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| Mirkwood contained one of the few Elven settlements of the Fourth Age. It was inhabited by Silvan elves, who were more reluctant to depart Middle-earth than their Noldorin kin. Those from Lothlórien who did not accompany Galadriel to the West migrated to Mirkwood during the early Fourth Age. | Mirkwood contained one of the few Elven settlements of the Fourth Age. It was inhabited by Silvan elves, who were more reluctant to depart Middle-earth than their Noldorin kin. Those from Lothlórien who did not accompany Galadriel to the West migrated to Mirkwood during the early Fourth Age. | ||
| ==References and footnotes== | |||
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| ==Works cited== | |||
| *{{cite book|chapter=Mirkwood|last=Evans|first=Jonathan|pages=429-430|title = ]|editor = ]|isbn = 0-415-96942-5|publisher = ]|year=2006}} | |||
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Revision as of 22:22, 26 October 2007
See Myrkviðr for the forest in Norse mythology. For the game Mirkwood, see Mirkwood (mud).Mirkwood is a name used for two distinct fictional forests in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium.
The term is taken from William Morris, who borrowed it from the forest Myrkviðr of Norse mythology. Projected into Old English, it appears as Myrcwudu in Tolkien's The Lost Road, as a poem sung by Ælfwine (King Sheave, The Lost Road and Other Writings:91) :
- Sea-danes and Goths, Swedes and Northmen,
- Franks and Frisians, folk of the islands,
- Swordmen and Saxons, Swabes and English,
- and the Langobards who long ago
- beyond Myrcwudu a mighty realm
- and wealth won them in the Welsh countries
- where Ælfwine Eadwine's heir
- in Italy was king. All that has passed.
Middle-earth narrative
First Age
In The Silmarillion, the highlands of Dorthonion north of Beleriand eventually fell under Morgoth's control and was renamed Taur-nu-Fuin ("Forest under Deadly Nightshade") in Sindarin. Tolkien translated this name as Mirkwood in English. Along with the rest of the region west of Ered Luin, this forest disappeared after the cataclysm of the War of Wrath, although a few of its peaks may have survived as an island far off the coast of Lindon.
Third Age
In The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and associated writings, an expansive forest named Mirkwood was located in Rhovanion, east of the Anduin in Middle-earth. In this instance, the name is supposedly a translation of an unknown Westron name. The forest held the dwelling of a Silvan Elven realm ruled by Sindarin lords, firstly the Elvenking Oropher and subsequently his son Thranduil after the fall of Sauron. It had been called Greenwood the Great or Eryn Galen until around the year 1100 of the Third Age, when a "shadow" fell upon it, and men began to call it Taur-nu-Fuin and Taur-en-Daedelos in Sindarin. This shadow was the power of Sauron, who under a concealed identity established himself at the hill-fortress of Dol Guldur on Amon Lanc. The shadow drove Thranduil and his people ever northward, so that by the end of the Third Age they were a diminished and wary people who had entrenched themselves beyond the Mountains of Mirkwood (Emyn Fuin, formerly the Emyn Duir or "Dark Mountains"). The Old Forest Road or Old Dwarf Road crossed the forest east to west, but due to its relative proximity to Dol Guldur, the road was mostly unusable. The Elves made a path farther to the north, which ended somewhere in the marshes south of the Long Lake of Esgaroth.
In The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, along with Thorin Oakenshield and his band of Dwarves, ventured into Mirkwood during their quest to regain Erebor from the Dragon Smaug. There, they came across many great spiders, the breed of Shelob. Shortly after the dwarves' escape they were captured by the Elves. After or during these events the White Council attacked Dol Guldur, and Sauron fled to Mordor, and his influence in Mirkwood diminished for a while.
Years later, Gollum, after his release from Mordor, was captured by Aragorn and brought as a prisoner to Thranduil's halls. He escaped during an Orc raid, and fled south to Moria.
After Sauron was reduced to a powerless "spirit of malice" at the conclusion of the Third Age, the darkness was lifted from Mirkwood, and it became known as Eryn Lasgalen, Sindarin for the Wood of Greenleaves.
Mirkwood lies east of the Misty Mountains' rain shadow and has a humid-continental climate; winters are cold throughout but much longer in the north, while the south has hotter summers.
Mirkwood contained one of the few Elven settlements of the Fourth Age. It was inhabited by Silvan elves, who were more reluctant to depart Middle-earth than their Noldorin kin. Those from Lothlórien who did not accompany Galadriel to the West migrated to Mirkwood during the early Fourth Age.
References and footnotes
Works cited
- Evans, Jonathan (2006). "Mirkwood". In Drout, Michael D. C. (ed.). J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment. Routledge. pp. 429–430. ISBN 0-415-96942-5.
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