Minor Places in Arda - S

S

Sea of Helcar

The Sea of Helcar (also Helkar) was a great inland sea which existed during the First Age. In the beginning of Arda, the Valar created the Two Lamps. Due to Melkor's deceit these were destroyed, and where Illuin the northern Lamp, which sat on the mountain Helcar, had stood a great inland sea was formed, which was named the Sea of Helcar after the tower on which the northern lamp had stood.

The awakening of the Elves was at Cuiviénen, a gulf in the Sea of Helcar, and during the Great Journey they passed to the north of it through Wilderland on their way to Beleriand. After the War of Wrath at the end of the First Age, the Sea of Helcar was drained through the Great Gulf and disappeared.

Christopher Tolkien and others have speculated that the Sea of Rhûn might "...be identified with the Sea of Helkar, vastly shrunken" (The War of the Jewels, pg. 174). In The Peoples of Middle-earth there are references to the Sea of Rhûn existing in the First Age, but no indication as to whether it should be equated with the Sea of Helcar or not.

Sea of Ringil

The Sea of Ringil was a great inland sea which existed during the First Age. In the beginning of Arda, the Valar created the Two Lamps. Due to Melkor's deceit these were destroyed, and where Ormal the southern Lamp, which sat on the mountain of Ringil, had stood a great inland sea was formed, which was named the Sea of Ringil after the tower on which the southern lamp had stood. Eventually, during the Battle of the Powers in which Utumno was destroyed by the Valar, the titanic forces of the age-long battle itself caused the Sea of Ringil to extend to the northeast and southwest, forming a new and larger sea which cut across southern Middle-earth, linking Belegaer to the Eastern Sea (the latter separating Middle-earth and the Lands of the Sun). In this process, the southernmost portion of Middle-earth was sundered from the mainland and became Hyarmenor or the Dark/South Land.

Straight Road

The route that leaves the Earth's curvature and moves through sky and space to reach the land of Aman. It is so-called because it follows the old path across Belegaer from before the Akallabêth when the Flat World was made Round. It is only kept open to Elves, who are allowed to sail to it on their ships by a special grace of the Valar. A ship departing on the Straight Road, when observed from the shore, would slowly become smaller to sight until it disappeared in a point, and not drop behind the horizon. The Straight Road contains some kind of ethereal sea the ships of the Sindar can sail over through space to Valinor.

It is noted in earlier writings by Tolkien that some mortals besides those carried on Elven ships like Frodo Baggins and Bilbo Baggins can also find this route in a Bermuda Triangle-like instance (like Ælfwine/Eriol from The Book of Lost Tales).