Minor Places in Middle-earth - T

T

Tharbad

A city on the southern edge of Eriador in Middle-earth. Tharbad, Sindarin for 'The Crossing Road', was originally the name given to a fort where the old North-South Road crossed the fenlands at the head of the Gwathló. The area around Tharbad was flat and marshy; the road approached the river from either side along miles of causeway.

Tol Brandir

An island crag set in the lake of Nen Hithoel which straddles the Falls of Rauros. The island was bordered by Amon Hen to the west and Amon Lhaw to the east. In days past, the hills near Tol Brandir had been important watchtowers for the Kingdom of Gondor. However, no man ever visited Tol Brandir, or so the legends state.

Tol Brandir means "tall island" and is the name used by the Elves. The men called the island "Tindrock", derived from the Old English word "tind" meaning sharp point (literally, therefore, 'pointed rock').

Tomb of Elendil

Was the tomb of the first King of Arnor and of Gondor. Its location was a secret kept for many centuries, but it was later discovered to be atop the mountain known as the Halifirien, on the borders of Gondor and Rohan.

Torech Ungol

Torech Ungol or Shelob's Lair was the home of the giant spider Shelob. It was located below Cirith Ungol, a pass into Mordor. The orcs were generally afraid of Shelob but had built extensive tunnels into the lair for their own purposes. When some of them were unruly or Shelob needed to be appeased, the orcs would throw some of their own kind into the lair without much concern for them.

In Peter Jackson's film adaptations to the books, the entire sequence in Shelob's Lair was moved to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Because The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers needed a new climax, a new sub-plot was created in which Faramir took Frodo to Osgiliath. This addition was criticized by some purists.

Jackson explained that he moved the scene from The Two Towers into The Return of the King for the sake of the timeline of events as given in the books. Although the episode with Shelob occurred in the Two Towers book, it was chronologically simultaneous with events in other parts of Middle-earth that took place during the Return of the King. For example, even in the books, Frodo's capture at Shelob's Lair happened as Gandalf and Pippin were engaged in battle at the besieged Minas Tirith, not at Helm's Deep or even Isengard.

Tower Hills

A series of steep hills at the west end of Eriador, called in Sindarin Emyn Beraid. They lay about 30 Númenórean miles east of the Grey Havens, and about 50 miles (80 km) west of the White Downs, of old the border of the Shire. High upon the Tower Hills stood three tall Elven towers, the highest of which was called Elostirion and held a palantír.

The Tower Hills formed the ancient border between the Elven realm of Lindon and the Kingdom of Arnor, and the Great East Road which led all the way to Rivendell ran through them. In the early Fourth Age, Elanor Gamgee and her husband Fastred Fairbairn moved to the Tower Hills, founding the town of Undertowers on the eastern slopes of the Hills, and becoming the Wardens of Westmarch, when the Tower Hills became the new western border of the Shire by the issue of King Elessar.

Towers of the Teeth

Also called the Teeth of Mordor. Two towers situated on either side of the Black Gate of Mordor. The towers — known individually as Carchost and Narchost — were originally constructed by the men of Gondor after Sauron's defeat in the Second Age to guard the entrance to Mordor, but were taken over by Sauron in the later Third Age, having been abandoned sometime after the defeat of King Ondoher in 1944 to the Wainriders, as the Towers are stated to have been manned before the Battle.

Tolkien's writings leave it unclear which tower was located on which side of the Morannon. However, Carchost appears to have stood to the eastern side and Narchost on the western side. Carchost is a Sindarin name that means "Tooth Fort", a compound of carch (meaning 'tooth or fang') and ost (meaning 'fortress'). Narchost is a Sindarin name that means "Fire Fort". The towers were destroyed in the War of the Ring with the defeat of Sauron following the destruction of the One Ring. Their collapse is shown in Peter Jackson's film interpretation of The Return of the King.

Trollshaws

The upland woods, consisting at least partly of beech trees, that lay to the west of Rivendell between the rivers Hoarwell and Loudwater. They were the haunt of trolls. Three of these trolls waylaid Bilbo Baggins and his companions during The Hobbit. Years later Frodo Baggins and his companions found them on their way to Rivendell, but they were inert stone.

There is a contradiction regarding the layout of the Trollshaws. In The Hobbit, the company passes over a "stone bridge" and very soon after that spots the trolls' fire, an hour or two away. In The Fellowship of the Ring, however, Aragorn explicitly leads the Hobbits over the Last Bridge and takes six days to reach the site of the troll camp. This discrepancy was not noticed by J. R. R. Tolkien, but was discussed by Christopher Tolkien in The Return of the Shadow.