Menegroth
From Tolkien Gateway
Menegroth, the 'Thousand Caves', was the city in the land of Doriath which was home to king Thingol and queen Melian of the Sindarin people. It was there that Thingol was slain by the Dwarven craftsmen of Nogrod. It was later sacked by the sons of Fëanor in pursuit of the one of the Silmarils to have left Morgoth's iron crown prior to the War of Wrath. This description can be found in the Lay of Leithian:
- …through corridors of carven dread
- whose turns were lit by lanterns hung
- or flames from torches that were flung
- on dragons hewn in the cold stone
- with jewelled eyes and teeth of bone.
- Then sudden, deep beneath the earth
- the silences with silver mirth
- were shaken and the rocks were ringing,
- the birds of Melian were singing;
- and wide the ways of shadow spread
- as into arched halls she led
- Beren in wonder. There a light
- like day immortal and like night
- of stars unclouded, shone and gleamed.
- A vault of topless trees it seemed,
- whose trunks of carven stone there stood
- like towers of an enchanted wood
- in magic fast for ever bound,
- bearing a roof whose branches wound
- in endless tracery of green
- lit by some leaf-imprisoned sheen
- of moon and sun, and wrought of gems,
- and each leaf hung on golden stems.
- Lo! there amid immortal flowers
- the nightingales in shining bowers
- sang o’er the head of Melian,
- while water for ever dripped and ran
- from fountains in the rocky floor.
- There Thingol sat. His crown he wore
- of green and silver, and round his chair
- a host in gleaming armor fair…
- Lay of Leithian, Canto IV, lines 981-1011
This description is remarkably similar to the description of Morgoth's stronghold of Angband (Canto XII, lines 3840-3903), suggesting that in a way these were the "two towers", the symbol of the forces of light and its evil counterpart of darkness.