Beleriand

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Map of Beleriand by John Howe
"Beleriand, Beleriand / borders of the faëry land."
Lay of Leithian

Beleriand (S, pron. [beˈlerjand]) was the region of northwestern Middle-earth during the First Age. Originally, the name belonged only to the area around the Bay of Balar, but in time the name was applied to the entire land. The element Beler/Balar is believed to refer to the Maia Ossë, who often dwelt at the shores of Balar.

Geography

To the west and south it had a long shore with the Great Sea Belegaer, to the north were the highland regions of Hithlum, Dorthonion and the hills of Himring, to the east the Ered Luin (Blue Mountains) reached nearly to the sea. The land of Nevrast in the northwest was sometimes considered part of Beleriand.

The River Sirion, the chief river of Beleriand, running north to south, divided it into West Beleriand and East Beleriand. Crossing it east to west was a series of hills and a sudden drop in elevation known as Andram, the Long Wall. (The river sank into the ground at the Fens of Sirion, and reemerged below the Andram at the Gates of Sirion.) To the east of the Long Wall, was the River Gelion and its six tributaries draining the Ered Luin, in an area known as Ossiriand or the Land of Seven Rivers. The River Brithon and the River Nenning were the two lesser rivers of the western land of Falas.

In F.A. 583, Beleriand was mostly destroyed and submerged by the War of Wrath of the Valar against Morgoth. Only a small section of East Beleriand remained, and was known as Lindon. (There is however, some evidence[source?] that other parts of it still remained into the Second Age but were completely destroyed with the downfall of Númenor.)

In addition, fulfilling a prophecy, the graves of Túrin Turambar and Morwen survived as the island Tol Morwen. Likewise part of Dorthonion became Tol Fuin, and the Hill of Himring became the island of Himling. All of these together were known as the Western Isles.

Regions and kingdoms of Beleriand:

Cities of Beleriand:

Etymology

Beleriand translates to "The Country of Balar" with the ending -ian(d) for places and countries. The OS form could have been *Balariande (a slid to e because of the following i).

In the The Book of Lost Tales, there is also the Quenya name "Valariandë".

Location

The map of Beleriand as published in the first Silmarillion, shows only a portion of the region, with no common reference points to the better-known Third Age Westlands maps of The Lord of the Rings; the only common references were the Blue Mountains, and the reference that Lindon is a part of former Ossiriand.

File:Beleriand-eriador-fonstad.png
How Fonstad envisioned Beleriand relative to Lindon/Eriador. The rectangle marks the region shown in the Silmarillion map (canon); the rest, including the Thangorodrim, are Fonstad's extrapolations

Karen Wynn Fonstad faced the problem when she attempted to make a world-map of Arda. She found a solution by combining an early map for the LotR[1] and an early map for the Silmarillion[2], both being prototypes for the published maps by Christopher Tolkien. She aligned Tol Fuin with Taur-nu-Fuin and Himling with Himring and filled the rest of the outline with some inspiration from the only world-map by Tolkien.[3] She brought the coast near that of Belfalas, continued the course of Gelion to the south-west, extended the southwestern tip to emphasize the Bay of Balar, and assumed that area as forested, a continuation of Taur-im-Duinath.[4]

Didier Willis made the same attempt, using also the Stephen Raw map from Unfinished Tales which shows Himling and also indicates distances, like the second map of Beleriand where Dolmed is marked.[5] Willis' interpretation shows a slightly smaller Beleriand and the F.A. Bay of Balar closer to the T.A. Gulf of Lune.[6]

Willis also identified Dolmed with a certain mountain on the UT map, proving that Dolmed still existed in the Third Age (being way too north from the Gulf to be destroyed), and criticized Fonstad and Robert Foster who suggested the opposite.[7][8]

Other versions of the legendarium

Beleriand had many different names in Tolkien's early writings, as found in The History of Middle-earth: Broceliand, Broseliand, Golodhinand, Noldórinan, Geleriand, Bladorinand, Belaurien, Arsiriand, Lassiriand, Ossiriand (the latter was later used as a name for another realm).

Inspiration

The early names Broceliand/Broseliand affirms that Tolkien was inspired by the legendary forest of Brocéliande.

See Also

References