| Lord of Angmar |
08-27-2003 06:41 AM |
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I'm not that smart when it comes to names. Where is it Lord of Angmar?
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Nan Elmoth was a relativly small but beautiful and mysterious wood in the old days, before the War of Wrath. It was beside the path of the River Aros, in East Beleriand, between the realms of Celegorm and Curufin in the North and Amrod and Amras in the South.
Elwe Singollo came upon it during the long walk of the Elves from Cuivenen.
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...it chanced on a time that he came alone to the starlit wood of Nan Elmoth, and there suddenly he heard the song of nightingales. Then an enchantment fell upon him, and he stood still; and afar off beyond the voices of the lomelindi he heard the voice of Melian, and it filled all his heart with wonder and desire. He forgot then utterly all his people and all the purposes of his mind, and following the birds under the shadow of the trees he passed deep into Nan Elmoth and was lost.
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That passage was always particularly moving, and I pictured Elwe there, an Elven-prince wandering deep in a dark wood that glowed magically with starlight from far above, listening to the haunting music of Melian and the songs of nightingales. Elwe Singollo became known as Thingol, and took Melian to wife. They ruled the realm of Beleriand until Thingol was slain by the Naugrim. Many years after Thingol met Melian he gave watch of Nan Elmoth to Eol, who in turn paid him a tribute. Aredhel ar-Feiniel, the White Lady of the Noldor, came upon it and Eol, and it was described again in one of my favorite passages of the Silmarillion:
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In that wood in ages past Melian walked in the twilight of Middle Earth when the trees were young, and enchantment lay upon it still. But now the trees of Nan Elmoth were the tallest and darkest in all Beleriand, and there the sun never came; and there Eol dwelt, who was named the Dark Elf... when the Girdle of Melian was set about the forest of Region where he dwelt he fled thence to Nan Elmoth. There he lived in deep shadow, loving the night and the twilight under the stars.
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In the War of Wrath, the world was changed. Region and Neldoreth were no more after the First Age, and thus the wood of Nan Elmoth was lost too. I would love to travel through Nan Elmoth in the early days, before Eol dwelt there and before the Sun and the Moon, when it was lit ever and anon by starlight and when Melian and the nightingales dwelt there. I think that truly the greatest tragedy of Middle Earth was the War of Wrath and the changing of the world, when all of the beautiful realm of Beleriand was changed forever. |
