Minor Places in Middle-earth - M

M

Methedras

(S. 'end-horn') The southernmost peak of the Misty Mountains, that lay above Isengard in the valley of Nan Curunír.

Mindolluin

(S. 'towering blue head') The easternmost peak of the White Mountains, below and to the east of which stands the city of Minas Tirith. In The Return of the King, shortly after Aragorn's coronation as King Elessar Gandalf takes him by an ancient path into the foothills of Mindolluin far above the city. There he discovers, upon an otherwise barren slope, a sapling of Nimloth, the White Tree of Gondor, which he plants in the Court of the Fountain as a sign of rebirth.

Minhiriath

(Sindarin for 'Between Rivers' and thus an Elvish form of Mesopotamia) was located in Eriador, a name for all the lands between the Hithaeglir and the Ered Luin. Minhiriath had no clear border in the north, but to the south, and east and west it was bounded by river and sea : the Brandywine, the Greyflood and Belegaer,'The Great Sea'.

The original inhabitants of Minhiriath (Minhiriathrim) were descended from the same Atani as the ancestors of the Númenóreans, but because they spoke mutually unintelligible languages, the Númenóreans did not class the Minhiriathrim as Middle Men.

When the large-scale deforestation of their land began under the Númenórean 'Ship Kings' after the 7th century Second Age, the minhiriathrim became openly hostile, and were persecuted. Only those who "fled from Minhiriath into the dark woods of the great Cape of Eryn Vorn" survived. Most, if not all of these forest-dwellers subsequently "welcomed Sauron and hoped for his victory over the Men of the Sea", but they were to be disappointed - and permanently trapped - by Sauron's burning of much of the rest of the surviving forest, and final defeat, in S.A. 1701.

From S.A. 3320, Minhiriath became nominally part of the newly established Kingdom of Arnor, at which time it formed the upper part of,

..a land that was far and wide on either bank a desert, treeless but untilled.

('Of Galadriel & Celeborn' from Unfinished Tales)

From T.A. 861, Minhiriath was inherited by one of Arnor's three successor states, Cardolan, but the "ravaging" of Cardolan by evil forces in T.A. 1409 no doubt caused extensive depopulation of the whole country. Even worse was the advent of the Great Plague in T.A. 1636, after which Minhiriath was "almost entirely deserted". After T.A. 1975, even though "a few secretive hunter-folk lived in the woods" the region was almost entirely desolate.

Although "still in places well-wooded" by the time of the War of the Ring, the once continuously forested Minhiriath bore the permanent scars of over 5000 years of felling, burning and war.

During the Fourth Age the region once more developed under the auspices of the restored Kingdom of Arnor: when talking of Eriador (and particularly the lands south and west of Bree) to an innkeeper at the end of the War of the Ring, for example, Gandalf confidently predicts that,

..the waste in time will be waste no longer, and there will be people and fields where once there was wilderness.

("The Journey Home", The Lord of the Rings)

Mirrormere

The lake located beneath the doors of Khazad-dûm. It is known as Kheled-zâram by the Dwarves. According to the Dwarves of Durin's folk, after Durin the Deathless had awoken at Mount Gundabad in the north of the Hithaeglir (Misty Mountains), he travelled south until he came upon this lake. He looked down in it, and in the reflection saw a crown of stars above his head. Then he founded Khazad-dûm at that place.

During the events that led up to the War of the Ring, the Fellowship of the Ring passed by the lake after escaping Moria. Despite their hurry, Gimli would not pass by without looking in the lake. Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee joined him and saw Durin's crown.

Morgul Pass

The Morgul Pass is the main pass from the Morgul Vale into Mordor. The Morgul Pass was at the far eastern end of the Morgul Vale. The Mountains of Shadow were relatively low at that point. The Morgul-road ran through the valley past Minas Morgul and over the Morgul Pass. The road then ran down into Mordor and crossed Gorgoroth to Mount Doom and Barad-dûr. The Morgul Pass was so called because it was located in the Morgul Vale. The word morgul means "black magic." The element mor means "black, dark." The element gûl means "sorcery, magic" from the stem ngol or nólë meaning "long study, lore, knowledge." This pass was also called the Nameless Pass, presumably by those who did not wish to utter the evil name of Morgul.

Far up the northern wall of the Morgul Pass, far above the main roadway, was a steep secondary pass reached by a perilous stairway, and known as Cirith Ungol.

Mount Gram

A mountain in north Eriador; its exact location is unknown but it probably was located either in the Ettenmoors or the Mountains of Angmar, or somewhere else in the northern Misty Mountains. It was inhabited by Orcs whose army once attacked the Hobbits of the Shire.

Mount Gundabad

A mountain at the northern extremity of the Misty Mountains, a stronghold of Dwarves and later, Orcs.

According to the Dwarves, Durin the Deathless, oldest of the Fathers of the Dwarves, awoke at Mount Gundabad some time after the awakening of the Elves. Mount Gundabad remained a sacred place to the Dwarves ever after.

In the middle of the Second Age, Orcs (servants of Sauron) invaded Gundabad. The site would not be cleansed until very late in the Second Age, possibly around or after the fall of Sauron and the loss of the One Ring.

In the Third Age, the Orcs of Angmar yet again claimed it as their capital, which was one of the reasons for the Dwarves' special hatred of this people. After the fall of Angmar, Gundabad remained an Orc stronghold, even after it was sacked during the War of the Dwarves and Orcs. The army of goblins that fought in the Battle of the Five Armies was said to have mustered at the mountain in The Hobbit.

Mountains of Angmar

A mountain chain in the far north, running north-west from Mount Gundabad at the northern end of the Misty Mountains. The evil kingdom of Angmar gave its name to the mountains. The mountains were probably inhabited at various times both by Dwarves and Orcs. The capital of Angmar, Carn Dûm, was located at the western foothills of the Mountains of Angmar.

Mountains of Ash

See Ered Lithui

Mountains of Moria

The three peaks of the Misty Mountains — Caradhras, Celebdil and Fanuidhol — beneath which Moria was delved by the Dwarves. The main body of their city seems to have been beneath Celebdil. During the events of The Lord of the Rings, the Company of the Ring attempted to travel over Caradhras, but they were forced to enter the Mines due to a heavy snowfall.