* Calenardhon

‘The Green Province’; name of Rohan when it was the northern part of Gondor. See Ard-galen.

–—

Wide green land in the north of Gondor, gifted by Steward Cirion to Eorl the Young, and thereafter named Rohan.

* Calenhad

Sixth of the beacons of Gondor in Ered Nimrais.

* Calimehtar

Thirtieth King of Gondor, victor over the Wainriders on the Dagolard in Third Age 1899.

–—

The thirtieth King of Gondor, son of Narmacil II. Calimehtar is most famous for his defeat of the Wainriders on the plain of Dagorlad. He was succeeded by his son, Ondoher.

* Calmacil

The father of Rómendacil II.

The younger brother of Narmacil I, who succeeded his childless brother as King of Gondor. His reign was short and unremarkable, lasting just ten years during which the actual power of the realm was wielded by his tireless son and regent Minalcar. On Calmacil’s death, Minalcar took the throne himself under the famous name of Rómendacil II.

* Calmindon

The ‘Light-tower’ on Tol Uinen in the Bay of Rómenna.

* Camellia Sackville

An aunt of Bilbo Baggins, whose marriage to his uncle Longo Baggins formed the foundation of the Sackville-Baggins family. Through her son Otho, she became the mother-in-law of Lobelia Sackville-Baggins.

* Camlost

The ‘Empty-handed’, a title given to Beren when he returned to Thingol’s halls from the Quest of the Silmaril. He had achieved the Quest set him by Thingol - a Silmaril was in his hand, but that hand had been bitten from his arm by Carcharoth the Wolf, still holding the Jewel.

* Cape Balar|Balar

The small cape that lay to the west of Arvernien, and marked the northern limit of the Bay of Balar.

* Captain of Despair

One of the many titles of the nameless Lord of the Nazgûl, used during his final battle, the assault on Minas Tirith near the end of the War of the Ring.

* Captain of the Southern Army

A military title of Eärnil.

Soon after his accession to Gondor’s throne, King Ondoher realized that his kingdom’s northern enemies, the Wainriders, had made an alliance with her old southern foe, the Haradrim. To counter this double threat, Ondoher divided Gondor’s army into two parts; a larger Northern Army and a smaller Southern Army. The Northern Army he led himself; the Captaincy of the Southern Army he gave to his distant cousin Eärnil.

As Ondoher had foreseen, the Wainriders and Haradrim launched a joint attack on Gondor, in the year III 1944, and Gondor’s two Armies marched through Ithilien to the defence of the South-kingdom. Ondoher’s northern force was all but destroyed by the Wainriders, but Eärnil led his lesser Army to a great victory over the Haradrim. Turning north, the Southern Army reunited with the remnant of the Northern, and together they fell on the Wainriders at the Battle of the Camp. Eärnil’s victories as the Southern Army’s Captain would ultimately earn him the Kingship of Gondor itself.

* Captains of the West

Leaders of the final hopeless march to Mordor.

Gandalf, Aragorn, Éomer, Imrahil and the other lords of the allied force that rode against the gates of Mordor in the last stages of the War of the Ring.

* Captivity of Melkor

Three ages of peace in Aman.

The term of three ages for which Melkor was held prisoner by the Valar in Valinor. At the end of the third age of his captivity, Manwë released Melkor, but he turned back to darkness, destroying the Two Trees and fleeing back to his strongholds in the north of Middle-earth with the Silmarils.

* Caradhras

The Redhorn, the Cruel.

–—

“… Caradhras rose before them, a mighty peak, tipped with snow like silver, but with sheer naked sides, dull red as if stained by blood.”

(The Fellowship of the Ring II 3, The Ring Goes South)

–—

Called the Redhorn, one of the mightiest peaks in the Misty Mountains, beneath which lay the Redhorn Pass attempted by the Nine Walkers on the Quest of Mount Doom.

* Caragdûr|Caragdur

The precipice on the north side of Amon Gwareth (the hill of Gondolin) from which Eöl was cast to his death.

–—

A black precipice of rock on the north side of the city of Gondolin. Eöl the Dark Elf met his end by being flung down the Caragdûr.

* Caranthir

The fourth son of Fëanor, called the Dark; ‘the harshest of the brothers and the most quick to anger’; ruled in Thargelion; slain in the assault on Doriath.

–—

The fourth son of Fëanor, who dwelt in Thargelion in the east of Beleriand, and was slain in the assault of the Sons of Fëanor on Menegroth.

* Caras Galadhon

‘City of the Trees’, chief dwelling of the Elves of Lórien.

–—

The tree-city of the Galadhrim; the seat of Celeborn and Galadriel in the realm of Lórien.

* Carcharoth|The Wolf

The great wolf of Angband that bit off the hand of Beren bearing the Silmaril; slain by Huan in Doriath. The name is translated in the text as

‘the Red Maw’. Called also Anfauglir.

–—

‘The Red Maw’.

The mighty wolf that bit Beren’s hand from his arm, and with it a Silmaril from Morgorth’s crown. The burning of the jewel drove him to madness, and he ravaged the lands until slain by Huan in the famed Hunting of the Wolf.

* Cardolan

One of the three kingdoms into which Arnor was divided on the ninth century of the Third Age; bounded in the west by Baranduin and in the north by the East Road.

–—

Most southerly of the realms of the Northern Dúnedain.

The name given to the central and southern regions of Arnor; a separate kingdom after the death of Eärendur, whose rulers were descendants of one of his younger sons.

* Carn Dûm|Carn Dum

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.

* Carnen

‘Redwater’, river flowing down from the Iron Hills to join the River Running.

–—

The long river known as the Redwater.

A river that rose in the Iron Hills, far to the north and east of the known parts of Middle-earth. Its winding course took it southwards for more than two hundred miles, until its waters emptied into the Celduin (the River Running) and were carried on southwards to the Sea of Rhûn.

The river’s name, Carnen, is a direct Elvish equivalent of its Mannish name, the Redwater. Both are very likely a reference to its source in the Iron Hills, since rivers whose sources lie among iron deposits have water with a very distinctive red-orange colour.

* Carnil

A red star created by Varda in preparation for the coming of the Elves.

* Carrock

A stony eyot in the upper reaches of the River Anduin, to the north of the Old Ford. See Ford of Carrock.

* Castamir

The Usurper of Gondor.

A Gondorian noble, the great-grandson of the King Calmacil. When Eldacar became King in Gondor, there was popular unrest because his mother Vidumavi belonged to the Northmen, and so he carried only half-Gondorian blood. Castamir took advantage of this unrest to launch a rebellion, and he succeeded in deposing Eldacar and sending him into exile. For ten cruel years he ruled Gondor, but Eldacar the rightful King built an army in exile, and returned to oust Castamir and reclaim his throne.

* Cats|Cat

The most famous cats in the histories of Middle-earth were the cats of Queen Berúthiel, nine black and one white, belonging to the queen of King Tarannon of Gondor.

* Cave-trolls|Cave-troll|Cave Trolls|Cave Troll Trolls apparently adapted for underground life. The Company of the Ring discovered them when they passed through Moria.

* Cedars|Cedar

Mighty spreading trees of southern climes.

Huge resinous trees with spreading branches. In the Third Age, as today, cedars were most common in warmer lands, but they were apparently not unknown in the Shire.

* Celduin

River flowing from the Lonely Mountain to the Sea of Rhûn. Translated

‘River Running’.

–—

The Elvish name for the river known by Men as the River Running. It rose at the gates of Erebor, and flowed long miles southward and eastward to its outflow into the Sea of Rhûn.

* Celebdil

Called the Silvertine, one of the three peaks in the Misty Mountains (with Caradhras and Fanuidhol) that lay above the ancient Dwarf-city of Khazad-dûm.

* Celeborn (tree)|Celeborn

‘Tree of Silver’, name of the Tree of Tol Eressëa, a scion of Galathilion.

–—

The White Tree of Tol Eressëa.

The White Tree that grew in the central regions of Tol Eressëa. It grew from a seedling of Galathilion, the White Tree that grew in Tirion, and from it came Nimloth, the White Tree of Númenor.

* Celeborn of Doriath|Celeborn

Elf of Doriath, kinsman of Thingol; wedded Galadriel and with her remained in Middle-earth after the end of the First Age. Lord of Lothlórien. See Teleporno.

–—

The Lord of Lórien.

An Elf of Doriath, who met with Galadriel daughter of Finarfin after the Return of the Noldor to Middle-earth, and wedded her. They became Lord and Lady of Lórien during the Third Age.

* Celebrant

‘Silver Lode’, river running from Mirrormere through Lothlórien to join the Anduin.

–—

The Elves’ name for the River Silverlode.

The river also known as the Silverlode, that flowed southeastwards out of the valley of Nanduhirion, passing through the land of Lórien to meet the Great River, Anduin.

* Celebrían|Celebrian

The daughter of Galadriel and Celeborn, Celebrían wedded Elrond, and bore him Arwen Evenstar. Attacked by Orcs in the Misty Mountains, she was rescued by her sons Elladan and Elrohir, but took ship into the West soon after.

* Celebrimbor

‘Hand of Silver’, son of Curufin, who remained in Nargothrond when his father was expelled. In the Second Age greatest of the smiths of Eregion; maker of the Three Rings of the Elves; slain by Sauron.

–—

Leader of the People of the Jewel-smiths.

The son of Curufin and grandson of Fëanor, who led the Elves of Eregion during the Second Age and played a great part in the making of the Rings of Power.

* Celebrindal

The surname of Idril of Gondolin.

The surname, meaning ‘silver-foot’, of Turgon’s daughter Idril, who became the mother of Eärendil the Mariner. She gained the name, apparently, because she walked barefoot wherever she went.

* Celebrindor

The fifth King of Arthedain.

Celebrindor the son of Celepharn ruled Arthedain during a time of relative calm. He was the last King to enjoy a peaceful reign, and the last not to know the name of Angmar. Soon after his death, evil things began to stir again, and the Lord of the Nazgûl came into the north as the Witch-king, to found the realm that would eventually destroy Celebrindor’s kingdom.

Celebrindor ruled Arthedain for eighty-one years, and was succeeded by his son Malvegil.

* Celebros

‘Silver Foam’ or ‘Silver Rain’, a stream in Brethil falling down to Teiglin near the Crossings.

–—

The stream of the Rainy Stair.

A minor tributary of the River Teiglin that flowed beneath the eaves of the Forest of Brethil. The Celebros descended southwards from the highlands of Brethil into the Ravines of Teiglin through a series of waterfalls that filled the air with fine spray (the name Celebros means

‘silver spray’). A wooden bridge crossed the Celebros at a place called -

because of the waterfalls’ spray - Dimrost, or the Rainy Stair.

Dimrost’s name was changed when Nienor came to cross the Celebros. When she reached the bridge, which gave a wide view of the Ravines of Teiglin to the south and west, a foresight of her doom seems to have come upon her (she was to die in the waters of the Teiglin). The sudden shuddering that overtook her then gave a new name to the crossing of the Celebros: Nen Girith, the Shuddering Water.

* Celegorm

The third son of Fëanor, called the Fair; until the Dagor Bragollach lord of the region of Himlad with Curufin his brother; dwelt in Nargothrond and imprisoned Lúthien; master of Huan the wolfhound; slain by Dior in Menegroth.

–—

Celegorm the Fair was the third of the seven sons of Fëanor. The most ambitious of the seven, he followed the oath of his father with the greatest ardour, and this led him to his destruction.

In Valinor, Celegorm became a great hunter, and had the friendship of Oromë, often hunting with the Vala or visiting his house. From Oromë, Celegorm gained great knowledge of birds and beasts, and he learned to understand their tongues, and he gained also another gift, Huan the great hound. He also had great friendship with his cousin Aredhel, the daughter of Fingolfin.

After the Darkening of Valinor, he stood in the court of Tirion with his father and his six brothers, and swore to the Oath of Fëanor. With that, he marched with the Noldor from Valinor and returned to Middle-earth as the Moon rose for the first time. The faithful hound Huan accompanied Celegorm into exile.

–—

Early Years in Beleriand, I 1 - I 455: In the first assault of the Noldor on the Orcs, the Dagor-nuin-Giliath, Celegorm found himself in the hills around Eithel Sirion, in the north of the Ered Wethrin. Receiving news of an orc-host coming north from the Falas, he ambushed them and drove them into the Fen of Serech.

After the battle, in which his father Fëanor died, he journeyed to the land of Himlad in the eastern regions of Beleriand, and there took up his abode with his younger brother Curufin. Celegorm and Curufin together claimed the land between the rivers Aros and Celon, and they fortified the Pass of Aglon in the north against the forces of Morgoth. During this time, the two were close in friendship with their brother Caranthir, who dwelt across the valley of the river Gelion in the land of Thargelion, and often went hunting with him.

The land of Himlad was held for more than 450 years by Celegorm and his brother, but in the Dagor Bragollach, Morgoth’s armies broke the defence of the Pass of Aglon, and overran Celegorm’s lands. With his brother Curufin, he was forced to flee, and they journeyed south and west until they came to Finrod’s halls in Nargothrond.

–—

Time in Nargothrond, I 455 - c. I 465: Finrod received his cousins warmly, and for a time Celegorm and Curufin dwelt happily in Nargothrond, hunting the Orcs and wolves that dared to cross the Guarded Plain. They were at that time mighty lords, and their power and influence in Finrod’s domain grew.

Before many years had passed, though, Beren came out of Doriath seeking Finrod’s help in his quest for the Silmaril. The Oath of Fëanor bound Celegorm to defy any that sought a Silmaril, but Finrod was also bound by an oath, to Beren’s father Barahir, to lend aid in the quest, and so he departed from Nargothrond, leaving it in the keeping of his brother Orodreth. Celegorm and Curufin exercised their influence after the departure of Finrod, however, and during this time they were effectively the rulers of Nargothrond.

While out hunting on the Guarded Plain, they discovered Lúthien, who having escaped from her father in Doriath was seeking for Beren. Celegorm saw that to be wedded to the daughter of one of the greatest kings in Beleriand would be a great source of power, and so he tricked Lúthien into returning to Nargothrond with him. Once there, he imprisoned her and sent false messages to Thingol, pursuing his suit.

From Lúthien, they learned that Beren and Finrod had been captured by Sauron and imprisoned in his fortress at Tol-in-Gaurhoth. They made no attempt to rescue them, believing that the death of Finrod would further their own power in Nargothrond. Celegorm’s hound, Huan, disobeyed his master, and help Lúthien to escape from the brothers, leading here away into the north after Beren.

Though he later returned to Celegorm, their trust was diminished. While he was away from Nargothrond, Huan had aided in the defeat of Sauron in the north, and the destruction of Tol-in-Gaurhoth. Many prisoners of Sauron, who were released when his tower was destroyed, returned to Nargothrond and reported the fate of Finrod. So the lies that Celegorm and Curufin had told in pursuance of power were exposed, and the people turned back to their rightful king, Orodreth. Celegorm and Curufin were exiled from Nargothrond, but their deeds were repudiated by their people, who had come with them from Himlad, and so they journeyed friendless in Beleriand.

–—

Return to the Northern Lands, c. I 465 - c. I 500: After their expulsion from Nargothrond, the brothers journeyed to the north and east, seeking again the lands where they had once ruled, and especially Himring, where their elder brother Maedhros was still lord.

As they travelled beside the eaves of Brethil, they discovered Beren and Lúthien returning from the north, and attacked them. In defence of Lúthien, Huan the hound deserted Celegorm and fought against him. Curufin lost his horse in that fight, and the brothers were forced to ride away eastwards together on Celegorm’s steed. Journeying on through Dimbar and Nan Dungortheb, they came at last to the lands of Maedhros.

Celegorm was not to abide there long, for only a few years after their arrival, Maedhros united the Elves of Beleriand, and the great battle known as the Nirnaeth Arnoediad took place. Celegorm marched into the north with his brothers, and was wounded in the battle, but Uldor the Accursed betrayed the Elves and turned against them, and so the host of Maedhros was broken and scattered. Celegorm fled with his brothers to the lands below Mount Dolmed, in the far east of Beleriand.

There they dwelt, a broken and wandering people, for some thirty years.

In that time, Beren and Lúthien dwelt in the far south, on the island of Tol Galen in the River Adurant, and with them was the Silmaril that they had recovered from Morgoth’s crown. While their oath bound the brothers to recover the jewel, none dared assail that hallowed island, and so they waited.

Eventually, Beren and Lúthien passed away, and the Silmaril was taken to Dior, Thingol’s heir, in Doriath. Now the sons of Fëanor sent demands to Dior for the return of the jewel, but Dior disregarded them. So the brothers formed an army and assaulted the halls of Menegroth, and there Celegorm was slain by Dior, though Dior also perished, as did Curufin and Caranthir.

* Celepharn

The fourth King of Arthedain.

The son of Mallor and great-grandson of Amlaith of Fornost, the founder of Arthedain. He ruled Arthedain early in the second millennium of the Third Age, at a time when the South-kingdom of Gondor was at the height of its power (the great Atanatar Alcarin became King of Gondor during Celepharn’s rule in the north).

The first Hobbits had been seen in Eriador in the reign of Celepharn’s grandfather Beleg, and Celepharn might even have encountered them himself as a young man. During his own reign, though, their numbers increased as the growing darkness in Mirkwood drove them westward out of Rhovanion.

Fallohides and Stoors crossed the Misty Mountains at this time, joining the Harfoots who had been living in the west for a century or more.

Celepharn ruled Arthedain for eighty-one years, and was succeeded by his son Celebrindor.

* Celon

River flowing southwest from the Hill of Himring, a tributary of Aros.

The name means ‘stream flowing down from heights’.

–—

A tributary of the Aros that rose in the highlands around Himring and flowed southwestwards until it met the Aros on the borders of Doriath.

The woods of Nan Elmoth lay on its southern bank.

* Celos

One of the rivers of Lebennin in Gondor; tributary of the Sirith.

* Cemendur

Meneldil’s son and heir.

Cemendur was descended from a mighty line of lords: his great-grandfather was Elendil himself, and he was the grandson of Anárion and son of Meneldil. Nonetheless, of his reign as King of Gondor we know almost nothing. It seems that Gondor had peace during his reign, since the only recorded historical event to take place during it was the birth of Elrond’s daughter Arwen in the north, three years after Cemendur took the throne. No-one in Gondor at that time, of course, could have known how significant that event would be: nearly three thousand years later, Arwen was to wed Aragorn, a distant descendant of Cemendur’s great-grandfather Elendil, and become Queen of Cemendur’s realm.

Cemendur ruled in Gondor for eighty-six years, and was succeeded by his son Eärendil.

* Ceorl

Rider of Rohan who brought news of the Second Battle of the Fords of Isen.

* Cerin Amroth

The mound of Amroth, that stood in the heart of Lórien and held the house of that King before he was lost. It was here that Aragorn and Arwen plighted their troth centuries later.

* Cermië|Cermie

The seventh month of the year, according to the Stewards’ Reckoning of Gondor, following Loëndë, and preceding Urimë. On a modern calendar, Cermië ran between 23 June and 22 July, in a normal year.

* Chamber of Mazarbul|Mazarbul

The old Chamber of Records of Khazad-dûm. It was used as a base by Balin when he attempted his ill-fated attempt at recolonisation: the Company of the Ring found his tomb there as they passed through Moria.

* Chamber of Records

The Chamber of Mazarbul in Khazad-dûm.

The Chamber of Mazarbul in old Khazad-dûm, its hall of records; a large, square chamber lit by a single shaft of light from the open air. When Balin led an attempt to recolonise Moria, he chose this place as his seat, but it became his tomb.

* Chetwood

The wood of the Bree-land.

The broad woodland that lay to the north and east of the Bree-hill. The village of Archet was built among the trees near its edge.

* Chica Chubb

One of Bilbo Baggins’ aunts, who married his uncle Bingo to found the Chubb-Baggins branch of the family. Bingo and Chica had one recorded son, Falco Chubb-Baggins.

* Chief

Title given to the leader of the Shire during the time it was under the control of Saruman’s forces, nominally given to his puppet, Lotho Sackville-Baggins.

* Chieftain of the Dúnedain|Chieftain

The title taken by the Heirs of Isildur after the loss of the kingdom of Arthedain; sixteen lords of Men, from Aranarth (elder son of Arvedui, last King of Arthedain) to Aragorn II Elessar.

–—

1- Aranarth (Chieftain for 131 years to III 2106): The heir of Arvedui, who would have become King of Arthedain if not for the destruction of his realm by the Witch-king. He saw his loss avenged, though, when a great army of Dúnedain out of Gondor, led by Eärnur, wiped out the Witch-king’s own realm of Angmar. During his time, the Watchful Peace began, and the Heirs of Isildur had peace until the time of Arahad I.

2- Arahael (Chieftain for 71 years to III 2177).

3- Aranuir (Chieftain for 70 years to III 2247).

4- Aravir (Chieftain for 72 years to III 2319).

5- Aragorn I (Chieftain for 8 years to III 2327): The first Aragorn, after whom Aragorn of the War of the Ring was named, lost his life in eastern Eriador, where he was slain by wolves.

6- Araglas (Chieftain for 128 years to III 2455).

7- Arahad I (Chieftain for 68 years to III 2523): In his time, the evil that had once dwelt in Dol Guldur returned, and the Watchful Peace came to an end. In the eighth year of his reign, the White Council was formed, a matter that Arahad must surely have been aware of, if he was not directly involved himself. As the years drew on, the extent of the danger from the east became more evident; the Misty Mountains were filled with Orcs, and near the end of Arahad’s time as Chieftain, Celebrían the wife of Elrond was captured and tortured by them.

8- Aragost (Chieftain for 65 years to III 2588).

9- Aravorn (Chieftain for 66 years to III 2654).

10- Arahad II (Chieftain for 65 years to III 2719).

11- Arassuil (Chieftain for 65 years to III 2784): Arassuil saw Eriador openly invaded by Orcs out of the Misty Mountains, who penetrated as far west as the Shire. The period between III 2745 and III 2748 is recorded as being the time of worst warfare, and it was in this time that the Battle of Greenfields was fought in the Northfarthing. Arassuil was Chieftain at the time of the Long Winter.

12- Arathorn I (Chieftain for 64 years to III 2848): It is known that Arathorn met an untimely end, though no records remain of his fate.

Perhaps he was slain by Orcs or wolves, though the worst of the fighting with the Orcs of the Mountains had been over for a century before his death.

13- Argonui (Chieftain for 64 years to III 2912): The last winter of Argonui’s rule was the so-called Fell Winter, in which the northern lands were troubled by White Wolves out of the north, and the floods from the snow-melts of the following spring spread destruction far and wide.

14- Arador (Chieftain for 18 years to III 2930): Arador enjoyed only a short time as Chieftain, during which he saw his son Arathorn wed Gilraen. Soon after, journeying in the fells north of Rivendell, he was captured by Hill-trolls and slain.

15- Arathorn II (Chieftain for 3 years to III 2933): Arathorn’s time as leader of the Rangers was even shorter than his father’s. After just three years as Chieftain, he went hunting Orcs with Elladan and Elrohir, and was shot by an arrow. He was succeeded by his son Aragorn, then just two years old.

16- Aragorn II (Chieftain for 86 years to III 3019): Most famous of all the Chieftains, Aragorn had great friendship with the Wizard Gandalf. He journeyed the length and breadth of Middle-earth, doing heroic deeds in the service of both Rohan and Gondor. He played a great part in the War of the Ring, and at its end as rightful Heir of Isildur took up the Kingship of his noble ancestor, reuniting the North- and South- kingdoms after more than three thousand years.

* Chieftain of the North|Chieftain

The leader of the Northern Dúnedain.

The line of the descendants of Arvedui, the last King of Arthedain. From Arvedui’s son Aranarth to Aragorn II, who reclaimed the throne of Gondor for the Northern Line, there were sixteen Chieftains of the North.

* Children of Aulë|Children of Aule

The seven clans of the Dwarves.

A name for the Dwarves, who were created by Aulë the Smith during the Years of the Trees.

* Children of Ilúvatar|Children of Iluvatar|Children of Eru|Children of the Earth|Children of Earth|Children of the World Also Children of Eru: translations of Hini Ilúvataro, Eruhini; the Firstborn and the Followers, Elves and Men. Also The Children, Children of the Earth, Children of the World.

–—

The two Speaking Peoples fated in the Music of the Ainur; Elves and Men.

* Children of the Sun

A name given by Elves to Men, who awoke at the first rising of the Sun, and hence feared the night.

* Chubb Family|Chubb

An important hobbit-family of the Shire.

A family of Shire-hobbits, of whom several were present at Bilbo Baggin’s Birthday Party. Their main connection with the Baggins family was through Bilbo’s grandfather, the Old Took, whose wife Adamanta Chubb was mother to no fewer than twelve children, including Bilbo’s mother Belladonna.

* Chubb-Baggins Family|Chubb-Baggins

A branch of the Baggins of Hobbiton.

A family created by the wedding of Bilbo’s uncle Bingo Baggins to Chica Chubb. It seems to have lasted just three generations; what evidence we have suggests that the last Chubb-Baggins was Bingo’s grand-daughter Poppy, who married into the Bolger family.

* Circle of Isengard

The great circular wall surrounding the inner plain of Isengard, in the centre of which ws Orthanc. Also called Ring of Isengard.

* Círdan|Cirdan

‘The Shipwright’; Telerin Elf, lord of the Falas (coasts of West Beleriand); at the destruction of the Havens after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad escaped with Gil-galad to the Isle of Balar; during the Second and Third Ages keeper of the Grey Havens in the Gulf of Lhûn; at the coming of Mithrandir entrusted to him Narya, the Ring of Fire.

–—

The keeper of the Grey Havens.

A lord of the Teleri in Middle-earth, Círdan was persuaded to remain in Beleriand with some of his people by Ossë when the other Teleri were taken into the West by Ulmo. Lord of the Falas during much of the First Age, he removed to the Isle of Balar after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. At the end of the First Age, with the destruction of Beleriand, he moved eastwards and founded Mithlond, the Grey Havens, on the Gulf of Lhûn.

He remained in Lindon throughout the Second and Third Ages. Throughout the Second Age, that land was under the direct rule of High King Gil-galad. At the time of the fall of Eregion, Celebrimbor sent two of the Three Rings north to the High King, and Gil-galad in turn passed one of these to Círdan; Narya, the Ring of Fire. At the end of the Second Age, Gil-galad fell in the War of the Last Alliance, leaving Lindon without a ruler. His natural heir would have been Elrond, who had long since removed to Imladris, and so Círdan took on the leadership of the Elves west of the Blue Mountains.

Círdan continued to maintain the havens at Mithlond throughout the Third Age and into the Fourth. When the Wizards arrived in Middle-earth, he perceived that Gandalf was the wisest of them, and gave him the Red Ring to bear in secret. He took an active part in the events of the Third Age, too; it was his mariners, for example, who sought to rescue Arvedui the last King of Arthedain. He was still the master of the Grey Havens at the end of the Age, when he saw the Ring-bearers’ White Ship, that he had held in preparation over the long years, pass into the West.

* Ciril|Kiril

A minor river of western Lamedon.

A short tributary to the River Ringló. The Ciril rose in the White Mountains of western Lamedon, about twenty miles east of Tarlang’s Neck.

It flowed directly southwards, through its fords at Calembel, to meet the Ringló.

‘Ciril’ is the later spelling of this river’s name, used throughout the text of The Lord of the Rings. The large-scale contour map given at the beginning of Book V, though, shows the older form of the name, ‘Kiril’, which reflects its correct pronunciation.

* Cirion

Twelfth Ruling Steward of Gondor, who granted Calenardhon to the Rohirrim after the battle of the Field of Celebrant in Third Age 2510.

–—

The Steward that gifted Calenardhon to Eorl.

The twelfth Ruling Steward of Gondor, the son of Steward Boromir. He called on the Northmen for aid in the wars of Gondor, and rewarded them with the land of Calenardhon (later called Rohan) when they answered his call.

* Cirith Dúath|Cirith Duath

‘Shadow Cleft’, former name of Cirith Ungol.

–—

The Pass of Shadows.

The shadowy pass in the Ephel Dúath, above Minas Ithil. This was the older name of the pass that came to be known during the Third Age as Cirith Ungol.

* Cirith Forn en Andrath

‘The High-climbing Pass of the North’ over the Misty Mountains east of Rivendell. Called the High Pass and the Pass of Imladris.

* Cirith Gorgor

Called the Haunted Pass, the point were the mountain ranges of the Ered Lithui and the Ephel Dúath met, to the northwest of Mordor. It was sealed by the Black Gate of the Morannon, and guarded by the Towers of the Teeth.

* Cirith Ninniach

‘Rainbow Cleft’, name given by Tuor to the ravine leading from the western hills of Dor-lómin to the Firth of Drengist, and by which he came to the Western Sea; see Annon-in-Gelydh.

–—

The rocky pass through the northwestern mountains of Middle-earth that led to the Great Sea at the Firth of Drengist. It was into this cleft that the Gate of the Noldor led, and Tuor escaped this way on his fateful mission to Gondolin.

* Cirith Thoronath

‘Eagles’ Cleft’, a high pass in the mountains north of Gondolin, where Glorfindel fought with a Balrog and fell into the abyss.

* Cirith Ungol

‘Spiders Cleft’; pass over the Ephel Dúath above Minas Morgul. See Cirith Dúath.

–—

The high pass where Shelob lurked.

The pass through the Ephel Dúath on the western borders of Mordor that lay above the tower of Minas Morgul.

* Cirth

The Runes, first devised by Daeron of Doriath.

–—

The Elvish word for Runes, characters designed to be cut into a surface, rather than written with a brush or pen.

* Ciryaher

Victor over the southern lands.

Ciryaher, the son of King Ciryandil, was to become the last of Gondor’s four Ship-kings. The haven of Umbar had been captured by his grandfather Eärnil, but Gondor had been hard put to defend the haven since its capture. Ciryaher’s father was himself lost in an assault by the Haradrim, holding the defence of Umbar. Ciryaher was a patient man, and slowly built his fleets and his armies in the north until he was sure of victory. At last, thirty-five years after his father’s loss, he launched an unstoppable assault on the southern lands, and utterly conquered the Men of Harad. From this time, Ciryaher took the name Hyarmendacil, signifying ‘South-victor’.

Ciryaher ruled in Gondor for one hundred and thirty-four years, and brought that land to the height of its glory. He was succeeded by his son Atanatar II Alcarin.

* Ciryandil

Third of the four Ship-kings of Gondor.

Eärnil I was the second of the Ship-kings of Gondor, famous for capturing the southern haven of Umbar. When he was lost at sea, he was succeeded by his son Ciryandil, who continued his father’s naval policies. Ciryandil reigned over Gondor for seventy-nine years, and died in the defence of Umbar against the Haradrim. He was succeeded by his son Ciryaher, who went on to avenge his father and conquer the southern lands, and so ruled in the name of Hyarmendacil I.

* Ciryatur

Númenórean admiral commanding the fleet sent by Tar-Minastir to the aid of Gil-galad against Sauron.

* Ciryon

Third son of Isildur, slain with his father and his brothers Elendur and Aratan in the Disaster of the Gladden Fields.

* Citadel of Gondor

A term sometimes used loosely of Minas Tirith in Gondor, but in fact strictly referring to the fortified seventh and highest circle of that city.

* City of Gondor

Minas Tirith beneath Mindolluin.

A name given, at least at the time of the War of the Ring, to Minas Tirith, Gondor’s great fortified city that stood at the eastern extent of the White Mountains. In fact, at the time of the country’s founding, Gondor’s chief city had been Osgiliath, some miles east and north of Minas Tirith, but this ancient city did not survive through the Third Age. King Tarondor abandoned Osgiliath for Minas Anor in III 1640, and from that time on Minas Anor, later renamed Minas Tirith, was truly the City of Gondor.

* Closed Door

Fen Hollen, the door in the sixth circle of Minas Tirith that led to the Silent Street and the tombs of the Kings of Gondor.

* Cloudyhead

The mountain named Fanuidhol.

One of the three Mountains of Moria, named Fanuidhol by the Elves and Bundushathûr (or just Shathûr) by the Dwarves, many of whom had lived beneath it in the city of Khazad-dûm.

* Cock-robin

A nickname for Robin Smallburrow, one the Shire’s band of Shirriffs. Sam Gamgee used it when he encountered his old friend Robin and troop of Shirriffs after returning from the southern lands.

* Coirë|Coire

‘Stirring’; the Quenya name for the Elvish season that lay between modern 11 February and 5 April.

* Cold-drakes|Cold-drake

The least mighty of Dragons.

–—

“Now the least mighty [dragons] - yet they were very great beside the Men of those days - are cold as in the nature of snakes and serpents, and of them a many having wings go with the uttermost noise and speed…”

(Turambar and the Foalókë, in The History of Middle-earth vol. II, The Book of Lost Tales II)

–—

Lesser dragons; those of dragon-kind who did not have the ability to make fire.

They were used by Morgoth in the wars of the First Age, though no specific mention of them in this period remains in Tolkien’s published work. After the War of Wrath, in which most would have perished, some few seem to have escaped into the northern regions of Middle-earth, beyond the Grey Mountains.

As the millennia passed, their numbers grew, until they became a serious threat in the later centuries of the Third Age to the Dwarves that mined the Grey Mountains. In the year 2589 of the Third Age, Dáin I, King of Durin’s Folk, and his second son Frór were slain at the gates of their halls by a Cold-drake. The attacks of these fearsome creatures persuaded to Dwarves to migrate eastwards from the Grey Mountains, and it was soon afterwards that their realms in the Iron Hills and at Erebor were established.

Of the history of the Cold-drakes after this period we are given no hint. Four hundred years later, at the time of Bilbo Baggins’ journey to Erebor, they seem to have left the Grey Mountains (at least, Gandalf makes no mention of them when describing the dangers of that region). It is possible that the Orcs who colonised the Mountains after the departure of the Dwarves drove them back into the cold wastes to the north, but we can do no more than speculate on their ultimate fate.

* Combe

A village of the Bree-land.

A village that lay in a deep valley on the eastern side of the Bree-hill, between Archet to the north and Staddle to the south. The village took its name from its location: combe is an old word for a valley, and the same element appears in ‘Deeping-coomb’, a valley in the White Mountains far to the south of the Bree-land.

* Common Speech

The Westron, the language that evolved from Adûnaic as spoken in Númenor, as the common tongue of the peoples of Middle-earth.

* Common Tongue

The Common Speech of the Westlands.

The Common Language used throughout the northern and western lands of Middle-earth. It developed from the Númenórean tongue, Adûnaic, but with many additions and changes from other languages, to become almost universally spoken.

* Company of the Ring

The nine companions who set out from Rivendell on the Quest of Mount Doom. They were: Aragorn, Boromir, Frodo Baggins, Gandalf, Gimli Elf-friend, Legolas Greenleaf, Meriadoc Brandybuck, Peregrin Took, Samwise Gamgee.

* Coranar

An Elvish word for ‘year’.

Literally ‘sun-round’, a name given by the Elves to a single year.

* Cordial of Imladris

A name for miruvor.

The reviving cordial made by the Elves of Imladris and called by them miruvor. A flask of the precious drink was given to Gandalf for the refreshment of the Company of the Ring during the southward journey, but seems to have been lost in his fall from the Bridge of Khazad-dûm.

* Cormallen

A garth of Ithilien.

A tree-lined field in North Ithilien, on the banks of the Anduin near to Cair Andros. It was here that Frodo and Sam were received after they achieved the Quest of Mount Doom, and praised with great praise.

* Corn

A general name for various cereal crops, especially wheat or oats. In the legends of Middle-earth, corn was brought out of the west by the Númenóreans during the Second Age.

* Corollairë|Corollaírë|Corollaire

The ‘Green Mound’ of the Two Trees in Valinor; also called Ezellohar and Coron Oiolairë.

–—

The mound of the Two Trees.

A name for the Green Mound that stood outside the gates of Valmar, on which the Two Trees of Valinor grew. The name corollairë means literally means ‘summer mound’.

* Corsairs of Umbar|Corsairs|Corsair

Pirates from the lands south of Gondor.

The people of Umbar during the later Third Age, largely descended from Castamir the Usurper and his followers, who, though they were Gondorian in origin, continued a long enmity against the land of their ancestors.

* Cotman

The grandfather of Farmer Cotton.

The son of Cottar, and an ancestor of the Cottons of Bywater. Cotman was apparently not a wealthy Hobbit - his name means ‘cottage dweller’, meaning that he lived in a particularly small hobbit-hole. He married Rose, the daughter of Holman the greenhanded, and their son (also called Holman) was the first Hobbit to use the family-name of Cotton.

* Cottar

The ancestor of the Cotton family.

The oldest known member of the Cotton family, though in fact the name

‘Cotton’ would not appear until the time of his grandson Holman Cotton.

Cottar was born in the year 1220 by the Shire-reckoning, that is some two centuries before the War of the Ring. He had two sons, Cotman and Carl.

Cotman married Rose, the daughter of Holman the greenhanded, and so began a long association between Cottar’s descendants and Holman’s.

* Cotton Family|Cotton

The descendants of Cottar.

Cottar, the founder of the Cotton clan, was born some two hundred years before the War of the Ring. It was his grandson, Holman, who was the first to take the surname Cotton. ‘Long Horn’, as Holman was known, is also the first of the Cottons to be explicitly connected with the village of Bywater, which remained the seat of the family from that time on.

Indeed, the name ‘Cotton’ means ‘cottage town’, and may actually be a reference to Bywater village.

Holman’s son Tolman farmed the lands to the south of Bywater, and it was he who made the family one of the most important in the Shire. He played a significant part in the decisive Battle of Bywater, the most important step in the recovery of the Shire from Sharkey’s Men, and his daughter Rose married Sam Gamgee in the following spring.

* Council of Elrond

The council held at Rivendell before the departure of the Fellowship of the Ring.

–—

The war-council of the Wise.

The council held on 25 October III 3018 at Rivendell, where the history of the Ring was discussed, and its fate debated. Present at the council were representatives of all the free peoples of Middle-earth.

The Council of Elrond: Aragorn, Bilbo Baggins, Boromir, Elrond Halfelven, Erestor and other counsellors of Elrond, Frodo Baggins, Galdor of the Havens, Gandalf, Gimli, Glóin, Glorfindel, Legolas.

After much debate, four main proposals were put forward. Erestor, Elrond’s chief counsellor, suggested taking the Ring back westward to Tom Bombadil, in the hope that he could withhold it from Sauron. Glorfindel suggested something similar: carrying the Ring west to the Great Sea and casting it in. Both of these courses were thought too dangerous to attempt, and rejected for other reasons besides.

Boromir of Gondor had a bolder proposal: to take the Ring and wield it against its maker. The dangers of doing this were all too clear, and none of those present who might have taken up the Ring would agree to do so.

The final conclusion of the Council was to follow the course devised by Elrond himself, to carry the Ring into Mordor and cast it into Mount Doom. By no means all the Council agreed with this course. Erestor in particular saw little hope of succeeding. ‘That is the path of despair,’

he said, ‘Of folly I would say, if the long wisdom of Elrond did not forbid me.’ (The Fellowship of the Ring II 2, The Council of Elrond).

Nonetheless, Elrond’s plan was accepted as the only course possible. As Gandalf said, ‘It is wisdom to recognise necessity, when all other courses have been weighed…’ (ibid). Frodo the Ring-bearer took on the task, and a Company for him was assembled from five others of those present at the council, to which were added the Hobbits Samwise Gamgee, Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took. This was the Company or Fellowship of the Ring, that set out for Rivendell on the journey that Erestor had called the ‘path of despair’.

* Council of Gondor

Advisors to the ruler of the South-kingdom.

In his account of Arvedui’s claim on Gondor’s throne, Tolkien once mentions a body known as the Council of Gondor, who act as the legal authority of Gondor after the loss of Ondoher left it kingless. Except for the fact that it acted under the control of Steward Pelendur, we are told almost nothing of this Council or its normal function.

It was traditional among the Men of Númenor for the King to maintain a council of advisers, and it is not unreasonable to presume that their descendants in Gondor followed a similar system. The Númenórean ‘Council of the Sceptre’ was composed of nobles from each of the main regions of Númenor, together with the King’s Heir. It is fair to assume, then, that Gondor’s Council was made up from representatives of each of the South-kingdom’s separate lands, probably in addition to the King’s heir, and apparently the Steward as well.

* Council of the Sceptre

Advisors to the King of Númenor.

The nobles and lords of Númenor, together with the King’s Heir, who gathered to advise the King on weighty matters of state.

* Council of the Wise

Also called the White Council, the alliance of the great among the Elves and Wizards formed in the Third Age to organize and coordinate the defence against Sauron and his servants.

* Country of Amroth|Amroth

Coast of Belfalas near Dol Amroth.

* Cows|Cow

Domestic beasts kept throughout Middle-earth. The most famous were the eastern variety known as the Kine of Araw.

* Cracks of Doom

The heart of Orodruin.

The Sammath Naur; the forge and workshop of Sauron tunnelled deep into Orodruin and open to its central fire.

* Crebain

Black crows out of the southern Misty Mountains.

Large black birds of crow-kind, native to the lands that bordered the southern Misty Mountains, Dunland to the west and Fangorn to the east.

They seemed to possess at least some level of intelligence, and were apparently used as spies by Saruman during the War of the Ring.

* Crickhollow

A village in the northern parts of Buckland; it was here that Frodo Baggins claimed to be his destination when he left Hobbiton.

* Crissaegrim

The mountain-peaks south of Gondolin, where were the eyries of Thorondor.

–—

The Abode of Eagles.

The sheer-sided peaks to the south of the concealed city of Gondolin; in their heights were the eyries of Thorondor and his Eagles.

From the peaks of the Crissaegrim, the Eagles guarded Gondolin from outsiders, and more than once they swept down from those inaccessible heights to play a part in the history of Middle-earth. It was from these mountains that Thorondor swooped to attack Morgoth himself after the Fall of Fingolfin, and to rescue Fingolfin’s body from Morgoth’s Wolves.

* Cross-roads

The road-meeting in central Ithilien.

The point in the land of Ithilien were the road running northward from the Harad was crossed by the East-West Road from Osgiliath to Minas Ithil (later Minas Morgul). Although originally built and maintained by the Men of Gondor, the Cross-roads had effectively fallen under the control of Sauron at the time of the War of the Ring.

* Crossings of Poros|Crossing of Poros

The ford that led into South Gondor.

The point on the River Poros where it was crossed by the Harad Road. The site of a battle in the late Third Age in which Steward Túrin II of Gondor and King Folcwine of Rohan defeated a force of the Haradrim.

* Crossings of Teiglin|The Crossings

In the southwest of the Forest of Brethil, where the old road southward from the Pass of Sirion crossed the Teiglin.

–—

The river-crossing under the eaves of Brethil.

The point in the middle course of the River Teiglin where it was crossed by the road running north to Minas Tirith, on the western borders of Brethil.

* Crown of Gondor

The jewelled helm of the Gondorian Kings.

The tall jewelled and winged helm that served the Kings of Gondor as a Crown. After the loss of the last King, Eärnur, it was held in the Houses of the Dead for nearly a thousand years, until a rightful heir came forward at the end of the Third Age.

* Crows|Crow

Black carrion birds associated in Tolkien’s work with the forces of darkness. The most feared variety in the Westlands of Middle-earth was the large type known as crebain.

* Cuiviénen|Cuivienen

‘Water of Awakening’, the lake in Middle-earth where the first Elves awoke, and where they were found by Oromë.

–—

Called the Water of Awakening, the land on the shores of the inland sea of Helcar where the first Elves awoke during the Years of the Trees; it lay far in the east of Middle-earth.

* Culumalda

Red-golden trees of the Field of Cormallen.

A tree that grew in North Ithilien, and especially in the woods around the Field of Cormallen. It is almost unknown apart from a passing note by Christopher Tolkien, but its name suggests that it was tall and thin, and that its leaves were red-golden in colour.

* Culúrien|Culurien

A name of Laurelin.

* Curufin

The fifth son of Fëanor, called the Crafty; father of Celebrimbor.

–—

The fifth son of Fëanor, closely associated with his elder brother Celegorm. He was slain in the assault by the Sons of Fëanor on Menegroth, but survived by his son Celebrimbor, who became the greatest of the jewel-smiths of Eregion.

* Curufinwë|Curufinwe

‘Skilful (son of) Finwë’, a name of the Noldorin Elf who is more commonly known as Fëanor.

* Curumo

The name of Curunír (Saruman) in Quenya.

–—

The name in Valinor of the Maia who came to Middle-earth as Saruman during the Third Age.

* Curunír|Curunir

‘The one of cunning devices’. Sindarin name of Saruman, one of the Istari (Wizards); also Curunir ‘Lân, ‘Saruman the White’. See Curumo.

–—

‘Man of Skill’, the Elvish name for the Wizard that Men called Saruman.

* Cúthalion|Cuthalion

The surname of Beleg of Doriath.

The surname and title of Beleg was derived from Sindarin cú thalion,

‘Strongbow’, and indeed often appears in its English form as well as the original Elvish.

* Daeron

Minstrel and chief loremaster of King Thingol of Doriath; deviser of the Cirth (Runes); enamoured of Lúthien and twice betrayed her; friend (or kinsman) of Saeros.

–—

A loremaster and minstrel to Thingol of Doriath, famed for his radical development of the cirth (runes).

* Dagnir

One of the twelve companions of Barahir on Dorthonion.

* Dagnir Glaurunga

‘Glaurung’s Bane’, Túrin.

* Dagor Aglareb|Glorious Battle|Third Battle The third great battle in the Wars of Beleriand, called ‘the Glorious Battle’. In about the seventy-fifth year of the First Age, Morgoth sent his Orcs to ravage Beleriand; they poured through the Pass of Sirion and Maglor’s Gap, but were beaten back and utterly destroyed by the armies of Fingolfin and Maedhros.

* Dagor Bragollach|Bragollach|Fourth Battle

‘The Battle of Sudden Flame’ (also simply the Bragollach), fourth of the great battles in the Wars of Beleriand, in which the Siege of Angband was ended.

–—

For more than four centuries, the forces of the Noldor had besieged Morgoth in his northern fortress of Angband, holding the northern mountain fences of Beleriand and their passes against his forces. In I 455 Morgoth broke the Siege of Angband in the battle that came to be known as the Dagor Bragollach, the Battle of Sudden Flame.

The Battle began one night in winter, when Morgoth sent out rivers of flame from Angband that consumed the wide plains of Ard-galen. Then came his armies, numberless Balrogs and Orcs, led by Glaurung the dragon. They forced the highlands of Dorthonion, and took the fortresses of Angrod and Aegnor who dwelt there. Maglor’s Gap was also taken, giving Morgoth an entry into Beleriand itself.

Maedhros’ fortress on Himring held against the tide of foes, and so did the tower of Minas Tirith in the west, and the mountain forts of Ered Wethrin. Nonetheless, the Siege was broken, the Sons of Fëanor scattered, and the forces of Morgoth roamed now at will throughout the northern lands.

As the battle raged against the Mountains of Shadow, Fingolfin the High King rode in anger across the dust of Anfauglith (the plain that had been Ard-galen) and challenged Morgoth to single combat. At the doors of Angband itself, they fought a great duel, but though Morgoth was wounded, Fingolfin was destroyed by the Hammer of the Underworld.

* Dagor Dagorath

The Last Battle.

The prophesied final battle between the forces of light and darkess, called the Last Battle, in which Morgoth will return and suffer his final and ultimate defeat.

* Dagor-nuin-Giliath|Battle-under-Stars|Battle under Stars|Second Battle

‘The Battle-under-Stars’, the second battle in the Wars of Beleriand, fought in Mithrim after the coming of Fëanor to Middle-earth.

–—

The starlit battle fought before the rising of the Moon, the second of the great battles in the Wars of Beleriand. Morgoth’s forces attacked Fëanor in Mithrim as he returned to Middle-earth from Aman, and yet the Noldor turned the attack and were victorious; Fëanor, though, pressed on toward Angband, and was slain by Balrogs.

* Dagorlad

‘Battle Plain’, east of Emyn Muil and near the Dead Marshes (north of Mordor), site of the great battle between Sauron and the Last Alliance of Elves and Men at the end of the Second Age.

–—

The Battle Plain before the gates of Mordor, where the bloody but decisive battle in the War of the Last Alliance was fought.

* Dáin I|Dáin|Dain

King of Durin’s Folk, son and heir of Náin II, and ancestor of both Thorin II Oakenshield and Dáin II Ironfoot.

* Dáin II Ironfoot|Dáin|Dain

Lord of the Dwarves of the Iron Hills, afterwards King under the Mountain; slain in the Battle of Dale.

–—

Heir to Thorin Oakenshield.

A descendant of Grór, the youngest son of Dáin I, and lord of the Dwarves of the Iron Hills. After the death of his cousin Thorin II Oakenshield in the Battle of Five Armies, Dáin inherited the titles King under the Mountain and King of Durin’s Folk.

* Dairuin

One of the twelve companions of Barahir on Dorthonion.

* Daisy Gamgee

Eldest daughter of Hamfast Gamgee and Bell Goodchild; a sister of Samwise Gamgee of the Company of the Ring.

* Daisy Gardner

A daughter of Samwise Gamgee and Rose Cotton; perhaps named for her aunt, Daisy Gamgee.

* Dale

Country of the Bardings about the feet of Mount Erebor, allied with the Kingdom of the Dwarves under the Mountain. See Battle of Dale.

–—

A township of Men lying between Erebor and Esgaroth, destroyed when Smaug descended on the Dwarf-kingdom. Dale was refounded after Smaug’s destruction by Bard, the descendant of its lords.

* Damrod

A Ranger of Ithilien, the companion of Mablung and trusted guard of Faramir.

* Dark Elf

Title of Eöl of Nan Elmoth.

When Melian set her Girdle around the land of Doriath, Thingol’s kinsman Eöl left that land, and dwelt instead in the forest of Nan Elmoth. Living under the dark shadows of that ancient forest, and preferring the night to the day, he came to be widely known as the Dark Elf.

Eöl’s epithet was no doubt influenced by the fact that the Sindarin Elves to whom he belonged were of the Moriquendi, the Dark Elves who had never seen the light of the Two Trees of Valinor.

* Dark Elves|Dark Elf

In the language of Aman all Elves that did not cross the Great Sea were Dark Elves (Moriquendi), and the term is sometimes used thus; when Caranthir called Thingol a Dark Elf it was intended opprobriously, and was especially so, since Thingol had been to Aman ‘and was not accounted among the Moriquendi’. But in the period of the Exile of the Noldor it was often used of the Elves of Middle-earth other than the Noldor and the Sindar, and is then virtually equivalent to Avari. Different again is the title Dark Elf of the Sindarin Elf Eöl; but in the Quenta Silmarillion, Turgon no doubt meant that Eöl was of the Moriquendi.

–—

The Moriquendi, those Elves who refused the summons of the Valar to Valinor, or fell away on the Great Journey, and never saw the light of the Two Trees.

The Dark Elves are often equated with the Avari, who refused the summons of the Valar and remained in the darkness of Middle-earth. This is not strictly correct; ‘Dark Elves’ also include those such as the Nandor and Sindar who started the Great Journey to Valinor, but never came there.

* Dark Land

Sauron’s domain of Mordor.

An occasional name used for Sauron’s fortified country of Mordor. In fact ‘Dark Land’ is a possible interpretation of the name Mordor, though the alternative ‘Black Land’ is used much more frequently.

On at least one early map of Arda, a great southern continent appears labelled ‘Dark Land’. This region is not otherwise mentioned, and is unrelated to the Dark Land mentioned in The Lord of the Rings.

* Dark Lands

Term for Middle-earth in Númenor.

* Dark Lord

The term is used of Morgoth, and of Sauron.

–—

The title given to the two great Ainur who ruled the forces of darkness in Middle-earth, Morgoth and Sauron.

–—

The First Dark Lord - Morgoth: Morgoth descended into Arda at its beginning, and battled with the Valar for ages uncounted before the awakening of Elves and Men from his fortress at Utumno in the north of the world. The Valar defeated him and imprisoned him for three ages, but on his release he returned to Angband, north of Beleriand. During the First Age, the Noldor made hopeless war upon him for the return of the Silmarils, but at last the Valar came to their aid and overthrew Morgoth, banishing him forever from the World.

–—

The Second Dark Lord - Sauron: Sauron was the ancient lieutenant of Morgoth, and after the first Dark Lord’s defeat, he took on his mantle and became a Dark Lord himself during the early Second Age. Taking the land of Mordor to dwell in, he corrupted the Númenóreans. Though he was defeated at the end of the Second Age, and his Dark Tower of Barad-dûr was thrown down, he rose again during the Third Age, and was finally defeated with the destruction of the One Ring in III 3019.

* Dark Mountains

An old name for the Mountains of Mirkwood.

The original name for the range of deeply forested hills that ran through the northern part of Greenwood the Great, whose name is a translation of the Elvish Emyn Duir. When the shadow of Dol Guldur fell on the forest, it was renamed ‘Mirkwood’, and this range of high hills came to be called the Mountains of Mirkwood.

* Dark Plague

The plague that robbed Gondor of its King.

The dreadful plague that swept through Middle-earth in the middle years of the Third Age; its effects were worst in Gondor and the southern lands, but it affected even those who lived in the far north.

* Dark Power

A common epithet used, especially in Gondor, to describe Sauron.

* Dark Throne

The throne of Morgoth in Angband, beneath which Beren hid during the Quest of the Silmaril.

* Dark Tower

A name for Sauron’s fortress of Barad-dûr, in the Black Land of Mordor.

* Dark Years

The years of the dominion of Sauron in the Second Age.

–—

A term for the long years of hardship of the Men of Middle-earth during the Second Age. While Númenor flourished, the Men of Middle-earth endured trouble and war, and many of them turned to the worship of Sauron in this time. The Dark Years ended with the coming of Elendil and his sons near the end of the Second Age.

* Darkening of Valinor

The destruction of the Two Trees of Valinor by Morgoth and Ungoliant shortly before the beginning of the First Age.

* Dead Marshes

Wide stagnant marshes south-east of Emyn Muil, in which the slain of the Battle of Dagorlad were seen.

–—

The fetid swamplands that lay between the Emyn Muil and the northern marches of Mordor, the site at the end of the Second Age of many deaths during the War of the Last Alliance, and still said to be haunted at the end of Third Age, three thousand years later.

* Dead Men of Dunharrow

Men of Ered Nimrais who were cursed by Isildur for breaking their oath of allegiance to him.

* Dead Tree

The last White Tree of Gondor, which died at the same time as Belecthor II the ninth Ruling Steward; for lack of a seedling, the dead tree was left standing in the courts of Minas Tirith.

* Déagol|Deagol

A Stoor of the Vales of Anduin, finder of the One Ring.

–—

The short-lived discoverer of the One Ring.

A hobbit-like creature of the same kind as Sméagol (Gollum), who found the One Ring on the bed of the River Anduin while fishing. He was murdered by his friend Sméagol, who stole the Ring.

* Deathless

Title given to Durin, eldest of the Fathers of the Dwarves. Though he lived to a very great age, Durin was not in fact deathless; he died some time during the First Age.

* Deep Elves|Deep Elf|Deep-elves|Deep-elf

A name for the Noldor.

–—

“Next came the Noldor, a name of wisdom, the people of Finwë. They are the Deep Elves, the friends of Aulë; and they are renowned in song…”

(Quenta Silmarillion 3, Of the Coming of the Elves and the Captivity of Melkor)

–—

A rarely-used name for the Noldor, the division of the Elves that Finwë led into Valinor.

‘Deep’ is here used in the sense of ‘profound’ or ‘wise’; the Noldor were considered the most learned and inventive of the Eldar; the great Vala Aulë taught them much during their time in Aman.

* Deephallow

A village on the Shire’s eastern border, built on the banks of the River Brandywine. Immediately across the river was Haysend, the southernmost point of Buckland, while just to the south of Deephallow, the River Shirebourn flowed into the Brandywine.

* Deeping Wall

The defensive wall of Helm’s Deep.

–—

“A wall, too, the men of old had made from the Hornburg to the southern cliff, barring the entrance to the gorge.”

(The Two Towers III 7, Helm’s Deep)

–—

The solid stone wall, some twenty feet in height, that defended the refuges of the Rohirrim at Helm’s Deep. It lay beneath the castle of the Hornburg, to which it was connected by a flight of steps. In the Battle of the Hornburg, it was breached for the only time in its history by a besieging army of Orcs and Dunlendings, but they were soon driven back and defeated.

* Deeping-coomb

The valley leading up to Helm’s Deep.

–—

The valley that led to Helm’s Deep.

The deep, well-defended valley in the northern White Mountains that held Helm’s Deep and the castle of the Hornburg. The site of an important battle, the Battle of the Hornburg, during the War of the Ring.

* Deeping-road

Road running northwards from the Deeping-coomb to join the Great Road east of the Fords of Isen.

* Deeping-stream

Stream flowing out of Helm’s Deep down into Westfold.

–—

The stream of Helm’s Deep.

The stream that rose in the gorge of the White Mountains known as Helm’s Deep. It flowed through a culvert in the wall that guarded that refuge of the Rohirrim, and then around the feet of the rock where the Hornburg stood, before beginning its journey into the wide lands of Rohan.

* Deer

Graceful creatures found throughout Middle-earth. Deer were traditionally dedicated to the Vala Nessa, and were said to follow her as she travelled through the wild lands.

* Deldúwath|Delduwath

One of the later names of Dorthonion (Taur-nu-Fuin), meaning ‘Horror of Night-shadow’.

* Demons

Monstrous servants of Morgoth.

Dread creatures that ranked among the most powerful of Morgoth’s servants. The most feared of demons were the Balrogs, Maiar seduced to Melkor’s service in the beginning of the world, but it seems the Dark Lord also had other lesser demons at his command.

* Denethor of the Nandor|Denethor

Leader of the Nandorin Elves that came at last west over the Blue Mountains and dwelt in Ossiriand; slain on Amon Ereb in the First Battle of Beleriand.

–—

Leader of the Green-elves.

A Nandorin Elf, the son of Lenwë, who led a part of his people westward over the Blue Mountains into Ossiriand, where they became known as the Laiquendi or Green-elves.

* Denethor I (Steward of Gondor)|Denethor

The Steward who saw the end of the Watchful Peace.

Denethor I was the tenth Steward to rule Gondor, in whose time the realm suffered perhaps the most calamitous upheaval in its history. When Denethor succeeded his childless uncle Dior in III 2435, Gondor had known peace for many generations. Nearly four hundred years earlier, during the Stewardship of Denethor’s noble ancestor Mardil, Gandalf had gone to Dol Guldur and forced Sauron to withdraw into the east of Middle-earth.

Though it was known that the Nazgûl still infested Minas Morgul, they offered no threat to the South-kingdom, and Denethor had every reason to hope that this time of Watchful Peace would continue in his time.

He was wrong. III 2460, the twenty-fifth of Denethor’s rule, would be last year to see Gondor fully at peace for nearly six centuries. In that year, Sauron gave up his exile and returned to his fortress of Dol Guldur in Mirkwood. Just a few years later, it was seen that the Nazgûl had not been idle in the years of the Peace - they unleashed a force of hideous soldier-orcs on Gondor, of the kind that was then unknown, but would become known as the Uruk-hai. They ravaged Ithilien and took Osgiliath, but Denethor’s heir Boromir fought them back and recovered Gondor’s holdings east of the River, though he was dreadfully wounded. These were the first skirmishes in a conflict that would not truly end until the time of the War of the Ring.

Denethor I ruled as Steward for forty-two years, and was succeeded by his son Boromir.

* Denethor II (Steward of Gondor)|Denethor Twenty-sixth and last (but one) Ruling Steward of Gondor, the second of the name; Lord of Minas Tirith at the time of the War of the Ring; father of Boromir and Faramir.

–—

Lord of Minas Tirith.

Born during the Stewardship of his grandfather Turgon, Denethor was a Gondorian noble who would see some of the most turbulent times in his country’s long history, culminating in the War of the Ring itself. While still a youth of twenty-one, he saw Sauron re-emerge as the Dark Lord of Mordor, and start building his power on Gondor’s eastern borders. Just a few short years later, Mount Doom burst into fire once again. In Gondor’s time of need, a new hero arose, and for a time Steward Ecthelion II (who had recently succeeded his father Turgon) was served by the mysterious captain Thorongil (who was long afterwards discovered to be none other than Aragorn of the Northern Dúnedain).

Nearly twenty years passed, and beneath the looming threat of Mordor, Denethor wedded Finduilas, the daughter of Adrahil of Dol Amroth.

Together they had two sons, Boromir and Faramir. Soon after, Denethor’s father Ecthelion died, and Denethor succeeded to become Steward Denethor II.

Just four years after Denethor succeeded to the Stewardship, Finduilas died at a young age for one of her line. For the next thirty years, Denethor ruled as a grim and serious Steward, and it later became known that for at least some of this time, he had made use of a palantír to gain knowledge, through which the malice of Sauron had begun to sap his will. In the end, the death of his elder son Boromir, and the imagined loss of his younger son Faramir, sent him mad. He burned himself to death with his palantír in his hands.

Denethor II ruled as Steward for thirty-five years, and was succeeded by his younger son Faramir.

* Déor|Deor

Seventh King of Rohan.

–—

A direct descendant of Eorl the Young, who inherited the Kingship of Rohan from his father Goldwine. Déor’s great-great-grandfather, Aldor the Old, had hunted out the Dunlendings that had harried the eastern borders of Rohan, and his successors Fréa, Fréawine and Goldwine had enjoyed peaceful reigns because of their ancestor’s enterprises. In Déor’s time, this peace came to an end.

It was later discovered that the Dunlendings had secretly been moving back into the northwestern uplands of Rohan throughout the reigns of Déor’s predecessors. By Déor’s own time, a powerful Dunlendish force had been established, and Déor was forced to ride northward from Edoras, ultimately to defeat his enemies. The victory was a bitter one, though, for he discovered that the Dunlendings had also captured the Ring of Isengard, which Déor had no possible means of recapturing. So Déor’s reign saw the beginning of a danger from the north that would reach a crisis nearly fifty years later, when the Dunlendings were to come close to destroying Rohan alogether.

Déor’s turbulent reign lasted nineteen years. He was succeeded as King by his son, Gram.

* Déorwine|Deorwine

A brave knight of Rohan.

An important knight of the Rohirrim. He had the rank of chief of the King’s knights (that is, the King’s Riders, the personal bodyguard of the King of Rohan). He fell with six of his men at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields before the gates of Minas Tirith.

* Dernhelm

Éowyn as a Rider of the Rohirrim.

The alias taken by Éowyn when she broke the command of her uncle Théoden and rode the the Battle of the Pelennor.

* Diamond of Long Cleeve

The wife of Thain Peregrin Took I, and mother of Faramir Took I.

* Dimbar

The land between the rivers Sirion and Mindeb.

–—

The empty land beneath the Crissaegrim.

An empty land in the north of Beleriand, lying between the Forests of Brethil in the west and Neldoreth in the east.

* Dimrill Dale

The valley of Nanduhirion.

The name given in the Common Speech to the valley that lay to the east of Khazad-dûm, called Nanduhirion by the Elves and Azanulbizar by the Dwarves.

* Dimrill Stair

The pass down into the Dimrill Dale.

The name given to the southeastern part of the Redhorn Pass, leading down into Nanduhirion, the Dimrill Dale. It was named the Dimrill Stair because of the sequence of waterfalls that led down into the lake of Kheled-zâram.

* Dimrost

The falls of Celebros in the Forest of Brethil; translated as ‘the Rainy Stair’. Afterwards called Nen Girith.

* Dior (Steward of Gondor)|Dior

The ninth Ruling Steward of Gondor.

Dior’s grandfather Hador was the last truly long-lived of the Stewards, and ruled Gondor for one hundred and seventeen years. This meant that his son Barahir, and his grandson Dior both came late to the Stewardship and ruled for only a brief time. Dior was the last Steward to enjoy an untroubled rule, as his heir Denethor would see the breaking of the Watchful Peace, and the beginning of centuries of warfare.

Dior is remarkable as the only recorded Ruling Steward to leave no direct heir. In volume XII of The History of Middle-earth we’re told that he had no children of his own, and was succeeded therefore by the son of his sister Rían. This seems to be borne out by the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings, which state that Gondor’s Stewardship became ‘…

hereditary as a kingship, from father to son or nearest kin.’ (Appendix A iv The Stewards, our italics). This reference to ‘nearest kin’ seems intended to refer specifically to Dior.

Dior ruled as Steward for twenty-three years, and seems to have been succeeded by his nephew Denethor I.

* Dior Eluchíl|Dior

Called Aranel, and also Eluchíl ‘Thingol’s Heir’; son of Beren and Lúthien and father of Elwing, Elrond’s mother; came to Doriath from Ossiriand after the death of Thingol, and received the Silmaril after the death of Beren and Lúthien; slain in Menegroth by the sons of Fëanor.

–—

Grandson of King Elu Thingol, and son of Beren and Lúthien, he dwelt with them for a while in Tol Galen. After Thingol was slain by Dwarves in Menegroth, and his halls sacked by the host of Nogrod, Dior went to dwell there as King of Doriath, with his wife Nimloth. At the passing of Beren and Lúthien, the Silmaril that Lúthien had worn was brought to Dior in Menegroth. He was assailed by the Sons of Fëanor, who claimed the jewel for themselves, and slain in the final Ruin of Doriath.

* Dírhavel|Dirhavel

The poet supossed to have written the Narn i Hîn Húrin, the ‘Tale of the Children of Húrin’. A Man who lived at the Havens of Sirion in the days of Eärendil and perished in the attack of the sons of Fëanor.

* Dirnaith

Wedge-shaped battle-formation used by the Dúnedain.

* Dís|Dis

The daughter of Thráin II, and sister of Thorin II Oakenshield. The mother of Fíli and Kíli, she is the only Dwarf-woman named by Tolkien.

* Disaster of the Gladden Fields

The loss of Isildur and his Bane.

The orc-raid at the beginning of the Third Age, in which Isildur was lost in the River Anduin, and with him the One Ring that he had taken from Sauron.

* Dogs|Dog

Common domestic animals in Middle-earth. The greatest of them all was Huan, the Hound of Valinor.

* Dol Amroth

Stronghold on a promontory of Belfalas, named after Amroth King of Lórien.

–—

The seat of Princes on the coasts of Gondor.

A headland of western Gondor, ruled as a hereditary princedom by the descendants of Galador during the last millennium of the Third Age.

* Dol Baran

‘Gold-brown Hill’, a hill at the southern end of the Misty Mountains, where Peregrin Took looked into the Palantír of Orthanc.

–—

Last of the southern foothills of the Misty Mountains.

A hill in the land of Rohan, the last southern outpost of the northern range of the Misty Mountains. It was here that Peregrin Took looked into the Palantír of Orthanc.

* Dol Guldur

‘Hill of Sorcery’ or ‘Hill of Black Magic’, a treeless height in the south-west of Mirkwood, fastness of the Necromancer before he was revealed as Sauron returned.

–—

The lair of the Necromancer.

The stronghold of Sauron in the southern regions of Mirkwood, where he dwelt in secret as the Necromancer, until discovered by the Wise. When they assaulted him, he withdrew to Mordor, but the Nazgûl soon returned to reclaim Dol Guldur.

* Dolmed

‘Wet Head’ a great mountain in the Ered Luin, near the Dwarf-cities of Nogrod and Belegost.

–—

The central peak of the Blue Mountains.

One of the greatest mountains of the Ered Luin on the eastern borders of Beleriand, lying at the mid-point of the range near the Dwarf-cities of Nogrod and Belegost.

* Dome of Stars

The great hall of Osgiliath.

The great dome that lay in the heart of the ancient Gondorian capital, Osgiliath, and from which that city took its name (‘Fortress of Stars’).

The Palantír of Osgiliath was held beneath its starred vault.

* Doom of Mandos

The Doomsman’s Prophecy of the North.

The dreadful prophecy and curse uttered by Mandos to Fëanor and the Noldor as they marched back to Middle-earth from Aman, against the will of the Valar. The prophecy foretold many things that later came to pass, especially the evil consequences of the Oath of Fëanor for himself and his Sons. So powerful were Mandos’ words that Fëanor’s half-brother Finarfin gave up the march, and led his people back to dwell in Valinor.

* Doomsman of the Valar

Mandos, the harbinger of fate.

Title given to Mandos, who is given the power to pronounce judgement in matters of fate.

* Doors of Durin

The West-gate of Moria.

The enchanted doors that guarded the western entrance to Khazad-dûm.

They were made by Narvi in the Second Age, and Celebrimbor himself traced signs on the doors in ithildin. The gateway would normally stand open during the years of friendship between Khazad-dûm and Celebrimbor’s people in Eregion, to the west. When they were closed they could be opened again by speaking a single word, ‘mellon’ - the Elvish for

‘friend’.

* Dor Caranthir

‘Land of Caranthir’; see Thargelion.

–—

The wide lands of Caranthir the Dark.

The later name for the lands east of the river Gelion and north of the Ascar. Originally known simply as Thargelion, the land beyond Gelion, they were settled by Fëanor’s fourth son Caranthir and his people, after which this region became known as Dor Caranthir, ‘Caranthir’s land’.

* Dor Daedeloth

‘Land of the Shadow of Horror’, the land of Morgoth in the north.

* Dor Dínen|Dor Dinen

‘The Silent Land’, where nothing dwelt, between the upper waters of Esgalduin and Aros.

* Dor Firn-i-Guinar

‘Land of the Dead that Live’, name of that region in Ossiriand where Beren and Lúthien dwelt after their return.

–—

At the ending of the Quest of the Silmaril, Beren met his death at the jaws of the great wolf Carcharoth. So great was Lúthien’s love of him, though, that she surrendered her own immortality so that he might return to Middle-earth for a time.

They returned out of the Halls of Waiting, and on the green island of Tol Galen in the southern lands of Ossiriand, they lived in a Land of the Dead that Live, or Dor Firn-i-Guinar in the Elventongue.

No mortal Man saw Beren or Lúthien ever again, but they had happy relations with the Green-elves of Ossiriand who lived around them. After the slaying of Lúthien’s father Thingol, Beren took a force of Green-elves north to avenge his death, and recover the stolen Silmaril.

From that time, the Silmaril was kept in Dor Firn-i-Guinar and borne by Lúthien, and that land was said to become ‘like a vision of the land of the Valar’. Dior, the son of Beren and Lúthien, then left Dor Firn-i-Guinar with his family, and went to take up the rule his lost grandfather’s kingdom of Doriath.

Both Beren and Lúthien were mortal, and at last their lives came to an end, and with them their Land of the Dead that Live. A lord of the Green-elves took the Silmaril, and brought it to their heir, Dior, in Doriath, and Dor Firn-i-Guinar was no more.

* Dor-Cúarthol|Dor-Cuarthol

‘Land of Bow and Helm’, name of the country defended by Beleg and Túrin from their lair on Amon Rûdh.

–—

The Land of Bow and Helm.

In Doriath, Túrin Turambar and Beleg Strongbow were great friends and comrades in arms. Through a tragic mistake, Túrin caused the death of one of King Thingol’s courtiers, and fled the land where he had grown up.

After many adventures in the wild, he joined himself to an outlaw band who eventually came to the occupy the hill known as Amon Rudh. This was the old home of a family of Petty-dwarves, Mîm and his sons, who gave his home over to the outlaws in ransom for his life.

One day in the midst of winter, Beleg sought out his old friend Túrin, and they formed an alliance to defend that region against the Orcs of Morgoth. Túrin took a new name, Gorthol, from the dreadful helm of his ancestors that Beleg had brought to him. Together with Túrin’s outlaws, they commanded a land that stretched from the River Teiglin in the north to the edges of Doriath in the south and east. This land was given the name Dor-Cúarthol, the Land of Bow and Helm; the name comes from Beleg’s great bow and the Dragon-helm of Dor-lómin borne by Túrin.

The land of Dor-Cúarthol was to survive for less than a year. Perceiving that ‘Gorthol’ was truly Túrin the son of Húrin, Morgoth sent his spies to watch the lands around Amon Rudh. Mîm the Petty-dwarf, whose mansions the Two Captains had occupied, struck a bargain with the captain of Morgoth’s Orcs, and betrayed Beleg and Túrin. The outlaws were routed, Beleg was left for dead, and Túrin was captured and led away to the north. Though Beleg in fact survived, and later rescued Túrin, this was the end of the short-lived land of Dor-Cúarthol.

* Dor-en-Ernil

‘Land of the Prince’, in Gondor west of the river Gilrain.

* Dor-lómin|Dor-lomin

Region in the south of Hithlum, the territory of Fingon, given as a fief to the House of Hador; the home of Húrin and Morwen.

–—

The southern region of Hithlum.

The name given to the lands that lay to the northwest of Beleriand, ruled as a hereditary fief under the Kings of the Noldor by the Men of the House of Hador.

* Dor-nu-Fauglith

‘Land under Choking Ash’; see Anfauglith.

* Dora Baggins

Frodo Baggins’ aunt, the sister of Frodo’s father Drogo.

* Dori

A Dwarf of the House of Durin, who accompanied his lord Thorin II Oakenshield on the Quest of Erebor.

* Doriath|Dor Iâth|Dor Iath

‘Fenced Land’ (Dor Iâth), referring to the Girdle of Melian, earlier called Eglador; the kingdom of Thingol and Melian in the forests of Neldoreth and Region, ruled from Menegroth on the river Esgalduin. Also called the Guarded Realm and the Hidden Kingdom.

–—

Thingol’s Hidden Kingdom.

The mighty forest kingdom of Elu Thingol, greatest of the realms of the Sindar in Beleriand. The kingdom lay in two parts, separated by the River Esgalduin. The lesser, northwestern Forest of Neldoreth, and the greater, southern Forest of Region. These forests, and the small oakwood known as Nivrim on the western banks of the Sirion, were encompassed by the Girdle of Melian, which protected the land from its enemies.

In the midst of Doriath, carved into the rock by the River Esgalduin, lay the Halls of Menegroth, the Thousand Caves, citadel of King Thingol and Melian his queen.

Though Thingol ruled Doriath for long ages, he was slain in the last years of the First Age by Dwarves. After this his realm was ruled for a short time by his grandson Dior Eluchíl, before its final destruction by the Sons of Fëanor.

* Dorlas

A Man of the Haladin in Brethil; went with Túrin and Hunthor to the attack on Glaurung, but withdrew in fear; slain by Brandir the Lame.

–—

A fearful companion of Túrin.

A Man of the People of Haleth, who went with Túrin Turambar to slay the dragon Glaurung. Burdened with fear, he turned back from the quest, and was slain by Brandir.

* Dorthonion

‘Land of Pines’, the great forested highlands on the northern borders of Beleriand, afterwards called Taur-nu-Fuin.

–—

The pine-forested highlands above Beleriand.

A highland region lying immediately to the north of Beleriand; overrun by Morgoth in the Dagor Bragollach, after which it was known as Taur-nu-Fuin.

* Dorwinion

Source of the finest wines of Middle-earth.

A little-known land, probably lying in the vales of the River Running, famed for its great gardens and the quality of its wine.

* Downfall of Barad-dûr|Downfall of Barad-dur The final destruction of Sauron’s Dark Tower of Barad-dûr, caused by the One Ring being cast into the flames of Orodruin.

* Downfall of Númenor|Downfall of Numenor

The drowning of Westernesse.

The utter destruction of the island of Númenor, a divine punishment for King Ar-Pharazôn’s assault on the Undying Lands. Only Elendil and his companions escaped the wreck.

* Dragon of Erebor

Title given to Smaug after his attack on the Dwarf-kingdom of Erebor; after its destruction, he remained in its halls until slain by Bard of Dale.

* Dragon-helm of Dor-lómin|Dragon-helm|Dragon of Dor-lómin Heirloom of the House of Hador, worn by Túrin; also called the Helm of Hador.

–—

A visored steel helm, embossed and embellished with gold, that bore as its crest the head of Glaurung the Dragon. It was made originally for Azaghâl of Belegost, who gave it as a gift to Maedhros, who in turn passed it on to his cousin Fingon. When Fingon made Hador the Lord of Dor-lómin, he granted the Dragon-helm to the new lord, and indeed legend tells that only Hador and his son Galdor had the strength to bear the mighty helm.

There was at least one other Man strong enough the bear the helm: Galdor’s grandson Túrin. He often wore the Dragon-helm to war, and took one of his many names from it: Gorthol, the Dread Helm. The last clear record of the Dragon-helm is at the Battle of Tumhalad, where Túrin is known to have worn it. Beyond this, there is a suggestion that he may have taken it with him to Brethil, and perhaps even worn it at the slaying of Glaurung himself. After that point, the great heirloom of the House of Hador is lost to history.

* Dragon-spell

The will-sapping gaze of the dragon.

The bewildering magical gaze of certain powerful dragons, notably Glaurung and Smaug.

* Dragons|Dragon

The Worms of Morgoth.

Mighty reptilian creatures who ranked among the most feared of the servants of the Dark Lord. Of the origins of dragons, no tale tells; the first of them to be seen was Glaurung, Father of Dragons, who first issued from Angband in the middle of the First Age. After Glaurung came many others to strike fear into Elves and Men for the next three ages; among them were Ancalagon the first winged dragon, Scatha who dwelt in the cold northern wastes, and Smaug, last of the great dragons.

Dragons have powers of intelligence and speech, and many are also able to cast the dragon-spell, a bewildering confusion that effects any who gaze into the eye of the creature.

The dragons were not destroyed at the end of the Third Age; some are said to have survived to our own time, but the great worms and drakes of the Elder Days are no more.

* Dramborleg

The great axe of Tuor, preserved in Númenor.

* Draugluin

The great werewolf slain by Huan at Tol-in-Gaurhoth, and in whose form Beren entered Angband.

–—

A wolf servant of Sauron, called the lord and sire of the werewolves of Angband. He was slain by Huan, and Beren used his pelt as a disguise in his quest for a Silmaril.

* Dread Helm

The meaning of Túrin’s alias Gorthol.

The translation of Gorthol, a name used by Túrin during the time he dwelt with Beleg Strongbow in the caverns of Amon Rudh. It comes from the Dragon-helm of Dor-lómin that he wore when he hunted Orcs with Beleg, and the fame of his helm, and the bow of Beleg, gave that region for a time the name Dor-Cúarthol, the Land of Bow and Helm.

Because of its fame, the mighty Helm of Hador was to be Túrin’s undoing.

Through it, despite his alias, Morgoth was able to learn where Túrin could be found. Through the treachery of Mîm, Túrin was captured by Orcs, and carried off toward Angband.

* Drengist

The long firth piercing Ered Lómin, between Lammoth and Nevrast.

–—

A firth of the Great Sea where it broke through the mountains of Ered Lómin and reached the Cirith Ninniach, to the north of the land of Nevrast.

* Drogo Baggins|Drogo

Frodo Baggins’ father; he drowned in a boating accident with his wife Primula while Frodo was still young.

* Drúadan|Druadan

Forest of Anórien at the eastern end of Ered Nimrais, where a remnant of the Drúedain or ‘Wild Men’ survived in the Third Age.

–—

The forest beneath the Eilenach Beacon.

The forest that grew around the feet of the Eilenach beacon-hill in Anórien, so named for the remnant of the Drúedain who lived there.

* Drúath|Druath|Drû|Dru|Drúin|Druin

The Drúedain. (Singular Drû, plural also Drúin; Sindarin forms derived from the native name Drughu). See Róg, Rú.

* Drúedain|Druedain

Sindarin name (from Drû + adan, plural edain) of the ‘Wild Men’ of Ered Nimrais (and of the Forest of Brethil in the First Age). Called Wild Men, Woses; and see Púkel-men.

–—

Wild Men of the Woods.

An ancient branch of the race of Men, active in the wars against Morgoth in the First Age, and granted a home with the Edain in Númenor during the Second Age. By the end of the Third Age, the Drúedain had become a secretive and dwindling people: the ‘woses’ of the Drúadan Forest may have been the last of their kind in Middle-earth.

* Drúedain of Beleriand|Druedain of Beleriand The ancestral Woses of the First Age.

Those Drúedain who lived and fought as allies of the Edain in Beleriand during the First Age. Like the Edain, those who survived the War of Wrath at the end of the Age removed to Númenor.

* Drûg|Drug|Drûgs|Drugs

The Drúedain.

* Drughu

The beings that ordinary Men called ‘woses’.

The strange and secretive relatives of Men that were sometimes called

‘woses’. Drughu was their own name for their kind, and the ultimate source of their Sindarin name, Drúedain.

* Drúwaith Iaur|Druwaith Iaur|Old Púkel-land|Old Pukel-land|Old Púkel-wilderness|Old Pukel-wilderness

‘The old wilderness of the Drû-folk’ in the mountainous promontory of Andrast. Called the Old Púkel-wilderness, and Old Púkel-land.

–—

Old Púkel-land.

The name given to the western lands between the Rivers Isen and Lefnui, and especially the mountains above Andrast. This region was at one time home to a large population of Drúedain or Púkel-men. After the War of the Ring, it was discovered that the ancient inhabitants of this coastal region were not extinct, as had been thought, but in fact survived in small numbers.

* Dry River

The river that once flowed out under the Encircling Mountains (from the primeval lake where was afterwards Tumladen) to join Sirion; forming the entrance to the plain of Gondolin.

–—

The entranceway to Turgon’s realm.

The name given to the dry bed of what had once been a tributary of the River Sirion rising in the Encircling Mountains. At the northern end of its gully lay the entrance to the Hidden City of Gondolin.

* Dudo Baggins|Dudo

Frodo Baggins’ uncle, the younger brother of Frodo’s father Drogo.

* Duilwen

The fifth of the tributaries of Gelion in Ossiriand.

–—

The fifth of Gelion’s six tributaries.

One of the six rivers that flowed west through Ossiriand to meet Gelion.

The Duilwen was the last-but-one of these to flow into the great south-flowing river; only the Adurant was further south. The name Duilwen means

‘fresh river’.

* Dúnadan|Dunadan

A title for the Númenóreans or their descendants.

The singular form of Dúnedain, meaning ‘Man of the West’. A title applied to Aragorn in Rivendell.

* Dúnedain|Dunedain

‘The Edain of the West’, or ‘High Men of the West’. See Númenóreans.

–—

The Men of Númenor in Middle-earth.

A term used in Middle-earth for the Men of Númenor and (especially) their descendants in Arnor and Gondor after the Downfall in II 3319.

* Dúnedain of the North|Dunedain of the North Descendants of the lords of Arnor.

The remnant of the Exiles of Númenor in the northern lands of Middle-earth. They raised mighty realms and lost them during the Third Age, and for the millennium before the War of the Ring, they were a wandering people. Their leader, who took the title ‘Chieftain’, was the descendant of the ancient King, Isildur.

* Dúnedain of the South|Dunedain of the South The Gondorians.

The descendants of the Exiles of Númenor who settled in the southern lands of Middle-earth, and founded the South-kingdom of Gondor. Their first independent King was Meneldil, the nephew of Isildur, whose line ruled over Gondor for more than two thousand years. Unlike their cousins in the North, the Dúnedain of the South maintained their realm even after the loss of its Kings, and it survived under the rule of the Stewards until the time of the War of the Ring, when the Kingship was restored.

* Dunharrow

Fortified refuge in Ered Nimrais abore Harrowdale, approached by a climbing road at each turn of which were set the statues called Púkel-men. See also Dead Men of Dunharrow.

–—

A refuge of the Rohirrim, hidden in the deep vales of the White Mountains and fortified against attack.

* Dúnhere

Rider of Rohan, Lord of Harrowdale; fought at the Fords of Isen and at the Pelennor Fields, where he was slain.

* Dunland

A country about the west-skirts of the Misty Mountains at their far southern end, inhabited by the Dunlendings. Adjectives: Dunlending and Dunlendish.

–—

The wild 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.

* Dunlendings|Dunlending

Inhabitants of Dunland, remnants of an old race fo Men that once lived in the valleys of Ered Nimrais; akin to the Dead Men of Dunharrow and to the Breelanders.

–—

Ancient enemies of the Rohirrim.

Wild Men who inhabited Dunland in the southern regions of Eriador during the Third Age; the sworn enemies of the Rohirrim.

* Durin I the Deathless|Durin

Lord of the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm (Moria).

–—

Eldest of Dwarves.

The eldest of the Seven Fathers of the Dwarves, the first of that race to be created by the Vala Aulë. He was set to sleep under the mountains of Middle-earth until after the awakening of the Elves.

When he woke, he journeyed in the wilds until he came upon the Mirrormere, the lake that the Dwarves call Kheled-zâram. Looking upon mysterious stars reflected in its surface, he took this as a sign, and there founded a great city tunnelled in the heart of the Misty Mountains.

This was Khazad-dûm, later called Moria.

Durin lived to a great age even by the measure of the Dwarves, but though he was called the Deathless, he was not immortal. He died some time before the end of the First Age, but he founded the line of the Kings of Durin’s Folk that extended down through the history of Middle-earth.

* Durin III|Durin

King of Durin’s Folk in Khazad-dûm at the time of Sauron’s assault on Eregion.

–—

A King of Khazad-dûm during the Second Age.

The King of Durin’s Folk at the height of their friendship with the Elves of Eregion. According to legend, he was given a Ring of Power - the ring that would later be known as the Ring of Thrór - by Celebrimbor himself.

* Durin VI|Durin

Doomed King of Khazad-dûm.

A descendant of Durin the Deathless, Durin VI was the King of Durin’s Folk when the Balrog was awoken in Khazad-dûm. The Balrog’s name, Durin’s Bane, comes from this King, who was one of the first to be slain by it.

* Durin VII|Durin

The last descendant of Durin to bear his name.

The last of the seven Durins appears once in Appendix A to The Lord of the Rings, as an undated descendant of Thorin III. As such, we know almost nothing of him apart from the bare fact of his existence.

In volume 12 of The History of Middle-earth (The Peoples of Middle-earth), though, we have access to the proofs of Appendix A, and a little more of Durin’s life is revealed. His birth, it seems, was prophesied at the Battle of Five Armies, and he was born several centuries later. He led Durin’s Folk back to recolonise Khazad-dûm during the Fourth Age, where they remained ‘until the world grew old and the Dwarves failed and the days of Durin’s race were ended.‘1 The status of this story is unclear, though: it never appeared in The Lord of the Rings, and may have been rejected by Tolkien after its composition.

* Durin’s Bane|Bane of Durin

The Balrog of Moria.

–—

“Moria! Moria! Wonder of the Northern world! Too deep we delved there, and woke the nameless fear.”

(Words of Glóin from The Lord of the Rings 2 II, The Council of Elrond)

–—

When the Valar came against Morgoth at the end of the First Age, most of his servants were destroyed, but some few fled into the World and hid themselves in dark places. One such was a Balrog, probably the last of its kind in Middle-earth, that escaped into the east from the ruin of Angband and buried itself in the roots of the Misty Mountains beneath Khazad-dûm.

For more than five millennia, the Balrog ‘slept’ in its deep hiding place (perhaps it was using this time to grow in power, or rebuild its physical form). It remained undisturbed as the Second Age passed, and long into the Third. At last, the mithril-miners of King Durin VI stumbled upon it and it awoke from its long sleep. Durin was slain by the creature and his son Náin I became King.

It seems that, under Náin, the Dwarves attempted to make a stand against the Balrog, but it was a power too great for them to control. For a year, they attempted to hold their mansions against it, but at last Náin and many of his subjects were slain, and the survivors fled from their ancient halls. At this time too, many of the Silvan Elves of Lórien left their land and escaped into the south.

For some five hundred years, Moria (as Khazad-dûm became known) was deserted but for the Balrog. In around the year 2480, though, Sauron began to put his plans for war into effect, and as part of these, he sent Orcs and Trolls to infest the Misty Mountains and bar the passes from Eriador into Rhovanion. Some of these creatures came to Moria.

We are not told whether Sauron was aware of the Balrog’s existence until then - certainly the exiled Dwarves had not recognised what kind of creature Durin’s Bane was. It is clear, though, that the Balrog acknowledged Sauron’s authority - if only because it allowed his creatures to remain in Moria. In addition, the messenger of Sauron who came to Dáin II Ironfoot offered to return Moria to the Dwarves, which would have been impossible if the Balrog was not under Sauron’s power.

Despite an ill-fated attempt to recolonise Moria by Balin in III 2989, Durin’s Bane remained a dark and brooding menace in the ancient kingdom of the Dwarves, whose nature was hidden to the outside world.

In January III 3019, the Company of the Ring travelled through Moria on the Quest of Mount Doom. In Gandalf, the Balrog finally encountered a being of the same order and power as itself. As the two Maiar faced each other on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, Gandalf broke the Bridge and the Balrog fell into the depths, but Gandalf too was drawn into the abyss.

Both survived the fall, and Gandalf pursued the Balrog for eight days through the deepest caverns beneath Moria. At last they came to the Endless Stair, and climbed the steps that led to the peak of Zirakzigil.

There Durin’s Bane fought its last battle - for two days and nights, the Balrog battled with Gandalf, but at last it was cast from the peak, and broke the mountain-side as it plunged to its doom.

* Durin’s Day

A Dwarvish festival of the new year.

The first day of the Dwarves’ year was calculated according to the last new moon of autumn (that is, the new moon that occurs within two weeks of 6 October, on a modern calendar). Not every Dwarves’ new year was a Durin’s Day, though: Thorin says ‘We still call it Durin’s Day when the last moon of Autumn and the sun are in the sky together’ (ibid). Only a Dwarvish new year where this occurs is technically a Durin’s Day.

* Durin’s Folk

The clan of the Longbeards.

The Dwarves descended from Durin the Deathless, eldest of the seven Fathers of the Dwarves. Almost all of the Dwarves that appear in Tolkien’s works are of this Folk.

* Durin’s Tower

The tower that stood on the peak of Celebdil above Khazad-dûm, where Gandalf defeated Durin’s Bane.

* Durthang

A castle of Mordor that stood in the northern Ephel Dúath, on the slopes above the Isenmouthe.

* Dwalin

A Dwarf descended from the royal line of Durin’s Folk, the son of Fundin and brother to Balin, whom he accompanied on the Quest of Erebor.

* Dwarf-road #1|Dwarf-road

Translating Men-i-Naugrim, a name of the Old Forest Road.

–—

The long east-west road beneath the trees of Mirkwood.

The old road that followed a straight path through the forest of Mirkwood. Its history is unclear, but it seems to have been built by the Dwarves as a route between their cities and colonies on either side of the forest.

* Dwarf-road #2|Dwarf-road

Road leading down into Beleriand from the cities of Nogrod and Belegost, and crossing Gelion at the ford of Sarn Athrad.

–—

The Dwarves’ road westward from the Blue Mountains.

The road built by the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains as a trade route to the Elves of Beleriand. It ran westward along the River Ascar for many miles, and entered East Beleriand where it crossed the Gelion at the ford called Sarn Athrad.

* Dwarf-tongue

The secret language of the Dwarves.

The language of the Dwarves, more commonly referred to as Dwarvish, or by the Dwarves’ own name for the tongue, Khuzdul. The details of the language remained largely unknown to outsiders, because the Dwarves held knowledge of their tongue as one of their races’ deepest secrets. The vocabulary and grammar of the language are an almost complete mystery, with a very few exceptions found in place-names, inscriptions, and in the famous Dwarvish war cry ‘Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd aimênu!’

* Dwarrowdelf

‘Delving of the Dwarves’: translation of Khazad-dûm (Hadhodrond).

–—

The Mannish name for Khazad-dûm.

‘Dwarf-delving’, the name in the Common Speech for the mansions of Khazad-dûm. ‘Dwarrowdelf’ is an anglicisation - the ‘real’ Westron name was Phurunargian.

* Dwarves|Dwarf

The Children of Aulë.

–—

“Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd aimênu!”

(“Axes of the Dwarves! The Dwarves are upon you!” - The battle-cry of the Dwarves; from The Lord of the Rings Appendix F I, Of Other Races: Dwarves)

–—

Unlike Elves and Men, the Dwarves are not Children of Ilúvatar; they were created by Aulë the Smith, though Ilúvatar granted them life. Aulë made seven Fathers of the Dwarves, and these slept through many ages until after the Awakening of the Elves. Almost all the Dwarves that appear in Tolkien’s works were descended from the eldest of the Seven Fathers, Durin the Deathless.

Like Aulë their maker, the Dwarves delighted in smithcraft and stoneworking; they mined and worked metals throughout the mountains of Middle-earth. The Dwarves kept themselves apart from the other races; their language, Khuzdul, was a closely guarded secret, and they told their true names to none but themselves (all the Dwarf-names in Tolkien are in the tongues of Elves or Men, not true Dwarf names).

–—

Origins of the Dwarves: The first Dwarves were made long ages ago by Aulë the Smith. He had dimly perceived the coming Children of Ilúvatar, and desired to make Children of his own to teach his many skills and arts.

Aulë’s work was doomed, though, because he did not have the power to grant independent life to his creations - that power belonged to Ilúvatar alone. When the Dwarves were completed, though, the voice of Ilúvatar spoke to Aulë and agreed to grant them true life, and include them in His plan for Arda. Ilúvatar would not allow the Dwarves to awaken, though, until after the Firstborn (the Elves), and so Aulë set them to sleep far apart from one another, deep underground, until the time came for their awakening.

–—

The History of the Dwarves Before the First Age: Ilúvatar promised Aulë that he would awaken the Fathers of the Dwarves ‘when the time comes’. We must assume that he did so shortly after the Awakening of the Elves at Cuiviénen (very approximately between 9,000 and 10,000 years before the beginning of the First Age).

It seems that not long passed after their awakening before Durin the Deathless, eldest of the Fathers, founded Khazad-dûm (later called Moria) in the Misty Mountains. Certainly it was well established as their chief citadel by the time the first Dwarves crossed the Blue Mountains into Beleriand. This event is dated only as ‘during the second age of the Captivity of Melkor’, which would place it (approximately) between 3,000

and 6,000 years before the beginning of the First Age.

The Dwarves had no settlement in Beleriand itself, but they built two mighty citadels in the Blue Mountains; Gabilgathol to the north and Tumunzahar to the south. These fortress-cities are better known by the Elvish versions of their names; Belegost and Nogrod. The Dwarves also laid the long road that ran westwards out of the Blue Mountains and along the course of the River Ascar, crossing into East Beleriand at Sarn Athrad.

–—

The Dwarves in Beleriand: For the Elves dwelling Beleriand, the first appearance of the Dwarves in the Blue Mountains was a startling revelation - until that time, the Elves had thought themselves the only speaking peoples in the World.

Throughout the long ages, the Elves and Dwarves developed a mutual respect which, if not quite friendship, was far from enmity. After their return to Middle-earth at the beginning of the First Age, the Noldor became closest in friendship with the Dwarves - both peoples revered Aulë, and both had a love of craft and making that made them natural allies.

Of all the Elves of Beleriand, though, it was not a Noldo but a Sindarin Elf who became most trusted and respected by the Dwarves. This was Eöl, the Dark Elf of Nan Elmoth, who travelled often to the Dwarf-cities in the Blue Mountains, and who took also his son Maeglin during his youth.

–—

The Nature of the Dwarves: Aulë made the Dwarves at a time when the World outside Aman still lay under the dominion of Melkor, and so he made them sturdy and hard to survive the dangers and hardships of that time.

In nature, the typical Dwarf is stubborn and secretive. Though they make loyal and good friends, they are also a proud and stern race. They do not suffer grievance or insult, and their enmity is long-lasting. They are said, though, to be quick to learn new skills.

Probably the best known aspect of the Dwarvish character, though, is their strong instinctive skills in the working of metal and stone, no doubt derived from Aulë their maker, the Vala whose province these things were. In ancient times, they were said to have preferred working with copper and iron, though in later days they wrought gold and silver, and the mithril they found in the Mines of Khazad-dûm. Of all the materials they worked with, they most revered and praised gemstones.

–—

Dwarvish Mortality: Though they live much longer than Men (usually around 250 years), Dwarves are mortal creatures. What happens after their death, though, is a mystery. The Elves have said that the Dwarves return to the stone from which they were made, but the Dwarves have a different belief.

According to Dwarvish tradition, they are gathered by Mahal (their name for Aulë) in a part of the Halls of Mandos set aside for them. After the end of the World and the Last Battle, they say, they will aid Aulë in the rebuilding of Arda.

* Dwarves of Belegost

Khazâd of Gabilgathol.

The race of Dwarves whose halls were at Belegost, the northernmost of the two great Dwarf-cities that stood in the Blue Mountains during the First Age. They had generally better relations with the Elves than their neighbours in Nogrod, and as well as being responsible for the building of Menegroth, they fought bravely beside Elves and Men during the Nirnaeth Arnoediad.

* Dwarves of Erebor

The people of the Kingdom under the Mountain.

The Dwarves who dwelt in the halls of Erebor, beneath the Lonely Mountain. They were dispossessed of their immense wealth by Smaug, who sacked their kingdom, but they famously reclaimed their inheritance many years later under the leadership of Thorin Oakenshield.

* Dwarves of Khazad-dûm

Durin’s Folk in their ancient home.

The Dwarves of Durin’s Folk who mined and worked mithril for long ages in the halls of Khazad-dûm, and who had the friendship of the Elves of Eregion during the Second Age.

* Dwarves of Moria

The Longbeards of old Khazad-dûm.

The Dwarves of Durin’s Folk who with Durin the Deathless founded Moria, and dwelt there for long ages until the awakening of Durin’s Bane.

* Dwarvish

The secret tongue of the Dwarves, called by them Khuzdul, and seen only in a very few place-names (such as Khazad-dûm) and other fragments.

* Dwimmerlaik

A contemptuous title for the Lord of the Nazgûl.

A title of the Lord of the Nazgûl, granted him in defiance by Éowyn in her guise as Dernhelm during the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. Its meaning is not completely certain, but it seems to be derived from the Old English words gedwimer (‘sorcery’) and líc (‘corpse’).

* Dwimordene

‘Phantom-vale’, name of Lórien among the Rohirrim.

–—

Galadriel’s magical wood.

The name among the Rohirrim for the Elvish land of Lórien, meaning literally ‘magical wood’.

* Eä|Ea

The World, the material Universe; Eä, meaning in Elvish ‘It is’ or ‘Let it be’, was the word of Ilúvatar when the World began its existence.

–—

The universe, which was brought into existence when Ilúvatar spoke the word ‘Eä!’, ‘Be!’.

* Eagles|Eagle

The harbingers of Manwë.

The great birds who were the friends of Elves and Men in Middle-earth; the mightiest of the Eagles was Thorondor, who dwelt in the Encircling Mountains; he and his kin carried spirits akin to the Maiar.

* Eämbar|Eambar

‘Sea-dwelling’; the ship built by Tar-Aldarion for his dwelling-place, on which was the Guildhouse of the Venturers.

–—

The Guildhouse of the Venturers.

A ship built by Aldarion to act as a Guildhouse for the guild of explorers known as the Venturers. It was designed also as his own dwelling-place, hence its name, which means ‘sea-home’. Originally anchored off the island of Tol Uinen in the bay of Rómenna, it was later moved to a new anchorage off Andúnië.

* Eärendil|Earendil

Called ‘Halfelven’, ‘the Blessed’, ‘the Bright’, and ‘the Mariner’; son of Tuor and Idril Turgon’s daughter; escaped from the sack of Gondolin and wedded Elwing daughter of Dior at the Mouths of Sirion; sailed with her to Aman and pleaded for help against Morgoth; set to sail the skies in his ship Vingilot bearing the Silmaril that Beren and Lúthien brought out of Angband. The name means ‘Lover of the Sea’.

–—

The mariner who sailed the Great Sea at the end of the First Age. He long sought a way to Aman, to seek the aid of the Valar against Morgoth, but the way was hidden. After the Sons of Fëanor attacked the Exiles of Gondolin seeking the Silmaril, Elwing his wife escaped and came to him at sea, through the power of Ulmo, in the shape of a white sea-bird bearing the Silmaril on her breast.

Through the power of the jewel, it is said, Eärendil was at last able to find a way to the Undying Lands, and there stood before the Valar and begged their aid in the wars against Morgoth. The Valar listened to his plea, and sent the great force that finally conquered the Dark Lord and freed Middle-earth.

Eärendil’s father was a Man, and his mother an Elf, so he and his wife Elwing and their sons were given the choice of race to which they wished to belong. Elwing chose Elvenkind, and Eärendil did so too for her sake.

He now sails the high airs with the Silmaril upon his brow, shining as the morning and evening star.

* Eärendil (King of Gondor)|Eärendil|Earendil Fifth of the Kings of Gondor.

The grandson of Meneldil and son of Cemendur, who succeeded his father to become the fifth King to rule the South-kingdom of Gondor. He shared his name with Eärendil the Mariner, the great hero who voyaged to Aman and saved Middle-earth from the darkness of Morgoth nearly four thousand years before King Eärendil’s time.

Unfortunately, Gondor’s fifth King did not have quite the impact on history as his heroic namesake - in fact, there is no annal of any event that occurred under Eärendil’s Kingship.

Eärendil ruled Gondor for eighty-six years, and was succeeded by his son, Anardil.

* Eärendur|Earendur

Younger brother of Tar-Elendil, born in the year 361 of the Second Age.

* Eärendur (Lord of Andúnië)|Eärendur|Earendur Fifteenth Lord of Andúnië in Númenor, brother of Lindórië, grandmother of Tar-Palantir.

* Eärendur (King of Arnor)|Eärendur|Earendur Tenth and last of the Kings of Arnor, the son of Elendur. After his death, his three sons divided the kingdom. His eldest son and rightful heir, Amlaith of Fornost, became the first King of Arthedain.

* Eärnil I|Eärnil|Earnil

The thirteenth King of Gondor, the nephew of the the childless Tarannon Falastur. The second of the four ‘Ship-kings’, he captured Umbar for Gondor, but was lost in a storm off its coast.

* Eärnil II|Eärnil|Earnil

Thirty-second King of Gondor, victor over the Haradrim and the Wainriders in Third Age 1944.

–—

The thirty-first and last but one of the Kings of Gondor, a descendant of Telumehtar Umbardacil who was granted the crown after the loss of King Ondoher and his sons in the Battle of the Camp.

* Eärnur|Earnur

Son of Eärnil II; thirty-third and last King of Gondor, in whom the line of Anárion came to its end; died in Minas Morgul.

–—

Son of Eärnil II, and last King of Gondor. In his youth, he defeated the Witch-king of Angmar at the Battle of Fornost. The Witch-king returned to Minas Morgul, and issued a challenge to Eärnur, who answered it and, entering Minas Morgul, was lost. After him, the realm of Gondor was ruled by hereditary Stewards, the first of whom was Mardil Voronwë.

* Eärrámë|Earrame

‘Sea-wing’, the ship of Tuor in which he and Idril sailed into the West.

* Eärwen|Earwen

Daughter of Olwë of Alqualondë, Thingol’s brother; wedded Finarfin of the Noldor. From Eärwen Finrod, Orodreth, Angrod, Aegnor and Galadriel had Telerin blood and were therefore allowed entry into Doriath.

–—

A Telerin Elf-maiden, daughter of Olwë, who wedded Finarfin the son of Finwë. She was the mother of both Finrod Felagund and Galadriel.

* East Beleriand

The lands between the Sirion and the Gelion.

That part of Beleriand that lay east of the River Sirion, and west of the Gelion. This region was largely under the control of the Sons of Fëanor during the First Age.

* East Bight

The great indentation in the eastern border of Mirkwood. See Narrows of the Forest.

* East Road

The name used by the Shire-hobbits for the ancient road that led eastward through the Shire into the wilds of Eriador and beyond (although the Hobbits themselves rarely travelled farther on it than Bree).

* East Road in Beleriand|East Road

The road from Mount Taras in the West, crossing Sirion at the Brithiach and Aros at the Arossiach, perhaps leading to Himring.

* East-gate of Moria

The eastern entrance to the ancient Dwarf-kingdom of Khazad-dûm, standing at the head of the valley of Nanduhirion (Azanulbizar in the Dwarvish tongue).

* East-mark

The eastern half of Rohan in the military organisation of the Rohirrim, bounded from the West-mark by the Snowbourn and the Entwash.

* East-victor

The meaning of the name Rómendacil.

The name taken by two great heroes and Kings in the history of Gondor, Tarostar and Minalcar. Each of these drove back an Easterling threat to the South-kingdom, and each therefore took the name ‘East-victor’

(Rómendacil in Elvish). Tarostar became Rómendacil I, and Minalcar ruled Gondor some centuries later as Rómendacil II.

* East-West Road

The Númenórean road from the Grey Havens to Rivendell, traversing the Shire; called also the East Road.

–—

A name for the long road that ran east to west through Eriador, and crossed the Greenway at Bree. More commonly called simply the East Road.

* Easterlings|Easterling|Incomers|Incomer|Swarthy Men|Swarthy Man In the First Age, Men who entered Beleriand from the East in the time after the Dagor Bragollach, fought on both sides in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, and were afterwards given Hithlum as a dwelling-place by Morgoth, where they oppressed the remnant of the People of Hador. Called in Hithlum Incomers. Also called Swarthy Men.

In the Third Age, a general name for the waves of Men driving in upon Gondor from the eastern regions of Middle-earth (see Wainriders, Balchoth).

–—

Wild Men out of the East.

A general name for the races of Men from the unknown East of Middle-earth, who were a constant foe of the Free Peoples, from the treachery of Ulfang in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad of the First Age to their frequent attacks against Gondor in the Third Age.

* Eastfarthing of the Shire|Eastfarthing

The lands east of the Three-Farthing Stone.

The easternmost of the four Farthings of the Shire. Its main towns were at Frogmorton and Whitfurrows on the East Road, and the farms of the Marish lay where it bordered Buckland across the River Brandywine.

* Eastfold

A part of Rohan on the northern slopes of Ered Nimrais, east of Edoras.

–—

The lands of Rohan east of the Snowbourn River.

That part of the realm of Rohan that lay east of the Snowbourn River, and west of Anórien in Gondor.

* Eastmarch of the Shire|Eastmarch

Buckland; the land across the River Brandywine from the Shire itself, first settled by Gorhendad Oldbuck.

* Echad i Sedryn

‘Camp of the Faithful’, name given to the refuge of Túrin and Beleg on Amon Rûdh.

* Echoing Mountains

A name for the Ered Lómin.

A name for the Ered Lómin, the western mountains of Hithlum that separated that land from the sea. These mountains echoed to the cries of Morgoth when he returned to Middle-earth, and again as the host of Fëanor landed on its northern shores in pursuit of the Dark Lord.

* Echoriath|Mountains of Turgon

The mountains encircling Tumladen, the plain of Gondolin.

–—

The Encircling Mountains.

The great circular range of mountains, filled with the eyries of Eagles, that surrounded and protected the Hidden City of Gondolin for most of the First Age.

* Echuir

‘Stirring’; the Sindarin name for the Elvish season that lay between modern 11 February and 5 April.

* Ecthelion I (Steward of Gondor)|Ecthelion The Steward who rebuilt Minas Tirith’s White Tower.

The seventeenth Ruling Steward of Gondor, who succeeded his father Orodreth to the Stewardship. He is most famous for rebuilding the White Tower that surmounted the city of Minas Tirith, which was afterwards known as the Tower of Ecthelion. He ruled in Gondor for just thirteen years, and was succeeded by his son Egalmoth.

* Ecthelion II (Steward of Gondor)|Ecthelion Twenty-fifth Ruling Steward of Gondor, the second of the name; father of Denethor II.

–—

The twenty-fifth Ruling Steward of Gondor.

Ecthelion II was the son of Steward Turgon, and was a wise and foresightful Man. He put his efforts into strengthening his realm against the approaching danger of Sauron, who had openly revealed himself in the last years of Turgon’s Stewardship. He was aided in this work by Gandalf, and by a mysterious stranger named ‘Thorongil’, who was later known to be none other than Aragorn. Ecthelion was succeeded as Steward by his son Denethor II, who ruled Gondor at the time of the War of the Ring.

* Ecthelion of the Fountain|Ecthelion

Elf-lord of Gondolin, called Lord of the Fountains and Warden of the Great Gate, who in the sack of the city slew and was slain by Gothmog Lord of Balrogs.

–—

Slayer of the Lord of Balrogs.

A lord of Gondolin, famed as the slayer of Gothmog Lord of Balrogs in the Fall of that city.

* Edain|Adan

The Men of the Three Houses of the Elf-friends.

–—

The noblest of Men.

The Sindarin form of the Quenya Atani, ‘second people’.

The name given by the Elves to the Three Houses of Men who first came to the lands west of the Blue Mountains and fought alongside them in the Wars of Beleriand. Whereas ‘Edain’ is strictly Elvish for all Men, it is normally only applied to those of the Three Houses who remained faithful to the Elves and were given the island of Elenna (Númenor) as a reward.

The Three Houses of the Edain, in the order in which they came to Beleriand, were: The House of Bëor, The House of Haleth (the Haladin), The House of Hador (the descendants of Marach and his people).

* Edhel|Edhil|Eledh

A Sindarin word meaning simply ‘Elves’; the name of the Grey-elves for their own people. Also Eledh. Singular Edhil.

* Edhellond|Amroth’s Haven

The ‘Elf-haven’ in Belfalas near the confluence of the rivers Morthond and Ringló, north of Dor Amroth. Called Amroth’s Haven.

–—

A far southern haven of the Elves.

An Elf-haven that stood where the River Morthond reached the sea, some fifty miles to the north of Dol Amroth. Edhellond was in lands under the control of Gondor, but the haven was far older than that land of Men; tradition recounts its founding by the Sindarin mariners even before the end of the First Age.

* Edhelrim|Eledhrim

‘The Elves’; Sindarin edhel, eledh and collective plural ending rim.

* Edoras

‘The Courts’, name in the Mark-speech of the royal town of Rohan on the northern edge of Ered Nimrais.

–—

The Courts of Rohan.

The chief city of Rohan and the seat of its Kings, under the northern feet of the White Mountains.

* Edrahil

Chief of the Elves of Nargothrond who accompanied Finrod and Beren on their quest, and died in the dungeons of Tol-in-Gaurhoth.

–—

Loyal follower of Finrod Felagund.

An Elf of Nargothrond, one of the ten who remained loyal to Finrod Felagund at the time he set out with Beren on the Quest of the Silmaril.

* Egalmoth

Eighteenth Ruling Steward of Gondor.

–—

The eighteenth Steward to rule over Gondor, who succeeded his father Ecthelion I. In his time, it seems, Orcs began to trouble Gondor once again, and Egalmoth’s armies went to war with this new foe. In III 2710, Egalmoth received a plea for aid from Déor of Rohan, who was himself greatly troubled by the Dunlendings, but the orc-wars kept Egalmoth from sending help. He was succeeded as Steward by his son Beren.

* Eglador

The former name of Doriath, before it was encompassed by the Girdle of Melian; probably connected with the name Eglath.

–—

An old name for the kingdom of Doriath.

Probably meaning ‘Land of the Forsaken’, Eglador was the name of the land of Doriath before it was protected by the Girdle of Melian.

* Eglantine|sweet-briar

A type of wild rose, with sweet-smelling flowers and leaves, also known as sweet-briar. Frodo and Sam found it growing in Ithilien as they journeyed through that land.

* Eglantine Banks

The wife of Thain Paladin Took II, and mother of Peregrin Took I of the Company of the Ring.

* Eglarest

The southernmost of the Havens of the Falas on the coast of Beleriand.

–—

The Haven at Nenning’s mouth.

A haven at the mouth of the River Nenning. The southern of the two Havens of Círdan (the other being Brithombar) that stood in the Falas on the western coasts of Beleriand.

* Eglath|Forsaken Elves|Forsaken Elf

‘The Forsaken People’, name given to themselves by the Telerin Elves who remained in Beleriand seeking for Elwë (Thingol) when the main host of the Teleri departed to Aman.

* Eilenach

Second of the beacons of Gondor in Ered Nimrais, the highest point of the Drúadan Forest.

–—

The second of the seven beacon-hills of Gondor, after Amon Dîn in the east, it lay in the Drúadan Forest.

* Eilenaer

Pre-Númenórean name (related to Eilenach) of Amon Anwar (Halifirien).

* Eilinel

The wife of Gorlim the Unhappy.

* Eithel Ivrin

‘Ivrin’s Well’, the source of the river Narog beneath Ered Wethrin.

* Eithel Sirion

‘Sirion’s Well’, in the eastern face of Ered Wethrin, where was the great fortress of Fingolfin and Fingon (see Barad Eithel).

–—

The source of the River Sirion.

The spring at which the River Sirion had its source, in the eastern Ered Wethrin. Fingolfin built a great fortress there, the Barad Eithel.

* Eket

Short broad-bladed sword.

* Ekkaia|Outer Ocean

Elvish name of the Outer Sea, encircling Arda; referred to also as the Outer Ocean and the Encircling Sea.

–—

The Elvish name for the Encircling Sea that surrounded Arda.

* Elanor

A small golden star-shaped flower that grew both in Tol Eressëa and in Lothlórien.

–—

A golden, star-shaped flower, with a name meaning ‘sun-star’. Sam Gamgee first came across it in Lórien, and named his eldest daughter, Elanor Gardner, from it.

* Elanor Gardner

Called Elanor the Fair, the eldest child of Samwise Gamgee and Rose Cotton; she married Fastred of Greenholm and they removed to the Westmarch of the Shire. Her son Elfstan was the founder of the Fairbairn family.

* Elatan of Andúnië|Elatan

Númenórean, husband of Silmarien, father of Valandil first Lrod of Andúnie.

* Elbereth

The usual name of Varda in Sindarin, ‘Star-Queen’. See Elentári.

–—

The name of Varda in Middle-earth.

A Sindarin name meaning ‘star-lady’, used by the Elves of Middle-earth of Varda Elentári.

* Eldacar (King of Arnor)|Eldacar

The grandson of Isildur, who became King of Arnor on the death of his father, Valandil.

* Eldacar (King of Gondor)|Eldacar

The deposed and restored King of Gondor.

The son of King Valacar of Gondor and Vidumavi. Vidumavi was the daughter of Vidugavia of the Northmen, the self-styled King of Rhovanion, and so Eldacar was of only half-Gondorian descent, a fact that led many to doubt Eldacar’s right to rule. After his father’s death, he sat on the throne for just five years when civil war broke out in Gondor.

Ultimately, he was deposed by his Captain of Ships, Castamir, who took the throne himself.

Eldacar escaped into the north, where he spent ten years raising an army before he returned to reclaim his throne. In a great and bloody battle at the Crossings of Erui, Castamir was defeated and the remnant of his forces fled into the south, to Umbar. Eldacar ruled for another forty-three years after this war, known as the Kin-strife. His eldest son Ornendil had died at Castamir’s hands, and he was succeeded by his second son, Aldamir.

* Eldalië|Eldalie

‘The Elven-folk’, used as equivalent to Eldar.

–—

The People of the Stars.

An equivalent term to Eldar, referring to the Elves of the Great Journey. This is apparently the natural Quenya form of the word.

* Eldalondë|Eldalonde

‘Haven of the Eldar’ in the Bay of Eldanna at the mouth of the river Nunduinë in Númenor; called ‘the Green’.

–—

The haven on the Bay of Eldanna.