The Atlas of Middle-earth Page 2

  Using real coordinates from our real world not only brings us back to the flat earth problems but seems presumptuous and unnecessary. Instead, all location maps have been based upon a worldwide grid that extends from Valinor to the mounts of Orocarni, and from the Grinding Ice to Far Harad. Each square is 100 miles on a side, as are those used on Tolkien’s working maps.22 Each location, including all language variations, has been indexed using this grid; and all regional location maps include the coordinates on the margins.

  How Long Is a League?

  In these days of the kilometer, when even the English mile is fast disappearing, Tolkien’s usage of leagues, furlongs, fathoms, and ells added to the mystique and feeling of history—and to the bewilderment of the mapmaker. A fathom equals six feet; an ell, 27 to 45 inches; a furlong, 220 yards or one eighth of a mile. These smaller units are relatively unimportant to the cartographer’s calculations, but a league—how long is a, league? Its distance has varied in different times and countries from 2.4 to 4.6 miles.23 Multiplying such variance by a hundred or more resulted in unacceptable, unusable data; but at last, with the release of Unfinished Tales, a definitive figure was given. A league “in Númenórean reckoning . . . was very nearly three of our miles.”24

  To assure that the distances were uniform, meticulous map measurements were done by road and “as the crow flies” for every reference to distance in leagues given in The Lord of the Rings (the only work whose maps included a scale). The usage ranged from 2.9 miles per league (up the Anduin between Pelargir and the landings at Harlond) to 17.5 miles per league (the straight-line distance from Helm’s Deep to the Fords of Isen). Most of the measurements were reasonably close if the leagues in the text were considered as straight-line measurements, whether or not that was specifically stated. Applying the constant of 3.0 miles per league to the map and distances given in The Silmarillion produced a marvelous result: The curvature of the Blue Mountains—the only feature common to maps of both the First and Third Ages—matched exactly even before the maps in The History were available! For those who wish to compare these values on all the large regional maps (except Valinor, Númenor, and The Shire), use the accompanying scale.

  Pathways created another dilemma. They were the basis of most original distance calculations for the base maps, as well as being used in their own right for campsite locations. Many mileages had to be estimated, based on our Primary World. How many miles per hour could be sustained for more than a day—by a Man on foot (with an Elf and a Dwarf)? Armored cavalry on horseback? Halflings on short rations? Ponies on mountain paths? Finally, the daily distances were calculated using known location of campsites and times of arrival, interpolating the mileage covered since the last known site, with adjustments for change of travel speed (e.g., being chased by wolves). The mileage charts in The History have been checked against the original paths, but due to the constant restructuring of the tale the originals have not been altered, with one exception, and then both versions are shown.

  The Physical Base Map

  Figure 2

  None of the cultural geography and history of the Free Peoples could have been traced without first establishing the physical base. Tolkien’s marvelous descriptions were invaluable here, and his breadth of knowledge is evident; yet it was difficult to interpret some features in terms of our Primary World. Usually the alterations were an intrusion of the Secondary World, but occasionally the differences may have been unintentional. Some writers have suggested that his maps were heavily influenced by Europe.25 Similarities are apparent, but I prefer to think of Tolkien’s landscape as having resulted from vivid mental images based upon specific areas with which he was familiar.

  In illustrating the landform features, I have applied an almost pictorial style, commonly used in physiographic and block diagrams. This method is capable of giving only a general impression of the distribution and type of relief features. It certainly cannot be construed as showing every hill. Tolkien’s original maps and illustrations have been utilized as general references for location and elevation; but if differences arose, the final drawings were usually based upon the text and inferences drawn from its passages.

  On some cross sections, the phrase “Vertical exaggeration 3:1” (or some other number) occasionally appears. Anyone who has ever flown over a mountain range can verify that topographic features appear much more flattened than they seem when viewing them from an earthbound perspective. The reverse is also true. Vertical exaggeration means that the feature is shown as proportionately higher than it actually is.

  The Cultural Overlays

  The atlas, then, is a composite of the physical surface with the imprint of the Free Peoples upon it. Six basic map types have been included: (1) physical (including landforms, minerals, and climate), with place names; (2) political (or spheres of influence); (3) battles; (4) migrations (closely tied with linguistics); (5) the travellers’ pathways; and (6) site maps (towns, dwellings). These have been arranged roughly in sequence. The place names included on the maps may vary from one Age to the next, depending upon which language was prevalent at a given time and location. All spellings from The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings agree with Robert Foster’s excellent glossary, The Complete Guide to Middle-Earth, while those selected from The History are those which seemed most often used. Dates from the First Age also are based on Foster, for ‘The Later Annals of Beleriand’ were not used in preparation of The Silmarillion, for they had not yet been found, and thus are off by a year or two.26’’

  Symbols used to represent various physical and cultural phenomena were kept fairly constant, although some variations were necessary as the same elements were not present throughout. Whenever good and evil were mixed, evil was represented by black, and good by gray and/or brown. A legend has been included with most maps for easier reference, but the symbols usually fit one of the categories shown on the following page.

  Conclusion

  An almost endless series of questions, assumptions, and interpretations was necessary in producing the maps on the following pages. Differences of opinion have and will almost certainly continue to arise on many points. Each line has been drawn with a reason behind it, and much of the justification has been given in the respective explanations; yet space has not begun to allow inclusion of the entire reasoning process. Among various alternatives, I have chosen those that seem most reasonable to me, as I was unable to go to “Old Barliman” for further information—although the availability of The History is a close second! I hope the reader will learn as much in questioning the drawings, as I have in drafting them.

  THE FIRST AGE

  —THE ELDER DAYS—

  The First Age

  “In the beginning . . .” (Genesis 1:1)

  ILÚVATAR SENT THE VALAR to order the world, preparing Arda for the coming of his Children—Elves and Men. Melkor, brother of Manwë, being arrogant in his own strength and power, sought to mar all the works of the other Vala. Thus, Arda began in battle and turmoil: the Valar, building; Melkor, destroying. In this first of the Great Battles, only the might of Tulkas routed Melkor, who fled to the Outer Darkness.

  The Spring of Arda and the Settling of Aman

  With Melkor gone, the Valar were at last left free to quiet the tumults of the world and order things as they wished. The Valar dwelt originally on the Isle of Almaren, which lay in the Great Lake in the midst of the land.1 To the north they set the lantern of Illuin, and to the south, Ormal. The pillars of the lights were mountains taller than any of later times.2

  Far in the north, where Illuin’s light failed, the Iron Mountains stretched in an unbroken curve from east to west.3 It is unclear when these great mountains were raised. At one point Tolkien stated that Melkor had reared them “as a fence to his citadel of Utumno,”4 which seems to imply that they were uplifted at the time Utumno was built. Yet elsewhere it was told that Melkor returned in stealth over the Walls of Night and delved the fortress beneath the Ered Engrin5—e
vidence that the mountains might have already been formed in the earlier turmoils of Arda. Although the Valar knew Melkor had returned, they could not locate his hiding place. From Utumno he struck the lights of Illuin and Ormal, casting down their pillars. So great was their fall that the lands were broken and Almaren destroyed.6 In one version of these ancient days, the Valar were said to be on one of the Twilit Isles, and the meltwaters from the fall swamped most of the islands. Then Ossë ferried the Valar to the West, upon the same isle which he later used to carry the Elves!7 It is possible that these islands were the lands seen by Eárendil, who, sailing west to Valinor, passed over “foundered shores that drowned before the Days began.”8 Whatever the mechanism, the Valar left Middle-earth, and passed over the sundering seas of Belegaer, which were more narrow at that time than ever after. They settled Aman—“the westernmost of all lands upon the borders of the world. . . .”9 As a defense against Melkor they lifted the Pelóri—east, north, and south—and these stood as the highest mountains of Arda.10 Behind them the Valar established the Blessed Realm of Valinor. The Valar continued their works, returning seldom to Middle-earth. In their absence, Melkor’s power spread south from Utumno, and from his fortress of Angband, which lay in the northwest, facing Aman.11 Only Oromë and Yavanna ventured into the Outer Lands. To hinder Oromë’s travels Melkor raised a new mountain chain—the Hithaeglir, Mountains of Mist.12

  The Awakening of the Elves and the Second Great Battle

  Uncounted time passed. Yavanna had grown the trees of light, and Varda had kindled the last of the stars when the Elves—firstborn of the Children of Ilúvatar—awoke by the waters of Cuiviénen. They dwelt in the Wild Wood by its shores and delighted in the music of the streams falling from the Orocarni, Mountains of the East.13 Cuiviénen was an eastern bay of the Inland Sea of Helcar, formed by the meltwaters of the pillar of Illuin.14 Cuiviénen could not have been very far east of Utumno, for later, during the Siege, the Elves could see the light of battle in the north—not the west.

  The Siege of Utumno occurred after Oromë discovered the Eldar had at last appeared. The Valar wished to free the Elves from Melkor’s evil domination, for he had already captured some, using them to breed the twisted race of Ores. Thus began the Second of the Great Battles. The Valar quickly routed Sauron’s forces at Angband, breaking the lands of the northwest. Then they passed east to Utumno. There the strength of evil was so great that a siege was mounted.

  In every confrontation between Melkor and the Valar the lands of Arda were much changed, and the Siege was no exception.15 Belegaer grew wide and deep. The coastlines were much broken, forming many bays, including the Bay of Balar and the Great Gulf. A map in “The Ambarkanta” shows ‘the Great Gulf’, called also Beleglo[rn?].16 The map is “a very rapid pencil sketch . . . many features are absent.”17 In the turmoils at the end of the First Age the shape of the gulf probably changed, joining the eastern end of the gulf with the inland Sea of Helcar, forming the later Bay of Belfalas.

  SPRING OF ARDA

  Not only were the seas changed during the Siege of Utumno, but also, the lands. The central highlands of Dorthonion and Hithlum were said to have been raised—specifically, the “Iron Mountains “were broken and distorted at their western end . . . made the Ered-wethrin and Eredlómin, and that the Iron Mountains bent back northward.’”18 The Echoriath probably also appeared during these great turmoils—as a gigantic active volcano. New rivers (such as Sirion) were formed.

  The Westward Road

  The Valar at last defeated Utumno, and unroofed its halls—but only partially. The mighty Ered Engrin, which once had towered as a predominant wall across northern Middle-earth, were neither mentioned nor mapped by Tolkien after the First Age. The western portion near Angband stood until the Third Great Battle (the War of Wrath), at the end of the Age. It is not known whether the rest of the range was destroyed during the Siege, or during the fall of Beleriand, or whether they still existed in the Third Age. The accompanying map (drawn at this point of the First Age) assumed that the mountains were only partially changed during the unroofing of Utumno,19 and that the final destruction of all but a few remnants must have occurred later, possibly in the War of Wrath.

  Melkor was chained in the Halls of Mandos for three ages, and the Quendi were free to take the westward road toward Valinor. The leagues from Cuiviénen were uncounted, yet using the Ambarkanta map one may estimate the journey to have been in excess of 2000 miles. Nothing was told of these travels until the Elves reached the great forest, later called the Greenwood. Their route would have been fairly straight west once they had journeyed to the northern shore of the Sea of Helcar from Cuiviénen. It is possible that Oromë led them along the very path that eventually became the Great East Road and the forest path. Oromë probably did not lead them south, because another, greater barrier existed there—dense forests. Treebeard said that woods had once extended from the Mountains of Lune to the east end in Fangorn.20

  West of Greenwood they crossed the Great River, then faced the towering Mountains of Mist. These were even “taller and more terrible in those days.”21 This alone reveals how vast an expanse of time passed between the westward migration to Valinor and the return of the Noldor to Middle-earth during the Sleep of Yavanna before the Sun Years. Half a million years would hardly be sufficient for the gradual processes of erosion to noticeably lower the peaks. Nothing else was told of the lands east of the Ered Luin, except that the Ered Nimrais (the White Mountains) had been raised.22 As those did not appear on the Ambarkanta map, they were probably lifted at the same time as the Towers of Mist when Melkor sought to hinder the riding of Oromë.23 Notably absent from both map and text are the mountains of Mordor. That land would later lie in what now was the Sea of Helcar.

  At last the wanderers crossed the Ered Luin, which must have been lower than the Hithaeglir, for they seem to have formed less of a barrier. The pass lay in the upper vales of the River Ascar—where later the mountains broke apart and formed the Gulf of Lune. West of the lands of Beleriand were the Sundering Seas. The Elves could go no farther.

  The Noontide of Valinor and the Return to Endor

  To provide passage for the great host, Ulmo uprooted an island that stood in the midst of Belegaer. On it he carried the Quendi—first the Vanyar and the Noldor, and then the Teleri. Being driven on the shoals, the point of the island remained in the Bay of Balar.24 Ossë anchored the greater portion in the Bay of Eldamar—Tol Eressëa, the Lonely Isle.25

  This was the Noontide of Valinor. Through the Pelóri the Valar opened a deep chasm (the Calacirya) to light Eressëa. The three kindreds dwelt in the glory of the Blessed Realm—until the pardon of Melkor. Subsequently he poisoned the Two Trees of Light, stole the Silmarils, and escaped to Middle-earth—pursued by the Noldor. There he piled the towers of Thangorodrim at the gates of Angband. When Tilion, guiding the newly made Moon, traversed the sky, Melkor assailed him. The Valar then, remembering the fall of Almaren, raised the Pelóri to even more unassailable heights, with sheer outward faces and no passes except the Calacirya. Beyond Aman were set the Enchanted Isles.26 No help went forth from the Guarded Land until the end of the Age. The Noldor and the Sindar were left to their own devices and strength.

  The Elves gained assistance, however, from Men; for with the rising of the Sun, the Younger Children of Ilúvatar awoke in Hildórien. That land, too, lay in eastern Middle-earth.27 From Hildórien Men spread west, north, and south,28 with many taking the road west toward the place where the sun had first risen. Some eventually came to Beleriand, and their destinies, with those of the Elves, were intertwined in all the tales that passed until the end of the Age and the fall of the lands beneath the wave.

  Beleriand

  To produce a detailed world map it was necessary to piece together the mapped and unmapped portions of Arda. While the map from the Ambarkanta provided a rough world-wide view, the crucial locale during the First Age was Beleriand. It was necessary to establish both scale and relat
ionship to the rest of Middle-earth. All the ‘Silmarillion’ maps excluded both the northern and southern extremes of the area. The original key to the latter was the location of the Dwarf Road to the cities of Belegost and Nogrod, where the Ered Luin were broken asunder in the Great Battle, forming the Gulf of Lune. With the publication of The History, however, it became possible to confirm the placement by superimposing the “First Map”29 designed for The Lord of the Rings over the “Second ‘Silmarillion’ Map”30—aligning the locations of Tol Fuin over Dorthonion (Taur-nu-Fuin) and of the isle of Himling with the city of Himring. Although the index grids used on both the maps used squares of the same dimension (100 miles on a side, as are those of the Atlas), the lettered axis differed by fifty miles, and neither letters nor numbers coordinated. This difference was merely one of inconvenience, however. With one exception* it was possible to reconfirm the relative size and location of the distances within the area that were mentioned in the text:

  1) Menegroth to Thangorodrim *150 leagues31