Middle-earth
Middle-earth (Q. Endor) was a large continent of Arda, situated east of Aman, across Belegaer. It is here that many of the epic tales of Arda were played out, for it was in the north of this realm that Morgoth dwelt, and here where he bitterly fought with Elves, Men, and even Valar.
Geography and Physiographic History
- ". . . To North there lay the Land of Dread/Whence only evil pathways led…/To South the wide earth unexplored/To West the ancient Ocean roared/unsailed and shoreless, wide and wild/to East in peaks of blue were piled/In silence folded, mist enfurled,/The mountains of the Outer World…"
- ― The Lay of Leithian, lines 49-60
During the First Age and the ages preceding, the western side of Middle-earth was called Beleriand, stretching from the Ered Luin to the great ocean of Belegaer. On the northern edge of Beleriand were the fierce Ered Engrin, the Iron Mountains. Even further north was the freezing Dor Daidelos. Just southwest of the Ered Engrin was Hithlum, which was separated from the coast of Lammoth and Belegaer by the Ered Lómin, and from the rest of Beleriand to the south by the Ered Wethrin. The woven wood of Doriath rested directly south of the Thangorodrim and Dorthonion, southeast of Hithlum. To the West of Doriath were Taur-en-Faroth and the Falas, while to the Easter were Nan Elmoth and Thargelion before reaching the Ered Luin. To the south of Doriath were first the Andram, then Arvernien and the Bay of Balar. East of the Bay of Balar and extending ever further south into the unknown lands were the Taur-im-Duinath and Ossiriand.
East of the Ered Luin was a land encircled by four mountain ranges: the Ered Luin to the West, the Ered Engrin to the North, the Hithaeglir (Misty Mountains) to the East, and some of the White Mountains to the South. Passing even further East, over the Hithaeglir, you would come to Anduin (the Great River) and eventually Palisor, the Inland Sea of Helcar, the Orocarni, and the East Sea.
After the end of the First Age and the drowning of Beleriand, the geography east of the Ered Luin shifted. The Ered Luin themselves, now broken up and disfigured, marked the western border of Eriador, and thence Lindon and Belegaer itself. Eriador, now the Westernmost part of Middle-earth, was bordered on the East by the Hithaeglir, the Misty Mountains, which stretched down south to the White Mountains and the Bay of Belfalas. Across the Misty Mountains from Eriador was Rhovanion, which extended east to the Sea of Rhûn and the vast lands beyond. Within Rhovanion were the great forest of Mirkwood, the forest of Fangorn, and the many-rivered area that would become known as Gondor. To the east was the region of Mordor, encircled on three sides by mountains. To the far north of Rhovanion was the icy Forodwaith.
Real-world History
Tolkien created Arda, including and especially Middle-earth, for his languages Quenya and Sindarin, especially the latter as it turned out. To Tolkien, a scholar of the Anglo-Saxon language, Middle-earth was the English translation of the Old English word middanġeard. This word was transformed in the Middle English midden-erd or middel-erd, and the Old Norse Midgard. This is English for what the Greeks called the οικουμένη (oikoumenē) or "the abiding place of men", the physical world as opposed to the unseen worlds (The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, 151).
Tolkien also remarked in his Letters that he was particularly inspired by these verses of Anglo-Saxon poetry from Crist:
- Eala earendel engla beorhtast / ofer middangeard monnum sended.
- Hail Earendel, brightest of angels / above the middle-earth sent unto men.
In the early 1930s Tolkien began to use the word Middle-earth instead of his other terms, including “Great Lands”, “Hither Lands”, and “Outer Lands”.
Tolkien, equating Arda with Earth, believed that mythologically Europe would be the present-day form of Middle-earth, now in the Seventh Age or so. He also suggested in Letter 211 that his tales were set more or less six thousand years ago.
See Also
- Arda – the world as a whole
- History of Arda – Including the History of Middle-earth
