Brown Lands
The Brown Lands or Noman-lands was a region east of the Anduin between Mirkwood to the north and the Emyn Muil to the south.[1]
The area was the home of the Entwives who made their gardens there; but during the War of the Last Alliance at the end of the Second Age, they were driven away when Sauron ruined the land during the War of the Last Alliance, against the advance of the Allies down the Anduin.[2] Thenceforth the area became a desolate desert. The Ents vainly had crossed the Anduin in search of the Entwives. Treebeard appeared convinced that the Entwives were not all destroyed but were "lost".[3]
Even by the end of the Third Age, when seen by the Fellowship of the Ring as they drifted by in boats upon the great river, the Brown Lands were long, formless slopes with a withered look, having no trees or even grass. What had caused such desolation not even Aragorn could tell.[4]
Etymology
J.R.R. Tolkien describes in his unfinished index (for The Lord of the Rings) the Brown Lands as a 'translation' of Berennyn (containing Sindarin baran 'brown, yellow-brown') "a devastated region, east of Anduin, between Lórien and the Emyn Muil".[5]
References
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, "The West of Middle-earth at the End of the Third Age" [map]
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien; Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher Tolkien (eds.), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 144, (dated 25 April 1954)
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, "Treebeard"
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, "The Great River"
- ↑ Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull (eds), The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion, p. 343 (quoting from the manuscript "Index questions")
