Minor Places in Middle-earth - E

E

East Bight

A vast indention in the south-eastern edge of Mirkwood Forest, created by the clearing of trees by the Northmen.

Eastfold

Part of the kingdom of Rohan that lay east of the Snowbourn River, and west of Anórien in Gondor. Located east of Edoras.

Edhellond

(S. 'elf-haven') An ancient harbour and settlement of Elvish origin in Gondor, located just south of the junction of the rivers Morthond and Ringló.

In one account by Tolkien, Edhellond was founded by the Sindarin refugees in three small ships fleeing the ruin of Beleriand following Morgoth's successful onslaught of the Elvish kingdoms. Another version tells that some refugees of Doriath, in the course of their wandering, founded the haven. In both versions, the original founders possessed the knowledge of shipbuilding, which in the First Age was known only to Círdan and the elven-folk of the Falas. Whatever its ultimate origins, in time Edhellond was swelled by Nandorin Elves seeking for the sea.

Amroth, Lord of Lothlórien, was lost at or near Edhellond in the year 1981 of the Third Age while looking for his beloved Nimrodel. Already then nearly all Elves had sailed into the West from Edhellond, seeking escape from the shadows of Middle-earth. By the time of the War of the Ring no Elves remained in Edhellond, and while it was uninhabited, the area passed into the dominion of Gondor.

Elostirion

(S. ????) The tallest of the three towers that stood on the Tower Hills. These towers were said to have been built by Gil-galad, High King of the Noldor in Middle-earth, in honour of Elendil who came to Middle-earth in the aftermath of the fall of Númenor.

Afterwards Elendil often came to the tower and set there one of the palantíri of the North, the only one that could look to Westernesse but could not be used to communicate with other palantíri unlike the other six. This palantír eventually became known as the Elendil Stone.
Elostirion endured for millennia after the death of Gil-galad and Elendil, under the care of Círdan and the Elves of Lindon; but the Elendil Stone palantír that it once held was taken to the Blessed Realm when Elrond and company sailed away at the end of the Third Age.

Emyn Beraid

See Tower Hills

Emyn Muil

A craggy, impassable highland located upon either side of Nen Hithoel. In The Two Towers, Frodo and Sam, attempting to reach the Black Gate of Mordor, are lost in the eastern Emyn Muil for days until Gollum finds them. After a great deal of persuasion he agrees to show them the way, leading them south into the Dead Marshes.

Emyn Uial

(S. 'hills of dusk') The highlands in northern Eriador, called also the Hills of Evendim. The hills began about a hundred Númenórean miles north of the Shire; at the southern end is the city of Annúminas, the first capital of Arnor, at Lake Evendim. The Baranduin or Brandywine River flows out of this lake. A tributary of the river Lhûn also rises in the hills.

In the Second Age, when the Men of Númenor first returned to Middle-earth, the Hills of Evendim were populated by Men related to the ancestors of the Edain. For this reason the Númenóreans later settled nearby, and the hills formed the core of the later kingdom of Arnor. After the establishment of the Kingdoms in Exile by Elendil and his sons, the Men of Evendim merged with the Dúnedain and men not of Edain stock, like the Men of Bree, to form the population of Arnor.

Enedwaith

also spelled Enedhwaith, Enedwâith, originally referred to both a region of Middle-earth and the men that inhabited it, although the region Enedwaith retained that name even when the Enedwaith people were no more.

The boundaries of the Enedwaith, which is Sindarin for 'Middle-region' as well as 'Middle-folk', were defined in the north by the rivers Gwathló and Glanduin, to the east by the Hithaeglir, and to the west by Belegaer, 'The Great Sea'. The southern border was less clear, but was probably formed by the river Isen. During the First and early Second Age Enedwaith was deeply forested, but the arrival of the timber-hungry Númenóreans, from the seventh century of the Second Age onwards, devastated the landscape. The denuded forests of Enedwaith, and much of those to the north in Eriador, were finally destroyed by the War of the Elves and Sauron around 1700 S.A., during which much of what had survived the felling was burnt. Only remote corners like Eryn Vorn survived in Eriador, and the Old Forest still further north. Many surviving natives took refuge in the eastern highlands of Enedwaith, "the foothills of the Misty Mountains", which ultimately became Dunland.

After S.A. 3320, Enedwaith formed the most northern part of the new Kingdom of Gondor, at least officially. The south-east was still "in places well-wooded", but elsewhere Enedwaith was by this time "mostly grassland." Following the Great Plague in T.A. 1636 however, Gondor's authority permanently lapsed throughout the region.

Tharbad, originally one of two ancient cities on the Gwathló, and the only one to survive beyond the early Third Age, was finally abandoned following devastating floods in 2912 T.A., and thereafter, only two groups survived in Enedwaith: the Dunlendings in the far east, and a "fairly numerous but barbarous fisher-folk" wandering the coast.

Ered Lithui

(S. 'Mountains of Ash') The mountain range forming the northern border of Mordor. From the Morannon, where it met the Ephel Dúath, the Ered Lithui ran generally eastward for hundreds of miles. The name "Mountains of Ash" suggests that the range is downwind of Mount Doom and collects its ash fallout.

Ered Mithrin

Ered Mithrin or Grey Mountains was a large mountain range to the north of Rhovanion. The Grey Mountains were the last remnants of the wall of the Ered Engrin or Iron Mountains, which once stretched all over the north of Middle-earth, but were broken at the end of the First Age.

Ered Wethrin

Ered Wethrin ("Mountains of Shadow") was a mountain range in the north of Middle-earth in the First Age. In the south, it was an east-west range that divided Dor-lómin and Mithrim to the north from Beleriand to the south, then in the east it curved around to the northwest, forming the boundary of Hithlum. A line of hills to the southwest formed the southern boundary of Nevrast, while the Mountains of Mithrim were a northwesterly spur that separated Dor-lómin from Mithrim.

Several rivers arose in the Ered Wethrin, including Narog, Teiglin, and Sirion. The easternmost point of the Ered Wethrin reached nearly to the Echoriath, forming a steep-sided valley through which the upper Sirion ran. The Ered Wethrin disappeared beneath the waves at the end of the First Age, when the Valar changed the shape of Middle-earth.

Eryn Vorn

'The Black Wood', was a densely forested peninsular in southern Eriador. Forming the western tip of what became known as Minhiriath, it was originally part of the vast ancient treescape that covered most of north-western Middle-earth, and was named by the early Númenórean explorers of the Second Age.

Throughout the following millennium, Minhiriath's landscape beyond the cape was systematically deforested by the Númenóreans in their greed for ship-building timber, and was then almost completely burnt down during the ensuing War of the Elves and Sauron. By the war's end in S.A. 1700, the surviving natives had retreated either north to Bree, or hidden themselves in Eryn Vorn, but the whole region was largely ignored by both Elf and Númenórean thereafter.

Eryn Vorn eventually fell under the jurisdiction of Arnor after Númenor's destruction at the end of the Second Age, and from 861 in the Third Age, the Black Woods became a nominal part of Cardolan, one of Arnor's three successor states.

The people of Cardolan were almost completely destroyed by the Great Plague a few centuries later, and although it is not known how this affected the Black Wood, it is probable that they remained populated throughout their history, for although no permanent settlements of men existed anywhere west of Bree by the late Third Age, "a few secretive hunter-folk lived in the woods" of Minhiriath by the time of the War of the Ring. The Black Wood was the only woodland in Minhiriath large enough to be mapped, so presumably these secretive folk were the descendants of those who hid in Eryn Vorn over four thousand years earlier.

Ettenmoors

These are highlands west of the Misty Mountains and north of the Coldfells. It was a location of warfare between the Free Peoples and Angmar in the Third Age when the Witch King fled after losing the battle of Fornost.

Everholt

Was the name the Rohirrim gave to a section of the Firienholt. It was notorious for its boar, after whom the forest was named. The first element is Old English Eofor, "boar".